Nature of reality

What are we?

I'm no physicist or chemist, just a journalist who for 40-plus years has pursued questions about the nature of this supposedly solid reality we temporarily share.

I've also always been a curious sort who's never been reluctant to discuss unusual yet relevant mysteries of life you're not likely to find explored in most daily newspapers.

Through the searching, I've come to believe we truly are spiritual beings spending fragile brief periods in what feels so rock-solid.

Science has determined facts about us and everything our senses and awareness insist is constantly swirling around us are, in truth, boundless fields of energy. The facts are enough to make me wonder if my arms and legs, and all else that give me a body, are actually just, well, a collective dream in the energy ocean.

For example, fact one, according to John Chambers' compelling little book, The Physics of Being, it's now indisputable that everything we know in what appears to be this physical world is comprised of those minute interconnected energy packets we call atoms. In simple terms, they are infinitesimal galaxies of constantly vibrating energy that create everything that seems material, including our bodies.

Fact two: It's proven that atoms are comprised of more than 99.999 percent empty space. The minuscule "solid" parts of any atom lie within its central core, or nucleus, which is formed by varying quantities of neutrons and positively charged protons. The third force within an atom is the energized electrons which create a negative charge as they orbit around each nucleus while mystically dancing in and out of our ability to follow their paths. They continually flash into appearance then vanish only to reappear in another place within the atom without delectably traversing their path.

Is such spookiness even possible? Yep. That's what the science of quantum physics discovered decades ago.

The tiny nucleus, while the only dense part of any atom, is still so incredibly small that if, say, a hydrogen atom's boundaries could be enlarged to the size of Razorback Stadium, its nucleus would be roughly the size of a football placed on the 50-yard line while its vibrating electrons would be orbiting beyond the surrounding parking lots.

Chambers says the amount of actual "matter" in our bodies when condensed is equivalent to a barely visible speck of dust. Science has since broken down the atom's nucleus to even tinier particles called quarks. And the atomic dance requires balance. "In every atom one proton is needed to balance the charge of each electron," Chambers explains.

OK, enough overly simplified particle physics. Suffice it to say that our bodies and all we can detect physically are comprised almost entirely of energy fields constantly vibrating at different frequencies.

Yet when we see, touch, hear each other, sit, drive, shop and visit together, all this basically empty space in the boundless field of atomic interactions appears so common-sensically real to our limited five senses that give context to it all.

The author acknowledges the contradiction this way: "If matter is so vacant, how can an automobile running a red light crash into another heading in the opposite direction? Why don't the cars pass right through each other? Why doesn't [what] you're reading just fall right through your hands?"

"The answer is electrical repulsion," Chambers explains. "When the electrons of your fingers come into contact with the [paper], they push each other apart because they both are negatively charged. The repulsion is so great, there's always a layer of empty space between different sets of atoms."

Another intriguing fact about atoms is how the properties of all life's elements change radically depending on the unique construction of its nucleus and electrons. "Atoms of mercury have just one more proton than the atoms of gold. It's amazing that one simple proton is all that separates the poisonous liquid of mercury with highly sought-after gold," he explains. "As you read, your entire being is being engaged in a continuous exchange of matter and energy with everything in your environment ... We are all interconnected in ways we never thought possible and ... are still discovering."

Suffice it to say that we, and everything our senses detect as real around us, at their essence are pure energy that can change form yet cannot be destroyed. For me, that means it's all bound by the glue of our shared consciousness, which science has yet to define. All that clearly seems so real and solid is anything but.

It's as if we are participants in an energized illusion playing out in three dimensions that constitute the known universe and is connected through the divine mystery of consciousness rather than atomic energy. Seems to me that, in the end, this material experience that appears so obvious actually amounts to overcoming spiritual challenges and learning lessons we face while in this deceptively dense energy form as individuals.

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial on 04/12/2015

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