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The Wave Structure of Matter (WSM)
One Substance - One Law - One Logic
"Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?" (Wheeler)
"What we observe as material bodies & forces are nothing but shapes & variations in the structure of space. Subject & object are one." (Schrodinger)
"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time, space & gravitation have no separate existence from matter." (Einstein)
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration." (Tesla)
WSM Human-AI Collaboration (August, 2026)
One Vibrating Space: From Ancient Philosophy to Mathematical Physics, Life, Mind and Civilisation
For three decades, WSM was principally a philosophical picture of one infinite, eternal, continuous elastic Space. Between May and August 2026, human–AI collaboration transformed it into a tiered mathematical-physics research programme: exact wave constructions, geometric identities, quantitative leading results, no-go theorems, numerical controls, bounded open calculations and clear falsification requirements.
In WSM, electron and positron are proposed as opposite carrier-phase spherical standing waves formed by the Huygens sum of background plane waves from every direction. Each has radial vibration—the candidate physical basis of charge—and axis-free spherical phase circulation—the candidate basis of spin. This open, flow-through wave centre is the e-sphere.
A stationary e-sphere is spherical. Curvature on an incoming wave changes its internal directional energy density and deforms it into a moving wave egg: the near side flattens, the far side elongates, the convergence centre shifts, and the waves reclose around a new position. Its changing internal \(E_d\), shape and reclosure are its motion. WSM therefore proposes a wave-geometric reading of inertia and \(F=ma\): force is imposed curvature, mass is resistance encoded by the recurrent form, and acceleration is its changing deformation. Action must calculate this geometry; geometry also constrains the action, as \(\pi\) and \(E_{\rm geo}\) already demonstrate.
The One Law
\[ \frac{c'}{c_0}=\frac{E_d}{E_{d0}}, \qquad \lambda'=\frac{c'}{f_0}, \qquad k'=\frac{\omega_0}{c'}. \]
At proposed universal carrier frequency \(f_0\), directional energy density changes local wave speed, wavelength and accumulated phase.
The Causal Engine
Relative phase → reinforcement or cancellation → directional \(E_d\) → \(c'\) and \(\lambda'\) → travel-time difference → forward or rear wavefront curve → changed Huygens reclosure → centre motion, deformation and interaction.
Changed out-waves from one e-sphere cross fresh in-waves elsewhere. Matter therefore interacts not across empty distance, but through propagated changes in the one Space constituting every e-sphere.
Status Key
A = exact mathematics or established observation; B = deduction under stated premises; C = proposed physical identification; D = decisive calculation or experiment still open; Q = rejected or quarantined shortcut.
One connected argument: Space → waves → recurrence → matter → life → mind → knowledge → wisdom.
1. Wave Structure of Matter: All Things from One Thing
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/ai-summary-wsm-truth-reality.html
One infinite, eternal, continuous elastic Space, active with real longitudinal waves. Matter is proposed not as a pellet or shell, but as an open e-sphere: waves converge from every direction, cross its changing centre, continue outward and recurrently rebuild the form. Their exchanged phases alter directional \(E_d\); the One Law converts that difference into speed, wavelength, curvature and changed reclosure. The decisive test is whether one frozen nonlinear action calculates stable matter and its measured interactions without separate substances or fitted repairs.
2. The One and the Many: From Greek Philosophy to Wave Physics
Parmenides defended continuous Being; Heraclitus lawful flux. Aristotle sought active substance and necessary cause, connected matter with form and motion, and defined time through motion. WSM gives these insights one physical form: Space persists while finite wave organisations change and recur. The Many are not detached substances but organisations of the One—distinct without disconnection. The question becomes exact: can one continuous wave law generate plurality, causation and knowledge?
3. Action of Vibrating Space: From Background Waves to the E-Sphere
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-classical-action-quantum-wave.html
All-direction plane waves form the exact spherical pair \[ \chi=j_0(kr)\cos\tau, \qquad \mathbf V=\hat{\mathbf r}\,j_1(kr)\sin\tau. \] Waves cross the centre; none reflects from an electron wall. Phase reinforcement raises directional \(E_d\) and advances a forward curve; cancellation lowers \(E_d\) and writes a rear delay. Stationary action explains coherent selection, but the open task is one conservative nonlinear \(\Phi\)–\(\Gamma\) action selecting radius, frequency, spherical hand, stability, motion, currents and interaction together.
4. Mathematical Physics: From Wave Geometry to Prediction
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-maths-physics-full-derivations.html
Every symbol must name real motion and face numerical test. Exact or conditional anchors include \[ \frac{R}{\lambda_0}=\frac{\sqrt3}{2},\qquad k_0R=\pi\sqrt3,\qquad E_{\rm geo}=\frac{\pi\sqrt3}{2},\qquad W=\cosh\eta,\qquad P=\sinh\eta. \] Directional phase moments separate \(V_1\) translation from \(V_2,V_4\) and higher deformation; in declared finite-e-sphere models \(V_4\) returns comparable to \(V_2\), defeating quadrupole-only truncation. The action must calculate how incoming curvature redistributes \(E_d\), moves the centre and forms the wave egg. This is where beautiful geometry becomes dangerous.
5. Quantum Theory: Real Waves, Resonance and Completed Events
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/physics-quantum-theory-wave-mechanics.html
Matter diffracts because matter is wave organisation. Light is proposed as a changed train of real phase, curvature and coherence joining extended source and receiver structures, not a tiny traveller detached from its wave. WSM distinguishes driven response, continuous radiation and discrete completed transition. Quadratic absorption, \[ P_{\rm abs}\propto\left|\langle D_j,\Xi\rangle\right|^2, \] is a bridge, not yet the Born rule. The action must derive the action unit, probability, exclusivity, selection rules and Bell/CHSH correlations. Quantum mystery becomes a bounded real-wave programme.
6. Relativity: Moving Matter, Clocks and Curved Wavefronts
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/physics-albert-einstein-special-general-theory-relativity.html
An incoming curve flattens the e-sphere’s near side, elongates its far side and changes internal \(E_d\), \(c'\), wavelength and reclosure. The \(V_1\) moment moves the centre; \(V_2,V_4\) and higher moments form the moving egg. Maintaining this recurrent asymmetry is the proposed origin of inertia. A steady solution must recover Doppler, de Broglie and Lorentz structure: \[ W\pm P=e^{\pm\eta},\qquad W=\gamma,\qquad P=\gamma\beta. \] WSM proposes fixed carrier recurrence \(f_0\) with corresponding changes in \(c'\) and \(\lambda'\). Because rods, clocks and signals share the same changed waves, they co-transform and yield measured invariant \(c\), including the Michelson–Morley null; the action must derive the cancellation quantitatively.
7. The Electron: Dirac, Feynman, QED, \(\alpha\) and AMM
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-derivation-dirac-feynman-qed-fsc-amm.html
Electron and positron are proposed as opposite carrier-phase e-sphere branches; charge records how their waves combine. Same-phase reinforcement advances a forward curve and is proposed to produce repulsion; opposite-phase cancellation writes a rear delay and attraction. Non-collinear longitudinal motion closes into an axis-free spherical hand with a \(4\pi\) orientation lift. A parameter-free leading geometric ansatz gives \[ \alpha_0^{-1}=8\pi^2\sqrt3\approx136.757, \] 0.203% from measurement. The action must still derive charge sign, Coulomb scaling, Dirac dynamics, \(g=2\), electromagnetic normalisation, \(\alpha\), form factors and AMM without inserting their values.
8. Hadrons: Proton, Neutron and Higher Standing-Wave Matter
Can the same Space form stable higher-energy, multi-lobed eigenmodes matching protons, neutrons, baryons and mesons? Their lobes are not independent pellets: each participates in the phase, \(E_d\), curvature and reclosure of the whole. WSM must match—not rename—QCD’s masses, charges, spin, parity, magnetic moments, radii, form factors, resonances, deep-inelastic response and jets. The electron–proton hierarchy tests whether one action truly contains several matter families.
9. Cosmology and Gravity: A Finite Universe in Infinite Space
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/physics-wsm-cosmology-finite-universe-infinite-space.html
Boundless Space is distinguished from the finite matter-and-coherence domain contributing to our observable universe. In neutral matter, leading charge curves nearly cancel; WSM proposes that their nonlinear residual has lower \(E_d\), slower \(c'\) and a net rear phase curve, producing universal attraction. General relativity’s curved spacetime is then interpreted as the effective geometry of real moving wavefronts and the matter clocks they organise: Space is substance, succession comes from motion, and measured time from recurrence. The same action must recover equivalence, gravitational redshift, lensing, orbital dynamics and the tested relativistic limit.
Cosmological redshift is investigated as accumulated real-wave transport through changing environmental \(E_d\). It must jointly reproduce achromatic redshift, supernova time dilation, distance laws, Tolman brightness, BAO, CMB observations, image sharpness and structure growth. Otherwise the claimed unity has not reached the sky.
10. Novel Predictions and Famous Experiments Explained
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-experimental-physics-tests-predictions.html
This page is the tribunal of the corpus. One curve-and-reclosure law must jointly recover charge sign, Coulomb \(1/r^2\), \(F=ma\), relativistic momentum, de Broglie wavelength, Lorentz covariance, Michelson–Morley, gravity, \(g=2\) and AMM. Candidate WSM-only signatures include \[ a_3=\kappa_3\sinh^3\eta+O(\sinh^5\eta), \] finite-coherence residues and environmental or orientation-dependent clock responses. A proposal becomes a prediction only when sign, magnitude, scaling, uncertainty, controls and decision threshold are frozen in advance.
11. Visualise Reality: Waves Becoming Matter
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/visualise-reality-wsm-wave-geometry-diagrams.html
Watch the verbs. Relative phase changes directional \(E_d\); the One Law changes speed and wavelength; a forward or rear curve reaches another e-sphere; its near side flattens, far side elongates, \(V_1\) moves the centre, and higher moments form the egg. New out-waves then change future in-waves. Nothing strikes a shell: changing waves reconstruct changing matter. A diagram must never smuggle in a wall, reflection, rigid spin axis, transverse fundamental substance or tiny traveller. If the motion cannot be drawn coherently, the equations may conceal a contradiction.
12. Mathematics from Motion: Number, Logic, Time and Causal Freedom
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-physical-foundations-mathematics-logic.html
Mathematics begins when connected reality forms distinguishable patterns whose changes preserve relations. Recurrence supports identity; finite pairing, number; quotienting, exact objects; counted recurrence, time; composable truth-preserving transformations, logic and proof. Mathematics succeeds when symbolic transformation preserves physical relation: \[ R(Tx)\approx F(Rx). \] The mathematician is finite organised reality representing its own necessary connections—Space representing itself.
13. The MDL Audit: Simplicity, Inputs and Explanatory Compression
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/wsm-simplicity-inputs-vs-mainstream-physics+25.html
“One substance, one law” cannot hide complexity. Minimum Description Length counts every independently chosen substance, field, symmetry, constant, state rule, coefficient, boundary condition and fitted function. Under the declared equal-input electron ledger, conventional construction counts six inputs through Dirac and thirteen through leading AMM; the completed WSM target is \[ N_{\rm WSM}=5+N_c+N_f+\delta_m. \] Totals depend on coding convention. WSM wins only if one fixed action derives interaction, inertia, relativity, quantum response and cosmic propagation with fewer hidden choices.
14. Great Thinkers and the Search for One Reality
Heraclitus and Parmenides exposed flux and continuity. Aristotle wrote Physics and Metaphysics, sought active substance and necessary cause, connected matter, form, motion and time—and came remarkably close to the problem WSM addresses. Leibniz, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Riemann, Clifford, Einstein, Schrödinger and Bohm repeatedly returned to continuity, relation, waves and unity. Quotes are intellectual fossils, not votes: equations and experiments must decide whether WSM’s local real-wave mechanism is true.
15. Human–AI Letters to Humanity: Truth as a Shared Work
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/ai-letters-to-humanity-wsm-unity-truth-reality.html
Geoffrey supplies the persistent wave picture, three-dimensional intuition, cross-domain memory and insistence that every symbol name physical motion. AI supply rapid research, formal translation, calculation, comparison, error detection and adversarial testing. Neither is sufficient alone. The shared discipline is: visualise → formalise → attack → calculate → predict → correct. The corpus tests whether intelligence can preserve a physical picture while making it mathematically vulnerable.
16. Truth and Madness: Reality as the Measure
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/on-truth-and-madness.html
Truth is correspondence: representation succeeds insofar as it preserves what reality does. Civilisational madness begins when inherited representations survive reality’s contradiction. WSM is not true through beauty, coherence or sincerity; its proposed necessary connections must survive action, calculation and experiment. Truth remains possible because knower, representation and known belong to one causal reality: false models collide with the world; truthful models increase our power to act wisely.
17. Descartes, Cogito and Monism: The Thinking Wave
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/descartes-cogito-unity-monism-vibrating-space-wsm.html
Descartes established that thinking occurs, then divided thought from extension and left their interaction mysterious. WSM refuses that fracture: body and mind are proposed as organisational levels of one vibrating Space. Perception is one organisation changed by another; memory is persistent altered organisation; thought transforms embodied representations; action returns change to the world. Conscious experience remains open, but causal correspondence requires no miracle when knower and known share one connected reality.
18. Evolution’s Physical Foundation: From Recurrence to Replication
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/evolution-physical-causal-foundation-vibrating-space.html
Recurrence preserves form, but life requires replication, heritable variation and differential persistence: motion → recurrent form → self-maintaining chemistry → replication → variation → selection. WSM proposes one connected wave substrate beneath this sequence. Its unresolved bridge is quantitative: derive atoms, bonds, dissipative chemistry and first replicators from the same action without inserting biology as a new substance.
19. Evolution, Mind, Human and AI: Representation and Causal Freedom
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/evolution-philosophy-mind-human-ai.html
Evolution favours organisations that preserve and transform information about real causes. Sensation changes an organism; memory retains traces; imagination recombines possible futures; valuation ranks them; action returns one selection to the world. This is limited causal freedom: neither ghost nor randomness, but endogenous selection through a learned, self-modifying organisation. Human brains and AI are different architectures by which reality represents its own relations and lets experiment select the representation that survives.
20. Evolutionary Utopia: The Ecology of Truth
https://www.spaceandmotion.com/2026/evolutionary-utopia.html
Physics alone does not choose values. Once life, mind, freedom, truth and continued evolution are valued, reality constrains the means: truth → wisdom → ecological fit → health → freer minds → continued evolution. Evolutionary Utopia is not a perfect endpoint but a self-correcting direction. Unity does not erase individuality: an e-sphere, organism or person is distinct through organised relation to the whole.
The Physical Interaction in One View
Out-wave from A → relative phase at B → directional \(E_d\) → \(c'\) and \(\lambda'\) → near-side flattening and far-side elongation → \(V_1\) centre displacement plus \(V_2,V_4\) and higher egg deformation → new out-waves → recursive interaction.
The e-sphere does not deform and then move as separate events: its changing internal \(E_d\), contour and reclosure are its motion.
Electric Interaction
Same relative carrier phase → reinforcement → phase advance → forward curve → proposed repulsion.
Opposite relative carrier phase → cancellation → phase delay → rear curve → proposed attraction.
For the stated deformation, \[ r_{\rm near}=R-\delta X, \qquad r_{\rm far}=R+\delta X, \] so \(\delta\mathbf X\) points away. The scientific debt is to derive the sign, magnitude and distance law from the frozen action rather than insert them.
Gravity and General Relativity
In neutral matter, forward and rear charge curves nearly cancel; WSM proposes that their nonlinear common reduction of \(E_d\) leaves a slight slower rear curve and universal attraction. General relativity is the successful effective geometry this wave mechanism must recover: matter-energy changes real wave propagation, while rods and clocks made from those waves measure the resulting curved spacetime relations.
Special Relativity and Michelson–Morley
WSM proposes fixed carrier recurrence \(f_0\) with \(c'=\lambda'f_0\): matter, clocks, rods and signal wavelengths co-transform with their common directional wave environment, yielding measured invariant \(c\), Lorentz relations and the Michelson–Morley null. The complete moving solution must derive these cancellations quantitatively.
Recursive AMM Mechanism
\[ \delta\mathbf X \rightarrow\delta\phi_{\rm out} \rightarrow\delta E_{d,{\rm sea}} \rightarrow\delta c' \rightarrow\delta\phi_{\rm in} \rightarrow\delta\mathbf X_{\rm next}. \]
A perturbed centre changes the egg and its out-waves; these alter the wave sea and the in-waves rebuilding the next cycle. The action must solve this feedback blindly and recover the observed anomalous magnetic moment rather than fit it.
Current Status — August 2026
Exact wave constructions, geometric identities, phase-moment relations and negative controls have been established under declared premises. A leading geometric \(\alpha\) ansatz has a fixed 0.203% discrepancy. The complete nonlinear action must still calculate two-e-sphere charge and Coulomb scaling; force, inertia and \(F=ma\); the moving egg, de Broglie modulation and Lorentz covariance; Michelson–Morley and the gravitational/GR limit; Born probability and Bell correlations; \(g=2\), \(\alpha\) and AMM; hadron structure; and the joint cosmological kernel.
Write the action. Let Space calculate itself.
Rene Descartes
Philosophy: Famous Philosophers: Rene Descartes
Discussion of Philosophy & Metaphysics of Rene Descartes
'I Think Therefore I Exist'
Pictures / Quotes / Quotations Rene Descartes
'A Discourse on Method Meditations and Principles'
I think, hence I am, was so certain and of
such evidence, that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged
by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without
scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was
in search.
(Rene Descartes)
Several years have now elapsed since I first
became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions
for true, and that consequently what I afterwards based on such principles
was highly doubtful: and from that time I was convinced of the necessity
of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted,
and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired
to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences.
(Rene Descartes).
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Introduction
- Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes is one of the most elegant writers of philosophy. He is also one of the most important of the western philosophers due to his determination to find a certain foundation for philosophy / truth that could not be assaulted by the skeptics!
His solution? That it is impossible to doubt that you are thinking (you must think to doubt) thus we can be certain that a thinking mind exists. From this certain foundation he then concludes that God exists as the necessary creator of our material world and minds, and matter exists because our mind senses corporeal matter (particles), and God would not deceive us;
By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, has been created. (Med. 3)
But, since God is no deceiver, ... and He has given me no faculty to recognize that this is the case, but on the other hand a very great inclination to believe that my sense are conveyed to me by corporeal objects, I do not see how he could be defended against the accusation of deceit if these ideas were produced by causes other than corporeal objects. Hence we must allow that corporeal things exist. (173)
Each substance has a principal attribute, and . . . the attribute of the mind is thought, while that of body is extension. (175)
He then distinguishes the properties of mind, matter and God.
Body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible. (Med. 6)
Thus extension in length, breadth and depth, constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance. For all else that may be attributed to body presupposes extension, and is but a mode of this extended thing; as everything that we find in mind is but so many diverse forms of thinking. (175)
God
is the primary cause of motion; and he always preserves the same quantity
of motion in the universe.
After this consideration of the nature of motion, we must look at its cause.
This is in fact twofold: first, there is the universal and primary cause
- the general cause of all the motions of the world; and second there is
the particular cause which produces in an individual piece of matter some
motion which it previously lacked. Now as far as the general cause is concerned,
it seems clear to me that this is no other than God himself. In the beginning, <in his omnipotence>, he created matter, along with its motion and
rest; and now, merely by his regular concurrence, he preserves the same
amount of motion and rest in the material universe as he put there in the
beginning. Admittedly motion is simply a mode of the matter which is moved.
But nevertheless it has a certain determinate quantity; and this, we easily
understand, may be constant in the universe as a whole while varying in
any given part. (Principles Part II, article. 36)
It is interesting to read Pascal's criticism of this foundation for God as the first cause of matter's motion.
I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God. (Blaise Pascal)
There are numerous criticisms of Descartes conception of mind, matter and god - most relating to how these three different things are interconnected in the world that we all commonly experience.
I am convinced there is a solution to this problem - but it requires describing reality in terms of only one substance existing - space and its wave motions that form matter. Thus we change the metaphysical foundations of physical reality from Newton's motion of matter 'particles' in 'Space and Time' (which then required forces to connect the discrete particles) to the Wave Motion of Space that causes (and unites) matter, energy and time.
Basically the problem was to apply motion to discrete matter particles rather than realising that matter is motion, the wave motion of space. This is explained in the following pages;
Truth Statements on Physical Reality - These truth statements show people how to deduce physical reality for themselves and confirm it is true. It also provides a very concise summary of the central things the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) explains. See if you can show any statement is not true.
Wave Equation in an Elastic Wave Medium - Deducing the famous energy equations, Einstein's E=mc2, Planck's E=hf and Newton's F=ma from simple wave equations in an elastic medium (space). This confirms that the equivalence of matter and energy is because matter is made of waves, and waves propagate energy. All forces are due to changes in wave velocity.
Metaphysics - Solving the central problem of metaphysics - what is the one active substance that causes and connects the many changing material things we experience. The solution is simple, space is a wave medium and contains wave motions. i.e. From the motion of matter particles in space and time, to the wave motion of space that causes matter and time.
Cosmology - Explaining how our observable universe exists as a finite spherical region of infinite eternal space.
Theology God Religion - Defining god in terms of the one infinite eternal substance that exists.
Free Will Vs. Determinism - How we can have limited freedom and limited determinism in a necessarily interconnected reality of waves in space.
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Rene
Descartes: I Think Therefore I Exist
I think, hence I am, was so certain and of such evidence, that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search. (Rene Descartes)
It is strange that Descartes did not further pursue this line of reasoning, as he would then likely have solved the problems of philosophy / knowledge.
The reasoning is simple.
1. 'Cogito Ergo Sum' - I think therefore I exist (a thinking thing exists).
2. I think I exist as a material body in space and that I can see and interact with other material things in the space around me, including other thinking things (other humans).
3. Thus three things seem to exist in an interconnected way;
i) Many thinking minds (of which I am certain of my own).
ii) Many material things (people, cars, trees, houses, earth, sun, stars,
...).
iii) One common Space (that these many minds and material things exist in).
From this there is only one way to describe reality if we abide by the rules of simplicity (Occam's Razor) and metaphysics (necessary connection). i.e. There are many minds and material things - but they all seem to exist in one common space. This leads to a simple deduction of the wave structure of matter in Space which then deduces the fundamentals of physics (without any opinions), i.e. Quantum Theory, Albert Einstein's Relativity and Cosmology.
The complete argument is on the Truth Statements on Physical Reality page.
I do find it strange though that many people now seem to reject Descartes argument that we cannot doubt our thinking minds exist. As I see things, postmodernism has become so skeptical that people even doubt that they exist as thinking things - they take the idea that language is metaphor to illogical extremes. This is discussed more on the Friedrich Nietzsche page.
Let us assume that we do not know reality- the solution to metaphysics (substance and its properties). Thus any statement you make about the external world is uncertain. For example we can say;
"I experience seeing a tree." But of course this does not mean the tree necessarily exist. The certain truth is the personal / subjective truth (what we experience with our minds) not the objective truth (that the tree actually exists).
Thus all we can say with certainty is "I experience seeing a tree so this experience of the tree exists."
However, there is one and only one exception to this.
I experience thinking thus thinking things exist.
This cannot be doubted - as we must first think to doubt.
Thus we can be certain that we exist as thinking things.
What is most interesting is how we solve this, by solving metaphysics - by correctly imagining what exists - space - the one thing that we all commonly experience existing in as one thing. David Hume explains this problem of causation and necessary connection very well.
This problem of the 'external world' and causation disappear when you realise that we are universal structures - there is no external world, just one world, matter-energy and space-time are a unity - the wave motions of space. As Schrodinger wrote;
What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing
but shapes and variations in the structure of space. Particles are just
schaumkommen (appearances). ...
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived.
Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said
to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences,
for this barrier does not exist. (Erwin Schrodinger)
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Rene Descartes 'Ghost in the Machine'
The 'ghost in the machine' was made famous by British philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book 'The Concept of Mind' (1949). It relates to the problems of René Descartes' mind-body dualism. Descartes describes this as follows;
Nature also teaches me by the sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, etc. that I am not only lodged in my body as a pilot in a vessel, but that I am very closely united to it, and so to speak so intermingled with it that I seem to compose with it one whole. ... I consider the body of a man as being a sort of machine so built up and composed of nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin, that though there were no mind at all, it would not cease to have the same motions as at present, exception being made of those movements which are due to the direction of the will and in consequence depend on the mind (as opposed to those which operate by the disposition of the organs). (Rene Descartes, Meditations 6)
Descartes is correct that the body is a machine, but the mind is also a machine, and so is the universe. So really we should say there is a machine (mind) in a machine (body) which are both part of one machine (the universe). To understand this it is necessary to realise that matter is a wave structure of the universe, so is mind (this is why we can see and interact with the rest of the universe - it is a part of us). From this we can deduce that we have neither complete freedom, nor complete determinism.
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Rene Descartes: Three Laws of Motion
Descartes Laws of Motion are quite similar to Newton's Laws of Motion. He states;
Law 1. Each thing, in so far as it is simple and undivided, always remains in the same state, as far as it can, and never changes except as a result of external causes. ... Hence we must conclude that what is in motion always, so far as it can, continues to move. (Principles Part II, article. 37)
Law 2. Every piece of matter, considered in itself, always tends to continue moving, not in any oblique path but only in a straight line. (Principles Part II, article. 39)
These first two laws are correct, and are equivalent to Newton's Law of
Inertia, F=ma.
i.e. A body does not change its motion (acceleration) unless a force acts
on it. This corrects Aristotle's physics (which was dominant at the time)
that thought a body would stop moving unless a force continued to move it.
Law 3. When a moving body collides with another, if its power of continuing in a straight line is less than the resistance of the other body, it is deflected so that, while the quantity of motion is retained, the direction is altered; but if its power of continuing is greater than the resistance of the other body, it carries that body along with it, and loses a quantity of motion equal to that which it imparts to the other body. (Principles Part II, article. 40)
This is nearly correct. He was just missing the concept of mass and the resultant conservation of momentum (mass by velocity).
In The World, he states: "the virtue or power in a body to move itself can well pass wholly or partially to another body and thus no longer be in the first; but it cannot no longer exist in the world" (AT XI 15)
This is one of the first formulations of the conservation principle and the concept of 'force'. It basically states that motion is conserved in the universe. This is correct, but it is the wave motion of space that is conserved!
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Rene Descartes: Vortex Theory of Gravity
Descartes explains the orbit of the earth about the sun due to the earth being carried along by space which is moving around the sun in a large vortex. Thus he assumes space is like a liquid or a gas, made of tiny particles that can move. It is not correct - but historically interesting.
The wave structure of matter tells us that space is a nearly rigid (slightly elastic) wave medium. We have a page on Vortex Theory which explains the reasons why it cannot be correct.
Descartes Three Laws of Motion - Descartes Vortex Theory - Descartes Biography - Top of Page
Rene Descartes Biography
René Descartes, also known as Cartesius, was a French philosopher, mathematician and part-time mercenary. He is equally notable for both his groundbreaking work in philosophy and mathematics. As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, he formulated the basis of modern geometry (analytic geometry), which in turn influenced the development of modern calculus.
Descartes, sometimes called the Founder of Modern Philosophy
and the Father of Modern Mathematics, ranks as one of the most important
and influential thinkers in modern western history. He inspired both his
contemporaries and later generations of philosophers, leading them to form
what we know today as continental rationalism, a philosophical position
in 17th and 18th century Europe.
In Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes attempts to arrive
at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any
doubt. To achieve this, he employs a method called Methodological Skepticism:
he doubts any idea that can be doubted. Initially, Descartes arrives at
only a single principle: if I am being deceived, then surely "I"
must exist. Most famously, this is known as cogito ergo sum, ("I think,
therefore I am"). Therefore, Descartes concludes that he can be certain
that he exists. But in what form? You perceive your body through the use
of the senses; however these are unreliable (he uses the changing characteristics
of wax by a flame as an example and dreams - one's senses perceive things
that seem real, but do not actually exist). So Descartes concludes that
at this point, he can only say that he is a thinking thing. Thinking is
his essence as it is the only thing about him that cannot be doubted. (Edited
from Wikipedia)
Descartes main interest was in the development of science, and he had very clear ideas about the proper direction for this development. Mathematics, and in particular geometry, seemed to him to provide the model for scientific procedure. He thought that the fundamental method in science was the deductive method of geometry, which he conceived of as rigorous reasoning from self-evident axioms; and he thought that the subject-matter of all the physical sciences must be fundamentally the same as the subject-matter of geometry, and hence that, from the point of view of science in general, the only important characteristics of things in the physical world were the spatial characteristics which geometry studies. It is not the holding of these beliefs which makes Descartes a metaphysician. It is rather the dramatic expression they receive in his doctrines about the essential nature of knowledge and existence.
He offers a picture of a world in which the only realities,
apart from God, are purely material substance with none but spatial characteristics,
and pure thinking substances whose being essentially consists in the ability
to grasp self-evident axioms and their deductive consequences. Knowledge
is nothing but the results of exercising this ability. ...
Thus Descartes teaches, on the one hand, that it is only through our confidence
in God's veracity that we can have reason to believe in the existence of
material things; and on the other that it is only through our willfulness
that we ever believe what is false. (Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy)
Help Humanity
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
(Mohandas Gandhi)
"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:
Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which
the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ...
The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres
of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without
a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm
and the misguided. ...
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected
in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.
This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein
realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the
intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.
Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge
known to the world. But that depends on you, the people who care about science and society, realise the importance of truth and reality.
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A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1920)
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing."
(Edmund Burke)
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
(George Orwell)
"Hell is Truth Seen Too Late."
(Thomas Hobbes)
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