PhilosophyMagazine

The Theory of One Book Summary
An Essay by Christopher Bek

Summary—This essay provides a summary of the seven essays in the upcoming The Theory of One book. 

A yardstick moving at 87 percent the velocity of light would shrink to about half its length—thereafter the rate of contraction becomes more rapid.  If the yardstick should attain the velocity of light, it would shrink to nothing at all. —Lincoln Barnett in 1948

The existentialist is first and foremost an individual who is in an infinite relationship with himself and his destiny. —Søren Kierkegaard

Canada’s premier science institute is trying to jumpstart a revolution in physics, in part by encouraging the randomness of human brilliance.  For inspiration on the way forward, the Perimeter Institute is looking 100 years into the past. —Ivan Semeniuk

More light. —the last words of Johann Goethe

We must follow the argument wherever it leads. —Socrates

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.
—Plato

The gateway to universal knowledge may be opened by the unified field theory upon which Einstein has been at work for a quarter century.  Today the outer limits of man’s knowledge are defined by relativity, the inner limits by quantum theory.  Relativity has shaped all our concepts of space, time, gravitation, and the realities that are too remote and too vast to be perceived.  Quantum theory has shaped all our concepts of the atom, the basic units of matter and energy, and the realities that are too elusive and too small to be perceived.  Yet these two great scientific systems rest on entirely different and unrelated theoretical foundations.  The purpose of Einstein’s unified field theory is to construct a bridge between them.

—Lincoln Barnett

  Restricting a body of knowledge to a small group deadens the philosophical spirit of a people and leads to spiritual poverty.

—Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein discovered that even the most complex notions could be reduced to a simple set of fundamental principles.  

—Paul Strathern

 It is a wonderful feeling to recognize the unifying features of a complex phenomena which present themselves as quite unconnected to the direct experience of the senses.

—Marcel Grossman

The Bernoulli Form elucidates the notion of Platonic Forms in describing how a motley crew of Forms—including Delphi, forecasting, integration, utility, optimization, efficiency and complementary—come together to form The Bernoulli Model. 

The Method of Moments elucidates the notion of Platonic Forms in describing how a motley crew of Forms—including Delphi, forecasting, integration, utility, optimization, efficiency and complementary—come together to form The Bernoulli Model.

 The Efficient Frontier examines the notions of God, option theory, portfolio theory, faith, reason and Arab math—finally arriving at the inescapable conclusion that all roads of sound decisionmaking lead to the efficient frontier.

 The Unpardonable Sin charges all honourables and doctors in Canada with heresy, child abuse and the unpardonable sin that Christ spoke of—which is the deliberate refusal to follow the light when seen. 

The Uncertainty Principle contrasts Einstein with Heisenberg, relativity with quantum theory, behavioralism with existentialism, certainty with uncertainty and philosophy with science—finally arriving at the inescapable Platonic conclusion that the true philosopher is always striving after Being and will not rest with those multitudinous phenomena whose existence are appearance only.

A Formal Patient congratulates Alberta Health and Wellness for insisting on the accountability of due process in declaring individuals to be formal patients—and argues that I am being considered a formal patient as the result of an absence of due process elsewhere in Canada—and that I should not be considered a formal patient but that I should be declared disabled on account of being outside the cave of behaviorism. 

Singularity identifies the trigger of the looming paradigm shift from the three-dimensionally conscioused Everyman to the four-dimensionally conscioused Superman as the 1935 Schrödinger’s Cat though problem—which proves that consciousness is real.

The Great Cosmic Accounting Blunder compares the two physical fixedpoints in the universe—lightspeed and Planck’s constant—and argues that we have been guilty of double counting up until now and that in fact there is but one fixedpoint—which, as it turns out, is the boundary of the universe.  

The Unified Field Theory counts down the Euclidean hits from five to one in categorically nailing the vast majority of this little thing I like to call cosmic pi.  At this point in spacetime I would like to pay special tribute to my excellent wingman Albert Einstein (1879–1955).

 Closing the Liars Loophole identifies the malignant cancer within the healthcare system and society as the outwardly focusing behavioural psychological model, which denies the existence of consciousness—while the inwardly focusing existential model makes consciousness and the soul primordially important.

Rebooting the Machine.  This essay argues that we must reboot all societal machines and then rebuild from the ground up.  We could start this rebooting with the discipline of physics.  The Rebooting the Machine essay sets the table for the rest of The Theory of One book.  It examines the idea that we must be prepared to reboot absolutely everything in order to achieve breakthroughs that will transform our future.  The essay proposes a way of rebooting philosophy, psychiatry, physics and God.  The initial rebooting of philosophy and psychiatry means going from behaviorism to existentialism.  Behaviorism only asks that we behave while existentialism tells us we have total freedom and must take total responsibility for the world.  I first rebooted physics by producing my theory of one on 1 January 2001 based on one argument.  I have since added six more arguments.  The Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics is a leading centre for scientific research, training and educational outreach in theoretical physics.  The essay invites the director of the Perimeter Institute to write an essay responding to the theory of one.

Against Physics.  This essay recounts the two major physical theories of the Twentieth century (relativity theory and quantum theory) in context of Ockham’s principle of economy and Dirac’s principle of aesthetic value.  The English monk William of Ockham developed Ockham’s razor which says that if all things are equal, the simplest theory tends to be the right one.  Paul Dirac said that it is more important to have beautiful theories and equations than to have them fit the data.  These economic and aesthetic principles are still the very foundation of all truly authentic scientific reasoning today.  Einstein invoked the two principles in 1905 with his special relativity theory by combining the separate notions of space and time into absolute spacetime.  Einstein invoked the two principles again in 1915 with his general relativity theory—based on the revelation that gravity and inertia are the same thing.  By employing the Pythagorean Form, Einstein proved that an astronaut traveling at lightspeed would shrink to zero height.  My theory of one thus argues that lightspeed is a boundary of the universe.  It further argues that there is only one being of light or photon as there is no need for more than one.  Furthermore, it argues that God and Light are the same thing and that lightspeed and Planck’s constant are the same boundary of the universe.  Lightspeed and Planck’s constant are the two major universal constants.  I would argue if a theory is simple, beautiful and reasonable, then it is mathematically true.

Transcending Uncertainty.  This essay recounts the events leading up to the paradigm shift of quantum theory in 1925—and then takes a look at what we still have to learn from it.  Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutionsdefines the term paradigm shift as a transformation taking place beyond the grasp of our undeveloped a priori comprehension.  He made the distinction between normal science which is local and paradigm-shifting science which is nonlocal.  Moving within a city is local and moving to another city is nonlocal.  Most physicists eat up normal science with a big spoon but flee in abject terror from paradigm shifts.  118 years ago scientists believed the universe was a deterministic, clock-like machine that followed strict causality.  Classical physics started to unravel in 1897 when Sir JJ Thomson discovered the electron and the divisibility of the seemingly solid atom.  Quantum theory put a decisive end to the strict causality viewpoint by proving that the atom is fundamentally indeterminate—thereby transcending uncertainty.  Max Born first proposed the idea that matter waves could be interpreted probabilistically.  Ernest Rutherford proposed a solar system atomic model in 1911 based on the revelation that both the solar system and the atom have nuclei containing about 99.9 percent of the mass and occupying about one-billionth of the spherical space.  Quantum theory also tells us that causality fails at Planck’s constant—meaning that it is also a boundary of the spacetime continuum.

The Great Cosmic Accounting Blunder.  This essay compares the two physical fixedpoints in the universe—lightspeed and Planck’s constant—and argues that we have been guilty of double counting up until now and that in fact there is but one fixedpoint—which is the boundary of the universe.  Consider for a moment two hypothetical spheres existing in abstract, metaphysical space—that is, space where the normal rules of physics do not apply.  With the first sphere the center is everywhere and the boundary is nowhere, while with the second sphere the boundary is everywhere and the center is nowhere.  The question is—How are the spheres different?  The thought problem leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that the terms center and boundary are interchangeable in this case—and thus both spheres paradoxically describe the very same continuum.  I then replaced the words boundary and centre with the words lightspeed and Planck’s constant—thereby uniting relativity theory (based on lightspeed) and quantum theory (based on Planck’s constant).  While relativity theory speaks to the macrocosmos, quantum theory concerns itself with the nature of matter at the microcosmic level.  My theory of one brings relativity theory and quantum theory together.

The Aspect Experiment.  This essay argues that the 1881 Michelson-Morley (M&M) experiment provides empirical validation of the 1905 special relativity theory—and, in a fascinating parallel, the 1982 Aspect experiment provides experimental validation of my 2001 theory of one.  The M&M experiment established lightspeed is invariably fixed at 186,284 miles per second.  According to Newton, a photon projected forward from a train traveling at thirty miles an hour would be traveling at lightspeed plus thirty miles per hour.  The experiment presented a dilemma with the invariability of lightspeed.  Einstein resolved the dilemma in 1905 with his relativity theory by revealing that spacetime contracts as a body accelerates thus satisfying the invariance of lightspeed condition.  In 1982 a Frenchman named Aspect performed an astonishing experiment which proves all photons are instantaneously connected to one another.  My theory of one explains this by recognizing the simple fact that there is only one photon in the universe.  It is disappointing that physicists have not discovered this obvious truth.  It shows they have failed the prudent man test.

The Theory of One.  This essay characterizes relativity theory, quantum theory and the theory that unites relativity theory and quantum theory—the theory of one.  Einstein revealed with his special relativity theory that spacetime dilates as a function of velocity relative to lightspeed in accordance with the Pythagorean Form—ie. h^2 + (v/c)^2 = 1^2, h = height, v/c = velocity relative to lightspeed.  If an astronaut were traveling at a velocity of 0.87c, he would shrink to half his original height.  If he were traveling at lightspeed he would shrink to zero height—thereby indicating a universal boundary.  In 1925 Schrödinger proposed an atomic model based on a wave equation—If one drops a pebble in the ocean, then the ripples become the valance rings of the orbiting electrons.  The unexpected surprise is that the waves represent the probability of finding an electron at any given point—with the wave crests (or valence rings) representing the highest probabilities.  Since causality fails at Planck’s constant, an absence of causality indicates an absence of spacetime—meaning there is no spacetime inside the atom.  And like lightspeed, Planck’s constant is a boundary of the universe.

The Theory of One Revisited.  This essay delineates seven arguments regarding the theory of one—Inside Out, Outside In, The Pythagorean Form, Causality Breakdown, The Aspect Experiment, Simplicity and Beauty, and Unchallenged After Fourteen Years—and argues that I have made my case for the theory of one.  According to Lincoln Barnett in his 1948 The Universe and Dr Einstein book, in which Einstein wrote the forward, “If a yardstick should attain the velocity of light, it would shrink to nothing at all.”  My theory of one argues that if a yardstick shrinks to zero height at lightspeed, it simply means that lightspeed is a boundary of spacetime.  Sir Roger Penrose had this to say about spacetime boundaries, “I am able to show that space and time come to a physical end.”  Inside the universal boundary lies spacetime while outside the boundary lies nothingness.  If physicists would have identified this boundary in 1948, we would be living in a completely different world today.

Conclusion.  The theory of one brings the reader face to face with the stunning realization that the universe is bounded—rather than unbounded, as Einstein and others have asserted.  The theory of one delivers the ocean.  It is the theory that spells the end of physics.  It is the monolith of 2001—a spacetime odyssey.