What is Real?

[junglelord]

Time to add another basic and the most perplexing question of all to the reduction threads.
This one will bend every mind to come up with an answer.
This is the biggest single most perplexing problem in modern classical mess of physics.

The standard model to me is sorely lacking in any ability to explain the material reality that surrounds us and creates us.
This thread is born out of a need to answer the most basic question in physics.

I believe to create a viable fabric of reality, non material into material, we need dimensions that must have structure to create the function that inhabits them. Again the standard model does not do this. Rather it magically fills 3D space with EM and matter. There is no reference point from a 3D or even a 4D construct to explain how the fields, the forces, the matter get there.

I invite any and all possible possiblities to be explored in this thread.

[bboyer]

arc-us if you read the Collective Electodynamic link and the talks between Feynman and Mead, what is real is a valid question. I think your struggling over that, due to your bucket issues.


It has nothing to due with the bucket. Its five things we cannot put into a bucket. Therefore there are non material. They are however real. The fact you do not need the bucket is the important point. I think Bruce Lee said it best.

Its like a finger pointing a way to the moon,
( student looks intently at his finger, Lee slaps student on the head)
Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory

Bruce Lee/Enter the Dragon, Opening scence between student in the garden

Do not focus on the bucket/finger rather in the things it cannot contain/heavenly glory
This lesson is brought to you by grasshopper.

Absolutley, "what is real" is a valid question - I did not intend to suggest otherwise. The only struggle I might be said to have is with Dave Thomson's interpretation of the question when it comes to "immaterial structure."

I have great affinity for the Zen lesson originally attributed to Siddhārtha Gautama, I believe, in the finger-pointing analogy. Or was it a Tao lesson by Lao Tze? Or Wu Wei? Well, anyway the context however was not the domain of physical buckets but the domain of mental concepts of and about buckets (such as in APM and others) and the symbolic language used to describe them; he (Siddhārtha or whoever) was pointing to the reality beyond the domain of mind and thought, which domain can only be experienced, not "thought about".

I disagree, jl, when you say it's not about buckets. It has everything to do with buckets in that without bringing it down to earth to how all these dimensions and units become expressed (explicit) as buckets and the things that are susceptible to being put into and contained within a bucket then, otherwise, it is the sheerest of ivory tower fantasizing - don't get me wrong, nothing wrong in that but don't throw out the bucket with the bath water. But I am fully aware you were not addressing the bucket itself but of the dimensions which (partially) describe the reality of the bucket itself.

Just as a park bench top has dimension of length, we can describe the top by those measurements of length of width, length of breadth, length of height. And that is useful in performing work with bench tops if we don't want lopsided tops and so forth. So no, I wouldn't mistake the top's dimensions for being the top itself but only as useful descriptors of its structure and function as you have so aptly pointed out. Just as I wouldn't confuse a "quart" of milk as being the milk itself but only giving me a useful measure of its quantity I might have on hand.

But I also would not make the mistake of not recognizing that those descriptors only have meaning in the context of the physical structure-and-function reality of picnic bench tops, buckets, and a refreshing draught of icy-cold milk with a plate of dimensional chocolate chip cookies; and they can either be conceptual benches and cookies or their full blown, more satisfying physical counterparts. That was really my only point. That and asking of what possible utility is there in conceiving of anything immaterial as having structure-and-function outside of the expression through that which physically demonstrates the dimensional concepts?

IF the aether is immaterial, non-physical, then of what use is there in hypothesizing some completely unprovable mathematically-derived structure upon it (unprovable that is except in the domain of mathematics and statistics which can literally "prove" anything)? Without all the mathematical description the immaterial structure goes "poof", right into its actual non-physical, non-structured domain. Again, there's that big IF the aether is immaterial; equally big is IF it even exists materially (in the interests of continuity I'm still inclined to think it or something like it does bridge over from the domain of implicit, non-structured immateriality to the domain of explicit, structured materiality).

And I understand you when you are speaking of the relative non-material things (dimensions and units of dimensions) that can not be contained within a bucket, that they are non-material relative to grosser materiality (but as concept or thought, I would argue they are indeed material as I don't believe thoughts/concepts are without substance); but yes I also agree that non-materiality is real. No problema. Really. I have given considerable thought to what you and Thomson have said; but I'm not so sure you have returned the courtesy of really taking time out and thinking about that to which I am pointing with my own words. Otherwise, I don't think you would say that "it has nothing to do with the bucket."

Being and non-being, my friend. Imposition of a mentally derived structure-and-function upon immaterial non-beingness is fine and dandy if one is aware one is doing it and not mistaking those conceptual fingers for the actual (non-structured, non-functional) non-being (implicit) reality in which all structure-and-function is only a potentially of BECOMING. Dimensionality and its units emerge from the implicit realm of non-being into the explicit realm of thought-and-concept and therein receive their structure-and-function (but that realm, or domain, of thought-and-concept IS also a form of explicit, expressed materiality). From there it is further expressed into the grosser, explicit physical realm or domain of the like of atoms, molecules, cells, buckets, stars, and galaxies. But I could be wrong.

Really, my only struggle is the common one we share of understanding the symbolic pointers, not that to which they're pointing. In that "ground" (the "where" the pointing is directed) I am well rooted (believe it or not ).

Oh, and thanks for the reminder about the Collective Electrodynamic link; haven't had a chance to get to it but I will.

I get lost when you use these anologies (although I tried not too). I am trying to meet you and understand your point. I think it helps to only discuss the items as real items. (mixing charge and wave, as alternate realities, like steven did is a sign of a classical mess in thinking, I am thinking yours is about non material into material) It is hard for me to jump back and forth between buckets and non material in the way you described you disconnect.

Maybe I could state it more simple. Phrased in the form of a simple question.

I believe that the whole issue is how does non material become material>
How does what a bucket cannot hold, make a bucket? That Is that the stumble block>
Correct?

I think you've hit it squarely on the head with that. I'm not sure that's the exact question but it's probably close. I've come to know that the skill, or art, is not in coming up with the right answer as our school systems so indoctrinate us, but to learn the art of asking the right question. Then, I believe, the answer takes care of itself. In other words, the explicit answer is implicitly held within the unasked question. When the implicit, potential-becoming of the unstructured question is touched upon (seen, heard, visualized - we know these are only words and are not the actuality) by the awareness of an honest, truth-seeking heart, and form-ulated (given form) into and by an openly receptive mind, the answer is ... allowed, permitted ... to be born into the explicit domain of answers. I know Bruce Lee would get that.

Something that just popped into my mind from an Alan Watts lecture. In the west we are indoctrinated into asking, "Mother, how was I made?" In the east (well, before it started being made over into the image of the west), a child would never think of asking such a question, but would ask, "Mother, how was I grown?". Dunno, just kinda liked that and felt it somehow apropos. The marriage of structure (west) and function (east)?

To me - and what I had hoped would be the promise of the APM in terms of unfolding physical description as far as it could go, right to our "spiritual" doorstep whereat we could possibly gain a clearer insight of the threshold where non-being unfolds to being and vice versa - to me, it is our quality of being (and I don't mean in such a narrow sense of being as identification of ourselves only as a human-bean), that it is our quality of being that must enter into the "equational" transition/transformation from "that which cannot be held" into "that which holds and is held". A holistic marriage of western being (structured and functional materialism) with eastern non-being (non-structured, non-functional immateriality). Have you considered revisiting Bruce Lee's philosophy from the vantage point of your experience since first encountering it. Better yet, have you considered going to the sources from which he drank?

I visited your blog. You are one prolific writer, JL! You are going to create one hell of a resource for us all, I am certain. Thank you.

Let's take it slow. I appreciated your question.

So what is your answer to the question?
How do you construct material from non material?

Well, shoot. I just spent umpteen minutes answering it. Short version, then. You ain't gonna like this. "I don't know." In the same manner that I don't know how I beat my own heart. But I do it. In the same way I don't know how babies emerge and grow from non-being into being. Really, just how far can our conceptual knowledge take us? Sincere question.

As I said in the long version, I was kinda hoping the APM would take it as far as it could. But I don't see it so far.

[junglelord]

So what is your answer to the question?
How do you construct material from non material?

I do not ask this question. It involves the concept of creation ex nihilio which i see as an invalid concept divorced from cause and effect. The universe just is. Existence exists. thats where I start. To start before the metaphysically given is a religious quesion in my understanding. This is what I see in my current context of understanding as the question that APM cannot answer scientifically i.e verifiably as in observation not mathematical symbols/models.

[junglelord]

Well I apprciate both of your honest answers. Neither one of you has an answer. I therefore believe the new thread should be a good place to begin. I have already started. Again this single element is much more then APM. Each element that is not understood is bigger then APM. Cetainly no one will understand APM if they cannot answer these questions for themself.

It is clear to me that the inablity to answer question or the that the answer that it is a creation, religious answer, I don't accept either one.

To be clear I am not asking from where the non material began, rather to quantify it.
I believe that will enable one to solve the problem of where matter, force, field, wave come from.
I still believe that no function exist without a structure. There is a cause for every effect.

I do not accept a standard model where things just are( the universe just is)....that is metaphysics

[Plasmatic]

Then youll have to ask an unverifiable question as far as I can tell. As for me Ill stick with what I can answer with my own faculty of reason.

[Plasmatic]

I thought Id post the rest of my post above.

by Plasmatic on Fri May 09, 2008 12:14 am

Well I might just have to pull out my Kimono and phoney "foo man choo beard" to answer that one Id say, start with verfiable , answerable, and non contradictory ones for a start.

I think these quotes from Wal are poignant.:

“As soon as a physicist talks of particle creation and formation of the universe you can tune out. That's not physics either. Certainly not in our present state of ignorance.”

“The real problem is that no one understands quantum physics. It's not even real physics because it defies the causal principle; an effect has a probability of occurring without any preceding cause. And the barrier to the idea of new matter (which is not the same as mass) coming from "nowhere" is that it defies another principle of physics - "no creation ex nihilo." So it's too bad training in the history and philosophy of science and critical thinking is not required for a science degree.”


"This simple picture conforms to the principle of physics which states there can be no creation or annihilation of matter. It is a principle honored in the breach by modern physics and big bang theory. The notion that their must be a "deep esoteric explanation" is symptomatic of the metaphysical approach to physics introduced by Einstein.
It is interesting that Einstein disliked quantum theory because of its probabilistic nature and he thought that it signalled some lower level of structure in matter. “

Note these quotes are from various discussions repeated here with permission.

[bboyer]

<snip>

I believe that the whole issue is how does non material become material>
How does what a bucket cannot hold, make a bucket? That Is that the stumble block>
Correct?

Is that not the ultimate question?

<snip>

Dean, if you are genuinely interested in my take on this you can find much of it on pg 1 of this thread in The Human Question forum: Recovered: The Electricity of Life - a personal view. The 1st and 5th posts. If not, that's fine, too.

[bboyer]

<snip>

To be clear I am not asking from where the non material began, rather to quantify it.
<snip>

I'll be waiting for you at the end of the journey when it is at last realized the futility of that particular quest. Could be a while, I know.

[junglelord]

I think thats a poor logical approach.
Do both of you believe in 3D space?
If so tell me how these non material constructs of 90 degrees are not real?

Your seemly trying to say one cannot answer what is quantiative of the non material dimensions.

Einstein would laugh at that.


Your trying to tell me we cannot quantify 3D space?

You cannot put any of the three dimensions in anything, they are non material.
You cannot put time in a bucket either.
Yet all four are quite real.
In fact they are considered as real dimensions.

Your ok with that, but not with anyother validation of the nonmaterial?

Just so I understand your view on the standard model


It is my contention that each dimension has structure, infact demands a structure. Certainly this is true for Length, Area, Volume, the 90 degree construct of the cube or box. I hold this to be a valid truth for all dimensions. They are non material but each has a valid structure from which functions are derived.

Therefore the only way to reorganize the dimensions so that non material becomes material demands a new construct with specific structure for each dimension. That model would not have a metaphyiscs reply that the universe just is.
The standard model has people believe that this is a good and valid response
I dont buy it. That is noncausality...Effects with no Cause.
That is metaphysics.

Certainly the 3D constructs of length, area, volume are real, non material. How people accept that particles and waves magically fill the non material box is beyond me. That is function without a proper structure. That is effect with no cause....that is metaphysics, no matter how you cut it, you have an article of faith.

I don't buy that, accept that or believe that for a second. I am not into metaphysics. The universe just is.....


thats a patent answer for I don't know...not I understand. I fail to see how the inablity to answer the basics qualifys one to dismiss higher constructs. I speak of course the current raging debate over APM

Its great to dismiss APM, and we should try to and not blindly accept it or anything. But I fail to see how the inability to give a simple and eloquent definition to spin, charge, mass, field, force, qualifys one to know that anything else is wrong when they cannot explain what they "know" is right. What is real? What does one really know, as opposed to what one believes, or has been taught to believe, from the school of classical mess? Certainly to hang on to these terms as exclusive property of the standard model is nonsense. The standard model does not explain any of it in simple terms, but rather asks you to believe the universe just is....that is less intelligent then APM by a long shot.

We will never have a valid answer with metaphysics. I believe basic logic is the only way out. Metaphysics is based on articles of faith...the universe just is...particles just are, fields, forces, they just are....NEVER!

We must ask the question, What is Real?
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... ?f=8&t=538

We will never understand non material into material without getting rid of false truths that prevade modern physics *the classical mess*.

[junglelord]

Again another thread born out of necessity.
What is real? The classical mess is so dead in the water we truly do not know what is real.
Mead and Feynman are very implicit about the classical mess.
Notice the dialoge between Feynman and Mead over what is real concering the B field.

We think we know so much, when in truth those that do know so much, are the first to admit we know so little.
Many speak like an authority on subjects of physics with no evidence to support the claims, inreality riding their own classical mess on the coattails of more classical mess. Some even go further, they disqualify theory based on what they say something cannot be *spin* for example, when they themself cannot even explain the very thing they disqualify. I have yet to see spin explained, dispite telling us what it cannot be and why it is not real.


Feynman and Mead are much too humble and aware to think like that. In fact these two giants will tell you that the classical mess and physics is not understood by almost everyone or anyone. I believe them to be accurate on that statement, 100%.

We are all very educated, we know so very little, most of that education is classical mess.

So I intend to discover just how real are the constructs of APM
Length
Frequency
Mass
Charge
Angular Momentum

StevenO is the bringer of light to an otherwise grey world of real and fanasty. He helped us to see that my vision for EM was valid and much more real then the Heaviside dumbdown formula, which hides much and is not the real maxwell quaternion work in any way shape or form.


So what is real> What could be a better way of reorganizing physics then with the question, what is real?

I hope to finish the journey with the talents of the forum.
What is real and how do we quantify it?
Does non material have a real structure?

What in physics currently is a false truth? How much unreal items do we give false reallity to in the classical mess?

this thread begins with a quote from my Maxwell Original Theorum thread. I wanted to know what was the Real Maxwell Formula, I wanted to know what was real about scalar longitudinal electricity, I wanted to know what was real.

Thank goodness for Dragonspeak 9...LOL
This is a little quote from Carver Meads seminal work Collective Electrodynamics. It is said it does away with Maxwells theorum (which we all know by now is actually Heavisides Reduction, not Maxwells theorum at all.) Read along and tell me if my conclusions are correct or incorrect? Especially the two points in red. Are they not the missing components I have spoken about in this reconstruction thread on the Original Maxwell Four Vector Quaterninon. Did they really eliminate the Maxwell Formula, or did they eliminate the Heaviside Reduction, and arrive at the same place Maxwell did based on the four vector solution? Notice the scalar and vector functions are restored, which is what I pointed out were lost by the Heaviside Reduction formula they call "Maxwell's Formula" even in this paper.

The material in this little volume has been for me a personal quest. I began nearly 50 years ago. That came about as a direct result of my interactions with Richard Feynman. He and I both arrived at Caltech in 1952-he as a new professor of physics, and I as a freshman undergraduate. My passionate interest was electronics, and I avidly consumed any material I could find on the subject: courses, seminars, books, etc. As a consequence, I was dragged through several versions of standard electromagnetic theory: E, B, D and H, curls of curls, the whole 9 yards. The only bright light in the subject was the vector potential, to which I was always attracted because, somehow, it made sense to me. It seemed a shame that the courses I attended didn't make more use of it. In my junior year, I took a course in mathematical physics from Feynman-what a treat! This man could think conceptually about physics, not just regurgitate dry formalism. After one quarter of Feynman, the class was spoiled for any other professor. Feynman liked the vector potential to; for him it was a link between electromagnetism and quantum mechanics.

As he put it, "In the general theory of quantum electrodynamics, one takes the vector and scaler potentials as fundamental quantities in a set of equations that replace the Maxwell equations."

I learned enough about it from him to know that someday, I wanted to do all of my electromagnetic theory that way.

By 1960, I had completed a thesis on transistor physics and had become a brand-new faculty member in my own right. Fascinated by Leo Esaki's work on tunnel diodes, I started my own research on electron tunneling through thin insulating films. Tunneling is interesting because it is a purely quantum phenomenon. Electrons below the zero energy level in a vacuum, or in the forbidden gap of a semiconductor or insulator, have wave functions that died out exponentially with distance. I was working with insulators sufficiently fanned that the wave function of electrons on one side had significant amplitude on the opposite side. The result was a current that decreased exponentially with the thickness of the insulator. From the results, I could work out how the exponential depended on energy. My results didn't fit with the conventional theory, which treated the insulator is the what were a vacuum. But the insulator was not a vacuum, and the calculations were giving us important information about how the wave function behaved in the forbidden gap. Feynman' was enthusiastic about this tunneling work. We shared a graduate student, Karvel Thornber, who used Feynamn's path integral methods to work out a more detailed model of the insulator.

True vintage Feynman was when he waxed eloquent about the vector potential. This quote contains a delightful discussion about what a field is and what makes one feels more "real" than another.
"What we mean here by a real field is this a real field is a mathematical function we use for avoiding the idea of action at a distance. A real field is then a set of numbers, we specify in such a way that what happens at out point depends only on the numbers at that point. In our sense then, that the A-field is real, E and B are slowly disappearing from the modern expression of physical laws. They are being replaced by A and PHI.

He develops the equations of electrodynamics and four-vector form-the approach that I have adopted in this monograph.
http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0 ... 0#PPR13,M1

Is not the four vector form approach Quaternions??? Did the Quaternion Solution not correct the Heaviside Reduction with scalar and vector potentials replaced??? Is that not the original work of Maxwell I have pointed out and which really was what Feynman was correcting was the heaviside formula, like I did, Yet he misnamed it with the generic term "Maxwells Theorum". Is that not the solution the Maxwell Original Theorum results were? I started this whole thread about? I really am asking StevenO. Could a rose by another name smell as sweet?


I fail to see the difference, only the fact I pointed out the term "Maxwell Theorum" is a misnomer and even here it is a misnomer, one should read Heaviside Reduction Theorum, when one sees the term "Maxwells Theorum".

Since their results are the same as Maxwells Theorum then I postulate that they actually did what this thread attempted to do historically. I wonder if they ever researched the work I presented here. I think not. I think they were in effect correcting by their own intelligence what I did with this history lesson. Yes or no?


to continue the quote....as its a great read.

He develops the equations of electrodynamics and four-vector form-the approach that I have adopted in this monograph. I can remember feeling very angry with Feynman when I sat in on this particular lecture. Why hadn't he started this way in the first place, and saved us all the mess of a B field, which, as he said was not real anyway. When I asked him about it, he said something vague like:
there are a bunch of classical interactions that you can't get at in any simple way without Maxwell's equations. You need the v X B term.

I don't remember his exact words here, only the just of the discussion. Sure enough, when volume 2 of the lectures was published, the equation F = q(E+ v X B) appears in the column labeled "true always"

The equation is true for the toy electric motor, he shows. It is not true in general. For a real electric motor, the B field is concentrated in the iron rather than in the copper in which the current is flowing, and the equation gives a wrong answer by a factor of more than 100! That failure is due to the failure of B to be "real", precisely in Feynman's sense. Somehow he is separated signs in two worlds: quantum and classical. For him, the vector potential was primary in the quantum world, where as E and B were necessary for the classical world. These two worlds had not yet come together. I was an active researcher and solid-state physics at that time, they use the quantum nature of electrons and solids every day. He electrodynamics deals with how electrons interact with other electrons. The classical interactions Feynman was talking about was between electrons in metals, in which the density of electrons is so high that quantum interaction is by far the dominant effect. If we know how the vector potential comes into the phase of the electron wave function, and at the electron wave function dominates the behavior of medals, then why can't we do all of electromagnetic theory that way? Why didn't he use his knowledge of quantum electrodynamics to "take the vector and scaler potentials as fundamental qualities in the set of equations that replace the Maxwell equations", as he himself has said? I was mystified; this cryptic answer prodded me to start working on the problem. But every time I thought I had an approach, I got stuck.

Bill Fairbank had given a seminar on quantized flux and superconducting rings that impressed me very much. The solid-state physics club is much smaller in those days, and because I was working on electron tunneling, I was close to the people working on tunneling between superconductors. Their results were breaking in just the same timeframe, and Feynaman gave a lecture about this topic to the sophomores. As I listened to that lecture, my thoughts finally clicked: this is how we can make the connection! A superconductor is a quantum system on the classical scale, and that fact allows us to carry out Feynman's grand scheme. But I couldn't get this approach to go all the way through at that time, so we just sat in the back of my mind all those years, vaguely tickling me.

Meanwhile my work on tunneling was being recognized, and Gordon Moore asked me whether tunneling would be a major limitation on how small we could make transistors and an integrated circuit? That question took me on a detour that was to last nearly 30 years, but it also led me into another collaboration with Feynaman, this time on the subject of computation. Here's how it happened: in 1968, I was invited to give a talk at a workshop on semiconductor devices. In those days, you could get everyone who is doing cutting edge work into one room, so the workshops were where all the action was. I'd been thinking about Gordon Moore's question, and decided to make it the subject of my talk. As I prepared for this event, I began that serious doubts about my sanity. My calculations were telling me, a contrary all the current lower in the field, we could scale down the technologies such that everything got better. The circus out more complex, they ran faster, and they took less power-wow! The talk provoked considerable debate, and at the time most people didn't believe the result. But by the time the next workshop rolled around, a number of other groups had work to the problem for themselves, and we were pretty much all in agreement. The consequences of this result for modern information technology have, of course, been staggering.

Back in 1959, Feynman gave a lecture entitled. There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, in which he discussed how much smaller things can be made that we ordinarily imagine. That talk at a made a big impression on me; I thought about it often, and it would sometimes come up in our discussions on the tunneling work. When I told him about the scaling law for electronic devices, Feynman got jazzed. He came to my seminars on the subject, and always raised a storm of good questions and comments. I was working with the graduate student, Bruce Hoeneisen: by 1971, we had worked out the details of how transistors would look and work when they are a factor of 100 smaller in linear die mentioned in the limits set by the prevailing orthodoxy. Because of the scaling work, I became completely absorbed with how the exponential increase in complexity of integrated circuits would change the way that we think about computing.

[Grey Cloud]

To Arc-us, Plasmatic and Junglelord.
Gentlemen, it seems to me that you are falling victim to the age old problem of language. Or, as I think of it, labels.

Arc-us wrote:
I've come to know that the skill, or art, is not in coming up with the right answer as our school systems so indoctrinate us, but to learn the art of asking the right question. Then, I believe, the answer takes care of itself. In other words, the explicit answer is implicitly held within the unasked question. When the implicit, potential-becoming of the unstructured question is touched upon (seen, heard, visualized - we know these are only words and are not the actuality) by the awareness of an honest, truth-seeking heart, and form-ulated (given form) into and by an openly receptive mind, the answer is ... allowed, permitted ... to be born into the explicit domain of answers.

Or as somenone once said: every question should lead to another question. We (humans) keep tryinng to get an answer but even if we were to succeed it would only be the answer for that particular point (in time and space or evolution), in the meantime the Universe/Creation (label as you will) will have moved on. I really wish I could put into words what I 'see' in my head or provide some sort of 'screengrab'. Heraclitus' flux is the nearest thing I've found but unfortunately we only have fragments of his writings.

Someone wrote
So what is your answer to the question?
How do you construct material from non material?

To me the question is immaterial or put more sensibly, it assumes that there is a difference between the material and the non-material. Would it not be more profitable to consider them as different ends of the same continuum? Or different points in the same process? Or the same thing in different states? Or, or, or..... This whole is/isn't dichotomy thing is so passe; it's so Age of Pisces. It was actually dealt with by the Presocratic philsophers (Age of Aries) with their concept of 'being' as opposed to be or not be.

I agree with Wal Thornhill and Plasmatic (shock-horror revelation) that you cannot get something from nothing. But to me that is simply because there is no such thing as 'nothing'. I think we can all at least agree that the Universe is 'something'. And, speaking for myself, there are no gaps, empty spaces, vacuums etc in the Universe. Therefore, no matter how finely you slice n dice electrons, quarks or whatever, you will still end up with something.

I was somewhat disappointed with some of WTs comments. He appears to assume that science/physics is the only tool we have for getting to the 'answers'. To me that is a religious conviction. I don't believe it is the best one never mind the only one. And here I look to the polluted land, sea and air for confirmation of my view. He also stated:

The notion that their must be a "deep esoteric explanation" is symptomatic of the metaphysical approach to physics introduced by Einstein.

'Esoteric' merely means 'inner'. Given that science is about the investigation into the inner working of the physical world, his use of the word is non-sensical unless he is using it perjoratively to imply mysticism and mumbo-jumbo. Einstein didn't introduce metaphysics into physics. It was only in the last couple of centuries that the the two became divorced.

Junglelord: You seem to be having problems with that bucket. Did you read the instructions?
You asked the question:

How does what a bucket cannot hold, make a bucket?

Thirty spokes of the wheel converge
to define a hole.
Clay is molded into pots
to shape emptiness.
Walls are hammered into rooms
to enclosed space.
Windows are cut into walls
to frame absence.

Though things may have value,
without no-thing they are useless.
I Ching, V. 11. Bart Marshall trans.

[junglelord]

I agree with Wal Thornhill and Plasmatic (shock-horror revelation) that you cannot get something from nothing.

My sentiments exactly. Yet I am lead to believe that is the approach of modern physics. The universe just is...

Junglelord: You seem to be having problems with that bucket. Did you read the instructions?

You lost me?
I thought I set the stage with the basic question?
Can you tell me what you mean? ( I am gonna claim brain injury on that one...I am not sure of what instructions you mean)

[junglelord]

I have no problem with tweeking certain insights and ideas . But for me Causality and no creation ex nihilio is inviolable. Ill certainly look more into mead but if he says theres no causality on the micro, i say theres only one reality. Also as far as I can tell "time" doesnt exist outside of our heads so that a bit problematic for Mead.

So time is not a dimension?
Time is not real?
I would like to discuss that in what is real please and or in the dimensions thread.

[Grey Cloud]

I was going to post this in the Material to Non-material thread but here we go.
Rather than ask what is Real (or real) would it not be better to think in terms of existence and being?
For instance, the stuff you can't get in the bucket has existence but no being, whereas the bucket itself has existence and being. The concept 'bucket' has existence which manifests - has being - as the physical bucket.
To take this out of the science domain for a minute: 'love' has existence but no being (you can't put it into your bucket). Everyone (?) would agree that there is such a thing as love and everyone knows what it is but no two people would agree exactly in their descriptions/interpretations.
Thoughts and dreams - existence but no being, yet both are 'real'. Many of us have woken from a dream drenched in sweat. Your body thought the dream was 'real' but 'you' 'know' it was 'only a dream'.

[junglelord]

Seems like a valid point, but we are talking physics of dimensions.
I guess one could call love a dimension.
But how many of us have said I will love someone forever?
Was that illusion real? What happened to that love? Where did it disappear?
Real dimensons do not come and go.