Nothing Moves: The Big Picture

An in-depth look at the underlying fabric of our physical reality

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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 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. [Note that access to this article requires that you first register, free, with the website TransfiniteMind.com.] 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:

1. 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’;

2. 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).
These aren’t qualities that could apply to an electromagnetic field phenomenon, however complex, propagating under the fixed laws of physics: how I spend my time, how I feel about a beautiful sunset - or about another person - these aren’t things that are dictated by Maxwell’s equations, or could ever be.
The only explanation that makes sense - to me, at least; you must judge for yourself - is that, in addition to being a hugely complex assortment of electromagnetic field effects, each of us is a non-physical guiding intelligence, so to speak, for the particular ensemble of EM fluctuations that give form to our physical body in each case. In return we receive feedback from our physical body as a basis on which to plan our guidance for that body in keeping with our goal of body-mind fulfilment. This is the you or I that feels the exhilaration of that downhill ski run, appreciates the beauty of that Alpine flower meadow, savours the scent of those roses, the subtlety of that piece of chamber music or the taste of that delicately-spiced curry. This is the you or I that feels compassion for a child in need, an animal in pain, or a soldier caught up in a war not of his (or her) making.

Try this for size: an all-embracing cosmic consciousness, declared by the founding fathers of Quantum Physics, Max Planck and Erwin Schrödinger (among others) as “absolutely fundamental”, the basis of all that exists, has laid down a substrate of some form, arguably from the substance of that consciousness itself (since there is nothing else). It has then seeded that substrate with an unimaginable wealth of electromagnetic field effects, initialised and propagating according to principles that same consciousness has also defined. [This is an event referred to by many as the Big Bang, though the details and the time scale are very much open to question].
As a result of the principles built into this ‘creation event’, electromagnetic patterns have evolved into innumerable forms. Having been originated by consciousness, and embedded in the stuff of consciousness, those forms are suffused with the qualities of consciousness itself: the whole universe is, in a real sense, conscious. This universal consciousness comes across as intelligence, a sense of purpose in the way that the universe is organised and the way it unfolds.

Over time certain of those EM forms have evolved to the point of autopoieisis - self-replication (Fritjof Capra’s excellent book The Web of Life describes likely steps to achieving such a state, at the material particulate level). This higher order of complexity of such self-replicating molecular structures (as they’d be seen in material terms) opens them to being infused with essence of the functionality of consciousness itself - life: the first living organisms came into being, a blend of complex EM field constructs and elementary self-sustaining properties of consciousness. Continuation of evolution of these remarkable hybrid entities has led to an almost limitless diversity of lifeforms.
Further down the line some of those living organisms evolved to a level of complexity within which the higher aspects of that infusion of consciousness could be more fully realised: on this planet, humans - and possibly also certain other mammals, to some degree - attained a state of self-awareness, recognising themselves as autonomous individuals in a bigger picture. This makes us active participants in the ongoing process of cosmic evolution - at least in our own local patch.

And there’s more…

That’s not the whole story, though. Far from it.
In the first place, we’ve only considered that substrate from a space/time perspective. There are plenty of clues all around us that this is a rather limited view, that ‘life in the cosmic substrate’, so to speak, has properties that we can’t perceive with our space-time senses and can only begin to guess at. Most obviously, the phenomenon (or should that be ‘phenomena’?) of quantum entanglement (see my last post) tells us that we have much to learn about both space and time.

Equally importantly, there’s no reason why evolution, which has been ongoing for the past 13.8 billion years (at least!) should have stopped just because we’ve arrived. The arrogant notion, held by many who should know better, that we are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, is hugely naive as well as hugely egotistical. Leading figures in Christian writings are credited with noting 2000 years ago that “We do not know what it is that we may become”. They had their own angle, of course, but you can’t fault their logic: why should this process of continual development, both in physical (aka electromagnetic) structures and in expression of consciousness within and through those structures, grind to a halt right now?
Is it not far more likely that consciousness will express itself ever more fully through this rich Tapestry of Light which it’s brought into form? We could maybe conjecture that the end-game is to be a physical realm in which consciousness is to be realised in every detail - but even this makes all sorts of suppositions based on our space-time perspective, not least a vastly over-simplistic view of time itself. The very idea that there is to be an end-game - or even an end - only illustrates how limited is our understanding.

There’s so much more that could be said on this - but not here, not now. Best just to let this sink in for the time being.

[Click on the picture to link to the book it comes from.]

Next up

Time Warp: Delayed-Choice Quantum Erasure
See you there! (Or should that be: “Will have seen you there”?)