It seems that when you get down to the most minute elements in the universe, “atomic scale physical particles”, that they display multiple personalities: we are confounded by them because they embody both the characteristics of particles and of waves…depending on what is attempting to be done with these particles and what is trying to be observed. We learned that this wave-particle duality is at the core of the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle. Which is further complicated by the fact that the ‘quantities’ ascribed to such wave-particles, such as momentum and position-in-space, are impossible to measure and know simultaneously.
I think the underlying problem is that we as humans are attempting to interpret the universe through our limited senses…and we are determined to interpret it’s behavior through the lens of our limitations. And yet, what we know for certain is that the only constant in the universe is the speed of light…which no material thing can reach, because in order to do so, the mass would have to be so huge that it is virtually impossible.
What is further confounding is that when examined under an electron microscope these elementary particles, display their essential nature…that of points of light. What if, as the ancient rishis and sages have cognized, reality as we know it is an extravagant play of creative consciousness? What if we are actually creating our reality as we go along and projecting that which we expect to see out in the world…just as a motion picture image is created on a screen by the projection of light through moving images? Are we not chasing shadows in our own minds? We think the world is finite, because the organs of perception are limited and finite in their interpretation. But, that doesn’t mean that is an accurate reflection of the essential nature of the universe. Perhaps this misperception is what is at the crux of the uncertainty principle that confounds us.
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