God hid the Aether?

[thoughtful (Valerie (non-scientist))]

@structureoftruth

at least part of the reason you aren’t getting much of a response from the physicists (and there are a couple who are active here) is that they can’t tell what you are actually trying to say, and so see nothing to respond to.

Thank you and @nwrickert for both being kind enough to explain that to me. The best comparison is that I’m like my 4-year-old. He gets a lot of stuff wrong, but he’s trying to put things together in a way that makes sense, as we all do when we’re a kid: We end up not understanding the concept completely and makes a lot of mistakes. Because I’m learning on my own and not very methodically, I understand I’m making the childish mistakes and asking questions that don’t make sense. So thank you for at least reading and I’ll see if I can ask a better question.

@structureoftruth

I just don’t see it as a scientific exposition of the creation of the world. God gave us the ability to do science; he didn’t need to hide scientific discoveries in Scripture. He has more important truths to communicate to us, and to the original audience.

I don’t believe God is hiding scientific discoveries in scripture. I believe Genesis 1 is an inspired story of how God literally made the universe, with its focus on earth and mankind. I was an English major. I see the chapter as a story for children to easily memorize, and I also a methodical description of what an artist is doing. But either way, an accurate one. So I think it helps us analyze the art. I really enjoy seeing patterns in literature, and like writing literary analysis. I’ve been studying physics the same way. What are the patterns? What questions are still out there? How are things defined? These are some of the questions I’ve been sometimes subconsciously trying to answer.

@structureoftruth

I know about virtual particles - and I also suspect that you have several misconceptions about them, since popular level explanations of them tend to be horribly misleading, unfortunately.

Tbh, all I really know about them is a video or two I watched on Feynman diagrams. I also watched something else on how the EM field affects the electron field. I thought that was an interesting pattern: photons and electrons seem to be interacting in unique ways. But maybe that’s true of all particles, and I’m making assumptions based on lack of knowledge. I understand subatomic particles can decay into other particles. That is weird. It seems to me there would be a reason for it.

@structureoftruth

What is this “light” that isn’t on our EM spectrum supposed to be? I can’t tell you if an idea has merit when I don’t understand at all what the content of the idea is in the first place.

I actually don’t know what this Day 1 “light” is supposed to be either. Perhaps it is unknowable.

But I will try to explain my guess:

I suppose the idea is that since we can only measure the probability of where an electron is, there is a non-zero vacuum energy, there is a measurement problem in quantum mechanics, and electrons and photons seem to have a special relationship; that maybe there is a 4th spatial dimension? That we understand 3 spatial dimensions, but we can’t measure the additional spatial dimension specific to light that pervades the universe? (Or we only can measure 2 dimensions of the EM spectrum and guess at the 3rd.)

(Maybe those things I’m listing don’t have anything to do with each other either, and I’m totally screwing it up ; I’m just seeing them as a pattern)

@structureoftruth

Happy reading!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

@structureoftruth see my reply to @deuteroKJ for more details. I tried to explain everything that’s currently in my head about how the Artist created the masterpiece. I realized I hadn’t fully explained where I’ve been going and what’s in my head. I edited it a couple of times to be more clear. But let me know if it’s still not.