In the last issue we examined the history of scientific theory development from man's realization that Isaiah 1:18 claims that God is reasonable and not emotional. But whereas Western science was founded on reason, science today is as far from reason as it can go and still pretend to be science. Today science is political and, by definition, politicians look out for their own interests, not the interests of the truth, justice, or even their constituents. A person who looks after the interests of his constituents is known as a statesman, never a politician. Scientists today chiefly protect their own turf, their own pet theories; they have no need of the truth.

Beyond that, we looked at the foundations of quantum mechanics and how it does or does not conform to the Bible. In this paper we shall examine a field which used to be called “Axiomatic Field Theory” but which is now just known as “Field Theory.” We shall not concern ourselves with gauge theories or anything so physical. Instead, we shall examine the nature, the space of theories.

Why theorize?

Why do humans construct theories? We erroneously assume that only scientists construct theories but everyone constructs theories. We devise theories in order to model the world around us. For example, businesses have theories about the environment in which they function. The set of theories used to manage a business is called a management information system. We construct theories about what is important to our family and friends, about how our behavior affects them, and how we can “get ahead” in our respective jobs.

The common denominator in all theories is the unknown, a point of ignorance. We cannot build a theory about something we know and understand, instead, we build theories to explain things we don't know. A theory, then, is a structure of descriptive language which serves to describe a problem in such a way as to suggest a solution to that problem. Typically a theory will include a set of assumptions and a set of principles which are thought to be relevant to solving the problem. We also throw in a set of rules which allow us to analyze, predict, or explain the nature or behavior of a thing or process. In field theory, this area of ignorance is called a vacuum state. So in its most elementary definition, a theory is a structure built about a vacuum state, built about a lack of knowledge.

Elements of structure

We may construct theories about things which are testable. If a hypothesis is not testable, it cannot be a theory. So there has to be some connection between the vacuum state (our state of ignorance) and reality or existence, which is truth. In quantum field theory the connection is called a coupling constant. One may view these constants as if they were a handle by which the physical world can grasp or trace the form of the vacuum state.

Allow me to illustrate this with a familiar example. Newton's equation for the gravitational force is:

Now mass, here represented by M₁ and M₂, can be measured; and we can also measure the distance between two bodies, R. Even the force, F, can be measured. But how do we measure the gravitational constant, G? ”Oh,” the casual reader will say, “that's been done many times in the lab.” In a sense that is true, but what we actually measure are the force, the two masses, and their separations, and the we assume the equation to be true and from that infer the value of G. We don't have a scale on which we can measure G by itself, without having to measure any of the other parameters. G is thus a constant of proportionality. G embodies everything about which we are ignorant when it comes to understanding gravitational force. For that reason it is called a fundamental constant, because it cannot be further broken down.

Consider the units of G. We know that mass is measured in pounds or grams, and distance is measured in centimeters or feet; and even though dynes and poundals sound strange to our ears, we do have some sense of force from the world around us: but the units of G are cm³ gm^-1 sec^-2, which could be one divided by density and an area of time. Or it could be an area times acceleration per mass. Or, perhaps, it's the square of the speed, times distance divided by mass. Confused? Welcome to the club. Do you see how G embodies everything we don't know about gravity? Effectively G is a coupling constant.

Well, that's all fine and dandy for a simple formula such as that for the force of gravity, but how does that lay claim to the grandiose title of a theory of theories? To see that we need to look at equations in a different way. Instead of an equation being some mirror of reality, consider it as a statement about reality. Depending on our choice of words, statements may be absolutely true, partially true, or absolutely false. The same holds for equations. With this view in mind, we see that a theory is framed around a vacuum state, a point of ignorance. And we can label the structures used to build that frame. These structures are the same ones recognized in the frontiers of structural linguistics, namely, sentences (statements), paragraphs, chapters, volumes, etc. But to structural linguistics, as was also true in physics, there is a vacuum state underlying the linguistic framework.

The shape of ignorance

According to structural linguistics, there is no linguistic element in the vacuum state itself. In this claim the field of linguistics agrees with physics. But is a state of ignorance really a vacuum state?

There is only one reason to construct a theory and that is to fill a point of ignorance with some structure which will conform to the shape of the vacuum state. We start the process by stating the problem which expresses our lack of knowledge. That is, we utter expressions which delineate the shape of the vacuum state. Eventually these expressions become numerous enough that we can recognize the form of the problem. Once that is done, we can make a formal statement of the problem.

Now an expression is an element of a greater structure called a formula . The formula may be expressed mathematically or it may be expressed in the form of a recipe or instructions. The act of expressing the nature of the problem causes the size of the vacuum state to decrease. That is, as we learn more about the problem, the size of the problem decreases. The structure which occupies the space which previously belonged to the vacuum state is called a theory. The framework of the theory itself consists of smaller structures such as lemmas, hypotheses, axioms, theorems, and assumptions. Once the hole of ignorance is filled to the theoretician's satisfaction, the theory is deemed complete and tested. Ideally, if there is one test which runs contrary to the theory the theory is falsified, but in practice, science falsely so-called adds more theoretical structures to force a fit. As long as such additional structures don't violate reason, there is no great problem with the addition of hypotheses and so forth; but there is a point beyond which reason will not hold, and the theory, totally falsified, passes into absurdity.

As an example of a theory which passed into absurdity, consider the theory of social evolution, of which socialism and communism are examples. The underlying assumption of that theory is that there is no God. Since Western morality is the foundation of Western civilization, and since Western morality is founded on the Judeo-Christian God, clearly, if there is no God, then Western civilization is based on a lie. We saw last quarter, in an article called “The Killing Fields,”¹ that science is based on the observation that God is reasonable (Is. 1:18). Once upon a time, God was in his heaven and man was down on earth, but now, because of the atheistic paradigm of the Occidental intelligentia, man is in heaven and God is down-right detrimental, an enemy of society, the supreme enemy of the theory of social evolution.

Despite the great learning of the last century, social science, cannot account for much of human social behavior. It assumes that man is basically good, but then cannot account for evil. If man is basically good, but society is evil, then the theory is falsified, for society consists of these ”good” men. In other words, reason would say that if man is basically good, then society should also be basically good. But all the evils which befall men are blamed, by the social Darwinists, on society, without holding men accountable as individuals. So social Darwinism is falsified, but rather than abandon it, the social Darwinists are starting to call evil good (e.g., sodomites are “good,” “straights” are “homophobes;” liberals are good, conservatives are bad, etc.)

The theory of social evolution has passed into the absurd. It is now held held as an absolute truth that there are no absolute truths. This follows from the fact that God is truth, as the Bible plainly teaches. So the Bible is deemed subversive and is to be suppressed. Likewise, those who believe the Bible must also be suppressed. That is why the lesbian U.S. Attorney General, Janet Reno, has added Christian fundamentalist to the list of terrorists. The truth terrifies the “Duchess of Doom,” Janet Reno and her paramours.

Another example of a theory passing into absurdity can be drawn from quantum theory. Quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity have great trouble with each other. The greatest challenge to cosmologists today is how to incorporate Einstein's theory of relativity into the structures which make up the fabric of the universe, namely, superstrings and twistors. Somehow relativity does not seem to fit into the picture. How is this an example of absurdity? Because when one deals with the fabric of space, that is when one deals with the firmament, one deals with absolute properties. It is the firmament which dictates the physics of the universe. That is an absolute property. But relativity denies any such absolutes. On the day-to-day scale, or on the scale of stars, this is not a severe problem, but it is a major problem on the supersmall and superlarge scales.2 The absurdity lies in that cosmologists such as Stephen Hawkins and Roger Penrose are trying to force macroscopic (large-scale) behaviors onto the microscopic realm. It does not and cannot work. All that will happen is that each refinement of the theory will yield more and different paradoxes.

Significantly, this conclusion was reached by David Bohm in his ”hidden-variable” version of quantum theory back in 1952. In his model a condition called “non-locality” exists at the ultra-small scale, and, if non-locality exists for individual events, then relativity breaks down at that level. In Bohm's version of quantum mechanics, which this author tends to favor among the existing models, there is no room for the claim that probabilities are the essence of quantum theory. Instead, the fabric of space exhibits non-locality. In the firmament model this is accounted for by the fantastically high speed of “sound” (10¹⁰⁷ cm/sec).

Having examined these two examples of how a theory can become absurd and unreasonable by the addition of unwarranted hypothesis, let us return to the shape of the vacuum state. At this point we envision the vacuum state as a three-dimensional hole about which is erected a linguistic structure which outlines the problem. Suspended from the lin guistic description of the problem, is the theory, which is designed to decrease the size of the hole by filling it with true statements. The great mystery in structural linguistics today is just what is the structure which will ultimately fill the hole? In other words, is there a hole so small that no smaller hole is possible? The answer is “yes.” In physics that hole is known by various names such as Planck particle, maximon, vacuum state fluctuation, and virtual particle, just to name a few. Look for anything smaller and one finds no smaller particles, only the properties of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. This is exactly what we find in Hebrews 1:3 when we read:

Who [Jesus] being the brightness of his [God's] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. [Emphasis added.]

And with that we find the solution to structural linguistic's question of the smallest hole. The smallest linguistic structure is the word. Without the word, only ignorance remains; and that is the shape of ignorance.

The confluence of theories

If the above analysis is correct, then all human knowledge should come into focus on the word. We've already seen that physics and linguistics do converge at this point. By now it should also be obvious to the Bible reader that Christianity also converges at this point. It is here, at the level of the Word that all truth is found.

Now it is politically correct these days to say that all the world's religions lead to the same truth, that all lead to the same god. But that is absolutely not true. Of all the world's religions, only the God of the Bible knows and did proclaim this truth millennia ago (John 1:1 vf.). Only the Christian God proclaims that the truth lays in the word, indeed, that the word is intelligent and alive. No other religion knows this. Thus Christianity, true, biblical Christianity, is the true religion.

So, what other fields of knowledge come into focus at the word of God? Among the others is computer and information science, history, sociology although at present sociology is totally corrupted by atheism, cosmology and genetics. There may be others of which I am not aware, but most of the ones not mentioned are disciplines which are incomplete or are totally evolutionary and thus totally imaginary.

At this point we have a theory about particular theories, but there is more. There is such a thing as a space of theories which takes into consideration competing, equal theories, contradictory theories, and problematic theories. We shall look at this aspect in the third and final installment of our look at a theory of theories.

The surface of a vacuum state is represented in this figure by a shaded surface. Each of the lines stemming from the surface of the figure represent a statement about the problem by touching on it and making a point. That point is represented by the dot in the middle of the line. If the statement is a true statement, then the point at which it touches the surface is called a coupling constant. If the statement is false, the statement is free to float away from the surface, tilt on the surface, or even to lie on it. If the statement's point lies on the surface (the statement being tangential to the surface) it is called a lie. Indeed, the line shown curving from lower left to upper right is called the “locus of dynamical instability.” Points and statements on that line have no unique truth value but may be ambiguous or have several true points. (The other line, the locus of symmetry about which more next time.) — Based on a figure by A. S. Wightman, Physics Today, Sept. 1969, p. 58.