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General Epistemology        Chapter III-5       

 

Chapter III-5 Do matter and the universe really exist?

 

 

(Permalink)(Was chapter 24 in version 1)

 

Chapter 23 of version 1 «Nibs physics and real physics» was suppressed, as it was doubling the fourth part on physics. However, for this chapter and the following, we need to admit now that a properly designed nib physics can be a perfect imitation of our physics. Quite simple it is just requested to use exactly the same mathematical equations. If you are not convinced, go first in the fourth part on physics, and come back here after.

 

It is fair to warn the reader: this part is the most painful to read, the most shocking. There will be death deliveries to prejudices and false concepts, and after this reading your life will be never again as before.

It is that, contrarily to all the other science books which stuff plenty of things into your brain, right on the opposite I shall remove useless things from your brain. You will feel better, lighter.

So the following day finds the same fine team into the enormous underground labyrinth of the secret facilities of Zambu Shedrup Ling. (Guided tour of the secret installations, 9h to 18h every days, see the tour office at Lhassa.) In an immense hypogea with monumental concrete pillars, fearsome black machines rumble, death's-head shaped red indicators flicker, screens covered with tibetan glyphs stand in the half-light. The dark walls are painted with terrifying Tantric deities, black, all in bellowing mouths, claws and fangs, surrounded with flames and dark smoke. From time to time, repulsively ugly false concepts arrive along a conveyor belt, gesticulating and trying to escape, but metal claws seize them pitilessly to push them in the blazing mouth of a thundering furnace where they burn with terrifying screams. In a neighbouring room, prejudices tumble down from a pipe at the ceiling, coming from some teaching room at the upper floor, and fall directly into a pit where they are crushed at once by a powerful hydraulic jack, in a gushing of disgusting liquids.

 

It is this terrifying place which our professor chose to give his class today: What is meant by existing? What do we want to express when we say that the universe exists, that we exist? The answer, from the most educated scientist to the most naïve man in the street, is always the same: this universe, this matter, we can see them, touch them, handle them. To observe them, specify together the scientistist (note 92) and the scientist, with a knowing look.

It is this that we mean when we say that our universe «exists», that it is «concrete». The universe of the nibs cannot be seen nor touched; it is «abstract», «imaginary». The man next door voices «of course, you chump! Your story is too beautiful to be true, you are just dreaming!», while the scientistist declares with a large smile: «Yeees, exactly, which is abstracted, which does not exist in reality. It is only a logical construction in our mind». The scientist adds: «Yes, it is indeed what we understand by»... but he suddenly changes his mind and hurriedly examines his academic dictionary, but he does not find the definition that he seeks. He begins to wonder if he was not attracted into some trap...

Good, I agree, it is true, we can touch, see, feel. The matter, it is not like the dreams nor like the religious paradises: we live there, we see it, we can touch it with the finger, we can enjoy it right now. It is concrete, not dream. Not logical relations. Not nib.

 

OK man, OK. But please just explain me what occurs exactly when we touch it with the finger, this matter. When there is a contact between an object and the finger, which is also a material object, also formed with atoms and molecules. Obviously, the atoms of the surface of the finger will come into contact with those of the surface of the object, which will oppose a resistance. This resistance slightly deforms the finger. The sensitive nervous endings detect this deformation, and send a nervous message to the brain: we have the feeling of contact. Good old 19th century physics explanation of our concrete, observable and touchable world.

Well, but on the level of the atoms, what occurs when two atoms get in contact? We can say, while simplifying, that it is the peripheral electrons of each atom which will be touched. And the naïve man next door answers: «of course, the electrons are matter balls which touch together. The contact is explained like that, since it is matter». But now the scientist does not agree any more, and I must say that even when I was only ten years old I was unable to swallow such an explanation: What a trick, we brilliantly explain matter with saying that it is made of atoms and electrons, to end lamentably voicing that these electrons are themselves balls of matter! But at the end what is matter? The scientist answers with a gentle voice, with the agreement of the scientistist: «an electron is made of a probability wave and electromagnetic fields. There is no «ball», no solid surface, and even no shape, just a fuzzy probability mist, centred on a point which does not have any special property. The electrons obey the Pauli principle of exclusion which says (while simplifying) that two electrons cannot occupy exactly the same place. So, when two electrons meet, they feel a repelling force (an electric field), and the closer the electrons, the stronger the force. There is nothing which «is touched», only electric fields which vary with the distance, and which are able to push back an electron when it meets another».

Ha, we get some advance. But a probability wave, an electromagnetic field, what it is? Well, a probability, it is a percentage, a number. The probability wave is a percentage which varies according to the place and the time. A probability that the electron appears or not. An electromagnetic field? It is a thing which makes the electrons deviate when they pass inside, according to certain mathematical laws. Sorry, we do not have any other definition! Even in the faculty! Worse, somebody notices that the electromagnetic field is at last nothing else but a mathematical law describing how the electrons are influenced mutually, and how they are themselves built. Exactly as the mathematical law which governed the point of reappearance of the nibs into the following layer. Nothing more.

Let us imagine that we could create a spaceship able to miniaturize itself as much as we want, much smaller than an electron. Such a vessel could then cross an electron right through, without meeting anything else than electric or magnetic fields. It would even not be able to know the difference between an electron and an hair drier motor. And the probability of presence? If the miniature vessel tries to cross an hundred times an electron, for example fifty times (on average) it will detect the field, and fifty times it will cross it entirely without meeting anything, without detecting anything. The electron exists... sometimes. Such a result is already astonishing enough, for a matter which is expected to exist absolutely.

But modern physics met still worse phenomena: We can make interferences between electrons, as if they were immaterial light.

The experiments of interferences are usually done with light waves or sound. When two waves are in phase (they oscillate simultaneously) they are reinforced. If they are in opposition of phase (oscillate off beat) they are cancelled. Try for example in a room where a high-pitched noise is heard, like a television whistle. By moving the head gently, we realise that the sound is stronger in certain places, and weaker in others, or that it seems to arrive of different directions. This is due to interferences between the wave emitted by the apparatus and those reflected by the walls. The two waves cancel in some places.

But the best demonstration of interference is done with the light. It is easier with laboratory hardware, but we can also go in an old obscure barn, where the sun filters through small holes in the roof to make light circles on the ground, where we lay out a white screen. This light is special: the waves are there in phase, as in a laser (not coherent, but this does not matter). Let us interpose in this beam a sheet of paper, in which we shall cut out thoroughly with a cutter two parallel slits, a quarter of a millimetre large and separated with a half of a millimetre. (These are the Young slits). It is quite better if we superimpose a highly coloured filter onto these two slits. If we place our paper in this sun beam, close to the screen, we get a quite clear luminous image of the two slits. But if we move the slits away from the screen, the images of the two slits will blur and superimpose. We then observe in the superimposition zone a series of luminous or obscure fringes, parallel with the slits: this is luminous interferences. The light being a wave, very small, in certain places the waves are in phase and are superimposed, and a luminous fringe is obtained; in other places they are off-beat and they cancel each other, giving a dark fringe. The fact that light plus light makes darkness already shocks our usual conception of the light. But you can check that it is really like this by obtruding one of the two slits: by removing light, the dark fringes light up. (We speak again of these odd things in chapter IV-2)

But in certain experiments, we also could make interferences between electrons, or more exactly between the waves of probability of presence. This runs up even more violently against our usual conception of matter: We can accept that two matters can accumulate, but how a matter could be withdrawn of another matter? This is sheer deliria! When we put two potatoes in a dish, they never subtract the one of the other! If my grocer sells me potatoes which do that, he will have serious dealing with me. The electrons do that, and the grocer who sold them to us is now far away. In this experiment, scientists sent electrons on a screen, via two slits, and they observed interference fringes on the screen, with really dark fringes where the electrons subtract one of the other: no electrons reach these places. But, even more delirious, somebody had the idea to send the electrons one by one. And to accumulate the impacts on the screen. To see. The interference fringes were still there. As if only one electron passed through the two slits at the same time, to interfere with itself. The interpretation which is given of this experiment is that it is the probability of presence which is propagated, like a wave, through the two holes, by occupying a broad zone of space. There is not «something material» which «must» pass by only one of the holes. The point-like electron of our concept appears only in contact with the screen, with a probability which depends on the amplitude of the wave. The remainder of the time, its position is not defined, and it can even occupy a space of several cubic meters, or the whole universe. But where is the matter ball gone?

There are still worse experiments, with the superimpositions of quantum states: an atom being simultaneously in two different places, or with the Böse-Einstein (note 67) condensation: several atoms lose any individuality and behave like only one giant atom. Or a neutron which must make two turns on itself to find back its initial position. Or the electrons which are dematerialised, changed into gamma rays, and then rematerialize themselves.

The scientistist and the scientist explain in chorus that as long as we grasp at visions like the matter ball, we can absolutely not understand how the particles actually behave in this kind of experiments. The leading edge of physics (Quantum mechanics, Copenhagen school) says that it is far better to consider waves of probability of presence, fields, and things like that, without attempting to know «what it is», because nobody knows. And...

 

Suddenly in a howl of powerful engine, a large prejudice chopper starts, vibrating on its frame. Enormous black rods and shiny jacks dance wildly with a series of detonations and sinister cracking, and then the tumult ceases as quickly as it started. During one minute or two only the humming of small cleaning robots can be heard. In the student group, nobody bat a single eyelid, and there is the respectful silence which follows the strong demonstrations of authority and justice.

 

So, the most advanced physics, called quantum mechanics (Copenhagen School), never found «something» which would ultimately be matter, which would form the electrons, quarks, etc. and which would explain that our world would be «concrete» instead of an «abstract» vector space. The more science digs, the more this vision fades away, and the world of particles (of which we are made​​) becomes «abstract», consisting solely of mathematical relationships... Some physicists (Erik Verlinde, 2010) went further, describing space, time and gravity as «emerging properties», without independent existence, simple statistical average of the bustle of the subatomic particles. Thus, even space and time, the foundations of our lives, are merely mathematical constructs...

So what makes that our universe would be «concrete» and the universe of nibs would be «abstract»?

Muffled noises of a fight are now coming from somewhere above the caves, bringing a sense of fear among the students.

And if we go until the end of this reasoning, with stopping to suppose that matter would be «something», necessary subtle and mysterious, which would magically make that our world would «exist», and not the others?

And if we just contented ourselves to see in our world only probabilities of presence, mathematical laws, logical relations? And NOTHING ELSE? That there is not «something» invisible and elusive which-behaves-according-to-mathematical-laws, but quite simply a system of logical relations which generates itself? That matter, ultimately, is just as much immaterial as logical laws? That it does not have a basically different nature from our system of nibs? You had undoubtedly noticed that the quotation marks, initially used only for the space of nibs, moved towards our «concrete space» because, once rid off our usual imputations and false conceptions, we can find nothing which differentiates our material universe from the nibs universe, and which would make it more «concrete» or more «real».

 

This last comment starts angry discussions among the students, while the fighting noises and cries are getting closer. The scientist starts to look puzzled: «Hmm... Science still not have found this ultimate thing we call matter, it found only mathematical stuff. After Quantum Mechanics, this is unknowable. But the next particle accelerator will allow to find the Higgs Boson, which explains...» «It is a pipe dream, furiously interrupts the scientistist. This nibs world is only a speculation, an abstract building, as nice as it may look. You will never reach this paradise which exists only in your imagination. Only our material world exists. We can observe it, make measurements on it, and buy clothes and cars made by our machines and our business». Religious people protest, calling the scientistist a miscreant. Only the Buddhist monk keeps smiling softly at the wrathful deities painted on the walls, not at all impressed by the heavy thumps of the approaching fight.

 

Ok, let us admit that our universe, space and time, may have an ultimately completely «abstract» nature, that it is too an universe of nibs. However the fight is still not yet won. As two primordial questions remain:

1) If matter, and even space and time, have at last a so «abstract» (note 41) nature, how do we have such an intense feeling of «concrete» existence, instead of perceiving it as a kind of fading dream, or not perceiving it at all, like the vector spaces of mathematics or the paradises of the religions?

2) And precisely, if we perceive this one, why do we not perceive the others?

 

We make here a simplifying assumption, known under the name of neuronal reductionism, or material reductionism, which is the one scientistists use to try to explain the working of the brain and all its inner experiences: thought, feelings, consciousness, memory, reflection, mental images, all would be pure results of the activity of the neurones in the brain. The scientists, them, recognise that they cannot explain a consciousness experience in terms of material phenomena, but, in spite of some recent discussions, they generally keep to the same assumption, according to the principle of the Occam razor (note 45).

The neurones are material systems of which the activity and relations are described in terms of electricity and chemistry, i.e. ultimately structures of material particles handling information. This assumption excludes any soul, spiritual consciousness, astral body, parapsychology, etc... Certain scientistists, in its name, go as far as rejecting any concern about respecting the person and morals, but we left them to bear alone the full responsibility of this.

We for now follow this assumption of neuronal reduction, in order to make reasoning which satisfy the nowadays scientific criteria without using religious or spiritual ready-made ideas. But any person who admit the existence of a soul, or an astral body, or any other conscious principle enjoying consciousness, freewill or spiritual value, independently of the material body, can still admit all our reasoning and conclusions, if they consider that, in order to be able to express in a material human body, these spiritual principles still need a brain in working order, complying to a specific organisation and material working. So it does not matter, for the moment, if this material organisation is the cause of the consciousness, or only a mean for it to express.

Anyway our General Epistemology cannot a priori refuse objects like the soul or the consciousness, and we shall give more exact replies in the following chapter III-8, and we shall study consciousness in the fifth part.

As we saw, this «abstract» mathematical relation of the principle of exclusion of Pauli, forbids two «abstract» electrons to superimpose together (if the electrons rather obeyed the relation of Böse-Einstein, like does the light, we could be superimposed in an infinite number at the same place, but without any feeling of contact). This makes that particles at the surface of the finger and those of the touched object repel together with a certain force; this force is transmitted to the whole finger tip, and deforms it slightly; this deformation generates neurochemical mechanisms in the cells which purpose is to detect touch; these cells generate a coded message (an electrochemical impulse) which propagates along a sensory nerve toward the brain, in sensory areas, where it is decoded and identified. From there, according to a process that nowadays science cannot explain, it leads to a consciousness experience: the feeling of contact, when an object is touched with the finger. We wanted to touch it, this matter, and as usual we feel it. It is ultimately absolutely nothing, it is only logical relation, information, mathematical relation, and yet there is a brain, which fate is not better, simple assembly of probability of presence and mathematical fields, but this brain has the consciousness experience of the feeling of contact.

And we could make the same reasoning with all the other senses: the eye translates into comprehensible image, bearing meaning or poetry, what is only a set of particles which exists only as logical relations, which are not and will never be «something material which ultimately explains everything». The senses of smell and taste identify molecules and classify them into good and bad. Our perceptions of space and time only shows us the geometrical structure of a set of elements of which our body is a part, exactly as in mathematics we find a «vector space» structure to a set of polynomials.

So this is the reply to the first question: consciousness, concrete sensations, and the feeling of reality, are a property of the overall organisation of the human body and brain (at least, in the neuronal reductionism hypothesis). They arise from this organisation and structure only, and they can work even without the need of this «something mysterious and elusive which magically makes things material and real».

In everyday language, we feel that our world is real, concrete, observable and enjoyable, even if it is ultimately only formed of abstract mathematical stuff, because our bodies and brains are formed of the same stuff than this world!

In science method language, our world is observable because we have sensory organs placed into it, which have the same constitution than the observed objects. This allows them to interact with these objects, and to transmit information to our consciousness.

 

In the reverse reasoning, if there was not a material finger connected to this brain by a nerve, we could feel nothing and we could not make any conclusion about the existence or non-existence of our matter! The same goes with all the other spaces in an infinite number predicted by the quantum theories of the Big-bang, the paradises and hells of the religions, the «astral worlds» postulated by the spiritualists, or visited by the experiencers (note 14) of astral voyage or NDE (see the seventh part on unexplained phenomena), and even for our universe of nibs. It is quite useless to try to perceive them with our material sensory organs, since these sensory organs are not in these spaces. So no information can come from these worlds, and thus no sensory experience. We can absolutely neither touch them, see them, nor observe them in the scientific meaning, but THIS DOES ABSOLUTELY NOT IMPLY THAT THESE UNIVERSES DO NOT EXIST: we know that they can exist at least as mathematical systems, as demonstrated in the previous chapters. But no information can come from them, no consciousness experience. So, this very absence of observation allows us to conclude definitively nothing, even in the name of materialism, about the existence or the non-existence of these spaces, as any case no information can come from them. Especially, we cannot postulate that they do not exist.

This is however what the materialists do: state positively the non-existence, from the absence of observation!

 

Suddenly, the ghost of Karl Popper pops up from behind a pillar, stating loud and clear that all this being untestable, thus these other universes do not exist. The attendance laughs a bit, while the professor, perfectly confident, explains:

«An object can exist, or not. We can check it, or no. This makes FOUR cases, and not three.

1) An object exists, and we can check it: then we can state that this object exists, and we can use it.

2) An object does not exist, and we can check it: then we can say that this object does not exist, and we cannot rely on it.

3) An object exists, and we cannot check it: then we can say nothing, and we cannot determine an action.

4) An object does not exist, and we cannot check it: then we can say nothing, and we cannot determine an action.

«Into the simplistic presentation of Popper's refutation, one often confuses the two last cases 3) and 4), with the following sophism: «we cannot check the existence of an object, thus this object does not exist, and we can ignore its actions on us», which is obviously false and stupid. As a matter of facts, the practical significance of the two cases 3) and 4) can be totally opposed! Try for instance with: «The enemy tanks are waiting for us after the turn, but we cannot check it»: better not to conclude that these tanks do not exist! So we are still compelled to account with the two cases 3) and 4) simultaneously, and make provision for the two consequences or actions... in case this object would suddenly appear! This is all the more true if this object entails important stakes, as in Pascal's Wager (note 77) on God: must we have a moral behaviour, if abstaining to do so brings the risk of being thrown into hell? This is a very important and very practical question, even if the reply is actually untestable: we are forced at least to behave in a moral way, even if we choose to be atheist.

«The exact reply in fact is that 3) and 4) are two entangled «quantum states». Any of the two can reificate. So our actions need to account for both eventualities.

«When we read the pages of mind-muddling philosophy on wikipedia about the «Vienna Circle», we soon land into an abstruse maze which much more resembles a «theology of positivism» than any useful refutation of the pseudoscience. We imagine, amused, all this sophistry dancing a waltz under the violin of Strauss. These people do not consider reality, but what is said of it, which becomes «the reality» to their eyes. For instance they say that God is only linguistics. Probably this is where are coming from all the idiots who say that we killed God, or that the Humans created God all along their evolution. They also say that poetry is only linguistics: they clearly lack a large chunk of human reality. All this looks like a defence of science, but it is not science at all! Well, man, it's not enough to criticize astrology to be a true scientist.

«We clearly have here a new form of sophistic, created to contradict modern parapsychology, and especially to despise fundamental human values. The purpose is probably to serve technocrats and power men, pff, even not something original to add to the denunciation of sophistic by Socrates 2400 years ago. Anyway, linguistics has no place in a metaphysics lab, and sophistic in no science lab at all.»

So the ghost disappears instantly, allowing for the professor to resume his explanations. (We shall have a final word on Popper refutation in chapter V-7)

 

 

 

 

But what if, in an universe of nibs, the evolution of the content led to the appearance of a structure similar to our brain and bodies? (Identical, or at least with equivalent functions).

The same causes producing the same effects, or said otherwise, this nibs universe having NOTHING differentiating it from our «material» universe, then a structure comparable to our brain which would be placed in one of these universes, connected with an equivalent of sensory organs, similar with ours or different, would be EXACTLY AS MUCH CONSCIOUS THAN US, since it is (with the «scientific» assumption of the neuronal reduction) the STRUCTURE WHICH GENERATES THE CONSCIOUSNESS (or which supports it, with the assumption of a soul). And it does not matter «of what» this structure is made of: «matter», «abstract» logical relations, «divine energy» or anything else: the result is still the same. Our universe has nothing magical which would make it «exist» or be «material», and not the others. This consciousness would perceive its universe as naturally and spontaneously as we perceive ours, and would experience about it exactly the same feeling of absolute «material» reality than us. But it would be reciprocally completely unable to perceive ours, and it is our world which would in turn look «abstract» (note 41).

Why is it thus? Because everyone, in his own universe, have sensory organs which are structures which exist in a given universe, and which can thus react only to the «matter» (whatever it is) which is contained in their own universe. It works that way for all the sensory organs and the perception of concrete «reality». It is also true for the consciousness, whatever its origin. It still works that way for the scientific measuring instruments, which perceive our universe only because they are also made of particles precisely of that universe. All of them are victim of the same physical bias© (note 93 sur l’usage de ©). He yes, just like our minds have their psychological bias (for the moment, as we can suppress it), our sensory organs and our scientific instruments have a physical bias (which is, in turn, inherent to its belonging to a given universe, and thus cannot be suppressed). This makes that physics, which is readily regarded as the most exact and objective of the sciences, is in facts something terribly subjective: the subjectivity of universe! An incredible illusion, the universocentrism©, makes us believe that our universe is the only one to exist! And this simply because we have sensory organs only in this universe! Whereas the others are only simply inaccessible to our perceptions, as is an object located behind the horizon. We cannot know if an object situated beyond the horizon exists or not. But it would be completely idiotic to state that the countries situated beyond the horizon do not exist! You would look fine to say this, with your Occam's razor in your hand, hihihi.

 

This illusion fortunately did not prevented us from making exact physics in our universe, but it masked to the eyes of the materialistic science the fact that can exist other universes ad infinitum, resulting from completely different causes, or even self-existent universes like this example of nibs we studied, emerging from a paradox. There is however some scientific recognition of alternative universes today, for instance about quantum vacuum creating many different universes in other Big Bangs. Scientists agree that these universes would look abstract and intestable to us, while looking concrete to their inhabitants. But these universes would still be «material» universes, thus limiting this recognition.

 

All of a sudden the positivist (chapter II-7) gets up aggressively to utter: «These worlds do not exist, since we cannot observe them with our material senses». This statement is the very heart of the error of modern science: to have confused «real» with «materially observable» (or «existing» with «material»). These two concepts happen to coincide only in physics, science of the matter. This is the reason why modern science is really good only in this field, and bad or dumb in any other field.

The scientistist (chapter II-6) is furious. After honouring the scientist with a theatrical «Traiiitor!», he leaves the place while uttering imprecations against those «virtual spaces», which are only «abstract mathematical constructions (note 41)», «illusions», «dreams», «hippie science».

In front of the group of students, staggered with such an unexpected as incongruous violence, the scientist, after an hesitation, follows the scientistist close behind: He cannot stay, he apologises, because he has his funding suppressed! (This, it is a trick of the politicians. If we really want to make science, we shall have to do some cleaning there too. Because scientistism is also, and maybe especially, a political ideology)

The positivist and the behaviourist howl with rage and try to seize iron bars, but it is too late now: the philosophical fight is lost, and the imposing pipe which leads to the large prejudice chopper suddenly vibrates and oscillates under the efforts of an heavy mass: the concept of absolute material existence, of which we had promised the death delivery in chapter II-5, that's it, here it is, and we will hold our promise without any further delay.

Right-hand side, thirty tons of sharpened tungsten carbide and 20 Gigaflops of software wrath, left-hand side 500 million years of habit and stupidity, engraved into our brains.

The beast struggles and tries to slow down its descent, but in vain, steel claws, analytical jacks push it unrelentingly. Then the crusher starts in a scream of overloaded motor, and pitilessly the heavy choppers begin to slice in a wild mechanical dance, accompanied by the fearsome Tantric deities painted on the walls, eyes shining and mouths foaming with wild joy, in a vibrating crash of detonations, howls, crushing, terrifying mantras, red gleams fulminating in the dark, without the least trace of pity for the null hair-splitting and hopeless apologising uttered by the monster. It is not easy, because prejudices have a strong life. But the powerful computer examines its movements cold bloodlessly, evaluates its reflexes and its tactics, to thwart them at once with a relentless determination, at the same time ice cold and filled with rage. A raucous horn starts when a horde of false ideas suddenly emerges on the conveyor belt, fatty scientific bias sticking with filth, errors of perspective, in such a number that they overflow the system, and fall on the ground with nauseating splotches, running at once towards the weak minds who are their only chance in this hell. But a heavy travelling bridge starts up, from which hangs a several tons shears, which, with an astonishing agility, instantly gets rid off the recalcitrant.

The professor asks everybody to get out, because things become dangerous. He does not refer to the monstrous shears which passes at twenty centimetres of his head, but to the weak minds who could be among his students.

 

 

We all find ourselves on the lawn of the park, by a beautiful afternoon. The Sun allows the perfume of the trees and flowers to express, and there are no other sound than bird chirps and students who recite texts in a close cottage. An immense serenity seems to extend over the whole campus, since the beast is gone. The sky, the birds and even the wind seem to bring a new joy, warmer and palpable, since we know that they no longer hide the implacable dictatorship of any absolute «material reality».

 

At least almost, because several students cry with tears, or remain pale and prostrate. It is true that to understand that all what we believe is only a kind of illusion, a dream, can be very shocking for some persons, who feel they lost any reference, any significance of their existence. This is however not the matter, and it would rather be funny. Personally I experienced this as a fantastic freedom, to understand that an infinity of worlds and existence modes can exist without any more depending on the absolute tyranny or the definitive forbidding of an over powerful «matter». Therefore the professor and some more experienced students get busy to comfort those who feel lost, cherishing a flower tenderly, giving its perfume to breathe, inviting to listen to the birds. As life did not stopped: we can still see, hear, touch... and enjoy it!

Here began a very moving discussion on the meaning of life, which we shall evoke a little further, in the sixth part on society. Because, by losing its absurd absolute existence, the universe gains in significance: this liberation opens fantastic possibilities of life in other worlds. Would not be this which is sighted by the experiencers of NDE or CE3? Is it possible to be definitively happy in other worlds beyond death? At least, we now have a theoretical frame for the rational study of these phenomena, and also for enacting an ethics based on consciousness and its needs. All this will be studied in the fifth, sixth and seventh parts.

 

An angry student grumble at the positivist, whom he calls a fascist and a foul universocentrist, a new inquisitor.

«Nyik Nyik Nyik, without stake, ironizes another.

-But with still the hand over the philosophical expression, the scientific research and the choices of society», a third answers.

As a matter of facts, if materialism definitively lost the philosophical fight, however it remains powerful and dangerous in the political and ideological domain, all the more as it still monopolizes the whole financial, economical and administrative power.

 

The Mongol monk is himself engaged with some others in a long discussion on the Buddhist emptiness, which most accurate and most concise definition was given to him by His Holiness Sakya Trinzin (Note 40): «the non-duality between the fact that things do not have any self-existence and the fact that they appear to us». Our monk explains: «Wise Indian Sages who created Buddhist philosophy, so many centuries ago, arrived exactly at the same conclusion than modern physics: our universe does not have any absolute existence, from itself, inherent, no ultimate cause. It is only appearance, illusion, while appearing real, with the concrete meaning of this word.» Somebody replies: «If the very existence of our universe is due only to a founding contradiction, then it is a formidable cosmic thumbing of nose!»

 

And God? We can not yet conclude on this subject for now, and need to wait for chapter V-6. But if He really exists, then He will surely not let Himself destroy by a simple prejudice chopper, even Tibetan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

General Epistemology        Chapter III-5       

 

 

 

 

 

 

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