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The following questions are addressed in this chapter. They are better discussed in a group to allow a variety of opinions to emerge. The relevant section link is given after each question:

1. How do mass and charge relate? (QR4.3.2)

2. Why are electrons and neutrinos both classified as leptons? (QR4.3.3)

3. Why do neutrinos have a tiny mass but no charge? (QR4.3.3)

4. Why is our universe made of matter instead of anti-matter? (QR4.3.5)

5. If anti-particles run time in reverse, can they go backwards in time? (QR4.3.6)

6. Why do quarks have strange one-third charges? (QR4.4.3)

7. What causes the strong force that binds quarks in the nucleus of an atom? (QR4.4.4)

8. Why does this quark binding get stronger with distance? (QR4.4.4)

9. Why are three quarks needed to form a proton or neutron? (QR4.4.5)

10. What do the quark “colors” of the standard model represent? (QR4.4.5)

11. What turns neutrons in space into protons? Why don’t protons in space decay? (QR4.4.6)

12. Does the Higgs cause any of the mass around us? Why is it said to “cause mass”? (QR4.4.7)

13. Why does the energy inherent in all matter depend on the speed of light? (QR4.4.8)

14. Why does string theory need eleven dimensions to work? (QR4.5.1)

15. What did Newton think caused gravity? Does current physics agree? What does the evidence suggest? (QR4.5.2)

16. Why are virtual particles magical despite having lawful effects? (QR4.5.2)

17. How does current physics decide when virtual particles interact? (QR4.5.3)

18. How does the standard model explain new and unexpected findings? (QR4.5.4)

19. What is the difference between an equation and a theory? (QR4.5.5)

20. How is the standard model of physics similar to the standard model of medieval astronomy? (QR4.5.6)

21. Are the standard model’s fundamental particles actually particles? Are they fundamental? Explain. (QR4.5.7)

22. How does a processing model classify the basic entities of physics? (QR4.5.8)

23. Why does quantum realism’s claim that matter is made of light contradict the standard model? (QR4.5.9)

24. What came first, matter or light? Give a reason for your answer (QR4.5.9)

25. Why do all higher atomic nuclei need neutrons? (QR4.6.1)

26. An atom of lead has 82 electrons in a small space. Why don’t they collide with each other? (QR4.6.2)

27. How do electrons “fill” the shells and sub-shells of an atom? (QR4.6.3)

28. Can electrons as point-particles spin? Why do electrons “half-spin”? (QR4.7.1)

29. Why are neutrinos always left-handed? (QR4.7.2)

30. Why are protons much heavier than the quarks from which they are made? (QR4.7.3)

31. Why is the universe charge neutral? (QR4.7.4)

32. Why do leptons and quarks have three family generations, then no more? (QR4.7.5)

33. Why are the higher generations of leptons and quarks increasingly heavy? (QR4.7.5)

34. What is dark matter? Why can’t we see it? How does it differ from ordinary matter? (QR4.7.6)

35. What is dark energy? Why can’t a particle model explain it? (QR4.7.7)

36. Is our universe dead or alive? Give reasons. (QR4.8.1)

37. Why is our universe “finely tuned” for life? (QR4.8.2)

38. What are the quantum evolution equivalents of biology’s reproduction, variation and selection? (QR4.8.3)

39. Was our universe “built” as a watchmaker builds a watch? If not, how did we arise? (QR4.8.4)

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Table 4.8 compares how quantum realism and physical realism explain matter so the reader can decide.

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Apparently, inert matter made galaxies, stars, planets and life by accident and whatever made the universe abandoned it to physical laws long ago. The laws of thermodynamics doom everything to run down, whether our bodies, the sun or the universe, so the expected end state is an eternally empty big freeze. If the universe is ultimately pointless then we are too, so it doesn’t matter what we do because nothing really matters at all. This dismal vision, that the laws of matter drive us, denies the accountability that societies need to work (Whitworth & Ahmad, 2013), so civilization would collapse if it was widely accepted.

This cosmic nihilism calls itself the voice of reason but genuine reason suggests otherwise. Our universe began, so something else must have made it. Quantum randomness has no physical cause, so matter isn’t all there is. Claims that consciousness arises from physical complexity (Zizzi,2003) fail because supercomputers show no signs of consciousness. A universe that has been decaying for billions of years had to begin very ordered, which the primal chaos wasn’t, so decay isn’t the only principle at work. That quantum laws are probable not certain means that the universe isn’t a machine whose future is written. When examined closely, the story of a dead world going nowhere that made us by accident makes no more sense than that of a world built just for us by a supreme being.

A machine is designed to a blueprint, built from inert parts, then runs in a predictable way. A universal machine should arise like this but it isn’t possible. If the physical universe began from nothing, where was the blueprint kept? If matter was built from fundamental parts, where did they initially exist? And if the universe is a predictable machine, why does quantum randomness have no physical cause? Newton’s vision of a universal machine designed, built and run by God isn’t supported by modern physics.

Nor does the evidence suggest that we are powerless servants of a divine plan. That our universe is evolving at every scale suggests it wasn’t built as a watchmaker builds a watch but born like a baby, not knowing where it is going or why. An acorn that will become an oak in the right setting wasn’t designed to be a tree but inherited “tree-ness” from its origin. Its genes aren’t the “blueprint” to build a tree but grow one and it always becomes an oak tree not some random thing.

In the same way, a baby’s birth may be accidental but that babies in general are born is no accident because that is how species survive. Baby’s brains are predisposed to learn language and recognize faces so a specific baby can learn any language and recognize any face. The details may be accidental but the overall result isn’t. If the universe itself is likewise predisposed to evolve, evolution may involve accidents but what is emerging isn’t entirely random.

Emergence means to become a new sort of being, as a butterfly with wings emerges from the pupa of a caterpillar that crawls. Given time and the stability of a shell, caterpillar genes recombine to form a butterfly that is a new sort of being. The same thing happens to matter when hydrogen and oxygen gases combine to form liquid water. In both cases, what existed already combines to form a new way of existing with entirely different properties from its predecessors.

To say a butterfly contains a caterpillar within it or that water has a gaseous base is to misunderstand emergence, yet physics today assumes that its fundamental matter parts persist when they combine, so a nucleus is just a bunch of protons and neutrons sitting side by side. In essence, it denies emergence but in quantum realism, emergence is a key feature of the universe at every scale. Emergence allowed light to combine into electrons, quarks to combine into protons, protons and electrons to combine into Hydrogen atoms, and this was just the start.

Ideas of designing, building and controlling don’t work when it comes to emergence. If the universe is emerging from simple parts to complex wholes, it is doing so in a way that even it can’t foresee. It is becoming what it can be so we exist because we can, not due to some plan. Evolution works by accident but isn’t itself accidental, as trying every option eventually leads to what works. We are neither accidental nor designed but rather emerged naturally from the universe.

Table 4.8 compares quantum realism and physical realism for matter so the reader can decide for themselves. It implies a living universe born to actively evolve into an emerging future but if so, what might that be?

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Darwin’s great idea was that the human species was naturally selected by evolution, over millions of years, rather than made by a divine being as it is today. The conditions that allow species to evolve are:

1. Generation. Species generate offspring that carry on their traits.

2. Variation. The traits of offspring vary, for example by mutation.

3. Selection. Offspring that survive are selected to continue their traits.

Evolution is essentially an iterative process that explores various biological patterns to select those that survive. It contradicts the orthodox religious view that a divine creator with a preconceived plan created us.

It is now proposed that the principles of evolution can apply to any system, not just those that are alive. For example, when a photon of light finds the best path to any destination, what evolves isn’t a species but the photon, as there is:

1. Generation. The photon generates offspring by instantiation.

2. Variation. Photon instances vary in properties like location and direction.

3. Selection. A physical event selects one instance to restart the photon anew.

Thus, when a cloud of photon instances passes through both Young’s slits to hit a screen point, it is an evolution, as one of many instance variants triggers a restart that selects how the photon is reborn. In this quantum evolution, the outcome seems accidental, but some instance always finds the best path. Likewise in Darwinian evolution, species seem to survive by accident, but that some species will survive isn’t an accident, as life always finds a way, if there is one.  

How then did matter evolve? By trying every option, photons combined into electrons, a new entity species that is different from light. The electron then survived by its stability, as it is constantly bombarded by competitors for its quantum niche, just as a species faces competition in a biological niche. In the evolution of matter, physical stability replaces biological survival.

In this view, randomness is essential for evolution to occur. In contrast, it is pointless in a clockwork universe because it introduces errors in the machine. What use is a clock that gives random times? Randomness is equally unhelpful in a god-designed universe, because it interferes with the divine plan, hence Einstein’s objection to quantum theory was that God does not play dice with the universe. His point was that random choices deny the supremacy of physical laws, but what embarrassed both both science and theology was necessary for matter to evolve.

Quantum realism accepts what physical realism and theism reject because the evolution of matter needs randomness no less that the evolution of life does. In biological evolution, species generate gene blends and what survives is selected to carry on. In the evolution of matter, quantum entities generate processing blends and what is stable is selected to carry on. In both cases, evolution needs randomness to succeed so the world of matter is finding what survives, just as life is.

In current science, evolution began with life but in quantum realism, a grand evolution began when the universe did, as electrons, neutrinos, quarks, protons, neutrons and atoms evolved long before life did. Why differentiate the evolution of matter from the evolution on life, if the same principles of generation, variation and selection operate? Even if biological evolution is restricted to our tiny earth, the grand evolution continues throughout the universe, as stars continue to make matter to this day. Without stars creating heavy atoms like carbon, we couldn’t have evolved so the lesser evolution of life requires the greater evolution of matter, and both are ongoing.

The standard model assumes the big bang created “fundamental particles” of matter but in quantum realism, matter had to evolve from photons because there were no divine shortcuts. Higher elements had to be made in the matter factories we call stars or in a supernova sacrifice. What drives our universe to evolve isn’t dead matter following fixed laws or the plan of a divine being but the nature of quantum reality. That the grand evolution of the universe was built-in at its quantum birth suggests a living universe evolving up not a dead universe running down.

That a river is finely-tuned for crocodiles to live in doesn’t mean it was designed for them but that crocodiles evolved to live as rivers allowed. In the same way, the physical world evolved as it did because the quantum environment allowed it. The physical universe wasn’t fine-tuned to evolve any more than crocodiles were fine-tuned to in rivers. It inherited the ability to evolve from its quantum origin so it is fine-tuned because it evolved not because it was designed so. Evolution, like life, always finds a way. Again, that our universe is evolving suggests it is alive, so is it unpredictable?

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Humanity has long wondered how the stars, galaxies and life itself began? For stars to create atoms needs the stability of galaxies that would fly apart without dark matter that happens to prevent that. We make energy by nuclear fission that breaks nuclei apart, but stars create energy by nuclear fusion, of Hydrogen into Helium, based on neutrons that the weak force just happens to allow. And this fusion can only create the carbon atoms needed for life because a just right energy resonance exists:

“The energy at which the carbon resonance occurs is determined by the interplay between the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. If the strong force were slightly stronger or slightly weaker … the universe might very well be devoid of life and go unobserved.” (Davies, 2006).

The Goldilocks effect is that our universe has an unreasonable number of factors set just right for life, without which we couldn’t exist. For example:

“Take, for instance, the neutron. It is 1.00137841870 times heavier than the proton, which is what allows it to decay into a proton, electron and neutrino—a process that determined the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium after the big bang and gave us a universe dominated by hydrogen. If the neutron-to-proton mass ratio were even slightly different, we would be living in a very different universe: one, perhaps, with far too much helium, in which stars would have burned out too quickly for life to evolve, or one in which protons decayed into neutrons rather than the other way around, leaving the universe without atoms. So, in fact, we wouldn’t be living here at all—we wouldn’t exist.” Ananthaswamy (2012).

Were these values set just so by a kind creator, or did a vast system spawn many universes and we just happen to be on the life-supporting one? The Goldilocks effect isn’t that our universe is designed for life, as if so, it is a poor design because most of the universe is inhospitable to life. It is that the nature of our universe is balanced on a knife edge between the lushness of life and barren desolation:

“The great mystery is not why there is dark energy. The great mystery is why there is so little of it [10−122]… The fact that we are just on the knife edge of existence, [that] if dark energy were very much bigger we wouldn’t be here, that’s the mystery.” (Susskind, 2007).

The list of cosmic coincidences that allow life is long (Barnes, 2012), including:

1. Strong force. If the strong force was stronger or weaker by just 1% there would be no carbon or heavier elements anywhere in the universe.

2. Weak force. If the weak force was any weaker the hydrogen in the universe would be greatly decreased, starving stars of nuclear fuel and leaving the universe a cold and lifeless place.

3. Neutrons. If neutrons were slightly less massive the universe would be entirely protons and if lower by 1%, then all protons would decay into neutrons so no atoms other than hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium could form.

4. Cosmic microwave background. This radiation has a slight anisotropy, roughly one part in 100,000, just enough to allow stars and galaxies to form. Any smaller and the early universe would have been too smooth for stars and galaxies to form and any larger and stable stars with planetary systems would be extremely rare.

5. Cosmological constant. The positive and negative contributions to the vacuum energy density cancel to 120-digit accuracy, but the 121st digit makes our universe possible.

What then explains the fortunate circumstances that allow us to exist? We can’t call it a lucky accident based on a sample of one, unless there are many universes, so multiverse theory is popular despite its scientific worthlessness. Yet to conclude that there must be many universes in order to make our universe an accident isn’t scientific. The Goldilocks effect is based on evidence, but the multiverse is based on no evidence at all:

“The multiverse has only ever existed, so far as we know, in the mind of man. Its most promising research programs, string theory and early rapid cosmic inflation theory, have bounced along on enthusiasm alone, prompting ever more arcane speculations for which there may never be any possibility of evidence.” (O’Leary, 2017).

In a recent variant, Smolin speculates that black holes spawn universes, based on Hawking’s 1987 proposal, again with no evidence, but that a black hole is a mathematical infinity doesn’t mean it can create a universe.

In contrast, suppose that our physical universe came from a pre-existing network whose nature defined its parameters from the start. This suggests that core network properties, like its refresh rate (the speed of light), connectivity (Planck’s constant), and the rate that space adds (the cosmological constant) explain why our universe is as it is. From these, reverse engineering could derive other parameters, such as the electron’s mass and charge. Our universe then has the laws it does based on the nature of quantum reality.

It follows that if other bubble universes began in the quantum bulk, as ours did, they would have exactly the same laws of physics, except they might break the anti-matter way. In this view, the parameters of our universe were neither by accident, or by design, but inherited from a primal reality. The Goldilocks effect is then expected, but why did it allow our universe to evolve?

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According to materialism, matter is everything, so if particles are bits of matter, everything is made of particles. The universe could then have come from particles as a house is built from bricks, but by accident rather than design. Such ideas led to the search for fundamental particles, defined as those that aren’t made of other particles, by smashing matter apart in huge accelerators. 

Yet the term particle implies certain features. For example, chess board pieces are like particles because they just sit there, until something moves them. In contrast, ants placed on a chess board move about by themselves, so they aren’t called particles. In general, particles move only when pushed by an external force, so ants on a chess board are better described as entities rather than particles.

Is our universe then made of particles that move when pushed or entities that move themselves? A case can be made for the latter, as light always moves, as do electrons, and so do neutrinos that whizz about everywhere unseen. Photons, electrons, and neutrinos are all fundamental, so that they all constantly move suggests a world based on active entities rather than passive particles.

Particles also move where they are put, as chess pieces do, but in quantum theory, where a photon hits a screen isn’t defined by the forces around it. To call it random doesn’t disguise the fact that the photon decides where it goes, given the possibilities. Electrons and neutrinos do the same, so again they are more like active entities than passive particles. 

But if the fundamental particles of our universe move themselves, and choose where they go, how could it be built as a house is from bricks? The alternative now explored is that our universe wasn’t built, but rather built itself, based on its own nature, and not by accident. If our universe began as one photon that then evolved into the matter we see, it was more like a seed with the potential to become a tree than a house that was built. 

The question then is, did our universe of stars and galaxies begin as a seed with that potential, or as a set of basic particles that accidentally produced it? 

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The standard model suggests that matter is a substance that always was, so it is fundamental, but if all the matter of our universe began at a point, as big bang theory says, why didn’t that singularity immediately collapse into a black hole with no future, by the laws of physics?

In this model, matter came from light, so the first event didn’t produce a black hole because it created only light. That light then expanded, and matter came later, so it isn’t fundamental. Our universe then wasn’t built from matter as we might build a clock, from basic parts that already exist, so rather than a clock winding down, it could be more like a seed whose potential is unfolding. 

Our universe is then evolving, to build itself, rather than being built by some designer.  

QR4.8.1 Active Not Inert

QR 4.8.2 The Goldilocks Effect

QR 4.8.3 The Requirements of Evolution

QR 4.8.4 Emergence

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After confirming dark matter, in 1998 astronomers discovered that the expansion of space, which was thought to be slowing under the force of gravity, was actually accelerating. Some sort of negative gravity was pushing the universe apart, against the gravity that pulls it together, so it was called dark energy. Cosmologists estimate that 68% of the energy of the universe is dark, dark matter is 27%, and particle matter is less than 5%. Hence, even if the standard model did explain ordinary matter, which it doesn’t, it still doesn’t explain most of the energy of the universe.

The effect of dark energy is spread evenly through space and seems to have changed little over time. In equations, it makes space flat, but a property of space itself should increase as space expands, and it doesn’t. If it is caused by particles, as the standard model might assume, it should weaken as space expands, but again it doesn’t. The standard model struggles to explain dark energy because particles should clump together, not remain evenly spread, and particles don’t have a negative energy to push the universe apart. 

In this model, our space is the inner surface of a bubble expanding into a larger bulk, so it must lose energy, just as expanding a box cools the gas within it. Points of space add to space all the time, and being new, for their first cycle they receive but don’t transmit anything, so new space produces a negative energy that also has the properties of dark energy. It is spread through space because new points add everywhere, it doesn’t reduce as space expands because more space means more points to expand from, and it could explain why the expansion of our universe is accelerating.

Dark energy is expected if our universe is a bubble expanding but for a big machine, it is inexplicable. Particles don’t explain why dark energy exists, but the expansion of space does. 

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In the 1950s, astronomers discovered that our galaxy rotated as if it had more matter than its stars allowed, five times more in fact. They concluded that this was due to dark matter, dark because it can’t be seen, and matter because it caused gravity. The rotation curves of other galaxies suggested they were the same, so astronomers now estimate that about 85% of the matter of the universe is dark. Based on its effects, dark matter seems to exist as a halo around the black hole at the center of almost every galaxy, including ours.

What then is dark matter? It isn’t the matter we see because light can’t detect it, it isn’t anti-matter because it has no gamma ray signature, and it isn’t a black hole because there is no gravitational lensing, yet it holds stars in galaxies together more tightly than their gravity allows, so they don’t fly off. It made our galaxy stable, so the matter-producing factories we call stars had time to make the atoms needed for life and us. Dark matter is the glue that binds galaxies together, but its cause is unknown. 

However, the standard model needed a particle to cause dark matter, so it suggested WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), but the result was just another wild-goose chase. Despite talk of super-WIMPs (Feng, Rajaraman, & Takayama, 2003), the search for WIMPs, like gravitons, proton decay, and squarks, led nowhere. A particle like that should have been seen by now so currently, the standard model doesn’t explain 85% of the matter in our universe.

What then does a processing model suggest? If mass arises when net processing repeats at a point, what halo could do that? We expect the black hole at the galaxy center to trap light in a circle around it. Light close to the black hole is pulled in, and light far away escapes, but at some radius, it will constantly circle in a loop (Figure 4.27).

This halo of light will build-up over time, as more photons join, until it is a dense flow of only wave-fronts, with no tails to cancel them. Light circling the opposite way would be the same, as in our matter world all light vibrates first up and then down. No particles are created, because normal light doesn’t collide, but the result is a constant net processing excess at every point, which in this model represents mass. A dense halo of light around a black hole would then create mass as usual, but without particles that could be seen.

Recall that by the pass-it-on protocol (2.4.4), points of space are interrupt driven so each cycle, a halo point would first pass on the current photon, then process the next photon received. Hence a halo of dense light, where photons arrive every cycle, will only process photon heads not tails. This interrupt loop is stopped by expanding space, but it may not be sufficient in this case. If so, the result is a permanent net processing excess throughout the halo, which in this model causes mass.

It follows that the halo of light circling a black hole will generate mass. This mass, like that of ordinary matter, comes from light but instead of being at a point, it is spread through a stream of light. If extreme light trapped at a point causes particle matter, it is no surprise that dense light trapped in orbit around a black hole can do the same. This explains why the halos of galaxies don’t collide when they do, but remain around each galaxy when they separate. It also lets small galaxies exist with no black holes, and galaxies that have lost their stars can consist of 99.9% dark matter.

Ordinary and dark matter then arise in similar ways, but while particles can be seen, a dark matter halo can’t, because photons either pass through it at an angle or join the stream. The standard model search for WIMPs was then fruitless because dark matter isn’t based on particles at all, and if most matter is dark, a model based on particles has no future.

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