RE: Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist
September 22, 2015 at 12:50 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2015 at 12:51 pm by Captain Scarlet.)
(September 22, 2015 at 12:14 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I'd say "matter fields" is an oxymoron. But you say QM "particles" aren't formless, which I find interesting; what is their form?
Why would a "matter field" be oxymoronic, unless you can only envision matter as a "particle" or tiny ball bearing. Maybe matter is condensed energy from an excitation in a field (propogating as a wave). I am open to these ideas and am agnostic on materialism a) because of the baggage it carries implying the world is made of tiny ball bearings b) I do not know what matter really is and neither does QM, QFT, string theory et al. So I am happy to wait for a more comprehensive view. However this doesn't mean realism and naturalism are not true.
In QFT asking what forms do "particles" take? is a malformed question. There are no particles, but the interesting thing to me is that it describes not classical but quantised fields. Quantised fields behave differently in that they come in chunks (much like you can only have the whole sugar lump not the individual grains) but propogate through space as a wave. Once the field interacts with something the whole quanta, chunk of that field crystallises out (to give it a particle look). The form and time evolution of those fields are described in the maths which alas is less penetrable to me, but it is there if you are interested ie the forms exist. There is some information out there on it. Rodney Brooks does a decent summary of it in "Fields of Colour" and explains in laymans terms Julian Schwingers QFT.
That is not to say I am personally committed to it, it is one of many inetresting interpretations.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
