The Phases of Matter
John A. Gowan
(Revised Nov., 2013)
(See: R. B. Laughlin
A Different Universe Basic Books
2005)
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In this deeply thoughtful, informative, and rewarding book,
Laughlin, a physics Nobel laureate (1998), discusses the emergence
of natural law from organizational/collective principles in nature
and in various phases of matter - as in (among many other and more
exotic examples) the familiar shift from the laws of crystalline
order to those of hydrodynamics and finally to the gas laws, as ice
melts to water and water evaporates to vapor. He is at pains to
point out that most of the phenomena in our daily lives are produced
by the higher-level emergent principles and laws of phase
organization due to the collective action of vast myriads of atomic
constituents whose individual properties count for very little in
the final social milieu - and not just because an individual atom is
only one among many, but because totally different organizational
principles are at work in the different phases of bulk matter, in
contrast to those operating between small numbers of individual
particles: for example, the quantum behavior of atoms vs the
Newtonian behavior of bowling balls. Laughlin raises the question:
which laws are the more fundamental - the quantum laws of the
individual atoms, or the emergent laws of the collective? Although
he identifies this as a semantic distinction that cannot be
definitively answered, as a practical matter of survival (in
biology), he comes down in favor of the collective.
The work of this web page in General Systems
and the fractal organization of nature has
concerned itself with just such hierarchical levels of organization
(hence Laughlin's book is very much to my taste), although the
language and concepts of phase shifts as used in the physical
sciences has not generally been employed. My professional training
has been mostly in biology where concepts of hierarchical levels of
organization with attendant emergent phenomena are nothing less than
the foundation of the science - from the cellular structure of all
large organisms to the evolutionary "Tree of Life", and the
biochemical underpinnings of metabolism, reproduction, development,
and perception. Unifying the sciences through a common taxonomy and
terminology is a major goal of General Systems; consequently, I have
taken another look at the fractal organization of the "General
Systems" webpage, using the language of phase shifts and their
emergent organizational principles as suggested by Laughlin's book.
A phase is a self-organizing stable or semi-stable state of
energy/matter/information whose emergent properties are
unique to its level of organization, characteristic of the
collective action of its parts and not of the properties of the
parts themselves. For example, in the biological information
hierarchy that applies to our own human level of organization:
Individual, Family, Society, Species - biochemical metabolism is a
characteristic of the individual; reproduction is a characteristic
of families; civilization is a characteristic of societies; genetic
(Darwinian) evolution is a characteristic of species. Phase
transitions exhibit the emergence of collective laws and behaviors
that are both qualitatively distinct and unpredictable from the laws
and behaviors of lower organizational levels within the collective.
Life is an information phase of matter; our Universe is a
life-friendly anthropic phase of the Multiverse. (See: "The Information Pathway"; "The Information Ladder"; "The Fractal Organization of Nature".)
Below I list various phases of matter discussed on this website,
with links to relevant papers. I have grouped the phases according
to their origin in a particular force (as in one of the "four forces
of physics"), or according to their common origin in some other
analogous force or agency (as in biology).
A semantic question arises where to draw the line defining phases.
Clearly, life itself is an information phase of matter. There are
many taxonomic subdivisions of living forms - bacteria, fungi,
plants, animals, dinosaurs, mammals, individual species - etc.
Should we designate any of these as phases in their own right - or
simply leave them as we find them in the biological sciences,
distinct subdivisions within a single overarching life phase?
Similarly, are the different chemical and mineral "species"
different phases of matter - or only distinct subdivisions of
matter's single solid state phase? In order to keep the taxonomy
simple, I will adopt a conservative view and consider all living
forms as members and examples of a single phase of matter - the
information, biological, or life phase of matter. The taxonomic
subdivisions of biology will remain just as they are - recognizable
subdivisions of the main life phase, and similarly for the mineral
and chemical "species" of the abiotic chemical realm - we will treat
them as distinct members and examples of the single solid phase of
matter - sub-phases rather than phases in and of themselves. The
elements of the Periodic Table are likewise seen as distinct
sub-members of the atomic phase of matter (when considered as
single, individual atoms).
1) Force unification transitions, or phase shifts between
primordial symmetric energy states: (A postulated series
or "cascade" of transitions between unified force symmetric energy
states or phases (at very high energy), leading from the "Big Bang"
or "Creation Event" to our ordinary electromagnetic (EM) "ground
state" of matter, as the Universe expands and cools). The four
forces separate from one another sequentially (beginning with
gravity) as the cascade descends to the EM "ground state":
1a) TOE (theory of everything): All forces (including
gravity) unified; fermions unified with bosons. ("Ylem", quark-gluon
"soup") ("Y" IVBs and associated Higgs scalar boson?)
1b) GUT (grand unified theory): Electroweak and strong
forces unified; leptons unified with quarks - "leptoquarks";
fermions unified among themselves, but bosons (including gravity)
separate from fermions. ("X" IVBs and associated Higgs scalar
boson?)
1c) EW (electroweak unification): Leptons unified with other
leptons, and quarks unified with other quarks, but leptons separate
from quarks. W+, W-, Z Intermediate Vector Bosons and associated
Higgs scalar boson.
1d) EM (electromagnetic unification): Ground state of cold,
bound, electromagnetic matter (atoms)); electric and magnetic forces
unified (photons). All forces separate. (See: "Table of the Higgs Cascade"; "The Higgs Boson and the Weak Force IVBs".)
2) Weak force phases of matter: including IVBs (W and Z
Intermediate Vector Bosons and their presumed heavier analogs),
Higgs bosons (a hierarchy of several species?), neutrinos (3 or 4
types - neutrinos carry the explicit form of weak force "identity" charge). Except for
the TOE, the unified-force symmetric energy states are all created
by the weak force during the "Big Bang". All (except the TOE) are
asymmetric, temporal, bound energy (massive) energy states lacking
intrinsic motion "c" and lacking the symmetric complement of
antimatter, an asymmetry which requires them to carry various
charges, including gravity. Noether's Theorem
implies that the charges of matter are
symmetry debts of light. (See: "The 'W' IVB and the Weak Force Mechanism";
"The Higgs Boson and the Weak Force IVBs";
"Introduction to the Weak Force".) The weak
force is responsible for the asymmetric creation of matter during
the "Big Bang", radioactive and particle decay, and transformations
of identity in single elementary particles. (See also: "The Origin of Matter and Information".)
3) Strong force phases of matter: atomic nuclei of the
Periodic Table - protons, neutrons, "nucleons" (superpositions);
quarks (6 "flavors" x 3 "colors"); gluons (8 color x anticolor
combinations). (See: "The Strong Force: Two
expressions".) Until humans discovered radioactivity and
created nuclear bombs and technology, the nuclear phase of atomic
matter operated entirely beneath our notice, buried deep in the
solar interior or beneath the electron shells of atoms. We knew only
sunlight and chemistry. The tremendous primordial energy of the
naked atomic nucleus has proved to be an actual "Pandora's Box".
Hopefully, the same will not become true of DNA, likewise buried
(until recent genetic technology) beneath our notice deep within the
nuclei of cells and gametes. We knew only sex and the variety of
Nature. Apparently we explore below or above the protective barriers
of our native phase at our own considerable peril. "A little
knowledge is a dangerous thing."
4) Electromagnetic phases of matter: The electromagnetic (EM)
ground state of light and cold atomic matter (including the biotic
and abiotic constituents of planet Earth).
The "vacuum" of space is created and gauged by the intrinsic motion
of light as an entropic/energetic conservation domain for free
electromagnetic energy. The Dirac/Heisenberg "vacuum" is the most
symmetric phase of matter, composed of equal parts of matter and
antimatter ("virtual" particles). By its own "intrinsic" (entropic)
motion, light produces space, and "velocity c" (the electromagnetic
constant) acts as the symmetry gauge of space and the
electromagnetic metric of free energy - vanishing mass, charge,
time, and gravity. By Noether's Theorem, this symmetric phase of
energy must be conserved, including the non-local symmetric
attributes of light. The "quality" of light's energy no less than
its quantity must be conserved. This is the fundamental basis of the
Unified Field Theory: The charges of matter are symmetry debts
of light. Space is the entropic and energy-conserving domain
of free electromagnetic energy - produced by the "intrinsic"
(entropic) motion of light acting in its own interest to conserve
and regulate its own energy.
Antimatter, magnetic and electric fields, currents, and related
phenomena, light; chemical elements of the Periodic Table - all may
be considered phases of electromagnetic energy. Matter is an
asymmetric form of bound electromagnetic energy, lacking antimatter,
presumed to have been created during the "Big Bang" via the
asymmetric weak-force decay of electrically neutral leptoquarks.
(See: "The Origin of Matter and Information".)
Common material phases of matter: solids, liquids, gases. Cold
temperature phases include superconductivity and superfluids. High
temperature phases include plasmas (ionized gas). Life is the most
highly complex and organized (and the only self-interested) information
phase of matter and the EM realm.
The reason the vacuum does not produce a gravitational field is for
the same reason that light does not -
its massless energy is distributed everywhere simultaneously, that
is, perfectly symmetrically. Since gravity is a symmetry debt
recording the asymmetric spacetime distribution of localized massive
immobile forms of bound electromagnetic energy (particles, atoms,
matter, mass), neither freely moving light nor the symmetric,
massless vacuum carries a gravitational charge or produces a
gravitational field. (See: "A Rationale for
Gravity".)
The "metric" of spacetime, as gauged by the universal
electromagnetic constant "c" and modified by the universal
gravitational constant "G" is a scaling property of the "vacuum" as
required by energy conservation. In function, it is analogous to the
Higgs boson which scales the bound energy realm.
4a) Information and biological phases of matter: Life forms,
genetic information coded in molecular DNA/RNA; abstract/symbolic
forms of information invented by brains and especially humans,
including such emergent phenomena as consciousness, language,
creative arts, science, mathematics, communications and information
technology, etc. Mental life (abstracted perception) is an emergent
property of the collective action of massively interconnected
neurons of large brains. In humans (only), creative (imaginary)
mental life can be transformed through language, manual dexterity,
and social organization/technology into material reality. An
automobile or an airplane is an example of an individual's creative
imagination translated to physical reality by the collective action
of human technological society. Biological taxa (individual species
- manifestations or productions of biological (DNA/RNA) information)
are considered as distinct types or examples of the life phase, that
is, as sub-phases of biology, much as the distinct mineral and
molecular species of chemistry are considered as sub-phases of
abiotic matter. Life exists in the narrow temperature band in which
water is in its liquid phase: 0 - 100 degrees centigrade. Because
this temperature is very near the bottom of the absolute temperature
scale, there is an obvious analogy between living processes in the
information realm and superconducting processes in the material
realm. Life - and especially mental life - appears to be some sort
of superconducting liquid crystal of integrated information elements
(DNA, proteins, cells, neurons, etc.).
The death of an individual is equivalent to a phase shift from
physical to spiritual - an abrupt and complete change of
organizational law and principle. The "spirit world" is thus a
postulated phase of the living world, much as the "vacuum"
with its virtual particles is a perfectly symmetric (and hence
unmanifest) phase of the material world. We may also view death as a
phase shift from the specific to the general, that is (for example),
as a retreat from our own specifically realized genetic combination,
to the more generic information content of the human genome from
which we originated. When we die, the genetic information that
created us will still reside in generic form within the living
genome of the human species, and indeed, even within life generally.
There is a parallel retreat (at death) from existence in specific
present time to existence only in generalized historical time. (See:
"The Fractal Organization of Nature"; see
also: "The Human Connection".)
5) Gravitational (astronomical, cosmological) phases of matter:
Planetary (spherical shape); stellar (plasma, nucleosynthetic);
white dwarf (electron shells collapsed into an "electron sea");
neutron star ("electron sea" forced into protons to produce neutrons
and an astronomically-sized atomic nucleus); black hole (4-D
electromagnetic metric collapses into 2-D gravitational metric (the
"event horizon") at g = c, where time completely replaces space. A
black hole is the final or pure phase of temporal entropy for
matter). Cosmological gravitational phases include orbital systems
such as galaxies and solar systems, and the universe at large:
historic spacetime. The universe creates galaxies; galaxies create
stars; stars create heavy elements and planetary systems; planetary
systems create life. Other possible cosmological phases
include "inflation" and the "Multiverse". (See: "Table of the Higgs Cascade"; "Why There are 3 Spatial Dimensions"; "The Destruction of Information"; "A Rationale for Gravity". See also: "A Spacetime Map of the Universe".)
Humans are in the middle range of a huge
hierarchy of material organizational levels, both biotic and
abiotic. For the most part, like the animals, we are largely
or completely unaware of the activity occurring within the levels
either above or below us, and we can do little or nothing to effect,
change, or control them. (This is where religion and the gods are
invoked for help.) We don't know (or need to know) how we digest our
food, nor how our body grows and develops. And we are largely
unaware of these processes as they take place - they just happen.
There is a huge range of biochemical processes from the cell on up
to our complete organism that goes on without our knowledge or
awareness, including, among other functions, the distribution of
energy and oxygen throughout our body for the maintenance of our
life processes. Other than the sex act itself, the whole process of
reproduction, growth, and development goes on whether we understand
it or not, including the mysterious mechanism of inheritance. The
entire hierarchy of biochemistry, cells, organs, tissues, etc., is
itself founded upon an abiotic hierarchy of molecules, atoms,
subatomic particles, and quantum mechanical processes of which we
are even less aware. Not only am I a huge collection and hierarchy
of correlated biochemical processes, organelles, symbionts, cells,
specialized organs and tissues, but it even turns out that I am a
huge collection of microbial species; there are more cells of other
species (mostly beneficial and necessary) within me than there are
of my own.
Nor is the situation any better concerning the organizational levels
above humans. Processes such as evolution and the bio-geo-chemical
cycles of the earth proceed without our knowledge. Weather and
climate are beyond our control; likewise glacial periods, plate
tectonics, mountain building, vulcanism, and earthquakes. The solar
system rolls on without our permission, and until recently, without
our understanding; meteors and comets bombard the earth; the earth's
magnetic field protects us from the sun's local outbursts, but it
cannot protect us from the life cycle of our dying star, nor the
eventual and inevitable collision between our galaxy and our giant
neighbor Andromeda. The great Milky Way galaxy of which we are a
part was entirely unknown only a century ago, much less its function
in the production of heavy elements, stars, and their planetary
systems. The list of our blissful ignorance can be extended both up
and down the hierarchy, and in fact we don't know how far it extends
in either direction or what it includes (the Multiverse? Strings?
Heaven? Hell? A Realm of Natural Law and abstract Ideal Forms?
Spiritual dimensions?).
We can, like the animals, live comfortably within our own biological
level of organization without ever giving a thought to the
functioning of all those complex levels both above and below us,
both within and without, biotic and abiotic, material or abstract,
physical or spiritual, earthly or cosmic, even though all are
necessary for our survival and the coordinated functioning and
conservation of the universe as a whole. The
social/political/legal/economic functioning of our own collective
organizational level (society/civilization) is only barely within
our grasp. Nevertheless, it is the unique destiny of humanity to be
the "eyes and ears" of the universe. The universe comes to
understand itself and continue its growth through life and curious
intelligent beings like ourselves; we are the self-awareness of the
universe. It is the human role to probe the organizational
structures both above and below our own with our space programs and
atom smashers, telescopes and microscopes, mathematics and
technology, to understand them and see how we fit into the Great
Collective of the Cosmos, both its material hierarchies and its
temporal cycles, its evolution, and even its purposes.
When we look up at the stars at night, we see directly into
the grander organizational structures of our Cosmos (solar
system/galaxy/universe), far above our biological phase both
literally and figuratively, which we are only just beginning to
understand. The cold glitter of the stars and the vastness of the
night sky can be frightening as well as magnificent and intriguing.
We should remember that our own life-giving Sun is a normal member
of this awesome assembly, and so affords us a friendly entrance and
introduction into its mysteries.
Our own level of organization within the biotic or life phase of
matter is the "Species" level. This level
is itself divided into four sections of collective organizational
complexity: 1) the Individual (or metabolic) level; 2) the Family
(or reproductive) level; 3) the Social (or political/legal/civil)
level; 4) the Species (or evolutionary) level. One of the
astonishing aspects of the individual level is the discovery that we
are not even a complete organism, and that our gender opposite is
running around as another free individual, who must be scouted out
and acquired, generally through some kind of courtship, trial, test,
contract, or even purchase. We must prove ourselves worthy to
reproduce. Marriage is a preliminary step toward the complex legal
structure of society, the next organizational level above the
family. In most respects society exists to safeguard the vital
reproductive function of the family. At the social level of
civilization, we also find the emergent phenomena of technology, the
sciences, the arts, religion, as well as legal and political
structures, including the military, legislative bodies, a
constitution, national boundaries, etc. The final "Species"
organizational level (defined as the closed genome of humanity)
exists in evolutionary time, may have no particular geographic
boundary, is responsible for gender divisions of the individual and
family levels, and has its own agenda, as Darwin pointed out
("survival of the fittest"), and as we are still discovering ("the
selfish gene", "group selection", "epigenetics", etc.).
Each species must find its own unique niche, its particular way of
"making a living" (surviving) in the world among myriad other
species, who are all trying their best to do the same. The human
niche has evolved from a small, local group of anthropoid social,
bipedal, intelligent hunter-gatherers with language and fire, using
hand-crafted and hand-held tools, to an enormously populous,
world-wide species of many social groupings, languages, and
nationalities, whose principle and unique niche is that of the social
apprehension and application of natural law, including
agriculture, medicine, science, and all modern technology. In a
stunning demonstration of the fractal organization of nature, we
have even appropriated the evolutionary genetic mechanism, laid
hands upon the atomic nucleus, duplicated the solar process of
element-making, and are now beginning our journey into the galaxy
which spawned us.
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