The power of imagination to unlock the secrets of our universe is immense however; we should look to our experiences for guidance when using it to define nature.
The reason why can be understood by examining how an architect designs a building.
When an architect imagines a new building he uses his experiences with the structural properties of existing ones to give his imagination as reference point for its design. He knows that without it, it would be very difficult for his imagination to create one with a solid foundation.
However, many scientists define the physical structure of their theoretical models on abstract mathematical equations that are not defined by their observational experiences. For example, the “General Theory of Relativity” extrapolates three-dimensional observations of gravity to a four-dimensional space-time universe.
However, one of the most persistent and repeatable observations regarding time is that we do not directly perceived or experienced it as matter or space with physical properties; but only as an irreversible physical, chemical, or biological change in physical space.
Therefore, to define a space-time universe we must use our imagination to not only to understand how the properties of three spatial dimensions can interact and fuse with a time dimension but also to understand its physical properties because no one has observed or experience them.
In an earlier article “Experiences” 24 Aug 2007 it was shown why our theoretical models should be based, in part on our experiences because it would minimize the probability of our imagination creating one based on an incorrect assumption
Imagination is a very powerful tool that can help us understand our universe but, in science its use should be limited to extrapolating our observable experiences to the unobservable because it would give the theoretical models based on it a solid foundation in reality.
In future articles, we will show how one can extrapolate his or her experiences in our three-dimensional world to one of four *spatial* dimensions to provide a logically consistent explanation the observations that today’s paradigms cannot like the causality of Dark Energy.
So please visit this blog occasionally if you are interested in continuing an imaginative trip through the reality of our experiences into the realm of the unknown and unobservable
Jeff
Copyright 2007 Jeffrey O’Callaghan