There's no such thing as matter

I like to think we are all in some kind of Noahs ark or craft in deep sleep style but hooked up to this reality, so all sharing the same reality, that's been traveling deep-space till it reaches its destiny

a reply to: neoholographic

"could explain nearly all"

*Human lights small candle in infinite universe* "Look, this is the truth!"

Maybe your data-points don't exist nor something called 4d-spacetime, it's just something we made up.

Nothing we formulate will be "ultimate truth" So it's somewhat paradoxical what you're arguing here. "There is no objective truth, but here, look at my objective new and improved objective truth".

Ok, use data to describe the phenomenon of consciousness/presence/awareness.

a reply to: dan121212

Then where are we going and when do we get there?

In essence, our Earth is indeed a life ark of sorts travelling through space at 30 kilometres per second. Consider also that our own Milky Way Galaxy is travelling at an astounding 1.3 million miles per hour. Everythings in motion really.

originally posted by: neoholographic
there's no evidence that any objective quantity called matter exists. It has never been measured. All you need is data to describe everything in the universe.

What's the difference between that and the accepted view of matter you quoted?

...definition of it is elusive; for example, the elementary constituents of atoms may be point particles, each having no volume individually.

Doesn't it make more sense to say matter exists but is made up of zero-dimensional points in space?

a reply to: EvilAxis

You said:

Doesn't it make more sense to say matter exists but is made up of zero-dimensional points in space?

No, because there's no evidence that any quantity called matter exist. I can say flying pink unicorns exists but that doesn't make it so.

I recently asked a Biology Professor at a local College does matter exists. He said of course it does. I said show me the evidence that matter isn't just a description of something we perceive and is a real substance.

Of course he couldn't but I left with him insisting matter exists.

Materialism is a belief and matter is the chief diety but there's no evidence that something called matter exists. It's just a description of a collection of data points that we perceive as objects. We define those objects as matter but that's just a description of something we perceive not something that has any objective existence.

originally posted by: Quauhtli
But..

Everything matters!! Wait.

Makes me think of the old song, dust in the wind..

It's a shame most people take everything so seriously these days. It's all just an illusion.. perspective is everything..

Same thing as...isn't that why they call the 'Higgs Boson' the God particle...it matters because it 'makes' matter matter, otherwise, it isn't matter..so it matters.

In edit, I like this, I Googled; A penny for your thoughts+science and this came up,

"Barbara Brennan (Physicist) ~ “Matter does not exist with certainty in definite places, but rather, shows ‘tendencies’ to exist. Quantum physics is beginning to realise that the Universe to be a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns. If the universe is indeed composed of such a web, there is logically no such thing as a part.”
That is kind of to say all things that ever were.....

a reply to: neoholographic

What kind of measurements would have to be made to prove that matter exists? And what would you say does exist, if matter doesn't? Does light exist? Do forces exist? I assume space and time do not exist, only a 2D plane that interacts with something unknown?

I think I can agree with you in a way, but I'm not sure if it matters whether everything is a hologram or not. Looking at our perception of reality, we can say that matter exists; it's more real to us than abstract points of data. On the other hand, we can deconstruct our idea of it; what is matter made of? This seems to be a fruitless question; if matter is made of particles, then what are particles made of? Vibrating strings, or 1's and 0's? Then what are those made of?

The same question can be asked about the hologram; what is the hologram made of? The holograms I have seen are made of matter (and light, I guess.)

My point is that the real nature of matter (and just existence in general) has always been a mystery. The holography is just an extra step before we reach the same question mark. It's like the questions you read in theological debates here sometimes; if God made the world, then who made God? Then we can ask who made God's God, and so on, it's like a Russian babushka-doll.

I'm thinking of Kant's ideas of noumena and phenomena; we can measure a phenomena, like a cat made out of matter, but we have no way of knowing what it actually is (noumena), independent of our senses. The phenomena is actually our perception of the cat, but the atoms we can detect in the cat also belong to the phenomena, as does everything we can measure. But the noumena is a mystery.

In a holographic universe the cat is neither less nor more real than in a "regular" 3D universe, AFAIK. Same goes for the matter that the cat is made of. Only the "logistics" are slightly different; instead of existing in a 3D space the cat-matter exists on a 2D plane, although it has the appearance of existing in space. The cat-matter belongs to the phenomenon. What difference does it make for the matter, whether it exists in 3D-form or 2D-form?

What do you mean when you say it has no intrinsic value or nature? Nothing has intrinsic value, value is given to something in our minds. And "intrinsic nature" is a tautology; intrinsic means "belonging to the essential nature of a thing".

Why is a hologram any less real than an object? Seems to me it's different, but still real.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: ausername

But is it really empty or have we yet to determine the totality of their composition?

What if said space is occupied by say other dark particles in the same way 95/96% of the universe is comprised of dark energy and matter?

Subatomic particles exchange information with each other using gluons which are virtual particles traveling through this space. There are some ideas on gravity using Boson Gauge theory. Wikipedia is the best site for that information.

a reply to: Cutepants

Again, it matters. This is why Scientist have been debating these issues for years. It may not matter to you but when Scientist can't show that volume exists and an object is described by information on a 2D boundary and not it's volume, IT MATTERS.

You said:

Why is a hologram any less real than an object? Seems to me it's different, but still real.

Because a hologram doesn't occupy any volume. I wish people would actually read and study why more and more Scientist are accepting a holographic universe instead of saying things like it doesn't matter. That's just asinine. Of course it matters.

If there's no matter occupying a volume of space then what's projecting the reality we perceive and why? You may want to stay blind to these issues but most people don't.





Science is built on the assumption that the world we perceive is material and objectively real. It matters if this isn't the case and volume is an illusion.

humans suck, you could of sent out millions of craft like voyager 1 and 2 by now, you send out 2 messages in bottles and hope for a response, humans are a very laughable race

Science likes to complicate things.

May I offer you a different approach?

Gluten of the Eagle

Just a whole lot of nothing then?

Here's an oldie but a goodie:

neoholographic:

Matter just doesn't exist and the universe is just a collection of data points...

Reality, which pretty much sums up every conceivable form of existence, is more than likely predicated on the interaction and correspondence between positive and negative energies. Prior to the 'Big Bang' non-material and massless energies would form brief (extremely brief) co-existing stable relations (ie, energy densities) to one another, and annihilate. Picture a foam of colliding energies swirling around within a non-gravitational vacuum. At some point, a density occurred that remained in existence longer and this changed conditions where other densities formed and swirled around each other generating a vortex in which gravity was produced which drew the densities towards each other, compressing them together until it exploded in a cataclysmic inflation...the 'Big Bang'.

I think 'materiality' has more in common with qualia, than it has with actual existence, which is why it is so hard to define.

a reply to: neoholographic

Idk know how close this is to where your going, but I think a computer program is the closest analog we have to the universe.


All matter is energy.. all 1's and 0's are energy..



With quantum mech. Double slit experiment . You wouldn't need to use processing power required to run things that no one was there to see...

if so I do not think it would be like the matrix were we were all asleep somewhere plugged in. Nor do I think we are the centerpiece of the program nor the intentional creation of some sentient programer.


I think instead that all life would be closer to the ISO's from Tron:Legecy. Life would just be a spontaneous creation of the programming inferstructure itself.

I wouldn't be suprised if the the program itself wasn't even meant as a digital representation of a universe.. that is just how we precieve the vast computer we inhabit..

Its just a 4 Matrix of Data for 3 Dimensions Universum... and yes its all Energergy and Waves...

originally posted by: playswithmachines
Maybe you should read up on string theory.

Matter and energy are the same thing, Einstein said so and in that case he is right.

Everything is vibration, movement, frequency, pure energy if you will.
The transmission of energy from point A to point B defines matter, and energy, all at once, the information determines if the 4-D point in space is an object or a wave, and at what time it will be there. Physicists have yet to eork that one out, LOL

So, in a certain sense you are right, but it's a little more complicated than that......

That's the fascinating thing. One 1/2 inch cube of Plutonium for a nuclear reactor has as much energy as 680,000 container trucks of coal. The energy for coal comes from the cost of breaking carbon bonds and the energy released when they rebond with oxygen and hydrogen. The energy from nuclear fission comes one atomic nucleii splitting apart and the change in mass (which is related to change in total volume of the nucleii). Just imagine the amount of energy that must be in a single 1/2 cube of space time.

And 1 Second off your thinking has more Energy off a ...? Yes A Nuclear Bomb, Think Matrix...

Nah, this is not nonsens....you are energy and your thinking are also...

Yes there are Poeple who are manipulating this Matrix in 1 Level, other have Control over Level2...

a reply to: neoholographic

Thank you for those videos, the one with Susskind was very interesting. Also; very good thread. I really got caught up in thinking about this, as you could see by my long reply.

Now, I'm not saying that any of those theories are wrong. The math is way beyond me anyway. What I'm questioning is your interpretations in your OP. Susskind says that the universe is like a hologram, in a way. I think the nature of reality must be ambiguous and multi-faceted, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is like a hologram in any number of ways. But Susskind talks about localized phenomena; the surfaces of black holes, and also our "bubble", the observable universe. The black holes are described as if having holograms on their surfaces. The outer limit of our bubble is said to be like an event horizon, with a hologram of everything that is outside, i.e. everything other than us.

But all throughout his lecture, Susskind talks about matter; the holograms are made of matter. So I don't get why are you saying they prove matter doesn't exist, why is it one or the other? What is a hologram without matter?

By the way, I'm not saying it doesn't matter at all if the universe is "holographic" or not. Obviously it's very interesting both to science and to the man on the street, to the maths and to physics, etc. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter regarding the existence of matter (no pun intended). It matters to me, but to matter; no matter!

originally posted by: neoholographic
Scientist can't show that volume exists and an object is described by information on a 2D boundary and not it's volume, IT MATTERS.

Where does the 2D boundary exist if there is no volume? In the video he says the information content of a black hole is relative to it's surface, not to it's volume. In his model black holes do have volume.

Can scientists show that surface area exists, any more than they can show that volume exists?

originally posted by: neoholographic
You said:

Why is a hologram any less real than an object? Seems to me it's different, but still real.

Because a hologram doesn't occupy any volume. I wish people would actually read and study why more and more Scientist are accepting a holographic universe instead of saying things like it doesn't matter. That's just asinine. Of course it matters.

If there's no matter occupying a volume of space then what's projecting the reality we perceive and why? You may want to stay blind to these issues but most people don't.

An hologram image can't exist on it's own without any medium. All the holograms I have seen with my own eyes have been constructed with matter, and this is also the case for the holograms mentioned in your videos. What sort of hologram are you saying the universe is? I can see that it can't be etched in matter, since it exists on a two-dimensional plane. What actual science are you basing this on?

Your reply amounts to this; "Holograms occupy no volume and they exist because there is no matter." I don't know what the point is.

originally posted by: neoholographic
If there's no matter occupying a volume of space then what's projecting the reality we perceive and why? You may want to stay blind to these issues but most people don't.

I am assuming that matter and volume do exist, so this is the question you need to answer, not I.