And so we wait patiently for science to discard the "real world out there"

 

We all agree that his theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether he is crazy enough to have a chance of being right. "

Niels Bohr

Modern physics is at a crossroads. Since Einstein's time, he has pursued a quest to unify the laws of physics using a naive realistic or materialistic approach. This view holds that there is a real world independent of the scientific theorist, that ultimate reality is a material thing (matter) rather than a mind, and that the จักรวาลThe Conjuring on the world. Most theorists probably assume that dismissing the realistic perspective is insane. And that's the problem: modern science will not be able to unify the laws of science by working within the box of materialism. Instead, unsurprisingly, you'll have to come out of the box to come up with a unified theory.

Front page advertisements such as the finding of the Higgs boson in the Large Hadron Collider, the search for dark matter, and reflections on string theory and the multiverse, have masked the basic truth that the current scientific worldview has reached a dead end in trying to put together an all-encompassing worldview while operating under the heavy burden of naive realism.

Lee Smolin, in his book The Trouble with Physics, recognizing the puzzles facing modern physics, identifies five problems that any unified theory of physics must solve.

These are:

Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is known as the problem of quantum gravity.

Solve problems in the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, either by making sense of the theory as it is or by inventing a new theory that makes sense.

Determine whether or not the various particles and forces can be unified in a theory that explains them all as manifestations of a single fundamental entity.

Explain how the values ​​of free constants are chosen in nature in the standard model of particle physics.

Explain dark matter and dark energy. Or, if they don't exist, determine how and why gravity changes on a large scale. More generally, explain why the constants in the Standard Model of Cosmology, including dark energy, have the values ​​that they do.

Dr. Smolin should be credited with articulating concisely and directly the five great problems that stand in the way of a unified theory of physics. But in reflecting on how future scientists may come to solve these mysteries of science, Smolin also reveals the bias of the modern scientific theorist: he acknowledges that "physicists have traditionally expected science to give an explanation of reality as it would be in or absent. "Believing in a" real world, "he writes," motivates us to do the hard work necessary to become scientists and contribute to an understanding of nature. " In other words, Smolin defines "science" as a practice that can only occur if the practitioner assumes a "real world" independent of the observer. Having faithfully accepted the very obstacle that prevents progress in the first place, it is no wonder that modern scientific theory remains stuck in the same old intellectual quicksand. Like a hot air balloon wondering why it can't reach the stars while tethered to a fence post, modern science cannot move further toward a unified theory until it leaves the "real world."

In this article I will do crazy. I will give answers to each of these problems and show that a unified theory becomes apparent if Mr. Smolin and his university colleagues simply abandon their cherished assumption that there is a real world independent of us.

In considering this assumption, we might ask, why should the universe obey the orders of the scientific theorist in the first place? Isn't it true that the world existed before the theorist entered the scene? The job of science is to understand the world as it is, not as scientists assume or wish it to be.

It should not be considered simply a coincidence that, as shown below, when we remove the independent world assumption, we find the outline of a theory that solves the five Smolin problems.

So let's start with the first problem:

Problem 1: Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is known as the problem of quantum gravity.