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Press Release Sample Interview
Questions and Answers:
PSI:
What qualifies you to write this book? You aren't a mathematician or
an astronomer, or physicist.
GB:
I have done scientific research in various earth science
disciplines since 1962 and have authored or co-authored over 480 publications and reports.
At various times my
professional job titles were the following: soil scientist, clay mineralogist, soil mineralogist,
soil chemist, geologist, nuclear scientist, computer programmer,
geochemist, geophysicist, earthquake hazard specialist, paleoseismologist,
pedochronopaleoseismologist. As it turns out, the specialties you
mentioned are extremely dependent on math, which normally requires a
belief in finity. Like most people, I use a little math almost every
day, but I don't expect any of my analyses to give complete, finite
descriptions of what are infinitely complex entities.
PSI:
What prompted you to write this book?
GB:
Primarily a lack of understanding. After decades of doing "on the
ground" laboratory and field work,
I just couldn't understand how the universe could have exploded out
of nothing. I couldn't understand how there could be more than three
dimensions--everything I had experienced had width, length, and
height and time was not one of them. I couldn't understand how light could be a particle and a
wave at the same time. And if space was empty, I couldn't understand
how it could be curved.
PSI:
Why won't systems theory work in the grand scheme. It seems to work
on defined experiments?
GB:
When we draw a sphere around a portion of the universe, we can
properly study and experiment with the relations between at least
two parts of that sphere. However, by ignoring everything outside
that sphere, we remain ignorant of the relationship between the
contents of the sphere (what I now call the microcosm) and its environment (what
I now call the
macrocosm). The book gives numerous examples of scientists trying to
explain such relationships by overemphasizing the microcosm and
ignoring the macrocosm. The Big Bang Theory is the archetype of
systems theory--a finite universe with nothing outside of it.
PSI:
If the universe is infinite, what are the implications?
GB:
Well, of course, the Big Bang Theory would be dead. We would have
to abandon this last vestige of the pre-Copernican world. We would
have to admit that light is the motion of a universal, dynamic
aether. The cosmological redshift would be seen as primarily a result of
the absorption that is characteristic of all other kinds of wave
motion within a medium. In an infinite universe, the Second Law of
Thermodynamics must be viewed as a law of departure and its
complement must be viewed as a law of arrival. Matter in motion in
one part of an infinite universe joins with matter in another part
of the universe to form new entities. Because all matter must be
continually in motion, these new entities must eventually dissolve,
their various parts diverging to form still newer entities elsewhere.
For every coming together, a coming apart; for every birth, a death.
PSI:
Does that mean that the universe had no beginning?
GB:
Indeed. I agree with Einstein and Hawking that it makes no sense
to speak of time "before" there was a universe. Time is the motion
of matter. Without matter, there could be no time. I differ in
assuming that the universe is spatially infinite and always existed.
Unlike Einstein, Hawking, and other mathematicians shackled by the
assumption of finity, I do not have to invoke non-science to explain
what came before.
PSI:
What about other theories, such as those about gravity?
GB:
From the systems point of view, gravity was produced by the
object itself. With the young Newton it was a mystical "pull," by what, he did
not know. With Einstein it was "curved space" or "curved spacetime"
or an "immaterial" field. Ubiquitous aether particles act as the "pushers"
that provide the collisions that produce
gravitation. Becoming decelerated, aether particles accumulate
around ordinary matter. They then form as a "dark matter" halo that
contains 3 to 10 times the mass of the objects around which they are
entrained.
PSI:
In summary, what do you call your philosophy?
GB:
Univironmental determinism (UD), which at the same time, is the
universal mechanism of evolution. UD simply states that what happens
to a portion of the universe is determined by the infinite matter in
motion within and the infinite matter in motion without. In science,
we must avoid two kinds of mistakes of overemphasis: microcosmic and
macrocosmic. In philosophy, we must avoid solipsism (the belief that
we control the universe) and fatalism (the belief that the universe
controls us). Instead, what happens to us is determined equally by
the interactions between the within and the without. Unlike
neo-Darwinism, this mechanism is not limited to biology, but can be
used to explain all phenomena, as I attempt to do throughout the
book. | 