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General Epistemology: III metaphysics

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Chapter III-6
The Logical Self-Generation Theory
The existence modes

 

 

(Permalink)(Was chapter 25 in version 1)

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The logical Self-generation theory

(Permalink) In conclusion of the previous chapter, we shall postulate the following points, which will be our assumptions thereafter, and one of the main ideas of this book.

It is to be noted that no postulate can be «demonstrated» in an absolute way, as we would demonstrate a mathematic theorem. However we can choose new postulates which better fit with the known facts. In physics, these new postulates will not change the known results, but we shall see in other domains that they explain much more things than the materialist postulate.

 

1) Matter and all its behaviours are simply the results of logical and mathematical relations, which interplay is enough to create all the complexity of the material world. They do not have more existence than logical play. It is not necessary to suppose that neither the matter, space, nor time are generated by «something» peculiar which we should not yet have found, and without which the existence would remain a mystery.

We note that modern science eliminated the idea of a «God creator» of the universe... only to replace it by a «matter creator»! We concept changed, but we are still in the same paradigm of an over-powerful mysterious cause, which is still not an explanation. Or there is really a deification of matter, at least implicit, and sometimes explicit. In such conditions, it is not astonishing if some religious people assimilate matter with satan!

This new paradigm is important to keep in mind, as, in all the following, we shall implicitly understand things that way, and we shall speak of real facts such as matter or consciousness as BEING logical relations, to the contrary of the previous parts were we clearly distinguished the material reality from the logical reasoning that our minds create to understand it. Now these logical relations are the very basis of the material reality.

 

2) Our material universe does not have any particular existential statute; other universes can exist, in the logical and mathematical meaning of this word, as defined in chapter III-3. These universes can have physical laws similar to ours, or different. The possible living structures populating such universes can have sensory organs similar to ours, or different.

 

3) Any structure similar to the human brain, or at least enjoying the same functions, existing in any universe we can imagine, can support consciousness and the integrity of the consciousness experiences, exactly in the same way that our brain does in our universe. This is true as well within the assumption of material reduction as within the assumption of a soul or immaterial conscious principle which express through this brain.

 

4) Sensory organs, which are structures existing in a given universe, can perfectly produce sensory experiences, in connection with phenomena of this particular universe, just as they do in our own universe. It results from this that a consciousness connected to a given universe through sensory organs located in this universe, experiences a feeling of concrete reality for this universe, and for this one only. We can thus state that any mathematically existing universe (according to the definition given at the end of chapter III-3) exists also concretely for its possible occupants, in the meaning that we say, in our daily experience, that our universe concretely exists (that we have of it a feeling of concrete existence).

 

5) Any observer having sensory organs or scientific instruments, which are structures existing in a given universe, can observe this universe and discover its laws, in the meaning these words have in modern physics. He can also live in and enjoy it, in the meaning these words have in our everyday life. On the other hand, any observer having only sensory organs or scientific instruments existing in his own universe, definitively cannot use them to explore other universes. These other universes then appear «abstract» to him, and he cannot draw any conclusion on their existence, their non-existence, their content or their properties. (At least one of my assertions which is confirmed by experience!)

This constitutes a total refutation of the positivist ideologies and other similarly pessimistic and restrictive doctrines. (And also a good joke: positivists or materialists existing in different universes disavow themselves mutually! Bah, let them manage together this situation. But they would better not yo loose too much time, because we still have several chapters to study)

This notion of concrete existence defined in the previous paragraphs in anyway subjective, in the meaning that the inhabitants of a given universe experience this feeling only for that universe. The error of modern science is to confuse this feeling of concrete existence, relative to only one universe, with an illusory absolute existence of only this «material» universe, of only «matter».

 

6) In mathematical spaces (Sets Theory, space-like structures of sets of numbers, mathematical games of fractal images, note 21...) starting from an initial «seed» that we are free to choose, all the content is then completely logically determined. Things work in a similar way, in a physical universe, for exactly the same logical reasons: starting from a starting point (singularity of the Big-bang) where take place all the arbitrary choices (position of the first particles, free parameters of the physical laws...) the continuation is then completely determined, step per step (within some limits: quantum indetermination, sensitive dependence on the initial conditions, note 52). Now we shall call a logical self-generation process© (note 93 on the use of ©) this way that reality has to self-generate itself, step per step, according to logical laws, to form a series of elements or content, the history of an universe.

«Series» is here to be understood in the mathematical meaning. Iteration series are logical self-generation process. Logical self-generation processes are iteration series.

This logical determinism is at the origin of this feeling about which our physical universe exists in a logical and deterministic way, according to what we call the laws of physics, to which it obeys with a very great accuracy and repeatability. It does not make anything it wants. It does not obey our personal desires. We shall state that it is stable and determined. A material object, once created, continues to exist even if we do not think at it, even if it does not have relations with other objects, as long as no internal or external cause comes to modify or destroy it. Physical objects obey to conservation principles, such as conservation of energy, of speed, of the baryonic number... which origin is the fact that each step of the self-generation process is logically constrained to reproduce the laws and quantities of the previous step. If they did not, then it would not be a self-generation system, and the physical reality would be undetermined. Physical objects are not like dream objects: they do not appear, disappear or change without cause, or following our moods.

This fundamental property of our physical universe is so obvious that nobody had never wondered why it is thus. Neither noticed that we had no explanation of this fact. Here is a possible explanation, and a tested prediction of my theory.

This is how we do metaphysics.

 

7) More generally, we shall compare the concept of physical existence with that of mathematical existence, seen in chapter III-3: simple logical consequence of a succession of relations and logical implications. We shall also assimilate the type of existence which we shall see in chapter III-8 (psychical universes©) with the same concept of mathematical existence. It is quite simply the way in which reality exists, in as general way as possible. We were thinking at logical systems as existing in the meaning defined in chapter III-3, the mathematical existence, while our universe would have been the only one to exist «concretely». We must now think at our universe as a logical system among many others, no more «concrete» no more «existent» that any other.

 

8) If we ask the question: «Does this object exist?» we are compelled to ask of what it is a logical consequence, and thus to go up to the axioms and other founding contradictions which generated it (logical relations, Big-bang or other). If we regard these axioms as true, then the object which is a logical consequence of them exists. But we can demonstrate no axiom in an absolute way, and all the more no founding contradiction. Then we can only say that an object exists only in relation with given axioms and founding choices. This is not only an abstruse mathematical concern: even our material perception, our «scientific observation» is marred with this error, with this subjectivity: the observer being the consequence of the same causes as the universe which contains him, he inevitably checks the existence of it, but only of it. And the fact that we can observe the universe we live in, is even not an evidence of its absolute existence! It is for this reason that we can never speak about absolute existence, but only of existence relatively to such or such logical system or Big Bang. At a pinch, to ask if an universe «concretely exists» is equivalent to ask if a consciousness can perceive it, through appropriate sensory organs. This condition is not required for the mathematical existence.

 

9) The idea of a founding contradiction may look only like an additional stuff, just to correct some logical inconsistencies. But in fact it is really very important: As no axiom can be based in an absolute way, no logical system can start alone, it stills need an initial cause, which cannot be otherwise than mysterious. The founding contradiction, with starting the self-generation process without any external cause, sets a large freedom for many different universes and realities to exist, and we shall see in chapter IV-6 and chapter IV-9 that it even plays a powerful role in physics.

 

(Starting from here numbering is changed relative to Version 1)

 

10) The relative existence is relative to given initial conditions (axioms, Big-bang...) which do not depend on the observer (except if he creates an universe). It is on the other hand false and dishonest to say that the existence is relative to people, moods or opinions. This is alas a mind control method often used in certain cults (which sometimes claim to be New Age), and also in some «debates» about the validity of science.

Let us especially denounce the idea as what the science theories would get leadership or disappear, according to force balance or political urges. Science is not an ideology, but a process of searching for a truth which is independent of our opinions, attachments, interests or ideologies. It just goes forward using a try and mistake process, which makes that some theories are questioned and replaced by other theories, when these other theories show to be closer to the truth.

If this ideal view is true for science at a whole, there however are numerous occasions where science was instrumentalized or falsified, for ideological control purposes, or for justifying criminal activities: Lysenkism, behaviourism, pharmaceutical industry and its numerous «accidents», small doses of radiation which would be harmless, the climate denier nutters, zetetic, etc. These are not «questioning of a sclerotic science», but really deliberate falsifications, which place is in the court, not in the lab.

 

11) It is finally noticed that the existence and the logical implication are strongly connected. We had seen in chapter I-2 and chapter I-7 that a type or another of logic «emanates» from objects which have such or such properties. So, according to the objects at the origin, we shall rather deal with an Aristotelian «universe» (Sets Theory, spaces of numbers...) or with a more complex logic, as with our probabilistic physical laws, which apply to our physical particles. So the differences between the various universes partly come from the self generation law (mathematical or physical law), and partly on the type of logic proper to the objects which form this universe.

 

12) So we now have an extremely general description of the concept of existence, with two main modes: the one of the mathematical spaces and the one of the physical universes. We can however envision a third mode of existence: the psychical universes© (note 93 on the use of ©) and more generally consciousness. We shall discover this third existence mode in chapter III-8, and we shall study it in the fifth part on consciousness. For now we easily guess that such universes are not formed of «matter», but directly of the objects of the consciousness experience: images, sounds, feelings, emotions, thoughts, linked by self generation laws with a type of logic proper to this kind of objects. Dreams are common examples of this third existence mode, and we can see these laws at work in the generation of their scenarios. See chapter V-8.

Perhaps exist other different modes, but it is now rather difficult to imagine what they may be...

 

Added in October 2021: since 1999 that I proposed the Logical Self-Generation Theory, physicists should all know it. In fact, some of them are starting to  independently rediscover  its bases themselves, under my amused gaze, with the «Causal Sets Theory», where space-time is no longer continuous as in Relativity or in Quantum Field Theory, but formed of discontinuous elements, which linking produces the flow of time. We even have the reference to the Sets Theory. However, these are not yet «nibs», but still «something» elementary. We owe this theory to Bruno Bento, from the University of Liverpool. See articles on Science Alert and on Arxiv.

And of course I claim antecedence for 1999. After 20 years there is no ambiguity. Even not the same millennia, lol

Buddhist metaphysics

(Permalink) Buddhism is the only spiritual though stream which developed a metaphysics which is not based on the a priori statement of the existence of such or such object or entity. For this reason, we can speak of it into a science reflection.

 

The axis of the Buddhist doctrine is the notion of emptiness: things do not exist in an absolute way, but in interdependency the ones of the others, according to the cause to effect law (what we call logical implication, or the self generation process). As nothing exists in an absolute way, how do things exist? In a relative way, the Buddhist masters reply. To understand this, we must consider that, as no object can be its own logical cause, thus no object can exist absolutely, by itself, without cause. The objects we can see (physical, mathematical, spiritual...) exist only as the logical consequence of other objects. For these objects to exist, each must be the cause of the other. Thus each exists only relatively to the other, and they are said to have a relative existence, that they are interdependent. All the objects generated in the step also exist only relatively to the firsts.

However Buddhist metaphysics eludes the need for a beginning (divine creation, or Big Bang), with assuming that the universe and Earth exist since an infinite time. The reason is that a beginning would require an absolute cause, that precisely Buddhism rejects. Modern science has however shown that the universe evolves, and that it appeared from an event we call the Big Bang, before which time itself did not existed. The notion of founder paradox, however, solves the problem and reconciles the two views, as it can start something without absolute or pre-existing cause, with a unique and well delimited exception to the cause and effect law. With this adaptation, we can say that Buddhist metaphysic is an antecedent to this book. However in this book we correlate our vision with the vision of modern physics, that we must explain exactly.

 

(It is to be noted that only an intellectual understanding of the Buddhist concept of Emptiness is by far not enough to obtain the spiritual realisation of Emptiness, or Arhat state. This requires years of thorough meditation.)

 

 

General Epistemology: III metaphysics

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