The Ultimate Nature of Matter

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The Ultimate Nature of Matter

The theory of quantum mechanics has divided the atom into a number of fundamental sub-atomic particles. Although the physicist has shown that the atom is not a solid indivisible object, he has not been able to find a particle which does possess those qualities. Talk of particles, though, is misleading because the word suggests a material object. This is not the intention for the use of the word in quantum physics. Quantum particles are, instead, representations of the actions and reactions of forces at the sub-atomic level. In fact, physicists are less concerned with the search for a material particle underlying all physical objects and more interested in explaining how nature works. Quantum theory is the means that enables the physicist to express those explanations in a scientific way.

Modern science is based on material, experimental evidence, but if matter is non-material as the physicist's fundamental forces suggest, then it will not be able to explain what matter is. It can only explain how nature works by observing the effects on material objects. In his book In Search of Schrödinger's Cat ch. 8, Gribbin suggests the possibility that no particle is real until it is observed. The act of observation collapses the wave function so that one of a number of ghost particles becomes a real particle. This idea has similarities with idealism and its appearance and reality arguments. Gribbin does not take the argument forward so let us consider the philosophical arguments instead of the physics.

Materialists claim that everything is either a physical thing or an aspect of a physical thing, and no physical thing is dependent on the mind. A physical thing is not necessarily a solid object, but...

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...ideas of sense reinforce that belief. However, if we could truly realise our being as the Absolute then the objective world would cease to appear real.

What does this hypothesis mean for the physicist's idea of matter? If the physicist limits his idea of matter to the laws of physics then there is no problem as they all exist in the material world. Matter can then be seen as independent of individual minds. However, the independence of minds is just as much an appearance as material objects are. All of this exists as ideas of consciousness in the Absolute. Ultimately, matter can only be the Absolute in which nothing is independent of it.

Bibliography

J. Gribbin In Search of Schrödinger's Cat (Corgi, 1984)

G. Berkeley Principles of Human Knowledge

G. Klempner The Ultimate Nature of Things units11 & 12

B. Russell The Problems of Philosophy

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