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And so on to that ‘Big Picture’.
Take a look around you. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you will see, you will experience, movement. Depending on your circumstances, it may be clouds drifting across the sky, leaves rustling in the breeze, birds flitting from tree to tree; or it might be cars speeding along a busy road, people walking along the pavement, doors opening and closing at shop entrances; it may even be industrial machinery operating on a building site, or in a factory, or mining equipment extracting minerals from the earth; the alternatives are almost endless. Even that directive to “Take a look around you” involves you turning your head, swivelling your eyeballs.
Even the fundamental processes of living involve movement: as you read (or listen to) this, your lungs are expanding and contracting, bringing in air and expelling unwanted carbon dioxide; the chambers of your heart are similarly expanding and contracting, moving blood around your circulatory system - even that name implies motion; we won’t go into details of your digestive system - but that’s all about motion, too.
Let’s look briefly at your central and peripheral nervous system: the functioning of your brain is essentially movement of electric charges along neural pathways; your visual perception, be it of a flower, a face or a flamingo, is motion of photons from that object to your eye, triggering further motion of charged particles along your optic nerve to your brain; your other senses have a similar story; even your emotions are given physical effect by so-called ‘molecules of emotion’ - neuropeptides - moving around your body.
Let’s dig a little deeper: heat and sound are both different forms of motion within the substance that’s either hot or carrying a sound wave. Deeper still we find that liquids and gases are both composed of molecules which are always in motion - and even molecules of solids are constantly vibrating, unless they’re at a temperature of absolute zero.
If we now dive into those molecules, and the atoms that form them, we find those atoms are hives of activity. The nucleus of each atom is made up of nucleons - protons & neutrons - which are constantly on the move, surrounded by electrons performing a whole variety of orbits around them.
But let’s not stop there. Each of these nucleons, each of these electrons, is formed from packets of electromagnetic energy looping around at the speed of light, no less. And let’s not forget those same packets of energy - photons - zipping about the cosmos in every direction, again at the speed of light; surely no-one could claim they’re not moving?!
So what’s all this about ‘Nothing Moves’??
To answer this we need to look behind all these objects, these atoms, these subatomic particles, these photons - to what it is that’s supporting them.
Before Einstein launched his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, it was generally accepted that there must be some sort of substance - generally termed the aether - through which everything moves, even light. This made sense: electric and magnetic fields are effects within some substance, be it metal, water, air or whatever; how can we have an effect without something for that effect to be affecting - notably in ‘empty space’? Maxwell’s derivation of c, the speed of light, is based on firm figures for the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of ‘free space’: how ‘free’ is a space that sets specific limits on the propagation of electric and magnetic field effects? What are they propagating through? [It’s notable that Maxwell himself used the aether as a basis for development of his science of electrical and magnetic phenomena, which led to Maxwell’s equations, from which the speed of light is determined.]
The concept of the aether was ditched when Einstein proposed that the speed of light was the same relative to any constant-velocity state of motion (free of gravitational fields), so couldn’t be tied to one specific ‘reference frame’ as defined by the aether. This left a gaping hole in electromagnetic field theory which science was content to turn a blind eye to, i.e. what were electromagnetic field effects supposed to propagate through, as implicit in Maxwell’s equations?
With the resolution of ‘Relativistic’ effects as subjective motion-induced phenomena, the concept of the aether - in some form - as a universal frame of reference is very much back on the table. This universal reference frame is explicitly alluded to on the website of George Smoot, who was awarded a Nobel prize for mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), effectively a sort of 3-D wallpaper which permeates the whole of the cosmos: “This would seem to violate the postulates of Galilean and Special Relativity but there is a preferred frame in which the expansion of the Universe looks most simple. That frame is the average rest frame of the matter and CMB”. (Note the name of that website: aether.lbl.gov).
The Substrate
My first article [download pdf] published on the cyclic-photon understanding of matter appeared on the website of the Scientific & Medical Network twenty years ago last month, under the title Quantum Relativity; it appeared again a few months later in an Italian science magazine under the title Vibrations of Reality.
That article closes with the following paragraph:
”The view of reality presented above gives credence to the notion that our material reality may actually be a vibrational pattern imposed on some meta-matter substrate, like ripples on a lake. This substrate could correspond to that which is referred to in esoteric literature as 'subtle matter'. Detection of this substrate with instruments composed of normal matter would of course have to be by indirect means.”
It’s notable that the other researcher who, quite independently, more recently reached a virtually identical conclusion to myself regarding the nature of material reality - as referenced in my recent previous post: Stop Press (etc) - also regards some sort of substrate as a crucial part of the picture. Over the past twenty years this notion of a substrate has moved from a possibility to pretty much a dead cert. So let’s look at the role of this substrate in a universe where nothing moves.
A couple of ground rules first:
The substrate is not simply a 2-dimensional stage on which our ‘material reality’ is acted out. No, it’s a 3-dimensional continuum - at least from our physical perspective - plus time, making it 4-dimensional - in which our reality is embedded as some sort of ‘effect’;
The substrate is not some kind of vapour-like ephemeral substance, as some might envisage ‘subtle matter’ - there’s nothing subtle about it in that way. It’s only ‘subtle’ in the sense that we have no ways of sensing it directly. As a simple analogy: imagine a large block of iron that has temperature variations all over the place within it; now imagine beings with no sense of touch or sight, but with well-developed temperature-sensing abilities which can reach inside the block. Those beings wouldn’t perceive that iron block at all - but they would perceive the patterns of temperature variation inside the block, maybe interpreting them as a wonderful symphony or a beautiful work of art. For them the iron block would be experienced only indirectly as some sort of ‘subtle matter’, apparent only by virtue of those patterns for which it acts as a carrier.
Ok, so let’s start with those photons.
A photon is formed by an oscillating electric field acting at 90 degrees to an oscillating magnetic field, each effectively pushing each other along - propagating - in a direction perpendicular to both of them. This ‘pushing each other along’ drives a photon through space at c, the speed of light - very definitely moving!
Or is it? Let’s look at things from the perspective of that substrate. We see electric field effects and magnetic field effects fluctuating in the substance of the substrate itself, like the glow rising and dwindling in a log in the heart of a fire: the log isn’t moving; even if that glow spreads along the log, nothing is physically moving.
So it is with that photon: the electric effect, the magnetic effect, spread through the substrate like that glow spreading through the log. But like that log, the substrate isn’t moving - nothing of physical substance is moving; it’s just an effect, like that glow, manifesting itself at successive points through the substrate.
As another analogy, think of those messages in lights running around the buildings in Times Square or Piccadilly Circus (or many other places). We see those messages moving along, carrying news or advertisements - but in point of fact nothing is actually moving; it’s just those lights being switched on and off, in sequence, giving the impression of movement.
So it is with photons: successive activation of electric and magnetic field effects in the substrate transfers those effects (no physical movement) from one point to another in that substrate. This is what gives the impression of motion in a photon - just an effect, an electromagnetic field variation, being communicated through the substrate by the fluctuations in that field itself.
So ok, that’s photons. But what about an actual physical object, such as an electron? How does that get from one place to another without any physical movement?
Same story. An electron is a cyclic electromagnetic field effect - a cyclic photon - propagating repeatedly around a point in the substrate, or along a spiral path if that electron is ‘moving’ through the substrate. Again nothing is physically moving, it’s just a field effect being propagated through the medium of the substrate.
More complex particles - protons, neutrons, whole atoms or molecules - are just combinations of such propagating effects. Nothing is physically moving. The same applies for composite objects, from the smallest speck of dust or bacterium to a person, an elephant, a planet, a star - even an entire galaxy: the only thing that’s changing position (or rather, changing its orientation) within the substrate is an electromagnetic field effect, no matter how complex that effect may be. In terms of physical objects, absolutely nothing moves.
That’s all very well, you may say, but what about our experiences in the physical realm? We can see a beautiful array of roses, a baby’s smile, a glorious vista of mountains or a rugged coastline. We can reach out and hold a loved one’s hand, we can lean against a tree or a granite rock and feel its unyielding strength; we can listen to an uplifting piece of music or a rock group, smell the scent of those roses, taste any number of different flavours. Where do all these experiences come from, in a universe where everything is just fluctuating electromagnetic fields and nothing moves??
First let’s dispense with ‘just’ this and ‘just’ that. The word ‘just’ is such an easy throwaway: is the Mona Lisa ‘just’ pigments on a sheet of canvas? Our spacetime experiences are far more than ‘just’ our interaction with our perceived physical environment - more on this shortly. Here we’re focusing on ‘just’ the true nature of these physical processes and their underlying mechanisms. Those mechanisms are quite amazing enough in their own right, when we consider the implications, to be going on with.
Quite a few years ago I was effectively asked this same question - “But how?? But what??” - by a very dear and very switched-on elderly friend. I was relating to her how everything is made of light, even us, when she put her hand on her arm, pushed it away very demonstratively to emphasise its unyielding nature and said in a questioning voice: “But Grahame, …??” Her very clear unspoken point was “Light doesn’t resist being pushed, there’s nothing in light to push”.
That one’s fairly simple to address: an arm and a hand are both comprised of atoms, which have electrons circulating around them; those electrons are themselves formed from time-varying electromagnetic energy flows - cyclic photons - which as a spin-off (literally) generate a negative-charge field around them. Like charges repel (for reasons given in my earlier post: Gravity II: the Sequel) - so atoms in the arm and the hand repel each other: the arm resists the push of the hand.
Notice that we’re still talking at the level of moving here: moving hand, moving arm, moving atoms and electrons. We haven’t reached down into the substrate level yet. So now it’s time to look at that, with the aid of …
A Case Study
Let’s look at a hypothetical real-life situation and unpack it from the perspective of electromagnetic field fluctuations in the universal substrate. We’ll make it a bit dramatic so as to add emphasis to those field effects as the causal mechanisms for events in our experience at the physical level.
It’s a very blustery day. I’m sitting at my window looking out at the treetops being shaken vigorously back and forth by the strong winds in the woods opposite my home. Suddenly a large branch breaks off one of the trees and falls onto my car parked below. When the wind has died down I go out to check my car and find a serious dent in the roof.
First, those strong winds. These cyclic electromagnetic (EM) field effects which form the atoms of the various gases in the atmosphere are propagating linearly through the substrate, giving that spiral variation in the EM fields in the substrate which appear in our physical realm to be particles (of air) in motion. Those spiralling field effects interact with the cyclic fields forming the particles which collectively form trees, giving those ‘tree-particle’ fields also a linear component in their propagation in the substrate - in our perception, the trees are shaken by the wind.
Now joining together of particles to form a tree - like anything else - is achieved by interaction of the EM fields forming those particles. Here, in one of those branches in one of the trees, the distortion of those EM fields, coupled with interference (literally, in an EM sense) from the extended formative fields of the earth itself - what we know as ‘gravity’ - leads to formative particle fields ceasing to maintain their ‘joined particle’ form in a significant number of such bonds: connections between a large number of particles in the tree structure break down; a branch breaks off. Then, of course, that same EM effect we call ‘gravity’ induces a downward linear component in the propagation of the EM fields forming the particles in that branch: the branch moves earthwards.
Finally, that dent: the EM field effects which are the subatomic particles of the atoms of the branch interfere with the corresponding ‘particle’ field effects in the roof of the car, leading to a change in the EM-field orientations of the molecules of that roof - a dent appears.
[As an aside, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the Earth itself is a complex of EM fields embedded in the substrate, huge by our terms but infinitesimally small in the context of the cosmic extent of that substrate. The river running through the trees, the squirrels running up and down the trees, the woodpecker - all have their own story, grounded in these EM fluctuations.]
But we haven’t finished yet. What about my part in the picture, as a witness to all of this?
Free photons of light, EM effects propagating through the substrate among the EM energy-patterns of the trees, interact with the tree energy-patterns in such a way that those photons propagate in the direction of my eyes - which are also energy-patterns in the substrate. Interaction of these EM field effects results in propagation of EM effects successively along the ‘particles’ of my optic nerves: I ‘see’ the trees thrashing about.
In the same way I ‘see’ the branch break off and fall on my car. A while later I see the dent in my car; my brain processes - more quantum fluctuations - prompt propagation of EM ‘nerve impulses’ to muscles in my arm and hand which ‘feel’ that dent (all of this, of course, from EM effects in the substrate involving ‘particles’ of my body). Information on that ‘feeling’ sensation is propagated as EM effects along the ‘particles’ of my nervous system to the ‘particles’ of my brain; I’m left in no doubt that there is, in fact, now a dent in my car - I’m not imagining it.
A similar account could be given for every experience, moment by moment, in our lives: the exhilarating downhill ski run; watching the clouds drift across the sky; walking through a crowded shopping mall; eating a meal; listening to Beethoven or Blondie; whatever. And in every case we need to add to those propagation effects the ‘motion’ of the Earth - that huge 3-dimensional EM field effect propagating through the cosmic substrate at some 300 kilometres per second (taking the aforementioned Cosmic Microwave Background as a reference for the substrate).
To Move or Not to Move: That is the Question
So, is it true that:
(a) Everything moves;
or
(b) Nothing moves?
The answer is Yes, to both of the above.
It totally depends on which level of reality you’re referring to.
At the material particle-oriented level there’s no question: everything is on the move all the time. This post starts with just a few examples of the myriad forms of motion in our everyday lives. To suggest that those movements aren’t real, at the level of physical material objects, would be tantamount to proposing that our lives - your physical existence and mine - are illusory, that we don’t actually exist. If we don’t exist, then who’s writing this article??
Yes, at the material level movement is very real. It’s a key feature of the material realm; without it this realm would have no meaning, no existence.
But take a step back from that material scenario, look behind the scenes to see what’s actually driving it - and all of a sudden we’re looking at a completely different setup, one in which the impression of movement resolves itself into electromagnetic field fluctuations in a medium - the substrate - in which no movement is apparent at all.
As (another) analogy, on the relationship between those two layers, the particle layer and the substrate layer, consider the following:
You’re watching a movie on TV. Some cowboys are rounding up cattle on the North American prarie. A voiceover commentary tells of “A cattleman whirling his lasso”, “the cattle stampeding”, “a horse veering left to avoid being trampled” - movement all over the place. It’s a motion picture, after all - ‘movie’ for short: the clue’s in the name. You’re unlikely to be telling a friend afterwards: “I watched this movie for 90 minutes and nothing moved”.
But actually, in point of fact, nothing did move on that TV screen. Different points on the screen were lit up with different colours in quick succession, portraying the action, but there was no actual physical movement on, or in, that screen. Every part of that screen stayed in exactly the same place throughout that movie.
So we have two completely different perspectives on that same experience: the movie buff, who insists that the film was action-packed, full of movement from start to finish; and the electronics nerd, who insists that there was no motion on that screen throughout the movie. And each was absolutely correct in their assertions - because they were referring to different levels of that viewing experience.
All the world's a stage
So is it true, as Shakespeare has Jaques say in ‘As you like it’, that “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”? Should we take it that the universe is simply a gigantic film set, and that we’re simply visual effects in the movie to end all movies?
Absolutely not. Because there’s one crucial fundamental difference between that film scenario and the one in which we’re taking part.
To illustrate this difference, I’d like you to imagine that you’re watching that film again - but this time one of the cowboys turns and says to another: “This is getting boring. What say we head back to the bar for a beer?” - to which the other replies: “Great idea. My horse is getting really tired”.
The point is, we are all participants in a live-action drama - but we have a choice on what we do, how we behave, at every point in that drama. We’re not following some pre-written script, we make up that script, moment by moment, every instant of our lives. We direct the processes which determine the strength and direction of those quantum fluctuations in the substrate which we then perceive as our physical experience.
Just take a moment to get your head around that. Yes, our experiences, our world, even our own physical bodies, are at the sub-quantum level simply fluctuations in a substrate which is beyond our perception - but we are so much more, infinitely more, than those quantum fluctuations. How we choose to respond to those experiences, to interpret them, or even to create them, is up to us.
It’s pretty well universally agreed that consciousness exists. It’s a thing - but opinions vary as to what that thing actually is. For each of us, at least, it means self-awareness and (most would agree) self-determination, aka freewill: I recognise that I exist, and I choose what to do with that existence (within the bounds of all sorts of physical constraints - for instance, I can’t choose to fly).
Time for a brief update
Before we explore the consciousness issue, let’s have a quick review of the evolution of the universe as we understand it, and as we experience it today. We’ll start with what’s referred to as the Big Bang – though it most certainly wasn’t big and it almost certainly was not a bang. It’s generally regarded as an almost instantaneous event (preceded by who-knows-what), but as we’ll see further down the line, that’s also very much open to question in various ways.
It’s pretty well universally agreed that the Big Bang prefaced the outpouring – or generation - of an unimaginable number of high-energy photons and a fraction of a billionth as many elementary particles. [The conventional view also has it that in the first few trillionths of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second before the Big Bang, the universe grew from around a trillionth of a millimetre to millions of light years across – we’ll look at that issue of cosmic inflation a little further on.]
Those elementary particles flew around for quite a few million years until the universe had cooled down enough for them to slow down sufficiently to combine to form atoms – mainly hydrogen and helium. This involved pairing up of two different types of particles – protons and electrons – which, despite massive difference in size, remarkably carried equal and opposite electric charge, making each of those pairs (and so also every complete atom) electrically neutral. Equally remarkably, some property of every atom – gravitation – caused them to be drawn together into astronomically huge clumps, whilst their charges kept them at arm’s length, so to speak, preventing them from merging. Keeping up with that ‘remarkably’ theme, at some point the attractive influence overcame the repulsive influence: atoms merged in vast quantities to form larger complex atoms, at the same time releasing as light and heat great outpourings of excess energy not needed for the structural integrity of those composite atoms. Stars were born.
We’re not done with those ‘remarkably’s yet. Those stars were (and are) factories for ever more complex atoms, which they periodically release ‘into the wild’ to form more stars plus planets on which those atoms combine to form myriad different structures – including, ultimately, self-organizing self-replicating structures. Just a couple more ‘remarkably’s: (1) Aided by the very same types of construct that generated those complex atoms – stars – those autopoietic structures evolved into a totally new form of existence: life; (2) Not content with mere life, some of those organisms (as they now are) went a step further, into the realm of self-awareness and self-determination. I’m by no means alone in wondering at this. The noted science writer Marcus Chown says in his book The Magic Furnace: “Now, why should the universe be constructed in such a way that atoms acquire the ability to be curious about themselves? That, surely, is one of the great unexplained puzzles of science.”
Which brings us right back round to the issue of consciousness. Before we get into that further, though, we need to be aware of two aspects of the deeper reality underlying that of our physical experience:
(1) This deeper reality is independent of the concept of spatial separation. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement shows that the notion of ‘local realism’ (the basis of Einsteinian physics) is “wrong” – as explicitly stated several times by Dr John Clauser in his 2022 Nobel award lecture. Similarly, ‘collapse’ of a widespread electromagnetic wave to a point at photon absorption can’t be explained in terms of local EM effects as detailed in Maxwell’s equations. Perhaps most telling, the basic building blocks of our reality, photons, are intrinsically nonlocal in their composition: unlike any material object, the ‘payload’ of a photon – its energy content – is indicated at every point across its potentially vast presence, by its frequency – a sure sign of nonlocal capability. See this Substack post for a fuller overview.
(2) This deeper reality is also independent of the concept of time. That’s apparent from quantum physics, as explained by top physicist Carlo Rovelli and others here. It also follows logically from the energy-flow understanding of matter. Crucially, if we try to track back in time to the beginning of the universe, we can never get there – there is no ‘Time Zero’ for the cosmos.
So: our physical senses tell us unmistakably that we are material beings rooted in space and time, an environment defined by motion at every level, from the subatomic to the cosmic; they also tell us that they themselves are formed of the stuff of matter, space and time, and of motion. But those senses are self-referential: they cannot inform us – directly, at least – about any higher order of reality which may lie outside their self-defined frame of reference.
By contrast, substantial scientific evidence clearly indicates that this matter-space-time-motion (MSTM) framework is in a very real sense some form of fabrication: there is a deeper level of reality in which those parameters do not apply – indeed, from which those parameters are constructed (see points (1) & (2) above). It is, then, wholly logical to reason that various qualities of our existence which we clearly experience but which current MSTM science has not accounted for – notably those qualities which we group under the heading of ‘consciousness’ – are communicated to us and provided for us, each individually, from that deeper level of existence. To use a colloquialism, we each have ‘hidden depths’, properties of our being embedded in that beyond-MSTM reality apparent to us only through our innate attribute of consciousness.
From this perspective consciousness can be seen as a form of interface between our deeper being and our MSTM presentation, communicating essential aspects of our deeper selves and our deeper awareness to inform our daily MSTM behaviour. By definition, this deeper being is independent of any constraints imposed by time or space, since these are constructs communicated (‘imposed’) through consciousness to provide a scaffolding for our space-time experience: in real terms, we are at some level eternal beings (not to be confused with immortality – mortality is a material space-time concept applicable only to space-time forms).
This deeper level of reality, taking us one step closer to the ultimate ground of being, is a legitimate field for scientific study. It seems probable that any attempt to venture beyond the bounds of the speed of light (and so also, realistically, beyond the bounds of our own solar system) will require some grasp of the meta-science underpinning our physics of the material realm. Other potential scientific advances may likewise ensue.
The reason for this ‘dressing-up’ in material space-time forms is open to question. One perspective which makes sense to me is that it offers the opportunity to engage with experiences complementary to other aspects of existence in the eternal realms – certainly the physical senses, and associated sensations, provide access to a whole world, and more, of qualia not available to a being lacking the necessary physical organs and body chemistry. There is also the opportunity for beings so intimately interwoven in one cosmic wave function (at the quantum and sub-quantum level) to experience individuation and explore all the pleasures and challenges that this brings. Perhaps that essential duality is well summed up by this passage from my book Breath of the Cosmos, compiled 20 years ago:
Whatever our view on the nature of consciousness, we can all share the wonder in our consciousness of nature. This wonder could be greatly multiplied if our investigations into the deeper levels of reality were to open up new possibilities – new science – that broadened our horizons in relation to our space-time experience.
Next up
Time Warp: Delayed-Choice Quantum Erasure
See you there! (Or should that be: “Will have seen you there”?)