Part I

Physical Systems

by Hugh M. Lewis

I have offered this model as something more than a "just so" story, and as something somewhat less than a fully elaborated scientific theory that would require a complete suite of mathematical equations and formula.

My construction has been due primarily to a sense of fundamental insufficiency of comprehensiveness of a plethora of theoretical constructs that abound on these levels of understanding. While most such constructs are valid covering law theories, none serve the function of providing comprehensive integration of physical systems. The most comprehensive theory so far produced is of course Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Most models now tend to be highly esoteric and opaque to the non-specialist, and most do not offer the degree of comprehensive explanatory power that comes from a comparable theory such as the Theory of Evolution in the biological sciences.

Understanding the alternative model proposed within these pages requires some groundwork in the basics of physics, of the fundamental concepts and ideas involved. It was constructed with the notion that no theory can or should be so abstruse as to be beyond ability of most people to comprehend and even contend with its terms and significations. It deals hypothetically with an inferable level of information pattern that is regarded as below that of the subatomic level, and therefore, there are maybe few existing equations known to exist that might directly describe these conditions.

I offer a model that I take to be heuristic and suggestive, primarily from the standpoint of enabling alternative constructs about which to frame these basic issues in terms of physical systems theory. It does not frame either the best, the most correct nor the final theory about these related subjects. Hopefully at least, it may result in some rethinking and new thinking about basic issues.

In the construction of this set of models, I have made some untested assumptions and draw tenuous, if somewhat radical conclusions based on reasoning alone. I describe several different mechanisms, like the relativity of mass, gravitational displacement, space-time equilibrium, and universal synchronicity, without really knowing if there might be a more precise mathematical transcription or set of equations for these processes or concepts or their scientific implications.

Physical sciences, even more than the other systems theories, are basically quantitative and data driven in a way that a precise one-to-one correspondence can be usually expected between our observations and our language used to describe them. To begin otherwise is to risk spurious treatment of serious signs and relational values. Nevertheless, in model building, even in the physical sciences, there is a place for logical rationalization and clear creative thinking as expressed through philosophically driven inquiry.

For this to be a full theory, a set of basic equations would have to be derived for the basic constructs. These equations are suggested at points, but not elaborated. Furthermore, this model proposes a level of data that is far below the current level of most research work and description. Thus, it is unlikely that the full mathematical means exist at this time by which to adequately derive a full and sufficient theoretical description.

Again, it must be reiterated, especially in the framework of physical systems theory, that the kinds of answers we give to fundamental questions, without knowing in a certain way their validity, will determine what our final composite view or model of the universe will be.

Especially, our primes in physical systems theory seem to have to do with the notion of infinity and physical reality itself:

Is the universe infinite or not?

Can there be nothing?

I will not now answer these questions one way or the other, but I will try to explicate the logical consequences of either alternative where it seems important to do so. If our universe is not infinite, then there are ramifications for our conceptualization of its model and for the outcomes we draw from it. Similarly so if we can prove the universe to be infinite. If there can be nothing, then this also has important ramifications for our thinking about the structure of space-time and the fundamental organization of the universe.

Evidence suggests that the universe may be both infinite and bounded in some way, and this seems like an ultimate paradox. Some aspects of the universe strongly suggest that it seems necessary for a genuinely scientific view of the universe to assume the probability of infinity. But beyond this, there is a sense that even our scientific observations may be fundamentally bound by basic relativistic limitations of our physical existence from which we ultimately cannot escape.

There was a time when people looked to the skies and described the circuit of the sun and the moon around the earth as if these were the natural course of events. Little could they realize that what they were seeing was in fact an illusion of a complex physical process that describes the orbits of both the earth and the moon about the sun. And so it seems in some ways to be in the appearance of reality with our selves even at this time in all the sophisticated advances of our science and technology.

I hope that at least from a heuristic standpoint of alternative model building, this set of general theories about the universe will have greater net value than a mere elaboration of rather abstruse and, it seems, partial, covering law models already conventionally accepted and hardly questioned. I believe it demonstrates the power of natural systems theory, if applied creatively, to enable creative constructs to be built even by such impure-type scientists as a dispossessed middle-aged white male anthropologist.

Natural Systems

2001