Life Stages of the Universe
129
The laws that operate on objects at the subatomic scale are different from
what has just been described. Motion is a different phenomenon altogether:
A moving particle does not have a fixed trajectory in space, its velocity is not
fixed, even its location at an instant is not a fixed point in space, but rather, its
location is “spread out”. It is reasonable to assume that space and time are not
what they are to us, but something more elementary, more “primitive”. What
experiments in fundamental physics show is that when entities are observed
by using instruments which are real in the midlevel universe, the quantum
entities are immediately incorporated into the reality of the instrument (which
is midlevel reality): Then they have a specific position and momentum, and
behave as rigid particles.
The physical antecedents, or supports, for the sensable qualities that we
discern in objects are things that exist at midlevel reality. For instance, the
molecules of solid objects are tightly bound to each other by electrostatic
forces, and for that reason we experience such objects to be rigid, or hard. If
the molecules of a solid are vibrating energetically, we feel it to be hot. If light
in a particular frequency range is reflected from an object’s surface in a certain
way, we experience the object’s color to be red, or perhaps blue or green. In
each case, the underlying physical attributes are those of midlevel reality.
Our interaction with the physical world is limited to midlevel reality. It
is the forces and processes occurring at the midlevel that impose constraints
on the things we strive to do, and in that way shape our world model. The
phenomena at the middle level of physical reality are the ones that act on our
sense organs and give rise to our sensations. When we speak of the pre-animate
or mind-independent universe, it is the midlevel that we are talking about.
All of science from earliest times until a century ago has been dedicated
to understanding the world at the middle level. It was only recently that the
existence of a subatomic world was discovered, and it is still poorly understood.
Many physicists today continue to search for an understanding of subatomic
phenomena in terms of the facts observed at the macroscopic level. Their
thinking is supported by mental images of space and time as they exist in
the universe we’re familiar with. 4 This is hard to avoid, for that is the way
that nature has conditioned us to understand the world. From a philosophical
perspective, perhaps physics might benefit from a greater openness to the idea
that different forms of reality exist at different scales. The physical reality at
each scale depends on what kind of actions and comparisons are physically
possible between the entities that exist at that scale.
129
The laws that operate on objects at the subatomic scale are different from
what has just been described. Motion is a different phenomenon altogether:
A moving particle does not have a fixed trajectory in space, its velocity is not
fixed, even its location at an instant is not a fixed point in space, but rather, its
location is “spread out”. It is reasonable to assume that space and time are not
what they are to us, but something more elementary, more “primitive”. What
experiments in fundamental physics show is that when entities are observed
by using instruments which are real in the midlevel universe, the quantum
entities are immediately incorporated into the reality of the instrument (which
is midlevel reality): Then they have a specific position and momentum, and
behave as rigid particles.
The physical antecedents, or supports, for the sensable qualities that we
discern in objects are things that exist at midlevel reality. For instance, the
molecules of solid objects are tightly bound to each other by electrostatic
forces, and for that reason we experience such objects to be rigid, or hard. If
the molecules of a solid are vibrating energetically, we feel it to be hot. If light
in a particular frequency range is reflected from an object’s surface in a certain
way, we experience the object’s color to be red, or perhaps blue or green. In
each case, the underlying physical attributes are those of midlevel reality.
Our interaction with the physical world is limited to midlevel reality. It
is the forces and processes occurring at the midlevel that impose constraints
on the things we strive to do, and in that way shape our world model. The
phenomena at the middle level of physical reality are the ones that act on our
sense organs and give rise to our sensations. When we speak of the pre-animate
or mind-independent universe, it is the midlevel that we are talking about.
All of science from earliest times until a century ago has been dedicated
to understanding the world at the middle level. It was only recently that the
existence of a subatomic world was discovered, and it is still poorly understood.
Many physicists today continue to search for an understanding of subatomic
phenomena in terms of the facts observed at the macroscopic level. Their
thinking is supported by mental images of space and time as they exist in
the universe we’re familiar with. 4 This is hard to avoid, for that is the way
that nature has conditioned us to understand the world. From a philosophical
perspective, perhaps physics might benefit from a greater openness to the idea
that different forms of reality exist at different scales. The physical reality at
each scale depends on what kind of actions and comparisons are physically
possible between the entities that exist at that scale.