{"id":15375,"date":"2021-12-12T22:49:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T03:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=15375"},"modified":"2021-12-12T22:49:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T03:49:02","slug":"whats-the-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=15375","title":{"rendered":"What’s the Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Law 1<\/em>. A body continues in its state of rest, or in uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force. ~ Isaac Newton<\/strong><\/p>\n

The correlative of Purusha is then Prakriti, the undifferentiated primordial substance; it is the passive principle, which is represented as feminine, while Purusha is the active principle, represented as masculine; and these two are the poles of all manifestation, though remaining unmanifested themselves. ~ Rene Guenon<\/strong>, Man and his becoming<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Newton\u2019s first law shows that matter<\/strong> cannot cause an event; on the contrary, it is entirely passive. Only and external force can change its motion, or set it in motion. Although subsequent developments (e.g., Euler, Relativity) have generalized Newton\u2019s law, the fundamental point remains: matter is passive. Hence, matter cannot create anything in an active sense. What about the force that alters matter? This is energy as defined:<\/p>\n

energy<\/strong> is the quantitative property that must be transferred to a body or physical system to perform work on the body. ~ Wikepedia<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is not a particularly helpful definition. All it says is that energy is the ability to do work, that is, to change the motion of a material object. It does not say what energy \u201cis\u201d but only what it does. We infer it either through the motions of matter or the experience of heat.<\/p>\n

It is known that matter and energy are convertible. At the moment of creation, there was only energy. As the energy, in the form of photons, spread out, the universe cooled When it cooled sufficiently, energy converted to matter. Hence, matter is condensed energy.<\/p>\n

Will<\/h2>\n

Everything that we know about the world necessarily begins with our sense experience of it. \u00a0We touch, see, hear, smell, and taste things. We notice that things move, develop, change direction. One of these things is our own body. We can experience our body as a thing in the world.<\/p>\n

But we can experience our own body in a unique way, in a way that we cannot experience any other thing. That is in its interiority. I experience my Will independent of any sensory experience of my body. I can see that the Will gathers up and focuses energy in order to cause my body to move. Hence, at the most fundamental level, we have this schema:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Will<\/li>\n
  2. Energy is condensed Will<\/li>\n
  3. Matter is condensed Energy<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Subatomic Particles<\/h2>\n
    \n\"Einstein<\/a>
    Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein
    disputing the nature of reality.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    That is a different conception of matter, yet not incompatible with physics as understood. Before quantum theory, matter was defined as that which has extension, i.e., volume. It takes up space. Taking up space is an illusory epiphenomenon of the properties of some subatomic particles like fermions. Thus, in the Standard Model of Physics, the quantum entities do not have size, volume or extension.<\/p>\n

    Mass, then, is the fundamental property of matter. Mass has a well-defined scientific definition, but matter does not; it is a vague term.<\/p>\n

    Fermions have properties such as mass, charge, spin, and a few others. No two particles can occupy the same state. A subatomic particle does not exist at a particular place. Rather the possible states of a particle are described via a probability distribution. Thus, an electron can be at any of the places, some obviously more likely than others. That means an electron may be a million miles away, although that is quite unlikely even if mathematically possible. Moreover, there are gaps in which the electron cannot exist at all.<\/p>\n

    Measurement Problem<\/h2>\n

    From the above discussion, fundamental matter is nothing in particular. Matter is just a collection of particles in given states and probability distributions. So what happens when you \u201clook\u201d at matter? Suddenly, one of the possible states of matter becomes actual. This is called the \u201cmeasurement problem\u201d in quantum mechanics. Physicists do not have a firm grasp of what exactly is happening with the \u201cquantum measurement problem\u201d, so we\u2019ll leave it up to them to resolve. The point is that matter is not so simple to understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Everything that we know about the world necessarily begins with our sense experience of it. \u00a0We touch, see, hear, smell, and taste things. We notice that things move, develop, change direction. One of these things is our own body. We can experience our body as a thing in the world. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metaphysics","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15381,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15375\/revisions\/15381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}