We can see through history that mankind tends towards linear thinking. The language and maths we use to communicate is structured in linear format to accommodate this form of thinking. If we interact with the Universe, as logic suggests we must, then the information we receive is likely to come from photons, electrons and neutrinos. These particles (which are also of course waves) travel in straight lines. There is no need for them to do otherwise en route to us from our primary source - the Sun. This is a set-up that panders to linear tendencies quite nicely - yet another of those plentiful perfections the Universe allows in its quest to create (and evolve) life.
At the moment we are stuck in an evolutionary pit and don't seem to be able to struggle out of it. Einstein predicted our evolution towards the truth of being 'beings of light' but he had no hope of it happening in his lifetime. Perhaps there is no hope of it happening in ours, either. Or perhaps there is. I guess it depends on how intently we are prepared to listen to the Universe instead of our personal gremlins. Stephen Hawking discovered a radiation emitted from black holes, now known as Hawking Radiation, proving Information to be as much of a constant in our Universe as matter and energy.
Hartle and Hawking got their heads together in 1983 and came up with a theory to explain 'inflation', which got into hot water over whether the Universe was open or closed. Perhaps it's petulant of us to speculate the nature of the entire Universe in the first place. Much more could be achieved by solving problems of detail behind facts already established, to push us towards evolution of our thinking. For one thing, if we dropped arguments over the shape of the Universe and concentrated instead on the bit we actually live in, we would perhaps find that linear constraints only apply to certain things. Time might well be one of them.
Reading Wikipedia's explanation gives a clearer insight of Hawking and Hartle's wave function proposal, which fits with those decent parameters already established in science and allows for history to be proportional to the scale of universal developments. Water, a substance well known to us and critical to life as we know it, has a propensity to adopt a wave pattern. We comprehend the surface of water as being 'flat', when clearly it is in constant random motion. We also now know that water has memory, along with knowledge that quantum processes are interrupted (indefinitely) by observation. Water takes many forms, from rainbows to polar ice. In the brain, water is coherent, meaning that it aligns with itself, unlike tap water which is a random jumble of particles. Water, a continually moving and changing form of matter, also seems, as seen here, to have various metaphoric and physical connections with time. Moon and tides spring to mind.
Our conscious process operates through waves. Associations between waves and water are given here to demonstrate the simplicity of concepts which are right there at our fingertips, waiting to be sewn together into a tapestry everyone can readily understand. The GUT is not the privilege of the scientific community, to be stitched up with language no Muggle can translate. Unified information is the right of every living thing to imbibe, digest and pass on, and its quite possible that our dogs have a much better handle on it all than we do.
RSS Feed
