This page in one paragraph
On this page we ask: beneath something that flows without a break before our eyes, could there be another structure? In Dost this appears as a world re-created at every breath, which looks continuous only because it resembles what came before. On the physics side, the one that stands closest to us is the Zeno effect, in which a system that is looked at often stays in its initial state; even so, we leave this too as "greets from a distance", as a greeting. The one that stands furthest is the Minev jump, whose direction is reversed: there, what was thought to be sudden turns out, on a closer look, to be smooth and continuous. We did not look at circular time and at being that does not go to nonexistence, and we left the matter of the "now" to the Time page. We do not equate the two sides with each other; we only set them side by side and leave our questions open.
What is this form?
We look at a river, it flows. A child grows up, the same child. We take a breath, then another breath. All of it stands before our eyes like a single line, without a break. On Dost's pages, right beneath this "unbroken" appearance, something else is told: the continuity we see may be an appearance arising from the close resemblance to one another of things that come one after another and are each time new.
What we call Continuity on this page is not the content of these sentences one by one but their form: continuity on the surface, another structure beneath. In Dost this structure is mostly "re-creation at every moment"; sometimes a circle that turns back and joins its beginning, sometimes a being that does not go to nonexistence but only changes state. What is common to the three is the feeling that the smooth line the eye sees is not the last word.
We are looking at whether physics has something similar to this form. In one place we found something in the opposite direction: there, what was thought to be discontinuous turned out, on a closer look, to be continuous. In one place there is something waving from a distance. At all three doors we either did not look, or looked and found them empty. We write everything as it is; on this page we are not trying to make anything resemble anything else, we only set them side by side.
What does Dost say?
«Every breath is a construction and a creation. So with every breath a new creating of al-Haqq takes place in us. … For the sense is veiled by a form in which the alteration is not felt» (c6k80, p. 224)
Dost says here that creation does not happen once and finish, it is renewed at every breath. The reason we fail to notice it is also stated: our sense is veiled by a form in which the alteration is not felt.
Worth noting: change is not denied; what is described is the not being seen of the change. The veil is not darkness, it is likeness. This is a form distinct enough to be enough to ask in physics, "is there a discrete structure beneath what looks continuous?"
«According to unveiling, nothing is repeated. Everything is in a state not of -renewal- but of re-creation. If the new is given the name "renewal", the reason is the strong likeness between them.» (c11k141, p. 277-278)
There is a fine distinction here. To say "renewal" sounds like the same thing becoming new. Dost does not find this right: the same thing is not renewed, each time something else comes into being and only resembles the earlier one very closely.
Worth noting: continuity is not a "staying the same" but a "being similar". This is a neighbor of the "the same does not come a second time" form on the Non-repetition page; we did not try to separate the two. A note: the idea of "re-creation at every moment" and "no repetition" may not be peculiar to Dost; we think it falls close to certain views in the kalam tradition as well, but we have not tested this by reading from that tradition.
«Al-Haqq changes in states; the states do not change upon Him.» (c13k149, p. 28)
Change is seen in the states. What changes is what flows over the states; what does not change is what stands beneath them. The alteration is not written onto the one who is altered.
Worth noting: in the same sentence there is change and there is constancy, and the two do not cancel each other. Constancy is not described as the absence of change; it continues within the change. We did not tie this directly to the question we see in physics, "how does measurement slow change?", but a gaze may look there.
«Thus the matter ended as it began, and the end became the very same as its beginning.» (c12k143, p. 59-60)
At the end of the journey there is no new place; the place reached is the place set out from. The path that looks like a line closes into a circle.
Worth noting: the direction of time here is not a line but a circle. We did not look for a counterpart of this in physics; circular-time theories are very speculative and relying on them would have meant forcing this page.
«death is the dismissal of one governor and the appointment of another, for it is not possible for the world to be left without a governor.» (c17k223, p. 102)
Death here is not annihilation but a change of office. Something goes, but another comes in its place; no void remains. In the same section it is also said that death is not the opposite of life.
Worth noting: the continuity here is the continuity not of a person but of an office. What does not go to nonexistence is not what goes but what is put in its place. We saw no counterpart of this in physics; a reader may say where to look.
«the world is one in respect of its substance; in this substance al-Haqq creates continuously.» (c13k150, p. 276)
The world seems made of many things, but its substance is one. The creating continues continuously in that one substance; that is, multiplicity and continuity are in the same sentence.
Worth noting: the form of "a single structure beneath, a multiple appearance above". It resembles, from a distance, what is asked in physics as "are particles manifestations of a field?"; but we do not claim this resemblance, we only ask.
What is there in physics?
Minev 2019 — Catching a quantum jump midway
According to quantum theory, an atom "jumps" from one energy level to another, and this jump is counted as sudden and random. A team at Yale, using an artificial atom (a superconducting circuit), tried to catch a jump in its middle. By carefully watching a third state of the atom that could be monitored separately, they found a sign of when the jump would begin. According to their observations the jump is not instantaneous: once begun, it proceeds as a coherent and smooth transition, and can even be caught midway and reversed. When the jump will begin is still random; but once it has begun its course is predictable. This is an experimental result, and it brings a subtle correction to a common depiction of the idea of a "jump". What it means, however, is contested. [Minev 2019]
Misra and Sudarshan 1977 — A watched pot does not boil
An unstable particle, for example an atomic nucleus about to decay, changes in time into other particles. Misra and Sudarshan asked this: what happens if we observe this particle constantly, that is, keep looking "has it decayed?" With the mathematics of quantum theory, in the calculation they made, if the looks are frequent enough, the result was that the particle never decays. This is called the quantum Zeno paradox. This is a theory and calculation paper; it rests on the assumption that measurement restarts the state each time. Later other groups showed in the laboratory that frequent measurement really slows decay, but that result belongs not to this paper but to later experiments. [Misra 1977]
Itano 1990 — Seeing the Zeno effect in ions
The theory says that if a system's transition from one state to another is measured frequently, it can be blocked. Itano and colleagues tried this: they held beryllium ions in a trap, cooled them with a laser, and while driving the transition between two energy levels with a radio wave, they "measured" often with short light pulses. The more frequent the measurement, the more the transition was suppressed, and the result agreed well with the calculations. This is an experimental result. It is said that the stopping side is that measurement is not merely taking information but taking part in the system's course; whether this is "the collapse of the wave function" (the settling of probabilities into a single outcome with measurement) or something else remains in the domain of interpretation. [Itano 1990]
Facchi and Pascazio 2008 — The Zeno effect does not freeze, it confines
If something is observed continuously, does it not change? Quantum theory gives a strange answer: if you measure very often whether a system is still in its initial state, its transition to another state is blocked. This review examines a broader case: if the measurement asks not about a single state but about a set of states, the system does not freeze; it keeps moving within that set, but cannot get out of it. For example, if it is continually asked whether a particle is in a certain region, the particle behaves as if in a walled box. The text takes up the mathematics of this and applications that give the same result by different routes. The effect itself has been shown in theory and experiments; "why measurement does this" is in the domain of interpretation. [Facchi 2008]
SEP — Quantum field theory
This is not an experiment, it is the quantum field theory entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: an introduction to the theory and its philosophical questions. Quantum field theory is the conceptual and mathematical framework of today's particle physics, and is also used in other fields such as condensed matter physics. Roughly, it is quantum mechanics passed from particles to fields: systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. The entry stresses that, if the theory is taken seriously, the picture of the world it gives does not agree with the classical understanding of particles and fields, and even with some aspects of quantum mechanics. Within this is also the fact that the concept of "particle" itself is problematic. This is a review source; that is, the interpretations should not be read as a final verdict. [SEP: Quantum Field Theory]
Looking side by side
The jump: they walk separate roads
What is shared: on both sides there is talk of "a smooth, continuous-looking thing and another structure lying beneath it". Where they part: the direction is reversed. In Dost, what is thought continuous is in fact discontinuous, that is, separate things re-created at every moment. In Minev, on the other hand, the jump that was thought sudden and discontinuous turns out, on a closer look, to be smooth and continuous, and even reversible [Minev 2019]. Where a reader might notice: both say "it is not as it looks", but "as it looks" is the opposite thing in the two places. Whether this is a similarity or rather a sign in the opposite sense, we do not know.
Open question: is saying "it is not as it looks" enough to put the two sides in the same form, or is this saying so general that it can be found in every surprising phenomenon?
The Zeno effect: greets from a distance
What is shared: constancy is lived within the change of state; in Dost there is constancy within the passage from state to state, in Zeno a system that is looked at often stays in its initial state. Where they part: in Zeno it is the measurement interaction that produces the constancy; something looks at it and this looking holds it [Misra 1977; Itano 1990; Facchi 2008]. In Dost, constancy is described within the passage itself, independent of a look. The effect of looking is important on both sides, but the role of the one who looks is different. Here there is only a greeting; we make no pairing.
Open question: between the "veiling" in Dost and "measurement holding the system" in physics, is there a kinship in respect of a look determining a thing? (We ask this separately on the Viewpoint page.)
Field and multiplicity: greets from a distance
What is shared: what looks many above may be arising from a single structure beneath. In Dost the world is one in respect of its substance and the creating continues in that substance; in quantum field theory it is said that particles are manifestations of the field [SEP: Quantum Field Theory]. Where they part: one is an ontological-spiritual sentence, the other a mathematical framework; and the SEP entry also stresses that the concept of "particle" itself is problematic, that is, the picture has not yet settled. Where a reader might notice: from the sentence "what looks many is the manifestation of a single thing". But to pair the same question twice would be forcing; for this reason we also keep this row weak as Continuity's physics candidate.
Open question: is Dost's saying "one substance, many manifestations" and the field-particle relation in physics saying something similar in structure, or are they just talking about "one and many" in two separate places?
Circular time and being that does not go to nonexistence: we did not look at this door
We did not look for a counterpart in physics for Dost's account in which the end joins the beginning, and for the account in which a thing does not go to nonexistence but passes from being to being. Circular-time cosmologies are very speculative; and non-going to nonexistence would be a pairing we could not tie to a reliable source. Leaving it empty is also a result, in that it shows that the heavy part of this form in Dost does not for now pair with physics.
Moment and now: we leave it to the Time page
We dealt with the items on "now" and "instant" on the Time page; there the two sides stand in opposite directions (in Dost a single now, in relativity there is no universal now). We did not find it necessary to repeat the same matter a second time here.
Questions we are left with
- In Minev, the jump's turning out continuous stands as the opposite of what is thought continuous turning out discontinuous in Dost. Does this reversed direction show that the two sides are asking the same question, or are there two separate questions?
- Does the sentence "re-creation at every moment" and the sentence in physics "a particle is a manifestation of a field" say, in the same form, "there is another structure beneath"? Or do only their words resemble each other?
- In the Zeno effect, what produces constancy is looking; in Dost, constancy is within the passage. How far apart are these two constancies?
- Does the continuity Dost describes depend on the eye's seeing ("veil"), or is it independent of the eye? Does this question meet the measurement question in physics somewhere?
- In the text there is a crowded body of material on circular time; is there a physics source to which it can be honestly tied, or will this always remain empty?
What did we not do?
We did not compare Dost's sentences with the Arabic original; what we read were the site's Turkish section summaries and the translation. So even when we say "Dost says this", we speak in the voice of a translation and a summary.
Even where we thought we saw closeness on this page, we left it as a question. This page is not a reading summary, it is our reading framework; we do not understand Dost, we do not give up trying to understand.