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Matter as physical reality

Matter as physical reality

S.B. Karavashkin

Special Laboratory for Fundamental Elaboration SELF

e-mail: selftrans@yandex.ru , selflab@mail.ru

First published in SELF Transactions, 1 (1994), pp. 5- 14

Abstract

We will consider the problem of ether being the subject of discussions for many generations of scientists. We will prove it to be the physical reality of thinner order transmitting the interactions that, because of excessive geometrisation of this concept, cannot be associated with the concept of abstract field of forces in which action is inherent but physical properties are not

Keywords: Philosophy of science; Physical ether; Field theory

Classification by PASC 2001: 01.70.+w; 02.30.Em; 03.50.-z; 03.50.De

“The matter as such is abstraction and mere creation of mind. We distract from qualitative differences of things when unite them as something bodily existing within the concept of matter. In distinction from definite, existing matters, the matter as such is not thus something sensually existing” [1, p. 570]. In other words, “The matter is the philosophical category to designate the objective reality given us in our senses. It is copied, photographed, reflected in our senses, existing irrespectively of them” [1, p. 113].

Sharing the position of dialectical materialism and doing not touching the perpetual debates about these issues, we may think these definitions quite complete and clear. However, in analysing the theories reflecting the physical reality, not the concept of matter as such but narrower concept of ether is more important, as many modern theories began their constructions with its overthrowing. In this concern, consider briefly some aspects of this issue in the view of existing contradictions.

To understand what the ether is, we have to understand, what is the matter in its essence. It follows from general definitions that the concept of matter is the generalisation of the entire objective reality existing out of our mind and reflected by us: this is “no more

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than curtailments in which we comprehend the multitude of sensibly perceived matters, according to their general properties” [2, p. 550].

But taking into account that human organs of sense have quite limited sensation band and even such primitive beings as snakes, bats, fishes and so on have some sensation organs inaccessible for a human, it would be at least unreasonable to rely only on our immediate sense of phenomena, stating, ‘what I feel, that exists’. Because in this way at a definite stage we will inevitably slide into the entire matter disappearance, as Lenin has proved enough completely.

“ ‘The matter disappears’ means that the limit up to which we knew matter till now disappears. Our knowledge deepens; the properties of matter which seemed before to be absolute, invariable, primordial and which revealed now as relative, inherent only in some states - disappear” [1, p. 243].

It means, for deeper studying the laws of nature, it would be more reasonable to rely on indirect data obtained from different kinds of equipment taking in this case the part of artificial, more sensitive human organs. But even in this case, "the dialectical materialism insists on the approximate, relative pattern of the entire scientific concept on the structure and properties of matter, on the absence of absolute edges in nature, on the transformation of moving matter from one state to

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another, which in our view seems to be irreconcilable with the first state, and so on. However strange is in the view of ‘common sense’ the transformation of weightless ether into weighty matter and vice versa, however strange is the lack of any other mass of electron than that electromagnetic, however unusual is that the mechanical laws of motion are limited by only one area of natural phenomena and obeying to more general laws of electromagnetic phenomena etc - this all only corroborates again the dialectical materialism” [1, p. 244].

So we may not consider the ether as a material substance only in the view of metaphysical realism. And it would be the more erroneously to delete the ether by the following reason: “Can one really think that due to a curious chance we imagine the laws of nature in such unusual way that no one of them offers us studying the fast motion of our planet through the ether? It would be more plausible to admit that some mistaken consideration has lead us to the lock, wouldn’t it?..” [3, p. 143].

Well, what is the ether in the view of modern physics? According to [4, p. 536], “Ether is a hypothetical everywhere-penetrating medium to which the scientific concepts of past centuries attributed the light transmission and electromagnetic actions on the whole. Initially the ether was understood as a mere mechanical medium like an elastic body. Consequently, the sound propagation in an elastic medium was liken to