What Are "Things" Really? A Journey from Everyday Misconceptions to the Basic Nature of Reality (but mostly just a good tutorial for prompt writing)

Our everyday experience tells us that objects—whether they’re rocks, chairs, or rubber balls—are solid, tangible things that we can see, touch, and interact with. We feel their resistance, we handle them as distinct entities, and we tend to assume that this solidity persists down to their smallest components. This view is so intuitive that it shapes our understanding of the world: objects, we assume, are like little corpuscles—solid “bits” of matter stacked and packed together to create larger forms.

Yet, when we look closely at what makes an object an “object,” things become less clear. Imagine you bring two strong magnets close to each other, with like poles facing. You feel a force that pushes them apart, almost as if there were an invisible barrier between them. But what is this “something” that creates the sensation of resistance, of solidity? After all, there’s no actual “solid” material between the magnets. This experience raises a question: What does it really mean for something to be “solid” or “substantial”? And is this idea of solidity actually true at a fundamental level?

The Illusion of Solidity

The sensation of touching a solid object—say, pressing a rubber ball—is in fact not the experience of “matter touching matter.” At the atomic scale, the particles making up your hand and the ball are mostly empty space, with vast distances between their atomic nuclei and their surrounding electrons. Yet, when you press on the ball, you encounter resistance. This resistance doesn’t come from atoms themselves “touching” in the classical sense; rather, it’s the result of electromagnetic forces repelling each other.

In other words, what we feel as solidity is actually the electromagnetic field in action. Electrons in your hand repel the electrons in the ball, creating a force that feels like an impenetrable surface. This force field creates the sensation of resistance without any actual contact between the constituent particles of your hand and those of the ball.

Moving Beyond "Corpuscles" and the Classical View of Matter

So if matter isn’t made of tiny, solid building blocks in direct contact, what is it? In our classical view, we tend to think of matter as if it’s composed of small, indivisible pieces—like marbles that could theoretically be stacked infinitely to form all physical objects. This view breaks down, however, when we try to understand the nature of particles in modern physics.

At the quantum level, matter isn’t a collection of small, solid objects. Instead, it’s composed of quantum fields—fundamental fields that fill space and, under the right conditions, manifest as particles. Electrons, protons, and other particles are not solid “bits” of matter; they’re excitations, or localized “blips,” in these fields. Particles exist as probability waves, with no precise location until they interact or are observed. In this view, what we call “solid objects” are really stable, patterned configurations of these quantum fields.

This is why we encounter such paradoxical concepts in quantum physics. Particles are both “everywhere and nowhere,” existing in a probabilistic cloud rather than as discrete, solid objects. When we touch something, what we’re actually feeling is an interaction between these quantum fields—specifically, the electromagnetic force that creates a barrier effect, simulating the sensation of contact and solidity.

Understanding Objects as Interactions of Fields

So, if we shift our perspective from thinking of objects as "solid all the way down" to understanding them as patterns within interacting fields, our experience of objects takes on a new meaning. The magnetic force you feel when two like poles repel is a direct manifestation of this field-based reality. The resistance is a tangible experience of how these fields interact without any true “substance” in between. This experience with magnets, in fact, isn’t strange at all—what’s strange is our limited, classical idea of objects as hard, indivisible bits.

In a quantum field reality, there are no absolute, self-contained “things.” Instead, there are fields interacting, and our senses interpret certain stable interactions as solid objects with defined boundaries. Solidity, therefore, is not a substance or an intrinsic property; it’s an effect produced by forces that we interpret as "contact." Objects are better understood as nodes of interaction within a web of interconnected fields, rather than isolated pieces of solid matter.

Rethinking Reality: From Objects to Fields

This shift in perspective—from objects as solid things to objects as interactions within fields—transforms our understanding of reality. What we perceive as distinct, solid objects are stable patterns in an ocean of fluctuating energy. In this view, “things” are less like marbles and more like waves on the surface of the ocean: they’re defined by interactions, not by intrinsic solidity.

In the end, our everyday experience of solidity and contact is a simplified view shaped by the macroscopic forces at work. It is not a true reflection of the fundamental nature of matter. Rather than strange fields pushing against each other, it's our outdated view of matter that feels strange in light of modern physics. At the core of reality, what we call “things” are woven from fields and forces, patterns and probabilities—a world where solidity and substance are, in the end, an emergent illusion.

**Editor’s Note:**

The above essay is the result of a collaborative process between a human author and AI, aimed at exploring the fundamental nature of "things" and how everyday perceptions of objects differ from their underlying quantum reality. In this collaboration, the human author contributed key insights and the central conceptual trajectory, focusing on challenging the classical view of objects as "solid all the way down" and introducing the concept of matter as a field-based interaction.

The human author generated the core ideas and analogies, such as the sensation of solidity experienced with objects like rubber balls and magnets, to illustrate how electromagnetic fields create the illusion of solid contact. These concepts laid the groundwork for an essay that demystifies everyday perceptions of solidity and shifts the reader's understanding toward a quantum field perspective.

The AI provided assistance in structuring the argument, developing smooth transitions between sections, and elaborating on the scientific explanations that link quantum fields to the experience of solidity. The AI also expanded on examples—such as the quantum field model and the probabilistic nature of particles—making the scientific explanations more accessible while preserving the essay's philosophical depth. Additionally, the AI helped refine the prose, ensuring clarity and coherence across sections.

This essay, therefore, is a blend of human-driven conceptual insight and AI-supported elaboration, designed to guide the reader from intuitive notions of matter to a sophisticated, field-based understanding. The result is a piece that reflects the strengths of both human intuition and AI-assisted structure, providing an accessible yet thought-provoking perspective on the nature of reality.

Jack's note:

Since this is the result of a conversation across two different chats, it is pretty difficult to disentangle which was human and which was AI. I asked Claude to reverse engineer a prompt that would result in this text. 

The Prompt, as reverse engineered by Claude.ai:

Here's how I would construct a prompt to generate that kind of comprehensive explanation:

"Can you explain how our understanding of quantum mechanics and reality has evolved through three levels of sophistication? I'm interested in:

1. How people initially view reality as solid and deterministic

2. How learning about quantum mechanics can lead to a 'everything is weird and random' phase

3. How a deeper understanding shows connections between quantum and classical reality

Please address:

- The role of early universe quantum fluctuations in creating patterns

- How these patterns influence subsequent quantum behavior

- Why quantum mechanics isn't purely random but follows probabilistic patterns

- How stable structures emerge from quantum interactions

- Why popular science sometimes overemphasizes the 'weird' aspects

- The relationship between randomness, pattern, and order

Please write this as a coherent article that would help general readers understand these concepts without requiring advanced physics knowledge. Focus on how this understanding develops and why certain misconceptions arise."

This prompt:

- Structures the key conceptual progression

- Asks for specific physical mechanisms

- Requests attention to how understanding develops

- Emphasizes accessibility for general readers

- Includes both physics and meta-understanding

- Asks to address common misconceptions

- Suggests a narrative arc from simple to sophisticated understanding

Since this is pretty basic, I don't really care to take much credit for the final outcome. But it's a decent tutorial in how to construct a good prompt.