The Nature of Reality

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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I want your thoughts on what the nature of reality could be concretely. I have a theory that I find most plausible as of now but I am interested in criticism and other approaches.

More specifically, what is an atom, or a quartz, or even a quantum particle?

Disclaimer: my approach attempts to make no unnecessary assumption. I don’t start with some random fundamental particle or something as vague as a “mind” in a “void.” So I would appreciate comments that strive to not make unnecessary assumptions as well.

Here is my current idea: Matter would be the result of energy produced by the fabric of reality.

Imagine the fabric of reality is like paper (a support). That paper, when moving, would create folds that would travel through it in the form of waves (nothing mystical, just an actual pertubation on the surface of the paper).

Matter would ultimately be the result of the energy “generated” by those waves clashing with each other somehow. And those waves are just the paper of reality bending. Sounds simple enough right?

Fun fact: There would be countless waves of countless sizes traveling in all direction (a wave can travel on a wave and in an infinite universe, a wave can be infinitely big).

Now when one or more waves clash together, their meeting point is the highest in potential energy, and that would be the key to “creating” more stuff.
Interestingly, those waves would still continue on and “pass through” each other as if nothing happened, which fundamentally aligns with the fact that energy never disappears and that everything is considered energy in physics.

If matter is a result of said waves, then what happens after the waves have passed you may ask?
Well, nearly instantaneously there would be identical waves coming through again. It would never stop. Like those folds in reality would be constant and consistent, as no spot in reality would be fundamentally different from another. So waves or pertubations would be uniform across the board and continuously “emit” from wherever in a perfect sort of randomness that evens out.

I like to think that in a way, matter and everything else stops existing for a split second and comes back when the waves meet again. That gap would just be so small that it would be impossible to notice at the human scale.

Still a very rough idea of course but would appreciate some thoughts.

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Sounds like a riff on string theory. I’d go with corpuscles, don’t need that medium and anyway the ether was never found, which leaves us with waves in :exclamation_question_mark:

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Sounds very like the popular meme that ‘atoms are excitations of fields’, which is actually pretty mainstream nowadays (e.g. reference.) The challenge for you is, if you bring physics into it, you have to be able to grasp and demonstrate the ideas in mathematics for it to be credible!

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Its a nice analogy very much in keeping with quantum field theory.

There is a field that exists throughout the universe. It has a “sticky” quality which acts on other particles passing through the field to give them their characteristic mass. Without this field they would remain formless.

Every field has its own particles and a particle from the field was discovered at the CERN Collider in Switzerland. The particle was called the Higgs Boson after the scientist, Peter Higgs, that first predicted its existence.

The Higgs field feels to me like an intuitive way to explain form and the story is one of my favourites.

For a while the Press called the particle the God particle as it produces form from the void but that was a little bit of overexcited rhetoric.

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The expression “the God particle” for the Higgs boson originated from Nobel-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman. He wanted to title his 1993 popular science book “The Goddamn Particle” because it was so hard to find and cost so much money. His publisher rejected that profanity and changed it to “The God Particle”, creating a catchy media nickname." ~ Wikipedia

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Great story, sounds too good to be true, but thanks for that. Made me smile.

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Interesting, thanks for that. Can’t say I was aware that this was mainstream though I could have guessed it’s a fairly popular way to see things.

I think it makes sense. I am just trying to get to an intuitive understanding of how those “fields” create matter beyond just theory or experiments.

Also, fields can be a misleading term. I always knew about fields, but it seems almost magical when you think about it. I am not sure how many people actually think of them as simply reality bending and folding on itself… this is a recent non-magical way to conceptualize of them for me.

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One word Magnets

Get some play with them

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I hear you. It’s not exactly obvious. And recall, nobody even knew what fields were until James Clark Maxwell came along. And even now, we don’t really know what they are. But there’s a lot of information being published and taught on it.

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Indeed there is some serious overlapping between our modern understanding and my theory (understandably haha, I am inspired by data about the world).

I find the usage of the term field a bit odd though. Am excitation of a field is weird under how I phrased things, because in my model right now, those ripples don’t move faster. If by excitation we refer to the meeting points of the waves (highest in potential energy), them individual waves or pertubations cannot be fields of their own. Fields would have to be two or more waves colliding :thinking:

Maybe I just don’t understand fields well enough. But if I were to reconcile them with my theory, I suppose they would be the resulting property of a space where a given number of waves of given sizes meet. But waves themselves wouldn’t be the fields, which yields a slightly different understanding than what physicists might posit.

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I see how they sound similar, but nah it’s not the same as string theory at all.
You’d go with corpuscules you say?

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Yes.

Each fundamental particle ( electrons for example) has one field which covers every particle of that type and pervades all of space. Individual particles are excitations of the field.

If you want me to explain how waves and particles relate you will have to give me a little time to fully understand the subject. I’ll have a full answer for you by Christmas. Which ,Christmas iI can’t say.

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Newton and Dalton went with them. Einstein’s photoelectric effect is corpuscular in nature. Fields are mathematical concepts that have no physical correspondence. Since matter diffracts (the double-slit experiment), you’re in luck. Waves have been the gordian knot in physics.

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Haha, okay I am patient!

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That I think, would be a pretty good description, except that fields in physics, while being based in mathematical field theory, also have real input as content, real measurements. So “fields” in physics, are an application of field concepts to real measurements. In physics the “field” does correspond with something physical. Physicists know this, but they do not know what it is that the field representation corresponds with. In other words, the field corresponds with something unknown, so they just call it a “field”, named after the mathematics.

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Yes, you’re correct. I’ve actually seen iron filings aroumd a magnet, I also remember extracting the electric motor of a toy car and a funnily shaped dynamo that powered a bicycle’s head lamp. I’m unsure of the metaphysical implications though.

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Reality is stranger than fiction.

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Metaphysics is stranger than reality :grinning_face:

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My 2 cents. Chasing the nature of reality seems to be a God substitute. Personally I’m not sure what “reality” is supposed to signify. Human reality seems contingent and phenomenological. Outside of this I doubt more than a few people on earth have expertise to understand the issues involved let alone propose viable models. :wink:

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Life is like a movie but with actual pain. That’s the hard part.