particles and waves – a paradox?

“But the only realities are what we observe; everything else is conjecture, hypothetical models which we construct in our minds, and with our equations, to enable us to develop a picture of what is going on….A particle is something that is well defined.  It exists at a point in space, it occupies a small volume and has some kind of tangible reality, in terms of our everyday experience of the world.  But a wave is almost the opposite.  A pure wave stretches on forever, so there is no sense in which it can be said to exist in a point.  It may have a very well defined direction – it carries momentum.  But there is no way, even in imagination, that you can put your finger on it and hold it still while you look at it.” – from John Gribbin’s The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and The Theory of Everything

I listened to WGN’s Milt Rosenberg last night.  He and his guest were discussing the possibilities for a “Multiverse” versus a single universe.  Because the idea that our universe is potentially expanding without end, versus collapsing back in – that is, “the big crunch,” the question is “Why is there a universe at all?”  I liked this part of the discussion?  The Big Bang suggests that our universe came from nothing.  There was nothing, then, bam, there was something.  Since we have not ever seen anything outside of our universe then the assumption is that our universe is all that there is, right?  Well, Milt and his guest were suggesting that a universe could be born from other universes.  If this is so, then the idea of quantum physics gets very, very interesting.  Something from something seems a little more believable than something from nothing.  Of course all of this flies in the face of my hard core Catholic upbringing.

The above quote works to tie in these thoughts on the science side of things, but all kind of speak to life as well.  When I read it, I immediately got the metaphor.  Leave science out and imagine this as an explanation of “the soul” and one’s “life experience.”  If your soul is indeed eternal, that is like “the wave” since you can’t see it or understand the totality of it at any one point.  The person you are with your life is tangible and thus parallels the particle.  Your physical body, the manifestations of your choices and actions, the occupation of your body in time and space here and now is the reality that you can observe.  Someone wise once explained that she saw life and eternity resolved as a conveyor belt.  The belt stretches on forever and is always moving.  Where you get on and get off is the sum of your life.  It is simple, so I like it.  So I asked, “where are you when you aren’t on the belt?”  She ansered, “in heaven, or some sort of spiritual pool of collective consciousness – whatever is that intangible energy of the soul…it goes somewhere.”  Ok, I’ll go with that.

So, then my atheist friend claims that the concept of “the eternal soul” is an evolutionary adaptive construct which allowed humans to exist in complex social systems whereby our sense of “being something ’special’ and not-animal” allowed us to individualize for survival.  I’m paraphrasing his rant so well.  “When I die, it is done…that is all.  It is done and nothing matters.”  He claims that there is nothing else past the point of physical existence.  I ask, why are sociologists able to point to evidence for a “collective consciousness” then?  Why will a little kids from England, New York City, Java, Siberia, and Tibet all draw a similar picture of the sun?  Why are religions so similar?  How do you explain people believing in angels, ESP, “the light at the end of the tunnel,” and all kinds of supernatural things.  How many times have I escaped death all thanks to what – quick reflexes???  My atheist friend would claim that, yes, it was quick reflexes, dumb luck, just chance.  Man, that is depressing.

Today I was making the easy drive to my sister’s house; three times I almost hit a critter.  First there was a large raccoon that darted out in front of me.  Then, there was a deer eating grass very close to the side of the road.  Finally, all of the traffic on a major highway was stopped while a bunch of little geese waddled across the road.  Any one of these simple machine verses critter encounters could have resulted in a mess.  Today, it didn’t – thank goodness.  What is amazing is when you really stand back and consider the miracle that being alive really is…the miracle of existence at all…it is mind blowing.  Had the universe been a teeny tiny bit more or less than it was at the moment of creation, then there might not have been this reality…this always amazes me.  How can anyone think that our reality is purely luck?  Even without subscribing to any one particular religion’s explanation, I have to admit that the study of science has only strengthened my spirituality.  Science only just begins to point to the awesome beauty of the unknown.

So where does this leave me?  Just swimming in thought – that is all.  Tangible stuff seems so dry at times.  Sometimes it is just great to grab a book like Gribbin’s and send your mind spinning.  I really just felt like throwing this together after listening to that radio show last night.  I think it is good to stretch one’s mind to consider the extremely tiny stuff of subatomic physics to the infinity of the vast cosmos.  Now I can slip back into watching some stupid stuff on late night TV.

~ by the10sdoc on June 10, 2009.