The following is the gist of a topic currently featured in the 21st revised edition of V.H. Ironside, Behold! I Teach You Superman :
“It
is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves’
footsteps guide the world.”
Nietzsche
The language of
physics is pre-eminently mathematical - the necessary foundation of all other
enquiries. Speculation takes a new direction. Propositions become self-evident.
Necessity precedes analysis. And that, precisely, is what I myself
The mind’s relationship to time and
space is fundamental. Which is one of the reasons why the virtual particle
belongs more to the history of human epistemology than to the slow,
discontinuous evolution of the physical sciences. In fact, what seems to be an
inherent uncertainty in our knowledge has nevertheless profound implications
for the conversion of pure energy into matter where none existed before. All material knowledge is subject
to space and time coordinates, and to acquire a grasp of the uncertainty
relations between position and momentum, or between energy and time, the
concept of structure arises as an unavoidable consequence. The virtual
particle, consequently, is not a casual product of the ambiguity crisis, but
its very nature. It is the meaning and the means of creating itself.
It takes some explaining, but the
answer to what seems to be the very creation of charged material particles out
of electromagnetic energy, appears to lie in the basic principles of human
understanding. Which is to say, that we have an existential, static-Euclidean
need for logical consistency; and that - like the demands of relativistic
invariance - remains constant regardless of any transformation in
our conceptual circumstances. Hence, the microscopic differentials between time
and mechanical energy arising from the invariant nature of two different
descriptions of reality that combine to create a significance for the subject –
taking care of the ‘hard problem’ of philosophy, or how mind becomes matter. In
fact, there are elementary reasons for this hypothesis of material
self-creation when applied to a universal principle of physics whose conceptual
activities produce measurable properties, though suffice it to say here that
there is nothing absurd in the notion of ‘form without matter,’ or that the
nature of consciousness itself may involve a quantum process.
On this contention rests a substantial
part of my case. The uncertainty is not
a mnemonic malfunction, it is a transformational mechanism. Or perhaps, a
knowing nod to a reality which consists of a cloud of probability; which is to
say, in a combination of all possible states of being. More specifically, the
current theory of matter formation
is essentially just a quantitative reflection of our
‘psychological’ understanding of the uncertainty relations between two mutually
exclusive models of energy and time. Indeed, the utopia of modern elementary
particle physics has no difficulty in perceiving that virtual propositions
are contingent, perhaps, but not illusory; that they belong to the conceptual,
not the a posteriori mode. That, even considered as virtual, it is
nevertheless perfectly proper to say that they are a priori concepts,
connected to the world of reality in a manner in which it becomes essential to
the proper understanding of the reciprocal relationship between uncertainties
in measurement to realise that the
inherent dynamism is not in the substance but in the mind.
And so the world awakens as a
conundrum, and its destiny accomplishes itself not just in cosmological
invariances of time, but in conjunction with the conceptual evolution of
strictly circumscribed micro-material relations. Relations, in fact, which also
form the basis of practically all theories by which processes involving
elementary particles are gradually transformed into the four-dimensional
building-blocks of conventional space and time.
Thus, assisted by a mathematical
calculus of unrestricted power, the entire universe becomes a dynamic piece of
virtual reality. A dynamic idea one
might say. For whether we talk about a process of radioactive decay that takes
billions of years, or the emission of light that requires less than a
micro-second, for the sake of an easy generalization it has become possible to
say that describing the particle is but a description of our knowledge. Indeed,
it is critical to note that virtual particles are
instruments and not
ends in themselves - a kind of triumph of method over truth. For if one looks
closely at the empirical clues for the decryption of virtual particles, the
mechanics of a very deep and inherently discerning principle are clearly
apparent in a formative process whereby cognition is subject to the same
uncertainty relations as all other collateral components. More specifically,
there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that cognition itself is the driving force behind this elevation of
certain indefinite or indeterminate categories to an essentially
anthropocentric view of reality, giving constitutional authority to ever more
rarefied perceptual levels.
Part of this is prescriptive. Part of
it pure bluff: organic and inorganic life evolving one with another in a house
of the mind. Indeed, we seem to be confronted with aspects of the sub-atomic
phenomenology that display many analogies with human psychology. Having been allocated exactly the properties
necessary to provide such an analogy, and considered thus in functional terms,
all of those properties are therefore virtually necessary and may no
longer said to be illusory. The observation at last equals the prediction. It is the generation of a material particle
by a mental cause. The culmination of an association created from an illusion.
As a matter of fact, there is clear affirmation that during the long evolution
of the Universe the growth of complexity has progressed to include not just
elementary particles but rather the appearance of underlying principles of
symmetry and teleology; which is to say, the explication of phenomena by the
purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.
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