The true nature of reality, space, time, and matter emerge as alien concepts, incomprehensible to the mind. Quantum field theory, and what it has to say about the vacuum of space, top the list. String/M-theory and loop quantum gravity are bogus endeavors to eliminate God. In our universe, fine-tuning is everywhere. There would be no life or consciousnesses without the fine-tuning of the universe. Reality itself is under attack, along with determinism, causality, and the aim mind-independent world. The God workarounds are slip-sliding into the waters of oblivion. Holistic structural connectivity is shining through. Quantum gravity has emerged as the elusive holy grail of physics. Ignorance abounds. There is a deep schism between theoretical physics and reality. When knowledge is based on something you cannot prove, there’s no success like failure, and failure is no success at all. Mathematics is inherently flawed, rendering it a questionable foundation for science. Conceptual engineering will be the driver of this new paradigm for science. Math will still validate the conclusions when it can. Conceptual engineering will do the rest.
A positron (the electron’s antiparticle) is understood as being an electron moving backward in time.
In a two-dimensional world, gravity would be too strong, and in four dimensions, too weak, forming complex structures in the universe. Or perhaps the dimensionality of space is constrained by the second.
Dark matter is not baryonic; it comprises other, more exotic particles like axions or WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). Dark energy emerges from the bubbling up of space. This minor effect is widespread, making it powerful enough to drag apart clusters of galaxies without ripping them apart from within.
General relativity and the quantum field theories need to become a unified component of the standard model. Two categorically incompatible theories of reality, describing the vast cosmos, general relativity, and the quantum field theories, need to become a part of the standard model.
Physics meets philosophy at the Planck scale. (more on that later).
The nature of space, time, and matter is a triune entity.
The quantum field level of space-time is discrete, not constant. Our three-dimensional reality is an illusion created by the information content being encoded on a two-dimensional canvas. The universe is a gigantic simulation. Our perceptions of reality are not faithful representations, but constructed virtual reality simulations.
Protons—whether inside atoms or drifting free in space, appear to be remarkably stable. We’ve never seen one decay. However, nothing essential in physics forbids a proton from decaying. A stable proton would be exceptional in the world of particle physics, and several theories demand that protons decay.
Protons and neutrons can be broken down further into quarks. Quarks and electrons are referred to as fundamental particles.
Quarks are among the smallest particles in the universe, and they carry only fractional electric charges. Scientists have a good idea of how quarks make up hadrons, but the properties of individual quarks have been challenging to tease out because they can’t be observed outside their respective hadrons.
Reality is a discrete and finite structure.
Reality is a complicated thing, especially for quantum phenomena. There’s an inherent indeterminism to the quantum world that can never be eliminated.
The hidden variables stop us dead in our tracks. If we could find, identify, and understand the behavior of the variables, we will have cracked the code. Quanta sometimes behave as particles and sometimes as waves. You cannot assign values to the underlying physical quantities revealed by quantum experiments without destroying the relationships between them that are essential to the functioning of the quantum universe.
Where we are now: In quantum mechanics, fields are discontinuous and are defined by quanta. Quantum mechanics is incompatible with general relativity because, in quantum field theory, forces act locally through the exchange of well-defined quanta.
Where we need to be:
When quantum mechanics is combined with general relativity, a theory of quantum gravity will be produced.
