We all hope that one day physics would have an explanation for all that we see around us, all that exists, and all that would ever exist. But is the current scope of physics large enough to provide a unified law which can define everything ? Should something very important and very prevalent, but not currently included in observations, be actually be considered as an integral part of physics ?
Newton’s laws, Laws of electricity and electromagnetism, laws of relativity, uncertainty principle – all of them were established as true after precise measurements of the observed phenomena matched closely with the predictions of a corresponding law. But is physics as a science all about externally observed phenomena ? Should we agree that the only purpose of physics as a science is to make a closely matching mathematical model of the universe ? Isn’t physics, at its best, supposed to give us answer to everything that exists ?
Let’s start our “thought journey” on this with the following story.
The Story of Puttu
Puttu is an extra terrestrial being sent from his planet Puttalu to earth. The scientists of Puttalu, which is the only planet that supports life in Puttu’s universe, have sent him here to experience and find out the physical laws that act on our universe.
Puttu had arrived here on a winter night at Yakutsk, Russia. It was a cold night and nobody got out of their cars in the highways. Puttu sat on top of one of the tallest buildings in the city. He curiously watched the movement of cars, trains (and one bird too) for hours and wrote the following physical rules –
- Moving bodies keep themselves along the right side of the path of movement (In Russia its Left-hand drive)
- Moving bodies stop when a particular source of electromagnetic waves emits red light.
- A body at halt moves when encountered with a green light from the same source.
- Moving body of type A(cars) moves in perpendicular to Moving body of type B (train). There should be a perpendicular force field E, generated when Type A bodies move, which attracts and moves a Type B body.
- Body C (bird) should have absolutely no charge and no mass, and can move around without being effected by E produced by the light source.
Puttu suddenly derived some formula’s to find out the speed and position of a body based on these laws. Obviously he also included a law of uncertainty – which says it is impossible to precisely predict the speed and position of these bodies.
Puttu was happy that he found 5 basic rules of material physics on this newly discovered universe. He went back to his world to pass on these laws and initiate further research.
No Intelligence – No Laws !
The above story, which is far from reality has been given as a resembling example of how we are limiting the study of modern physics to only what can be measured. Our hero Puttu may be right in whatever laws he deduced on the movement of cars in a city – what he did not notice is the mutual understanding or agreement between conscious and intelligent human beings which kept this system running.
Now we may ask these questions
- Puttu should anyway know that bodies don’t simply move according to rules. Somebody who is intelligent has to control them !”
- It’s obvious that intelligence/conscience is required to understand a rule, agree to abide by it and then to follow it.
Yes that’s the point – Any rule/law is the result of an intelligent thought/decision. Lets move ahead and see different forms of intelligence.
Recorded Intelligence
What is recorded intelligence ? Take the case of a computer – it understands many complex rules involved in solving a real world problem. We know that a computer is not intelligent by itself. So when a computer is not aware of itself, how can it run understand and execute highly complicated set of rules ?
We know that a computer simply records and replays the thoughts of an intelligent source – the programmer. Hence the rules are made and understood by an “originally intelligent” being; these rules are then converted into digital form so that each time a computer goes through these digital words, the original intelligence of the programmer is applied repeatedly. The process is as simple as a farmer directing water through channels to the dry areas in his crop field. Though water reaches to dry areas by itself, the idea and intelligence of taking water to the desired location is still from an intelligent source. Even a mouse trap is an example of recorded intelligence – an example of mechanical programming.
Recorded Intelligence and the Recording Medium
In all the examples of recorded intelligence, we also see that there exists a corresponding recording medium too. Digital circuits form the recording medium of computer programs. Earth form the recording medium for irrigation canals. Spring, door, hinges and links form the recording medium of a mouse-trap. Also different levels of recorded intelligence are stored “one based on the other” on corresponding levels of recording media. The best example for this is a computer itself
- Electricity and semiconductors are the recording medium in processors and related circuits – which records intelligence in the form of digital logic.
- RAM of the computer holds the intelligence of information-flow and operations within a computer. This intelligence is built over the intelligence of digital logic.
- Permanent Storage of a computer stores intelligence of human written programming language. This intelligence is built over the intelligence of information flow and operations of the computer.
Recorded Intelligence v/s Original Intelligence and The self consciousness
We have now seen that rules are inseparable from intelligence – Any instance/scenario where a particular rule is being followed should definitely hint some intelligence which created it. Also we see that rules can be implemented either by the original source of intelligence (like a human being) or from a recorded replay of an intelligent process (as in mechanical/electronic/digital programming). But how to differentiate between recorded intelligence and an original source of intelligence ? To make out the difference is not simple at all ! Here is where the self consciousness comes in ! Its seems that an original source of intelligence will be conscious of its existence ! Therefore we conclude that consciousness is the primary source of intelligence – Or intelligence is the property of consciousness. (For ease expression, we will refer self consciousness as – “The Self”[0].)
Self consciousness v/s Life
The presence of self consciousness – is related to something that is very important – but not currently included in any physics book – the Life ! Wait but most of the properties we assign to “living things” are actually recorded intelligence only – as growth, reproduction and movement are almost completely biological[1] programming. Some “living things” like latent viruses may be considered as purely biological programs. Even different behaviours of human beings are results of biological/hormone programming as encoded in the DNA. This hints at existence of consciousness ( or “The Self”) as an unrelated entity with uniform characteristic in all conscious beings – the feeling of “I exist”[2].
Laws of Physics and Consciousness
As with any law, the laws of physics should definitely have an associated intelligence with it. The uniformity and regularity of physical laws hints that they are forms of recorded intelligence. This recorded intelligence should have definitely flowed from the original source of intelligence – The Self. Everything that has an order or follows a set of rules should be set – to begin with – by the Self itself. As we know that there are multiple levels of recorded intelligence – there should be a fundamental recording medium too where the self recorded the primary physical laws.
More study on the existence and reach of “The Self” as an entity, and the properties/information of the fundamental recording medium are probably the two questions that research on “complete physics” would ultimately reach to.
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[0] If context like memory, body etc are systematically negated, the observer/executor seems to be one and the same in all conscious beings.
[1] Its not wrong to say that when physics get complicated, we call it chemistry – and Biology is in a way highly complicated chemistry.
[2] Even during sleep, when the time sense is lost – “I” still exits.
Kj [/.] Sreekumar programs computers as a hobby and profession. Into programming from his school days, Sree uses Codemarvels to key in facts and fixes he finds interesting while working on different projects. Some of the articles here give away a few shades of his philosophical leanings too.