Knowledge is Power

The more one knows, the better one can navigate the world. Right? If you have an accurate map of reality which depicts how everything is connected — or disconnected — then you can take the fastest, most efficient, paths to get where you want to go and avoid pitfalls. Therefore, to increase our efficacy in the world, whether personally or culturally, we must know more.  We must increase the accuracy, precision, and scope of our map of reality.

There is a kind of knowledge we take for granted because our accuracy is good enough. Many of our daily activities fall into this category of close enough: wearing shoes of the right size, putting on clothes that fit, driving to work, typing on a keyboard. Over the last century, there has been a dramatic increase in sophistication and accuracy in “daily know-how” whether we’re consciously aware: computational speeds, software programming, Wi-Fi hotspots, mobile phones, launching communication satellites, DNA sequencing, etc.

The “holy grail” of knowledge would be a theory of everything, verified through experimentation, which provided a sophisticated and accurate map of reality.  Such a theory of everything would solve the mysteries of the universe.

Accuracy and precision go hand in hand — you’ve got to have precise and accurate tools.

Double-Edged Sword

When you go looking for the truth by increasing the accuracy and precision with which you look, you can and will discover:

  • parts of a map that are an accurate depiction of reality
  • parts of a map that are an inaccurate depiction of reality
  • areas on the map you didn’t know… and you didn’t know you didn’t know it.

What happens when you increase the precision of your knowledge and you discover that you don’t know what you thought you knew?  What happens when your “sacred cow” is inaccurate?  What are you willing to sacrifice to have an accurate map of reality, and therefore power within reality, otherwise known as sanity?

The sword of truth has two — or more — edges.


In the year 2021, would you use this old map to accurately navigate eastern and western Europe?


The Standard Model

Speaking of sacred cows, the Standard Model of physics has been a sufficiently accurate representation of reality for about a century.  The Standard Model has successfully predicted the existence of:

  • three generations of matter and anti-matter
  • the Top Quark – the last of the quarks to be experimentally verified, which occurred Fermilab by both the CDF and DZero collaborations, announced in 1995
  • the Higgs Boson – the so-called “God Particle” discovered at CERN by both the CMS and ATLAS collaborations, announced in 2012.

 

The Standard Model of elementary particle physics accurately predicted the existence of three generations of matter and anti-matter, the top quark, and the Higgs Boson, a.k.a. “the god particle.” But new experimental results from the “g-2” collaboration at Fermilab

 

The Standard Model of particle physics is important because this accurate knowledge is used in solving some of the deeper mysteries of the universe, such as quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and electroweak interactions.  Theoretically, this accurate knowledge will be used to form a theory of everything that includes quantum gravity, which currently remains an intractable problem.

But our models of reality evolve, and very recent result (announced April 7th, 2021) from the “g-2” collaboration at Fermilab indicates that Standard Model does not accurately represent reality. What parts of this “sacred cow” must be sacrificed to have a theory of everything?

Precision

Quantum electrodynamics et. al. determine the strength of interactions (i.e. momentum transfer during particle collisions) by accounting for the “quantum foam” — a sea of virtual particles which come in-and-out of existence and which interact with real particles and cause changes in momentum during interactions.  In a world without quantum foam, the anomaly in the muon’s spin precession should be zero, but it’s not.

The Standard Model contributions to muon spin from: (a) the magnetic moment when anomaly is zero, and the subsequent corrections from: (b) quantum electrodynamics; (c) electroweak loops; and (d) quantum chromodynamics.

The anomaly due to quantum foam has been measured very very very precisely. It’s not zero, but how “non-zero” is it?  The experimentally measured anomaly in muon spin precession is between somewhere between

0.00116592102  and  0.00116592020

But a calculation using the Standard Model of physics — the current map of reality — arrives at a value between

 0.00116591767  and  0.00116591853

You must look closely at the numbers to see the differences; the image that compares the experiment with the Standard Model can help you see it better. Measuring the muon spin to this precision is like:

  • measuring the volume of water in a swimming pool down to the drop
  • measuring the diameter of the earth down to the centimeter

In our everyday life of shoe sizes and getting to the grocery store, such precision doesn’t matter.

But it does matter to the rest of the universe.

This is how it works, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Two experiments performed two decades apart, report measurements which are internally consistent and indicate deviation from the Standard Model calculation.


Models of Reality Evolve

Who cares about physics? What does any of this have to do with the New Human University and solving the mysteries of the universe?

One reason to discuss the precision of physics experiments is because one of our faculty members contributed to acquiring this knowledge and contributes this level of precision to the teachings of The New Human University. Another reason is to demonstrate the need to sacrifice sacred cows when they are inaccurate maps of reality.

  • What if knowledge about the mysteries of the universe is inaccurate?
  • What if you’ve given up on transformation because the standard maps of reality are inaccurate, and you haven’t found anything that gets you to where you want to go?
  • What if there is a more accurate model of reality that can help you solve the mysteries of the universe for yourself?
  • What if you don’t know what you don’t know — and you don’t know that you don’t know it? (a useful tautology)

What if the Metamodern Mystery School can give you access to solving the mysteries of the universe?

PraxisAletheia, The Metamodern Mystery School, is a year-long study into the mysteries of the universe.  And, yes, we discuss physics and metaphysics as it pertains to your growth and evolution and to your waking up and growing up.

The world is becoming increasingly complex but, according to some research, the human prefrontal cortex — the most evolved substance in the universe — is shrinking!!  If you don’t use it, you lose it. We’ve got to start using our evolutionary potential to deal with the world’s wicked problems.  The New Human is an evolutionary being that has expanded its capacity to deal with the world at multiple levels of precision: from getting to the grocery store to measuring a swimming pool of water down to the drop if that’s what’s required to fulfill on evolutionary potential and create heaven on earth.

See if you’re a good fit for PraxisAletheia: The Metamodern Mystery School. Watch this webinar and fill out an application. We’re offering large incentives to enroll early for the next class starting in January 2022.