String Theory, or The Smallest Thing in the Universe

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String Theory is the result of physicists daring to ask the audacious question "how does the universe work?" of physicists wanting to craft a Theory of Everything.  Newton, Einstein, Bohrs, Hawking; they all were fixated on discovering one set of rules, ideally, one formula that could explain all phenomena.  And they made, and are making, wonderful progress.

However, they all also made a frustrating discovery. Truth is a moving target.  To explain "everything", to tell the "truth" about the universe is to accurately define reality.  That is a tall order.  New technologies, evolving processes keep expanding our view of reality – literally increasing what we can see.  Still, occasionally, we sift a nugget from the shifting stream of reality, a nugget of “truth” about the universe, that seems to hold still for us.  The speed of light has held stable despite some very clever efforts to leap ahead of it, or hinder it with varying vacuums, lasers, mirrors and what not.  We still haven't found an exception to the assertion that the speed of light is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second.  And that is how we usually come to declare "truth," - backwards if you will.   We fail to find the single instance that disproves the asserted "truth."

Such instances are incredibly rare especially when we realize that in science - in any academic discipline - you make your reputation by proving someone else wrong.  You demonstrate that your story about whatever you are studying is better than the other stories being told about the universe, or caffeine, or red meat, or video games, or prejudice, or Shakespeare - whatever you are seeking to be known as "expert in."

So when we seek to understand the "truth" of existence, the "reality" of the universe, we enter the very fuzzy world of competitive storytelling among experts.  In that world, the academic world, my world, expertise most often comes wrapped in layers of complexity, woven in languages that only other experts in that field can truly grasp. It is an incestuous ritual that leaves the rest of us peering, a best, through a darkling glass stretched uncomfortably between callow acceptance or willful ignorance. 

There is I believe, another option: To find truth, we hunt the white crow.  It is actually rather simple.  If someone advances the idea that "all crows are black" it takes only a single white crow to disprove the idea. String theory came into being in the waning years of the 20th century when physicists and mathematicians and cosmologists stirred up a whole flock of white crows. To go back, as the 1800s turned into the 1900s, Einstein shepherded general relativity onto center stage describing how the universe was expanding at undreamed of distances and rates.  Meanwhile, a few decades into the century Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Bohr peeked out of the other end of the telescope, exploring the tiny world of particle physics, and began to advance the cause of quantum mechanics. Both camps were reporting solid, defensible results when the white crows took to the wing. Greene, in The Elegant Universe, describes the realization in these words.

"As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right.  The two theories underlying the tremendous progress of physics during the last hundred years - progress that has explained the expansion of the heavens and the fundamental structure of matter - are mutually incompatible." p. 3.

In other words, if the math that described the universe through the eyes of one perspective was right, then the math that described the universe from the other perspective had to be wrong.  Talk about a white crow! It was at that point that the mathematicians rolled up their sleeves and hammered out the differences between those two very elegant theories; and string theory was the - in my mind - even more beautiful result.  Beautiful? Yes, because one of the conclusions of string theory is that everything in existence, including you and me, is made of music.  That is a bit of a teaser.  If you want to wade a little more deeply in the waters of string theory, click over to the resources page.  My book, String Theory in the Landscape of the Heart, is a humanist's take on string theory while Greene's The Elegant Universe is, as I have said before, a physicist's explanation of string theory for the serious lay reader.

Neither, however, meet my objectives for this simplifying distillation.  Rather, here are the relevant assertions of string theory that inform Distilled Harmony.  I have been following them quite closely in the humanities, and in the scientific and popular literature for the last 10 or 15 years. I have yet to see a single white feather among them.  You, of course will have to judge for yourself.

First, the smallest thing in the universe is a tiny vibrating string.  We are, in all likelihood, unable to comprehend how small that is, just as the immensity of the universe lies beyond our imagining. That is, actually, not important.  What is important is to understand that the string has no component parts. To ask "But what are strings made of" asks us to define an absurdity. The string is the smallest thing in the universe and it vibrates.  In our experiential world, a vibrating string, no matter how small, makes music.

Second, strings are attracted to other harmonic strings, and they are repelled by strings that vibrate in discord with their rate of vibration.

Third, all larger entities - which means everything else in the universe, mice, moles, men, mountains, the moon - are at their most fundamental level constructions of harmonic strings.

Fourth, harmony is the natural, preferred state of existence, which, by definition, makes discord transient and undesirable.

The other major concept of string theory that is central to Distilled Harmony is symmetry.  Symmetry simply asserts that the universe is consistent; that harmony dominates throughout the universe.  Hence, while harmony may be manifested differently in the varying and far-flung reaches of the universe, that manifestation will, at string level, remain harmonic.

It is at this point that we need to shift focus from what "is" to "what it means."  And that transition is what has often led us to the false dichotomy between physics and metaphysics, between philosophy and science, theology and technology, between geeks and jocks – all those distinctions are all illusions.  There is no functional division between knowing what "is" and understanding how we should live and behave in accordance with that knowledge. "What it is" and "what it means" are one.

But as we shift our focus to different aspects of the whole, I feel obligated to spend just a moment on the difference between confidence and certainty.  I mentioned early in this presentation that truth is a moving target.  It would be arrogant to assume that Distilled Harmony is an exception to that assertion, to presume that I am "certain" about the behavioral tenets of Distilled Harmony.  Rather, I would say that I am quite confident that they are trustworthy.  The difference is, I believe, significant.

The road to intolerance is paved with "certainty."  When one becomes "certain" that they are right about something, it becomes acceptable to beat others "less perceptive than you" into submission and drag them onto the path defined by your certainty.  That way lies war and madness.  Confidence, on the other hand, means we move ahead on the path of our lives guided by what we feel are trustworthy insights into the nature of the universe - but we always keep an eye out for a white crow.

Distilled Harmony provides these guideposts on our path - Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm.  They are the behavioral mandates that follow from the string theory based assumption that harmony is the natural state of the universe.  In my next presentation I'll tackle the first and most fundamental of those guideposts: Foster Harmony.
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Distilled Harmony Scripts: To Begin at the Beginning

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To Begin at The Beginning

Ever since I was a small child,

I  have been forever ambushed 

By moments of pure harmony.

While growing up in Springfield, Ohio, we lived in a modest house. I had to repeat a recent “Google Earth Fly By" to make sure I was in the right place, as the current reality seems overly modest. Yet in my memory, certainly when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, it was quite large. The porch especially was a world apart, screened by shrubbery, much taller than that in the image.  At night in particular, it was a magic place bathed in the warm glow of those yellow "bug lights" now largely gone, replaced by squat fluorescent spirals. The bug lights have been sacrificed, like smoke-tinged autumn, to keep the planet safe and sterile. But in memory the porch floated serene on their golden halo.  Serene and apart as rain drummed down all round.

Then in fifth grade and sixth, in connection with work my father was doing, we lived in Vienna, Austria.  I remember, one night, being ushered into a box in the world famous Staatsoper—the State Opera House.  I wasn't an opera fan, had never been to one before.  But one of my school chums was the son of a Scandinavian ambassador.  So we claimed the Ambassador’s box that night, as the usual adult occupants took a break from the endless social obligations of their diplomatic life.

We settled into those opulent surroundings a little self-consciously.  The elite of one of Europe’s oldest capitals swirled below us like schools of tropical fish.  Gowns and jewels nestled on the aromas of perfume, strong coffee, exotic drinks and the hint of expensive cigars.  Handsome men and glamorous women bantered in a half dozen languages.  Then, a beautiful young woman, carrying a champagne bucket and a tray with glasses entered the box, and—as though we were men—opened the bottle, poured two glasses, and whispered “Enjoy.”  With a slight chuckle at our stunned faces, she pulled the invisible velvet-covered door closed behind her and disappeared down the corridor to serve the more jaded patrons to whom she would appear as something less than a goddess. The lights faded like a sunset in the magnificent crystal chandeliers that floated above the quieting throng,  while on stage, dawn breaks as the orchestra swells and a single heavenly voice floats across the footlights, effortlessly filling every corner of the gilded hall.

Later, a year before I entered college, I went to Northern California. It was a trip sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee to build cabins at Clearwater Ranch in Philo, California, which was a permanent treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. Each morning we "Friendlies" would hike up the creek a ways, eventually settling ourselves on some rocks, to share a bit of silence and get focused for the coming day. On one such morning I went away, or maybe "in." I'm not sure. Physically, I was still perched firmly on my boulder. But everything around me became hyper-focused.  The water rushing over rocks covered with intensely green moss. Behind me birds were handing off solos in the trees that lined the creek. Sunlight danced about as it does in poetry. It seemed I sat there transfixed, or maybe transcendent, for a very long time. Then I noticed my friends stirring, standing up and making their way back to the worksite for another day of hauling, hammering and roofing beneath a wide sky of blue and gold.  I followed along, and hesitantly asked several "Was this morning different for you?"  Either they chose not to share, or mine was a solitary journey.

There were more moments like these, scattered across the decades of my life, as I would assert there are in yours, if you claim some quiet time and consciously try to remember them. Together, for me, they have come to weave a tapestry of intensely personal, resilient, harmonic chords that resonate with other more public expressions.

Landscapes, for example, particularly ones from the Hudson River School. Those works sound the call of a simple, romantic and without doubt, idealized, vision of rural life. 

And, rain.  Not so much the "Caught out in it, cold rain down your collar" type rain.  But more the "Just beat it, peeking out through the door of the barn, guess we can't work anymore, might as well take a nap" kind of rain.  Or the "Wild storm watched from a place of safety" type rain.

I have the same cautious harmonics with fire.  Given the media's tendency to emphasize damaging and destructive fires whenever they get the opportunity, it would not surprise me to learn that mostly, nowadays, we fear fire. But there is a far older, more comforting version of fire that lives within me yet, the campfire beneath a starry sky, the cook fire, the ancient call of hearth and home.  

Each of these harmonic moments sounds a calming chord within me.  My blood pressure drops. My breathing slows. I am at peace. I smile.

It was not until I passed the half-century mark that I began to consider these moments of pure harmony as something more than the occasional gifts of existence, but as something deeper.  Here, I began to think, may be glimpses behind the often banal haze of everyday life.  A peek at the harmonic clarity that enfolds all existence, but goes largely unnoticed as we scurry from one momentary obligation to the next.

I began to read a magazine called Science News back in the 1960s.  It is still around, and I still read it.  It is a neat little magazine that does a few feature stories and then lots of shorter tidbits from all areas of the hard sciences - but written for the lay reader.  I first found it interesting primarily because it had nothing to do with my major - Theater. Hence I could read it and feel absolutely no obligation to "learn" anything. I could just enjoy what I was reading. Well, as any good teacher will tell you, the trick to getting students to learn is to not let them know they are being taught.  Sort of make everything recess.  Needless to say I, the math phobic Theater major, was soon absorbing information that would have brought on a panic attack in the context of class in which I would be graded.

I became fascinated by theoretical physics and its audacious attempt to discover a "Theory of Everything."  So I spent the last decades of the 20th century with Science News eavesdropping on astrophysicists and cosmologists and mathematicians pursuing their own version of the Holy Grail. That is, after all, what a TOE, "a theory of everything" is, right? The main difference between the physics of a theory of everything and the theology of an established religion is that while theologians wrestle with understanding exactly how they are right, some of the physicists acknowledge that they may be wrong.

So back around the turn of the millennium I found myself trying to connect the dots between my increasing powerful intuitive sense of a harmony that pervades existence; the stirrings of a new "theory of everything" in the physics community dealing with "strings" and "multiverses"; and a variety of readings in both old and new age theology and philosophy.  Thank god - or whomever - in 1999 Brian Greene wrote his delightfully titled book: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. In the book Greene explains all those things that the title promises, but more important for me he explained "string theory" in a language accessible to the dedicated lay reader. 

That was vital because String Theory was to become the glue that finally stuck the fragments of my musings together, allowing me to construct what I originally called "chord theory" and now call "Distilled Harmony."  For us to move forward together, you, too, need to have a basic understanding of string theory.  Don't panic.  Remember the third pillar of Distilled Harmony is distill complexity.  In my next presentation I am going to attempt to "distill" string theory, revealing the functional basics necessary for us to move further into Distilled Harmony. For those of you who are formally trained cosmologists, and especially to Brian Greene, should he ever stumble across these conversations, my apologies for what will surely strike you as simplistic and reductionist.  Still, I might have done a better job with Professor Greene's work had he answered my emails.

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Link to the video presentation:
http://mymediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/26fd8ec88a8441779daa9a6256f677fa1d

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Distilled Harmony Scripts: The Introduction

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The Introduction

Hello my name is Robert Schrag and I’m a Professor of Communication at NC State University in Raleigh, NC, USA.  I came here in 1980, so I've been here almost thirty-five years as I tape this. That does, of course, leave another 30 years unaccounted for and I will mention them as they become relevant.

I realize that to young people entering the job market here in the dawn of the 21st century, the idea of staying in any one job for 35 years is bizarre.  And, looking back, it seems a touch strange to me as well.  But life has no rewind button - or we haven't figured it out yet - so forward is the only option.  Actually, being a professor in the same place for 35 years isn't really like being in the same job for 35 years. It is true that that today's large state universities are changing turning into grant and publication factories, an environment in which I am not comfortable; but for most of those 35 years this has been the best job in the world.

You see, as a university professor back in the 20th century you got to reinvent yourself whenever you wanted.  At least in my discipline you did.  I study and teach about communication technology, from ancient paintings and enigmatic marks on stones and bones all the way up to whatever new gizmo Big Tech will run up the flagpole tomorrow.  I get to think about how those tools affect us as individuals, groups, cultures and countries; about how tech impacts artists, politicians, everyday people.  I got to shift my focus to that which intrigued me at the moment. And that has been fine - for the most part.

But it isn't enough anymore. I mean it is still fascinating, what folks do with technology.  But it is a field largely driven by young people, by young thoughts.  And in our youth obsessed culture that is "normal," the way it is supposed to be.  But think about this for a moment.  How many of you would like to be young again?  I don't mean how many of you would like your young body back again - I've been through 2 stem cell transplants and treasure those moments when nothing hurts. So, yes, I would take that young body again.  But the younger brain? The twisting thoughts and churning emotions of yesterday?  No, thank you, I survived them for the most part, for which I am thankful, but I wouldn't want to have to work back through them again.  Even when I was 20, 30 or 40, I wouldn't have wanted to go backwards, even to reclaim the glibness, the sharp short-term memory.  The words flowed more freely when I had only a few decades under my belt, but often they could have benefited from more reflection and less speed.

So knowing what's happening in All Things Tech, running my fingers over the cutting edge, taking the pulse of generation X, Y, or Z squared to the next degree is not really all that interesting anymore. What has become utterly intriguing is trying to figure out what it all means.  As I have grown older I have become increasingly fascinated with the notion of purpose, the old "Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Where are we going?" mantra. This time of life, my time of life, the one beyond Piaget's model, often prompts a series of questions that leads people into the certainty of religion, of structured belief. I have never been comfortable with that approach to life.  My father was, early in his life, a minister - as was his father before him. But Dad spent most of his life as a university professor, a radical sociologist involved in race relations and community change.  Maybe I can trace my own discomfort with being told what I am supposed to believe to his renegade inclinations.

The point is that I follow no traditional dogma, I point to no one book or prophet as my "spiritual guide."  The "organized" in "organized religion" seems to me an oxymoron.  You cannot organize that which is a unique and personal exploration. And what has made my personal journey even more interesting is that I do not see any reason to assume a division between physics and metaphysics. Rather I'm inclined to believe that every miracle is a "knowable" event that simply lies beyond our current understanding.  Further thought, more research, will reveal the natural process behind the seemingly miraculous.

Now before the atheists out there get carried away, let me point something out.  The explanations science provides for the “mysteries of the universe” are more far incredible than the miracles depicted in all the holy books of all faiths.  It seems a tad duplicitous to simply assert "That's just how it happened. Two degrees that way and the universe wouldn't have been able to support life. Whew, that was a close one!" I don't think so. Having been struck speechless multiple times by the unfathomable wonder of existence, I have as much trouble believing that that existence rests on a series of fortunate accidents, as I have accepting the notion of an interventionist deity who "sees the smallest sparrow fall."  Finding a rational middle ground between those two perspectives seems a worthy endeavor.

When my daughters were young and wanted to know what my job was, I used to tell them "Daddy thinks for a living." And for the last 10 or 15 years much of my "thinking time" has been devoted to thinking about that rational middle ground. To considering the "Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Where are we going?" mantra from a middle perspective that remains scientifically sound without discounting a sentience, an intelligence intertwined throughout existence.

I have changed the name of this evolving perspective a number of times as each of the "defining tenets" captured my imagination.  I hope “Distilled Harmony” has some staying power.  It defines a perspective that rests upon four primary principles, four guidelines for living a life consistent with the nature of the universe and in concert with the intelligence manifested therein.  They are:

Foster Harmony
Enable Beauty
Distill Complexity, and
Oppose Harm

This series of presentations is intended to share, with those of you who might be interested, the evolution of those four tenets as they wind their way from the string theory of quantum physics through deep considerations of humanity and immortality.  Perhaps I'll see you there.

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Link to the presentation:
http://mymediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/ca20c9fb306f4f2f81c8d44c16c9f59a1d
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