The Perfect Cosmic Balance Foreordained from the Very Beginning

The very readable cosmologist Ethan Siegel has a long-running "Ask Ethan" series of posts that are sometimes characterized by explanatory overconfidence, in which Ethan often acts as if he understands great mysteries that are actually far beyond the understanding of any human. An example is his latest post in the series in which he incorrectly states that "we know what makes up the Universe — i.e., what our ratios are of dark energy to dark matter to normal matter." No, we don't know any such things, and no one has ever even directly observed dark matter or dark energy, which don't even have any place in the standard model of physics.  We don't even know whether dark matter or dark energy exists.  I wish I had a nickel for every time a scientist said "we know" about some thing that is not actually known; I'd be rich. 

Siegel's latest post in this series is a post raising the question "Why Is the Universe Electrically Neutral?"  There is a kind of a half-answer to this question: the universe is electrically neutral because  from the very beginning there has been a law of nature (the law of  conservation of charge) that guarantees electrical neutrality in any universe beginning in an incredibly hot and dense state such as the Big Bang.  But this is only a half-answer, because there is no known intrinsic reason why such a law had to exist from the beginning.  Rather than explaining how this law foreordained an electrically neutral universe from the beginning,  Siegel refers us to speculative papers he has written that do not give us the main reason the universe is electrically neutral. 

When a person refers to the electrical neutrality of the universe, he means the apparent fact that the total amount of positive electric charge in the universe seems to be equal to the total amount of negative electric charge in the universe. At the lowest level, such electric charges are found in protons and electrons.  

Below are some of the fundamental constants of the universe, numbers that are believed to be the same everywhere in the universe:

Speed of light	299,792,458 meters per second
Planck's constant	6.62607004 × 10-34 m2 kg / s
Gravitational constant	6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2
Proton mass	1.6726231 × 10-27 kg
Electron mass	9.1093897 × 10-31 kg
Proton charge	1.60217733 × 10-19 coulomb
Electron charge	-1.60217733 × 10-19 coulomb

The table below shows a a great big coincidence scientists cannot explain. Even though each proton has a mass 1836 times greater than each electron, the charge of the proton is the exact opposite of the charge of the electron. An absolute magnitude is a number that you get when you discard the sign in front of the number. Experiments have actually indicated that the absolute magnitude of the proton charge and the absolute magnitude of the electron charge differ by less than 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000.

RATIO OF PROTON MASS TO ELECTRON MASS
1836.152672
RATIO OF PROTON CHARGE TO ELECTRON CHARGE
-1.000000000000000000

A physicist might try to offer an "explanation" for this coincidence by referring to the idea that protons are made of smaller particles called quarks. The theory is that each proton consists of three particles: two "up" quarks with a positive charge of 2/3 of the proton's charge, and one "down" quark with a negative charge of 1/3 of the proton's charge.  But this really only worsens the explanatory problem. Under such a scheme we have not just one very precise electric charge coincidence in the fundamental constants of nature, but two such coincidences:

(1) The coincidence that the absolute value of the proton charge has always been very precisely equal to the absolute value of the electron charge;

(2) the coincidence that the absolute value of the up quark has always been very precisely twice the absolute value of the down quark. 

Doubling the number of very precise coincidences isn't really anything in the way of explanation. In the informative and entertaining book We Have No Idea by physics professor Daniel Whiteson and Jorge Cham, on page 54 the authors state this:

"If the quarks had any more (or less charge), then the charge of protons wouldn't precisely balance the negative charge of the electron, and you couldn't form stable neutral atoms. Without these perfect -1/3 and + 2/3 charges, we wouldn't be here. There would be no chemistry, no biology and no life."

But is there any explanation for this? Apparently not, because the authors next state this:

"This is actually fascinating (or creepy, depending on your level of paranoia) because, according to our current theory, particles can have any charges whatsoever; the theory works just as well with any charge value, and the fact they balance perfectly is, as far as we know, a huge and lucky coincidence."

Life could have existed if protons and electrons both had some different charge, but only if the proton charge was the exact opposite of the electron charge. The situation is illustrated in the diagram below (when reading the diagram, imagine that the green line is less than a billionth of the width of the square):

As far as we know, our planet has an equal number of protons and electrons, and our planet is electrically neutral, having an equal amount of positive charge and negative charge. Given that electromagnetism is a force very roughly a hundred trillion trillion trillion times stronger than gravity (the force that holds our planet together), it seems that even the tiniest imbalance (such as 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000) between the proton charge and the electron charge would result in an electrical imbalance strong enough to prevent a planet such as ours from holding together.  

On page 64 of his book The Symbiotic Universe, astronomer George Greenstein (a professor emeritus at Amherst College) says this about the equality of the proton and electron charges: 

"Relatively small things like stones, people, and the like would fly apart if the two charges differed by as little as one part in 100 billion. Large structures like the Earth and the Sun require for their existence a yet more perfect balance of one part in a billion billion." 

You can read the quote above in its original context using this link.

In fact, experiments do indicate that the absolute value of the charge of the proton and the electron match to fifteen decimal places, differing by less than one part in a million billion (1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000). 

Scientifically speaking, what kind of explanation can be given for this equality of positive charge and negative charge in the universe? The only thing that can be offered is a kind of half-explanation: a reference to a law of nature. The law is called the law of  conservation of charge. According to the law of conservation of charge, any event that causes an increase in electrical charge must also cause a corresponding decrease in electrical charge; and any event that causes a decrease in electrical charge must also cause a corresponding increase in electrical charge.

The best way to illustrate this law is to refer to the high-energy collisions that occur in particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider.  In that massive machine, particles are accelerated to almost the speed of light. When two very high-energy particles collide at such speeds, they create mainly out of energy new matter particles such as protons and electrons. Following Einstein's famous equaion of E=mc², energy can be converted to matter, and vice versa. But following the law of conservation of charge, nature always "balances the books" so that the number of protons created equals the number of electrons created.  For example, if a high-energy collision creates 1000 new protons mainly from energy, then also exactly 1000 new electrons are created. And if a more energetic high-energy collision creates 8338 protons from energy, then also exactly 8338 electrons are created. 

Given such a law of nature, and a universe beginning in an extremely dense and hot state such as the Big Bang, electrical neutrality follows as a consequence. In the earliest moments of the Big Bang, the universe was so hot and dense that everything was like the high-energy collisions occurring in the Large Hadron Collider.  With a "balance the books" charge conservation law being followed everywhere, it was inevitable that the result would be an equal amount of positive charge and negative charge.  But this is merely a kind of half-explanation.  For we do not understand why such a law existed. 

Brittanica.com states the law of conservation of charge as the law that "at a subatomic level, charged particles can be created, but always in pairs with equal positive and negative charge so that the total amount of charge always remains constant." It describes this rather intricate "balance the books" system within nature:

"When a charged particle changes into a new particle, the new particle inherits the exact charge of the original. When a charged particle appears where there was none before, it is invariably accompanied by another particle of equal and opposite charge, so that no net change in charge occurs. The annihilation of a charged particle requires the joint annihilation of a particle of equal and opposite charge. "

Brittanica.com mentions mentions three other conservation laws, saying, "The laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum are all derived from classical mechanics." But no such claim is made about the law of conservation of charge. There would seem be no contradiction if no such law existed, and we should not expect any such law of the conservation of charge to exist in a random universe.  

The term "law of the conservation of charge" is something of a misnomer, because charge itself is not conserved.  Over billions of years, stars convert matter into energy, resulting in a gradual decrease in the number of charges in the universe (as fewer protons and electrons exist). What is conserved is the ratio of positive charge to negative charge.  The law of the conservation of charge would be better named as the law of the preservation of the ratio of charges. But scientists would not like to use such a more accurate term, which would tend to make the universe sound like some purposeful, programmatic, mathematically-minded bookkeeper interested in the preservation of mathematical ratios. 

Imagine if there was a strange law in your household that you called the Law of Money Balance. The law might work like this: whenever you lost money, you would gain an equal amount of money. And whenever you gained money, you would lose an equal amount of money. So, for example, if there was a hole in your pocket and you lost $50 by dropping it on a crowded street, you might come home and find there was $50 that mysteriously appeared on your coffee table. And whenever you saw that there was some direct deposit of $4000 sent by your employer as a salary payment, you would find that there was at the same time some mysterious withdrawal of $4000 from your bank.  This would be great if you started out as a millionaire. No matter how much money you spent, you would always end up with the same amount of money, so you would always stay a millionaire.  

You might take such a law for granted, regarding it as some "natural law of how reality works." Or if you started out as a millionaire you might reasonably suspect that the strange law was some providential blessing.  Ditto for the law of conservation of charge, something we would not expect to exist in any random universe. 

In his recent post Ethan Siegel does a poor job of attempting an answer to the question: why is the universe electrically neutral? He fails to explain how the law of conservation of charge is the underlying physical law behind the universe's electrical neutrality (the perfect balance of positive electric charge and negative electric charge). Referring to failed wildly speculative "grand unification theories" never supported by evidence, Siegel  speculates wildly about how the universe could have begun with an imbalance of proton charge and electron charge, something that would have been in violation of one of our universe's main laws, the law of conservation of charge. He then refers us to some  imaginative paper he wrote that speculates about how such a universe with charge imbalances might have become more electrically neutral.  All of that makes up a very bad explanation as to why the universe is electrically neutral.  A much better and simpler explanation (although only a half-explanation) is to explain how our universe has always had a law (the law of conservation of charge) that guarantees that there would be a perfect balance of positive and electric charges.  But since we have no scientific explanation for why so convenient a law exists, one of many very convenient laws of nature necessary for our existence, this is merely a kind of half-explanation.

We take for granted a law such as the law of the law of conservation of charge, because it is has always existed. It seems that anyone always enjoying the blessings of a favorable law of nature will take that law for granted, no matter how improbable that law would be in a random universe.  For example, if we lived in a universe in which people always had nice gentle landings whenever they jumped off of high cliffs or high buildings, we might call such a law "the Law of Gentle Landings," and think that it was nothing special, not any providential blessing. And if we lived in some universe in which nice tasty well-cooked food would always conveniently drop from the sky at dinner time, gently landing in our back yards, we might call that regularity "the Law of Convenient Food Delivery," and think that it was nothing special, not any providential blessing, but just some law of nature to be taken for granted.  We would say "there's nothing special" about such a law, and claim that "it's merely the way nature works," language also strangely used about the law of  conservation of charge. 

If You Had Always Lived in a Random Universe

Humans seem to take for granted any law of nature that regularly acts to their benefit, no matter how wonderful such a law may be, and no matter how improbable such a law may seem from the standpoint of random actions of material particles.

To illustrate this point, let us imagine a different universe. In this universe there is a most amazing law called “the law of soft collisions.” So in this alternate universe, whenever anyone jumps out of a tall building, or falls from a high cliff, their speed starts to decrease at just the right time, causing them to gently land without suffering any damage. Also, when two cars travel directly towards each other at high speeds, their paths always divert at just the right time so that there is no hard collision. (Please do not test whether this “law of soft collisions” works in our universe; I can assure you that it does not.)

If people had always lived in such a universe, would they regard this “law of soft collisions” as some evidence that their universe had been carefully designed? I think very many of them would not. Instead, they would simply take the law for granted – just as we take for granted the laws that make our existence possible. In such a universe we might see conversations such as the following.

Physics teacher: So, to review our lesson for today, it is a fundamental law of nature that nothing can ever collide violently. We call this “the law of soft collisions.” So, for example, when people jump out of skyscrapers they always land softly and safely. And there has never been a death from an automobile collision. And when people fire bullets at other people, the bullets always swerve away from their targets or slow down, so that no harm is ever done.

Student: My dad says that the “law of soft collisions” is so convenient that it may perhaps be a bit of an indication of some purpose or plan behind the universe.

Physics teacher: Sentimental nonsense! The “law of soft collisions” is simply the way that nature has always worked, a “brute fact” that we can no more “explain” than we can explain the laws of mathematics.

Returning to our universe, do we ever take for granted any laws that are as seemingly providential as this “law of soft collisions”? Yes, we do that all the time. The laws we take for granted are the laws of nature that make our existence possible. These laws include: the laws of nuclear physics that bind together protons and neutrons to become an atomic nucleus, the laws of gravitation that allows large bodies to form, the laws of electromagnetism that allow complex life to exist, the Pauli exclusion principle that makes solid matter possible, and also certain laws of quantum mechanics that allow the existence of atoms by making sure that electrons do not fall into the nucleus (something they would otherwise have a natural tendency to do because of the electromagnetic attraction between protons and electrons).

We inevitably take all of these wonderful things for granted, simply because they are part of the fabric of reality as we have always known it. It is hard for us to imagine any other reality. But suppose we try really hard to imagine a completely different reality. Let us make such an attempt, by trying to imagine what it would be like if you had always lived in a truly random universe.

In a truly random universe, there would be no convenient laws that cause matter to organize into galaxies, stars, planets, and atoms. So at first glance it seems impossible to imagine yourself living in such a universe, because biological life would be impossible. But let's get over this difficulty by cheating a little. You can simply imagine yourself as a disembodied spirit or energy floating around from place to place.

What would life be like for you in this utterly random universe? We cannot imagine you living in a house, or walking on the ground, because there would be none of the favorable laws of nature that make possible planets and solid matter. But you can at least imagine yourself floating around like a misty cloud drifting in the wind.

What kind of matter would there be around you in this random universe? There would be only disorganized matter drifting about. The closest thing in our universe to such matter would be the disorganized matter that drifts about in a gaseous nebula like the one shown below.

Occasionally such drifting matter might form into interesting random concentrations, although nothing too interesting because of the lack of gravity. But you would not be able to appreciate even these mildly interesting concentrations of random matter. This is because there would be no sunlight or starlight anywhere in your random universe. Sunlight and starlight both requires stars, and stars require many favorable laws and some fine-tuned constants, which would not exist in your random universe.

So you would not be able to see anything in this random universe as you drifted randomly from place to place. For you there would be no home, no solid matter, no beauty to appreciate. You would be like some blind cloud drifting around in a moonless night sky, being tossed around by dark, random forces. Life would be very, very dull.

Now let us imagine that after living many years in such a blind, drifting existence in a dark random universe, you suddenly found yourself transformed into a material being standing on the surface of a solid planet. If you then learned about the laws that made possible this orderly material universe, you would have the greatest appreciation for such laws that you had only just started to experience, regarding them as numinous marvels infinitely more amazing than having a huge monarch butterfly drift through your open window every day of the summer.

But we can never have any such appreciation ourselves. We instead will always utterly “take for granted” whatever favorable laws exist in our universe, no matter how improbable or providential they may be.

Are Our Cosmologists Just "Talking a Good Game"?

The phrase “talking a good game” refers to speaking about something in a way that sounds like you have mastered the topic, even though you may be relatively clueless about it. People often use jargon to help them in “talking a good game.” By using technical phrases and jargon buzzwords, people can make it sound as if they have mastered some topic that they are really hopelessly confused by.

Here is an example of how this may work in the business world.

What Richard Says

What Richard Is Thinking

Our new project will deliver end-to-end models to enhance global users and create “win/win” partnerships for success. We will utilize resonant experiences to facilitate bleeding-edge content that revitalizes back-end communities. While we formulate revolutionary new business paradigms, we will blaze new trails in viral marketing breakthroughs, while at the same time unleashing transitional efficient experiences. Finally, we will drive migratory technologies to innovate front-end solutions and architect real-time convergence.

I sure hope they don't figure out how clueless I am about this fancy whatchamacallit project I've been dragged in to work on. All I know is it's some incredibly complicated geek thing involving a bunch of different computer systems. I could ask 500 questions to try to really figure the thing out, but then everyone would know I don't know jack about this kind of stuff. Guess I'll just cross my fingers, and try to BS my way through this.

We can forgive Richard, because after all, modern computer systems are very confusing. But if this type of “talking a good game” can take place for something as simple as a computer system, how much more more  likely is it that this kind of thing can go on when the subject matter is the entire universe?

At the poorly-named Physics Arxiv blog, there is an article entitled The Paradoxes That Threaten to Tear Modern Cosmology Apart. It seems our cosmologists may not have as keen a grasp of the nature of the universe as one would think from hearing their lofty pronouncements.

I was familiar with the “vacuum catastrophe” issue discussed in this article, which is basically the biggest “scandal” of modern cosmology. It turns out when physicists calculate the amount of energy that should exist in every cubic centimeter of empty space, they get a number a gazillion times higher than the maximum value consistent with observations. It seems that ordinary empty space, according to quantum field theory, should be vastly more packed with energy than the center of the sun – although it actually has no such density. The expected energy density of the vacuum, according to this article is “ 10^94 g/cm^3.” That means 10⁹⁴ grams per cubic centimeter, which is much denser than the density you would get if you packed the entire observable universe into a little space the size of a sugar cube.

This problem arises because quantum field theory tells us that empty space is teeming with energy caused by the spontaneous appearance of virtual particles. This leads to another problem – the problem of energy conservation and an expanding universe. Scientists say that energy cannot be created (except when produced from the conversion of matter to energy). Scientists say that a basic law of the universe is the law of the conservation of mass-energy. According to this law, considering matter and energy as two forms of a single thing called mass-energy, you cannot create new mass-energy. You can convert matter to energy or energy to matter, but the total amount of mass-energy cannot increase.

But since the time of the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding, which means the amount of space has been constantly increasing. But each second that the universe adds more space, it also adds a lot more energy, because according to quantum mechanics, empty space is teeming with energy. So, apparently, an expanding universe is one that is constantly adding vast amounts of energy to itself.

It's as if every second the expanding universe was pulling more than a billion trillion rabbits out of a hat – because the energy it is adding every second is much more than the mass-energy of a billion trillion rabbits. But how can that be when the law of the conservation of mass-energy says that the total mass-energy of the universe cannot increase?

Apparently we have not just the riddle of how the universe's original mass-energy appeared (the unsolved problem of the cause of the Big Bang), but also the riddle of how the universe could be continually adding mass-energy to itself, like some endlessly flowing horn-of-plenty. It seems the kind of mystery you might have if poof a giant planet suddenly appeared in our solar system, and then kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, defying our concepts of what should be possible.

The Helix Nebula (Credit: NASA)

The Laws of Nature Are Mainly Quasi-teleological

Scientists study the laws of nature in great detail, but it is relatively rare for anyone to attempt a qualitative assessment of the laws of nature. We might do such a thing by imagining three different quality categories. If a law of nature seems to serve a good purpose, we might call that law quasi-teleological, a term that means “as if it was intended for a purpose.” If a law of nature seems to serve a bad purpose, we might call it dysteleological, a term that means “as if it was intended for a bad purpose.” If a law of nature seems to serve no purpose either good or bad, we can simply call it neutral.

Let us attempt to judge whether the most important laws of nature fall into any of these three categories. One way to do that it is to make judgments based on random incidents, or incidents chosen to support a particular viewpoint. You would be following that approach if you made statements like this:

I just heard that someone was struck dead by lightning. Damn that awful law of electromagnetism! It's so harmful.

I was hiking yesterday in the mountains, and hurt my leg when I slipped and fell. Damn that stupid law of gravity! It's such a terrible law.

Making assessments of laws of nature based on incidental experiences such as this does not make any sense. What we need is an intelligent general-purpose algorithm for assessing whether a law of nature is quasi-teleological, neutral, or dysteleological. I propose the algorithm shown in the flowchart below.

The algorithm starts by asking: is the law of nature necessary (directly or indirectly) for the existence of living things such as ourselves? If the answer to question is “Yes,” the law is considered quasi-teleological, because it helps to achieve a good purpose (the purpose of allowing creatures such as us to exist). If the answer is “No,” the algorithm then asks whether the law of nature is mostly harmful in its effects. If the answer to that second question is “Yes,” the law of nature should be considered dysteleological (a law that serves a bad purpose). If the answer to that question is “No,” the law is considered to be neutral (meaning that it neither seems to serve a good purpose, nor seems to serve a bad purpose).

Let's try a simple example, and see whether the algorithm seems to make sense. Consider the case of the law of gravitation, the universal law of nature that there is a force of attraction between all massive bodies, directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Gravitation is (indirectly) absolutely necessary for the existence of living beings, because if it were not for gravitation we would have neither a planet to live on, nor a sun to produce warmth. So even though occasionally gravity produces deaths from falling, the fact that gravitation is absolutely necessary for planets decisively trumps all other considerations. It is therefore absolutely correct for us to consider gravitation as a quasi-teleological law. It serves the good purpose of allowing the existence of planets for living things to exist on. In this case the algorithm seems to steer us to the right answer.

Let us apply the same algorithm to other major laws of nature. Another major law of nature is Coulomb's law (the basic law of electromagnetism). This is the law that between all electrical charges there is a force of attraction or repulsion, directly proportional to the product of their charges, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. It is true that very rarely this law helps to kill people in lightning strikes, but that fact is absolutely trumped by the fact that living things could not exist for even a minute without Coulomb's law. Electromagnetism is what makes chemistry possible, and without chemistry we would all instantly die. If you were to turn off Coulomb's law, our bodies would quickly disintegrate. So again, using the above algorithm, we must classify Coulomb's law as a quasi-teleological law, as it serves the good purpose of allowing the existence of biological organisms.

The table below shows a list of fundamental laws of nature. Most of the laws have commonly used names, but some very important laws do not have any common name, although they should have one. One of the most important laws is one I have designated below as the Law of the Five Allowed Stable Particles. This is simply the law that rather than producing hundreds or thousands of different types of stable particles from a high-energy particle collision, nature makes sure that only five types of stable particles result. Although not important now, the current arrangement of matter in the universe would be hopelessly different (in a very negative way) if such a law had not applied shortly after the Big Bang, when all the particles in the universe were colliding together at high speeds. You can say the same about the other conservation laws listed below.

All of these laws have one thing in common: for various reasons, all of them are necessary for the existence of life. In the case of the law of the strong nuclear force, the Pauli exclusion principle, and the law of electromagnetism, this is glaringly obvious, as we couldn't exist for even a minute if these laws didn't exist. In the case of the law of gravitation, it's almost as obvious that it is required for life, as gravitation is absolutely necessary for the existence of planets. In the case of the law of the conservation of baryon number, this college physics textbook says, “if it were not for the law of the conservation of baryon number, a proton could decay into a positron and a neutral pion.” If such a decay were possible, there wouldn't be any protons around by now, nor would there be any life.

In the case of the law of the conservation of charge, the law guarantees that electrons are stable particles that cannot decay into neutrinos, and thereby assures that we have a universe with plenty of the electrons needed for atoms and life. In the case of the laws of quantum mechanics, we have laws that restrict the states that electrons can take inside an atom, and thereby prevent electrons from falling into the nucleus of an atom (something they would otherwise have a strong tendency to do because of the very strong electromagnetic attraction between protons and electrons). 

As all of these laws are needed for life, we must characterize all of them as quasi-teleological. But other laws of nature should be classified as neutral, because they do not seem to have any bad effect nor any good effect. 

Although the modern materialist scientist may attempt to banish teleology from nature, such an attempt is not at all supported by his subject matter. The quasi-teleological nature of the main laws of nature present a huge problem for those who wish to believe in a capricious universe whose characteristics are the result of blind chance. Such people have not only the huge problem of explaining the universe's fine-tuned fundamental constants, but also the problem of explaining the universe's fine-tuned laws.

What Kind of Phenomena Would Violate the Laws of Nature?

Skeptics often like to debunk alleged paranormal phenomena by saying, “That can't have happened, because it would be a violation of the laws of nature.” But how valid is such reasoning? Let's consider: what type of phenomena would or would not be a violation of the laws of nature? As we will see, the number of things that are clearly prohibited by the laws of nature is much smaller than one might at first think. In this post I will not try to persuade you that any of the phenomena I discuss is likely. I will merely discuss whether any of them is ruled out or excluded by the laws of nature.

Something That Occurs For a Completely Unknown Reason

Skeptics sometimes evoke the law of causality (the law that everything has a cause) when trying to exclude a wide range of phenomena. The reasoning goes like this: we don't understand what could have caused alleged phenomenon x, so we should not believe that phenomenon x occurred, because it would be a violation of the law of causality.

But this reasoning is fallacious. The fact that we have no understanding of the cause for a particular phenomenon does not mean that it did not have a cause. It is entirely possible that there are 1001 types of causes we do not understand because of our ignorance. In short, we can't really exclude any paranormal event on the basis of it being a violation of the law of causality, because there might always be some unknown possible cause.

Something That Suddenly Disappears

I do not know of anyone alleging a case of an object suddenly disappearing, although such disappearances are often parts of magic acts. Let's consider whether such an event would violate the laws of nature. There is a law of nature called the law of the conservation of mass and energy. This law holds that while matter can be converted to energy, and energy can be converted to matter, it is impossible to either create or destroy mass-energy. From the perspective of this law, a piece of matter cannot simply disappear, but it can be converted to energy. However, the formula for this conversion is Einstein's famous equation E = mc² . This means that converting even a very tiny piece of matter to energy would produce a gigantic amount of energy, greater than the energy of a H-bomb.

This might seem to suggest that it would be a violation of the laws of nature for an object to suddenly disappear, unless there was a gigantic release of energy at the same time. But this isn't necessarily so, because of some loopholes. For one thing, some paranormal process might have some strange ability to soak up the energy produced by the conversion of a piece of matter to energy. Secondly, when a piece of matter disappears it might simply be converted to a different form of matter. For example, a process might convert the atoms of a piece of solid matter into subatomic particles, which might dissipate into the air. Third, the matter in a disappearing object might pass through a space-time wormhole, and end up someplace else. Fourth, the matter in an object that disappears might simply be condensed. Since atoms are almost entirely empty space, some process might shrink those atoms to become matter too dense to be seen. In short, the sudden disappearance of something (without a huge explosion at the same time) would not necessarily violate any laws of nature.

Something That Suddenly Appears

The sudden appearance of small objects has been alleged by certain mediums, who claim that objects can sometimes appear as a result of communication with the dead. From the standpoint of the law of the conservation of mass and energy, the matter for a new object could be produced from energy, but a huge amount of energy would be needed. But there would be a simpler way to get the matter to make an object suddenly appear: just get it from the air. In theory, some paranormal process or technological process could grab as many protons, electrons, and neutrons as it needed from the ordinary air, and convert those subatomic particles into some material object. No one might notice the missing air, as other air in the atmosphere would move in instantly to fill the gap. So it would not seem to violate any laws of nature for a small object to suddenly appear somewhere. Another possibility is that the object might be prepared at some other location, and then transported through a space-time wormhole. After traveling through the wormhole, the object might seem to suddenly appear at a particular location.

Levitation

Levitation has been alleged to occur in certain seances, and certain Eastern mystics have claimed to have had a power of levitation. In the 19^th century numerous reputable witnesses claimed to have seen Daniel Dunglas Home levitate heavily weighted tables and himself.

D. D. Home, called the most interesting man in the world

Regardless of whether such claims are credible, levitation seems to involve no violation of the laws of nature. A naïve view is that levitation would violate the law of gravitation, but that isn't so. In order for something to levitate, you merely need some force underneath the object that equals the very weak gravitational force tending to keep the object on the ground. Such a force might be produced by any number of factors, normal or paranormal. The amount of energy needed for levitation of a person or table is almost trivial.

Sudden Physical Transformations

A literary example of a sudden physical transformation is the scriptural story of the changing of water into wine. Another example (just to imagine something randomly) is the changing of a rock into an apple. Are such things prohibited by the laws of nature? No. If such things were to occur, they would be just kind of rapid molecular reconfigurations, a rearrangement of atoms within some unit of space. Such a rearrangement would merely require some highly sophisticated power or technology. We can, for example, expect that super-advanced alien technologies might be able to do things such as quickly change rocks into apples, by using a very advanced molecular rearrangement technology.

Telepathy

Telepathy is sometimes declared to be a violation of the laws of nature on the basis that it violates "inverse square laws," and does not seem to diminish with distance. But this idea is fallacious. Telepathy might involve some type of energy we do not understand, one that does not follow an inverse square law. Currently cosmologists say that most of the universe's mass-energy is some completely mysterious energy known as dark energy.  Since we know nothing about what rules apply to such energy, we have no basis for assuming that some unknown or poorly understood energy must behave like other types of energy we do understand.

Precognition

Precognition (the alleged ability to learn about the future in a paranormal way) is sometimes declared to be a violation of the laws of nature, on the basis that it violates our understanding of the linear nature of time. But this statement is premature. We simply don't understand yet exactly how time works. Physicists have many strange theories about the nature of time, and it is possible that one such theory (or an accurate theory not yet imagined) may allow for precognition. Time may be a lot more complicated than the simple "film strip" idea we have of it.

“Miraculous” Cures

Some people claim that there are cases of very sick people who were suddenly cured in a way that cannot be accounted for. Would such a thing violate the laws of nature? No, it wouldn't. All alleged cases of miraculous cures can be classified as cases of molecular and atomic rearrangement, and as mentioned before, such rearrangement is not prohibited by the laws of nature. Any sufficiently advanced technology could achieve such rearrangements.

Life After Death

One popular idea about life after death is that there is some kind of soul that lives on after death. According to this thinking, life after death can be imagined as a kind of information preservation, state preservation, or partial state continuity. There is nothing in the laws of nature that prohibit such a thing. Another popular idea is the idea of the mass physical resurrection of the dead at some day of judgment. This idea seems to be declining in popularity, but it is not prohibited by the laws of nature. If one considers a particular person to simply be an arrangement of atoms, then a mass resurrection of the dead can be considered as simply a large-scale case of atomic or molecular rearrangement – rearranging randomly available atoms and molecules to match a previously existing arrangement of atoms. Such a possibility may be highly improbable, but is not clearly prohibited by the laws of nature.

The “What If Aliens Could Do It?” Thought Experiment

The next time you are tempted to exclude some alleged phenomenon on the basis of “that's impossible,” try this thought experiment. Imagine that our planet receives visitors from some gigantic extraterrestrial spaceship, and the visitors claim to be millions of years more advanced than us. Suppose the visitors then claim that they can do whatever paranormal thing you have ruled out as an impossibility. Would you then believe that such a thing is possible? If so, then you probably have no business ruling out such a possibility now on the basis of impossibility.

What Type of Phenomena Would Violate the Laws of Nature?

After considering all these cases of possible unusual phenomena that would not violate the laws of nature, I need to balance things by considering some possibilities that would violate the laws of nature. I can think of a few.

It would violate a law of nature for a very gigantic mass of particles to drift around in a particular small area of outer space without ever contracting into a denser state. That would violate the law of gravity.

It would violate a law of nature for a very large positive charge to exist in outer space for a long time 1 millimeter away from another very large positive charge, without the two ever flying apart from each other. That would violate a law of electromagnetism called Coulomb's law.

It would violate a law of nature for an asteroid hurtling between Jupiter and Mars to suddenly stop in space, without any force acting on it to stop its motion. That would violate Newton's first law of motion.

It would violate a law of nature if I sent out a radio signal from Earth, and it was instantly received by a radio receiver on Mars. That would violate a law that electromagnetic radiation cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

It would violate a law of nature if two cannons pointed at each fired iron cannon balls at each other, the balls collided at very high speed, and then simply fell directly to the ground, both resting next to each other (but unattached) at a spot below the point of collision. That would violate Newton's third law of motion.

So there are actually things we can imagine that would violate the laws of nature. But examples such as these are very different from the type of things one reads about in books about alleged paranormal phenomena. The laws of nature are almost never rules involving impossibility. The most fundamental laws of nature are most commonly “whenever” type of rules, rules such as “whenever x occurs, force y shall occur.”

In short, regardless of the credibility of claims of the paranormal, it seems that the laws of nature actually leave the door wide open to the possibility of such phenomena.

What Particles Collide, Nature Acts Programmatically, As If It Had Ideas

Let us take a very close look at some important laws of nature. When you go to the trouble of looking very closely at these laws, you may end up being stunned by their seemingly programmatic aspects, and you may end up getting some insight into just how apparently methodical and conceptual the laws of nature are.

The laws I refer to are some laws that are followed when subatomic particles collide at high speed. In recent years scientists at the Large Hadron Collider and other particle accelerators have been busy smashing together particles at very high speeds. The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest particle accelerator, and consists of a huge underground ring some 17 miles wide.

The Large Hadron Collider accelerates protons (tiny subatomic particles) to near the speed of light. The scientists accelerate two globs of protons to a speed of more than 100,000 miles per second, one glob going in one direction in the huge ring, and another glob going in the other direction. The scientists then get some of these protons to smash into each other.

A result of such a collision (from a site describing a different particle accelerator) is depicted below. The caption of this image stated: “A collision of gold nuclei in the STAR experiment at RHIC creates a fireball of pure energy from which thousands of new particles are born.” 
 

Such a high-speed collision of protons or nuclei can produce more than 100 “daughter particles” that result from the collision. The daughter particles are rather like the pieces of glass you might get if you and your friend hurled two glass balls at each other, and the balls collided (please don't ever try this). Here is a more schematic depiction of a one of the simplest particle collisions (others are much more complicated):

The results of a collision like that shown in the first image may seem like a random mess, but nature actually follows quite a few laws when such collisions occur. The first law I will discuss is one that there is no name for, even though there should be. This is the law we might call the Law of the Five Allowed Stable Particles. This is simply the law that the stable long-lived output particles created from any very high-speed subatomic particle collision are always particles on the following short list:

Particle	Rest Mass	Electric Charge
Proton	1.67262177×10−27 kg	1.602176565×10−19 Coulomb
Neutron	1.674927351 ×10−27 kg	0
Electron	9.10938291 ×10−27 kg	-1.602176565×10−19 Coulomb
Photon	0	0
Neutrino	Many times smaller than electron mass	0

I am not mentioning antiparticles on this list, because such particles are destroyed as soon as they as come in contact with regular particles, so they end up having a lifetime of less than a few seconds.

This Law of the Five Allowed Stable Particles is not at all a trivial law, and raises the serious question: how is it that nature favors only these five particles? Why is it that high-speed subatomic particle collisions don't produce stable particles with thousands of different random masses and thousands of different random electric charges? It is as if nature has inherent within it the idea of a proton, the idea of an electron, the idea of a neutron, the idea of a photon, and the idea of a neutrino.

When particles collide at high speeds, nature also follows what are called conservation laws. Below is a table describing the conservation laws that are followed in high-speed subatomic particle collisions. Particles with positive charge are shown in blue; particles with negative charge are shown in red; and unstable particles are italicized (practically speaking, antiparticles are unstable because they quickly combine with regular particles and are converted to energy, so I'll count those as unstable particles). The particles listed before the → symbol are the inputs of the collision, and the particles after the → symbol are the outputs of the collision. The → symbol basically means “the collision creates this.”

Law	Description	Example of particle collision or decay allowed under law	Example of particle collision or decay prohibited under law
law of the conservation of mass-energy	The mass-energy of the outputs of a particle collision cannot exceed the mass-energy of the inputs of the collision	proton + proton →proton+neutron + positron+electron neutrino	electron+electron →antiproton+ electron (prohibited because an antiproton is almost a thousand times more massive than two electrons)
law of the conservation of charge	The ratio between the proton-like charges (called “positive” and shown here in blue) and the electron-like charges (called “negative” and shown here in red) in the outputs of a particle collision must be the same as the ratio was in the inputs of the collision	proton + proton →proton+neutron + positron +electron neutrino (two proton-like charges in input, two proton-like charges in output) At higher collision energies: proton + proton →proton+proton+ proton+antiproton	proton + proton →proton+neutron +electron+electron neutrino (two proton-like charges in input, only one proton-like charge in output)
law of the conservation of baryon number	Using the term “total baryon number” to mean the total of the protons and neutrons (minus the total of the antiprotons and antineutrons), the total baryon number of the stable outputs of a particle collision must be the same as this total was in the inputs of the collision	proton + proton →proton +neutron + positron+electron neutrino (total baryon number of 2 in inputs, total baryon number of 2 in the outputs)	proton + neutron →proton+muon + antimuon (total baryon number of 2 in inputs, total baryon number of 1 in the outputs)
law of the conservation of lepton number (electron number “flavor,” there also being “flavors” of the law for muons and tau particles)	Considering electrons and electron neutrinos to have an electron number of 1, and considering a positron and anti-neutrinos (including the anti-electron neutrino) to have an electron number of -1, the sum of the electron numbers in the outputs of a particle collision must be the same as this sum was in the inputs of the collision	neutron→proton +electron+anti-electron neutrino (total electron number of inputs is 0, net electron number of outputs is 0)	neutron→proton +electron (total electron number of inputs is 0, but net electron number of outputs is 1)

Each of the examples given here of allowed particle collisions is only one of the many possible outputs that might be influenced by the laws above. When you have very high-energy particles colliding, many output particles can result (and nature's burden in following all these laws becomes higher).

Now let us consider a very interesting question: does nature require something special to fulfill these laws – perhaps something like ideas or computation or figure-juggling or rule retrieval?

In the case of the first of these laws, the law of the conservation of mass-energy, it does not seem that nature has to have anything special to fulfill that law. The law basically amounts to just saying that substance can't be magically multiplied, or saying that mass-energy can't be created from nothing.

But in the case of the law of the conservation of charge, we have a very different situation. To fulfill this law, it would seem that nature requires “something extra.”

First, it must be stated that what is called the law of the conservation of charge has a very poor name, very apt to give you the wrong idea. It is not at all a law that prohibits creating additional electric charges. In fact, when two protons collide together at very high speeds at the Large Hadron Collider, we can see more than 70 charged particles arise from a collision of only two charged particles (two protons). So it is very misleading to state the law of the conservation of charge as a law that charge cannot be created or destroyed. The law should be called the law of the conservation of net charge. The correct way to state the law is as I have stated it above: the ratio between the proton-like charges (in other words, positive charges) and the electron-like charges (in other words, negative charges) in the outputs of a particle collision must be the same as the ratio was in the inputs of the collision.

This law, then, cannot work by a simple basis of “something can't be created out of nothing.” It requires something much more: apparently that nature have something like a concept of the net charge of the colliding particles, and also that it somehow be able to figure out a set of output particles that will have the same net charge. The difficulty of this trick becomes apparent when you consider that the same balancing act must be done when particles collide at very high speeds, in a collision where there might be more than 70 charged output particles.

I may also note that for nature to enforce the law of the conservation of charge (more properly called the law of the conservation of net charge), it would seem to be a requirement that nature somehow in some sense “know” or have the idea of an abstract concept – the very concept of the net charge of colliding particles. The “net charge" is something like “height/weight ratio” or “body mass index,” an abstract concept that does not directly correspond to a property of any one object. So we can wonder: how is it that blind nature could have a universal law related to such an abstraction?

In the case of the law of the conservation of baryon number, we also have a law that seems to require something extra from nature. It requires apparently that nature have some concept of the total baryon number of the colliding particles, and also that it somehow be able to figure out a set of output particles that will have the same total baryon number. Again we have a case where nature seems to know an abstract idea (the idea of total baryon number). But here the idea is even more abstract than in the previous case, as it involves the quite abstract notion of the total of the protons and neutrons (minus the total of the antiprotons and antineutrons). This idea is far beyond merely a physical property of some particular particle, so one might be rather aghast that nature seems to in some sense understand this idea and enforce a universal law centered around it.

The same type of comments can be made about the law of the conservation of lepton number. Here we have a law of nature centered around a concept that is even more abstract than the previous two concepts: the notion of electron number, which involves regarding one set of particle types (including both charged and neutral particles) as positive, and another set of particle types (including both charged and neutral particles) as negative. Here is a notion so abstract that a very small child could probably never even hold it in his or her mind, but somehow nature not only manages to hold the notion but enforce a law involving it whenever two particles collide at high speeds.

The examples of particle collisions given in the table above are simple, but when particles collide at very high speeds, the outputs are sometimes much, more complicated. There can be more than 50 particles resulting from a high-speed proton collision at the Large Hadron Collider. In such a case nature has to instantaneously apply at least five laws, producing a solution set that has many different constraints.

For historical reasons, the nature of our current universe depends critically on the laws described above. Even though these types of high-speed relativistic particle collisions are rare on planet Earth (outside of particle accelerators used by scientists), these types of particle collisions take place constantly inside the sun. If the laws above were not followed, the sun would not be able to consistently produce radiation in the way needed for the evolution of life. In addition, in the time immediately after the Big Bang, the universe was one big particle collider, with all the particles smashing into each other at very high speeds. If the laws listed above hadn't been followed, we wouldn't have our type of orderly universe suitable for life.

By now I have described in some detail the behavior of nature when subatomic particles collide at high speeds. What words best describe such behavior? I could use the word “fixed” and “regular,” but those words don't go far enough in describing the behavior I have described.

The best words I can use to describe this behavior of nature when subatomic particles collide at very high speeds are these words: programmatic and conceptual.

The word programmatic is defined by the Merriam Webster online dictionary in this way: “Of, relating to, resembling, or having a program.” This word is very appropriate to describe the behavior of nature that I have described. It is just as if nature had a program designed to insure that the balance of positive and negative charges does not change, that the number of protons plus the number of neutrons does not change, and that overall lepton number does not change.

The word conceptual is defined by the Merriam Webster online dictionary in this way: “Based on or relating to ideas or concepts.” This word is very appropriate to describe the behavior of nature that I have described. We see in high-speed subatomic particle collisions that nature acts with great uniformity to make sure that the final stable output particles are one of the five types of particles in the list above (protons, neutrons, photons, electrons, and neutrinos). It is just as if nature had a clear idea of each of these things: the idea of a proton, the idea of a neutron, the idea of a photon, the idea of an electron, and the idea of a neutron. As nature has a law that conserves net charge, we must also assume that nature has something like the idea of net charge. As nature has a law that conserves baryon number, we must also assume that nature has something like the idea of baryon number. As nature has a law that conserves lepton number, we must also assume that nature has something like the idea of lepton number.

This does not necessarily imply that nature is conscious. Something can have ideas without being conscious. The US Constitution is not conscious, but it has the idea of the presidency and the idea of Congress.

So given very important and fundamental behavior in nature that is both highly conceptual and highly programmatic, what broader conclusion do we need to draw? It seems that we need to draw the conclusion that nature has programming. We are not forced to the conclusion that nature is conscious, because an unconcious software program is both conceptual and programmatic. But we do at least need to assume that nature has something like programming, something like software. 

Once we make the leap to this concept, we have an idea that ends up being very seminal in many ways, leading to some exciting new thinking about our universe. Keep reading this blog to get a taste of some of this thinking.