A Multi-State Universe?

Transmission IX includes a direct request, one which, unusually, has been continually repeated by the Darks in subsequent communication. The exact meaning of this request has been the subject of much debate. The most obvious interpretation is that it is a command for us to change certain subtle physical phenomena within our Domain. Acceptance of this interpretation has foundered on the seemingly obvious "fact" that natural law is not subject to artificial alteration.

Here, we sketch out a Speculation that this may not be true.

In 2001 the magazine NATURE reported the discovery of high temperature superconductivity (at 39K) in a simple metal compound, magnesium diboride ⁽¹⁾.

Superconductivity at higher temperatures had been known since 1986. ⁽²⁾. But these higher temperatures were attained in complex ceramic copper oxides. Magnesium diboride, by contrast, is a very simple substance indeed, and had been available for unrelated lab uses in kilogram quantities for years.

Simple compounds like this, if they are superconductive, normally only superconduct a few degrees from absolute zero. But MgB₂ superconducts up to 39 Kelvin.

For some reason, magnesium diboride had not been tested.

It is universally thought that this was a simple oversight, and that if the tests had been done in, say, 1980, they would have shown the same high critcal temperature.

We would like to Speculate, per contra, that if magnesium diboride had been tested before the possibility of high-temperature superconductivity was known, it would have had a very low critical temperature, or not have been superconductive at all.

A Phase Space of Physical Laws?

What we are proposing is that the physical laws of the Universe are not fixed until they are measured

This idea at first seems shocking: but with a little thought it can be seen to be logical, if astonishing.

What is it that ensures that the laws of Physics are uniform and consistent?

We assume that consistency is a given: reality cannot contradict itself. But why are the laws constant in time? And why are they as they are, and not other?

Is it possible that the properties of a given physical system are undetermined until that system exists? And that they are "fixed" by nature only when the system is tested or "reified" by coming into being?

Since physical laws must be consistent, it is not possible that the properties of a system are totally undetermined. But perhaps there is some variation, some freedom, possible: particularly in complex, multi-body phenomena like superconductivity.

Reification: anthropomorphism?

If physical laws do not apply until they have been tested, or rather "reified", we must be careful not to assume that human activity has any special existential status.

Obviously, the "reification" of the law of gravity does not take place in the laboratory: it takes place in myriads of physical systems where the law is "tested" by actually driving physical changes. No intelligence is involved. Billions of particles, all obeying the same law, enforce that law on the billion-and-first: and the billionth-and-first, in its turn, helps to enforce it n the billionth-and-second, and so on.

However, while there are billions of particles following, for example, the law of gravity, there are not billions of samples of pure magnesium diboride being tested for superconductivity. This complex, many-body system very possibly never existed until it was tested in a terrene laboratory. The question of whether it was superconductive, and at what temperature, had not yet been "decided" - "decided" not by the experimenters, but by the universe.

The Darks' request

Would not we expect alien intelligences to have tested these compounds for superconductivity at some time? Indeed. But, if it happened, it was long ago and far away, and without continual reification the nature of the system may again become indeterminate.

More questions arise. Is this process controllable? How should its existence be verified? If it is true, can we alter the properties of a system already tested? What other physical systems are subject to this effect?

And finally, and most vitally: the if we accept that we can change some very subtle phenomena of physical law - or, to be more exact we can somehow affect how the Universe will "decide" how those phenomena turn out - the vexed question of the Dark's endless and "meaningless" demands may become slightly more understandable.