David,
I didn't want to totally split your post apart, so I hope you don't mind but I re-arranged some of your response as I quoted them depending upon how they related to my thinking. Hopefully, I didn't totally make things confusing in the process!
I mean as you have illustrated, we have a theory that conceives of photons as being timeless, and yet also conceives of photons as being repeatedly absorbed and re-emitted as they pass through transparent materials
I actually had kind of a goofy thought about this after I replied to you last. Supposedly, we're ultimately timeless, eternal beings, if everything myths, NDEs, etc have been saying are correct. But, here we are moving from tiny neuron firing to tiny neuron firing, to the extent that we have brain-based or brain-influenced thoughts within linear time. Indeed, even to the extent that we have to use our vision to maneuver around, we move from visual cortex firing to visual cortex firing. We are stuck participating
locally and
causally within linear time. None of this sounds very timeless either! But, at the same time we're supposed to be non-local eternal beings and consciousness is fundamental.
Doesn't this sound as goofy as what I described for the photon? I'd say it sounds even worse!
Suppose photons only interfered with themselves in high vacuum, don't you think physics would explain that as being due to the fact that photons in air were constantly colliding of molecules and losing quantum coherence.
Would physics even notice that it could provide explanations for both possible outcomes?
I'm sorry, I didn’t really follow you on this point?
Please don't think I am getting at you, Ethan (because you are far more open to non-material ideas than most), but is it possible that theoretical physics isn't so much demonstrating the wonderful mathematical basis of physical reality, as quite unintentionally providing a huge toolbox of mathematical tricks that hide the true nature of reality!
I know there are mathematical ways of squaring all that up, but perhaps it is worth remembering that QM can't even exactly solve for the energy levels of a nitrogen molecule, still less solve the interaction of a photon and a nitrogen molecule - approximations have to be used.
I do seriously wonder if theoretical physics is struggling with things that simply don't make sense - probably because they encroach on the realm that we are discussing here (paranormal, non-material, however you want to call it).
I definitely think there is a good chance we're getting caught up on math, but I suspect I see this in different areas. For example, String Theory may very well be a big bag of mathematical tricks, imho. Quantum Field Theory seemed like this at first to me, but after studying it I've pulled back from that position some. I don't think Relativity is a mathematical trick. However, it seems more and more likely GR's domain of validity may be smaller than we imagined. Some physicists are hoping to find Lorentz Invariance (a violation of the symmetries of nature predicted by SR) so as to extend the Standard Model, but they keep coming up short despite vigorously looking for it.
As far as QM and approximations. It's not that QM cannot exactly solve problems. QM can provide exact equations in many circumstances, it's just that we as humans don't know how to exactly solve them, so we have to resort to perturbative techniques, which are approximations. In other words, the approximations are introduced by us in many circumstances, not by the theory itself. However, as time goes by, we have learned how to solve some of these exactly, so you never know. We got a long ways to go, though!
On the last point you made above, I was wondering what might physics start to look like as it encroached on the subjective/spiritual/"non-material" realms. It seems to me these things, by their nature, would be hard to pin down with math, perhaps one could even say they even "resist" being pinned down. If that's so, might we not start ending up with math/physics theories that can say almost anything, like String Theory. To model something that resists being mathematically pinned down, maybe we need theories that resist being pinned down. Only thing there is String Theory still feels awfully "materialistic" to me most of the times. However ...
... I have thought of analogies for String Theory and Idealism. In String Theory, the types of particles found in the Universe, which means the type of Universe, depends on the shape of the extra compactified spatial dimensions of the theory, and the shape of these depend on a mathematical object called a Calabi-Yau manifold. But, these manifolds come in at least 10^500 different varieties and String Theory provides absolutely no explanation why nature picked out the specific manifold it did and therefore the particular Universe we're in. Really, String Theory (tied to the multiverse theory) has the potential to "predict" up to 10^500 different types of Universes. Therefore, as far as why our single Universe would exist alone, String Theory seems to predict nothing since it predicts almost anything. However .... Segway to Idealism ....
... Bernardo often talked about their being a multitude of meta-minds, with each meta-mind having it's own storyline corresponding to it's own Universe where the storyline sort of plays out. This also has parallels with Indian thought and the multitude of Brahmans with each Brahman in charge of a separate instance of creation. But, the creative process is not something that can be pinned down, i.e. it's free will at it's finest. It should have an infinite set of choices in which to weave it's story. And, here we have in String Theory (tied to the multiverse theory) a veritable infinite number of Universes being predicted.
Perhaps that is metaphor at best, or an extremely weak comparison even, I don't know, just know my mind can't help but make it some times. I'm not even really a fan of String Theory. But, what
would physics start to look like if meta-minds exist, each weaving their own creative storyline taking place across multiple Universes?
I guess the question to ask is, whether physics as it is now understood would really be much different is some facts were different.
1) If interference and entanglement only occurred in high vacuum.
2) If PK abilities were more easily demonstrated.
3) If efforts to demonstrate interference in a stream of C60 molecules had failed.
For me, the key one there is (2). I don't think it would have to change much of the physics we currently have as far as SR, GR, QFT. But, it would certainly change mind-sets and encourage different avenues to be explored (at least I would like to think!)
I actually started developing my own theory for PK using only Relativity and QT, but it sort of stalled out (I should look at it again, though). Also, Russel Targ had a theory that extended the space-time metric of relativity to account for psi. So, I don't think our well-established physics (SR, GR, QT) have to change too much, they just need to be extended and probably include some new ideas.