What is matter?

[untermensche]

Nobody knows what matter is.

Science gave that kind of stuff up a long time ago.

What we have are models that describe behavior.

And some think saying "matter is that which is described by our models" is actually saying what matter is.

And others think that if they express sufficient derision, nobody will notice that they don't have a better answer.

Excuse me for not explaining what the entirety of science can't explain.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Thanks for your reply EB. This is what I think too. So what is the real stuff? Your further thoughts on this?

I don't know of course and I'm not optimistic that we will ever know. And I have no idea how to improve or replace the scientific view. I also believe that any alternative proposed so far probably has zero value. Sorry!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

So, what is the real stuff?

That depends what you mean by 'real'; and that is a subject for Philosophy, not Natural Science.

Maybe not even philosophy. We (nearly) all have some sense of reality and any concept of reality has to be founded on that. Each of us is free to try to articulate a concept that fits his or her sense of reality and see how far it may be for the scientific and philosophical views.

In terms of Natural Science, matter is what Quantum Field Theory says it is - and QFT defines what matter 'is' by using mathematics to describe how things interact, in a way that allows us to accurately predict what will happen next, given a particular set of initial conditions. We arbitrarily label some of those descriptions as 'mass' or 'energy'; and we can describe very accurately how those two sets of results in our calculations will relate to one another - and to everything else.

Concepts like 'mass' and 'energy' are useful for making fairly precise predictions about what will happen next. Mathematics is even more useful. But all of these things are mere models of an underlying reality that is, and probably always will be, inaccessible to us. We don't know what 'real' even means; and speculation about it is, in my opinion, futile.

When we use a concept of 'matter' that conforms to the mathematical model called QFT, we are able to very accurately predict how our observations will evolve - ie, what we will see happen next. Those models assign values to a small number of fields (each of which is associated with a particle, which is what we call a local maximum in those fields; it seems that the values for many of these fields are constrained to multiples of a particular minimum quantity, hence the 'quantum' in QFT). Each of these fields has well defined properties, or rules, that specify how they interact. Whether these models represent what is "actually happening" is not a question that can be answered in a scientific way; it is like asking 'What is North of the North Pole?" or "What happened before the start of time?".

Science has the goal of finding out how the universe works. It appears that there are rules, and that everything obeys those rules; Science is the process of writing what we hope will be the definitive rulebook, based solely on observing what happens.

QFT is the best rulebook we have come up with to date; Its predictions match observation as perfectly as we are able to detect, except in its descriptions of gravitation. We have a separate, and almost as effective, rulebook to tell us how to predict what happens when gravity is important; And there are some reasons to think that there may be some underlying rules from which both rulebooks might be derived.

As far as Natural Science is concerned, what matter is, is 'that thing you have when all of the fields at this set of locations in spacetime are interacting in such a way as to give a number for 'mass' that is non-zero'. It is defined - as all other physical entities are defined - in terms of the rules. We know that we know a lot of the rules to a very high degree of precision; So we can be confident to the same high degree that this is a good description of matter.

Yes, science produces good descriptions but of what matter does, not of matter itself, if there is any such thing.


Also, here you have just substituted the search for what is real by the search for what is deemed useful. So, what is useful? Wait, how could you possibly articulate a definition of what is useful without taking position first on what is real? Instead, you just assume that you can recognise usefulness when you see it. It will have to remain an inchoate and collective choice, somewhat like that of the hive.

Which is incidentally really just agreeing with the idea that man is the measure.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Thanks for your reply EB. This is what I think too. So what is the real stuff? Your further thoughts on this?

I don't know of course and I'm not optimistic that we will ever know. And I have no idea how to improve or replace the scientific view. I also believe that any alternative proposed so far probably has zero value. Sorry!
EB

Think of matter as a driverless car. Now think of that car crashing in to a person walking across a cross walk, except we can't see or measure the car, the person, or the crosswalk. All we can do is measure where they exist in some measurable time. From the human view we see the car small into the man in the crosswalk and describe it as a crime. In the sensing world we see evidence of the car, the man and the crosswalk in the immmeasurable world as fields, probablilities, of them being there in each bit of space where they are moving with a high probability that while the man is in a crosswalk the car collides with him resulting in a damaged or changed car, a destroyed man, and an undisturbed crosswalk. All we've done is defocused the microspcope, or telescope, to the point where what we see is blur.

So it may be that what is there are particles, car and man, colliding in a crosswalk , but, we just can't resolve them satisfactorily so we devise a way to use statistics to estimate what takes place. It just may be particles or it might just be frequencies or it might actually be fields. It is something as opposed to being nothing which we see a lot of in our worldview.

 

[ontological_realist]

Nobody knows what matter is.

Science gave that kind of stuff up a long time ago.

What we have are models that describe behavior.

And some think saying "matter is that which is described by our models" is actually saying what matter is.

Thanks untermensche. Seems to me that what you said is true. I would like to add that these models have been changing over the years and will go on changing!

 

[bilby]

Nobody knows what matter is.

Science gave that kind of stuff up a long time ago.

What we have are models that describe behavior.

And some think saying "matter is that which is described by our models" is actually saying what matter is.

Thanks untermensche. Seems to me that what you said is true. I would like to add that these models have been changing over the years and will go on changing!

Indeed. And every time they change, they become more complete and/or more accurate than they were before.

Nobody expects them ever to be complete, or perfectly accurate; but that's because of what scientific models ARE, not because of any failing in the models themselves; And it doesn't render the models any less valuable.

The options, at any time in history, when asked 'What is matter' are either to describe the most current model; or to say 'I don't know'. No other honest scientific answer is possible. To deride the former approach because it isn't "actually saying" what matter is is to demonstrate a misunderstanding of both the question and the answer. To suggest that the answer is somehow less correct because it is not the same throughout all of past and future history is to demonstrate a misunderstanding of epistemology itself. It is the same fallacy that fundamentalists use to claim that scripture provides useful answers - "At least it doesn't keep changing", as if that was a positive trait in a scientific response to a difficult question.

Which answer is more informative - "Nobody knows" or this?

This is the Natural Science forum. If people want esoteric debate about how nobody really ever knows anything, they can go to the Philosophy forum instead.

 

[DBT]

Nevertheless that is the OP question.



Some do think that.
However, what is being described by the models, attributes, features, principles, does not actually tell us what matter/energy is, only the attributes, features, principles of 'whatever it is' being described, but not as yet fully understood.

What is anything, if not its attributes, features, and behaviours?

My point is that we do not have a full understanding of the stuff we are describing. Not by a long shot. That's not to say we have no understanding.

Wave function or superposition or entanglement (Einstein's spooky action) may be described, but nobody actually knows understands how it works. It is not understood what this stuff is, this stuff that can be in wave or particle form, or entangled without any known connection.

Matter is stuff.

Yes, but this tells us nothing about what the ultimate nature of matter or stuff is, be it 'vibrating strings,' 'waves' or 'point particles.'

If you want to know anything beyond that, you have to look at what it does.

What it does doesn't actually explain what it is....especially when we have no idea about how it does what it does, conservation of energy, entanglement, observer interaction, etc, or essentially what it is that is in wave or particle form, strings or whatever else.

It's not meaningful to consider anything else.

I think that the question of 'what is stuff' or what is 'matter/energy' related to the origin of the universe, how this stuff came about.How or why there is something rather than nothing, the fundamental nature of space-time that allows localized particles/waves, conservation of 'energy,' entanglement, superposition, etc, etc, to exist and have the properties they have.

 

[bilby]

What is anything, if not its attributes, features, and behaviours?

My point is that we do not have a full understanding of the stuff we are describing. Not by a long shot. That's not to say we have no understanding.

Wave function or superposition or entanglement (Einstein's spooky action) may be described, but nobody actually knows understands how it works. It is not understood what this stuff is, this stuff that can be in wave or particle form, or entangled without any known connection.

Matter is stuff.

Yes, but this tells us nothing about what the ultimate nature of matter or stuff is, be it 'vibrating strings,' 'waves' or 'point particles.'

If you want to know anything beyond that, you have to look at what it does.

What it does doesn't actually explain what it is....especially when we have no idea about how it does what it does, conservation of energy, entanglement, observer interaction, etc, or essentially what it is that is in wave or particle form, strings or whatever else.

It's not meaningful to consider anything else.

I think that the question of 'what is stuff' or what is 'matter/energy' related to the origin of the universe, how this stuff came about.How or why there is something rather than nothing, the fundamental nature of space-time that allows localized particles/waves, conservation of 'energy,' entanglement, superposition, etc, etc, to exist and have the properties they have.

Yes. I get that. I just don't see those profound questions as meaningful, unless there is at least some dim and distant prospect of them having verifiable answers.

I prefer to say 'We don't know, and probably never will'; and then to concentrate on the vast wealth of questions for which we do have at least some hope of finding verifiable answers.

Big vague questions, with no way to test any hypotheses we might come up with as candidates for answers, are fine for keeping a handful of philosophers in a job that doesn't involve saying 'Would you like fries with that?', but they don't have any place on a Natural Science thread.

As far as Natural Science is concerned, matter is what it does. And what it does is best understood by reference to mathematics that looks similar to the mathematics of oscillating surfaces. On a human scale, an oscillating surface is called a wave; so we use the same label as a shortcut in vernacular descriptions of QFT. If we try to use anything other than mathematics to describe QFT, we sacrifice some accuracy for comprehension - as is the case with all metaphor. But that's OK; English is well suited to metaphorical uses, and many people are not comfortable with any mathematics more advanced than arithmetic.

Perhaps the honest answer to the question 'What is matter?' is "You are too dumb to ever understand it, as are we all'. But for some reason, people don't like that answer. so the next best thing is to say what matter does, and not even try to say what it is, which is probably not even a meaningful question to ask.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Which answer is more informative - "Nobody knows" or this?

Nobody knows.

This is the Natural Science forum. If people want esoteric debate about how nobody really ever knows anything, they can go to the Philosophy forum instead.

No, we don't want them there. Esoteric is bad. Let them go to Hell. I hope it's esoteric enough for them. I suggest we should keep between ourselves to have a rational discussion.

There's also no debate to be had about how people don't ever know anything. In my opinion, they do know quite a lot. It's just not about the material world. It's worth remembering here that it is hardcore materialists who want to deny the existence of precisely that which we know, i.e. our own mind.

Maybe when science gets its acts together concerning the mind we'll start to have some good answers. That's me trying to be useful but I'm not optimistic I could beat the ideological grip to stifle the debate.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Thanks untermensche. Seems to me that what you said is true. I would like to add that these models have been changing over the years and will go on changing!

Indeed. And every time they change, they become more complete and/or more accurate than they were before....

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

 

[skepticalbip]

Indeed. And every time they change, they become more complete and/or more accurate than they were before....

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

No but you have described one aspect of the entity - that it can walk. Improving the model through more work may reveal more aspects of the entity. Better modeling through more work, more aspects, etc.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps the honest answer to the question 'What is matter?' is "You are too dumb to ever understand it, as are we all'. But for some reason, people don't like that answer. so the next best thing is to say what matter does, and not even try to say what it is, which is probably not even a meaningful question to ask.

Had no problem with most of the content of your post, but to say that we are too dumb to understand seems a bit harsh. Not knowing or not understanding what is probably the ultimate question, the nature of matter/energy/the universe, doesn't make us dumb, just lacking the required information to understand. Nonetheless, the question itself is interesting to contemplate even when you know that you/we are not likely (to say the least) to uncover the ultimate nature of the Universe.

 

[Juma]

Indeed. And every time they change, they become more complete and/or more accurate than they were before....

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

I think that you dont understand what the question "what is X" really means.

Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?

 

[bilby]

Indeed. And every time they change, they become more complete and/or more accurate than they were before....

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

An entity that walks.

 

[Kharakov]

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

I think that you dont understand what the question "what is X" really means.

Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?

Whether they walked like an Egyptian.

 

[untermensche]

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

I think that you dont understand what the question "what is X" really means.

Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?

I do know that; What is "X"? is not the same question as; How does "X" behave?

Tell me how they are the same question.

That is what needs to be addressed before I have to add anything more.

 

[untermensche]

They more completely describe behavior.

That is all science is doing presently. Building models that describe behavior.

When you describe what something does you are not describing what it is.

If I say, "The entity walked", have I said what the entity is?

No but you have described one aspect of the entity - that it can walk. Improving the model through more work may reveal more aspects of the entity. Better modeling through more work, more aspects, etc.

You will still end up with nothing but a model of behavior.

That is all science has in terms of matter.

 

[Juma]

I think that you dont understand what the question "what is X" really means.

Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?

I do know that; What is "X"? is not the same question as; How does "X" behave?

Tell me how they are the same question.

That is what needs to be addressed before I have to add anything more.

"What is X" simply means: "tell me everything there is to know about X".

Since that is usually a lot there is also an implicit "start with most important stuff" but the context can be even more discriminating as in "just tell me the size of it"

 

[skepticalbip]

I think that you dont understand what the question "what is X" really means.

Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?

I do know that; What is "X"? is not the same question as; How does "X" behave?

Tell me how they are the same question.

That is what needs to be addressed before I have to add anything more.

That wasn't responsive to Juma's question. No one has claimed that they are the same question. The question was "Describe what you think a complete answer would contain?" Would mass, charge, position, etc. answer your question? If not, what would?

 

[untermensche]

I do know that; What is "X"? is not the same question as; How does "X" behave?

Tell me how they are the same question.

That is what needs to be addressed before I have to add anything more.

"What is X" simply means: "tell me everything i want to know about X".

Since that is usually a lot there is also an implicit "start with most important stuff" but the context can be even more discriminating as in "just tell me the size of it"

No. What is X, in terms of matter, is a question about essence, not features or behavior.

It is to take knowledge of matter to a point where there is nothing else to know.

While science may be interested in this it is stuck on just trying to make models that describe behavior.