Chapter 1 The philosophies of physics; the theories and the laws of physics

What are "The Laws of Physics"?

Most people assume that there is only one set of laws that govern everything that happens in the whole of the Universe. We call those rules "The Laws of Physics".  That is what I mean by the phrase throughout this chapter.

The two mathematical philosiphies

Most theoretical physicists  expect the Laws of physics to be mathematical. Depending on who you talk to some expect mathematics to describe the physical Universe and some epect The Laws of Physics to be the mathematics. That difference in philosophy is quite profound. This chapter is here purely to understand those two major philosophical camps in theoretical physics. There are other possibilities and we summarise one of those at the end of the chapter.

One says that the Laws of Physics are mathematical formulae that describe what happens. There is an assumption that there is something there that is not mathematical and yet the mathematics perfectly describes what that something does all the time absolutely correctly, yet it has no opinion on what that something is other than it is what makes the physical world physical.

The second says the Laws of Physics are mathematics. There is nothing there but the mathematics.  What is happening is just a set of equations whose start conditions continue to fall out of the initial big bang. As causes create effects, and those effects cascade to new events. The mathematics does not predict events, it is the events.

When looking at different ideas when we do not know which is correct then most philosophers use Occam's razor: That is, when different explanations exist and they all match the facts completely, it is almost always the most straightforward option that is correct.

In this case, the simpler option is that the Laws of Physics are just mathematical equations. The other assumes the existence of something that we do not know how to describe apart from the mathematical formulae that predict its future. We have not got a clue what it is. By definition, it has no measurable attributes outside the mathematical equations that describe it. If it had it would be yet another mathematical equation describing it and not a part of it.

The second theory makes the physical Universe a part of abstract existence. The mechanics of which, appears to be almost entirely governed by mathematics.

Having said that living things do not merely obey mathematical mechanics, they also choose to change the world around them. While their muscles and their movements seem to follow mechanical laws, men still want to climb mountains against the laws of gravity and successfully arrive at the top after battling the mathematical laws of gravity to get there.

That movement against mathematical laws cannot be explained by mathematics.

In the domain of the living, it is words that govern and give meaning to our lives and makes us do what we do, not mathematics.

It appears some parts of the Laws of Physics are also governed by the inconsistent word, not mathematics. They are the parts of the Universe that learnt to communicate.

 

Incorrect information transfer also has the same effect in situations specifically because objects have not learnt to communicate. For example:

When a vase falls on the floor, The cracks pass through the vase in what appears to be the weakest path at the moment the crack reaches a particilar point in the vase. Obviously the Vase does not know the actual weakest path through the vase from start to finish and so the crack sometimes go through harder parts of the vase because that is where the crack had got to by then. Often it does not pass anywhere near the weakest path due to a lack of information. The cracks appear random.

 

That is why time is not reversible, because information transfer has to happen before any mathematically "Laws of Physics" can occur. As we humans know, information transfer is rarely 100% correct. The random quantum fluctuations through out the universe means that the actual mass of a neighbouring star is not going to be accurate. But the quantum fluctuations are so small compared with the mass of a star that the difference is hardly going to be noticed in the cosmic scale of the Universe so General Relativity works almost perfectly. On the other hand the electrical charges in the atmosphere is affected by these quantum fluctuation and the lightening strikes a completely random path through the air.

 

That is why we have to include inaccurate commuication into the "Laws of Physics" regardless of there being any intelligence involved.

 

The accuracy of the transfer of information, whether intentional communication or not, affects what events happen and thel forces applied. It does not describe the events but causes the events..

 

This document is firmly founded in the group that thinks the physical Universe is a part of abstract existence; that what makes this Universe "Physical" is the illusion of what our eyes ears and fingers tell us about what actually is an abstract Universe made up of all the words mathematical or otherwise that make up this "physical Universe". 

 

So we must add a fourth axiom

 
4) The Universe is a part of abstract existence.
This is the first and only axiom where there is any academic debate. If there is another layer of reality between the abstract Laws of Physics and the physical Universe, not only do we not know what is, but scientists have a philosophical issue that no amount of experiments can solve. As there is no way to describe this mysterious layer that is desccribed entirely by mathematics but is not mathematics and has no mathematical structure itself..

Abstract existence also contains all the other possible universes, where the starting conditions were different or the laws that governed the mechanics differed. Our Universe is an infinitely tiny dot compared with the whole of abstract existence. That contains every possible Universe with every set of starting conditions and with Every possible set of the Laws of Physics.

There is no requirement for the whole of abstract existence to be self-consistent. In fact we know it cannot be, otherwise we could not lie.

The Laws of Physics and Physical Theories

Theoretical physicists have theories about "The Laws of Physics" that is what the name implies. No one knows what the Laws of Physics are, so they make up theories. Currently, the two Physical theories that cover the whole of the Universe we live in very well:

1.  The general theory of relativity predicts what happens to exceedingly large things exceedingly accurately. 
2. Quantum theory predicts what happens to tiny things exceedingly accurately.  

However, if "The general theory of relativity" was correct as first formulated, the Universe would never have survived the big bang because the force of gravity reaches infinity as distances reach 0 and would cause it to instantaneously collapse. So, we know that general relativity was wrong, maybe both of them are wrong.

Max Planck, a leading figure in Quantum Physics, solved this problem by introducing the Planck Length. The Planck Length is the minimum distance between two objects before "The general theory of relativity" fails. It is currently theorised that there is a physical law that causes this to be the case. He also invented Planck Energy and Planck Time as parts of this band aid to marry the two theories together.

You can read more about Max Planck and his work on Wikipedia or more formal science books. You may also want to read about p-branes the leading theory of what the Universe looks like at this truly tiny scale, much smaller than an electron. 

The current best theory changes almost every month and does not look like coming close to the Laws of Physics anytime soon. So I will not investigate them further here.

Note: these twp major theories describe "The Laws of Physics" very accurately in their respective areas of science, but these theories are not "The Laws of Physics".  You may notice that we are back to describing and being "The Laws of Physics" again.

However, in the first point, we were talking about our understanding of what actually happens "The Laws of Physics". Now we are discussing what the theories predict about "The Laws of Physics". These educated guesses are describing the Laws of Physics. Many people still expect that "The Laws of Physics" to be purely mathematical too.

This document is suggesting that "The laws of Physics" are largely based in mathematics. However, mathematics is based in words and Life uses those words inconsistently and tell lies.  This leaves the Laws of Physics actually governed by words due to inaccurate communication changing what actually happens.

³And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Genesis 1: 3-5

The Bible says the Lord said, let there be light, and there was light. The light is something physicists recognise as physical, and they have theories as to how light works and those theories seem to describe what happens as well as we need them to.  A Word that created light is not something physicists expect. In this document, we investigate if that might be true.