Unravelling the Mystery of How Waves Become Matter

[baywax]

How do such a diverse number of conditions and events take place in this universe? Why is it that a simple thing like an electromagnetic radiant wave has formed an astounding divergent display of synergistic conditions that we call suns, planets, plants, animals, liquids, solids, gases and so on?

 

[malawi_glenn]

what do you mean by wave? Remember wave-particle duality.

And if our minds is just a product of matter, how can we say with certanty that it gives us the truth?

 

[baywax]

what do you mean by wave? Remember wave-particle duality.

Here's something about wave-particle duality.

On the particle-wave duality

Quantum particles are always both, particle and wave at the same time.

Objective reality is a continuous self-maintained thermodynamically open process developing in a sea of discontinuities (CMBR, ZPF...). Atoms are open thermodynamical systems, there is always energy/information/space being exchanged between matter and the environment in which it exists.

Right now there is EMR and matter waves between you and everything around you, flowing towards you and every object around you. EMR 'bounces' off, picking and transmitting information regarding each object's objective state, while matter waves flow inwardly, towards each object, bringing information about the metric in which particles exists, as objects continuously crystallize into spacetime.

Space is full of energy in complete and utter disorder... and fields are simply ordered space. Order or information is what makes particles into solids. As a particle moves through space it doesn't displace space, it ordinates it. This means that what is really moving through space is an organizing process, matter as active information trying to maintain the relation of its structural parts.

Reality is like a wave propagating in water... the form moves carrying information as water molecules are left behind. As a particle moves, it is the information that constitutes its material body which is really moving, the underlying medium (CMBR) stays unchanged. The particle is more like a pattern of motion rather than a solid, permanent, and space independent thing.

http://cyberdyno1.tripod.com/on.html

Please feel free to discredit this statement.

Here's more about light being turned into matter then back into light.

Lene Hau has already shaken scientists' beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can't be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.

Two years later, she brought light to a complete halt in a cloud of ultracold atoms. Next, she restarted the stalled light without changing any of its characteristics, and sent it on its way. These highly successful experiments brought her a tenured professorship at Harvard University and a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation award to spend as she pleased.

Now Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics, Hau has done it again. She and her team made a light pulse disappear from one cold cloud then retrieved it from another cloud nearby. In the process, light was converted into matter then back into light. For the first time in history, this gives science a way to control light with matter and vice versa.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/02.08/99-hau.html

I've also read that after the big bang the radiation, in the form of light, began to form the matter we know today. There were colisions between quantum elements that began to form matter. But what we are able to observe today is a wave-particle duality and it is best described by this article about

For example, notes Ketterle, if you create two BECs (Bose-Einstein condensates) and put them together, they don't mix like an ordinary gas or bounce apart like two solids might. Where the two BECs overlap, they "interfere" like waves: thin, parallel layers of matter are separated by thin layers of empty space. The pattern forms because the two waves add wherever their crests coincide and cancel where a crest meets a trough -- so-called "constructive" and "destructive" interference, respectively. The effect is reminiscent of overlapping waves from two stones thrown into a pond.

Above: A picture of overlapping Bose-Einstein condensates. These shadows reveal an "interference pattern" -- a tell-tale sign of wave behavior. Image courtesy MIT.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/20mar_newmatter.htm

So, are we just seeing an analogy of waves in matter or is matter simply waves or what? And, again, how does so much diversity emerge from the simple propagation of waves?

 

[JoeDawg]

So, are we just seeing an analogy of waves in matter or is matter simply waves or what?

Matter and energy have certain properties we can observe.

And, again, how does so much diversity emerge from the simple propagation of waves?

Probability.

 

[baywax]

Probability.

Or potential?

Matter and energy have certain properties we can observe.

You write as though energy and matter are two different states when they appear to be the same state.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Or potential?

laws of physics?

 

[JoeDawg]

You write as though energy and matter are two different states when they appear to be the same state.

I'm not a physicist, my understanding is that matter and energy have a relationship... described by Einstein's famous equation. Historically they have been treated as separate and I wanted to make sure I was being clear.

 

[baywax]

I'm not a physicist, my understanding is that matter and energy have a relationship... described by Einstein's famous equation. Historically they have been treated as separate and I wanted to make sure I was being clear.

You're being clear. So far I see that energy and matter are "two forms of the same thing".

Here's a good explanation of Einsteins equation:

Briefly, remembering that since about 1880 or so it has become
increasingly impossible to really discuss details of anything in
physics in English or other language without benefit of mathematics,
what the equation says is that matter and energy are two forms of the
same thing and that you convert between the two by either multiplying
or dividing by the speed of light squared.

But this conversion is just like converting between inches and
centimeters, it isn’t an explanation, it is just a number.

The equation says nothing in particular about time or the speed of
conversion, in fact, although time is a component of speed, this
equation squares speed and time squared is meaningless, at least in
this context.

See http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/sep2001/1000903792.Ph.r.html

This irreverent look at the question actually offers a pretty good explanation:
http://www.stresscure.com/hrn/einstein.html

How he came up with the equation is relatively simple, so to speak. He
saw that an easy way to explain some experimental results by others
was to assume that the speed of light was constant.

By using the speed of light as a constant in some earlier equations of
physics, one result that popped out was that e=mc*2 which surprised a
lot of people, including Einstein. The equation says nothing about how
to convert either direction, it just provides an equation for
determining the magnitude of the conversion.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=477866

 

[ZapperZ]

There are a ton of misinformation and misinterpretation of physics here. I strongly suggest that if you wish to under the physics itself that you pose your question in the physics forums, not in the philosophy forum, unless you do not care about the accuracy of the responses that you are getting.

For example, the Lene Hau's experiment is NOT an example of mass-energy conversion, and it has nothing to do with challenging Einstein's speed-of-light limit. Simply showing that she can produce a system that can have a coherent absorption of light and then 'replaying' that later has nothing to do with violating any aspect of Special Relativity. Read her papers if you don't believe me.

One should also be careful where one cites one's sources.

Please note that the PF Guidelines also applies to this forum, and that any kind of distribution of misinformation constitutes the same violation as if it was done in the physics section of PF.

Zz.

 

[baywax]

There are a ton of misinformation and misinterpretation of physics here. I strongly suggest that if you wish to under the physics itself that you pose your question in the physics forums, not in the philosophy forum, unless you do not care about the accuracy of the responses that you are getting.

For example, the Lene Hau's experiment is NOT an example of mass-energy conversion, and it has nothing to do with challenging Einstein's speed-of-light limit. Simply showing that she can produce a system that can have a coherent absorption of light and then 'replaying' that later has nothing to do with violating any aspect of Special Relativity. Read her papers if you don't believe me.

One should also be careful where one cites one's sources.

Please note that the PF Guidelines also applies to this forum, and that any kind of distribution of misinformation constitutes the same violation as if it was done in the physics section of PF.

Zz.

Thank you ZapperZ. I'm sorry if some of the references and statements here are invalid or incorrect with regard to physics. I guess, since my understanding of physics is, at best, disjointed, I thought I would pose the dilemma of wave/particle duality in the philosophy section to try to get a response in terms of what this condition might mean philosophically under headings like "reality", "existence", "logic" and "perception".

You'll notice that most of my posts are questions because I want to understand how non-solids like waves can produce solids like matter. And, I'm also trying to determine the mechanism that renders the many diverse forms of matter we are able to observe today. To come up with an answer to this last question really requires philosophical-type introspection and that's why the question is in Philosophy. I think the physics of wave/particle duality is already well covered in the Physics thread and, we would do well to quote from that area in this one to support any philosophical musing about perception, reality, existence and the logic of these conditions. Thanks again.

 

[malawi_glenn]

Thank you ZapperZ. I'm sorry if some of the references and statements here are invalid or incorrect with regard to physics. I guess, since my understanding of physics is, at best, disjointed, I thought I would pose the dilemma of wave/particle duality in the philosophy section to try to get a response in terms of what this condition might mean philosophically under headings like "reality", "existence", "logic" and "perception".

You'll notice that most of my posts are questions because I want to understand how non-solids like waves can produce solids like matter. And, I'm also trying to determine the mechanism that renders the many diverse forms of matter we are able to observe today. To come up with an answer to this last question really requires philosophical-type introspection and that's why the question is in Philosophy. I think the physics of wave/particle duality is already well covered in the Physics thread and, we would do well to quote from that area in this one to support any philosophical musing about perception, reality, existence and the logic of these conditions. Thanks again.

Solids just forms from the electromagnetic interaction of atoms below certain temperatures for certain elements. If you want to understand the other things, then I think physics forums are better.

 

[baywax]

Solids just forms from the electromagnetic interaction of atoms below certain temperatures for certain elements. If you want to understand the other things, then I think physics forums are better.

What I want to understand is the why we perceive matter as solid. Why do different organisms see matter in so many different formats by different mechanisms? Does this expose reality as being dependent upon perception or perception dependent upon reality? I would propose it is the latter of the two conditions.

I'd also like to know how different organisms see "reality" in different ways. It's a no brainer to say that this is the way they have evolved to survive and to adapt to their limited conditions or to the conditions in their environment. But if you look at the diverse ways of seeing among the different organisms you begin to see the wide spectrum of ways of seeing... and the diversity that is essentially born of "waves".

For instance, if there were an organism that only made its way through life because of its ability to see the waves that are matter what would it see? Would it be seeing a large field of moray patterns born by intersecting waves? Would it avoid the more concentrated areas because they represent something you can bump into?

Bats see with their ears. The aural centre is hooked into their brain the way eyeballs are. I don't know if they "see" or are aware of sound waves but they react to the stimulus of sound and "ping" their way throughout their lives. That's their reality. Like a person who's born blind, their aural nerve centres become highly accurate and multifunctional in terms of perceptive abilities.

A wolf's sensitivity to its environment is because of its ability to accurately interpret waves of light, sound and matter and use them as an indication of its immediate position and condition.

And what I'd also like to understand is what keeps us from falling between atoms or waves. What keeps our waves from slipping between the other waves that make up the the matter of the sidewalk? We are not like two galaxies that never actually collide with one another because of the space to matter (wave) ratio.

The only information we can report is purely a result of waves. Tactile information is delivered to brains in the form of electromagnetic waves. Our occular centres are stimulated by light waves, direct, reflected and refracted which in turn stimulate waves of ems in the occular nerves. Our brain's aural centre is stimulated by sound waves which also stimulate em waves in aural nerves. So, we do perceive the world in terms of waves and nothing more. Is this an analogy of wave/particle duality or is this a condition and function brought about by wave/particle "reality"?

 

[octelcogopod]

I won't get into the physics here, but from what I can tell you are talking about several different things.

I think that matter is perceived in such a way because all matter pushes other matter away.
This is the fundamental function of it, it separates at the quantum level itself, and it has weight.
If you want to know why that is we would be getting into physics again which I'm trying to avoid.
Matter itself doesn't have to be a 'solid' on the quantum level, but it certainly is in the macroscopic level.
All organization of quantum events do not happen as far as I know on the quantum level, it happens on higher levels like chemistry, physics, biology and so forth.
My point I guess is that as of today we have to separate between the macro level and the quantum level, even if no such separation exists in reality.

Weight, mass, solidity, all these things are things that are fundamentally quantum but macroscopically something different.

Also about the animals, I wasn't quite certain how those examples fit into your theory about solidity and mass, because both the wolf and the bat example do not really relate, unless I'm missing the point.
Just because a bat 'pings' its way through reality doesn't mean it doesn't perceive solidity.

Well, I hope I'm in the right arena here.

 

[Phred101.2]

The only information we can report is purely a result of waves. Tactile information is delivered to brains in the form of electromagnetic waves. Our occular centres are stimulated by light waves, direct, reflected and refracted which in turn stimulate waves of ems in the occular nerves. Our brain's aural centre is stimulated by sound waves which also stimulate em waves in aural nerves. So, we do perceive the world in terms of waves and nothing more. Is this an analogy of wave/particle duality or is this a condition and function brought about by wave/particle "reality"?

If you think about it, everything you have seen since you first opened your eyes is the sum total of your visual 'experience'. Of course, your brain has "forgotten" or filtered a large quantity of this out. But your eyes are the "receivers" for information in the form of photons. These "produce" electrical impulses in the neurons in the eye and in the visual cortex, because the photon's energy is 'absorbed' by an electron in a pigment molecule. A neuron fires after many photons have "collided" with electrons in the rhodopsin molecules. So your 'map' of the visual world is a bit patchy, you might say. The other senses, like sound, are due to energy ultimately, but sound is dominated by gravity, which is the most apparent force (apart from light). Also photons don't bowl you over when they hit your eyes. But the "inner waves" are not due to either gravity or photons, but electrical and chemical (thermodynamic) processes. There is a lot of debate about the nature (the energy/mass) of "brain information", and I guess it's probably safe to say the jury's still out.

 

[baywax]

I won't get into the physics here, but from what I can tell you are talking about several different things.

I think that matter is perceived in such a way because all matter pushes other matter away.
This is the fundamental function of it, it separates at the quantum level itself, and it has weight.
If you want to know why that is we would be getting into physics again which I'm trying to avoid.
Matter itself doesn't have to be a 'solid' on the quantum level, but it certainly is in the macroscopic level.
All organization of quantum events do not happen as far as I know on the quantum level, it happens on higher levels like chemistry, physics, biology and so forth.
My point I guess is that as of today we have to separate between the macro level and the quantum level, even if no such separation exists in reality.

Weight, mass, solidity, all these things are things that are fundamentally quantum but macroscopically something different.

Also about the animals, I wasn't quite certain how those examples fit into your theory about solidity and mass, because both the wolf and the bat example do not really relate, unless I'm missing the point.
Just because a bat 'pings' its way through reality doesn't mean it doesn't perceive solidity.

Well, I hope I'm in the right arena here.

Thank you octelcogopod. Sorry for the disjointed post, it reflects my confusion with regard to perceived reality and actuality. The reason I have a wolf and a bat in the post is not because its near halloween! Its because they represent diverse ways of perceiving the environment. The environment doens't change because of the way they perceive it. Its simply their mode of perception that uses specific elements in the environment. Yet, as you point out, the rules that make up our environment are, as you point out, a result of some other rules that are microscopic. So, in effect, the perception of the bat, a single celled animal and the wolf is actually working with the same laws found at the quantum/microscopic level. Yet the percepetive abilities are tuned and honed to how those laws translate at a macroscopic level.

I guess this is where I have to go to the Physics section and ask what the transformation is that takes place between these two levels that causes a diversity of signals which in turn produces the cause for so many different ways of perceiving "reality".

 

[baywax]

If you think about it, everything you have seen since you first opened your eyes is the sum total of your visual 'experience'. Of course, your brain has "forgotten" or filtered a large quantity of this out. But your eyes are the "receivers" for information in the form of photons. These "produce" electrical impulses in the neurons in the eye and in the visual cortex, because the photon's energy is 'absorbed' by an electron in a pigment molecule. A neuron fires after many photons have "collided" with electrons in the rhodopsin molecules. So your 'map' of the visual world is a bit patchy, you might say. The other senses, like sound, are due to energy ultimately, but sound is dominated by gravity, which is the most apparent force (apart from light). Also photons don't bowl you over when they hit your eyes. But the "inner waves" are not due to either gravity or photons, but electrical and chemical (thermodynamic) processes. There is a lot of debate about the nature (the energy/mass) of "brain information", and I guess it's probably safe to say the jury's still out.

Before we open our eyes our experience is much different. In the womb we're accutely aware of sound, warmth, nutrients and the stresses or the relaxed mode of our mother. We are also undergoing rapid mitosis and this growth of our tissues must also provide a certain amount of stimulus. The quality of stimulus is determined by how far along our nervous system has developed and by the genetically determined quantity of neurotransmitters we possess. There will be moments where light stimulates our developing ocular neurons but all of these "reports" to our developing brain will only be registered as "waves" and momentary interuptions to our sleep. The information doesn't appear to "stick" since the function of memory/learning probably hasn't fully developed.

Weighing memory and/or brain information is new to me. My own idea of memory and memory storage is as follows:
stimulus represents a certain "environment" in the brain and body. It can be continuous and it can be sporatic. The more continuous a stimulus is, the more it becomes "expected" by neurons and other cells. As cells die off and new ones are formed, natural selection evenutally will ensure that those ones have genetic traits more suitable to deal with the continuous stimulus. Those genetic traits could be considered "memories". If you weigh these specific allelomorphs, you get the weight of "brain information".

 

[Phred101.2]

If you google any 2 or 3 words from the following list: "brain information mass energy learn"; you will get a lot of links to the subject of learning, brain function, neuron growth, and so on. Currently they are discussing things like how the brain "handles" information, or discriminates between "useful" stuff, and "noise". They use terms like "compression", "filter", "clustering", when talking about "brain info".
If you look at the quantum angle, there seem to be plenty of theories about what happens in our heads at this level, and if its important, etc. I would say most research is looking at the brain as a thermodynamic machine of some kind, rather than a quantum computer, but there isn't really much to go on (yet), and a bit early to come to conclusions (except theories). The conclusions awaited eagerly: what the brain really "does" with information (input from the "senses"), and how memories are "stored", etc. are possibly some distance away -maybe decades, but there is plenty of research...

 

[baywax]

If you google any 2 or 3 words from the following list: "brain information mass energy learn"; you will get a lot of links to the subject of learning, brain function, neuron growth, and so on. Currently they are discussing things like how the brain "handles" information, or discriminates between "useful" stuff, and "noise". They use terms like "compression", "filter", "clustering", when talking about "brain info".
If you look at the quantum angle, there seem to be plenty of theories about what happens in our heads at this level, and if its important, etc. I would say most research is looking at the brain as a thermodynamic machine of some kind, rather than a quantum computer, but there isn't really much to go on (yet), and a bit early to come to conclusions (except theories). The conclusions awaited eagerly: what the brain really "does" with information (input from the "senses"), and how memories are "stored", etc. are possibly some distance away -maybe decades, but there is plenty of research...

I see, that's cool stuff. It might be a matter of being able to weigh heat or it might be a matter of being able to weigh electrons. But why would the actual structures that generate the heat and electrons not be part of the over all weight of brain information?

 

[Phred101.2]

If you think about it, every molecule and every electron transfer, every electrical impulse that gets delivered to thousands (we aren't sure about that by at least a factor of ten) of other electrical "delivery" stations, it's all information, in some sense. What we need to do is look at it from all levels, I guess. There are some fringe quantum theories around, and some attempts at logically classifying what "kind" of information is in there, but the processing itself is representative. There are a lot of different functions and functional areas (partitions) in what is, after all, the result of >500 million years of time to get there.

 

[Phred101.2]

You could argue something like: "the collection of cells (neurons) are a higher level of process and are the true 'map' of information content (the encoding)", but the "background" environment or content is affected by this 'collection' and affects it at the same time (there's a feedback, or loop). Such "circular" properties are a common feature, not just in the brain, but just about everywhere. Also our emotions seem to be ruled by different chemicals (mostly used between synapses -serotonin and oxytocin e.g.), which illustrates that the 'network' isn't purely electrical, because these transmitter molecules play a part too.

 

[baywax]

You could argue something like: "the collection of cells (neurons) are a higher level of process and are the true 'map' of information content (the encoding)", but the "background" environment or content is affected by this 'collection' and affects it at the same time (there's a feedback, or loop). Such "circular" properties are a common feature, not just in the brain, but just about everywhere. Also our emotions seem to be ruled by different chemicals (mostly used between synapses -serotonin and oxytocin e.g.), which illustrates that the 'network' isn't purely electrical, because these transmitter molecules play a part too.

Neurotransmitters do play a part. They're cogs in the loop. Hormones, mind you, are another question pertaining to the weight (quantification) and quality of information. I don't think anyone has told me straight with a link which comes first... the excitation of neurotransmitters and their ems or the excitation and release of hormones.

If you think about it, there has to be a stimulus to excite the pituitary or adrenal gland into secreting its respective hormone. The stimulus can come from a thought or other internal mechanism and it can come from the external environment. Either way the stimulus has to excite some neurons that, in turn, stimulate the gland to produce and secrete a hormone.

They say that a rise in blood glucose will stimulate the secretion of insulin but, isn't it the neurons that are stimulated by a rise in glucose that are initiating the response?

 

[Phred101.2]

The brain is in a similar environment to most other organs. This 'background' -the mesomorphic structure that supports organs, is essentially thermodynamic.
The brain, made of special cells that use electric charge (separation of ions like Ca++, and Na+), to communicate, obviously operates on a different level, but hormones, synapse signalling, and other processes I guess mean there is a need to understand the way the neurons control the background (and vice-versa). It's a complex problem, or one for the complexity theorists. But abandoning entropy might not be a good first step. Some theories appear to claim this is what the brain does, because of its quantum nature. What they don't perhaps realize is that entanglement simply wouldn't have a chance of surviving all the thermal noise.

 

[octelcogopod]

Phred, please be kind to me I don't know much about physics.

But this was a bit of a confusing post.
Your theory is that the brains consciousness stems from a thermodynamic mechanical machine, rather than using more lower level things like quantum entanglement.
Then you say 'thermal noise' mat interrupt with this which I'm wildly going to assume is heat inside the head?

After that you appear to speak of 'quantum nature' in the brain, which I'm just wondering what means..
Neurons appear to fire action potentials between each other via the synapses to transmit information, but these things happen at a much bigger level than quantum don't they?

What would quantum mechanics solve about consciousness and our mind, that we can't do with chemistry, physics and so forth?
As far as I know quantum mechanics is the study of how sub atomic particles interact with each other, but these are way too small interactions to help consciousness come alive, or am I wrong?

It's all very confusing and I'm just trying to make some sense of it.

 

[Phred101.2]

All that can really be said about what's happening in a brain is that "something emerges" from the electrical signalling network. The network requires a structure, or an architecture, to do this, and it relies on the background "system" for signalling (its "working principle"), and feedback. Feedback processes are everywhere, and keep "chaos", as it were, from ruling. This is something the early Greeks figured out...
Quantum entanglement is a very unstable property. Several different quantum states can be entangled, or superposed (multi-entangled), but this doesn't usually last very long in the ordinary world. You have to isolate a system (like at close to absolute zero), for entanglement to "emerge" from the background.

 

[baywax]

All that can really be said about what's happening in a brain is that "something emerges" from the electrical signalling network. The network requires a structure, or an architecture, to do this, and it relies on the background "system" for signalling (its "working principle"), and feedback. Feedback processes are everywhere, and keep "chaos", as it were, from ruling. This is something the early Greeks figured out...
Quantum entanglement is a very unstable property. Several different quantum states can be entangled, or superposed (multi-entangled), but this doesn't usually last very long in the ordinary world. You have to isolate a system (like at close to absolute zero), for entanglement to "emerge" from the background.

This "emergence" you're talking about is the result of a complex system of biological structures and the electro-magnetic discharges they produce. All of this is intricately dependent upon the geo/climatic conditions of the environment for optimum conditions and survivability. This emergence is simply a form of the "sum of the parts" and a result of the "synergy" built between those complex parts. Its symbiotically entrenched in physicality. So, using the term "emerge" really doesn't say anything "magic" or even remotely specific about thought processes or the weight of conscious-awareness.

Does an em wave have a weight?

 

[Phred101.2]

Does an em wave have a weight?

Weight is something we measure, and is explained by a (condensed) bit of matter under the influence of a gravitational field. I think it's ok to say that weight (a property) "emerges", because of this (simple) fact.

Photons are massless, but are energy and have momentum (their rest mass is zero, but since they are never at rest, this is a "short cut" we make to determine something about the nature of photons). Photons have a mass/energy equivalent, which means that information (the photons that we "see") has mass/energy also...