A hypothesis is the part of the scientific method that is a proposed explanation or prediction for a phenomenon. The Unified Field is a proposed fundamental essence of reality, and we are on a journey to find out if it is real. Some questions that will be on going are, does it qualify as a phenomenon, so it can have it’s own hypothesis performed on it, or does The Unified Field itself qualify as the cause in a hypothesis, because it is the proposed creator of all phenomena, and either way how much prior knowledge or theoretical reasoning is there to support any of this?
A hypothesis is a statement that needs to be testable with the goal of explaining something about the phenomenon at question, but in this case, the thing we’re trying to investigate is supposedly the thing that creates everything. This puts us in a unique situation when trying to apply a hypothesis. We’re at the end of this process. It’s all the levels of reality after that point that gives rise to us. What we have to remember is we are in the macroscopic realm, trying to peer into our own building blocks. What we find is a reality that has many layers.
If there is a most fundamental reality that gives rise to everything else, you should be able to ask any question and keep asking why to every answer until it brings you back to that reality. I’ve incorporated this idea into a top-bottom procedure called Reductionist Hypotheses (RH). The top being the macroscopic realm and bottom being the most fundamental cause. Hypotheses is plural because there should be a chain of many individual hypothesis in this approach. The phenomenon is all existence and the experiment is to see if layer by layer anything and everything can be reduced to The Unified Field. If this works we will be seeing many unifications.
I considered making hypotheses in (RH) singular instead of plural, because it could be looked at as one process, and a lot of the layers in reality could be considered understood beyond the need for their own hypothesis. I went with plural, to be a reminder that each step of the way should be it’s own thought out process, and that everything should be questioned along the way, instead of just going with what is believed to be true.
(RH) is something that can be done over and over again in many different ways, from many places in reality. Performing them is something everyone should do and it can and should be customized by the individual doing it. When a particular (RH) is completed, a Methodological Evaluation (ME) should be performed to determine how effective the performance and out come was. This would consist of asking and writing about questions like, did it provide any information that can be used to prove or disprove The Unified Field, is it creative, intellectual, elegant or thought provoking, are there any gaps in the layers of reality, and are there any other things worth mentioning or asking? You can and should do your own (ME) but the scientific method requires your peers to do it as well.
If there ends up being a (RH) that actually does reveal The Unified Field, that would be truly incredible, but more realistically it’s expected that many of them are probably going to arrive at the point where the next thing could be The Unified Field. For (RH) to be considered a scientific experiment, it is going to take time. We are looking for anomalies, disconfirmation, and hopefully, eventually confirmation. A key idea built into the (RH) concept is, after many of them have been performed, to then study all of them as a whole, looking for any information, evidence or proof, hidden somewhere in the data, that can take our understanding of reality to the next level. Perhaps a serendipitous consequence or a new way of looking at things, maybe a reoccurring theme of previously over looked importance.
I sometimes find myself referring to Reductionist Hypotheses as Reversed Hypothesis, because there is a process of reversing going on with starting from the realm of the created and going backward in the direction of the increasingly more fundamental, through the details of each level, in an attempt to reach the beginning thing that has done the creating. When I first caught myself doing this, these expressions meant the same thing. Although, there is a twist that comes out of using the word reversed with hypothesis. Can the phenomenon be used to answer the cause?
(RH) can also be applied to argumentation as well, because properly you should establish a premise as a starting point. After you have had a discussion based on that premise, then try to create a second premise that could be a discussion that leads up to the first one. Once you’ve finished this discussion set a third premise in the same fashion and so on.
By investigating cause and effect you can also apply (RH) to time, by looking for the cause of an event/effect. Once you have identified the cause then try to find the cause of that cause, then the cause of that cause and so on. If there is a beginning to the universe, although it would be a very long process, you could eventually arrive at it’s origin. If you’re up for a mind-bender, you can do a philosophical spin off by incorporating a causal loop into the (RH).
The following is an example of a short (RH).
At the top I will start with the common human. We can use our own personal sensory perception to determine the human body consists of many different parts. We can use the following to zoom in to the building blocks of these parts.
Phase-contrast microscopy can view biological cells. This was invented in the 1930’s. Atomic force microscopy can form images of molecules and atoms. This was invented in the 1980’s. As we zoom into our bodies, we find that we are made of biological cells, which are made of different combinations of molecules, and molecules are made of different combinations of atoms.
In 1911 Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of the atom. This was later understood to be the proton, Rutherford gave it its name in 1920. In 1932 James Chadwick discovered the neutron. Besides hydrogen only having a proton for its nucleus, it’s different amounts of the proton and neutron that make up the nucleuses for all of the different atoms that exist.
Joseph John Thomson discovered the electron in 1897. In 1956 Clyed Cowan, Frederick Reines, F.B. Harrison, H.W. Kruse, and A.D. McGuire published the confirmation that they had detected the neutrino. The up and down quarks were first observed in 1968 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The remaining four quarks, two neutrinos and two electrons would be discovered over the next twenty-six years at numerous places. The up and down quarks are the building blocks for the proton and neutron. Quarks, neutrinos and electrons, referred to as elementary particles, are the most fundamentally known building blocks for matter.
Albert Einstein published his paper special relativity in 1905, a theory of the motion of objects in relation to one another, then in 1915 his theory of general relativity, a theory of space-time and gravity, was a continuation of this.
In 1900 Max Planck introduced his concept of quantizing energy in discrete unites. This was the beginning of quantum mechanics. The Planck constant is the smallest measurements for space and time as well as other phenomena in the universe.
The following is an example of (ME) to go along with this (RH).
This (ME) could and should be far more elaborate and in doing so might possibly provide important insight, but for now I just want to do a quick one as part of this example. As far as evidence proving or disproving the existence of The Unified Field, on the surface the only evidence is that it doesn’t disprove it. In actuality, The Unified Field fits very nicely as a possible cause of the contents in this (RH). However, in their unelaborated form the (RH) and (ME) examples here are only a tiny amount of data, and it’s going to take a lot more creativity and a lot more (RH) and (ME) to provide adequate information in fulfilling our goal. One thing I want to point out is, the people that are given credit for these discoveries are only a small fraction of the people involved, and there are many details and processes as to how they arrived at these conclusions. When researching how a discovery came about, there’s always contributions by other people that deserve credit. Quite often there are also other people that were independently on the same track. This (RH) is a good model for basing other ones on because there’s so many more directions you can take it.
I like the thought of looking at (RH) as reverse engineering the universe, but first we will have to see how effective it is. After we have reduced the universe to its most fundament essence, will The Unified Field be there, and if so, as I’ve already mentioned, will it qualify as the cause in a traditional hypothesis? This would mean we understand it enough to make predictions and test them. If The Unified Field ends up qualifying as a phenomenon, that would mean we believe it exists, but we are trying to figure out how to understand it better. There’s also the question, is there a cause before The Unified Field? In theory, if there is a cause before it, then a traditional hypothesis could be performed on The Unified Field, to better understand it. If we could successfully achieve any of these scenarios, it would be a huge leap forward, because we would be moving closer to a (TOE).