Do elementary particles determine the atom to be what it is?

Do the elementary particles determine the atom to be the kind of atom it is?
By: Doug McManaman

Elementary particles or units are logically general. What this means is that they are poor in property, that is, qualitatively poor. Consider Aristotle's logical categories - the ten genera. Substance; Quantity; Quality; Relation; When; Where; Action; Passion; Posture; Habit. These ten genera are logically general. In the extra-mental world there are particular substances of very specific kinds. There is no pure substance in reality that is as general and unspecified as the logical category. Genera are in the mind. As general, the genus substance is unspecified (non-specific), that is, having no specific determination, such as living, non-living compound, plant, animal, human, etc. Even "animal" is logically general - less general than substance, but general nonetheless. "Animal" as a genus is open to more specific determination (species/specification), such as "winged", "aquatic", or "rational".

The real world is rich in specification, that is, rich in various species of animal, various kinds of substances, various kinds of quantity, qualities, places (France, England, Southeast Asia) and times, etc.

Electrons and other elementary particles are real and not simply logical (although the neutrino is said to have zero mass, some say merely a point without dimension, reminiscent of Pythagoras of old, but these examples only help our case). But electrons and other subatomic units are general like the logical categories in that they are poor in property and await specification or determination. Some of the latest elementary particles to be discovered disintegrate almost instantaneously. Their interactions with one another are not all different. Their interactions, at this point, seem to be of four kinds (nuclear force, electrical interactions, the beta-decay interaction, and gravity). Elementary particles are indeterminate. They are more passive than active. They do not tend to exist independently in nature; rather they tend towards a qualitative context (an atom, for instance). They are almost totally inert and determined from without.

The electron acts in a multiplicity of ways because there are a multiplicity of different non-inertial factors in the world, that is, natures or essences. The electron's almost total inertia does not allow it to differentiate itself to account for this multiplicity and rich heterogeneity. Adding generalities does not lead to specifics. Adding indeterminacies does not lead to determinacy. Adding the genus animal over and over again does not give us winged creature or rational animal, and neither does the mere summation of subatomic units give us the rich and heterogeneous world in which we live.

And so no matter how the quantum reality question is answered, there are no philosophical conclusions that can be drawn therefrom. Those who maintain that the electron is not a determinate particle between measurements, but is rather a mere tendency towards something, a possibility less real than an actuality, in fact help the thesis we are proposing. They certainly are less real, that is, more potential or indeterminate than the atom in which it finds itself. The atom in which it exists determines its behavior. Likewise, the hydrogen atom is potentially present in a water molecule (less real than the water molecule), and not actually present, just as the water molecule is virtually present (not actually present) in the human body. As we descend towards the subatomic level, we approach not what is more real but less real. It is the whole that is entirely real. The gold atom is real not because indeterminate subatomic units determine it.