By Jaime S. Carvalho
Life: its physics and dynamics
From stars to societies: a process in time
The force behind existence: toward a new biology
A physical principle of universal order: its significance
for humanity
Dedication
To the young minds of this century,
with the hope of recognizing and expanding the
Unitary Field Theory, the core of this work.
Epigraph
The province of science is to serve the people.
– Leo Tolstoy
Introduction
Over the last 200 years, humanity has been guided by Newtonian principles derived from the observation of the motion of planets that are simple, stable, and by human standards permanent systems. They are also reversible: that is, indifferent to time. The laws of motion that followed were appropriately expressed by quantities.
Newton’s static concepts went on to influence not only science but social life as well, directly through their technological applications and indirectly through their effects on thought in general. Quantity influenced social, political, intellectual, ethical, even economical, actions. With time, however, it became increasingly clear that concepts based on quantity were not applicable to our intellectual systems.
Further scientific progress, still based on static concepts, brought to light relativity theory and quantum mechanics, the first applicable to the macrolevel of stars and planets and the latter to the microlevel of atoms. Neither of these theories that constitute the basis of present science could explain the level in between, the world of organisms made up of molecules, macromolecules, and cells. The organized complexity of the living systems was out of their scope.
Meanwhile, the concept of permanence had gained support from the historical experiments of Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) on chemical reactions, which led him to enunciate the principle of conservation of mass, the zeroth law, which became the basis of modern biology.
The reason why present science cannot explain the behavior of our mental systems is that they are not static. They are continually changing, but not arbitrarily. There is an inherent kind of order in them. Systems behaving this way are called process systems.
Historically, the concept of process, of order within change, has been difficult to grasp by minds accustomed to think and speak in static terms. Its understanding has escaped the thought of philosophers and scientists for millennia.
The scientific explanation of this order was only achieved in the last century. It is described in the Unitary Field Theory of Whyte and Baranski. The elucidation of this order, which ultimately emanates from the basic field constituting the universe, forms the framework of this book.
Unitary theory is built de novo, from concepts different from those of classical physics. It is not grounded on numbers, which do not exist in nature, but on qualitative structural relations—of parts to parts, of parts to wholes, of thoughts to thoughts, of persons to persons, of children to parents, and so on. It is thus applicable to all four realms—physical, organic, psychological, and social. It is a true general theory of space and time, which contains in itself all existent partial theories and is therefore capable of unifying all knowledge.
While in classical physics and in thermodynamics energy flows, in unitary science it is embedded in structure in the form of asymmetrical relations—of position, orientation, translation, etc. Structural asymmetry thus corresponds to free energy.
The new scientific theory adopts as causal relation not the equality of cause and effect but its inequality. It does not admit conservations of any kind. In any structural transformation, there is always some loss of energy. The infinitesimally small mass of the lost energy from reactants to products could not possibly be detected even by the sophisticated balances constructed by Lavoisier.
The unitary field is considered to be a structured field, made up of tridimensional polarized structures or particles, all asymmetrical. These structures have an inherent tendency to slide, irreversibly, to more symmetrical, or ordered, forms. This formative process is time-requiring and implies some loss of structural asymmetry. The newly formed structures are then repolarized by the action of the field as a whole.
All existing structures inorganic and organic were formed by a series of structural transformations involving cooperation of parts to form wholes, hierarchical order, and development. A process of ordering runs from the physical universe to organisms and to minds.
By connecting human nature to physical nature, unitary science assumes a special significance. Its principles, though scientific in form, have immediate ethical and social implications when applied to human affairs. By their cooperative character, they tend to bring together cultures based on contrasted traditions and principles. As individuals, humans understand themselves better and know how they must think and act.
It is a balanced and humane science capable of maintaining in check the unbalanced and overtechnological one now in existence, with its anti-humane and degrading tendencies.
Unitary theory, the most general theory ever conceived, represents a fundamental change in theoretical physics. Its profound implications are a challenge to physicists and mathematicians alike. Regrettably, its acceptance by institutional physics continues to be delayed.
On account of its objective truth and extreme simplicity, it should be widely accepted by people. It would then serve as the instrument of a universal human society in the process of development.
1. Order in physical nature
Our relation to the world surrounding us is very peculiar. From the surface of earth we can take the outsider’s view of stars and planets, but not of the universe as a whole. We live inside the universe and cannot step outside to take a good look at it. Humans are just limited to what the universe allows them to observe. This unique situation lies outside the scope of the scientific method of investigation. Can we ever truly understand how the universe works?
With observation at its base, the present scientific method uses numbers and quantities to describe and measure what is observed—size of stars, speed of light, weight of atoms. But there are two problems with this approach: numbers do not exist in nature, and structure is not wholly quantitative.
All existing physical laws were deducted by the physicists who have made measurements in a certain way and arrived at specific conclusions through the application of mathematical and statistical methods, based on numbers. Physical laws are thus intellectual abstractions and not laws directly derived from nature. In other words, our knowledge of the universe was constructed by the physicists in order to understand the world. It may or may not correspond to reality. Physical laws are not natural laws.
At present state of knowledge, we have two major physical theories describing the workings of the universe: quantum mechanics and general relativity, the first applicable to the atomic and subatomic realm and the other to the astronomical realm. These theories were derived from very different assumptions, and attempts to unify them by mathematical means have been unsuccessful. Single reality continues divided into two irreconcilable parts.
It is the quantum viewpoint that we must accept as a basic fact an uncertainty principle and the notion that the laws of nature are inherently statistical. Relativity theory, in turn, asserts that we can perceive instantaneous coincidences and assumes the reversibility of the physical laws. Our world, however, does not behave this way. Nature is not probabilistic, all our experiences require a certain amount of time, and natural laws do not appear to be reversible. It is a fact of life that we grow older with time and never get younger and in metabolism, carbon