What is "matter" in the quantum age?

[prothero]

In Newtonian physics space and time is like a rigid box and matter is like little billard balls knocking together or orbiting around each other.

In general relativity; space time is like a trampoline (elastic and flexible) and matter likewise is like a sponge changing its length, mass and other physical characteristics with velocity and gravity.

In quantum mechanics “particles” have both wave and particle properties. These quantum particles (I prefer to think of them as quantum events) have no definite simultaneous (velocity, direction and position) which can be measured anyway and can only possess certain values. The impression one might get is that space time itself is not continuous and not separate from “matter” and in some ways dependent on observation. Repetitive experiments starting with the same initial conditions yield variable results (stochastic) according to a probability wave function.

So when we talk about mind/matter, idealism/realism, materialism. Which concept of matter are we employing anyway?

What does “matter” mean in quantum age? What is “quantum materialism”? How does this changed conception of matter affect our conceptions of such classic notions of the world as a mechanical machine obeying fixed deterministic laws? Or of space and time as existing independent of “matter”. I think many of our philosophical notions are still based on a Newtonian view of the world. I think the dualisms of philosophy: mind/matter, ideal/real, objective/subjective is really based on a misconception of the nature of deeper reality. Are there important clues in our changed conception of matter for resolving these troublesome dualities?
Monism, oneness, anyone?

[Arjuna]

M-theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Bones-O!]

Well, one effect that springs to mind is the doubt about realism. Take, for instance, a photon emitted from an atom and later incident upon a detector. We can measure the photon with the detector and in doing so destroy it, knowing that the photon existed at the atom at some time and at the detector at some later time.

We would naturally infer that the photon existed in the spacetime path linking these two events, but we cannot affirm this. If we tried to detect the photon en route, we would destroy it at the new point of detection, meaning it never reached the intended detector.

There are similar though less catastrophic issues with massive particles. Scientific realism pre-QM would assume that the matter was there and, in principle, describable irrespective of whether or not we looked at it. However the minimum about which QM can describe as real is the measurement and, in conjunction with conservation laws, certain definite properties (rest mass, charge, spin magnitude, etc).

[xris]

Is it just me but the more I'm told the less I understand. The layman has no chance of keeping up with the thoughts and the theories that abound. Once it was so easy to comprehend the basic atomic theories but now we are strung together with vibrating strings that don't exist in reality. When the universe stops vibrating will it disappear?

[Bones-O!]

Originally Posted by xris

Is it just me but the more I'm told the less I understand. The layman has no chance of keeping up with the thoughts and the theories that abound. Once it was so easy to comprehend the basic atomic theories but now we are strung together with vibrating strings that don't exist in reality. When the universe stops vibrating will it disappear?

Ha ha! Pity the poor fools who choose to work with this stuff - it was nature wot did it! Of course, the above does not preclude realism between measurements - it simply brings it into doubt.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Bones-O!

Ha ha! Pity the poor fools who choose to work with this stuff - it was nature wot did it! Of course, the above does not preclude realism between measurements - it simply brings it into doubt.

What is being doubted when realism is doubted? That there is anything but spirit? Are we doubting that something we all believed exists, exists?

[Bones-O!]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

What is being doubted when realism is doubted? That there is anything but spirit? Are we doubting that something we all believed exists, exists?

That real properties of matter exist when unobserved. Not all of them: as I said, those pertaining to conservation laws of discretised properties seem fairly vouchsafed. Just not its variable properties (energy, momentum, position, spin, etc.) despite these always having real, single values when measured.

[Jackofalltrades]

Originally Posted by xris

Is it just me but the more I'm told the less I understand.

You can add me to that.

Initially, when the Y2K bogie and bugle was sounded, so much was written about it, that we waited in deep breaths and with nail biting moments, largely created and hyped by the media, and some attention seeking scientists and opportunists companies, but eventually hardly any computer or systems crashed due to that conjured apocalypso which was slated to hit us all. It all went over my head. At that time , i was so dumb, that i thought it was a kind of an alien invasion in the form of an virus killing our poor earths wel thought and well laboured computer systems.

when the word nano technology was introduced, i was dumb struck just like the hare freezes in front of a headlight.

when string theory was introduced, i felt like the fish out of the water.

wonder how far would the other mans creative and cognitive mind take us. I for one lets the other guy imagine, while i prefer watching the butterfly suck the nectar out of a flower.

I sometimes feel i am the dumbest among you all. Is it just me?

[Bones-O!]

It is annoying that in order to grasp some theories you practically have to become expert in others. Another interesting point is that the 'wtf' factor increases as one hard-to-grasp theory begets an even more hard-to-grasp theory.

For instance, electromagnetism is probably not amazingly difficult for most people to grasp. You need to accept the usefulness of modelling systems in terms of fields, which is kind of weird when you think about it, but you soon see it works.

But mixing that with Newtonian mechanics gives special relativity... time passing different for different observers, lengths being different, the twins paradox, etc.

Then opening up that to non-inertial frames... curved space... curved time?

Then bringing EM back with the addition of one more space dimension wrapped up into a ball in Kaluza-Klein theory.

Then adding a few more to get some particle physics. Then a few more. Then some extra universes...

If you work your way up it's not so frightening, but if you go from 'okay, so an apple fell from a tree because...' to 'everything is strings in some 11-dimensional spacetime' it probably won't make a great deal of sense.

In truth, if it gets to the point where you need 11 dimensions and additional universes, something has probably gone wrong. ;-)

Bones

[xris]

Im sure when we get to the real truth , it will be quite simple. Its strange but my imagination tries to simplify the QM world. Music has the ability to design shapes and compose images. I can imagine pure energy vibrating at different frequencies making patterns that describe the physical world. The elements are different instruments playing their songs to give us this symphony of life.