Well, what does “solid” mean? If we define “solid” by the way we see objects behaving — like how one object cannot occupy the same space as another or pass through another — then yes. But if by “solid” you mean that atoms and electrons act just like billiard balls, then no. Nor can you imagine how an electron or photon behaves using your ordinary intuition — but those things were never really thought to act like “solids” in the first place. We all know light, for example, can pass straight through other light. Not solid!
Now technically atoms have the same oddball nature as electrons (particle/wave duality), but “solid-like” behavior is associated with mass (much less wave, much more particle). Because of their large mass, atoms behave more solidly. But even before quantum theory came along to confuse us, atoms were known to be less like billiard balls stacked on top of one another, and more like tiny nuclei pushed apart by an electric force, with a space between then that is “empty” apart from electric, magnetic and gravitational fields.
I mean the whole infinite universes thing, wow. That’s sort of mind boggling and if you can entertain the idea of that, certainly you can consider that we create our own reality by what we think and feel.
There’s a difference between these two cases: the infinite universes idea, crazy as it sounds, is a mathematically sound way of interpreting quantum formulas established through decades of careful lab experiments. The law of attraction, by contrast, is just something somebody made up one day. Humans make up lots of ideas, and most of them are wrong.
The two ideas have something in common, though: neither idea has evidence to back it up. So no one should have much confidence in either idea, even though some scientists are sure they’re right about infinite universes because the alternative “observer” thing is thus far unquantifiable and makes quantum theory more complex (whereas infinite universes is supposedly simple!).
A third idea is proposed by Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Alpha. He thinks the universe is a finite state automata whose fundamental behavior occurs around the planck scale. It’s not a popular idea among physicists but, anyway, his idea involves neither observers nor multiple universes.
Like where does the energy that organic things use to move come from?
Food. This is well-understood. Food contains chemical potential energy — which is not, it seems to me, “real”, it doesn’t physically exist. But we pretend it exists so that we can have a simple law saying “energy is never created nor destroyed”, where the definition of energy is “real energy plus potential energy”. If instead we used some word other than “energy” to describe “potential energy”, like “poticty”, then we would need a less simple-sounding law like “the sum of energy and poticty is constant”.
This latter statement is the very same law stated differently, but if we taught this second version of the law in school, then non-scientists — who often understand the world by how ideas “sound” to them — would probably understand the world a little differently because they feed off the words they are given when they don’t really understand science. Likewise, non-scientists hear the word “observer” from quantum physics and imagine unwarranted things, even though scientists could have invented a different word, say, “macrounification”, for the exact same idea, and society would imagined different things because the word is different.
Where does that energy go (since energy is never created nor destroyed) when the thing dies?
It becomes heat, but this doesn’t have much to do with being alive or dead (btw, cells continue metabolizing stored energy for awhile after you die. Learned that from my best friend, a former funeral director.)
Israel and Palestine have years and years and layers and layers and layers of negative emotions between them, as well as a lot of violence. We can see the correlation clearly, and no matter what we call it (physics or anything else) the negative thoughts and feelings create negative actions.
Yes, certainly. But let’s be clear, this is in the realm of psychology and sociology. Claiming some connection between that and physics is a reliable sign that one is not being scientific.
I’m not saying there’s necessarily no connection between human life and fundamental physics, but AFAIK there are no connections backed by any evidence. Thus, anyone describing a connection is just making a word salad. Some people find those salads tasty, but they are make believe.
Also, anyone expecting a connection is engaging in wishful thinking. We wish our consciousness were something other than merely an emergent property of billions of neurons in our brains. Personally, I do think that there’s more to us than just a bunch of molecules. I’ve always “known” I had a soul. Sadly, it’s amazingly hard to find evidence for that idea. I don’t think scientists actually want there to be no such thing as a human soul; it’s just that attempts to find evidence for it have failed.
I can be pretty confident that these pseudoscientific ideas are wrong. Because humans are really, really good at being wrong, and so very many random human ideas have been proven wrong before. And I think it’s important in the age of Trump to think more carefully, to be more skeptical, to be less wrong, but also to find truths and have confidence that certain things are true and certain things are false, even as we maintain our humility. I wish we could all be more committed, not to the feeling of certainty that leads so many astray, but to embracing ambiguity and finding truth despite our self-doubt and legitimate uncertainties.
