Introduction

Who we are, how we live and how we think; how the Universe functions, and how we relate to that universe: these are the great questions of our Time. Physics, in the classical sense that has inflamed the passions of untold thinkers in human history, is the quest -- for the answers. It is a quest that ultimately drives how we feel about each other, and profoundly influences how we treat the planet we live on. It frames our attitudes and values about life and living. To the extent that our notions about the origins of the cosmos and how Nature works are flawed, it naturally follows that our attitudes about our relationships with the world we live in must also be crippled. Consider, for example, the archaic Darwinian concept that the most evolved creatures are those most effective at slaughtering other creatures. It is this type of scientific bias which appears to have negatively affected our “modern” mindset, leading to a passion for consumption and conquest that is unrivaled in any written accounts of our history.

Today, more than at any other time in the known history of our world, we find ourselves faced with the daunting prospect of our own self-inflicted extinction. While the particulars are growing in number at a startling rate, the causes have remained starkly constant.

We have come to rely on the language of Science as the means for discussing how Nature works. If, as the current thinking about such things goes, the universe in its entirety was created in one mighty bang, it may be true that we are but passive expressions of the evolution of that event, however it turns out. If we are nothing more than inert byproducts of a giant, impersonal explosion, then what difference does it make if we exploit the planet and each other? Were Plato's notions about fate correct? On the other hand, if all the matter, energy, field forces and phenomena comprising the cosmos are being actively created and deconstructed everywhere, all the time, as part of an infinite, eternal cycle of self-organization and annihilation, our role in this process must be apprehended in a completely different context. If we are active participants in the process of creation, is it not in our best interest to produce a scientific model that defines our responsibility for the consequences of our choices and actions?

Two hundred fifty years ago, Rene` Descartes and the other keen observers of Nature who followed his example made a deal which still exerts a profound influence on the way we all think about such things today. The principal condition which governed Descartes' turf-deal with the Catholic Church was that he agreed to restrict his investigations and writings solely to considerations of the 'physical stuff' found in Nature; hence the science of all things in the natural world has come to be known as 'Physics'. According to this compromise, all things not seen or observed in the Natural world, the 'spirit stuff', were to be left solely to the considerations of the Church. The decision to make this distinction was political, not scientific. But the primary effect of this agreement has been the evolution of a cosmology that insists that the physical stuff and the spirit stuff are mutually exclusive: separate and distinct from each other. Today, Science denies that 'spirit stuff' even exists.

As a consequence, the Standard Model of Physics still specifically prohibits a long list of widely observed and impeccably documented phenomena which violate this dictum. Rigorous experimental evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it is still not possible for competent scientists to report the results of rigorously conducted experimental protocols which attempt to penetrate these mysteries in the official organs of Science, because all such reports are implicitly or explicitly forbidden. It is not simply a matter of such things not being scientifically valid. Rather, even when scientific validity has been clearly established, the institution of Science has continued to preclude the publication of such heretical notions.

Is it any wonder, then, that the children of the 21^st Century have little or no concept of the implicate order which defines the way the fabric of the universe is woven? How can anyone who looks carefully and thoughtfully at the most fundamental questions make sense of what we think we know, when much of the information we need to exercise informed judgment about such things is deemed unacceptable for public discourse? How can Science and scientists be trusted to provide valid, robust, meaningful answers to the most important questions of our time when the disciplines which govern their research are so severely crippled and proscriptive?

The bottom line is that we can't. Until Science and its practitioners are not only permitted but affirmatively encouraged and supported to find the answers to the questions involving the unseen stuff of the cosmos, we will not be able to trust either the scientists or the brand of Science they practice. What this suggests for the way we practice Science is profound.

This book steps outside the artificial and arbitrary proscriptions imposed on our way of thinking by Science as it is practiced today. It looks at the deepest inner workings of the cosmos from an entirely different vantage point and, as one might expect, produces some answers which are fundamentally at odds with mainstream Science. Despite the protestations of the high priests of Science, that all the hard questions have been asked and almost all of the true answers have already been provided, we are convinced that few of the answers we have been given are complete and robust enough to even be useful, much less true and correct. So this is where we begin – by asking different questions and remaining open to answers which are bound to surprise us.

Proponents of the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe insist that all the matter and energy comprising the cosmos were created in a single instant. The model has been challenged because it fails to satisfy a number of unresolved issues. Our research has produced results which suggest that while singularities of enormous scope have almost certainly occurred in the visible universe from time to time, the explanation for what they were and how they worked is almost certainly different than the Big Bang theory proposes. Not only have such things occurred in the past, in varying magnitudes and in widely varying locales, it is a virtual certainty that similar events will continue to occur again and again. What this means about us and our place in the cosmos is equally important.

The Standard Model holds that nothing in the universe can travel at a velocity greater than C, the constant used by Einstein in his famous equation to support his notions about the relativity of matter, energy, time and gravitational forces. The model holds that C is absolute, constant and immutable. Today we know with absolute certainty that none of these presumptions are correct. Our knowledge about such things is better informed, but the model has not been modified to accommodate what we know. Why is this important? It is critical to our way of thinking because a corollary to this dictum is the equally flawed notion that the four linear field forces accepted by Science are primary, mutually exclusive and distinct from one another. The model insists that these are the only field forces which can be accommodated and, further, that they existed before the beginnings of the universe. If we knew this were not true, what effect would that have on our way of thinking about ourselves and our place in the universe?

Descartes' legacy continues to haunt us. In the languages and cultures of the West we view the physical world as separate and distinct from the 'spirit stuff' we cannot see. Despite the fact that quantum mechanics has successfully supplanted Newton's notions of the universe as a clockwork mechanism, we still rely entirely on reductionist science to investigate how Nature works. If the way we practice science could illuminate the dark corners of our notions about these conceits, our way of thinking about such things would be compelled to change. How those changes would affect our attitudes, feelings and behaviors is open to speculation, but one thing is crystal clear: unless and until we understand how Nature really works, in us and around us, we will continue to precipitate the prospect of extinction on ourselves and each other.

Science as presently constituted consists of an agglomeration of often contradictory, inconsistent notions about how various parts of the natural world interact with each other. For every rule there are almost always exceptions. It is held that the vagaries of semantic language are unsuitable for scientific pursuits and that, therefore, the only way to understand or describe how Nature works is to employ an unambiguous means of expression we call mathematics. The notion that mathematics is a privileged means of communication is based on the flawed assumption that a one-to-one direct relationship exists between the natural phenomena we observe and the symbols employed in mathematical expressions to describe them. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a result, we have been enculturated to believe that (1) only mathematicians and scientists are competent to understand and use this privileged means of expression; (2) in order to understand how Nature works, you must be certifiably competent to use this privileged language; and (3) only a few gifted individuals are suitably intelligent and adequately trained to do so.

The privileged cult of Science, as viewed in the context of those who exercise political control over access to the resources required to support scientific undertakings, is the province of a chosen few. Admittance to the inner sanctum of elevated scientific pursuits requires adherence to a set of carefully defined values and rites of passage. Anyone who steps outside the accepted parameters does so at the risk of their credentials, access to research data and funding support, and the ability to share their findings in the official publications of the Scientific community. If this sounds very similar to the way the Catholic Church treated Copernicus and Galileo, it is because the dynamics of heretical proscription and ostracism are not unique to religious orders.

It has been truly said that the inclusion of a mathematical formula in any text automatically reduces its salability by at least 50%. If this is true, it is because we have been enculturated to believe that mathematics is the province of an elite and exclusive class of intellect. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. We use formulas in our discussion of mass, magnetism, precessing gyroscopes, gravitational field effects, self-organizing criticality and the Fibonacci numbers. We use them because they give us a way to discuss physical phenomena in a way that is difficult or impossible in linguistic terms. However, at each step we also provide a set of footnotes located on the same page as the formulas, to explain what the formulas mean and describe how they work. If you can read this text, you can understand the mathematics we use. It's as simple as that.

In our investigations we discovered that everything we encountered in the physical world can be explained in the context of a set of simple, elegant, universally applicable rules. This is not what Science tells us, so we decided to write this book to advance the discussion to another level. In the process, we made some important discoveries. One of these discoveries enables us to define phenomena which have thus far resisted categorical explication in scientific terms. Included in this list is a definition of Mass, one of the most fundamental subjects of scientific investigation. We also define Magnetism for the first time. We show that Time is a product of the continual evolution and self-organizing nature of the cosmos and not an a priori condition. We demonstrate that Complementarity operates at all scales in the cosmos, from the smallest to the grandest, with equal effect.

In the discussion of 'primary' field effects, we show that all aspects of the physical world can be described in terms of what is called 'Self-Organizing Criticality.' This term is new to the scientific lexicon, since it was invented by Per Bak and his colleagues at the Brookhaven National Laboratories in the mid-90's. Bak suspected but did not know for certain that SOC principles lie at the heart of the way the universe appears and operates at all scales. How this works -- and why we know it is absolutely correct -- is the subject of one of the most fascinating discussions of our time. Physicist David Bohm was quite correct in his presumption that there is an implicate order which governs the way Nature works. We now understand what that order is, how it works and how to use it to engineer reality as we wish.

In addition, we discovered that every interaction between matter, energy, field effects and time can be characterized in terms of the attributes exerted by one component [operating in the Y axis] on another [operating in the X axis]. The full complement of attributes used to describe these interactions is referred to in the text as the 'Y-Bias' effect. Intrinsic to any analysis of the Y-Bias effect is the angle of incidence at which such interactions occur. This aspect of Y-Bias is referred to as 'Angularity.' This component plays such an important role in the way self-organizing criticality operates that we have decided, for the purpose of clarity, to talk about our findings in terms of both Y-Bias and Angularity.

We found that only a few distinct archetypal forms and patterns of behavior characterize the interaction of matter, energy and field forces at ten distinct quantum-defined scales of natural evolution. By analyzing how these forms arise in terms of Y-Bias and Angularity, we have developed a means of explanation which describes the underlying dynamics common to each and all of them, from the Physical Vacuum to the infinite expanse of the entire cosmos. What this means for the pursuit of Science [with a big "S"] is important because this information makes it possible for everyone who can read English to understand clearly how Nature works.

We have written elsewhere that the practice of Science without a conscience is the most dangerous pursuit ever undertaken. We have only to look around us to discover how horrifyingly true this can be. As expressions of both physical and spirit stuff, we can no longer pretend that what we do can in any meaningful way be separated from the entire fabric of our combined existence. We exert a palpable, measurable influence on each other and the physical world we live in, whether we want to or not. We do not get to vote about that. What we do get to vote about, however, is what influences we choose to exert. The way we pursue Science is one of the most important of these decisions.

As a community of humans, we are at a crossroads now. We are obliged to either change our values and attitudes or learn to deal with a world that is increasingly polluted, inhospitable and dangerous. If the past is prologue to the future, human nature and our attitudes about ourselves and each other will not change unless and until we are faced with the option of either becoming extinct or being compelled to move in another direction. We are at this point in our evolution right now. We have all the information we need to understand how Nature really works. What remains to be seen is whether or not we can summon the fortitude to actually change the way we treat the planet and each other.

If this book serves no other purpose than to provoke a lively and well-informed dialogue about this subject, it will have served its purpose. Along the way, we hope the findings expressed here will serve to inform you by giving you a new framework for considering how Nature works.

20August2005

David G. Yurth

Donald Ayres

Reproduced with permission from author. Please contact author at www.novainstituteoftechnology.com for more updates.