THE UNLIMITED ACCURACY ARGUMENT

In mind there is a point where physicality ends completely.  For lack of a better phrase this point is the bright line separating one absolute world from another absolute world.  Inside physicality all items are relative to each other but none can reach across the bright line into the absolute world of nonphysicality.  Mind has access to both absolutes which can not intermix, must be separated perfectly.  This is one reason Physics must propose, and in fact believe in, “uncertainty.”  From its perspective a not physical phenomenon is uncertain, is beyond the bright line, is in a limbo not accessible to the laws of physics and thus not subject to description by a physics vocabulary.  Because “the Einstein mass-energy-momentum relationship dictates ... E_q = (q²c²+m²c⁴)^1/2 for a real pion” and because “the π meson carries energy E_a = 0 and momentum q ≠ 0 from a to b” therefore “this meson cannot be physical.”  Only the boundaries are defined, it is not possible to peek.  “The energy of the exchanged (or ‘virtual’) meson, being 0, is at least m_πc² = 140 MeV too low.  The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, ΔEΔt~h, permits such energy discrepancies ΔE, but only for a sufficiently short time ∆t.”  In reality it makes no sense for the strong force to equal to zero but physics is not about “making sense,” it is about sticking to the law as observed.  The myth of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is invoked which “permits” the discrepancy.  In essence, from the perspective of physical laws anything which “cannot be physical” is “illegal,” is declared to be “virtual.”  This type of mental action is best exemplified by the notion of putting the cart before the horse.  At one end is Einstein who “dictates” the “mass-energy-momentum relationship” and at the other end is Heisenberg who “permits” an exception to this “dictum” within certain very narrow limits “ΔEΔt~h.”  Due to the limits of observation physicists cannot look inside these limits and thus the “stuff” presumed to exist inside the limits is defined as a meson which “cannot be physical,” which is “virtual.”[1]  The idea of “unlimited accuracy” must thus be examined.

Clearly, this is an analog idea, it can not be a digital idea.  Yet physics says this idea can not exist physically, it is only a virtual idea.  To obtain data about a physical event “a photon must be reflected from it.”  This is more or less the principle behind radar:  electromagnetic radiation is emitted from a device toward a target and then the radiation is reflected back to the source and detected.  For one, thus, the notion of “unlimited accuracy” is hampered by the limit of the speed of light, the farther the object the longer it takes for the radiation to reach it and the greater is the margin of error as the radiation bounces back to its source.  If the radiation acted instantaneously then, obviously, there would be no ∆t involved, the object would be observed in real time since no time would pass.  As the ∆t gets smaller and smaller so accuracy increases until accuracy is defined to be “unlimited” when the ∆t is zero.  This is no more than very basic calculus.  But does this very basic limitation “point to some deeper principle?”  Just because the ∆t or the ΔE can not be reduced, for purposes of observation, to zero, does it mean the Universe does not know what it is doing, and, in fact, the cosmos steps out of the realm of physicality just to permit hyperbolics to Heisenberg?[2]  A bright line exists inside physics:  beyond a certain finite limit digitally definable accuracy ends and only an analog definable accuracy remains.  The ∆t and the ΔE are the physical manifestations of the digital limit, not of the analog limit which in reality has no limit.  The limit of man made instruments is digital, the photon when used as a measuring stick produces a physical “impact” on whatever is measured, the object is physically dislodged from where it was and, thus, the limits of measurement are discovered.  But it can not be said the object itself “therefore” or “categorically” does not know with infinite precision what it is doing, or where it is going.  The thing which makes the object “uncertain” is the measurement, the object without the measurement obviously exists, only in an unmeasured state.  To say otherwise is the same as saying the object is created by the measurement.  The high priests of quantum mechanics have it backward, put the cart before the horse.  It is not the classical or analog which vanishes, it is the quantum which vanishes beyond a certain, finite limit.  Unlimited accuracy is a classical concept and it exists everywhere in the universe at all times, except when by definition finite instruments intrude and digitize analog data.  As the number of decimal places increases beyond the bright line, beyond the limit imposed by uncertainty, so a rounding error must be introduced, but, in reality of course, the Universe does not do this, only the physicists do this for their convenience.  Otherwise, obviously, “calculations required to find out whether or not there were any infinities left uncanceled were so long and difficult ... no one was prepared to undertake them.  Even with a computer, it was reckoned it would take at least four years.”  To get to within a certain finite limit of very precise accuracy requires rudimentary calculus, let’s say the limit is 99.9999%.  To proceed and calculate the remaining 0.0001% requires not “four years” but, most likely, and eternity.  Correctly, physics admits it can go no further, but it is hyperbole to then allege “particles as having not substance but [only] mathematical form.”  Physicality does not stop at the bright line just because Heisenberg said so, in fact, even what is alleged can not be performed, not even the “mathematical form,” without substance’s interference, can be calculated as “no one is prepared to undertake” the lengthy, difficult calculations.  Physics stops at the bright line, not physicality, but physicists believe the opposite:  they believe physicality stops with physics, things exist which are virtual, which “cannot be physical,” even as Guth alleges vacuum is a “physical system” because the uncertainties are superimposed on the vacuum.

“Suddenly I realised ... I was no longer driving the car consciously.  I was kind of driving by instinct, only I was in a different dimension.  I was way over the limit, but still I was able to find even more.  It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding.”  This account should not be discounted and, in fact, it may be an instance when a mind stepped across the bright line, transcending digital or quantum understanding into a strictly analog understanding where only the physicality is visible.  Arguably, at this point, for a few minutes, Senna was doing the impossible calculations, the many years of training permitted him to discard uncertainty:  “I was able to find even more.”  Senna’s digitally based body soon exited the state of strict analog physicality:  “It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious [digital] understanding.”  On one side of the bright line are the objects physics can manipulate, the “canonically conjugate variables, or operators,” and on the other side only smooth seamless uninterruptible dynamics exist, only a wave function without items or particles exists.  Senna’s mind saw, for a few moments, only the information as an uninterrupted wave, no longer saw the information carrying digits or the particle aspect of photons.  This was not “mathematical form,” this was physicality, substance, Senna’s account of how or why, however inarticulate, should not be discounted, the proof is the lap times, as is the physicality of the clock, the car’s motion on the track, the driver.  Substance, physicality was not, as Heisenberg would have it, reduced to mathematical form, to the contrary, only the digital uncertainty created by the quantum operators vanished.  “I was in a different dimension” permitting the driver to be “way over the limit” and “able to find even more” speed around the track.[3]  Arguably, something happened which permitted Senna to be more accurate (faster) around the track than his previous experiences, at least in theory, this something, if carried to infinite precision, may contain the potential to achieve unlimited accuracy.  The irrefutable indicator is the lap time around the track.  Clearly, the physicality of the track did not change one millimeter, neither did the clock’s.  What changed was the driver’s perception of the physical possibilities available to him, placing him “way over the limit.”  These new possibilities he described as a being “in a different dimension,” as being in a place hitherto unexperienced as a driver driving for many years of racing at the limit.  The limits he knew up to this time were broken, obliterated, he found a new limit, a new dimension of what is possible in terms of speed around the track, and then was able to “find even more,” meaning even more physical, more substantial, more in tune with what was possible, not less.  The bright line is between the 99.9999% and the 0.0001%, and it seems Senna during these few laps entered the 0.0001%, traversed from a place where precision is limited by canonical quantum operators (particles with fixed, finite decimal points) across the bright line to a singularly “certain” place where particles with fixed, finite decimal points are excluded, where the real physicality of the Universe exists and is continually computed to an infinite number of decimal points, to unlimited accuracy.

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[1]   From The Relevance of Physics (1966):  “To obtain information about the position of an electron, a photon must be reflected from it;  ... the electron receives an impact ... which changes either its state of rest or its velocity.  The magnitude of this impact is uncertain since the photon can follow any path within the opening of the objective lens.  This situation ... pointed to some deeper principle, ... [was] formulated by Heisenberg in 1927.  Known as the ‘uncertainty principle,’ it states ... magnitudes represented by canonically conjugate variables, or operators, cannot be measured simultaneously with unlimited accuracy.”  [p. 273].

[2]   From Modern European Thought (Baumer 1977):  “Heisenberg speaks of particles as having not substance but mathematical form, and as therefore not having ‘even the quality of being,’ but only ‘a possibility for being, or a tendency for being.’  Partly, this was because matter was ... identified with energy.”  [p. 462].

[3]   From A Brief History of Time (Hawking, 1988):  “If one knows the wave at one time, one can calculate it at any other time.  The unpredictable, random element comes in only when we try to interpret the wave in terms of positions and velocities of particles.  But maybe [this] is our mistake:  maybe there are no particles positions and velocities, but only waves.”  [p. 173].