***Dear Reader, just a hint– the part on stopping war is way at the bottom so if you don’t want to read the entire thing, scroll down.
Today I am revisiting Alain Rifat’s post from April 4, 2021, What Is Matter? I have read and reread it multiple times and each time I get the nagging feeling that there is something important they want to add. The first nagging feeling comes with the question, what is energy? They have stated multiple times that energy is produced in the play between positive and negative but that doesn’t really answer the question regarding what it is.
The second time I get a nagging feeling while reading this post when the author writes on the Higgs Boson and the Higgs Field. When the Higgs Boson was first discovered in 2012 I immediately began to wonder about the name Higgins. When recently they asked me to change the spelling of their name from Higgins to Higg(in)s I felt an aha! moment. There is something they are trying to share with me that I am not yet able to understand. The more I focus on it, the more elusive their response seems to be.
For now, it seems the best thing to do is move on to The Weirdness of Indistinguishability, published on Simulismblog, April 19, 2021. In this article, the author explains that there is no difference between a molecule that occurs naturally and one that is synthesized in a laboratory. The same is true for the atoms that comprise a molecule, and the particles that form atoms. Atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
For example, water is a molecule made of H2O. That means two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Hydrogen has the atomic number 1, meaning it is made of one electron. Oxygen’s atomic number is 8, so it is made of eight electrons.
Atoms can be broken down further into particles. The proton, for example, is made of three subatomic particles called quarks (an elementary particle). The electron is one subatomic particle called a lepton (also an elementary particle).
The author uses a simple metaphor for our understanding. If we were to deposit dollars in a bank and return later to make a withdrawal, the dollars you turned in may not be the dollars you receive back. But they are interchangeable.
Particles are like that. They are completely interchangeable. One is indistinguishable from another and cannot be marked the way a bill can be marked.
This is interesting because if one could take an atom apart to its constituent particles, those particles can go on to form something entirely different. For example, if one were to take two water molecules apart one would have four hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms. Theoretically, if one then put the four hydrogen atoms together again with the 2 oxygen atoms, the products that could be made are the previous 2 molecules of H2O (water) OR 2 molecules of hydrogen gas (H2) and one molecule of oxygen gas (O2).
One step further, if you took the hydrogen and oxygen atoms apart to their elementary particle level, they could then form into new atoms.
Now….why Higg(in)s had me write all that out….
Higg(in)s: There are fundamental building blocks. Your body is made of these. A tree is made of these, as is a rock. Your body is like a car. A portion of your soul gets in your body and ‘drives’ off. We’ll call this aspect of you the Little Soul. Your body carries Little Soul around wherever Little Soul desires to go.
As this Little Soul, which is you in your body, wanders around Earth interacting with things, thoughts are stimulated. These thoughts interact with the Higgs Field, which is everywhere. When a thought carries enough power, it interacts with the Higgs Field in such a way as to cause a particle within the field to gain mass. (It is not true that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy is created with your thought. We do not know whether energy can be destroyed, but it hasn’t happened yet.)
This next part is not entirely correct, but for the sake of your understanding, this particle will now continue to exist, and as other Higgs particles are stimulated to gain mass upon the same topic, they are attracted to one another and when it becomes large enough it must take physical form. It is like water molecules in the sky coalescing to form a raindrop.
This is an important understanding because it has practical applications. When you, the Little Soul in a body, focuses on a thing, anything, you give it form. If you withdraw your attention from that thing, it will eventually cease existing.
If you would like to stop having war, then you must withdraw your attention from war like activities and violence, and instead focus upon that which you would have. You are all having a very hard time with this because most of you think of peace as the absence of war (peace is a thing in and of itself), and because you do not recognize the relationship between your attention to violent television programs (including watching it on the news programs), movies, games, and toys, and the violent world you exist within.
You all have created war. If you will have peace you must begin to focus intently upon peaceful things. You must begin to act in peaceful ways. Peace must be built, and it can be built by drawing it forth from the Higgs Field with your thought. The old way of war will fall apart into its constituent elementary particles and be ready to form a new and more supportive way of life. Keep in mind that that thing which you focus upon has been built in the Higgs Field well before you see evidence of it on Earth.
Ask Higg(in)s 
This really resonates with me. When people talk about urban violence, my first thought is to get rid of violent video games. I’m told that I’m being simplistic and silly. But I think the games feed the violence, as do other parts of popular culture. This Higgs lesson takes it all much further, and it feels right. Thank you for sharing this.
You’re very far from « being simplistic and silly ». I’d rather qualify those that don’t see the dangers of these games to be ignorant about what games represent for us all, and especially to our children.
It is well known that playing to learn increases our learning capacity in a dizzying way. We learn much better by enjoying it than by forcing ourselves to do an activity we don’t like. Play is fun and contributes to our learning from an early age… But it seems even more important for our development when we consider the role of playing. Is it just a distraction? A futile but enjoyable behavior?
To answer this question we can look around and ask ourselves if we are the only species that knows about play. The answer is immediate: No, of course not! Your dog or your cat is playing.
An analysis of species’ behavior shows us that only the most evolved species seem to play; mostly sophisticated mammals and during their youth. Orcas, dolphins, carnivorous mammals… play more and longer than less evolved and herbivorous mammals. The same is true for birds. The most intelligent species are those that play the most (crows and parrots for example play more than sparrows).
We can assume that play is linked in some way to the intelligence of the species, i.e. to its ability to adapt to its environment, especially if it varies. The game allows the young to experiment with new situations, to train in a way for future challenges. In carnivores, play consists mainly of training for hunting. In herbivores, we find games that prepare the future adult to build a place in the social hierarchy and find a spouse to reproduce. We can see that play prepares the individual for the activities that will be the most important for the adult he will become, essential to his survival (feeding) and then that of his species (reproduction). Instinctively, the young bird or mammal prepares for its adult life by learning and training, through play, the behavior that will allow it to fulfill itself and ensure the future of its species!
The human child who is confronted with violent video games risks unconsciously constructing an image of the world in which violent behavior will be acquired as normal! The ethological role of the game will be fundamental and all the more dangerous as it addresses instinctive behavior, therefore unconscious and difficult to control with a critical mind that is necessarily conscious. The experiences acquired by the child risk having the same effect as play in intelligent species: preparing to reproduce in adult life the behaviors experienced in the game.
Putting weapons in the hands of young people and allowing them to access violent behaviors through the breathtakingly rich and attention-grabbing power of video games may create a generation in which emphatic behaviors are less likely to be exhibited. There may no longer be any restriction on behaviors that are harmful to others. In real life, you don’t lash out at an injured person. In a video game, there is no instinct to restrain and pity to “neutralize” the enemies. There is no instinct to stop the pilot from pressing the button that releases a rocket towards his target. On the contrary, he will shout with joy, like the one he used to shout as a child when his avatar triumphed over all his enemies!
Your question about video games is far from simplistic! It is our society that accepts and glorifies them that is simplistic!
Well stated!
Yes! I think that violent video games and easily available, skanky porn are the root of many of our society’s problems. Even the drug-use problem can be boiled down to people who are unable to connect with themselves, others, and their community. This inability to connect can be derived somewhat from the violence and meaningless sex that is taught as normal.
As I re-read this elegant response, I am newly astonished at your clarity. Would that more enjoyed this understanding. We would be better off for it.
Modern physics, like any science, is very powerful when it comes to discovering the properties of the objects that constitute our universe, but it cannot discover their nature. This is studied by philosophy; science can only suggest possible answers.
Physics has discovered that matter is only a very condensed form of energy; its nature is therefore linked to that of energy. But what is the nature of energy?
Physics does not have an answer but its discoveries suggest that energy is a kind of information structure. An energy field can be understood as information about the properties of space in relation to objects in it. If there is an interaction between an object and an energy field, there will be a transformation of energy of one kind into another. One could suggest that energy is expressed in this case as a movement of information. The deep nature of energy seems very much related to information.
Is a thought information? Higgins answer reminds of the egregore: the materialization of collective thoughts coming from a group as studied by metaphysics. Group meditation on peace could create this energy.