HOW TO EXPLAIN ATOM SMASHERS

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I’m convinced that the understanding of the paranormal can have huge implications for the nature of knowledge. Of late, I’ve written little on this area, so have decided to rectify it.
In effect science, religion and philosophy all suffer from a lack of a more holistic viewpoint, which the paranormal could rectify. The idea is not to bring them together, but to show how related knowledge can interlink them in a much greater way.

I thought I’d begin with atom smashers.

The latest is the large hadron collider, which has fuelled stories for the last few weeks. At this present moment we don’t need to worry about it creating a black hole and destroying the world. Due to a glitch, it’s out of action for a couple of months.
Such experiments are, to me, vital. I sometimes seem to be anti-science, but this is not true. Science is vital. What I object to are the pronouncements and biases placed by scientists above the science.

The LHC is therefore a good subject to study.

What is its aim? Stated briefly, they are out to discover where the ‘matter’ is that makes the universe hard. At least, that’s what they think. I think something quite different is going on.
Ideas in particle physics suggest this to me. For instance, the particle is a theoretical concept. Technically, atom smashers collide particles to discover their secrets from the energy released upon collision.

Unfortunately, the data produced is man made.

The problem with ‘observing’ a particle is that it is so small that it cannot be ‘observed’. Rather, it has to be bombarded with something, which is inevitably made up of particles itself.
Hence, all that can be ‘observed’ is the result of a collision, and not the actual reality itself. And even that ‘collision’ is not as we would understand it. When two balls collide, one shoots off in a direction and velocity determined by the ball that hit it.

This is not so with particles.

The math states that they can shoot off in any direction possible. Hence, a quantum event is probabilistic, with every possible direction being just as probable as any other.
So what creates the definite reality that becomes our universe? One idea is the act of observation itself. What is ‘is’ because it has been observed by a consciousness capable of observing it. In effect, the observation has created the reality.
We can see the implications, here, concerning such experiments as the LHC. Could the results be affected by what the experimenters expect to see? Over the decades, could theories form a consensus that does, in effect, produce the results?
Studies of the paranormal could be useful here as this seems to be what often happens in research. Indeed, a theory of the ‘experimenter effect’ has grown, arguing that the attitude of the researcher has an effect upon the phenomena produced.
Of course, scientists will be, in the main, appalled by such a possibility. Experiments are of a hard universe – except, of course, the present experiment is going in search of just what makes it ‘hard’.
Maybe part of the answer can be found by them looking in the mirror. Maybe the LHC should be renamed a ‘dream machine’. For knowledge could well be what we wish it to be.

© Anthony North, September 2008