In Search of Divine Reality: Science as a Source of Inspiration

Appendix 9. Empty Atoms as Platonic Forms

Appendix 9 EMPTY ATOMS AS PLATONIC FORMS schrödinger’s Atoms and e Concept of Substance Things cannot be like the experience we have of them (Bertrand Russell). We do not have immediate experience of things, but only of our interactions with things (Kant). The shape of an object perceived is some kind of projection, different to different observers. Its color is affected by surface reflections , our eyes select only a few of the frequencies, colors, that bounce off any surface. There is no reason to believe that objects are in any way like the photons that are bouncing off of them. In physics, temperature is motion. But our sensation of hot and cold is a totally different quality than rapid or slow molecular oscillation. The sensation of temperature is not inherent in things. I have not heard a person exclaim, “ouch, too fast for me,” dropping a hot potato. In fact, the discovery that heat and mechanical energy are equivalent is one of the more protracted affairs of the history of science. We see that the sun and the planets revolve through the year around our planet. We say that the motion observed is not the real motion, but the apparent one. It is a consequence of Einstein’s relativity theory that for any change in the energy of an object there is a corresponding change in mass. If the energy of a system is increased, its mass is increased. Thus, it is perfectly correct to say that a moving person is heavier than the same person at rest; a loaded spring is heavier than the same one relaxed; a hot water bottle is heavier than the same bottle cold. All these statements are true, yet contrary to common sense. In the same way it violates supposedly absolute principles, accepted without restraint in everyday experience, that moving clocks are slow compared to stationary clocks; that matter warps space; that people can age at different rates depending on how deep they are in a gravitational field.  1SCHÄFER_PAGES:SCHÄFER PAGES 4/29/10 11:14 AM Page 163 In this and many other ways, the experience of things is not of the true nature of things. This is the problem of appearance and reality (Russell, ). Truth is not a property of things, but of our sensation of things. In contrast to the inability to grasp the essence of things directly, or maybe inspired by it, our basic attitude regarding reality has always been marked by a desire for certainty. We have an instinct, a craving for certainty. This may be more a Western than an Eastern propensity, but quite generally we are programmed with a desire which is entirely in contrast to the fact that the only things that we can be sure of are our sensations. Only sensations are immediate. The problem is that the inherent properties of things are public, whereas, as Russell () says, “data are private.” In Russell’s definition (, ): “sense data” are the things immediately known to us in sensation; “sensation” is the experience of being aware of these things. Since the data are not like the objects that cause them and the properties of objects are inferred, we can reasonably ask if there is an objective reality that is independent of our senses, and, if there is, what are its inherent properties? Observable reality has many faces, is ever changing and diversi- fied. In the search for the enduring, unchanging object that causes our sensations, the Greeks invented the concept of substance : the unchanging element that sustains all changing appearances . From this arose the concept of matter, the stuff that all physical (real) objects are made of, solid, indestructible, and lasting. The main properties of stuff were originally postulated as uniformity, indestructibility, and solidity. Etymologically, “matter” has the same roots as “mother.” In Latin, matter is materia; mother is mater. Parmenides of Elea (c.  B.C.) connected the concept of matter with the concept of space, claiming that “to be” means “to fill space.” “Only what is, is. What is not, cannot be and cannot be thought of.” According to this, there is no vacuum, because it is nothing. The impossibility of the void has some interesting implications. Since what is moving needs an empty place where it can move to and since there is not empty space, Parmenides also concluded that there can be no motion. The same is true for becoming. In his poem...