Lately, I have been having a series of
email and Blog exchanges with a delightful chap who goes by the handle of
Captain Bligh. We agree on a lot of things, but one of his ideas is especially
baffling to me. That is his suggestion that matter can be produced out of
motion. In other words, he believes that I am too strict in
adhering to the Fourth Assumption
of Science, inseparability (Just
as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion).[1] My
bafflement can be summarized in this simple question: How can there be motion
unless something moves? What the good Captain is proposing is what I call
“matterless motion.” How anyone could entertain such a preposterous idea is of
interest to me, as I am always interested in the root causes of things. Now, I
think I have it figured out, although Bligh and compatriots probably would not
agree.
Life is so wonderful that most of us
wish to continue far longer than our mortal life expectancy says we should
expect. The matter of which our bodies consist tends to lose integrity as we
age, with the ultimate insult occurring at death. Religions have offered a
solution to this problem in the form of a “soul,” that supposedly continues our
existence after we die. Many imagine that this “entity” will travel to a place
of immeasurable happiness or torment. Believe it or not, this idea of the soul
played a far greater part in the “regression” in physics that occurred at the
beginning of the 20th century than is generally acknowledged.
Einstein’s overthrow of classical
mechanics was not a revolution in physics—it was a counterrevolution. Per inseparability,
mechanics assumed that the universe consists only of matter in motion. The
opposing indeterministic assumption, separability,
accepts the idea that motion might occur independently of matter, much in the
way religious followers might imagine their immaterial souls leaving their physical
remains. The shock endured by religion in the latter half of the 19th
century via Darwin, Marx, and science in general swung the
determinism-indeterminism pendulum too far to suit the faithful. The
“overthrow” of classical mechanics by Einstein really was a step backward, away
from the principle that all was matter in motion. By avoiding strict adherence
to that principle and accommodating religious (i.e., indeterministic)
assumptions, Einstein’s relativity gained wide acceptance among the faithful, formerly
faithful, and credulous.
Most of the best scientists are
atheists,[2] but many were
indoctrinated in various religions as children, with the concept of the soul
being unquestioned. The mechanical details involving the soul always are vague.
Souls, being only imaginary, are not amenable to scientific investigation or
even clear thinking. Those supporting the soul hypothesis certainly would not
agree that the universe displays only two phenomena: matter and the motion of
matter. Unfortunately, there are vestiges of the idea of separability even among the most staunch atheists. Once we have
dimly accepted the matter-motion estrangement, even if it was in the distant
past, it can always rise again as a subconscious notion. Thus, when Einstein
proposed his theory of relativity, it was welcomed with open arms by the
religious, the anti-materialists, and the naïve popular press. Its inherent
contradictions and lack of common sense apparently were not a problem for those
used to such in their sabbatical lives. Experiments claiming to support the
theory were always interpreted from the indeterministic point of view (e.g.,
starlight passing the Sun bent due to refraction was seen instead as proof of
its particulate nature being influenced by gravitation caused by curved empty
space and clocks flying around Earth in jets).[3]
The regression produced by relativity
involved “immaterial fields,” “mass-less particles,” and objectified light and
time.[4] Like ghosts and souls,
these were envisioned as things that are not things. They do not contain
matter, but are envisioned to be localized, being here and not there and
capable of movement. In particular, the motions exhibited by gravitation and
magnetism were not produced by material objects one could see or easily detect.
In regressive physics, separability
reigned supreme.
The Soul Barrier
To progress beyond relativity, we must
overcome the “Soul Barrier,” which like the Great Wall of China, prevents
critics from rejecting the indeterministic assumption of separability and its claim that motion can occur without matter.
When I was religious, I never even considered what a soul actually could be.
True, we learned some mechanics in physics class, but we certainly were not
encouraged to apply that approach to everything.
Although anyone with eyes can see that our surroundings consist of things and
that many of these things are in motion, it took me a long time to truly
realize how the universe works. As a mental construct, the Soul Barrier fades
when we hold fast to our belief that there are only two basic phenomena: matter
and the motion of matter. Then, endless debates about whether or not Einstein’s
mathematically defined fields actually are immaterial and therefore
devoid of aether, whether a particle could be mass-less, whether time was a
thing or dimension, and whether light was both a wave and a particle at the
same time become pointless.
Once more, the antidote to the “Soul
Barrier” is the deterministic assumption of inseparability.
Along with it and the rest of the “Ten Assumptions of Science,” you can better
understand physics and avoid the silly proclamations currently being foisted on
the populace. At least, you will be able to steer clear of the craziness to
which believers in relativity are prone. Hopefully, you will not be as extreme
as the physicist from Mexico who once told me that I did not exist, but that the event of my birth did.
You won’t believe that mass can be turned into energy, construed as matterless
motion, travelling ghost-like through aetherless empty space.[5] You won’t believe, as does
Lawrence Krause,[6]
a leading cosmogonist, that motion could produce matter out of nothing via
“quantum fluctuations.” In other words,
you won’t believe in the creation of
the entire universe out of nothing, in opposition to the long-standing Fifth Assumption of Science, conservation (Matter and the motion
of matter can be neither created nor destroyed). If you wish to rid the world
of relativity and the Big Bang Theory, you must cross the Soul Barrier first.
Dawdling behind that barrier is a pointless waste of precious time. In
particular, you must choose between the deterministic concept of aether and the
indeterministic concept of matterless motion.
[1]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2004, Ten assumptions of science and the demise of 'cosmogony'
( http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/TTAOSATDOC.pdf
): Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, v. 1, no. 1, p. 3-6.
---, 2004, The ten assumptions of science: Toward a new
scientific worldview: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 125 p.
[2]
Larson, Edward J., and Witham, Larry, 1998, Leading scientists still reject God
( http://www.scribd.com/doc/2430168/Leading-scientists-still-reject-God#scribd
): Nature, v. 394, no. 6691, p. 313; Stirrat, Michael, and Cornwell, R, 2013,
Eminent scientists reject the supernatural: a survey of the Fellows of the
Royal Society: Evolution: Education and Outreach, v. 6, no. 1, p. 33. (http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/6/1/33)
[3]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Einstein's most important philosophical error, in
Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 18th Conference of the NPA, 6-9
July, 2011 ( http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_5991.pdf
), College Park, MD, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy, MD, p. 64-68.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, The physical meaning of
E=mc2 ( http://scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/The%20Physical%20Meaning%20of%20E=mc2.pdf
): Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, v. 6, no. 1, p. 27-31.
[6]
Krauss, Lawrence Maxwell, 2012, A universe from nothing : why there is
something rather than nothing: New York, Free Press.
Posts
10 comments:
Yesterday I watched an explanation of prof. Brian Fox about 'coming into existence'. Some kind of vivid obejcet penetrated by accident another different vivid object and soon there came objects into being who coöperated together. Modern mythology, I would say. He was using inflation theory but inflation occurs when a lot of people think that they can get more money then the amount they can lend from a bank. That expresses into higher rates not getting into euphoria soon and a rapid decline after. So I don't see universe and inflation do 'coöperate'.
Hello Glenn,
Just came across your blog, and downloaded your "10 Assumptions..." , so have just begun learning what you think and why, and have no idea yet what you mean by matter. So far as having a soul in the sense of something related to our identity that is there before and after our biological existence, it could certainly be made from "matter" of some kind, even though many refer to it as "immaterial."
Daniel:
Thanks for your interest. Hope you enjoy the Ten Assumptions and TSW. Remember that there never was any evidence for a soul, which was invented by folks who wanted to live forever. The suggestion that the soul was a material object did not sit well with immaterialists, as you imply. On the other hand, there have been attempts to measure the "mass" of the soul by weighing folks immediately before and immediately after death. These were always miserable failures plagued by arguments over error analysis and the decay processes that set in immediately. Bodies lose mass as they cool in the same way that a coffee cup loses mass as it cools. The motion of the atoms inside is transmitted to air outside, as you can quickly find out by putting your hand near the cup (or the recently deceased). Those especially superstitious might even mistake this movement of air molecules for the movement of an imaginary spirit.
Death is truly a tragedy, but no real thing exists forever, per the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things). In order for anything to exist, it must form as the coming together of other things (birth). Because all things are in motion, these various things eventually will diverge, moving to other parts of the universe (death). That is why souls and the eternal life they are supposed to bring can only be imaginary. The upshot is that each of us should not waste even a microsecond of the all too short time that we have.
Hello Glenn,
Thanks for your response. I have spent a couple hours over the past day reading your blog posts and the TAS article for the NPA, and am getting a good idea of your approach to science and cosmology.
I am already in agreement with most of the 10 assumptions, but not with Materialism as you state it, and also can't make sense of microcosmic infinity.
My reservation about materialism is that we do not know what matter is. We know that every thing we make contact with involves some kind of "stuff" and that it is always instantiated in some kind of structure, and that it is moving and capable of interaction with other things. I also am familiar with arguments for a universal aether, and think it is a more reasonable concept than curved space, big bangs, and all that.
One could propose that matter is ultimately all built up from some irreducible substance, as has been tried historically, but as you point out, how can something elemental with no parts or structure have any causal capacity? Like energy or time without matter, one then resorts to Idealistic, bodiless propensity fields, charge-less potentials, actual chance, etc
So I get why the TAS concepts are what you have assembled as a constellation, and why you posit an infinite regress of actual material entities. My concern is that the desire to make the 10 assumptions consupponible (what a word) may lead/force one to select from the only presently logical concepts for those assumptive slots, whereas future knowledge may furnish better solutions. To me it seems preferable to let some things float rather than positing an infinite regress of actual entities. If scientists of the 20th century weren't so driven to answer big questions quickly, might they not have given more time to arrive at less crazy theories?
One can wildly speculate, of course! For example, that an elemental substance does in fact exist, but is pre-material until exposed to a true vacuum, at which point it is torn into little ragged shreds that are also then put into motion as part of the rending process, and then capable of forming basic, material structures, including the aether.
Now I admittedly just made that up, but then who knows what we will discover. And then there is the question of consciousness. I have not yet read your ideas on consciousness, but surely an experience is something apart from the motion of matter. That is in part why even non-religious thinkers have wondered whether we have souls or astral bodies or mental fields, or whatever. The experience of awareness and having thoughts and feelings is not comprehensibly or demonstrably material.
Anyway, I look forward to further exploring your ideas, which as I said are mostly not far from where I have landed myself, and thank you for the provocation of further thought. I look forward to your comments and explanations!
Daniel
Is motion "real"?
If there were no "change" would we exist?
If energy is motion it has to be considered a fundamental property of the universe.
Taken as a whole, the universe is both matter and motion, not just matter in motion.
It turns out that motion (energy) oscillation is fundamental according to quantum theory as I understand it.
Taking "matter" to be fundamental is begging the question isn't it? Explain matter!
Ok, it is that produced by oscillation energy. It is a state, actually, two states, matter and anti-matter.
Conger Theory 101
Bligh
Daniel, soul is an abstract idea of someone's "essence".
There is no evidence for a soul. Science requires evidence.
Bligh
Glenn, I see where you recognize mass as energy, motion, or perhaps oscillation.
Bligh
If all that exists is matter in motion, what is "meaning"? Souls are linguistic. I am also persuaded by materialism, and yet it cannot explain subjectivity. Something absolutely fundamental is missing, and I don't mean to suggest that it is indeterministic. But this is what must be answered to counter religion. Perception itself cannot be objectified. If consciousness is somehow an emergent property of matter in motion, then the natural material universe might also give rise to greater levels of consciousness on a scale that can influence matter to a much greater extent than we can. So even materialism leaves open the possibility of humanity's instinctive sense of a higher mental realm, of a greater agency that might have had a hand in initiating life on Earth. I think it is the denial of this that makes evolution unpalatable to many. Consciousness is not an illusion, and we are not animals. We are linguistic constructs riding on animal substrates, much older than the bodies we inhabit, by virtue of language. We are literally spoken into existence. That is the sense in which we are created, and it is to that that religion addresses itself. That is what allows us, unique among animals, to create. We extrapolate that to the entire universe and imagine a macrocosmic, parental consciousness.
joogabah:
Thanks so much for your comments. They got me to do an entire Blog on the answer. It will be coming out on Wednesday: PSI Blog 20170301 The Meaning of Life.
"How can there be motion unless something moves?"
It's a great question, which begs further questioning.
How can there be matter unless something is already in motion?
On one hand it looks like a paradox, but on the other hand there is always a solution because of a deterministic philosophy. Whether we can see this solution or not is the puzzle that needs solving. Without motion there is no matter, and without matter there is no motion. So, why is anything here at all?
You can't simply stop asking the question, because it can't be acausal.
From my perspective, I only see one logical solution. The entire universe is "matter", and it is in constant "motion". The little pieces that we see are a duplication from this greater universal matter in motion, resulting in something slightly less than the original. The matter that we investigate is a knockoff of the real deal, more or less. A second hand causal effect from the master.
And given what we know in physics, that copy from the original would naturally be a declining state due to loss of motion in the state change process. Any copies derived from the secondary copy would be a third generation, experiencing additional loss in the state change, and so on, and so on.
In my view there is only one solution, once again.
The creation of matter is an ongoing eternal process, otherwise, an infinite universe would eventually deplete its matter in motion. And furthermore, the universe would have to be in an accelerated state to perpetuate the creation of matter as we perceive it, because it would have to expend motion in the creation of matter.
The universe is an eternal recycler of matter and motion. The universe is a standing wave, with nothing greater than or equal to it's existence, that could act upon its eternally increasing motion to prevent its existence.
My opinion of course.
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