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HOW could gravitation have any possible connection with consciousness? The answer, simply put, is "Everything"! It is not reasonable, as most people would agree, to consider either subject without reference to quantum theory. The latter, though immensely powerful and accurate in it mathematical formalism, is clearly incomplete. It cannot yet bring gravitation into line. At its core is also the unresolved enigma called "wave-particle duality". The minute components of atoms, the "sub-atomic particles", sometimes acts like little billiard balls bouncing off one another but at other times they act as if they are waves occupying extended volumes of space.
Quantum theory, though intimately structured on this apparent anomaly, is quite unable to state what these waves are: whether real or merely abstract. It says they permit all possible outcomes to exist in some kind of limbo state as unresolved "wave-functions" until these are "collapsed into particles" by the act of observation to yield a single reality. So quantum theory already infers the existence of a consciousness generating the illusion of a world built of matter. Bohm(1) suggests that a substratum exists providing "Implicate Order". Professor Penrose(2) discusses computing systems and hints that something analogous could be driving the universe. Quantum theory as it stands, however, is unable to provide a mechanism to explain how its waves arise as well as being unable to say whether they are real or not.
Unfortunately, history has pushed the scientific community into the total rejection of matters deemed "paranormal": they appear to regard them as a threat to the basic laws of their discipline. Indeed, this attitude was highlighted by the eminent physicist, Professor Jahn, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the same university, had just been demoted to Associate because he had dared to carry out he research into a forbidden field: psycho-kinesis. Jahn has quite reasonably justified his work by stating that, if the mind could affect instruments, then engineers need to know about it. Wheeler, however, during the "Heretics" TV series, justified the demotion on the grounds that, if proved true then the whole of physics from Newton onwards would be discredited! He had stated, in an earlier program, that their theories could not be wrong: the mathematics was just too beautiful! Should not the validity of the initial assumptions be regarded as the real criterion? Furthermore are scientists justified in postulating that mind is mere brain function so that biological death is the end?
The entrenched position of established physics may soon be overturned, because its deficiencies can now be rectified as spin-off from a new solution. This offers an explanation for gravitation based on a new development in quantum theory. The mathematical logic was published in the proceedings of the Second Scientific Conference on Problems in Space and Time(3) of 1991 and further extended in the proceedings of the Sir Isaac Newton Conference(4) of 1993. It fits the latter to a tee, being based on extensions to Newtonian physics.
To Newton, inertial mass was invariant, corresponding with what we now call "rest mass". However, since light falls like matter, yet is pure energy of motion called "kinetic energy", it is clear that kinetic energy and rest mass need to be considered as made from the same stuff. Hence an object in motion has to be considered as made from a "total energy" which is the arithmetic sum of both constituents. With this extension the main predictions of Special Relativity, including
E=mc2 are paralleled, except that kinetic energy is based on a seemingly "absolute" frame of reference, a feature which Einstein's Special theory of Relativity forbids.
This is crux issue because its denial supported the discreditment of the "ether" of Newton, Crookes, Lodge and other leading scientists. It had been postulated early be Christiaan Huygens as an all-pervading medium needed for the propagation of light. Then nearly a century ago Michelson and Morley carried out their famous experiment using an interferometer to determine the absolute speed of the Earth. They tried to measure differences in the speed of light for two mutually perpendicular directions but their results always came out close to zero. Then with the advent of Special Relativity the fate of the ether seemed sealed forever. Einstein's main postulate stated that light has the same speed for all observers. This fitted in with the experimental finding but was incompatible with the very existence of an Ether.
Unfortunately this incompatibility extends to any kind of background medium, even the so-called, "space" on which quantum theory depends. The latter postulates of a seething mass of "virtual particles" as required for generating the force of nature. They form a substrate, rather like a gas, so it must have fluid properties - totally unlike the concept of a rigid
ether.
If now an observer called "A" is at rest in this fluid, light will be observed moving through the fluid. However, Special Relativity, demands than an observer "B" in the space-ship, will see the same speed of light as observer A: it would appear different if, relative to B, light was propagating through a fluid moving past a high speed. This just has to be the basic reason for a remarkable admission made by Professor Stephen Hawking in this popularisation (5). He said on page 11 that Relativity and Quantum theories are, "known to be inconsistent with each other - they cannot both be correct".
So what is the point of still going on trying to match these two so-called "pillars of twentieth century achievement in physics"? (After more than sixty years of effort!)
Fortunately recent developments to be described have shown the most of the remarkable mathematics of relativity theory can be retained, even when its basis assumptions have been drastically modified - as required. It will be shown that a background fluid, to be called the "iether" (meaning "intelligent ether" to distinguish it from other descriptions of an all-permeating background medium which generates matter), has to exist which can satisfy all the apparently conflicting observations just as well as relativity. A quantum-based theory of gravitation now appears, however, which then enables a grand unification of all four forces of Nature to be presented for critical analysis. Such unification has been the "Holy Grail" of physicists for more than a century, but with this solution appears with a bonus: consciousness appears as a property of the iether and paranormal and spiritual aspects are predicted as potentially real effects, not just illusions! Furthermore no change is required to any of the QED or QCD theories, which describe electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force respectively.
It is worth noting that Richard Milton, writing in the Mensa Magazine dated March 1977, describes the conclusions reached by Paul Dirac, Andrea Sakharov, Louis de Brogile and David Bohm: all Nobel Nauretes. These famous physicists all pleaded, for a resurrection of the ether as a fluid!
The present theory leads to a solution showing that the iether is essential, having a complex yet fluid structure and being the only thing which really does exist. As will be shown, it is like a neural network with its own built-in power supply. It is capable of acting as a vast memory complex and has all the ingredients needed for its evolution as a conscious entity. According to the new approach, it is this primary consciousness which structures matter. It does so by the intelligent use of quantum waves of real energy which it generates.
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