What is matter?

[StarMountainKid]

4 minutes ago, edenlog said:

How is this possible? By every method we know the "thing" is real but cannot directly perceive it, there must be some way to perceive this "thing"

Awareness without intellectualization.  Both science and philosophy are modes of thinking. In this sense, what we have are thoughts about the thing, not the thing itself. So, there's nothing we can say, we are induced to become silent and observant of what is.

The other mode is to measure and speculate, both of which are useful. 

[Tatetopa]

1 hour ago, Tiggs said:

IMO, Matter is the temporary arrangement of energy.

Pretty good.

[lightly]

Ohhhh...nothin I guess.  What's matter with you?

[edenlog]

After looking around, it seems the ancients knew of matter and called it by numerous names, mostly a Serpent or a snake associated with the number 7 and 12 and 3.  7 would clearly be the energy levels of electrons, these are the 7 classical planets. 3 it the proton, neutron, and electron. The ouroboros represents matter very well for it can be a particle and wave.  A snake is the wave, a snake eating its tail is a circle which is a particle.  They say that matter can be killed, and in doing so creates a spring of water or a flood, and it separates into a gas and produces a rainbow,  and "dry land' appears which fuses with the gas as it condenses.  The flood stories appear to be them be able to see matter in some way and this act of perception changes it, producing a cascade of events that they say are equal to the creation of the world.

-Subatomic particles cannot be seen but predicted, due to uncertainty.

-The observer effects 

So there appears to be a way of perceiving matter, this perception changes it forming a particle or an egg by collapse of the wave function that becomes the center of mass producing a revolution (probably golden ratio) that generates a type of heat leading to its alteration.  This could essentially be done with anything solid, liquid, gas, or plasma. It is amazing the ancients documented this all over the world, and is in every religion.  This is the chaos, or primordial matter.

All this sounds crazy to me, but I see no other way any of this makes any sense. 

Our perception of the world is not real, but simulated by sensation, by some method human beings can perceive reality beyond sensation. 

Edited August 12, 2018 by edenlog

[moonman]

On 8/11/2018 at 3:05 PM, lightly said:

Ohhhh...nothin I guess.  What's matter with you?

It doesn't matter.

[sepulchrave]

On 8/12/2018 at 12:53 AM, Tiggs said:

IMO, Matter is the temporary arrangement of energy.

I agree with that, but its got to be a bit more complicated than that: For massive matter at rest,  E = mc² sure, but we also have these (somewhat ad-hoc) conservation rules and their various violations. For example, how a Kaon particle can only decay via the (slow) weak interaction rather than the (fast) strong or electromagnetic interactions due to the latter two processes obeying ``conservation of strangeness''.

So I agree that we can have energy as the basis for matter, but we also have these extra ``labels'' (like charge, spin, flavour, colour, etc.) that stick to the ``matter manifestation of energy''.

If we take the Feynman-Stuekelberg interpretation as being literally true, thus antiparticles are normal matter that is going backwards through time, then perhaps rest-energy (via E = mc²) and time-direction are sufficient unique identifiers for every fundamental particle; but we don't have a sensible map for connecting mass/time to all the other various properties (charge, spin, flavour, colour).

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Another interpretation is that reality consists of quantum fields, and energy is just the manifestation of these fields' mutual- and self-interactions. Under certain circumstances a field can absorb or emit a particular amount of energy, creating or destroying a particle. Because the total energy is conserved, and thus any energy gained (lost) by a field must come from (go to) a different field, the properties that make each field unique also inform how this energy exchange may take place.

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These two ideas aren't completely mutually exclusive, and both have unexplained issues, but perhaps thinking about these types of issues is a bit more productive than waffling about the reality of hot/cold matter.

[Coil]

On 8/11/2018 at 8:10 AM, fred_mc said:

Matter is an incredibly dense collection of energy.

 

And energy is an integral part of consciousness, hence all living things. If matter-energy and consciousness were completely different from one another then it would be impossible to imagine that atoms and elementary particles can be part of a living organism. Consequently, there are levels of life from less conscious ( atoms, stones and minerals) of weakly conscious and inactive (plants) and actively mobile low-knowledge (animals and birds) and more conscious (people).

[Coil]

On 8/11/2018 at 8:46 AM, papageorge1 said:

The best I can say is a play/drama of God. Maya (illusion/matter) is a prop in the play of God/Brahman that separates Itself from Itself and returns Itself to Itself.

 

Maya in its original sense meant an all-encompassing creative consciousness , capable of form-building, that is, manifestation at the level of limitations and relativity. Maya identifies, defines and creates forms from the formless, makes the Unknowable to the knowable and accessible psychological research, gives the measurable nature of the infinite. Then the word Maya began to be used not in its original sense, knowledge, skill and understanding, and in the derivative meaning cunning, deception, illusion. It is in this second meaning of illusion, magic that the term Maya is used by philosophical systems.(Yoga Dictionary)

Under the illusory concept of Maya fell under the influence of Shankara who reached the level of Nirvana (Nothingness, Nothing) and did not go further to uniting over being.  Indeed, from the point of view of unshakable and eternal Nirvana, our world is a shaky, volatile specter therefore it seems fake and false and first this view dominates and the person is surprised whether our world is real or not but further,when the experience of Nirvana becomes habitual, then the great all-presence of God is manifested in all living and non-living things, in moving or stationary condition and every being is an expression of God on earth.
Therefore, spiritual people can not harm anyone because they see in every God and want to save everyone because they want to free the real God in every being.

 

[edenlog]

Matter is only inferred to exist by the qualities is has on the senses, and it obviously exist in one time-the present- , past matter or future matter dosent exist, all observable matter exists now or we would have to move in time to see it.  Time is part of space, but it is also not space.  Time is the measurements of space and one moving in space moves in time, not as "past or future" but "A to B".  Past time and future time as well as past matter and future matter would never be directly observable, present Matter can be assumed by the way it interacts with light. We can see, literally and figuratively, only photons, we can never see matter, light is used to measure time within space in one time-now-to assume matters location in time. Eyesight works in this time, rods and cones absorb light now not from the past or future, hence light is in one time, this time called the present, allowing us to see.

 Even though matter is in motion, it never goes anywhere outside of space time, atoms of a rock may be moving but the rock will still be in the same place, it is at rest and in motion simultaneously. "Massive matter" doesn't exist, mass is created by gravity, matter in space is weightless, matter can be both heavy and light because the properties of mass are independent of matter itself. 

Both space and matter have no weight. Space and matter cannot be seen directly only measured. Both have volume.  Neither space nor matter can be created or destroyed, both have assumed direction, both exist simultaneously with each other,. Things in space are in motion while space is at rest. Matter is in motion yet at rest. 

Space and matter exist now, the study of matter is the study or reality itself.  The ancients interpreted stars to understand reality,  the sun being the most common. The stars can tell us laws of physics