Chapter Summaries
The Unreal Universe is organized in four parts. The first
part looks at our notions of time and space using
interesting examples from neuroscience and physics. Moving
on to the philosophy of reality, it briefly discusses the
Zen and Hindu lines of thinking and shows how their view is
mirrored in modern sciences. The second part examines the
interplay between reality and physics. It starts with a
conceptual recap of modern physics and answers the question
why light is so important in our space and time. The
concluding third part summarizes the different ideas
presented in the book. It winds up with a collection of
interesting tidbits about physics, philosophy, evolutionary
biology and neuroscience, which may inspire the reader to
think further along the general theme of the
book—accepting no assumptions without questioning,
and doubting everything, including reality. The fourth part
is an appendix where the ideas in the third part are
presented with technical details. The chapters in the four
parts are briefly described below.
Part I
Perception and Reality
According to cognitive neuroscience, our perceptual
experience of reality is only a distant and convenient
mapping of our sensory inputs. Sound is a mapping of
auditory inputs, and space is a representation of visual
inputs. How space and time are “unreal” from
this point of view is the subject matter of the first part
of the book. It examines the unrealness of reality and
looks at the philosophical basis of physics and knowledge.
The most important message of this part is how the modern
scientific realization of the nature of reality as a
representation of our sensory inputs was known for
thousands of years in philosophy. This interplay between
ancient philosophy and modern neuroscience is further
highlighted in the chapters examining the ingredients that
make up reality.
In the opening chapter, the philosophical foundations to
our knowledge are introduced. These foundations are
assumptions in most cases. Some of the assumptions,
especially the ones in physics, are not difficult to spot.
Others that pertain to the nature of reality itself are far
trickier to appreciate. These elusive assumptions include
the existence of time and space, for instance. The realness
of reality is not merely a philosophical issue; it is a
subject matter of cognitive neuroscience as well. Once the
issue of reality gets back to the realm of science, it
becomes something that physics has to describe. Physics, in
turn, is erected on the philosophical assumptions on the
existence of time and space. This overlap among seemingly
distinct domains is reflected in the chapter flow of the
book.
We can logically accept the virtual nature of time because
we have no direct sensory mechanism to sense or perceive
it. Despite this glaring absence, we do have a strong sense
of time that plays a crucial role in every conscious
decision we make in our lives. In this chapter, we argue
that the reason for the existence of time is our knowledge
of our finite life-span. We illustrate this argument by
mapping the history of the universe to forty-five years.
This mapping also shows how our physics of the universe is
an ambitious extrapolation from a very short span of
knowledge to incredibly long time scales. Physics has
multiple notions of time—Newton’s constant time
and Einstein’s malleable time. The difference between
these notions of time is indicative of its unreal nature.
Time is unreal the same way as mathematics is unreal; they
are both products of our intellect. And philosophically,
they can both be thought of as formal languages.
3. Unreal Space (13 pages, 95 cents)
Unlike time, space does have a sensory correlate. Our
perception of space is the end-result of our most precious
sense, namely sight. For this reason, the unreal nature of
space is not as obvious as that of time. In this chapter,
we take a quick look at how sight works from the
perspective of neuroscience. In particular, we study the
cases where tiny physiological defects manifest themselves
as drastic disorders in visual perception. How sight
creates space is analogous to how hearing creates sound.
Sound is not the intrinsic property of a vibrating body,
but our cognitive representation of the air pressure waves
our ears sense. In an exact parallel, space is our visual
reality, or the cognitive representation of the light
inputs to our eyes. It is no more real than sound or smell.
Or time.
4. Pillars of Reality (15 pages, 95 cents)
Discussing the nature of reality has the curious effect of
casting doubt on its realness. In this chapter, we look at
the different pillars on which reality rests. Our senses
provide the inputs to the brain, which creates a cognitive
model that we think of as reality. The cognitive model
heavily depends on the other “software” running
on the brain, namely consciousness, language and memory. In
the absence of consciousness, reality has little
significance. Similarly, if the brain does not have a
language apparatus to process thoughts, reality cannot be
created. Memory is the last essential support to our sense
of reality. What does it mean to say something happened if
nobody can remember it? An interesting and important aspect
of the brain is that it always tries to create a reality
that best fits the sensory inputs, resolving any possible
sensory conflicts.
5. Philosophy of Reality (13 pages, 95 cents)
The suspicion, or the conviction, that reality is not all
that real existed in different branches of philosophy, both
Western and Eastern. In this chapter, we take a quick look
at these philosophies. The Indian and the Zen spiritual
lines of philosophy view our senses and mind as actual
impediments to an intuitive understanding of the absolute
reality behind our experiences. Western philosophy, on the
other hand, treats the nature of reality and knowledge as
the formal lines of metaphysics and epistemology. Western
philosophy also provides the basis of scientific realism in
modern physics.
Part II
Reality and Physics
The physics part of the book starts with a conceptual
description of three aspects of modern physics, the special
theory of relativity, particle physics and cosmology.
Looking at reality as a cognitive model distorted by the
finite speed of light yields a compellingly simple
understanding of the special theory of relativity. It also
provides simple explanations for a host of astrophysical
and cosmological phenomena at vastly different time and
length scales. All these explanations are presented in this
part with no mathematics or technical details, but with the
help of numerous diagrams and examples.
6. Physics Primer (21 pages, 95 cents)
In this first chapter on physics, we look at three branches
of modern physics. These are (1) the special theory of
relativity dealing with objects at high speeds, (2)
particle physics dealing with very small length scales and
(3) cosmology and astrophysics, dealing with various
phenomena in our universe. The common thread binding these
different branches is that they all deal with physics beyond
the ranges of our senses. Extrapolating physics from our
reality to what lies beyond our senses involves deep
philosophical assumptions. This chapter uncovers the
philosophical basis of modern physics. It shows how
scientific realism is the philosophical stance adopted in
modern physics and how another stance is possible. This new
stance is based on the notion from neuroscience that our
reality is our brain’s creation, almost identical to
the Zen and Hindu view of the world.
7. Why the Speed of Light? (8 pages, 95 cents)
Once we adopt the philosophical stance of reality as our
brain’s creation, we can understand why the speed of
light figures so prominently in our physical theories. The
theories of physics are a description of reality. Reality
is created out of the readings from our senses. Our senses
all work at the speed of light. Thus the sanctity accorded
to the speed of light is a feature only of our reality, not
the absolute, ultimate reality which our senses are
striving to perceive.
8. Perception and Special Relativity (19 pages, 95 cents)
In this chapter, we look at our perception of moving
objects. First, we look at echolocation as an
“inferior” sense modality operating at a slower
speed. This study will show how the speed of the sense
modality influences the perception of motion. From this
understanding, we will see that all the strange effects of
the coordinate transformation in special relativity can be
understood as the manifestations of the finite speed of our
senses in our space and time. When it comes to the
phenomena that happen well beyond our sensory ranges, we
really have to take into account the role that our
perception and cognition play in seeing them. The universe
as we see it is only a cognitive model created out of the
photons falling on our retina or on the photo-sensors of
the Hubble telescope. Because of the finite speed of the
information carrier (namely photons), our perception is
distorted in such a way as to give us the impression that
space and time obey special relativity. They do, but space
and time are not the absolute reality. They are only a part
of the unreal universe that is our perception of an
unknowable reality.
9. Beyond Special Relativity. . . (19 pages, 95 cents)
After showing that special relativity applies to the
cognitive model created by the brain, we will ponder over
the physical causes behind the model, the absolute reality
itself. It may be possible to guess the nature of the
absolute reality and work out how we would perceive it. We
will show how this line of thinking explains certain
phenomena that have been puzzling scientists for a while.
These phenomena include symmetric radio jets and gamma ray
bursts from astrophysics. We also end up with a
conceptually elegant resolution of the twin paradox and the
issue of causality violation in superluminal motion.
Part III
Summing Up. . .
After summarizing the different ideas presented so far, the
book winds up with a collection of possibly unrelated, but
interesting, thoughts. They are presented as a kind of
intellectual dessert, which may inspire further thinking.
10. Last Words (9 pages, 95 cents)
Summarizing the different thoughts presented in the book, we
highlight how the nature of the absolute reality is really
beyond our grasp and that the choice of accepting the
perception of reality as a true image of reality is indeed
a philosophical stance. The alternative presented in the
book, namely guessing the nature of the absolute reality
and comparing its predicted projection to our real
perception, may simplify and elucidate some theories in
physics and explain some puzzling phenomena. However, this
option is just another philosophical stance against the
unknowable absolute reality. We also show how different
levels of possibly conflicting views of reality may coexist
in our minds, giving us physical theories that are in
conflict with each other. General relativity and quantum
mechanics are examples of such conflicting theories, which
are descriptions of realities beyond different limits of our
senses. Due to this difference in their origin, their
unification may prove impossible, unless we are willing to
tolerate more arbitrary assumptions and complex
mathematics.
11. Random Thoughts (18 pages, 95 cents)
In this concluding chapter, the reader is presented with a
bunch of interesting thought exercises. It includes a game
where the book tries to predict the level of reader’s
faith in a supreme being by testing how left or
right-brained the reader is. It also mulls over such
desultory topics as the universality of mathematics, the
logic of evolution, the nature of gravity, and the shape of
Yin and Yang. How every conscious being is at the center of
the universe, its own personal unreal universe, is another
piece of ancient wisdom that our sciences are now
converging to. The book concludes with a discussion on how
the concept of God is not in conflict with physics, for
there is plenty of room beyond the limits of our knowledge
for a plausible God.
Part IV
Appendix—Physics Details
This appendix of the book gives technical details of the
conceptual picture drawn in the preceding parts. This is
the only part of the book that has equations. The equations
and their derivation substantiate the claims made earlier
and illustrated textually using examples. In addition to
the mathematical details, this part also includes a chapter
on the future directions and projects that may be taken up
by the author or other scientists.
A. Perceptual Relativity (21 pages, 95 cents)
In this chapter, we compare special relativity to the
so-called light travel time effect. This is mathematically
rigorous description of the previous chapter,
“Perception and Special Relativity.” The
overlap between the chapters, however, is kept to a minimum
by using different examples and a different, more technical
level of presentation. This chapter also presents two
cosmological features of our observed universe that can be
understood in terms of the light travel time effects. These
features are the apparent expansion of the universe and the
cosmic microwave background radiation.
B. Unreal Astrophysics (23 pages, 95 cents)
Here we present a unified kinematical model for
double-lobed symmetric radio sources and gamma ray bursts
in the light of how we perceive motion. Gamma ray bursts
can be viewed as an effect similar to the sonic boom in
supersonic motion. The auditory world has another effect
analogous to the radio sources. The model will show how
these two phenomena are related. All the technical details
of the model and comparisons between its predictions and
observations are presented. The mathematical details are
moved to a chapter appendix so that the main body of the
chapter can be read without distractions.
C. Future Work (12 pages, 95 cents)
The chapter on possible future projects is a challenge to
any reader who may want to pursue our line of thinking.
These are also projects that the author himself may take up
either as thought exercises or future books, circumstances
permitting. The projects listed are:
- Simulation of the observed redshift
- Celestial velocity distribution that explains the
observed cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR)
- Similarities between black holes and superluminal
explosions
- Alternate explanations of Michelson-Morley Experiment
- Quasi-linear formulation of the light travel time
effects
- Treating the covariance of Maxwell's equations
- Integration of special relativity in general relativity
- Determination of the dimensionality of
“space” in the absolute reality
The Rest
Front and Back Matters
Front Matter (22 pages, 95 cents)
The Front Matter of the book consists of the following:
- Front cover
- Title and Half-Title pages
- Copyright and prolog
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Introduction
Back Matter (31 pages, 95 cents)
The Back Matter of the book consists of the following:
- Chapter Summaries (this page)
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Further Reading Suggestions
- Index
- Credits
- Back Cover
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