THE TRAP DOOR

Forward

In humankind's last noble effort to shift into a new cosmology of being, circa the late 1600's, thinking, as consciousness, was deemed "unreal". We are still suffering today from this denial of the one true distinction of "being human" we have. As will be revealed below, and in the papers to follow, this has relegated our species to identifying ourselves as physical bodies (human) without full credit and acceptance being given to our ability to think ourselves into existence (being). Before anyone jumps to conclusions, this is a scientific assertion that will be proven out as we progress.

Part I

I have been a student of the inner workings, and development, of the cosmological principles of quantum physics for many years. Little has been published on this subject. It is, however, consistent with the open discourse engaged in by Bohr, Hiesenberg, Dirac, Pauli, Shrodinger, Einstein, and many others prior to it's sudden halt; precipitated by the beginning oppressions of W.W.II, circa 1936. It is from this vantage point, or place of observation, that I have viewed the questions surrounding the origins and nature of C/1995 01 Hale-Bopp. This process can be termed "meta-thinking" or "thinking about thinking"; or rigorously spoken, as an ontological inquiry.

I am intimately familiar with the cosmological distinctions that were required to transition from the paradigm of "Faith" of Galileo's time to the beginnings of the Scientific Method; ushered in so grandly by Newton's "Principa" in 1692. I have also examined closely the Golden Rule of reality or "realness" of our Scientific Age:

We have prospered, in the technological sense, from the application of this Golden Rule for the last 300 years. My, and other's, communications with the official astronomy community over the past several months regarding Hale-Bopp has led me to conclude that this once useful and productive Scientific Method, as applied to Astronomy, has geriatrified into a dogma that is as solid as that in existence in the Middle Ages; and dogma is dogma regardless of the paradigmatically origin.

The Blind Rabbit Farmer

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a blind rabbit farmer who detected a new creature in his barnyard. For many years the blind rabbit farmer had steadfastly maintained that all that could possibly occupy his barnyard were rabbits. So he set about correlating this new creature to his existing model. Happily he had achieved nearly a 60 percent correlation; mammal, four legs, nose, tail, hair, eyes, internal organs, genetics, etc. So he proudly pronounced to the world that the new creature is a rabbit, but something tells him that it's size/mass is in the range of 3 to 5 times larger than his existing rabbits. The one thing that he can't resolve is the actual size/mass, but he has skillfully extrapolated his model for rabbit on to the new creature, and is firmly defending his estimate. It appears, however, that new information is starting to come in that now has the farmer proclaiming, "We believe that this is the first determination, ever, of six-foot-long-ivory-tusks on a rabbit." The farmer's neighbor Mr. Hubble has sight, and can see, but he's not talking.

What is presently not understood is that "Objective, Independent, Verifiable, Existence" ( the 'Scientific Method') has a built in trap door through which one can fall. For all of it's often quoted superiority to matters of faith and/or spirit (or the quantum), one only has to look to a reigning scientific principle of the 19th Century, the "Luminiferous Ether" to know that this "trap door" does exist. The trip wire to this devious device can be found in the "Webster's Dictionary" definition of "Objective" which includes: "...(1): existing only in relation to a knowing subject or willing agent (2): existing independent of the mind..." What this means in the simplest of terms is that we can not decide "truth" or reality by ourselves with our own minds, and individual experiments, if we adhere to the Golden Rule of the Scientific Method; we must enlist knowing subjects (as opposed to the object in view) and/or willing agents. If the "objects" in question happen to be as out of view as the quantum entities were to 19th Century science then what would otherwise, and later, be called wild speculation has a way of presencing itself as "reality". This "reality" then begins to take on a life of it's own as degrees and honors are given out, and denied, on the basis of one's facility with this now "accepted" truth. To the best of my observations this is the official state of the Science of Astronomy in 1997. And, this does not mean that there are not many of those in the field that are following what I would term a "quantum path of thinking". It does mean that those handing out the degrees, and the money, have little, or no, tolerance for other than that agreed to by their "knowing subjects and willing agents" in power; what we would identify in Galileo's times as being "The keepers of the Faith."

There is solid precedence for rethinking scientific theory when the 'accepted' model no longer fits the evidence. For example: Classical Newtonian physics predicted that a 'black body' object, like a piece of iron, should be light blue in color. We believe that the evidence surrounding the impact of SL/9 and many of the reported Hale-Bopp 'anomalies' have now made the 'dirty snowball' comet model as strange, and unacceptable, as 'light blue iron' was to 1900 century science.

It is very difficult, however, for those who 'know' to consider new theories. This is the dilemma that faced Max Planck when he solved the black body 'problem' with his Constant of Energy (circa early 1900's). Later he felt compelled to say " I am by nature a mild and conservative man. The problem before me was so complex, however, that I had to give up everything I knew to be true in order to derive my solution." Max Planck's discovery opened up the whole world of the quanta, named the science quantum, and gained dear "mild and conservative by nature" Max Planck immortality. It also gave us the sum total of what we call modern technology. We are asserting that a similar breakthrough in the science of astronomy awaits those willing to consider a possibility outside of the 'dirty snowball' model.

Realness is determined in the Scientific Method Cosmology by the subject, us, observing the object, rock, in a state of separate and apartness. We then bring in our "knowing and willing agents" who verify "rock" as reality. In the quantum things work much differently. The rock (quantum entity), the measuring apparatus, and us exist in a wholeness or unseperateness; as in "we're all in this together". Within this wholeness, the data is recorded, but prior to that time we are required to think differently about what is to ensue. Hiesenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and Bohr's Complementary Principle, which were mathematically derived, require us to proscribe no "Is-ness" to the events about to unfold. All we can say is that a possibility, as in potentia, exists, and nothing else. John Wheeler describes this required state as similar to looking at a dragon, but all we can see is the head, and tail. What "is" in the middle of the dragon is forever beyond our view. It is within this "forever unknown" region that all of our modern technology has been derived.

What I am suggesting is that quantum thinking, the considering of possibility as potentia, may be a useful tool for those needing to think their way out of the dirty snowball mind set into the 'True Origin and Nature of Comets'; such as that predicted by James McCanney's 'Plasma Discharge Comet Model'.