This seems to me to mix together several different, and logically fraught, ideas. One is that we only know what we see. Another, that the chairs and cups of our experience are not real, that what is real are the quantum fluctuations of the particles that make up those chairs and cups.
Neither of these is right.
The medium is spacetime
I’m not a physicist and only have a limited understanding of the wave function of matter. It is a central part of quantum mechanics, which treats matter like atoms as continuous waves.
No, I did not say this. Only that the form of matter changes when it is perceived by human senses.
Folk say that as if it were an answer. It isn’t, and quantum waves are not in spacetime; indeed, they are mathematical descriptions rather than ontic actualities. Spacetime is not an item in the equations of quantum mechanics. It is used in Relativistic physics.
That’s the great divide in modern physics.
That’s debatable. Indeed, it is debated.
I think this thread might benefit more from being speculative rather than predominantly focused on physics. We could do that, maybe. There are many things we could explore about particles and so on.
Thank you, Banno, I think this is what I need thinking outside the box (not saying I don’t believe in physics though). Could we explore my question next as quote:
Nothingness/emptiness is a perception on the state of the world or space, that something which had been existing is no longer existing.
For the absolute nothingness, which no one has ever seen, or experienced and mentioned, doesn’t exist either in the world or in mind. But whenever someone talks or thinks about it, it pops up as a mental object in the mind of the talker or thinker.
Still from mostly a physics perspective:
Sure, all the time. On a medium scale, atomic bombs convert several grams of matter into heat. It still exists as energy, but that heat isn’t ‘stuff’ anymore. Likewise, at the ‘time of’ the big bang, there really wasn’t matter at all. It came later as the universe cooled.
No. You can’t cut an electron in half, but you can cut a proton (into thirds).
In this case, same thing. Maths describing our observations is the same thing as them being real. A particle might be no more than a disturbance in a fundamental field, but those disturbances are quantized, so they still cannot be halved.
Nobody has seen the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) either. It’s all inferred from similar data. For that matter, one can say that of the moon, since all we measure is light presumed to have come from there. No observation is ever direct. That doesn’t mean that electrons don’t exist in our universe. They’re not nothing, even if they look less like ‘stuff’ the closer you look.
All correct. Energy conservation works in inertial frames, and our universe is not described by any inertial frame. So light energy fades to arbitrary redshifted wavelengths. Moving rocks (in the absence of force) tend to slow arbitrarily close to a halt, but never to a stop.
They’ll have a hard time doing that. There is no total energy of the universe, but there is an energy density, which goes down (E/proper volume) or up (E per comoving volume) depending on how it is calculated. I don’t know of a way where it remains the same.
Interpretation dependent, so indeed, undecided.
No ‘beyond’ indeed since no coherent model of the universe gives it an edge. But that doesn’t preclude other universes. You just can’t meaningfully point in a direction where one of them is.
Space just gets bigger
It is expanding, yes, but the universe at a moment in time does not have a size, so the size cannot change. And also the universe is all of spacetime, not just all of space. So while space expands over time, the universe does not since the totality is not over time, it contains it.
This is interpretational. One could alternatively define the universe to be just all of space at a moment in time, in which case it does expand, even if it doesn’t change size.
At some great distance in time, when the universe is unimaginably bigger than it is now, matter will be very, very cold–Absolute Zero?
Given the 3D model instead of the spacetime model, yes, it gets cold. At heat death, there is no matter at all, and radiation fades to nothing.
If there is matter left, there is energy, and therefore maybe still cold, maybe arbitrarily close to zero temperature, but not zero energy density.
If there is no energy at absolute zero, hasn’t a great deal finally disappeared forever
There’s still dark energy, and the proper density of that never changes.
How do you do that? Any evidence or demonstration for the cutting a proton?
Smash protons into each other in a particle collider. They break into their parts, 3 quarks, 2 up, 1 down.
Is proton not an imaginary object only in word? I have never seen it in reality, how it looks like in anywhere in the world. Have you?
Even the scientist seem to be wondering what it is about after having invented the word.
Do you think we might be in a black hole?
Well, I suppose if you adopt an anthropocentric idealistic stance where direct human observation is required for anything to be more than just imaginary, sure. It means nothing would be real to a blind person or to a frog.
As for what we know about protons, the thing is indeed more complex than the simple 3-quark model I gave, which ignores all the gluons and virtual crap and dynamics that goes on in there.
In short, no, I don’t think that, although you did put ‘might’ in there, meaning if there is a valid interpretation of physics that puts us in a black hole, then I don’t think I personally could falsify such an interpretation.
It is not about naive human observation or anthropocentric idealistic stance. It is about making clear what must be accepted as existence.
If you accept anything that claims existence just because science said it exists, or the churches and temples said it existed, then the world is full of things we hear about but not visible to our eyes. Not sure if it is good or bad.
Maybe those objects which are invisible to human eyes, but believed to be existing should be categorised into different type of existence or objects in possible world?
Nope, we don’t want to talk about minority cases or totally different class of perceptuality here. That would be volunteering to introduce strawman.
But you seemingly place an unreasonable requirement for ‘observation’. Sure, this puts into question your favorite deity, but it also questions a round Earth and say all of relativity and quantum theories, none of which involve anything actually being observed. Only observation of instruments, which is in my book a lot more evidence than the selection-bias arguments for said deity.
I notice you didn’t comment on my mention of the whirlpool galaxy. Nobody has seen that. Is it not reasonable to suggest that it exists?
I suggest separate categories for things with evidence and things not, even if there is always those claiming evidence that others don’t accept. It’s a start.
Not sure if that was the case at all. Was just saying, if science talks about invisible objects, as if they are legitimate existence, then it is metaphysics.
It is always good idea to agree on the categories of existence in discussion.
For instance, it will avoid folks arguing on the existence of God for weeks and months exchanging a bunch of twaddles, as if it is some living person, when others think it is a spirit, as an example case for telling you how important it is to agree on the existence categories in discussion at the beginning.
That’s not the definition. Use different words to mean different things.
Science/physics has to do with empirical evidence. It proposes and implements tests. Such proposals are theories. Theories are science.
If there is no falsification test, only then is it metaphysics. Proposals that have no falsification test are interpretations.
Take for instance dark matter, vs MoND for explaining the rotation curves of galaxies. These involve something ‘invisible’ as you put it. But it’s science (not metaphysics) because the two make different predictions.
Sounds like you’re making assertions and committing fallacies without benefit of falsification test. So your assertion is metaphysics.
It isn’t ‘twaddles’ for those that presume such an interpretation. And yes, people have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize their deities.
I was not giving the definition of science. Just was pointing out when science keeps talking about invisible objects which has no empirical evidence, it is committing itself to possibility of being metaphysics.
You are stretching your understanding of the point way beyond what it was meaning and implying taking it into complexity needlessly.
I was not asserting anything at all. You are distracting from the point again.
There was no issue anything to do with fallacies, falsification test or metaphysics at all implied or indicated in the point. They seem to be some psychological product of your own imagination. I was just giving you an example to consider supporting my point above.
It does no such thing. I think you just have a very limited opinion of what constitutes empirical evidence.
I was only talking about your claiming that you can cut a proton into 3 parts. I was being suspicious on your claim if it were based on empirical evidence.
Yes, it’s based on empirical evidence. They’ve been bombarding protons, learning of their structure, since the late 60’s.
‘Cut’ is a poor word. ‘Smash’ is more like it, and the energy needed to do so adds so much energy to the three main parts that those parts become new particles like mesons or something. A quark does not persist on its own. If you pull a quark away from a proton, the energy required to do so makes new quarks.
It is a good explanation on the question. Thanks.
My concern is whether these invisible existences to human sights such as atoms and protons and electrons should be objects for even metaphysics.
Because they are not possible objects to be experienced via human perception directly via human perceptual sense organs.