The Misguided Basics of Rationality in both the Sciences & Reasoning

Sabine Hossenfelder and how Physics relies on Beauty!

As I have long argued, in prior publications, the principle flaw in the Sciences resides within Physics, as is most certainly revealed in the total subservience of its Theories to Mathematics. The origins of this problem lie in the crucial achievements of the Ancient Greeks, in their brilliant Intellectual Revolution (circa the 5th century BC), and also via their invention of a wholly new kind of Abstraction - both possible and, indeed, necessary in involving Relations to rationally develop the first-ever consistent, coherent and comprehensive Discipline, in history.

For, it was, indeed, an epoch-changing invention, because it delivered the first ever Complete Rationality - enabling the sound establishment, first, of Euclidian Geometry, and, thereafter, of the whole of Mathematics in general! But, this was wholly legitimately achieved ONLY because mathematical relations were always & forever FIXED: they absolutely never changed qualitatively into something else! This kind of messiness was against the rules!

So, what was achieved was only a Purely Mathematical Rationality, which was fairly quickly achieved and extensively and correctly used to ultimately build the Whole Discipline. But, it was only-ever-true for Mathematics, but NOT for either the Sciences or more General Reasoning - for in all of those important Disciplines, as in Life itself - things have Actually Evolved: they had to be changed qualitatively. and hence purely Mathematical Reasoning could NOT ever be legitimately related in that way.

Nevertheless, The Greeks, justifiably enamoured with their New Rationality, illegitimately applied it other Disciplines. And, that was soon literally extended universally throughout Mankind. Indeed, its basic Defining Principles, particularly those within Geometry-and-Symmetry, were re-classified as Beauty, and applied to absolutely Everything as Everywhere-applicable Principles!

Now, I have just finished watching a YouTube Video by the scientist, Sabine Hossenfelder, who was severely criticising the preponderance of Beauty, when used in judging the values of new Theories in Physics: her criticisms were wholly valid, BUT of Mathematical Rationality, and NOT of Beauty!

Indeed, the mistake of the Greeks was never realised, and Mathematics has wrongly and damagingly become a veritable-yet-wholly incorrect Ground in All Rationality. And, this is now so embedded in these Disciplines, that no-one can conceive of their Discipline without it!

For example, in Sciences like Physics, All Investigative Experiments, and All Productive Processes are ALWAYS and necessarily carried out in rigidly Pluralist (i.e. conforming to mathematical rationality) situations, absolutely essential to make their "Laws" work at all! Indeed, by such means Physics, in those areas, has ceased to exist as such, and has been pragmatically replaced by its older relation, namely Technology, and has been theoretically converted to Idealism!

And, "to compound the felony", it is ONLY those illegitimate Pluralist Equations that are exclusively and illegitimately used within "so-called Theory": thus making the consequent construction of an overall Discipline via substitutions between those Equations totally illegitimate, for all those Pluralist Equations are, each and every one, about Different Situations! Indeed, it is now very clear that to resolve this problem permanently, it will undoubtedly require the extensive establishment of a completely-New and Entirely Holist Approach to the Sciences, and, of course, particularly in the most formally-distorted of the Sciences: namely in Physics.

This is already underway in SHAPE Journal, but, as the size of the task is ever more clearly indicated, just how far Physics, in particular, its straying into pure Plurality, has become ever more evident! So, the solution will involve something very different to the artificially achieved and wholly Pluralist constraints upon both Experiments, Productions - and especially on Theory! Instead, a wholly new form of the subject simply MUST be revealed, to effectively deal with Reality-as-is, for the first time: otherwise, there can be no consistent, coherent and comprehensive system - on which to inter-relate the Holistic Real World versions of the Laws, and hence, be capable of producing a real Science!

What is the Philosophy of Mathematics?

 

Worlds created from abstractions are virtual, not real

What is Mathematics?

And what is its Relationship to Reality?

I have been looking for satisfactory answers to the questions above for sometime - none are forthcoming! Having just watched a couple of lecture videos on Youtube - one by Ray Monk on The Philosophy of Mathematics and another via Google Talks by a Dr. Stephens on Emmie Noether, my question (posed by the title to this paper), that literally demands to be addressed, remains unanswered. It was needed to clear up exactly where Reality-as-is terminates, and the products of Human Thinking, both claim to take over and intervene, by Reversing-the-Process, and beginning instead to contribute to the actual defining of "A Reality" via man-made Purely Formal Relational System!

The Ray Monk video

Indeed, though not admitted as such, that actual change was one of the unavoidably Key Products of the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th century BC, when a successful attempt to do precisely that was actually made possible by their invention-and-use of certain

Simplifying Relational Abstractions

applied to concretely impossible, yet mathematically essential relations, between such things as:

               

- Points with zero parts

- Lines with zero thickness 

- Planes with zero depth

For it was these abstractions, and these alone, that made Mathematics possible, by restricting the whole exercise, with such transforming physical constraints: that they also made all subsequent relations in that discipline to become Forever Fixed in quality! Everything was made, by these changes, to conform to an essential

Principle of Plurality

- but though easy to validly insist upon, within the Realm of Pure Forms alone, it was wholly impossible to apply in Concrete Reality-as-is! So, when usefully applied to "such a Reality", that too, ALSO just had to be majorly-constrained to deliver only such necessarily-Fixed-Relations- achieved by forcibly-limiting the situation involved, into a rigidly-constrained Stability - indeed, into a guaranteed Pluralist Situation, to enable Mathematics to be effectively-used.

Therefore: Reality is NOT revealed by Mathematics!

Reality has to be made to conform to our abstractions.

However, such seemingly-unchanging Stabilities can occur naturally, and often do if only temporarily, AND, in addition, man-made Pluralist Stabilities were often fairly easy to both construct-and-maintain: the consequently extract Pluralist Laws, from both such contexts, were then further-assumed to be the Natural Truth, but usually often hidden under many overlying and masking extras. 

So, this major and false inversion, promoted Pluralist Laws as the "Actual Truths of Reality", and material Reality-as-is was demoted into becoming "a misleading fiction"! And, consequently, all arranged-for situations in Production, which obeyed those Pluralist Laws, were wrongly seen as exposing the "Real Underlying Reality" of the natural world.

But that isn't True!

Also, all insertions algebraically, from one Pluralist Law into another different one, are totally illegitimate! The whole universally-established Method of Mathematical Rationality as a means-of-extending these discoveries into a comprehensive valid discipline, are also totally mistaken when dealing with Reality-as-is.

But, Mathematical Plurality was universally employed because it validly enabled a whole and successful means of implementing a totally reliable Method of achieving Successful Consequential Productions, merely by breaking the Production Process down into a series of separate individual stages, each with its own physical restrictions and consequent Pluralist Laws!

And paired with the longtime-prior, pragmatist legitimiser of "If it works, it is right!" the New Approach vastly-enlarged what could possibly be done: for the new system was a truly major advance over what it replaced! And, it even encouraged the beginnings of a possible alternative and Causal Approach, with added-in possible notions of exactly why things behaved as they did.

Though the two sets of ideas did not mesh at all well, and Causal Explanations were never an integrated part of the Main System! Explanations provided merely a helpful accompanying narrative. And, any really-attempted causal explanations were restricted only to limited areas of study, which were naturally much closer to Pluralist situations, always due to these sustained periods of "Stability" (which could last millions of years, admittedly) as were evident in the Night Sky of the Heavens!

So, it is not surprising that such an evident conducive Tail would wag the confusing real Dog, and put the usually defeating nature of most of Reality as being due entirely to the large number of different active contributions overlying the hidden significant determinators! So, one way of "revealing" the "main determinator" in a not-too-complex system, would be to purposely-suppress all the "inessentials", and so completely reveal the underlying "main cause".

Science was deliberately converted into a wholly Pluralist Discipline, via Mathematics and pragmatism, because in such arranged-for situations, wholly successful productions were always possible, proving the value of the approach: though, of course, it could not lead to a successful integrated Theoretical System on the natural world - indeed a real Science- but only Technologies, involving many separate, achievable Contributing Productions, but NO integrated-and-cerebly-developable Theory.

Indeed, it is correct to insist that, at best, Mathematics can only deliver a partial Reflection of the Reality it seems to deliver, but simultaneously it can, in addition, deliver a whole collection of related features, BUT ONLY from elsewhere in the involved realm, where Mathematics legitimately reigns- that is within Ideality!

Indeed, Ideality, being only a Conceptual World of Pure Forms alone, enables Mathematics, but NOT Reality, to be infinitely extended! Many of the extensions to Mathematics, brought in to "explain" features of Reality that Plurality fails to deal with, are also totally illegitimate in Reality-as-is, so can tell us Absolutely Nothing: they seem not to exist anywhere in concrete Reality.

Maybe I should mention a few of these, in case you are in doubt!

How about Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Quantum Entanglement, Multiple Universes, The Uncertainty Principle, The Heat Death of the Universe, The Big Bang, Initial Inflation, Infinite Expansion, Normalisation, and many, many more!

But many of the real problems caused by the Illusions of Plurality, can be compounded in various different ways: and perhaps the most important ones are those caused by the mistakes of Plurality, but complicated by the formulaic simplifications caused by substitutions from one pluralist equation into another, because, once two, or more equations have been merged in this way, the result will certainly NOT be delivered by using that combined Form, as the concrete result is never a single process, but still a simultaneous set of mutually effecting processes.

For though we have made a combined single Formula, in Reality such will still be individual processes competing for resources and producing outputs into a general pool of consequent resources, once again to be competed for. Yet, the original amounts of the various components now being lost in the new and different pool!

And the algebraically arrived-at formula cannot in any way mirror what is holistically going on in material Reality. 

And, to complicate things even further, apart from being essential resources, when each process proceeds separately, many secondary products from one process can and will affect another when all happening together: and these will be totally unknown from the wholly separate cases that delivered the supposedly contributing processes... 

The Idealist Extremes

What underlies that Philosophical Stance?

The many inaccessible fissures-and-cracks, inherent in the basic philosophical stance of an underlying Idealism, seem to be readily maintained, even though the more obviously wrong aspects of this, may be soon dispensed with.

And, it occurs for the very same reasons as why "The God of the Gaps" still survives, despite the many unstoppable successful onslaughts of a seemingly all-conquering Materialism and Science.

For, such extreme and difficult areas always seem to be the last refuges for Idealist Prejudices.

Let us briefly list the more obvious exemplars of these suvivors!

First-and-foremost were the many as yet unexplained areas of Reality, particularly to do with those diverse origins of things or situations: for in this context religious "explanations" have always abounded, and were also even strongly touted as of general possible influence "Elicted by Prayer" - and encouraged by how more numerous were the participants, or even coming from a previously established "Chosen Few", for then much more likely, would there be a favourable intervention to implement the request!

But, these were removed, one-by-one, by the march of ever-increasing Human Understanding, and the constant recurrence of failures for the divine to respond!

So the "Yes, but!" exceptions had to be made to retreat, ever more deeply, into the most difficult to investigate, extreme limits of Human Explanation. Indeed, one where those areas of "explanation" could so easily trail off into infinite Elipsis ...................!

The most obvious concept eliciting such obscurantism was, of course, Infinity!

Cut, equally, it could also reside at the other totally opposite extreme regions, of the infinitesimal.

We certainly see a lot of Idealism in Quantum Physics.

By far the most effective means of dispensing with problem areas, was achieved when the Ancient Greeks arrived at the solution of Mathematical Logic - a system which contained only Fixed Etneral Laws. This was extended to all the other Disciplines of Thought, which then existed, which were found to only be revealed by effectively suppressing all-except-one, in a straight-jacketed experimental approach, which we now term as Pluralist: and which were also and totally incorrectly, assumed that all natural situations were merely unaffecting additions of many such Fixed Laws.

This Sledge-Hammer approach, effectively made all real mutually-affecting sets of Factors impossible to reveal individually.

And, with such debilitating methods, the search for such hiding-places, for as yet unexplained repositories, was NOT thrown out, as it should have been. In fact, ever more such places are constantly being suggested, via Mathematical Idealism, from Multiverses beyond Infinity, to the impossibly too small to detect, at the opposite extreme.

Lacan on the idea of 'Natural Law'

To extract a natural law is to extract a meaningless formula. The less it signifies anything, the happier we are. This is why we are perfectly happy with the achievements of Einsteinian physics. You would be wrong to think those little equations of Einstein's that express the relationship of inertial mass to a constant plus some exponents have the slightest meaning. They are pure signifiers. 

Jacques Lacan (1993) The signifier, as such, signifies nothing 

Special Issue 69: Redefining Philosophy II

Read Special Issue 69 of SHAPE Journal here

Special Issue 69 of SHAPE Journal is a continuation of the series called Redefining Philosophy. This research attempts to complete the unfinished task of Karl Marx, and redefine philosophy as both Materialist and Holist - in other words, grounded in the ever-changing and interconnected real world that surrounds us.

Mark Fisher on putting political difference aside...

Mark Fisher commenting on politicising Coronavirus from beyond the grave:

Whenever politics is allegedly 'suspended', with 'differences' put aside, you're face to face with ideology in its raw state, as the ostensible 'suspension' of antagonisms is a political act; the presupposition that there's a ground that's 'beyond politics' is bourgeois idealism

Issue 68 of SHAPE: Susskind's Universe

Read Susskind's Universe

This latest edition of SHAPE Journal tackles Cosmology, the philosophy of Mathematics and its deleterious effects on modern Physics. It does so through a critical response by this author to several lectures by leading physicist Leonard Susskind - but why single him out in particular?

Susskind is professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University in California. Stanford is a private University and is regularly ranked one of the top three universities on earth, employing the very top academics in their fields. For this reason alone Susskind is a key physicist to tackle - he is also considered one of the fathers of String Theory.

As well as this key contribution to Sub Atomic Physics he brings in many other areas of interest such as Cosmology - and presents himself as something of an all round science expert. His vast series of lectures on YouTube are a vital outlet for the latest ideas in contemporary physics based on the flawed assumption of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. As part of my continuing attack on the latter I felt the need to take down one of the leaders of this field, and Susskind fit the bill perfectly.

In the infamous Smolin–Susskind debate, Susskind’s argument and support for the “anthropic principal” tells you everything you need to know about his quasi-religious idealism - encapsulated in the words of Brandon Carter: “The universe must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage. To paraphrase Descartes, I think, therefore the world is such.”

Susskind, for me, epitomises all that is wrong with science today. Susskind and his like are responsible for the ruination of the subject via their Pluralism and rampant Idealism. In his unapologetic support for Mathematics as the language of the Universe, Susskind entered my sights as a key target in the war against Pluralist science.

21st Century Marxism: The New Philosophy of Science

With the major Financial Crisis of 2008, its still-present consequences, and the clearly evident incapability of the current system to address them - the also still-remaining inadequacies of current Marxism just have to be addressed and resolved too, if this slump, like the last one, is not also to inexorably lead into another World War.

For, the evident crises in the USA, the UK and even a once seemingly buoyant China, along with the continuing Middle East wars, which all appear irresolvable - merely replacing one conflict with another, while continuing to concentrate ever more Wealth and Power into extremely small sets of Capitalist Elites.

Yet, the essential theoretical re-equipping of the World Working Class falls currently far short of what is necessary to address these situations. For, in spite of the recent long-delayed extentions of Marxism into the now enormous role of Debt worldwide, the absolutely crucial further development of Marxism to effectively deal with Science in general, has still not even been adequately addressed, never mind achieved!

The proof of this is very clearly demonstrated in the still undefeated Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Sub Atomic Physics, along with the ever wilder speculations in Cosmology, and even the drifting of the Life Sciences away from the standard established by Charles Darwin, and towards an importing of the wrong turnings in Physics into Genetics, and many other areas, and away from any possibility of a true Dialectical Approach into the common dead ends of the current totally pluralist approaches.

Indeed, the most debilitating decline has established itself, most damagingly, in Marxist Philosophy, wherein, not only have theorists abandoned applying Marx's methods to the Sciences, but have also even rejected that task conclusively, with a conscious, and openly-admitted return to Hegelian Idealist Dialectics.

It is yet another repetition of an oft-resorted-to retreat, wherein the still unconquered areas in Science, are assumed to be impossible in their current state, so the return to Idealism is considered the only way to an absolutely necessary re-equipment of The Method. That, most certainly, is NOT the way to do it!

But, consider how long it took Marx himself to deal with Capitalist Economics. How much more enormous do you think the full range of Sciences are to completely recast from the situation, after over two millennia of Greek Plurality, and into an as yet still far from complete Dialectical Materialist Revolution in scientific method?

Indeed, what Marxism has always required, in order to deal effectively with that enormous range, has been the successful dedication-to, and adequate developments-of that approach, to also re-equip it generally for the problems we face today.

I have been a professional physicist for almost 60 years, but it took extensive excursions into Mathematics, Computing and even a long period of inter-disciplinary researches into subjects as far apart of Dance and Engineering, Biology and computer controlled test-rigs, followed by a decade of intensive study of Philosophy to finally be in a position to deal effectively with Copenhagen.

It wasn't a return to Idealist Dialectics that was needed, but a real Revolution in Materialist Dialectics.

This vital turn is now complete.

ResearchGate now features my book on this subject: The Real Philosophy of Science

Read it!

The Real and the Ideal

How does The Real differ from The Ideal?

Though I doubt anyone disputes that the Ideal Forms of Mathematics are not the same as their counterparts in Reality, there is, however, a widespread belief that those Ideal Versions are still the really essential parts of a much messier and hard to cope with Reality.

And, this contradiction is surprisingly re-enforced (when it should be undermined) by the very carefully selected, and even more carefully farmed situations deemed absolutely necessary for meaningful study. For, the usual subsequent post-experimental-processes do nothing to dispel that illusion. In fact, they can even contribute to it greatly!

Take the careful fitting of a General Pure Form, taken from studies in Abstract Mathematics, to data from an experiment, which has then been subject to the Method of Differences to point towards a particular General Form, and then have that so-identified form fitted-up to sets of experimental data by substituting them into the General Form to produce a series of simultaneous equations, which when solved deliver the previously unknown constants in the general form as actual numeric values.

For, even this fitted-up-form, though it can be used very effectively, within a defined range, will never be as effective outside of that range! Indeed, it then merely produces total failures in the form of asymptotes and zeros (Singularities), which are NO reflection of Reality at all, but merely proofs of the limitations, and even total failure, of the formulae so gained.

Mathematical Singularity 

The closeness of the carefully adjusted General Formulae to real data, particularly in the hands of mere users of those formulae, unavoidably persuades them that they have the essence-of-the-situation in their hands, via that clearly valuable formula, and more generally that all situations are likely to be similarly served by other close-fitting encapsulations. It is, therefore, no wonder that such users (technicians rather than originators) will have a different attitude to those who struggled long and hard to finally achieve those results. The classically distinct standpoints of technicians, and following them, the general public, would see things differently to the actually involved, investigating scientists!

Now, such differences are, perhaps surprisingly, also extended to other scientists working in different fields, when they consider areas with which they are unfamiliar. The widely believed stance soon becomes that the formulae used DO indeed encapsulate the essence in their applied-to areas.

But, it just isn't true- and frequently confounds both outsiders and insiders alike, when results widely different from those predicted by the supposedly-appropriate formulae, are encountered.

And, the reasons are more than mere inaccuracy!

They are never exactly-the-same, for they describe different Worlds.

The maths-based forms are merely adjusted-but-fixed versions of forms from Ideality - the World of Pure Fixed Forms alone, while the actual relations in Reality are due to varying resultant situations happening in an holistic real concrete World, due to physical composite causes of many contributing factors - nothing of which could possibly be available in the pure, fixed forms of Abstract Ideality.

Yet, the mistaken slide into treating such formulae as the determining causes rather than clever, pragmatic tricks, has significant consequences outside of the Stabilities within which they are close to what happens. And, of course, absolutely everything isn't limited to such Stable situations, indeed, all Development and Qualitative Change is impossible in such circumstances.

So, as Hegel correctly insisted upon, some 200 years ago, the premises of not only Mathematics, but of Formal Logic too, would have to be radically modified to enable Mankind to tackle any of the important questions of Developmental Change. Absolutely none of that kind of relation even exists in Ideality!

And, though for centuries (or even millennia) the above described ideas and methodology did suffice, the time was sure to happen when Mankind couldn't continue to "hold things still" both to investigate them, and then to use them. For, such a purely technological approach is predicated upon achieving particular objectives only.

The more profound and far-reaching objective of getting closer to Understanding aspects of Reality, is not well-served by such objectives and methods. The crucial premise behind those technological methods is the Principle of Plurality, which insists upon only fixed ideas and laws as the bases of everything. But, the required premise, to enable Understanding of Real World phenomena, has to be the Principle of Holism, which insists that "Everything affects everything else!", and hence rejects both Mathematics and Formal Logic as being inadequate to dealing with Qualitative Change.

Now, this is definitely a Revolutionary Change, requiring a significant change in the very bases of both ideas and methods, and is nowhere near as easy as the approach that has both sufficed and dominated for literally millennia!

In spite of the major contributions of both Hegel and Marx, the changes in philosophical stance and methodology has still not been fully addressed. Indeed, their conception of Dialectics has never, until now, been applied in Physics: and that is not only to the detriment of Physics, but also to the detriment of Dialectics too! What Hegel and Marx were able to contribute in their respective areas, was not enough to establish all the changes necessary to complete the Revolution!

It will only be in the defeat of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory that the necessary developments will be made.

The Diversity of Space

How the Universal Substrate and its contents vary

Plurality, Mathematics & Reality:

The concept of a Universal Substrate involves many different features, which bothered nobody when the alternative of Totally-Empty-Space was taken instead. For then, you would not need to worry about a boundary of Space, when it is Empty - for in-or-out, what's the difference?

In addition, neither would such a background ever be distorted by the presence of large concentrations of matter. For, there would be absolutely nothing to distort (leaving aside idealistic abstractions such as spacetime, for the moment)!  

And also, any projectiles, fired into such a void, would encounter nothing to slow them down: they would simply carry on forever as they are! 

So, why are we so adamant that this Total Emptiness is the case? 

It is the oldest trick that Man ever learned:- 

"Make everything as simple as possible, and you will be able to begin to understand it!"

EXCEPT, of course, that, in this case, it does leave many known phenomena totally unexplained.

So, what do you do?

You conceive of "influences" which can reach across Empty Space - Gravity being the first! But, how can they possibly do that? That question also appears to be unanswerable too.

So, to add to Simplification, Mankind devised Idealism, where non-physical influences are brought in to do the job.

And finally, we resorted to Form (Mathematics), where Empty Space itself has a "Form", and this could be curved, so what appears to be a caused-deflection ISN'T - it is merely an entity inexorably following that curvature.

Do you think I am kidding? I am not!

Mankind was faced with many inexplicable things, until they were able to hold-things-still, when certain features seemed to persist. We imagined that many simultaneous things were happening together, and that his holding-it-still removed many of those, and also exposed an "actual natural property". And though, at that early stage, it was only vaguely realised, Man had already begun to subscribe to a new principle - that of Plurality, which the scientific majority generally continues to believe-in to this very day.

It took a while to mature, but by the time of the Greek Intellectual Revolution, of 2,500 years ago, it certainly enabled a whole applicable-and-extendable discipline to be constructed, via producible and manipulate-able Theorems and Proofs.

This was Geometry, and it quickly led to what we know today as Mathematics. In this System of eminately-relatable ideas, all elements were reduced to their most minimal definitions -

Dots - of zero extension, but precise position.

Lines - of zero thickness but connecting precise positions.

Planes - of zero curvature and infinite extent, upon which Dots and Lines could be placed.

Particular aspects of the world were severely simplified to allow the study of those also-idealised-forms for further investigation. And, the idealisation of forms was taken further with Squares, Triangles and even Circles, and, in no time at all, these were extended into three dimensions with Cubes, Tetrahedra, Spheres and even such things as Dodecahedra.

Simplification was intimately-wedded to Perfect Forms, and Reality-itself was mapped-onto that artificially defined set. Yet, the biggest leap of all was also about to be introduced.

Symbolic, measureable-forms could be represented by alphabetic letters as placeholders for the full range of values of real things, and relations between them were delivered via carefully-tailored, but nonetheless perfect Equations. But, these were NEVER accurate versions of Reality-as-is!

They were only acquired in carefully arranged-for, "held down" situations: they were simplified-and-idealised versions, only available when taken from artificially-tailored contexts. Remarkably, they were from arranged-for-situations that DID indeed conform to Plurality, while the supposedly represented concrete Reality most certainly did NOT.

Now, there also developed two alternative ways of dealing with any studied part of Reality.

The first was an attempt to explain it in terms of its components and their known properties.

The second, involved the conducting of experiments in carefully arranged-for situations, allowing a series of measurements over a given range to be taken, and the results having a Perfect General Equation of the "right form", taken from the studies of mathematicians, and pragmatically fitted-up to that data.

And these were NOT the same!

The Explanation could only use what was known and its value was delivered by how much Objective Content - parts or aspects of the Truth - it contained.

The Equation would be necessarily-distorted both by its specially arranged-for context and its simplifications and idealisations which would make it both totally pluralistic, and specific to a particular context only.

Space and the Universal Substrate:

Now, having a non-empty Space also removes all those simplifying assumptions which made our conceptions of what happens there so easy to arrive at.

And, of course, instead of a uniform Emptiness absolutely everywhere (including beyond any limits to our Universe), we will have instead, maybe, a non-uniform content, actually affected by what is contained within it, while itself possibly affecting those interlopers, or even their movements through it. And, crucially, it will matter exactly what the Universal Substrate is composed of, and whether its units can relate to one another in a variety of structure modes. Finally, whether that Substrate is composed of a hierarchy of levels, providing very different components and consequent properties throughout.

Now, very clearly, as this theoretical physicist opposes the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, he has, within his researches, with regard to that stance, developed The Theory of a Universal Substrate, which, in contrast to Copenhagen, has managed to supply actual-physical-explanations for most of the anomalous phenomena consequent upon that interpretation.

His objectives, apart from ensuring complete undetectability, whenever such a Substrate was not active, was to address every one of the many anomalies currently totally unexplained by that consensus stance, in The Double Slit Experiments.

His objective, in the light of zero dependable evidence, was to theoretically define and construct a Substrate that could answer each and every one.

Now, before such an objective elicits the usual condemnations, by those of the consensus position, may I insist upon an important principle for such research.

It may well be a speculative leap into the unknown, but not only will the researcher be well aware of that but he will guarantee that the theories will be holist and physical, as distinct from the Copenhagen alternatives, which are always pluralist and idealist.

Issue 61: The Implicate Order

Issue 61

This series of papers attempts to draw a definitive line between the philosophical stance of physicist David Bohm, The Implicate Order, and his rejection of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, on the one hand, and the seemingly-convergent Idealist philosophy of Errol Harris on the other, and to do so from an emerging Marxist standpoint in that crucial area.

The connections between these two thinkers were brought to my attention by my namesake James Schofield, and his thesis on the “Dialectical Holism” of the latter. His PhD deals with some interesting Physics and this introduced me to concepts such as Ontic Structural Realism, and set me thinking about Bohm seriously again. So thanks, James!

It is, and has been, very important because of the total lack of a Marxist critique of Copenhagen, via a clearly explained and explanatory superior alternative stance in Sub Atomic Physics. Indeed, this key absence has been so important that is has even frequently disabled the Marxist stance too, even politically!

For, these seemingly obscure questions always were of paramount importance from the time of Karl Marx’s split from Hegelian Idealism. For, without the conquest of Science by this new Materialist stance, it would be crucially disabled in everything else that it dealt with. Marx knew it, and intended to deal with it, but he was a philosopher and an academic historian, by training, and ill-equipped to tackle such a wide-ranging discipline as Science-in-general.

In addition, his historical studies with the new standpoint immediately required the conquest of Economics, as the touchstone for the tumultuous, indeed, revolutionary changes that were so important in the developments of Human Societies throughout History. His initial task, therefore, just had to be a very different treatment of Capitalist Economics, and the change turned out to present him with an enormous undertaking, recasting the whole of that subject from an entirely different and wholly new basis. This took him the rest of his life, and Science in general was never addressed by Marx.

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism by Lenin

The dangers of this crucial omission were realised by V. I. Lenin, when key members of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party had begun to show great interest in the positivist Physics of Henri Poincaré and Ernst Mach, which was understandable because of this evident hole in the Marxist stance.

Lenin knew, immediately, that this was serious, and he immediately set about a refutation of the Positivists in his book Materialism and Empirio Criticism - which successfully pulled Lunacharsky and others back into the fold, philosophically! But, he too was no physicist, so the hole was still not filled, and hasn’t been ever since.

Clearly, to this Physicist and Marxist that vital task is the most important in contemporary Philosophy; and this is already well underway. But the long standing historical omission of this undertaking could not but encourage committed Marxists to seek a world-class physicist who strongly rejected the Copenhagen stance, and the increasingly dominant candidate was David Bohm.

Indeed, in my youth I too sought answers with Bohm’s alternatives, but the problems in Science were extremely well entrenched and surprisingly old.

In spite of Bohm’s Materialism, there was with him, as with all scientists, a very long-standing Idealism, imported via Mathematics, and a Plurality via Abstraction - yet also and surprisingly Holism via Explanation, all amalgamated via the crucial glue of Pragmatism. This uneasy mix actually underpinned the whole of Science, and Pragmatism alone allowed a switching between different areas of study, where different assumptions “could work”.

And, of course the co-existence of these directly contradictory stances was not realised by those involved: they considered a “seemingly-contradictory-appearance” as being due to as yet not-fully-understood-areas, which would, later, be removed by new Knowledge.

But, that would never be the case, whilever this unaware amalgam prevailed.

And, the differences between Einstein and the Copenhageners, and between Bohm and the rest were all due to this congenitally-contradictory, assumed Amalgam as Basis.

So clearly, Bohm has to be dealt with, as vitally as Lenin had to deal with the Positivists, but this time fundamentally.

Wholeness and the Implicate Order by Bohm

Special Issue 60: A New Basis

Special Issue 60

The End of Copenhagen & A Wholly New Basis

The current major crisis in Sub Atomic Physics is actually the clearest evidence of a much larger, and, therefore, more general set of definitely terminal dead-ends, in literally all intellectual disciplines, and primarily resident in both the philosophic and scientific underpinnings of them all.

Indeed, an apt metaphor, for the current state of Understanding, has to be that it is like a finally totally stunted-and-dying Bush, with every single, finally- produced twig permanently terminated by a seemingly totally, non-transcend-able impasse.

Apt because it is now an entity with absolutely nowhere to go, with literally everyone switching from twig to twig looking for a way out, but always finding none!

So, both the depth of the crises involved, and the fact that the producing-situation has been in place for some 2,500 years, without any significant improvement across the vast majority of the human population, also attests to the difficulties involved in making any sort of necessary and transforming change, which could even begin to address the almost endless impasses now terminating ALL attempts at real understanding.

It doesn’t mean, of course, that there are none. Just none on this bush (in this situation): the problems were set- in-place much too long ago, on a long-passed initial twig, which has now become the supporting trunk of the resulting thicket of dead-ends!

Yet, such a devastating opening to this paper was, I’m afraid, absolutely essential, for what is required is no mere Change-of-Course, but a truly Revolutionary Transfer to an entirely different tree, currently depended-upon by no-one, but nevertheless in sight, and available, if the leap across can be effected.

Don’t get me wrong! There will be some branches, upon the dying bush, that could be effectively transferred by grafting it onto the new Stock, but all their terminations will have to be savagely pruned, and the saveable graft properly cleaved-in and wedded to the new vigorous stock.

So, let us systematically reveal the diseases involved in arriving at this dire state, which were, surprisingly, initially significant advantages, but which gradually became liabilities, as the overall entity grew significantly in size and scope.

Indeed, all of them will be shown to have the same sort of disadvantages, actually never having the more-general- applicability, with which we mistakenly endowed them, and hence becoming increasingly debilitating features.

It has been a difficult trajectory, and really nothing like our usual assumption of a simple aggregation of ever more “understanding”, ultimately destined to explain absolutely everything.

For, definitely no-such-mechanism even existed prior to the first appearance of Mankind. Thinking, as such, was a human social invention, initially pragmatically assembled, via various arrived-at-means that “seemed to work”, but were always, at best, only pragmatic solutions, in particular contexts, and never ever general truths. Indeed, they couldn’t possibly be anything else!

In the several million years of the hominid line, and, of that, the only 200,000 years of Homo sapiens (humans), Philosophical thinking only really started around 2,500 years ago. And, for almost all of that prior history the Pragmatist tenet - “If it works, it is right!” was all we had.

So, the following series of papers has had to attempt to describe that trajectory of development in a very different way - NOT as some systematic erection, but instead as a series of always insufficient attempts, all of which, at crucial points, had to drastically rebuild its foundations in order to proceed further. As V, Gordon Childe always insisted - Man makes himself!

The “available alternative bush” mentioned earlier has to deal with dynamic reality, based upon Hegel’s Dialectics, but radically altered from a system which was limited to Human Thinking, to one transferred wholesale to a materialist basis, and hence applicable to all of concrete Reality too.

The project will reveal its efficacy (and its inadequacies) in its application to Sub Atomic Physics.

Idealist Physics: How on earth do they get away with it?

The only valid criticism about the way Physics is currently conducted is undoubtedly philosophical.

But surely, Physics is a Science, dealing with the Real World, and therefore must be materialist... so, how can this "science" fulfil its everyday concrete functions, yet, nevertheless, continue to be essentially Idealist, in both its Theories and even in its Practice?

Well, for the bulk of its development during the Industrial Revolution that was indeed true. But, there has never been a wholly consistent, overall stance in Human Thinking. For initially, such a process, as could be termed Reasoning, didn't even exist for the vast majority of humankind's existence upon this planet: and we must never forget that Man evolved from his Ape ancestry, bringing with them their means of surviving first! For Pragmatism, and its sole tenet - "If it works, it is right!" ruled OK entirely alone, for the vast majority of that History.

So, when new things were discovered, or even contrived to work, it was by a trial-and-error method rather than being conceived of cognitively.

Absolutely NO overall set of conceptions was already in place, to receive such revelations into a meaningful structure of ideas: they were NOT explained, but merely "remembered" - often with the help of rituals and chants to guarantee no drifting away from the "magical route to success"! We must never impose upon our ancestors, the results of many thousands of years of Social Development, which were wholly absent in Early Man.

Now, most certainly, as such proliferated, there would be differences between the attitudes of those who found and used such new means. compared with those who never did.

So, whatever-could-be was compartmentalised for particular kinds of people, those that did that sort of thing. Certainly, NO overall stance covering everything was initially developed.

The Neolithic Revolution transformed the means of life of the majority of people, who now lived together with others in settled communities, rather than the prior, ever-wandering, small-family-groups, that were unavoidable with the Hunter/Gatherer way of Life. And, that transformation proliferated new areas of expertise, especially as instead of struggling just to survive, increased time to do other things within a community, allowed new specialised livelihoods and specialist knowledge to grow - but all in compartmentalised groups.

The Greek Intellectual Revolution, some 2,500 years ago, gave birth to attempts to co-ordinate all Knowledge.

But, nevertheless, in quick succession Idealism and Materialism presented totally incompatible possibilities. and though a special kind of Simplification and Abstraction emerged in Euclidian Geometry, though it enabled the development of consistent disciplines like Mathematics and then Formal Reasoning, they were all based upon an enabling imposition of the Principle of Plurality, which focussed upon Stability as the only route to Truth!

And, when an early version of Science was added by Aristotle, a remarkable amalgam of contradictory stances emerged "legitimised" by "If it works, it is right!", and an increasingly compartmentalised aggregation of Knowledge.

Indeed, the Amalgam wasn't only Idealism and Materialism, but included both explanations and descriptions brought about by Formal Reasoning and justified by Plurality, and, of course, Pragmatism. And, whenever a non-transcend-able-impasse was encountered, (indeed, where Dialectics should intervene) the simplest "solution" was just to set up a new "Specialism" or even "Subject", there-and-then, and merely ensure that such impasses were avoided by only seeking solutions withinthe newly-defined-area.

The strategy could never be a real solution, however, because, the general pluralist prohibition of any kind of Qualitative Change, naturally totally excluded the very things which could explain the impasses, and all necessary cross-discipline explanations were accordingly simply excluded.

So, with a total ban upon width-type explanations, the ancient depth-first and reductionist methods were all that remained.

And, when these too began to also cause problems, Explanation as the primary theoretical means within Physics, was also dropped, leaving only the fitting-up of known perfect forms to experimental data.

And, when these too came to a dead-end, the only recourse was to extend the aegis of Mathematics dramatically via adding to the usual 3 dimensions, and bringing in New Rules such as Symmetry to provide "new reasons"!

Now, I could track this decline in detail: after all I am a physicist, but the retreat was just too great. I'm certain there will be those who will make that descent, if only to prove me wrong, so I will leave that disappointment in their hands.

Of course, even such a criticism as this contribution involves is nowhere near enough! The demand must be for a clear alternative path, and that is now well underway. But, of course, it will not be the same path treated differently. It will have to be made to diverge long ago, probably sometime in the 19th century. And, many of the paths taken then, both theoretically and experimentally will NOT be taken this time around.

But, clearly, the environment will be the same, and literally everybody will still be involved in the old stance, and the old routes, so finding experimentalists to take on the validating of the new routes will NOT be easy. And, finding theorists to take on aspects of the new direction will also be very difficult.

But, without the last ten years of research, it would be impossible!

Significant work has been done, and surely out there, there must be someone like the young Jim Schofield, who can't stomach the drivel that they now call Sub Atomic Physics, and who sincerely seeks a much better explanation than is currently available.

Walk this way!

Feynman's Idealism

His magnificent voyages of discovery are most certainly not-of-this-world

On noticing on YouTube, a video of a Feynman Lecture, which he had given many years ago at Cambridge University, I eagerly called it up, to see what he had to say. For, though a physicist myself, I had missed his contributions when he originally did them, as I had long ago abandoned Physics, due to the (in my view) inexcusable retreat embodied in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and had consequently turned, exclusively, to other areas of study.

Finally, some 10 years ago, I returned to Physics with new philosophic insight, with the steadfast intention to demolish the Copenhagen Stance and deliver a cogent alternative.

Nevertheless, Feynman has a great reputation, and I anticipated some "Words of Wisdom", at the very least, from the great man, so I began to watch his Lecture. But, to say I was disappointed, would be a truly great understatement: I was aghast!

It was clear that Feynman was a total idealist - believing that his mathematical encapsulations were indeed the true essences of real world phenomena. And, also that the pluralist formalism of mathematics, along with all its premises and rules, were the only way to study Sub Atomic Physics.

Indeed, he embraced multi-dimensional geometry, not only as a formal aid to dealing with multiple variables, but also as a perfectly acceptable formal framework for what was going on in the real World.

All the sound criticisms of Mathematics and Formal Logic, gradually achieved from Zeno to Hegel, and thereafter to the Dialectical Materialism of Marx, were clearly well outside of where Feynman had chosen to dwell. And, the mismatch between always simplified-and-idealised Mathematics, and a creatively-developing World, was simply "not his concern" - as also was not the main Foundation Stone of his Formalist Philosophy - Plurality!

Now, I am very clear why Feynman and the vast majority of physicists chose that route: I know because I was also enamoured in exactly the same way, when I first came across the rational power of idealised Mathematics in substantial extension of the "Truths of Mathematics" via geometrical methods. So, I became a convinced, and ultimately an extremely-able, Mathematician, until I expected it to deal with more than just Idealised Forms! For then, not only did it fail, but actually also severely misled the serious seeker for the Explanatory Truth of Concrete Reality.

It was, I discovered (by actually doing Mathematical Research) the key to an infinite World of Pure Forms alone, and absolutely nothing else - which I thereafter dubbed Ideality.

But that stance has a much greater set of supporters than just mathematicians, because the Rules of Formal Logic were originally imported directly from Mathematics, by the Ancient Greeks, following the resounding successes of Theorems and Proofs, in extending and establishing an apparently consistent and developable overall discipline, presumably transferable to all other intellectual disciplines too. So, all the significant rules-of-use of Formal Logic came directly from Mathematics, and BOTH are consequently wholly pluralist, which means they are only concerned with qualitatively unchanging elements and processes.

They worship Stability!

And they see only quantitative changes.

And, when what they require isn't naturally available, they have to construct it, and denounce all diversions from that Stability as contradictory and therefore WRONG!

Interestingly, the mathematicians' other allies turn out to have always been essential to the discipline of Physics: they are the Experimental Physicists and the Technologists - for their job has always been to provide the ideal and maintained circumstances for experiments to be always successfully conducted, and predictably completed, and also, therefore, for the so-extracted Laws to also always be in the right environments to be successfully used.

These two groups spend their lives delivering Stable Environments, in which relations between variables will indeed conform to Ideal Laws, and hence, if the exact same situations are delivered for use, also guarantee success in that theatre too.

But, these practitioners never take Reality-as-is, as their objective: it is always only their starting-point, and out-of-it, by exclusions and steadfast controls, they have to produce artificial environments with usually only a single factor still functioning. Now, it is at such points that the Principle of Plurality comes in, for such a construction delivers only an idealised situation. And, that false and engineered-for set-up CANNOT exist in Reality-as-is, BUT does indeed occur in these Perfect Stabilities, and all the rules defined in that Principle will hold only in such constructed domains, but nowhere else.

There is, therefore, a realm where such a discipline works, but it isn't Reality: it is the World of Pure-Form-alone termed Ideality, imposed upon Reality, which therefore delivers, at best, only a distorted reflection of Reality-as-is.

Feynman's world is, indeed, both rich and extensive, but it is, at the same time, both restricted-to significantly less, while also, extended-to greatly more than Reality.

Its considerable extent, and its eminently-useable pluralist reasoning, make it considerably attractive: but its prohibition of all qualitative change, means it can NEVER form the basis for actually understanding Reality!

There are two immediately evident ways of reasoning, quite apart from Rules and Method.

The first, always accompanies writing, for it is primarily directed by the current point being made: and, consequently, its extensions, as-you-write, will always be add-ons to your current point. I call it pen-in-hand-thinking.

But, the second is when you are sitting-and-thinking about as yet unresolved problems, for - you search absolutely everywhere for some way out, and find similarities and resonances all over the place. It is always during this mode, when possible solutions are actually arrived at: I call this head-up-thinking, and it is very different from the pen-in-hand alternative. Indeed, it is both explorative and adventurous and generates its own sub-problems as it goes.

I mention these two, because the former dominates, and you can see why: it starts from a seemingly universal set of premises and method, involving a supposed "legitimate" system of manipulations.

And, this is not only the case in Mathematics, but in Formal Reasoning too - the pieces in both games are unchanging, yet like Chess there seem to be an infinite number of moves, as well as terminators such as Contradiction, that play a similar role to Checkmate!

Ideality: The Promised Land

...or the World where modern Cosmology dwells

Surveying current Cosmology takes us by a well trodden route into a strangely unreal world!

But, it isn’t new to most physicists, either now, or in the past, because they always very easily slipped-sideways out of Reality, and into the much more conducive Parallel World of Pure Form, in their sincere attempts to formulate eternal, Natural Laws of Reality.

It was an alluring and thrilling move, for, on the very first step inside the portal to the new World, everything which had taken them there reappeared, but here with a veritably scintillating beauty! And, it appeared both understandable, yet also literally infinite: It was truly the Promised Land.

And, the reason for this was the settled-upon-ground that clearly promised answers to all the innumerable questions about The Nature of Reality. This assumed ground was that Everything-in-Reality was due entirely to a set of fixed Natural Laws, which added together in various amounts to deliver absolutely everything possible. This was initially just assumed, but later was encapsulted into The Principle of Plurality.

It hadn’t been found immediately, historically, for studying Reality-as-is had long proved both perplexing and difficult, but things gradually changed with Man’s ever increasing control over investigative situations, until finally the state was reached when Reality’s variabilities were finally under such control that the studied situations suddenly focussed remarkably into extractable relations, and this was the Key!

Beyond this door spread the whole world of Pure Form alone - Ideality, and our explorers crossed the threshold into the World of their dreams! Remarkably, this world had been glimpsed long before that point was reached: for it had occurred in Ancient Greece, when simple shapes were idealised, via drawing them, into perfect forms, which, thereafter, proved to be much more amenable to further study, yet close enough to the real versions to be very useful! Indeed Mathematics, as it came to be called, was the first intellectual discipline for Mankind, and set things up for the much later breakthrough into Experimental Science.

So, when the time came, to peer-through that open door, they already knew what they could do there, and didn’t hesitate to enter.

Yet Reality and Ideality are not the same thing at all!

Indeed, the forms that occur in Reality are caused by real physical and other properties and effects: they are consequences of real concrete causes. And to make things even more difficult, many such causes are always acting simultaneously, and holistically - everything can affect everything else, things can evolve - you cannot assume eternal Natural Laws at all.

So, in Reality, causes must be primary, and Form secondary - a symptom.

Also, each Form can be caused by various different confluxes of many possible causes - so finding-a-Form can never explain a phenomenon, it can only describe its observed ‘Shape’! And, crucially, Forms in Reality are variable: it is a holistic realm. While, all the Forms in Ideality are fixed: it is a pluralistic realm. Things in Reality are real, while those in Ideality are Pure Forms and nothing else.

Purely Formal models, such as Equations, do not reliably pertain in Reality: they are distorted simplistically, idealistically and pluralistically, and each one can relate to many different situations. Forms may be universal, but they are never causal.

So, their use in the real world is limited to stable situations and modified, rigidly-maintained artificial domains (technology): while their use in further theory is doomed to eventually deliver multiple impasses.

In watching a lecture at Oxford University by Nima Arkani Hamed upon “Why the Universe is so Big?”, where he seamlessly slipped from considering Sub Atomic Particles to the Universe as a whole, it was clear that he considered that he was using a basis common to that entire range, despite its unfathomable vastness.

And as he went on to discuss the sizes of major constants in his equations, it was clear that to him, they were not arbitrary fixers to bring purely formal equations into line with a tailored part of Reality, but were Universal Constants of Reality itself.

He is, of course a mathematician, and very much an idealist, rather than a pragmatic one. And, his profound reasoning was NOT about Reality, but a deep, deep journey into Ideality as an uncoordinated whole.

And sadly, there is no reason why Ideality should deliver a consistant-and-comprehensive pattern for everything within it. For, as a competant mathematician myself, I am well aware of its formal extensions - into negative numbers, graphical representations, operators, complex numbers and even Quantum Loop Gravity, String Theory and the Multiverse!

So, whilever the investigator can continue to pick out of his bottomless bag of formulae, the right one for a given situation, the lack of unity in the scheme as a whole can be ignored, But, it clearly isn’t, as inferred, the sole basis of everything. How can it be: it is only abstracted Form?

So, Cosmology is not what it purports to be: based upon formal Mathematics, it deals only in concretely- unsubstantiated Form, and cannot be corrected by experiment. And, with a steadfast Pluralist Stance, and fixed-for-ever Natural Laws, it can never address the true holistic richness of Reality.

Indeed, the whole approach is totally ill-equipped to ever address Qualitative Change and Creative Development: it worships Stability, for that is all it can possibly see - the rest falls outside its domains of applicability. As all truly significant developments only occur in relatively brief Emergent Interludes, the engines of change are completely unobservable within each and every prevailing Stability.

Stability is taken as the only reliable situation we can study - things must be still, or we must hold them still. The approach views Reality via a series of ‘stills’, like photographs, any variation is via purely quantitative change only, and delivering no hint of anything other than a mere continuation of the same.

It is locked into a pre-Hegelian, idealistic mode, philosophically, and convinces itself of innovation due to its sophisticated, ever-developing Mathematics and increasingly complex technological applications.

But, from an explanatory view, it is as dead as a duck! We are at a dead end scientifically.

This paper has just been published in the latest Special Issue of SHAPE Journal on The Philosophy of Physics:

Special Issue 56

New Special Issue: The Philosophy of Physics

Special Issue 56 - The Philosophy of Physics

Read it here

I’ll get the first controversial statement out of the way: There is no Philosophy of Physics!

At least, not any longer.

Having committed myself to the study of Physics some 60 years ago, I chose it as my specialism at University entirely because, historically, the discipline had always tried to both understand and fully explain reality - I was then presented with a worldwide major retreat from such essential objectives, established mainly by the triumph of Bohr and Heisenberg at Solvay some years before, and the gradual acceptance of their Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, literally everywhere.

It was, of course inevitable, though I couldn’t see it at the time.

The seeds had been set long ago, with our generally pragmatic approach to investigating the physical world, which was only further complicated by the inclusion of Idealism from Mathematics, and of a Plurality underlying all attempts at explaining phenomena.

From its very outset Physics was actually a strange amalgam of Materialism, Idealism and Pragmatism, a distorted reflection of the world which could only prosper while its discoveries could be profitably used. And, the methods of carefully cultivating experimental situations (to make them easier to study), and idealistically mapping pure ideal forms onto studied situations, began to wrest the subject from its explanatory role, from ‘Natural Philosophy’, and into that of mere technological implementation.

In the end, the old explanations began to fail, and were abandoned for the seeking of equations. Attempts to truly understand reality were jettisoned, and what had been Physics greatest asset was lost.

I am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me. I have studied most of them in depth and thought hard about them, and in the end I still can’t make real sense of quantum theory as it stands

Lee Smolin, 2005