Saturday, April 18, 2009

I do not exist - Condensate

My earlier posts established that I am insane... and you are too... as a matter of fact, I proposed to you that I do not exist... and neither do you.  I promised 4 simple arguments... First, my perception of me... is all in my head!  There is no objective evidence that I exist... my brain is totally isolated from what it perceives.  My argument from the Microscope showed that we are composed of transient stuff... what am I anyway?  Even my bones are totally new every 3 years.  The third argument went from the Cosmic "soup" of stars dense enough to fill high magnification photos, to the vast empty space between the sub atomic particles that compose every object around us.  That chair you are sitting on does not exist... it is just micro dust specs with thousands of times the empty space between.  Or, is it...

In my last existence post I mentioned that the teachers who showed me that my chair did not exist still lied to me!  Even the molecules, atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons do not exist!

What???  It is even more amazing that this was known long before I was born in 1949!  For example, The foundations of quantum physics were laid back in the 20's.  Heisenberg stated his famous Uncertainty Principle in 1927.  One simple example of this is trying to find the location of an electron.  The energy you use to observe the electron, moves the electron so that it is no longer there!  You can measure velocity or position, but not both at the same time.  Another example that I use all the time is tuning my guitar using beat frequencies.  I start by tuning one string to some source, then use that string to tune a second string.  I press the string to a fret so that the two strings play the same pitch.  Then I listen.  If I hear a beat in the sound, I tune the second string until the beat slows down.  In order to tune the string perfectly, I would need to wait forever to prove that there was no beat!  So, I just get it slow enough that I make it faster if I try to get it closer.
All sorts of strange things happen in the realm of quantum physics.  Another example is the double slit experiment.  Back in 1803 Thomas Young explained the phenomenon where light passes through two slits and forms an interference pattern on a screen behind the slits. What should particles do?  If you shoot bullets at a slit in a steel wall, you see a line of bullet holes in the screen behind the wall.  OK, so make two slits, and what would you see?  Yep, 2 lines of holes, each neatly behind the 2 slits.  Easy!  We use electron guns to make (now old style) TV displays (cathode ray tubes).  So, lets shoot electron "bullets" at 2 slits... we should see two neat lines of "electron hits" behind the slits - right?  However, we do not!  Instead, we see electron hits in an interference pattern just like the light made!  What?  The electrons behaved like waves, not like particles.  Some described the electrons as merely "probability" distributions, and others talked about the paths they took.  For example, in 1948 Feynman published his "Path Integral" explanation.  Basically he said that the particle traveled all possible paths to it's destination!  Weird!  More double slit into.

 Of course, one of the most amazing and famous things that was stated around this time was Einsteins formula, E = MC**2 (1917).  Basically, it says that matter and energy are interchangeable!  If you think of that in light of our discussions of particles and waves, you must deal with the fact that those particles we perceive are just a manifestation of the energy that composes them.  If you want to visualize the universe as starting in a big bang, then think about it as God imagining a 4-dimensional (at least) space, then thumping it with a big old finger to instantly create "all the stuff that ever was and ever will be"... stuff = matter = waves = energy.  The wave-particles are all held together by electro/magnetic/atomic force to cause us to perceive them as solid objects... Can you feel the vibs yet?

So, we can not figure out where an electron is, and we see that it behaves as a wave as well as a particle and is just a manifestation of big bang energy.  So basically, we can visualize the electron as "popping in and out" of existence in the vicinity of the nucleus of an atom in one of the discrete bands determined by its quantum state sort of like it would appear randomly in an interference band behind two slits.  The other building blocks of the atoms, the neutrons and protons are made from bosons that behave in similar ways to the electrons, so you see... even the subatomic particles do not exist!  So, the atoms do not exist... so I do not exist!  Simple - eh?

Now for a final example, lets get to the condensate... back in 1924-25 Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein imagined a very odd behavior of matter.  They said that if matter could be cooled to near absolute zero, the atoms would become totally indistinguishable!  Basically, thy would become a glob, not individual anymore.  As it turned out, we did not get to observe this behavior until 1995, right here in good ol'e Colorado at CU.  They used the wave troughs of laser light to grab the atoms, and thus, cool them, and an electro-magnetic field to lock them into the center of the beam so that they could not bounce into other atoms and heat up again.  When they accomplished their goal, they saw the phenomenon. The atoms got "fuzzier" and "fuzzier" until they just merged together into one condensed blob!  Double weird!!  Atoms are not the nice little solar systems we were told about, are they?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_condensate   More details http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/2242

Well, you may not think these  arguments have been simple as I promised, but I think I can summarize them simply... I do not exist because...

- My perception of myself is based on a remote sensing scam.   My brain interprets sensations that come in from remote sensors via electrical impulses and does not actually experience any of the things that it perceives.  That does not prove that I do not exist, but it opens the possibility that I might not exist.

- Any Microscope shows that my body is not any thing like I think it is!  It is a battle field of microscopic beings, worms, mites, foreign cells, and many other things and even the part that I think of as "me" is constantly refreshed, even including my bones within 3 years!  After I die, liquids and gases are released as the soft stuff rots until only a tiny collection of minerals is left behind.

-- The Cosmos is a soup of particles called stars with vast intervening empty space... ah... except the 2 Hydrogen nuclei per cm**3... Then, zoom down to the super-microscopic world of atoms and we find the same thing... tiny specs of "matter" with comparatively vast volumes of emptiness between them... basically, the chair you are sitting on is nothing but empty space with some specs held together by electrical force.  Go ahead... jump up and down on it...

-- Finally, that solar system picture of the atoms was false too!  Not only are the atomic components made from other, smaller entities, but those entities do not behave like particles at all!  They flip in and out of existence and can not even be located!  How can they make something that does exist?

Like me for example, I do not exist.  At least not in the way that I perceive myself to exist...  not in the sense that I am sitting here on my non-existent chair, typing with a non-existent keyboard a non-existent message... oh bother...

The only thing that finally relieved my tension, felt from childhood, of realizing that I did not exist was finally figuring out that I did exist!  I exist in exactly the way that the creator created me to exist, and how He designed me to perceive my existence.  I think I said it simply in an earlier post... I am a figment of His imagination, not mine.  Sorry Rene... He thinks, therefore I am.

Ac 17:28 - for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, `For we also are His children.'  (NAS - CrossWalk online Bible)

4 comments:

  1. I can not believe it, but there is an amazing synchronicity with this post! I promise you I had not seen this Dilbert before deciding to write my final post on existence! http://dilbert.com/2009-04-17/

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  2. 1.) That is a hilarious Dilbert!

    2.) Well done! This is a very comprehensive look at our non-existence. Well laid out argument and very interesting. I've read about about the double slit experiment and a few of the other things, but I'll have to go through all of your links and get the full info.

    It's a fascinating universe isn't it?

    Okay, but question here... I've come believe as you have that we exist because God thinks we do....but then the question becomes, if we are 'figments' of God's imagination, do we have an independent existence apart from God? Does the universe?

    If so, how? As you point out, we really don't exist. If we exist because God thinks or imagines, then our existence seems to be dependent on God's continuing to think... a contradiction to our independent existence.

    If we don't have an independent existence then 1.) In Christian theology we believe that one chooses Heaven or Hell by choosing or rejecting Jesus... but how can a figment of God's imagination be cast into a place totally devoid of Him? or is Hell not totally devoid of God (where can I go where you are not? asks David) 2.) If we and the world and the universe are not-independent of the God mind then we are all part of the divine... how can we have our own free-will... and again Christian theology has a problem... why would we need Jesus (the Divine) to be sacrificed for us (part of the Divine)?.

    I'm not sure I've fully resolved this dilemma to my satisfaction yet... other than to say, we do have free will and independent existence, it's got to be something metaphysical and apart from God though I can't really put my finger on what it is exactly.

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  3. Sorry Theo... life has been a blur since I read your comment! I meant to reply back months ago! Is it mid July???
    As above, I believe I have no existence apart from Him... Ac 17:28 - for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, `For we also are His children.’ (NAS - CrossWalk online Bible)

    You have put your finger on a very hot topic for me. I suppose that over the years I have thought about "predestination and free will" quite differently than most folks do... and none of them wanted to hear about what I was thinking anyway... Thanks! Believing that you only exist as a figment of His imagination tends to shed a new perspective on this topic.

    The stress between my free will and my predestination has given me many hours of thinking, reading, headaches... the bottom line is that I believe that I must have both free will and be predestined at the same time. It makes no sense to me, but hey, I am not God... he can do several things that I can not do...

    A Reformed Presbyterian pastor told me a little story that helped me reach this balance of tension. As the story goes, John Calvin and John Wesley died and saw each other walking up the path to the pearly gates. They greeted each other and walked on together. When they got close, they saw a sign over the gate that said "Whosoever will may come." Wesley glanced at Calvin who nodded his head in understanding. They walked on through the gate. They looked around and then glanced back at the inside of the gate. There on the back side of the sign it said "Known from the foundation of the universe." They both smiled and walked on together.

    If someone has free will, then they must choose God. How can they choose if they have not heard? If I choose not to speak, then is someone lost because I was rebellious? Calvinists have produced some of the greatest missionaries... who believed that only the chosen can come, and that none can resist... so why do they go? Because they desire to follow God's will, not because they will make God fail to realize his will. Re-read Romans 9 - 11 in this frame of mind and see what you think. http://www.biblestudytools.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?passage=ro+9&version=niv&showtools=0

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  4. Here is a quote I just found from quantum physicist Max Plank:
    “all matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration which holds the atom together. We must assume behind this force is the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.“
    Wow...matrix indeed... : )?

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