1. Although atoms consist primarily of empty space, they behave as if they were an impenetrable ball. Why? Electrons form a negative force field on the exterior of every atom. Containing this negative charge on their perimeter, every atom repels every other atom. Rather than a particle, the electron in this context is best envisioned as a negative force field.
2. The electrons in a water molecule are 33,000 smaller in mass than the nucleus. Yet losing just one electron in hydrolysis splits the water molecule into its components. So remember the importance of the miniscule electron to the gargantuan water molecule when feeling small and insignificant. Each of us makes a difference to our community. We all matter.
3. Resolving the controversy over whether electrons and photons are waves or particles, De Broglie derived an equation showing that they are both. Indeed, they are also the quanta of energy associated with their wavelength. Because the objects, even atoms, of the Molecular Realm are relatively large, they do not have a functional wavelength, hence functionally are particles.
4. Planck’s constant, although infinitesimally small, limits the certainty regarding an electron’s momentum and location. In contrast, there is no ambiguity regarding the momentum and location of objects in the Molecular Realm. These two differences indicate that the logic of electrons and photons (ambiguous nature and innate uncertainty) is distinctly different from the objects of the Molecular Realm (definitive nature and innate precision).
5. Electrons are best thought of as impenetrable negative force fields for objects in the Molecular Realm. The electron’s force field provides a hard boundary for ordinary objects in our Realm. While providing atoms with a hard outer shell, internally electrons are best thought of as waves, since integral multiples of their wavelength determines the size of the orbitals.
6. Humans design machines that take advantage of electricity (the flow of electrons) and light (the flow of photons). Similarly, cells take advantage of the properties of individual electrons and photons to generate and store bioenergy. Due to the deliberate strategy behind machines and the cell’s energy production system, both must be the result of intelligent design. To employ electrons and photons in a strategic manner, the Designer, whether human or Divine, must have a temporal sense, a holistic sense, and the ability to interact with information. Life’s ID system enables these abilities. Could living systems be an imperfect copy of the Divine Designer?
7. Where does the Designer, human or Divine, operate within Life’s ID system? The Designer manifests holistic behavior designed to serve the whole organism over time beneath the limits of certainty and in a second temporal dimension.
1. Electron: Impenetrable Negative Force Field and/or Particle?
2. The Importance of a Single, Miniscule Electron
3. De Broglie: Androgynous Electron-Photon Duality as Wave-Particle-Energy
4. Electron’s Innate Uncertainty regarding Momentum & Location
5. Integral Multiples of Electron Wavelength determines Orbital Size
6. Hoping Miraculous Electron opens your Mind to Life’s ID System
7. Life’s ID System operates beneath the Limits of Uncertainty
Electrons and photons are also key players in the cell’s energy production process. Unlike the rest of the cellular stars, electrons and photons are in a league of their own. While called ‘particles’, they don’t behave like any particle any of us has ever witnessed. Despite their weirdness, this duo is crucial to the production of bioenergy. This vital role impels us to discuss their bizarre properties.
The nucleus of every atom is composed exclusively of protons and neutrons. The nucleus is the primary substance of an atom. This nucleus is surrounded by electron shells. The diameter of the nucleus is at least 100,000 smaller than the diameters of the electron shells. These facts have led many to surmise that the atom is primarily empty space.
This conclusion is based upon faulty logic – the misapplication of the logic of the Molecular Realm to the Subatomic Realm. To conceptualize the electron, we envision it to be like a planet circling its sun (the atom’s nucleus). This conceptual metaphor works – except when it breaks down – as all metaphors do.
In actuality, no one has ever seen an electron. By examining the spectral lines of light, physicists have surmised that electrons can only exist in distinct orbits about the nucleus. They hop from one orbital to another without ever inhabiting the intermediate space. There is nothing that behaves like this in our familiar Molecular Realm. Even our tiniest objects (atoms) move continuously through the space-time continuum. This continuum enables the mathematics of Matter (Calculus).
Although microbiologists, biochemists and quantum physicists regularly conceptualize electrons, photons and all the other Subatomics (muons etc.) as particles, none of these brilliant individuals would dare to treat these tiny objects as they would a planet, a baseball, or even an atom. They all understand that particle physics is really only a metaphor for conceptualizing this bizarre universe. While the particle metaphor is useful, they all know that the laws and behavior of these subatomic particles is vastly different than are those governing the objects in our more familiar Molecular Realm.
On the most basic level, space, time, and energy, while continuous in the Molecular Realm, are all quantized (discrete chunks) in the Subatomic Realm. This difference in of itself demands different mathematical systems (in kind, not degree) to characterize the behavior of the two Realms of Existence. Our overall point is that the ‘particles’ inside an atom are vastly different from those outside the atom.
Rather than a particle, an electron in its atomic context is better conceptualized as a force field – a shell of negative magnetic energy surrounding a nugget of positive magnetic energy (the atomic nucleus with its protons). This positive – negative polarity is balanced in atoms. These tiny particles contain an equal number of positive and negative charges. The positive charges are contained in the atom’s nucleus as protons, while the negative charges surround the atomic nucleus in an orderly sequence of force fields (electron shells).
Because negative force field(s) surround every atom and molecule in the Universe and negative charges repel each other, atoms and molecules repel each other. Atoms and molecules can’t pass through each other as each is surrounded by a negative force field(s). Only neutral light (photons) can pass easily through the atom’s interior space.
Indeed, this is how scientists discovered that atoms are filled with ‘empty’ space. Scientists focused light upon an atom to explore its nature. To their surprise, most light passed right through. Only a few photons bounced back (those that struck the nucleus). As this story has been retold countless times in science textbooks et al, we are left with the mistaken impression that an atom consists mostly of empty space.
For a stream of photons (light), an atom is mostly filled with the Void. However, most of us are composed of atoms and molecules. As far as we are concerned, these tiny particles, rather than empty space, are instead hard, impenetrable balls. For all practical purposes, atoms are indivisible particles that are the building blocks of our familiar Molecular Realm.
Despite this pragmatic reality, it is more convenient in certain contexts to imagine electrons circling an atomic nucleus. Because we regularly deal with material objects rather than force fields, this objectification of energy as a tiny particle makes everything easier to understand. Yet we must be cautious that we don’t mistake the metaphor for reality – the map for the territory.
This objectification of energy makes it easier to conceptualize chemical, subatomic, and biological processes. Let us provide examples of this objectification of energy (an electron) in each of these disciplines. In each case, scientists regularly reference objects rather than energetic force fields.
Chemistry: Via chemical bonds, molecules are impelled to contain the proper number of electrons in each of the force fields that surround the nucleus of each atom. Each of the electrons in each orbital is different. Some spin in opposite directions; others follow differing orbital paths.
Subatomic: When a photon hits an electron, it jumps an orbital. When an electron drops an orbital, it gives off a photon.
Biology: When a photon hits a chlorophyll molecule, an electron is first excited and then passed around a photo system. It is eventually placed in an electron transport chain, where its negative charge is eventually employed to drive a positively charged proton across a membrane.
This objectification of energy as a particle is very convenient in these instances. Yet it can easily lead to some faulty conclusions. Particles have mass, inhabit a specific location, possess a trajectory, and have definitive dimensions. Scientists have utilized this understanding to both quantify and accurately predict trajectories of stars, planets, bombs, cannon balls, molecules, and atoms.
However, electrons prove to be a stumbling block to this form of analysis. Via his uncertainty principle, Heisenberg conclusively proved that it is impossible to accurately determine an electron’s momentum and location simultaneously. Due to this vagueness, an electron’s dimensions are equally ambiguous.
This is my long-winded way of saying that an electron, as a metaphor for a force field, does not have a diameter. Nor does it have height or width. Indeed, an electron’s weight is extrapolated from other factors, e.g. energy.
Let us rephrase photosynthesis in terms of energy rather than particles. A single photon contains the smallest amount of energy, a quantum. An electron force field in a chlorophyll molecule absorbs this energy and jumps to a larger shell. This excited negative charge is passed around the chloroplast’s photosystem and then through a chain of biomolecules (enzymes). Eventually this quantum of energy is employed to push a proton across a gradient.
Having lost a quantized negative charge (the electron), the original chlorophyll molecule is unbalanced. To attain peace and equilibrium, she grabs a negative charge from a nearby water molecule. Having lost this tiniest quantum of negativity, the water molecule splits into oxygen and some protons. The oxygen becomes an essential part of our atmosphere, while the proton is employed to spin a mega-protein to produce bioenergy.
Wow! Posing as minute particles, photons, electrons, and protons are actually quanta of neutral, negative and positive energy. The cell somehow employs this fundamental trio (the Universe’s smallest energy packets) to produce the biomass and bioenergy that enables both the existence and survival of Life on Earth. Wow again! Bow down and worship the Creator, whomever They may be.
My amazement at the cell’s energy-producing process has yet to be exhausted. Let us tell the tale of a single submicroscopic electron; and her importance to photosynthesis, hence Life herself.
This ubiquitous, miraculous, and ultimately cyclical process begins with a photon from the Sun colliding with a chlorophyll molecule, specifically with one of her electrons. This collision excites the electron, causing her to jump an orbital. The photosystem passes around this excited electron until it is captured by a photoreceptor. The photoreceptor then passes the electron on to a transport system, which employs the extra energy to charge some ATP molecules and a transport molecule. The dark reaction employs this energy to generate a G3P molecule – the building block of biomass and bioenergy.
However, the chlorophyll molecule that caught the photon is deficient having sacrificed one of her electrons to photosynthesis. To replace the missing electron., she grabs an electron from a nearby water molecule to fill the gap. Losing just this one electron splits the water molecule into its components – an oxygen atom and two protons (hydrogen without its electrons).
I am stunned at how the loss of such a tiny particle – an infinitesimal compared to the objects in our Molecular Realm – splits apart a mighty water molecule (hydrolysis).
To better understand how really small our electron is, let us examine the components of this splitting apart process in more detail. Here is a diagram of the intact water molecule.
(Water molecule diagram)
Let us add up the weight of the entire molecule to see how a single electron sizes up in comparison. The oxygen atom contains 8 protons and 8 neutrons in its nucleus (16 in all). The hydrogen atom contains only one proton. But water consists of two hydrogen atoms (2 protons). So, the water molecule contains 18 protons and neutrons. To wrap up the molecular content, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms share 10 electrons.
The water molecule is considered neutral, as it is balanced in the two ways that molecules crave - electromagnetically and chemically (filled electron shells). Balancing the molecular charge there is one electron for each proton – ten each. In a loving covalent bond, both hydrogen atoms share two electrons with the oxygen atom. In such a way, the two electron shells are filled to the brim - two in the inner shell and eight in the outer shell.
Due in part to this double balance, the water molecule is very durable. Having found completion, water is satisfied, needing nothing more. Despite this apparent stability, the whole package splits apart upon losing just one of water’s 10 electrons.
The mass of each proton and neutron is about 1.67 x 10-24 grams while the mass of each electron is about 9.1 x 10-28. In relative terms, a proton/neutron is 1836 times heavier than an electron. Multiplying by 18, the combined nucleus of the water molecule is 33,048 times heavier than the electron it loses. Yet despite its diminutive size relative to the whole, it is that tiny electron that holds the molecule together.
So, when you are feeling insignificant, remember that tiny electron. Realize that although small and microscopic relative to society at large – your community, your presence could be holding it all together. You matter, we matter, everyone matters. Hallelujah!
Further, it is another tiny electron that got excited by the Sun’s divine energy that drives the processes by which we derive biomass and bioenergy. No matter how small and insignificant you feel yourself to be, never lose your excitement, never lose your commitment; never lose your community involvement. Amen.
Actually, speaking to myself – attempting to bolster my Person’s confidence. I am the miniscule electron who has been excited by the cell’s divine energy-producing process. It is I who wants to spread this excitement to others. It is my Person who is converting this divine energy into cultural substance (this Notebook) and cultural energy (the literary content).
No matter how insignificant I feel myself to be – especially in comparison with the scholarly/scientific community, I must never lose my divine excitement, must never lose my commitment to the transmission of this Vision to the greater human culture. Amen.
Oops! Our recent tale conveniently objectified electrons and photons as tiny particles. We took this shortcut even though we know that an electron is more force field than particle in terms of her relationship to the atom. But that is just par for the course for those tricky devils – the electron and photon. They consistently behave in a paradoxical fashion.
Initially (late 1800s) the scientific community believed that light was a wave and that electrons were particles. Over the next few decades, scientists discovered that light could also be described as a stream of tiny quanta of energy – photons. As individual photons, they were perceived as particles – neutral particles with neither mass nor size. Due to these seemingly contradictory results, a controversy arose. Participants debated whether light (a stream of photons) is a wave or particle.
On the other half of the divide, electrons were initially thought to be tiny particles. More specifically, scientists speculated that electrons were the tiniest element. To account for electromagnetic phenomena, mathematicians had of necessity to put this invisible element into their models. As with atoms, many resisted this characterization of reality because it was unavailable to the senses.
At this point in the late 1800s, the scientific community still believed that atoms were the smallest and indivisible building blocks of our material world. Electrons were just another type of atom – a hard impenetrable ball. Then after shining light beams on an atom, Rutherford found that while most beams passed through without obstruction that some bounced back.
Surprise of surprises! Rather than a hard ball, the atom has a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons. Atomic structure had been discovered. With incoming data and analysis, the scientific community began envisioning electrons as submicroscopic particles orbiting the atom’s nucleus – like planets circling the sun. So far so good. While no longer an element, the electron is still a particle, albeit miniscule in dimensions.
But then oops! On closer look, the electron began exhibiting peculiar behavior – actions that no self-respecting particle of the Molecular Realm would ever engage in. Specifically, the increasing precise Math-Data Synergy indicated that electrons could only inhabit specific orbitals at a fixed distance from the nucleus. While somewhat like our planets, but electrons could not exist in the space between orbitals. Whoa! How could they jump from one orbital to the next without inhabiting the space between?
Simultaneously, experiments indicated that the seemingly discrete photon streams of light exhibit the interference patterns of waves when passed through tiny slits. Everyone was getting very confused. Is light a wave or particle? Is an electron a particle or something else – something unimaginable?
Confusing matters (excuse the pun), protons and neutrons, the inhabitants of the atomic nucleus, still behaved like discrete particles with a distinct mass, location, time, and size. Was there a misunderstanding about fundamental nature that was yet to be resolved? Who was right and who was wrong? The community was looking for a binary decision – in the box or out of the box from our visual set-based logic – nothing in between – no androgyny.
Then in the 1920s came De Broglie. He made the startling discovery that every electron has a wavelength. Indeed, everything with momentum has a wavelength. Let us briefly examine De Broglie’s simple equation.
Wavelength = h/p
Wavelength = Planck’s constant/momentum
Momentum is mass times velocity (m x v). Hence only moving mass has a wavelength. No movement: no wavelength.
Rewriting the equation as a product.
Wavelength x Momentum = Planck’s constant
Planck’s constant = 6.63 x 10-34 joule-seconds ≈ Infinitesimal
Fundamental packet of energy = quanta
The product of wavelength and momentum is restrained by Planck’s constant – a functional infinitesimal. In other words, the product of these two variables is miniscule – virtually dimensionless. Anything with measurable momentum has an impossibly small wavelength - no wavelength for practical purposes. Hence, all the usual objects of our Realm have an unmeasurable wavelength – practical zero. In this case, an infinitesimal (Planck’s constant) divided by something (atoms, molecules, and even atomic nuclei) is an infinitesimal (the object’s wavelength).
However, since the tiny electron’s momentum is in the same range of smallness as Planck’s constant, it has a wavelength that is functional – exceptionally so – as we shall see. As in Calculus, an infinitesimal multiplied by an infinitesimal can equal something. In such a way, an electron has both a particle’s functional momentum and a wave’s functional wavelength.
As we shall also see, the electron and photon are inextricably linked. Like (electricity and magnetism) or (matter and energy), electrons and photons form a Duality of Nature (as per Mayer). Because of this linkage, they behave in a similar fashion and have similar properties. The photon, as an infinitesimal, also has a wavelength and momentum, hence both wave and particle-like tendencies. Rather than binary, electrons and photons are androgynous. How modern!
These fundamental wave-particles can also be characterized as energy packets. Indeed, Planck’s constant is associated with a photon’s quanta of energy. Accordingly, electrons and photons are also the energy associated with their nature as wave-particles.
Energy = (Planck’s constant x speed of light)/Wavelength.
E = (h x c)/ Wavelength
In support of this mass-energy synergy, Einstein’s famous equation showed that Energy is a function of Mass.
Energy = mass x light speed squared
E = mc2
There is one other significant way in which Planck’s constant provides boundaries for electrons in particular. Planck’s constant limits our certainty regarding an electron’s position and momentum (the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).
Heisenberg uncertainty Principle
(Position Uncertainty) x (Momentum Uncertainty) = Planck’s constant /4π
∆x * ∆p = h/4π
As mentioned, our formation of abstractions is based in conceptual metaphors. We use the logic of a known system to understand an unknown system. In this case, scientists initially conceptualized electrons as little planets revolving about their nucleus (their tiny sun). While gravity holds our solar system together, the electromagnetic attraction between positively-charged protons in the atom’s center and the negatively-charged electrons on the perimeter hold the atom together. So far so good for the planetary metaphor.
However, the metaphor breaks down, as all metaphors do. Astrophysicists can determine both the momentum and location of a planet at any time to any precision they desire. In our ordinary Molecular Realm, a body’s momentum and location are separate and distinct. However, an electron’s momentum and position are linked by Planck’s constant. More precisely, the more certainty we have regarding momentum, the less certainty we have regarding location and vice versa.
As this discussion illustrates, Planck’s constant is a limiting factor for the energy, wavelength, and momentum of electrons and photons. Not only does it restrain the individual qualities of each of these factors, Planck’s constant also limits and binds these qualities together. Due to the Uncertainty Principle, we cannot separate electrons and photons into the usual components of the Molecular Realm.
Indeed, the uncertainty regarding electrons and photons extends to all aspects of their being. Wave or Particle or Energy? They are somewhere in-between. And you can’t get closer than Planck’s constant. No matter which way you go, you end up with androgyny rather than binary.
In contrast, body-particles of the Molecular Realm have no such limits or uncertainty associated with their dimensions. The features of atoms, molecules, baseballs, and planets can be clearly quantified and differentiated with as much certainty as desired. Since this is the world that we inhabit and experience, we can also understand the behavior of objects, waves, and energy – as separate and distinct phenomenon.
While our Molecular Realm is clearly binary – either wave or particle or energy, electrons and photons are clearly androgynous – both wave and particle and energy. Due to their androgynous nature, they belong, not to the Molecular Realm, but rather to the Subatomic Realm, where familiar categories fade into each other. Since we can’t sense and experience this Subatomic Realm, we can’t understand the behavior of its denizens except through the intersection of mathematics and data. Rather than separate and distinct, binary phenomenon, the particle/wave/energy packets of the Subatomic Realm exhibit androgynous behavior – sometimes one and at other times the other.
Molecular Realm: Binary Either-Or Logic
Subatomic Realm: Androgynous Both-And Logic
Due to their importance to us as living creatures, we could say that this Duality of Nature (electrons ad photons) exists at the threshold of the Subatomic Realm and the Molecular Realm.
With these dualities in mind, let’s revisit the atomic structure once more. On a simplistic level, electrons can only fill certain orbits around the nucleus. And these orbitals are limited to a specific number of electrons. Further when an electron moves to a higher orbital, it absorbs a photon, and when it moves to a lower orbital (one closer to the nucleus), it emits a photon. In other words, the electron absorbs or gives off energy as it moves from orbital to orbital.
We saw this in photosynthesis. A chlorophyll’s electron absorbs a photon’s energy and jumps an orbital. This energy is then employed to rearrange molecular structure, thus storing the solar energy in the chemical bonds of a more useful biomolecule. Infused with solar energy, these biomolecules can be digested – their potential energy ultimately transferred to an ATP molecule – the energy currency of living systems.
Since electromagnetic opposites attract, why don’t negative electrons crash into the positive protons in the atom’s nucleus? And why do electrons just fill certain orbitals? The answer is the same to both questions. But rather than a particle, we must envision electrons as waves.
The orbitals are integer multiples of the electron’s wavelength. And the integer for the first orbital is one. Rather than a tiny particle orbiting an atomic nucleus in discrete orbits, it is more accurate to view the electron as filling the entire space between the atomic nucleus and the orbital with the energy of its wavelength. There is no space between the electron as wavelength and proton as particle.
Rather than jumping from orbital to orbital, the electron merely doubles or triples its wavelength – depending upon how much energy it absorbs or releases. The electron’s resonant frequency restricts this growth and shrinkage to wavelength multiples. In such a way, the electron’s wave nature both prevents it from crashing into the nucleus, and also determines the circumference of the orbitals.
Finally, the photon’s quanta of energy is the precise/exact amount of energy that electrons require to increase their wavelength by integer multiples. This interconnectedness is one reason that electrons and photons are considered a Duality of Nature.
Rather than random, the atomic structure is tightly constrained by Planck’s constant and the electron-photon duality which manifests its collective energy as the wave-particle duality.
Pretty amazing, eh? Bow your head and give thanks to the Mystery for providing a tiny bit of understanding!
Why this enormous focus upon these androgynous creatures - the amazing electron and his pal the photon?
Ultimately the cell plays ball with these fundamental energy packets (a positively charged proton, a negatively charged electron, and a neutral photon) to generate potential bioenergy. The cell employs this potential energy in a discretionary manner to reverse entropy by organizing inanimate matter in a way that enables survival as a living entity. Although employing larger material units to survive, the cell engages with these smallest of ‘energy-particles’ to store bioenergy for later use. Rather than only atoms and molecules, the cell uses the interaction between electrons and protons to generate necessary bioenergy.
These special ingredients are not used in a usual particle-like way. Rather the cell tosses the electron’s energy ball from molecule to molecule in a transport chain. Rather than using up the electron’s energy to do work, the cell employs the negatively-charged electrons to force positively-charged protons across a membrane. This process creates an electromagnetic energy gradient between inside and outside. When the difference becomes great enough, the flood gates open; entropy takes over. The rush to equalize charges enough ATP molecules to pay for Life.
The androgynous nature of electrons and photons (their many dualities) is but one reason that these special ingredients are on the threshold of the Molecular and Subatomic Realms. Rather than only employing common, bulky ingredients from the Molecular Realm (atoms and molecules) as I formerly supposed, the cell employs these energy balls existing on the threshold of two Realms to do essential work.
Further rather than utilizing groups of particles (atoms, molecules, photons or electrons), the cell employs a single photon to excite a distinct electron which then repels a distinct proton. The precision of the design is overwhelming. Employing these discrete infinitesimal energy packets in a crucial role, cellular energy production certainly awes me; catalyzing a state of wonder.
As do cells, humans certainly employ streams of electrons as electricity to power 21st century civilization. We also utilize the flow of photons as light to illuminate our homes. However, in both cases, these technological processes were the result of intelligent human design.
These innovations did not occur because of random molecular collisions. Ancient cave dwellers did not accidentally stumble upon these techniques for tapping into the potentials of electrons and photons. Rather, it took millions of years of technological transmission over an uncountable number of cultures to achieve these seemingly miraculous feats. Only occurring relatively recently (a little over a century ago), this transmission process was intentionally deliberate, not accidental at all. Further, the reason each stage was passed to the next generation was that the inventions had a distinct purpose. Each was meant to serve the whole.
The cell’s process for tapping into the electron-photon duality is even more spectacular. Rather than a recent development, the cell has been producing its own internal energy via the interaction of electrons and photons for billions of years. Just as human invention serves the whole, so does cellular energy production only make sense in terms of the entire cell. Just as human innovation is not random but rather the result of intelligent design, we must reason that the cell’s ability to utilize the electron-photon duality to produce energy must have also been the result of intelligent design.
In order to manifest a design that serves a holistic purpose, both humans and the Divine Intelligence must have a temporal sense, a holistic sense and the ability to interact with information. These talents are innate features of Life’s ID system, with which living systems interact with image streams. Exclusively material systems have none of these capabilities.
Requiring the same talents, we imagine that the Divine Intelligence also possesses these talents via the same or a similar ID system. Does this symmetry imply that we are imperfect reflections of this Higher Power?
Summarizing my amazement: the cell produces its own energy, something that no object in the Molecular Realm can accomplish. Rather than farming out any of the processes overseas, the cell synthesizes all its components from common ingredients found in the vicinity (not rare and precious metals mined from exotic locations). Further the many crucial stages and steps of energy production occur within cellular boundaries which are a tenth the circumference of a single hair. Finally, the cell employs ingredients that are upwards of 12 or more orders of magnitude smaller than itself. (As a comparison, the tiniest objects in the Human Realm (perhaps a hair’s width) are only 4 to 5 orders of magnitude smaller than us.)
Questions arise: how did this miraculous process happen? As my own life has been guided by Providence (my frame), divine guidance is definitely my default explanation. As there is no way of proving or disproving this proposition one way or another, this position is just my choice. Further, I have no desire to convince you the Reader that my thesis is correct. Whatever works for you is just fine with me.
I am just hoping that exposure to the miraculous, holistic, time-based, interactive nature of the cellular energy production which includes single electrons and photons will open the door of your Mind to Life’s equally miraculous Information Digestion System (ID system) - complete with Attention, mental energy, life force, choice et al.
Hallelujah! Praise be to the Creator!
If you are a typical member of your scientific species, you are probably a bit skeptical - wondering where Life’s ID system operates. Physicists and chemists have been examining material behavior for centuries and have found no evidence of choice or a life force on the microscopic or macroscopic levels. Even if sympathetic to my cause, you are probably also asking what kind of evidence indicates that we have the ability to choose between alternatives. If you are like the rest who’ve taken the Kool-Aid, you might also be questioning what else there could possibly be in the Universe besides Matter.
To answer these questions, let us take a few moments to reflect upon Planck’s constant.
Planck’s constant is only applicable to electrons and photons. The wavelength of any object of the Molecular Realm is simply too small to have any practical meaning. This exclusion includes the hydrogen atom as well as protons and neutrons. Put another way, these object/particles do not have wave-like properties under any circumstance. They always behave like objects.
Only electrons and photons move fast enough (the speed of light) and have a long enough wavelength to have any functional meaning. Only these energy packets have both particle-like and wave-like characteristics.
Due to these innate differences, electrons and photons are qualitatively different than any object/particle of the Molecular Realm. To liken them to particles or planets revolving around the sun is entirely misleading. In contrast to any particle of the Realm we inhabit, an electron-photon’s energy, wavelength, and momentum are inextricably linked in a holistic fashion. Unlike ordinary particles, whose components are distinct and separate, the components of these energy quanta cannot be separated. While wavelengths of our everyday particles, including atoms and molecules, is infinitesimally small (practical zero), electrons and photons have both a functional wavelength and momentum which is linked to their energy.
However, the linkage of these variables is not like the linkages of variables in the Molecular Realm. The mathematical laws of this Realm of Existence link variables in a precise and distinct fashion, for instance the ideal gas laws (Pressure * Volume = Temperature). Rather for electrons and photons, precision is limited by Plank’s constant. No matter how accurate the measuring device, there is always an amount of imprecision – a range of uncertainty.
We can’t see or measure inside this range of uncertainty. It is this impenetrable range where Life’s intention operates – imperceptibly pushing events one way or another - coordinating movement to catch prey or avoid a predator. This behavior is holistic in that the entire organism determines its purpose, whether self-actualization or survival.
It is in this range of uncertainty that Life’s ID system operates. Since it is below the level of certainty, intentional behavior is undetectable by any measuring device in the Molecular Realm. While unavailable to the usual tools of measurement, phenomena associated with holistic behavior can be quantified in other ways.
Limited by similar concerns, particle physicists can’t directly experience the inhabitants of the Subatomic Realm. Instead, their evidence is circumstantial (not direct, but from secondary sources). In most cases, they can only observe the post-collision trails of their subatomic energy bundles to draw their conclusions. [As a critical aside: The cost efficiency associated with generating this empirical evidence is questionable. The super-colliders that generate these collisions cost hundreds of millions to a billion dollars to construct and consume an enormous amount of energy to operate.]
In similar fashion to scientists of the Subatomic Realm, we can observe living behavior to determine what is going on beneath the limits of certainty. Because Data Stream Dynamics, our mathematical system, seems to match our data base, it is reasonable to assume that the underlying model is at least somewhat accurate. Put more precisely, the relative precision of our Math-Fact Synergy regarding holistic behavior indicates that Life employs an ID system to digest information. Attention, Choice, Mind, Feelings, Intention as well as mental energy and a life force are all necessary features of Life’s ID system.
Finally, just as electrons and photons are qualitatively different from the ordinary particles in our Molecular Realm, the stuff of the Living Realm of Attention (Experiences, Memories and Models) are qualitatively different from the objects of the deterministic Material Realms. Just as electrons and protons operate within the space-time continuum in an entirely different way (regularly moving in and out of existence) than ordinary particles such as atoms and molecules, our ID system operates beneath the Realm of Certainty from an entirely different temporal dimension – one based necessarily upon a sense of time and a holistic interaction with data streams.
Amen.
One last thing. I resonate especially with androgynous electrons and protons because I too am androgynous. Rather than fitting into the certainty of sight’s set-based either-or box, I am fully immersed in the inherent ambiguity of both-and. So there.