Reality is a configuration of activities. These activities can be divided
into two sorts, activities that are an acting, and activities that are a being
or existing.
An example: A car rolling over the road is acting. Next to that, the car also
is being there and that being too is an activity. When the car stands still,
that activity of being is going on, just think of electromagnetism playing
between proton and electron.
We also can see a difference here between inner and outer activities. Outer
activities (driving or walking over the road) then form the acting of reality, inner activities (the piston moving in the cylinder, our heart working
as a pump) form the being of things.
Most of these inner activities can be analysed as a collection of outer
activities between parts. An example: If you dismantle the car, then you are
left with parts between which outer activities play, the piston in your left
hand moving in the cylinder in your right hand for example. Being then becomes
acting if you know what I mean. Inner becomes outer.
The car however is more than the sum of all these outer relations between the
parts. Because these parts can be related in millions of different ways, and
every pattern results in a thing. But only 1 pattern is the car.
Being a car therefore is more than the sum of the activities between parts. Or
more in general, the inner being of things and beings can never be fully
understood as a collection of outer activities between parts. You clearly are
more than the sum of a heart as pump, nerves as wiring, eyes as cameras et
cetera.
Being a car actually is a quality, a specific pattern of relations between
parts. The parts form the quantity, that pattern of relations however is
immaterial, is a quality.
In the same way gold is a quality. With 1000 protons and 1000 electrons, plus
the necessary neutrons, one can make all kinds of things, 1000 hydrogen-atoms,
500 helium-atoms, tens of oxygen-atoms or only a few gold-atoms. And as
quantity all these things then are the same, the same protons, electrons and
neutrons. Only the pattern of relations changes, that immaterial pattern. So
gold is a quality, oxygen, hydrogen, helium and all other elements as well of
course.
In the same way, all things and beings are qualities, and is our whole reality
a quality as well. This quality is the essence, makes the things to the things
they are, a shoe, a human, the earth. See more about this in the
philosophy.
Physics of yesterday and today mainly is focused on that acting, so on the
outer activities. One in a way then dismantles the car, or reality, and
then describes the outer activities between the parts, like bolt and nut, axle
and wheel, piston and cylinder, proton and electron. And that also works quite
well until the level where protons act with electrons.
But somewhere it then stops. Not every being can be reduced to a collection of
acts between parts. Even on that level of proton and electron, difficulties
then arise. Think of the wave-particle character of an electron. We are dealing
there with being, pure being, I think.
What do I want to say here? Physics of today works very well on a superficial
level, so in all cases wherein the (inner) being of a thing can be reduced to a
collection of (outer) activities between parts.
In the end however, the question of being comes into picture. The inner
dynamics then no longer can be made to outer activities, if you know what I
mean. And that is quantum-physics, I think. It is the question of being that
must be posed there. On that quantum level, we see the existing, the being
itself of nature. Also see the essay "Beginning as basic force".
And also when we try to understand light, the question of being comes into
picture, I think. Physics of today tries to understand the electromagnetic
field of light in terms of outer acting as well. The speed of light then is
compared with speeds of cars and bullets and the like.
But light behaves in a totally different way. The speed of light is a constant.
And that, according to me, is caused by the fact that light can not be
understood as an acting, but must be seen as a being. The car moving over the
road, or the spaceship bridging space, is not only acting, but also is being
busy with just existing. And that road and space too are firstly existing
there. And in that sphere of being, we should understand light, I think. See
more about this in physics of space-time on this website, I.4 for example.
So in physics the question of being must be posed. What exactly is an atom?
What exactly is light? An atom, in its most simple form, is a positive proton
as kernel with a negative electron moving around the kernel, that is the answer
of physics to the question "What is an atom?". But that answer only is a
description and not an explanation, so is not a real answer.
Many descriptions are considered to be explanations, as if we understand. "That
is because Coulomb's law." or "That is because Heisenberg's uncertainty
relations." then is seen as explanation. But Heisenberg and Coulomb do not
really explain much there, but just give good descriptions of what is happening
there. And discovering such laws, also is something of course.
The question of being is not supposed to be part of physics. The question "What
is a car?" is not a question of physics but of technology. Physics only is
concerned about the inner activities inside the car, pressure, burning,
explosion, friction, rotation, electricity and the like.
And such a division of labour also is very useful. Quality does not have to be
a great concern for physics. Practical scientists take care of that, engineers,
or jewellers when it concerns the quality of gold.
But in the end, physics too can not neglect these questions of being, so
questions of quality as well. Because physics is confronted with these
questions, for example on quantum level, or when one wants to measure the speed
of light.
The question of being now is brought back to the Big Bang. At that moment all
quarks and anti-quarks came to existence with all their inborn power. Later on
these particles started to act with each other and the atoms were the result,
later forming all bigger patterns of relations.
But what then is a quark? What exactly are they doing? Of course you can invent
still smaller particles then, forming quarks by reacting with each other. But
in the end you then also must give an answer to the question what exactly a
particle is, what an object is. Such a particle not only acts but also is busy
with just being? What is that being?
I think we must find a qualitative description of an atom, in order to really
understand. A qualitative description in terms of enclosing or embracing or
limiting or something like that. Or in terms of space and time or past and
future, but then we first need to know what we mean with space and time and
past and future. Where for instance must we search for the past? Maybe the past
is in our kernel. The kernel of atoms then is past gone by? Mass then is like
memory. Charge then is a travelling through time (see also the essay "Beginning
as basic force"). And the origin of everything then is in the heart of the
matter.
What is an atom? What is light? What is space? These are questions where the
relational philosophy and physics tries to find an answer to. But firstly other
questions and answers are important. What is a human? What is our mind? What is
knowledge? We first need to know what knowledge is, in order to also understand
the contents of our knowledge.
end 1999 - beginning 2000
