THE TROUBLE WITH STRING THEORY...

The following is the abstraction  of a  topic currently featured in V.H. Ironside, Behold! I Teach You Superman :
    

The human mind is a dissimulation of nature and of the truth. For the truth is, that the emancipation of understanding from mere causation and participation uniquely

represents that which Isaac Newton might have referred to as ‘God’, Boltzmann as ‘a struggle for entropy,’ and Freud as the one objective towards which each individual consciously or unconsciously tends to strive, namely pure Being. Which, indeed, removes all possibility of a priori structure. Space and time are but dynamic quantities. Probability waves are seeking out every possible path and direction. Observing an object at quantum level changes its state. And unless time one day flows backwards and effects precede causes, some concepts so intimately involve  anthropomorphous understanding that it requires a genuine effort of the mind to believe that their imprint on spacetime is indeed of classical origin. For one consequence of the new physics is, of course, that as our links with the past weaken, the future becomes increasingly uncertain.

          It is worth dwelling on these questions, because is it not one of the properties of physical theorems that rather than being representative constructs of whatever may be the residue of reality, they merely maximize its mathematical likelihood? Atoms are the perfect example. No one ever observed an electron actually circling the nucleic orbit. Elucidation of both the structure and the properties of electrons, is available on the basis of an imaginary mechanical model of the internal motions of the atom or, progressively, in the mathematical construction of quantum mechanics and with little relevance to any model at all. In the quantum realm, uncertainties are of the

essence. In Schrödinger’s theory, the atom could still be visualised as a measure of internal information. But if Heisenberg’s 1925 paper on the subject laid the foundation of an innovative theoretical matrix-mechanics that replaced the classical mechanics of Newton and Maxwell, then the ‘expediency’ of the method is so striking it cannot

possibly be ignored that the concept of reality only exists in our understanding of how the world works, not independent of it.

In fact, relativity predicts not only that space is curved in the vicinity of a massive body, but also that it is stretched – which is when you are looking not at Space, but at Time itself. As indeed, the scientific understanding of an inverse square law of gravity only amounts to describing an empirical relationship between space and time (strictly, between matter and mind). For whether one begins with general relativity and the description of forces as a curvature of spacetime, or with matrix-mechanics and the rendering of forces in terms of virtual oscillators, a universe of essentially ideational  relations is still the simplest and most economical configuration, even if the total knowledge concerning it must always be expressed in mathematical terms.

          Having said that,  it would be a mistake to imagine that the authenticity of a theory depends on the number of professorial endorsements or funded reviews it attracts. That amalgam of  theories, for example, which still dominates the research programmes and main funding of theoretical physicists as ‘M-theory’ – most of them

variations on a theme - is a product of the proliferation. Originally thought of as a means of circumventing problems with the reality or otherwise of ‘point particles’ that can never be seen,  the trouble with String theory is  that it is an abstract mathematical concept whose usefulness can be proved only within the context that defines it; a hall of mirrors, in other words, where you can’t tell whether anyone is who they say they are, and where everyone is chasing their own reflection. Indeed, from the very moment physicists demonstrated the potential gains to be had from turning purely mental processes into a wide range of abstract mathematical knowledge, the psychological foundations of physics shifted from mathematical precision to a manner of hope. Which is a principle based not on knowledge but on faith. It triumphs over uncertainty

by means of method.

With this the notion of modern physics attains to its full abstraction. From M-theory to Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG),  the texture of space itself has become a mathematical trick. Denoting the very post-organic epoch that is the end of natural growth and the beginning of an era of unrestrained inorganic and therefore purely intellectual inflation, the ‘inhumanity’ is in the method. It no longer forms an inseparable unit of spirit and evolution. Reality has become virtual as doubt in the empirical existence of a priori measurable quantities intensifies and a grasp of actuality is replaced by mind games within the self. In lieu of facts, the integration of super-symmetries and 10-dimensional functions is called upon to pose as empirical reality, setting itself in opposition to the ancient process and meaning of cognition. And with reference only to its own conceptual self.

          Not the Cosmos, but the Concept is the only reality. It is no longer an instrument, but an end. It exists because it is demonstrated, and not because it is known, to exist. Being and reason become estranged, and the metaphysics of the last absurdity is a self-orientation of pure mathematics - made an object of its own understanding - and unflinchingly  played out to its last logical conclusion....