Are Five Senses Enough?

The furor over the Higgs boson and the Higgs field make me wonder if there is a lot out there in the universe which we don't know about and don't understand because we can't easily perceive it with the five senses that we have.  Of those, the one sense we rely on most heavily for physics study is sight, perhaps assisted by touch.  Hearing, smell and taste don't contribute much to our understanding of the universe, although they are useful in our daily lives.  It took a long time to discover radio waves, although they are the same physical phenomenon as light, just at a different wavelength.  Similarly, everybody has experienced gravity all of their lives since the beginning of time, but only in the last few hundred years was it identified as a force that serves as the glue of the universe.  The odd behavior of matter in quantum mechanics might be less odd if we discovered some underlying force or principle that governs it.  Some quantum phenomena, such as entanglement, might promise instantaneous communication across the universe.  Why would advanced beings communicate by electromagnetic waves that can only travel at the speed of light if there is another means that is instantaneous.  These advanced beings could be communicating right now, but we would not know it, because we don't understand that medium of communication.  It may be far removed from the electromagnetic waves that we see or receive by radio.  We don't even understand gravity well, because it works through means other than those that we easily perceive with the five senses.

Why Wasn't Gay Marriage Invented Thousands of Years Ago?

It seems true that people have always been gay, but I'm not aware of any society that has recognized that as a good thing that needs to be encouraged and protected until recently.  If you look at ideas like evolution and the survival of the fittest, homosexuality does not look like a good think in animals or humans, since it leads to the elimination of the race rather than its improvement.

The best article I have found on how homosexuality might fit with modern scientific theories of evolution and genetics is the following: "New Ideas about the Evolution of Homosexuality."  But I don't find even this article convincing from a scientific point of view.  Furthermore, it doesn't address the moral and social aspect of homosexuality, i.e., if it is good for society, society should protect and promote it, as society protects and promotes traditional marriage.  You would think that anthropologists would have found some tribe in New Guinea or Brazil that does so, or some ancient civilization that did so.  On the contrary, homosexuality seems to be almost universally reviled, although all modern and ancient societies seem to be aware that it exists, e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah in Jewish biblical history.

One exception might be ancient Greece, where relations between males were common, but Wikipedia says the most common relationship was between older men and young boys, a relationship that would not be encouraged in present day America.  This type of relationship is not uncommon in America today, although it tends not to be discussed in the current gay-loving environment.  Furthermore, older male-young boy relationships may be more common among permissive, dominant bisexuals than homosexuals who want to get married.  But because it is an unappealing element of homosexuality that does not get discussed, it is hard to know how prevalent it is, and under what circumstances.  There is some indication that Bangkok is a favorite travel destination of gay men because of the availability of young boys.

I think at a minimum there should be more discussion of the social implications of encouraging gay marriage.

Legally, the main emphasis has been on the economic consequences of not allowing gay partners to marry.  But by making marriage the test for the economic benefits, the law basically says you have to have homosexual sex, because otherwise you would not have to get married.  I think a better solution would be to allow a single person to select someone to be his "best friend," who would be entitled to the economic benefits, would be able to visit him the hospital, etc., without declaring that they want to get married so that they can have sex.  Up until recently, homosexuals often portrayed themselves as friends, rather than lovers.  I would like that to continue to be an option.  It's said that today, if you see two people of the same sex living together, they are assumed to be gay and having sex.  I think we need to restore the ability of men to be friends with men and women with women.  Separating marriage from the economic benefits would help with this.

Of course this highlights the fact that most of the economic benefits were meant to encourage traditional families and the raising of children.  Taking children out of the equation is a very big change.  There is not much discussion of the fact that traditional marriage is dying out, with more single women having children outside of traditional families, while gay marriage is increasing exponentially.

Higgs Field and Relativity

I think that Einstein said that as matter accelerates it increases in mass, it shortens in length, and time slows down.  That would seem to correspond to matter containing Higgs bosons (which give it mass) passing through the Higgs field, which slows it down, like moving through molasses.  As speed increases it becomes more and more difficult for the matter to move through the Higgs field.  The field offers more and more resistance, thus having the effect of increasing mass and requiring more and more energy to accelerate.  Meanwhile the pressure of the Higgs field might tend to compress the matter in the direction of motion, like pushing a balloon through water; it would become more and more deformed, becoming flatter and flatter the harder and faster you push it through the water.  Finally the increased resistance of the Higgs field might slow everything down; because of the increasing resistance of the Higgs field everything would move in slow motion, compared to something not moving so quickly through the field; thus making time slow down.

The problem with this theory is that in the theory of relativity, everything is relative, while the Higgs field would appear to be static.  Thus if you launched a rocket from earth, things would appear to be compressed, slow down, etc., on the rocket as viewed from earth.  However, as views from the rocket, the earth would appear to be compressed, slow down, etc.  These are effects of relative motion, not absolute motion; so the Higgs field could not be some static field measuring absolute motion.  The Higgs field would have to be relative to the observer, just as the relativity effects are.