.Atoms on Call .The relational atom We all know that matter is just about the least substantial thing there is. That table over there is 99.44% empty space. The remaining 0.56% is just waves of probability. Yet it can support the weight of a small elephant. That is because the probability waves of table and elephant magically line up in support of one another.
Let’s carry this thought a little further. When I lean my elbow on the table, the electrons rush to resist the natural tendency for my elbow to pass right through the table. If I were an interdimensional ET my elbow would pass through the table because my electrons would not be speaking the same language as the Earth electrons. They simply would not recognize each other. Pauli’s exclusion principle would be null and void, among other problems. But how could we have hybrid babies if our genes don’t talk to their genes? Horses and donkeys have enough problems as it is.
We are pushing the physics here to the breaking point: immaterialism to the rescue. We all know how Berkeley solved Cambridge University’s arboreal problem. He put God on permanent sentry duty on the Quad. No tree would dare to walk away in the night, and certainly would not walk to Dunsinane. But is this necessary? A tree has nowhere to go except back to tree heaven, but a true immaterialist would never suppose the tree ever left there in the first place.
Atoms are from heaven. They come into mundane existence mainly through the logical imperatives of our thought processes. The same goes for the trees we love to hug. The Darwinists, of course, have another story to tell. Theirs is the story of atoms run amok. They suppose that trees come from atoms, but ‘simple’ logic would have it the other way around. And logic comes mainly from our own heads, because it is not quite as simple as we think. There is an eco-logic that is implicit in our explicit, textbook logics. We are the primary purveyors of the eco-logic, because we are the storytellers. Darwinism is not a bad story; it’s just not the greatest story ever told.
We have, in effect, replaced Berkeley’s God on the Quad with a storytelling logic that necessarily includes atoms. We cannot relate a story without the relational atom. The big bad wolf could not eat grandma unless they were both made of metabolically shared atoms. You might wonder if we couldn’t leave out the part where grandma gets eaten, but that is not our story, and it would not be the greatest story ever told, not according to my understanding of deontology. That is the story where Eve cannot eat the apple or begat any begottens. The rest is just chemistry.
The only way that we can comprehend reality is through a story, logically having a maxi-min structure. Atoms are a major part of the coherence of the world. The world would make very little sense without them. If the tree on the Quad were to walk to Dunsinane it would have to be compelled to do so by the greatest storyteller. When we become that storyteller, the atoms and trees will dance to our tune. That is when we ditch the training wheels and our claustrophobic, atomic egos: same thing.
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rev. 6/11/00