On Deprogramming from String Theory; Return to God and Post-Classical Mechanics With Faith

String Theory was developed about thirty years ago to continue the inquiry of theoretical quantum researches into the construction of the Universe. Its professorial priests have taken over the halls of higher learning in the United States to the exclusion of their brethren with other interests in cosmological physics and quantum mechanics. The traditional call of God unto faith in the eternal source of Being has been eclipsed a little by mathematical tensors unto tomorrows deepened by farther unexplored multi-dimensional theoretical levels of creation. The unknown M-Theory is alike a clue from Arnie Saknusson left toward the grail of a unified field theory.

Well, as a Christian with an avocation in philosophical reading I have encountered a few books recently by Moffat, Smolin and other physicists that have served as a kind of deprogramming remedy to some of the multi-verse theory string and super-string based books by Greene and others. One may ask how a non-commutative geometry could compare with super-string theory aesthetically on the virgin beaches of theoretical physics for the attention of weekenders looking for action; seeking the curvaceous, beautiful theoretical explanation for the order of all being of this Universe? One should know better than to stray far from the standard word of God about these kinds of things, for the Charybdis and Scylla of false theories draw the unwary boaters to the rocks of despair and many wrecks there are that provide fuel for nature’s natural recyclers of shipwrecks.

Ultimately, physical theories of cosmology may just explain what it is that human beings experience, and that includes what we experience through enhanced measuring technologies. Cosmological theories and theoretical physics do not have the capability for explaining the absolute truth-for there is no absolute truth apart from God. One must rely upon faith in Jesus Christ to renormalize unto the absolute truth. Such absolute, foundational truth is safely reserved for a better universe than this present one.

Psalm Seven, verses 3-5 reads “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which though hast ordained: What is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For Thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”

The effort to comprehend the physical universe mechanically—that is how it is made operationally if not originally issued, has been a human historical mission op. As wrong ideas that served as partial research methods of inquiry were taken up and discarded for better ones, the Christian has experienced the chaff of incompleteness and error in rival theories stripped away as nothing besides faith remains to reply on.

String theory may not be false—it does not make physical prediction that can be falsified such as good theories have before including those of Newton and Einstein. String theories (there are an infinite number of versions), are brilliant mathematical models of alternative extra-dimensional mathematical constructions that could explain the math of the quantum mechanical world in such a way that gravity too is included, and a unified field theory produced. It was one marvelous new approach to theoretical physics developed after the standard model of quantum mechanics was mostly complete.

I have no intention of reviewing excellent books such as Smolin’s ‘The Trouble With Physics’ here. I just wanted to point out to those Christians and philosophers interested in cosmology that there are a number of other theoretical approaches to discovery of the unifying principles of macro and microphysics besides string theory.

One of the more interesting approaches is that of non-commutative geometries. I understand this topic fundamentally not at all, yet I will write something about it anyway, so the subject is not simply lost from my journal reference index…

Most geometries are symmetric and holistic—such as Euclidean and Riemannian. They have universal principles. Non-Commutative geometries do not require such principles better suited for an absolute space (that does not necessarily represent real space well at all).
Non-commutative geometry could phenomenally change in time; it could be one-way and irreversible. One special benefit of that is that it could perhaps represent Einstinean space-time geometry a little better within a time-changing universe. I do not use the word ‘evolving’ here because change of a physical system does not necessarily imply evolution. Evolution requires a meta-structural principle background in which change may compile, and in which a continuity of change can compile. Phase changes of a physical system may on the other hand, occur without regard to an evolving contingent structure.

A non-commutative geometry may be able to describe a space-time universe inclusive of all mass and energy as a changing, dynamic phenomenality. Mass and energy may be phenomenal ‘ties’ or knots in the geometry. There would be no separate particles or waves in the geometry of the space-time, all would be a description of the metric of the field itself.

Smolin introduced the idea of a background independent theory (of the universe) in ‘The Trouble With Physics’. Einstein’s general relativity theory best fits such an independence criteria as a description of space-time as a field, for the geometry of a space-time field is relative to its local characteristics. If the field can change with time, irreversibly, a non-commutative math might well describe it.

It is a kind of ultimate contingent universe we might understand with faith in God and regard for the appearance of the phenomenal as a thing-for-itself.
There may be an infinite number of cosmological systems that can be found to explain rather well certain observable features of the physical universe including space-time and quantum cosmology without attaining an absolute or final truth to exhaust the potential field of knowledge. The philosopher C.S. Pierce, inventor of the philosophy of pragmatism, felt that the utility or value-truth of a science is in it validity in application, and that is hat we tend to regard as best about science; its value in making practical, valuable explanatory hypothesis about the universe or nature that serve to advance human understanding of it. String theory, quantum gravity, modified gravity, modified Newtonian dynamics and other theories may or may not provide better functioning explanations of how the universe is mechanically put together. Science is intended to find knowledge that can be tested for truth or falsehood, to find knowledge that is connected to the real world or real universe rather than just a hypothetical one that exists in the sense that math geometries exist without necessary existence in the real world.

Scientific theories at any given time may be powerful, have legions of devoted followers of a religious nature, and replete with high priests of prestigious mystery. Those Christians with cosmological and philosophical interests should be somewhat reserved in following the existential flock to this or that side of the ship of the best present theory when the leader speaks new ideas, for the words of God are absolute, while these secular words are simply the best pragmatic tries to learn more about the phenomenal universe, and such efforts shall always be contingent.

There are an infinity of ways of theoretically forming or representing formed existential structures—and more if one adds in time as a change element for recombinations. Many of these configurations become the most popular new theory of the hour for how the Universe is really structured. Some of these theories have a starting point in time, some don’t. Strings as simple segments or dots may increase and join up to make more complex structures such as protons or entire atoms. Segments may form branes (membrane) like 2 dimension al soap bubbles able to hold galaxies and tie up to extra dimensions or extra branes floating around in a vacuum. Some of these branes crash parties and drift on like pillaging hordes of Huns looting the victim galaxies or universes taking the loot back over the border.

It is possibility for Christian philosophers to consider all of these trillion to the trillionth power number of cosmological theories in the abstract and incompletely, and also to ponder Sartre’s existentialism and W.V.O. Quine’s ontological relativity criterion not only of knowledge, but of epistemology and sort things out to the appropriate temporal value bin in accordance with our own prioritization. Scientists must pursue each theory to its logical end, yet we Christians may leave those so burdened for our own concerns of right thinking, right speech (so far as is possible nowadays) and right actions to serve the will of God as a priesthood of Christian believers challenged by that lack of an ecologically renewable economic foundation for this nation, and a nation slipping its grip on moral rectitude. The beauty of God’s universe, and the intricate and imaginative methods by which it is sustained, increases for our awareness as human efforts to comprehend its deeper nature continue. We did not expect it to be a simple Elmer’s glue paste together.