What is an Electron Really?

From ChatGPT

This summary, the result of a little prompt-dialogue between ChatGPT and myself, seems as good an account as any other, and is consistent with Matt Strassler's book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea" .

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In the realm of classical physics, an electron is often conceived as a tiny, negatively charged particle orbiting the nucleus of an atom. However, modern physics, particularly Quantum Field Theory (QFT), offers a radically different perspective.

In QFT, an electron is not a point-like particle but rather a quantum excitation of an underlying entity known as the electron field. This field pervades all of space, and what we perceive as an electron is simply a localized disturbance or excitation within this field. This excitation carries certain properties—such as charge, spin, and mass—that we associate with the electron.

The electron's position is not definite until it is measured. Instead, the electron exists in a superposition of possible states, each corresponding to a different location. This superposition means that the electron doesn’t have a single, well-defined position but rather a range of probabilities (quantum amplitudes really) of being found in various locations.

When we incorporate the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, this notion takes on an even more intriguing aspect. According to the MWI, each possible position of the electron corresponds to a different “world” or branch of reality. 

In one world, the electron might be detected at a particular point, while in another world, it appears somewhere else. These different worlds coexist in a vast multiverse which constitutes reality, and the electron’s delocalization can be understood as it existing in multiple worlds simultaneously, with each world realizing a different outcome of its position. Note that in each specific world, the electron is still an 'excitation of the electron field', a 'wavicle' according to Strassler.

This is a difficult ontology to imagine or believe, but it's the best we can do today.

Quo modo Deus exstat?

Michelangelo -The Creation  of Adam (Wikipedia)

Major is the family dog, recently taken to sheep-worrying/killing. The father will have to put it down. Owen, the godless younger brother, petitions his religious-curious older sister.

“'If you prayed for Major not to get shot would he not get shot?' said Owen in a demanding voice.

The thought of praying had never crossed my mind.

'You prayed you wouldn't have to thread the sewing machine any more and you didn't.'

I saw with dismay the unavoidable collision coming, of religion and life.

He got up and stood in front of me and said tensely, 'Pray. How do you do it? Start now!'

'You can't pray,' I said, 'about a thing like that.'

'Why not?'

Why not? Because, I could have said to him, we do not pray for things to happen or not happen, but for the strength and grace to bear what does. A fine way out, that smells abominably of defeat. But I did not think of it. I simply thought, and knew, that praying was not going to stop my father going out and getting his gun and calling, 'Major! Here, Major -' Praying would not alter that.”

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‘Age of Faith’, in ‘Lives of Girls and Women’, Alice Munro (p. 145).

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Aged ten, I ask my father if he believes in God. “No I don't,” he says, “There is no way heaven could be big enough for all the people it would need to contain.”

A parish meeting in Andover, a Q&A. Hesitantly, a parishioner asks the priest, “Father, where is heaven?” The priest, equally hesitant, talks about quantum theory and the strange spaces within the atom. I cringe with embarrassment.

Rod Liddle writes in his Sunday Times column about asking a CofE bishop whether he believes in God. “Blessed if I know, Rod,” comes the reply, confirming Liddle’s sardonic take on England's institutional religion.

A liberal states their deepest attachment and loyalty: to democracy and the rule of law. But in what sense do those things actually exist? I ask. They don't understand the question.

Buddhists believe that the self is an illusion.

Freighted, that term ‘illusion’.

It appears that Buddhists believe the self is a process, an epiphenomenon of more basic physical and mental state transitions. Is that what ‘illusion' means?

It's natural to think naively that existence is a simple, obvious notion. Stones exist, your body exists. If something exists, you can poke or paint it. But most ‘things’ we deal with in life are not like this: contracts, democracy, numbers, freedom, oppression, patriotism, any -ism. Welcome to the social construction of reality and the ubiquity of reification.

Catholicism is more a framework than a set of definite precepts. It's not reducible to biblical literalism. Orthodoxy will tell you that the true nature of God is mysterious. Most Catholics opt for some manner of ontological realism but I'm more deontological…

Beautiful world, where are you?

 

I've just re-read this after three years; I'm as impressed as I ever was. I stand by my review here of October 11th 2021.

The Felix character rejects Catholicism crassly: Jesus in the sky spying on people - hard to believe, huh? This is in character.

The Alice character thinks Catholicism (the character Simon is a practising Catholic, although hardly orthodox) is a delusion, but then again, she argues, absent nihilism, what isn't? If we are playing with ideas, I would have liked the complexities of ontology to have made an appearance, as argued here.

After immersing myself in Dublin-adjacent existential angst I'm now considering buying some of her other books: she has 'Intermezzo' coming out in September 24.