Gluonic Higgs-like Mechanism

I have thought of a slightly different way of explaining the mechanism that gives protons most of their mass. I saw it explained recently in a youtube video; the explanation was that it is the vacuum energy of the gluon field that gives rise to most of the proton mass due to the equivalence of mass and energy (the Higgs mechanism contributes slightly). This explanation seems strange to me for a simple reason: Photons have energy contained in their field and yet they have no mass since they move at light speed.

The explanation runs contrary to how mass normally presents itself in the standard model as an interaction with the Higgs field. Firstly I need to expound how I think about the Higgs mechanism since it bears almost exact resemblance to my explanation. The Higgs potential has a non-zero vacuum expectation value and it is this fact that is used to explain mass; the Higgs potential can also be used to tell us about how the Higgs boson interacts with itself. The Higgs boson also interacts with matter and can change the momentum of a particle it interacts with and this occurs frequently enough for the particle to be kept from travelling a great distance unimpeded. The mean free path of the particle is small and so it bounces back and forth over this small distance and this makes it look like it isn’t moving at the speed of light. Between interactions with the Higgs, however, it is moving at the speed of light. Higgs bosons “bounce” off each other  and this ensures that we have a frothing soup of Higgs bosons  flying in all directions which is why particles can’t get very far before they interact with a Higgs.

 The parallel that gluons have with the Higgs is that they too can “bounce” off one another. The mechanism I described for the Higgs interaction applies now to quarks and gluons meaning that gluons slow down quarks like Higgs bosons slow down other particles (and quarks). 

Why language is a poor physical theory

Many arguments for the existence of god rely on the existence of the universe and the fact it had a “beginning”. I highlight beginning in this fashion because this term does not always make sense when applied to what is referred to as the singularity. The issues with arguments with this basis are to some extent unresolvable by mere debate.

The first problem is the application of the word existence. It’s used in a careless and presumptuous fashion; our familiar concept of existence is based upon our experience within the universe. Following this obvious statement we can drape new words around the definition of existence: Something exists when it can be considered to be an element of the universe. This makes sense because we say things exist if they can be found within our universe.

This is where the carelessness comes in; when people try to construct arguments appealing to the supposedly unbelievable fact that the universe “exists” and had a beginning we come across the problem which may be an inconsistency. They apply the word “exists” to the universe. What exactly does it mean for the universe to exist when the standard usage of the word uses the universe itself as the arbiter for whether or not something exists? We would have to find the universe within itself to confirm if it exists or not. Doing this means we are judging whether or not the universe exists by using the same universe which we are in the process of classifying. You need the universe in the first place before we can judge the existence of something else. This gives rise to circularity/infinite regress which indicates that we can’t use the word and its logical application to deduce anything. For this to make sense we would need something outside the universe which it is suspended in to make a clear judgement about what it means for the universe to exist. We have no idea what this may be if it even makes sense to ask since we are consigned to using the universe itself to discern existence. This shows clearly that we can’t use the “existence” of the universe to tell us anything about what lies outside of it.

This should highlight the problem with using our language to tease out things about the workings of the universe and beyond: it just cannot be trusted outside its range of applicability; the range being defined by exactly where it developed to be applicable. Language developed on our planet for the communication of simple concepts related to our survival. These concepts were mundane and limited by our perceivable scale; our language doesn’t even apply well to things that exist within the universe outside of this scale. This is why Philosophy only gets you so far.

Another similar example is applying the notion of existence laid out here to God Himself/Herself/Itself. Most often the arguments in God’s favour require God to be outside the universe which is an obvious problem when it comes to his existence. Given that we can only make statements about existence using the universe we can’t make any statement about God’s existence since he is required to be outside the universe. I also remind you that we can’t say for certain what “God created the universe” means because the word “create” is native to us who reside within the universe and applies to objects in it. As indicated when God was introduced we can’t even apply concepts such as gender, personality and being to God if He/Her/It (whatever) doesn’t exist in the universe because these concepts were developed within the universe.

A slight stab at the Cosmological Argument

The argument proceeds roughly as follows: The universe is not eternal and therefore must have had a cause. The cause must also be eternal. The argument then precociously goes on to say that this cause must be anthropomorphic, caring, loving and personal and even further, if you are a Christian, is said to have a son within the universe. Asserting there must be a cause is reasonable if you have an open definition for what a cause might be, for instance any process that resulted in the creation or allowed for the creation of the universe in a sense could be viewed to be a cause. The problem comes when you say that it is a god and even more so when you ascribe more properties to this entity. When doing this you are picking out one of the potentially infinite amount of hypotheses that you could pick out. The Christian god for instance is increasingly unlikely because of all the extra baggage it carries with it: divine intervention, Jesus as the son (implying this creator has mating capacity of some kind and a genome) and various other obsessions he seems to have with us as a single species on the speck of dust we live on.