What is matter?

You are probably already asking yourself a similar question- What is the matter?But does matter actualy exist?There is an electro magnetic field surrounding every atom which itself is energy and not matter. Even surrounding electrons is a field. Atoms never actually touch one another. Their electro magnetic force fields pull and repulse each other, so in reality all that actually comes into contact is the fields of individual parts, whether that's electrons or sub atomic particles. Of course, depending on their charge, they sometimes attract also, otherwise we would not have the chemical bonding that causes the emergence of molecules.
So, if all matter is basically made up of electromagnetic force fields, then you could say that matter, as we imagine it, does not exist and that what we see as molecules (the basic building blocks of all matter) is just a matter of the different ways in which these electro-magnetic fiels (atoms) are configured.We tend to imagine matter as a 'solid' substance and energy as some radio-wave like unsolid thing. Would it be correct then to say that in fact matter does not exist and only exists in the same way that a hand written message exists due to the configuration of the ink on the paper? That the ink and the paper is all that 'actually' exists and the message(hand-writing) is just the way the ink is placed in relation to other dots of ink until it forms a message? The paper exists as a solid thing and the ink exists as a solid thing but the message is just perceived/implied so in the strictest sense could be said to not exist.Or a better question - does reality exist in the first place? Or does it only exist to "us" who are trapped in a peculiar state of the fields?What in reality gives matter the solid feel it has, when the ingredients of matter themselves are not solid(there is almost an infinite space between an electron and the nucleus, when compared to the size of the atom) and all the atoms comprising a plastic piece are "tied" together by magnetic fields?Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

So what we think of as Matter is really the interaction of a few magnetic, electric, gravitational, etc fields(i.e. matter is field)? Gives us a totally new look on reality, and this mess doesn't even begin to make sense to my constrained human mind, when viewed in regard to our day-to-day lives. I think i need to stop asking questions or i may need a reality check pretty soon.

This new concept of matter(that it's a field) sure makes the Universe and the emergence of life even more incomprehensible.(not that it ever was).
Do you think we humans with our science will ever be able to fully understand the causes, circumstances and intricate relations within the fields at the time of the emergence of life and reality(reality being tied to life)?Could some entity from another dimension be "playing" with a device for "tuning in" fields and causing this illusion in all of us we call life? (considering the fact that you don't like god/s/ as explanations)Do you think the Quantum Field Theory the reason why Einstein said that "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible"? Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

No, i was talking about the fields and that only they "truly" exist. Our reality is just a "flair" or "flavour" of the the fields and their interactions. The nature of the emergence of life under this sceanrio seems almost impossible to explain without a cause(either the fields' degree of freedom maxed out to eternity and we are just 1 outcome of an infinite number of possibilities or we open the door to the unknown and greet what's in there - God, aliens, spaghetti monsters, etc.). I could be wrong though, that's just the brainchild of me thinking away.

No i have no background in physics/maths, I am a university graduate in intl. economic relations but my general interest life's "existence" leads me to my seemingly unending quest for knowledge(one of the side effects of this is my presence here on EvC). I see your point how under closer examination the classical mechanics fails to explain reality. It just seems so mind-boggling that the interactions of the fields would create a perception of reality in the first place, and then "we"(whatever fake concept lies beneath this rediculous term) with our minds can twist that fake reality even further with our imagination and create a secondary illusion(reality) - e.g. when one is dreaming. This secondary illusion in a world composed of fields is even harder to comprehend(not saying that the primary illusion, that we are able to perceive as so "real"/though that's very subjective as we cannot compare real to more real, as we don't have anything really more real/ is comprehensible to me, maybe you are right and i should see where that "Mandlebrot Set viewer" takes me).
Generally speaking, this will mean that there is fake reality into a fake reality(or if not really fake, then it's viewable only when conditions are 1 to near infinity and provided there's the highly specific aparatus for that) and we are certain that the secondary reality does not exist.
But then without the primary illusion, the fields cannot really exist in the first place, so do they really exist(aren't they the fruit of the same illusion that's giving rise to our perception of reality)?Cavediver, with regards to the Universe being just fields and its interactions, doesn't it bother you that the manifestation of the fields interaction is so finely tuned? It puzzles my mind, to say the least(but maybe it's because of my general ignorance).
To my feeble mind the outcome of these interactions seems quite inconceiveable(ie the matrix seems quite unreal).How is it possible in a material world that the deeper we go into reductionism, the less chance of findig a "real" particle there is?If we live in a place that's nowhere near really being a 'place', we're made of stuff that's nowhere near really being 'stuff' and what we see is only a small part of what's really there, matter, time, dimensions and the Universe appear totally unreal. And to make things even more bizarre, for some fucking reason, the Universe is exactly preset to make our pathetic existence and cognition possible.
How real is this? How can this even be remotely real?I stare at the mirror and see someone(a body) that my pathetic mind tells me should be "me" But if for some reason my pathetic brain gets "confused"(mental disorder, schizophrenia) it can see that same "me" as some other, different "me". And I know people who claim to have seen God, ghosts, aliens. But in a reality that does not exist at all, who's the sick one? We with our "reality" or the madman with his different "reality"?
Isn't science going to run into infinities of human incomprehensivess? Or is all science going to do - prove that we are players in some entity's sick game?
And ultimately - how does science think all this can be UNcaused?Last question, sorry - can a software programme be aware of the computer running it; is our research in the field pointless?(provied you believe that some entity fine tuned the fields to create our illusion of life) Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I have an idea, it's a quite simple one but i don't really know if i'll be able to relay my thoughts properly, nor do i know if I will make sense to anyone but me. Anyway, my head hurts with the idea of gods and deities in our illusionary reality and I will try(most probably in vain) to shut the door as much as possible on them(so they don't show their ugly faces).I'll try and marry our perception of "reality" and whatever is causing it with science instead of deities(as if it were possible with my tiny pathetic mind - feel free to correct me if i go wrong along the post, it's just a simple idea arising off the little knowledge i have about physics).Let's go forward in future, not a few years, nor 100s, but billion years. The universe grows larger and colder. After 5 bln years the Sun will go out, after another 100 billion years all the stars will have died out, the universe would plounge into complete darkness. Another 15 billion years pass by in cold, dark meaningless existence. Wait long enough and basic particles like protons will start to decay(estimated a thousand billion times longer than the age of the Universe). Dead cold planets like earth will vanish completely, followed by black holes(although their nature is not well known given enough time they will go too). So in 10¹⁵⁶ years from now, we would see a completely empty universe, emptied in accordance with E=M.C.C(their mass converted to energy). All that there will be is cold, almost empty darkness(just the occasional popping of particles in and out of existence).Now wait and wait and wait and wait... ETERNITY is on your side. Wait... and wait... approaching eternity all kinds of bizzare, strange phenomena should start to appear - partilces will spring into and out of existence, occasionally, after another 10⁵⁰ years whole atoms and molecules will emerge of the vacuum. Give it more time -10¹⁴⁴ years and a bigger "oscillation" will appear. As you approach eternity EVERYTHING can and will happen - wait 10²⁰⁶ and the universe will spit out somewhere the wrist watch of Stalin, the body of Saddam Hussein or another copy of yourself(remember we are talking true Eternity, however hard that maybe to swallow). Give it enough time and our beloved Big Bang will appear out of nowhere setting the famous fields in motion that led to this bizzare, unreal and unexisting thing we label "reality".History will proceed as we know it from the textbooks, we will feel reality as we do now, there will be a guy on EvC forum sitting till 3.30am relaying empty thoughts about eternity and enjoying the OMNI-harmonious dance of the fields that bring about the notion of the magic we call reality.So where do you stand - Eternity or Deity(there could be another cause as well)? What's easier to swallow? It's pretty bizzare to say the least but we are not looking for the cause of the existence of the universe in the grocery store, are we?EDIT: Eternity is pretty much a mathematical concept and we have no evidence to suspect it might truly exist beyond our human imagination. Even if it did, it still leaves the question open - how is Eternity possible in a material world like ours and it still leaves the door partly open to gods. But if science considers eternity possible and bases meta-physical assumptions around it's potential existence, then why couldn't we? Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Giant mess of God knows what "hidden", etc.Edited by Admin, : Replace huge numbers with exponential notation.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fixed up formatting more by adding more blank lines. Unhid original message and hid my previously added by edit note.Edited by Admin, : Fix one of the exponentials.

Yeah great, if you had heard of a term "Spontaneous creation and annihilation of matter" in quantum mechanics, you wouldn't have so hastily deleted my message. If a singularity that leads to our universe' existence can pop into existence out of the vaccuum/nothingness, why do you think nothing else could, that's made of the same/similar particles?
On what grounds would you denounce the observed "Spontaneous creation and annihilation of matter"? On what physics/science grounds do you label the post I made "garbage"? Because you did not understand it? GREAT. Why don't you go ahead and delete all the threads about the singularity - its existence would simply mean nothing but "garbage" to you.
Go ahead and ban me(especially if it gives you a feeling of being god for a while, on a predominantly atheistic forum), i am not here at all costs and it's not my purpose in life.

Cavediver, I do believe that science and God can co-exist. I do believe that science will prove that the Universe and life could have arisen by themselves. However there will always be that taste of “something wrong” in my mouth as it will still break the “cause and effect principle”. We’ll have an effect that can be explained fully by science(hopefully) but we won’t really have the cause and this is getting somewhat religious, as we don’t have a clear picture of what the future of science will bring us. At least we won’t know the initial cause of the start of the first self-organising set of variables and energies(be it the Big Bang or whatever event was before the BB). And I don’t really like the idea of eternity as it brings more unsolvable problems than it solves(I could be wrong though). In that sense, I do believe in an entity that hides behind the workings of Nature and I do believe there will always be something that will not make sense to the pathetic human brain. However I also believe it’s possible that we reach that entity “spiritually”(for lack of better word) as soon as we discover how to manipulate the fields to display if there is another "hidden" relity or anything that might be hidden as a message in those fields. Science is fascinating.For now, I’ll stick to my beliefs in as much as they are based on science, evidence and observation .
I know this will sound radical at first but I think i have a general idea what God might be and what he does to create a world like ours. And i think I can prove it with the help of some commonly available knowledge in physics. God is a DJ, yes a DJ(not quite literally but very close to a DJ that’s composing and playing music). And the music he plays is the vibrations and interactions of the fields that he's manipulating, that constitute what we perceive as matter and reality. In exactly the same way we produce music masterpieces by manipulating sound waves into oscillations of “seemingly"(to us only- and that's a very important link to our "reality") harmonious sequences of sounds, so is God manipulating(playing) the fields in highest levels of harmony that gives rise to the illusional perception of the miracle of reality and life. Life is pure music and harmony in every way I look at it and I think God is the ultimate "DJ". This indescribably intricate and complex harmony cannot be uncaused to the best of our knowledge yet. I don't think it will ever change as well, we know how fields work and interact, however it’s a complete mystery where they came from and the underlying reason beside the preset fundamental forces that govern them. IMO, our reality is pure music, a true Masterpiece at that. It’s weird how my thoughts are well reflected in a song by Faithless from 1999:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N9m_F8ryfc"God Is A DJ"This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church [3x]

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This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's in the world I become
Content in the hum
Between voice and drum
It's in change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
For tonight
God is a DJEven more bizarre is that Einstein was of the same opinion(about the utter harmony of the "dancing" fields - only calling them "the music of the spheres"), so maybe there is a remote chance(I hope) that i am following a similar path that he did to reach his conclusions and i think anyone following both reason, science and reality CAN hear and appreciate the beauty of the harmonious music that radiates from the fields and that Einstein heard(that being a metaphor for the harmonious dance of the quantum fields bringing about life). Here are some of the more noteworthy thoughts i could gather:- Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source . . . They are creatures who can't hear the music of the spheres. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p. 214)

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- A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

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- Einstein on Science and Religion: "But, on the other hand, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive." [As quoted in Dukas, Helen and Banesh Hoffman. (1979). Albert Einstein - The Human Side. Princeton University Press.]
- A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

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- The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

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- The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

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- I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. (Albert Einstein) String theory is also in accordance with these views that matter and life are similar to music that is discernible as music only to the highly specific apparatus for that(ears for musical sound waves and knowledge and imagination for the fields and branes(in as much as String theory is verifiable at this level) :
“Long light strings can vibrate at different resonant frequencies, and each resonant frequency describes a different type of particle.[7] So in string limits, any elementary particle should be thought of as a tiny vibrating line, rather than as a point. The string can vibrate in different modes just as a guitar string can produce different notes, and every mode appears as a different particle: electron, photon, gluon, etc.”
String theory - WikipediaMore about Einstein’s views of God here:Albert Einstein: Quotes on God, Religion, TheologyDisclaimer: By God I do not mean any religious kind of God in any conceivable way. You can substitute the word “God” with “Cause” or just “Entity” in any part of the message above. Maybe I am wrong, maybe Einstein is wrong as well, and sadly there is also the possibility that we might never know. Beauty and harmony are subjective human terms, but so is our reality and for as long as one is within it, one could see the utter harmony in the fields and “hear” the music that causes the fields to begin to “dance” and produce the magic of life and reality. I think whoever that Entity might be, he’s the Greatest DJ the universe could ever possibly have.
This is such a great discussion on the outskirts of physics, reality and nature, I think if Agobot was not suspended, he would thank you for your contribution.

Thanks for the video onifre, it was amazing. I think it should be a "Sticky" on a forum like this, for I think anyone coming to EvC MUST see it before he joins the debates. I have never seen it before and it strikes my mind that, as Michio Kaku puts it:"We(psysicists) believe the mind of God is music resonating through 10 dimensional hyperspace"That's just the same thing i was thinking this morning while driving to the post. I came to my owns conclusions about God being a "musician" after just a few posts on the previous page, but if the top scientists are working in the same direction that my pathetic mind is leading me, is pretty encouraging. Michio Kaku seems to be very popular in this field, pretty cool guy with neat and clean explanations of theoretical predictions that can probably easily spread over pages of mathematical equasions.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnQLsERqTIgEdited by DJ, : No reason given.Edited by DJ, : No reason given.

The Theory of Everything - how possible is it? How possible is it to combine the general relativity and quantum mechanics? How are scientists hoping to combine a perceived illusion to a collection of fields? Aren't all the theoretical models of multiple universes and hidden dimensions in string theory just a sign that there is a true wall between reality and the perceived one?
How could you combine a wave-like "particle", which does not necessarily have any physical meaning, with its manifestation - the set of laws so clearly defined in our "physical world"? To my limited understanding, it seems scientists are trying to describe "Miracle" with mathematical equasions. Or maybe it would be a better question - Is the miracle merely THE UNKNOWN?

Thanks! I appreciate it that you put efforts into clearing the misunderstanding. However I'd like to see you try and explain the complex nature of reality in the Bulgarian language to a prejudiced Bulgarian auditorium. And mind you, our language is one of the hardest to learn.

If, as I said in the quoted post, the TOE is considered possible(although I don't see that happening in our lifetime), it would have to explain everything. How nothing existed before there was something, every possible interaction in the Universe, it's cause and effect. But if we, whatever obscure illusion lies behind this term, figure everything out, there will be no more unanswered questions and probably just a fraction of a remaining science. So my question remains - How possible is this?PS. Staying strictly on topic in a forum like this is practically impossible. I am doing my best to avoid offtopics, but if i have to choose between opening a thousand highly inter-related threads and going mildly offtopic, I'd go with the mild offtopics.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I take it you mean "I would say that theoetical physicist (WILL)come up with the ToE, or the unifying theory, long before an consensus in Abiogenesis".How do you think the preset values of the fundamental forces can be explained except with the usual:Infinity vs God?where infinity is any infinite number of worlds/universes(the so called string theory)?
My thoughts on the matter are on the previous page. Straight from Wikipedia on the Theory of Everything:"A speculative solution is that many or all of these possibilities are realised in one or another of a huge number of universes, but that only a small number of them are habitable, and hence the fundamental constants of the universe are ultimately the result of the anthropic principle rather than a consequence of the theory of everything. This anthropic approach is often criticised in that, because the theory is flexible enough to encompass almost any observation, it cannot make useful (as in original, falsifiable, and verifiable) predictions. In this view, string theory would be considered a pseudoscience, where an unfalsifiable theory is constantly adapted to fit the experimental results."Theory of everything - WikipediaI am running the risk of becoming boring but if i have to choose between infinity and God, I'd go with the latter. Infinity is a mathematical concept that does not make any sense to my human mind, and pretty much as the Wiki says I'd consider such a possibility "pseudo-science"(i can be wrong, but the whole idea of infinite number of worlds makes as much sense to me as diving 2 by 0).On the possibilty of ever developing a full theory of everything, i am with Einstein on that(from wikipedia):"Some physicists believe that it is therefore a mistake to confuse theoretical models with the true nature of reality, and hold that the series of approximations will never terminate in the "truth". Einstein himself expressed this view on occasions."Same source from Wikipedia:
"A theory of everything (TOE) is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena."
To me this pretty much equals finding and meeting God himself, so i wouldn't go so far as to say it will be easy or possible.
On the other hand, if scientists can find infinte(not just multiple) hidden dimensions, this will change my opinion and general ignorance quite a bit.But as Dan Quayle said - "If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure."Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

Hi cavediver, I am mostly taking part in this discussion because i know you are reading this thread. If you had to make a personal prediction, would you say that scientists will eventually be able to combine QM with GR? Do you believe the missing link between GR and QM is the M-theory?
What does science think about Multiverse? It can explain how we got here in these favourable conditions, but if there is no god/mind behind all this, who created the Multiverse? Causuality can be broken at the quantum level and i can see how a universe can come out of the nothingness and break the "poetic justice of cause and effect" as the song goes(i described it on the previous page). So what we have is a good possibility that the "cause and effect" principle CAN be broken at our level of existence, but then we need to also explain who/what created the conditions and set the laws so that those particle could come out of the nothingness. This is where my understanding goes into a God/Mind mode(maybe i am just ignorant like most of us, or maybe we'll never know being constarined by our human capabilities).Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I have a question about the BB and I don't feel like opening a new thread because I think the answer will either be a very simple one or there will simply be no answer. So the BB thoery says that there is no outside our Universe, or in layman's terms the outside of our world is not created yet. Then we have the spontaneous creation and annihilation of matter that was proven in an experiment ten years ago. This experiment however was done here, within the Universe or within what was already created. So my question is based on the following logic:
We don't have observational data from outside of our universe(that is not created yet). So if the singularity is to emerge according to the principle of "spontaneous creation and annihilation of matter"(that i wrote about on the previous page), it has to do it within an already created universe, as we only have evidence that matter can come from non matter in our 3d world. I have absolutely no problem with matter coming from non matter but it puzzles my mind that something could come up in an uncreated and unexisting spot and expand itself. So does that mean our singularity was likely born within another similar world/universe where the principle of "spontaneous creation and annihilation of matter" is valid? Because that makes so much sense to me(especially when viewed in the context of the post that won me a suspension), but then as we delve deeper, we start to see how pathetic human logic and our ability to comprehend really is. Is there a likely answer to this question?