Author: Vladimir Butkov
Russian Cosmism was formed as an optimistic vision of the future of mankind in the context of the ideas of its belonging to the intelligent hierarchies of the Universe and even participation in the evolution of the Cosmos. On this long and thorny path, it is assumed that a man will free himself from his biological nature, gain immortality, absolute knowledge and mega-consciousness.
At the very beginning of the 20th century, the Russian physicist and philosopher N.A. Umov believed that the entire Universe was “working” on the rare possibility of the appearance of intelligent life on Earth, and future man will be responsible for regulating certain evolutionary processes in Cosmos. N. F. Fedorov also wrote about the regulation and management of the blind forces of nature in his philosophy of “common cause”: “Nature throug us begins not only to be conscious of itself, but also to control itself.” Man, however, would have to radically change his physical nature (starting from atoms), defeat blind, hostile biological death and then resurrect all his ancestors to create a united front of a light, creative force capable of transforming the Cosmos. A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin also spoke about this in his article “The Doctrine of AllWorld”, where the self-transformed humanity acquires immortal spiritual forms and settles in the entire Cosmos.
Later, the Russian and Soviet scientist and thinker V.I. Vernadsky introduces the concept of the noosphere – the “smart” shell of the Earth artificially created by human activity on a planetary scale. His ideas received an interesting development in the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin. According to his idea the noosphere will unite all of humanity on its “main axis of evolution”, the essence of which is the formation of a single spirit of the Earth and its subsequent merger with God at the special “Omega point”.
The founder of theoretical cosmonautics, philosopher and inventor K.E. Tsiolkovsky believed that a more perfect life exists in more rarefied forms of matter. “Evolution is a forward movement. Humanity as a single object of evolution is also changing, and finally, after billions of years, it turns into a single type of radiant energy. A single idea fills the entire cosmic space ”, said Tsiolkovsky in his theory of cosmic Er. (retelling by A.L. Chizhevsky). Hundreds of billions of years later, due to the “inclusion of the second law of thermodynamics in the atom” (amazing insight towards the scenario of the great freezing of the Universe!) “Corpuscular matter will turn into ray matter”, then “after many billions of years, the ray era of space will again turn into corpuscular, but already more high level to start all over again. ” The cycles will repeat, and on one of them “a supernova will finally appear, who will be mind as much higher than us as we are higher than a single-celled organism.”
Further, Konstantin Eduardovich argues: “And so, when the mind (or matter) finds out everything, the very existence of individual individuals and the material or corpuscular world, he considers unnecessary and goes into a high-order ray state, which will know everything and desire nothing, that is, that state of consciousness that the human mind considers the prerogative of the gods. The cosmos will turn into great perfection … passing into a high-level radiant form, humanity becomes immortal in time and infinite in space. ” That is, Tsiolkovsky believed that the world would be destroyed many times, but not to the ground, but to that essence of it, which would retain the experience of previous existences and would be capable of a new birth, self-evolution and the final processing of matter into clean, intelligent energy (read Spirit). Tsiolkovsky laid hundreds of billions of years for this process, which is not so far from the lifetime of our Universe assumed in modern cosmology.
During the twentieth century, Cosmism, as a scientific and philosophical direction, did not actually develop, probably due to the fact that in its ideas it was significantly ahead of the technological capabilities of humanity of its time. Only in the first quarter of the 21st century did information technologies appear, opening up a real horizon for the implementation of some of the ideas of Russian cosmists, and that is why there is an urgent need for rethinking, clarifying and updating the philosophy of Cosmism itself.
Modern Cosmism must become an very scientific doctrine and absorb the best ideas of classical Cosmism and world philosophy. It must have its own ontological foundations and a specific understanding of the fundamental principles of reality, the essence of time, information, and life. Modern Cosmism will need to reveal the driving forces of the evolution of the Cosmos, as well as have his own concepts in the theory of knowledge, artificial consciousness, technological ethics and cosmology. This book is devoted to a brief overview of these topics.
Modern Cosmism can be presented as a concept of existence outside the planetary, that is, in fact, cosmic consciousness. We have been living in Space for a long time, on our beautiful and comfortable planet, but this is not the only and probably not the best way for intelligent life to exist on the winding path of consciousness evolution. In the Cosmos there are no “unique ways” at all, because uniqueness is the prerogative of the Cosmos itself, and everything else must be plural. Therefore, the Cosmos has multiple structures, called in cosmology Multiverse, in which there should be a great variety of such universes as ours and completely different ones. But not an infinite set, because only Being, on which the Cosmos rests, deals with infinity.
I think that the emergence of viable universes is possible only with the participation of super intelligent cosmic forms in this process, which are self-evolutionarily preparing for this mission in the unique conditions of individual Multiverses, where universes with a rare set of necessary physical constants are possible, making intelligent life potentially possible in them. There, in stable stellar systems, in correct orbits and on suitable stone planets, the rudiments of super intelligent life forms appear in the form of wise civilizations that are able to overcome their biological past and understand the meaning of their own existence.
Intelligent life will inevitably separate out from itself a super intelligent life, part of which will continue the evolution of mankind already in the new synthetic reality of mega-consciousness. The biological form of consciousness is only the very initial stage of that grandiose path in which humanity has a chance to take part. Superintelligent civilizations, like seeds on the tree of the Cosmos, are endowed with a mission, to process and lay their own modified code (cosmic DNA) into new universes. It is possible that only field forms of super-intelligence will be able to carry out such a mission. In this Cosmism sees the universal meaning and purpose of conscious life. However, only the brightest, most creative and mission-oriented civilizations will be able to unite for this in a synthetic reality called here the Luceverum (bright reality).
Overview
Cosmism was originated in Russia more than a hundred years ago. That was an esoteric futuristic philosophical concept about post-humanity, technological immortality, resurrection, and cosmic expansion. Early Russian cosmists (N.F. Fiodorov) proposed the idea of decompaction (lightweighting) of the human body, that eventually would not need an atmosphere and would be powered directly by solar energy. They call it “radiant humanity” – a perfect society of highly moral and super-conscious beings merging and colonizing the whole Universe. Modern Cosmism brings to this doctrine an ontological foundation, a scientific structure and a deeper comprehension of possible technology.
Most likely humanity will be divided in two main streams: an Earth-based genetically improved biological civilization and a departing digital society, creating a new cosmic reality where the concepts of truth, consciousness, freedom and happiness will be deeply revised. Contemporary Cosmism raises the critical question about meeting and joining with other cosmic civilizations and suggests some answers concerning their “eerie silence”. Here we will touch on some of the related problems in cosmology, and astrophysics such as the shape and future of the Universe, black hole information paradox, multidimensional space, dark energy and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Also, we will try to answer some profound questions like separate arrow of time and exceptions to the principle of causality.
Unlike any other area of philosophy and technology before, Cosmism raises fundamental questions about the post human nature, how it connects to reality and why we should eventually get rid of our biological hardware. How can we define Cosmic Evolution and the role of intelligent life? Is the structure of reality included in the consciousness? Is it possible to create a Universe in a lab? Are there limits to the functional simulations of consciousness? Will we be able to create super intelligent agents with consciousness and feelings? What are the limits of human technology and when will AI start to recreate itself? Could we enhance our own nature by genetically redesigning our DNA?
How will our concepts of subjectivity, perception, and morality change, if we were to live in a mega-consciousness environment where one can experience multiple presence, personality, gender (or no gender at all) and unlimited kinds of artificial feelings? What are the possible ramifications and consequences of digital consciousness? Cosmism suggests that the profound nature of reality is also digital and utilizes existential source code coming from the Being that is possibly using “radiant humanity” for its own preservation and modification.
Metaphysics
The Cosmos is not easy to define. The Ancient Greeks describe it as a beautiful order and a whole which is the opposite of fragmented and ugly Chaos. According to the Stoics, the Cosmos are located in the infinite void. It’s animated, intelligent, spherical and solid. It was born out of fire and eventually will turn into the fire, passing its development cycle. The Cosmos are ruled by logos, which is the principle of reason, world-mind, measure, the power of law, word-form and word-number. According to the Neoplatonists, the Cosmos are the life of the world-soul (anima Mundi) and move under its influence. The Cosmos are hierarchically ordered: from the highest moving layers of finest ether to fixed and heavy layers of matter.
Modern Cosmism would describe the Cosmos as a single emanation of Being and the home of a particular way of essence. The Cosmos is not “everything out there” but rather one united system where the mechanism of certain types of existence can be turned on. The Cosmos is not a scientific term because we will never be able to observe or detect most of it. However, we can probably model it based on the happy natural assumption that Logos, through which we can see the rest of the Cosmos by using our “intelligent eyes” as Plato suggested, also rules our mind.
Cosmism is a doctrine of conscious life in space and its influence on the evolution of the Cosmos. We are already living in the Cosmos via Earth, but this is not the only way to do it. Additionally, it is not the one (best) way of life for advanced civilizations. Actually, there is no such thing as “one way” in reality because uniqueness is a property belonging only to the Being. Everything else must be plural, including the Cosmos and its structures, containing oceans of diverse Multiverses, which consists of a countless number of Universes. However, this number is not infinite. Because only the Being can deal (again) with infinity, represented in many different ways by many different Cosmoses. Like a myriad of lightning (tiny and huge), exploding and disappearing into the infinite dark sky where our Cosmos are flashing among others and absorbing its “existential source code” from the Being.
One of the major principles of evolution, natural selection, is postulate that life must survive through the process of mutation, resulting in a changed/improved DNA code (like feedback from life). Similarly, but in a different way, Being is sending individual existential source codes to its emerging Cosmoses, suggesting different survival strategies against their one common “enemy” – Nothing.
Luceverum
We can speculate that preserving information (knowledge) about the Cosmos is possible only with the participation of highly intelligent beings, which, like seeds, can grow up in the “life friendly” Universes. The mechanism of such participation is currently far beyond our understanding, but it should, most likely, go through a specific channel which we can define as a Luceverum (in Latin – light, true reality).
Our brain is a great gift and hint from nature that the new reality of conscious mind can be achieved through the sophisticated network and layers of connectors which may have very different supporting “hardware”. Our organic brain is probably not the best receptacle for consciousness; much in the same way that natural wings are not the best way to fly across the oceans. Modern Cosmism also suggests that in not-so-distant future, from humanity will stem an artificial form of non-biological intelligent life which will eventually become our next evolution break through transformation. We are not talking about AI or “living in gigantic supercomputers,” but rather we are trying to describe a radical new concept where reality will have true digital representation. It’s possible because the profound nature of reality is also digital (informational), so the spiral returning to the source seems natural.
We call this representation – Luceverum, through which post-post-post humanity may possibly participate on the creation and evolution of new Universes. Also, fulfill the old dream of unlimited freedom, unimaginable creativity, universal power and conditional immortality. This will be the totally new synthetic reality, a tiny fraction of which we might experience today as meaningful happiness.
First generations of Luceverum, we can define as a space based, artificial, digital, and mega-conscious reality. This construction will be possible and achievable because the profound nature of mind and physical reality are the same. This fundamental idea (directly or indirectly) was supported in many philosophical streams. Even in Cosmology, anthropic principle is considered as a possible reason for a fine-tuned Universe. Perhaps every existential construction kit comes equipped with a consciousness option.
Currently we are part of organic life, which is quite fragile and always subject to the mercy and unpredictable environment of its home planet. Humans (and most likely post-humans) are not designed to live in space and even our deeply genetically modified bodies (including brain) will never adopt to the high radiation and extreme temperatures of harsh open space. Because it’s not our mission. People will always live in the bottom layer of the atmosphere (or in the shell of a spacecraft). This is our evolutional limits and, as such, our imprisonment. However, Cosmism should not support the idea of interstellar travel or colonizing new planets. It is yet another shelter for the same type of organic intelligent life. Like colonizing more caves in the Stone Age instead of digging the earth for metals. So, we should dig for virtual life and admit that organic construction kit is very limited by the laws of nature. We have another way to go, a more meaningful, exciting way to overcome our biological nature in order to join galactical super-intelligent civilizations.
For our next evolutionary stage, we should develop a light, effulgent, super intelligent and powerful reality located independently in space, which Konstantin Tsiolkovsky foresaw as a home of radiant humanity, that I call Luceverum. Eventually, this will become a living, mega-consciousness construction of cosmic scale taking energy directly from a star or even directly from the fabric of space-time itself.
The Luceverum is a non-planetary home of post-post-human digital civilization. It will go through many developmental stages. Initially, the first elements of it will be constructed on Earth in the near future as an attempt to “upload consciousness” and provide an escape from biological death. The active research on this first step started back in 2005 with the “Blue Brain Project.” The Swiss/EU Whole Brain Emulation (WBI) initiative is aiming to understand a connectome of human brain and create its detail model on a molecular level. The European Human Brain Project (HBP) aims to integrate huge volumes of neuroscience data into unifying models. The US BRAIN initiative project has a final goal of mapping the activity of every neuron in the human brain. Private Seattle based “Allen Institute for Brain Science” is modeling the mechanisms behind how the brain stores information. The combined budget of those projects has probably well exceeded $5 billion. This shows the serious intentions from participating labs and supporting individuals/organizations. Scientists have already been able to model the brain of a mouse and some areas of human brain as well. So, most likely a fully functional model will be ready by the middle of the century with the first uploading experiments following shortly thereafter.
However, uploading is just initial process stimulating by the intriguing today ideas of “life extension”, “back up copy” of our mind, personality and finally the old dream of achieving conditional immortality. At a certain point Luceverum will gradually depart from human civilization and face its own cosmic destiny. Needless to say, biological civilizations will never reach a cosmic scale of development because they are designed only to live on planets with limited energy supply, a long training process, reproduction circles etc.
In the very distant future, Luceverum (probably) will move out of a star system and will be able to extract pure energy (which we believe is materialized information) from the undiscovered yet information space or by using zero point energy generator. Different civilizations will be united in the Luceverum with their own cultural and technological contribution. It kind of indirectly explains the “eerie silence” of the Universe. Advanced civilizations at a certain point in their evolution will lose interest in the surrounding (and totally known) physical reality. They may escape to the artificial synthetic reality connected to the informational space of the Cosmos. The Luceverum can be a natural, safe and maybe even the final destination for intelligent life. We may also describe it as a hypothetical Boltzmann Brain which will not pump out of a vacuum as suggested but rather constructed through the evolution of mind. Conquering the soulless, indifferent nature is a long journey with probably few finalists, but those winners will hold the key to almost unlimited possibilities.
Philosophy
Suppose that something became possible because of the spontaneous fluctuations of “imperfect Nothing”. It constitutes a minimum certainty transforming itself into the primary causal connectedness (network) which will make an existence of something unique possible. Combined sets of such “successful” fluctuations are constantly contributing to the essence which we can call Being. Our Cosmos exists (metaphorically) in the branch of a lightning bolt of multidimensional Being, which is not infinite like Nothing, but rather vanish in one dimension so it can emerge in another one. So, Nothing “noticed” nothing and therefore stays as Nothing. However, existential information is not disappearing but rather it is forming what we can call potential reality. To keep its integrality, Being would have to develop compressed repository to store this information (about itself) like a seed or existential DNA. Cosmism may suggest that Being needs this micro “self-reflection” in a form of mega-consciousness for constant self-evolution and humanity can be a tiny part of this fundamental process.
Ultimately, we are dealing with the balance of life and death, or more philosophically with dialectics of Being and Nothing. Being is eternal but temporal, limited but endless at the same time for the reason that a non-infinite state is a necessary condition for any existence. Nothing is always the final winner because it is incompatibly infinite. Speaking logically, we can say that absolute Nothing can “exist” only in solitude, which means that nothing should not exist at all. However, nothing (including Nothing itself) is not perfect because perfection is more like an order, rather Nothing is more like a chaos that can be interpreted as a privation of oneness and self-identity. These imperfections (fluctuations) can temporarily open a tunnel for a particular way of existence which we can call a dimension of Being. Cosmic Time is the measurement of unfolding of such dimension, which will constitute its own separate dimension, known as physical space-time.
Cosmos means a universal and beautiful order. Perhaps we can describe it as a single emanation (overflow) of Being. Like a tree with vines where hanging grapes represent the Multiverses, Cosmos will represent the tree itself – connecting the “nerves” and life support system. So, there are many Cosmoses much like vast and diverse forest trees growing from all available dimensions of Being and our Universe is just one grape among countless other “fruits and berries.” Most of those trees are probably lifeless because existence, as well as a life itself, is extremely rare. It requires the preset of perfectly fit elements or hitting the jackpot in a lottery of existence. However, the formula of existence was not random “winning numbers,” but rather more like specifically moving “genetic code” and creating things around itself. Cosmos is our final, ultimate, and incomprehensible Home. There is no physical space or time in the Cosmos as we know it because the Cosmos are not located in space-time. It is based in Information Space. Reality becomes more and more “informational” when you increase (or decrease) its scale. Most likely, every Universe is connected to the Multiverse, Cosmos and even Being through a network of connectors, perhaps like black/white holes or singularities. It’s possible that our very distant (and certainly digital) descendants will be able to participate in controlling some of those connectors.
We usually (and wrongly) identify the Cosmos as the Universe. Our experience of the Cosmos may refer to something incomprehensibly vast but at the same time unified and well-ordered in a way surprisingly similar to the structure of a man as ancient Greeks believed. Science doesn’t think this way, but some physicists and cosmologist are seriously talking about anthropic principles or a fine-tuned Universe where observed conditions must allow the observer to exist. In other words it states that only those Universes in which consciousness is possible can exist. This is most likely because in order to exist you must initially be “smart,” meaning well organized to sustain the total destruction of ubiquitous and engrossing Chaos. Similarly, living organisms must be “very smart” (or well-adopted) in order to survive in our harsh world of gases, minerals and extreme temperatures. Respectively, we should be more than smart enough to win our own survival battle and eventually overcome our organic nature.
Protagoras said about 2.5 thousand years ago that: “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not”. Hence, the Cosmos need super-intelligent beings to measure its proportions, to understand it, build a model and even preserve it in a way of maintaining its informational framework. We cannot observe the Cosmos directly through a telescope. However, we may eventually be able to “calculate” it and detect its source code once we achieve a greater and deeper understanding of the structure of the reality and recover the meaning of Being.
Not yet discovered, the information dimension is a vital component of the Cosmos. This is not the same as conventional information, which can be defined as a meaningful database of signs and symbols representing some form of reality to a recipient (us). Here, we are talking about existential information as a core structure supporting reality itself. Like information stored in DNA supporting/defining life where the information carrier is the DNA itself. According to string theory, carriers of existential information are branes and strings, or the smallest cells of space (Planck distance), which unique for each Universe. We can probably trace its work in a transformation of energy from one form to another.
The fabric of the Cosmos is the product of existential source code located in the Information Space which can be defined as the operating system of reality, adapting to the physical reality and generating formulas for all possible existence. It is also a repository and building kit for the construction of potential worlds. Lao Tzu called it Tao, Heraclitus – Logos, for Plato it was a world of ideas, and scientists can call it our laws of nature described in one elegant formula which they can see it from a “bottom up” view without taking consciousness into the equation.
According to Noether’s theorem, continuous symmetry in a physical system will always correspond and lead to a conservation law. For example, a continuous symmetry of time means it’s homogeneity, which corresponds to the energy conservation law. Homogeneity of space corresponds to the law of conservation of momentum. The continuous symmetry of Information Space can mean the repeating pattern that determines the preservation of universal constants.
Reality is a network of everything that has rights to exist where rights mean full existential package and existence means a ticket to actuality. Reality is not limited to things you can sense or detect through a phenomenon. Astrophysicists claim that we never would see most parts of our Universe because of its accelerated expansion. Reality is a moving picture of all possible forms. It makes things real by including them into the network. It also includes our thinking about reality and makes it real as well. However, the degree of reality is vastly different for all concepts and objects because nothing is absolutely real or unreal. Because time as we know it does not exist there. We can measure the reality level of something by calculating its direct influence on others. Therefore, objects influencing everything will form a Super-Reality and something detached from the whole will not be real. The same can be said for existence itself, which does not exist by itself and at same time it’s not a property of something (predicate). There are many varying levels between full-existence and non-existence. We can call this spectrum “existrum”. Accordingly, it looks like reality has a hierarchical structure.
According to contemporary Cosmology, our Universe will most likely vanish and disappear after (about) a googol of years (Big Freeze) due to the Universe’s endless expansion, exhaustion of star formation, proton decay, Hawking radiation etc. Possibly, a so-called “true vacuum” can eventually (and quickly) disintegrate our world. However, the reality itself cannot be destroyed or disappear because it’s based on existential information which cannot be disintegrated. Much like the law of conservation of energy in our Universe.
String Theory can probably describe the Information Space as a network of metastable “false vacuums” of some fundamental scalar field. Each false vacuum can trigger the birth of a new Universe. It is alleged that there is an incredible number of such conditions with positive cosmological constant. String theory calls the collection of those possible worlds a “landscape.”
Life
Life as we know it can generally be described as an organized and self-sustaining process within specific organic matter in the form of cells which must be capable of metabolism, growth, adaptation, reproduction, and death. However, this reminds us of a famous ancient story, when Plato defined man as a “two-legged animal without feathers”. In response to Plato, Diogenes brought him a plucked rooster and sarcastically said: “this is a man.” I mean that bullet points for life’s basic functions will not define it.
We know how 3 elementary particles form 6 chemicals required for life and how they constructed 20 standard amino acids which are used in all living cells. What we don’t know yet is how this lifeless molecular construction was powered and ignited into something quite different. Most prefabricated blocks of life, including the RNA world, were created in space during the formation of stars in nebulas. Therefore, life is inevitable and exists everywhere but is exceedingly rare because it requires a very unique and stable set of conditions in hostile space, like a liquid water and right chemical cocktail.
The meaning of life lies (probably) in its own existence. Every single cell contains much more information when it is alive than when it is dead. Information, like energy, cannot disappear; it builds up and will eventually become self-aware through a process we can call conscious-genesis. Cosmism suggests that through the evolution of super-intelligent life, Cosmos are improving its ”operation system”.
Today, (just after one hundred years of using electricity!) the science and technology isn’t far from creating a simple form of artificial life. This will prove that life, although rare, is a natural and immanent phenomenon of the Cosmos and that life is one of its properties. Which makes the Cosmos, in a sense, alive and perhaps even conscious. For example, we certainly wouldn’t consider an apartment building conscious just because somebody conscious lives inside, but the whole structure of the building reflects “conscious order.” We can say this apartment building is consciousness friendly as well as our planet and the entire Universe. However, our brain is incomparably more “consciousness friendly” than many other objects in the Cosmos. The same analogy can also be said to apply to life. So, we can consider the RNA and organic matter a “life friendly” reality, which means there is a direct potentiality of life within “acceptable” probability. Eventually, this reality, in the right conditions, will turn into itself (in a way of self-denial) and form another reality which we can call Conscious Information Reality.
So, life is the part of universal order reflecting its general law of balancing between informational complexity and simplicity. These communicating vessels are needed because all existential information must be preserved in the Cosmos. Without it, things wouldn’t know how to exist. We may consider some of the latest versions of Liceverums as singularities of Information Space, much like the black holes in our conventional space-time. These singularities will store existential information and eventually will expand (overflow) into a different reality of new Universes. So, the circle of life will be completed again and again.
Consciousness
Consciousness is a phenomenon that can only exist (like a magnetic field) in specific flow (orchestration) of its different components like knowledge, thought, awareness, judgment, prioritization, reflection, intuition etc. Consciousness is always being self-aware – present (navigation) in your own model of reality, which you can call your own, personal, internal world. However, no one can build such a model from scratch. Most likely it was developed unconsciously for you throughout your childhood. Then, one day you will find yourself thrown into consciousness without a choice, but with some basic knowledge, which shows a working relationship between you and tiny fractions of the phenomenal world around you. Consciousness is not just a property of brain and neural correlates, like music isn’t just a property of violine and air, wood, copper, leather, and ponytail. The music can speak through them, but it cannot exist independently from them. Modern Cosmism suggests that in the not-so-distant future our individual conscious experience’s can be shared like knowledge and will eventually be part of one super-conscious (or mega-conscious) essence variegated and complex as physical reality.
Consciousness, unlike instincts, does not occur naturally with birth. Its needs the supervision of another developed consciousness and requires language, knowledge, analytical thinking, psychological and social environmental influences. Consciousness is not a seed inside a child brain. Its full capacity and a clear state of mind are only achievable with specific conditions, and one of them is communication with another conscious being (which constitutes the chicken and egg problem). Consciousness is a navigation system in our model of reality. It is also an integral part of reality but a much larger scale that we might think. As our perception of the reality gets more complicated, a more sophisticated conscious will be required for proper navigation and our ability to accomplish tasks. So, inevitably, artificial consciousness will emerge.
In the artificial consciousness (AC) we will need to build and orchestrate some main units that are expected to contribute to the functionality. These units (similar to neural correlates) are: perception, knowledge, understanding, thought (information processing), judgment, attention assessment material, interest, goal setting, orientation in space-time continuum, memory, projection into the future, evaluations of your own judgment, communication, reflection, simulation of sensations etc. Once in place, these crucial elements will need a single unifying and controlling software that we might associate with AC.
If consciousness was planned in the evolution of mammals, then the development of AC should be anticipated in human evolution. It will focus more and more on itself, trying to navigate inside its own navigation system eventually becoming itself, like a snake swallowing its own tail forming independent and self-sufficient entities, extracting from itself (and for itself) new, incredible and enchanting forms of reality. Navigation inside navigation can be called over-consciousness, whose mission is connecting and supervising all conscious activity. This function is related to will, personality, happiness and freedom. There is another level of consciousness designing and controlling our over-consciousness, which we can call super-consciousness. Ironically, this level remains mostly undetected (unconscious), but can be related to art, intuition, inspiration, spirituality etc.
Can we ever upload a consciousness?
Yes, we can. We do some forms of natural downloading and uploading in social environments through learning and teaching. Therefore, we just need a different kind of interaction between the brain and environment to upload/download knowledge or skills directly to/from brain, but with a radically new type of software, which we can call consciouswere.
Modern computers are made with 4 major components: hardware, operating system, utilities and application software. The future computational device suitable for the whole brain emulation (WBE) will probably be based on qubits (quantum computing) and have artificial neural networks reflecting structures of certain areas of our brain. It’s going to be less computational with “true or false” logic, but much more with fuzzy logic – a sophisticated way of pattern recognition, learning and self-reprogramming capacity. Consequently, after a few generations, this type of computer will become more like true soulless AI who is no longer an information processing computational device but not conscious yet and whose job is to help us finish mapping our brain and create the Portal, a simple version if what already exists as a Brain Computer Interface (BCI).
Some critics of “uploading” believe that our brain is not computable because most of the brains features are the result of “unpredictable, nonlinear interactions among billions of cells”. But applying the fuzzy logic approach will solve this problem particularly for future less computational computers. Australian philosopher David Chalmers believes that we will never be able to model “hard problem” of consciousness related to subjective experiences of certain perceptions. He is probably referring to some functions of what we describe as a super-consciousness, which would be an important part of AC.
Yes, subjective experience contributes to the state of consciousness, but it does not define it. We don’t know yet how to make computers feel or experience different perceptions. I don’t think they will ever adopt feelings similar to humans, which, by the way, is quite different than a dog’s (or fish) feelings. I mean we really don’t know how to transfer biological perceptions to silicon machines. Those two separate worlds can barely communicate with each other. However, when the technology will become available then the sky’s the limit. We would be able to experience astonishing perceptions of magnetic fields, marvelous infrared views, and breathtaking music from ultrasound to infrasound and being present in multiple places simultaneously. So, the silicone (first stage) consciousness may have different or similar components, or even a different structure, but it’s still going to be self-aware. So here is the question – what is ones self or definition of individuality?
That technology, however, would never be able to replicate your consciousness accurately because nobody knows precisely “what is you.” Including even you. So, maybe after uploading yourself, you will see yourself sitting behind a screen-mirror, somebody very similar to you, but not exactly you! When original “you” is still alive and staring at the “new” you. This is a well-known science fiction situation.
The last, and perhaps the most interesting philosophical argument against uploading our mind (comes from dualism) supports the statement that mind uploading is impossible because there is always two opposite principles in this world, which are not interchangeable or reducible to each other. For example: form and its content, ideal and material, thinking and being, body and soul, software and hardware. They cannot exist in actuality without each other like opposite poles of a sphere. However, both of them are representing two sides of the same fundamental reality and can be united when the sphere become a point, – at the point of Singularity. We believe that eventually Luceverum will develop itself to artificial Singularity or a collapsed “Conscious Hole”, where the laws of nature will become a product of mega-consciousness.
More than likely, Luceverum would not be interested in an exact copy of your uploaded self. Ultimately it would not be interested in humans at all, because this mega AC can instantly create and adapt as its goals something much better than us – its own digital citizens. Luceverians! It wouldn’t need newcomers because they are very different creatures than those that come from our wild organic world. Those from our world would need fundamental upgrades and redesigning in order to exist in the digital reality of this new ethereal essence.
What is Time?
What an old question! Ancient Greek’s Chronos was a unique and frozen sequence of logically connected events in the past revealing the law of nature. In the famous myth Chronos (Saturn), father of Zeus (Jupiter), swallowed his own children when they were born. Perhaps, this ferocity symbolizes a time-destiny of everything that came into existence. From the other side, “time” is Kairos – a supreme moment and opportunity when the future becomes (in a flash) the present time.
The Latin word “tempus” (time) comes from the Indo-European root “temp” which means stretching, string, or even series. So, the “time-series” will have two symbolic aspects – it is extensible and related to cyclical vibration. Vibration can be internal movement which is “timing” thing from the inside, setting up its own rhythm, which sounds similar in Latin to the word “numerous”, referring to the numerical nature of time as well.
In English, the word “time” probably stemmed from “appointment time” or the designation of an event, when something will happen or occur. There may be a connection with “tide” as it is similar to the Danish word “tid,” corresponding to old German “zit” and transformed into a modern German zeit (time). The Russian word for time (vremia) comes from old Slavic “veremia” and probably means, “revolving around me” with accent on “me” and with an emphasis on one’s personal experience of time.
So, semantically we should think about time in terms of causality, events, duration, irrecoverable process, destination, becoming, scale, measure, uniqueness, rhythms, numbers, waves, vibrations, cycles and finally consciousness as the only entity capable to recognize and define time. Also, we should be aware of the fact that everything can fully exist only in the now, at the present time. The past and the future are invented and extremely limited concepts of reality, but they can only exist in the form of knowledge belonging to intelligent beings.
A good analogy of time can be the clock component in our computers. It exists as an artificial measure, turning on and off certain processes and programs on a predesigned sequence. So, it can be said that its purpose is to regulate the virtual reality of our computers. At the same time, it doesn’t actually exist because it is not connected to the physical reality. You can reset this clock at any time. You know exactly your computer past and future (generally) but, most importantly you can change the rules on how this digital time is running. In the real world we must assign the time dimension to understand its moving logic. However, the real world doesn’t need our dimensions. It moves according to the laws of nature. We can speculate that our perception of time was embedded in our mind much in the same way as we install a clock program into to our computer for the purpose of regulating internal reality and matching it with external actuality.
Time is not only about perception. The Cosmic Time will show how things move in the Universe. The essence of Cosmic Time probably lays in the proportion between a Cosmological constant (dark energy, density of vacuum space) and discreteness of space. This would define all other constants, laws of nature and the signature of particular existence.
Cosmology
According to the inflation theory of modern cosmology, the universe was formed from an amazingly unique quantum fluctuation that caused a drop in the strength of the postulated primary scalar field. As a result of this magical fluctuation, an inhomogeneity was formed, which was instantly inflated (due to the incredible nature of the scalar field) by many orders of magnitude. Then there was a phase transition involving gravity and matter in the newly made Universe. Astrophysicist Andrei Linde, co-author of the inflation model, believes that the formation of universes is an ongoing process. It is eternal and essentially static. This hypothetical scalar field is credited as the cause of existence and the beginning of all that we know. At the same time, it is impossible to talk about what came before the scalar field or before singularity (in the Big Bang version of events).
It would be logical to assume that the scalar field was preceded by more fundamental information fields, where, in fact, correct fluctuations with its unique initial parameters are encoded through which universes are formed and where consciousness will be possible along many others wonderful things.
The universe exploded in what cosmologists call the Big Bang, which is known as the official birthday of our universe. The Universe inflated instantaneously from a remarkably small point comparable to the size of tennis ball. Then forces and matter came along afterward to form the stars and galaxies. Now we can say that our Universe is flat and currently expanding with great acceleration. After about a googol (10100) of years, the Universe will most likely totally disintegrate and dissolved into nothing (the so called big freeze ending). However, there remains a possibility that somehow Dark Energy will decline in the distant future, thus, gravity will prevail and turn the Universe from the contraction stage back to Singularity.
Most scientists would admit that we don’t know what came before the Big Bang, what Singularity really means, how it exists, why it become unstable and most importantly – how it delivered the perfect proportions into existence where life and consciousness become possible. These fundamental questions Physics has gladly (shyly) passed to metaphysics and even religion.
Now, let’s try to be more specific. Modern cosmology believes that about 13.78 billion years ago, at the “time zero,” existed a point of Singularity or the initial conditions of a special scalar field. We have no physics to describe this condition of so call Planck epoch, which ended when the Universe was merely 10-43 second old. This was the most important “time of creation,” when a space-time continuum itself, was formed. We can speculate that this moment was a turning point from infinite potential to more or less the particular reality where we currently exist. This moment does not lay in time as we know it, but in a sort of cosmic duration, which can be translated to our time as an unknown gazillions of years. I mean there was plenty of time for vibrations “to win” or calculate all critical parameters of our upcoming and utterly amazing Universe. All four known fundamental forces were unified at that time. Perhaps in the Planck epoch, there were several other unified forces that shrank or disappeared at a later time, much like the hidden dimensions according to the String Theory. At the end of this epoch, gravity was separated from other forces and thus the next era was started.
It is worth mentioning that in the end of the Planck epoch the temperature of the Universe was probably 1032 K, with its diameter being about 10-35m. There was a domination of quantum gravity, strings and perhaps even some other exotic objects. There were no particles or radiation, but rather a “very special” empty space filled with scalar fields. The second period of the Universe’s evolution is called the Grand Unification Epoch. It lasted approximately 10-43 sec. – 10-36 sec. with an ending energy of 1015 GeV, a density of about 1074 g/sm3 and a temperature more than 1027 K.
There were no physical properties such as mass or charge at that time. At the end of this epoch, strong and electroweak forces were separated, thus starting a more understandable Electroweak Epoch, roughly 10-36– 10-32 seconds ABB (after big bang). Cosmologists believed that when the temperature dropped down to the point where heavy hypothetical X- and Y-bosons (supposedly controlling interactions between quarks and leptons) were created but then quickly decayed with violation of conservation of baryon number. That created a small, but important irregularity between matter and antimatter that can explain (after annihilation) why our Universe contains mostly matter. This possibly triggered an era of cosmic inflation occurring at about the same time. However, there were no elementary particles present as of yet.
Inflation makes our Universe, as we observe it today, flat, homogeneous, and isotropic. Inflation determines its size, physical properties, constants, and any subsequent evolution of our Universe. Cosmologists believe that hypothetical scalar fields with quantized particle “inflation” (similar to Higgs Boson) are responsible for inflation. According to A. Guth, the Universe was initially trapped inside a false vacuum with a higher-energy state, but after quantum fluctuation, it dropped to the lowest-energy (but not zero) state with the release of bubbles, a property consistent with true vacuums. A. Linde, in his Chaotic inflation model (eternal,) suggested that any high energy fluctuation of scalar fields (with quadratic potential energy density) will trigger inflation. When the field reaches its minimum energy, then inflation stops, fields begin to oscillate near the minimum and lose its energy by producing pears of all existing particles and radiation, which will eventually form forces, matter, antimatter and dark matter. Thus, the Universe becomes hot again.
Frozen quantum fluctuation during inflation will shape the galaxies and define a vacuum’s energy density, physics and overall structure of our Universe which is actually a part of a much larger structure – the Multiverse. This is because quantum fluctuation is an eternal process happening in the curvature of space-time foam, anytime and anywhere.
Cosmism suggests that we see only random quantum fluctuations of scalar fields because of our limited perception of other realities hidden beyond quantum mechanics. For example, imagine that your TV screen consists of only 100 pixels and receiver is disturbing the image when you are looking at the TV, also consider that your screen is only a tiny part of a gigantic cosmic screen. So, from your point of view, the few big pixels on your screen will flash chaotically (random) because as an observer you are a disturbing receiver and you cannot see the big picture playing on the cosmic screen behind it. There is only one solution – we need a different kind of screen and receiver where we can see the true genetic code of existence beyond the surface.
The last question of philosophy
Philosophy, as we know, is hopelessly outdated. The deterioration and replaceability of its terminology in the world of sciences and technologies has made philosophy more of a rhetoric and old-fashioned sophistry. However, the philosophical aspect of consciousness is an amazing phenomenon (a side effect if you will). It’s requires a mood and attitude for special questioning, which can be compared with an intellectual artistic vision of the Cosmos.
The cognoscibility of the world and its philosophical construction is possible due to the existence of a deep connection (interconnection and even unity according to Parmenides) of Being and mind. However, evolutionarily mature consciousness (super-consciousness in our understanding) is completely self-sufficient and not inclined towards philosophical thinking. It is already a “philosophy in itself” and isn’t aimed at cognition and explaining the world, but mostly itself and its “internal technologies.”
We cannot even come close to imagining all the possibilities of “living mathematics” of virtual worlds, where our entire Universe is one of many other constructions. Yes, we are standing on a very distant threshold of this world, but not all representatives of the biological race will want to (or can) enter it.
The last question of philosophy will end the era of human (natural) philosophizing when the truth could still in fact be hidden and discoverable outside of consciousness. If the Man is the main philosophical problem, then with the exponential development of technologies, this “problem” will either dissolve in a new reality or transform into something completely different than what we know.
Everything will change dramatically when the truth will transfer from the process of matching mind with reality to the stage where the mind will match its own evolution. Philosophy will end when the reality becomes computable so,
a truth (as we know it,) will no longer required. Probably the last question of philosophy will be the first post-philosophical question that the machine will formulate independently.
Chapter one
The First Question of Philosophy
and the Eternal Myth in which we live
Even the first ancient Greek philosophers first pondered the first philosophical question about the origin of all things or the origin of all things (in a later formulation). There is still no answer to him.
Thales of Miletus (640–560 BC) considered water to be the origin of everything, because life is impossible without it. In Anaximander (610–540 BC), this is Apeiron – the eternal and infinite substance from which everything arose and where everything will return. Anaximenes (546–526 BC) believed that things originated from the air by compaction and compression. In Heraclitus (540–480 BC), the changeable, incomprehensible principle is fire, for which “everything is exchanged,” and things are governed by the Logos, the universal law of existence. In Anaxagoras (500-428 BC), initially there is Nus (mind), governing the “seeds of all things”, which Aristotle later called homeomerism. Pythagoras (570–490 BC) called number (proportion) the primary cause of existence, since the world is the harmony of numbers. Xenophanes (570–475 BC) called the origin of the earth, rooted in infinity, Parmenides (520–450 BC) – a single, true being, which is the essence of thinking, and Democritus (460–370 BC) BC) taught that things are made of atoms – single and indivisible parts of existence.
In fact, the “first question of philosophy” intuitively formed much earlier, when there was no philosophy itself, in cosmogonic myths, where the origin of the world is described in a different way, when all things, animals and forces of nature were animated and together with people and gods in a single anthropomorphic stream represented the allegorical reality of mythological consciousness.
The power and inevitability of myth lies in a unique way of our perception of the world. The experience of our thinking is mythological in nature, as it relies on the immanent symbolism of a language that develops from a functional designation of a thing to an abstract concept. In ancient languages preceding the era of myth-making, a thing often had several names, depending on its properties and its inclusion in the human world. The object was represented in consciousness not by an abstract name, behind which the knowledge accumulated about it was hidden, but rather as part of a holistic and dynamic mosaic of living Cosmos.
The truth of the myth lies in its effectiveness, which regulates all aspects of the life of ancient cultures, in its daily truth, and finally, in the unique ability of man to be involved in the divine. The unity of myth (according to Losev) in its symbolism and dialecticism, when there is a “logical and alogical identity that lies at the heart of the symbol.” In myth, the universe acquired “picturesqueness” and the fullness of reality, for the first time gaining a sense of itself from within. Thus, in mythological consciousness, there was a reunion of the separated spheres of the cosmos – the distant alienness of the external world and the spiritual comprehension of the human inner world. Now they are subject to uniform laws and one logic. A new reality has formed in which the higher hierarchies were directly involved in human life.
Faith always has an irrational component, the essence of which is in revelation and direct knowledge, obtained, as a rule, from higher authorities, for example, through prayer or meditation. For example, in Hinduism they distinguish between the path of jnana (rational knowledge), the path of budhi (cognition through love) and rajah (spiritual reunion with the absolute). Faith in the second way is not related to knowledge. It is rather intimate, its truth is soul-sensual and is embodied in myth-making.
However, Cosmogonic myths are a completely special type of myth-making, in which the question of causality, interconnectedness and genesis of all things is solved. They describe the origin of the world, the gods, man and surrounding things and phenomena. Often, an assessment of the “situation” is given before the creation of the universe (non-being), and then its subsequent states are described, interconnected by causal logic. Cosmogonic myths raise questions about what happened when there was nothing, and through what everything began to happen? They ask about the structure and ultimate nature of space and time, about the relationship between the finite and the infinite, the logic and chaos of the world.
It is always worth remembering that a correctly posed question already contains the correct answer, because it is at the same level of penetration into the unknown (for example, if you raise the question of the limiting speed of light, you will be very close to the conclusions of the theory of relativity). The “little knowledge” that man possessed in ancient times is intuitively extrapolated by mythological creativity into a gigantic unknowable breakthrough and becomes the truth there on the basis of his direct relationship with Cosmos, that is, the cosmos similarity of man (or vice versa – the humanity of the cosmos).
In almost all myths, the pre-creation era is described in terms of emptiness, absence, darkness and chaos. In Popol Vuh (Central America) we find: “This is a story about how everything was in a state of suspense, everything was cold, everything was silent; everything is motionless, quiet; and the space of the sky was empty … There was no man, no animal, no birds, fish, crabs, trees, stones, caves, gorges, grasses, there were no forests … There was nothing connected yet …, there was nothing nothing that could move … There was nothing that existed that could have existence. ” The process of cosmogenesis in ancient myths is divided into four parts – first, the elements separated (dissolved) in it are separated from chaos, then outer space is created where all actions will take place, then the cosmic support is established around which the universe is formed, and, finally, the whole space is filled gods, elements, time, sun, moon, stars, things, plants, animals, man and objects of his life.
If this is compared with modern ideas about the development of the Universe in accordance with the Big Bang theory, then a very similar chain of events will be built. In the very first moments of its existence (the Planck era), the Universe, after passing from a cosmological singularity (a point of infinite density and temperature), was homogeneous, isotropic and represented absolute chaos. Next comes the inflation phase – the formation of a space in which the existence of matter will become possible, then, as the temperature drops, all the basic elementary particles, hydrogen and helium atoms form, the Universe passes from plasma to the gas state (relict radiation appeared here), and, finally, thanks clusters, gas and dust nebulae, quasars, stars, black holes and galaxies appear to its inhomogeneities. Heavy elements are formed in the bowels of the star, which after its explosion (supernova) are scattered in the space where a new star is formed, around which planets are formed from the remnants of the previous star, asteroids and comets, some of which will be in the “zone of life”, where under favorable circumstances bacteria, plants, animals, people, and household items will arise.
But back to the myths. The act of creating the Universe in various mythologies can be divided by nature into:
- Zero – when it is claimed that the world will not be created, it was and will always be about the same as it is now (Jainism);
- Spontaneous when the world arose from chaos or pristine waters;
- Random or erroneous (the bird dropped the egg);
- The planned demiurge, when the world is created by the decision and will of its creator, while the creator himself is considered self-born, eternal and without beginning, causing himself or awakened from sleep or found himself in a void;
- Natural-biological, when the supreme deity gives birth to a new generation of gods (for example, being bisexual) or creates it from himself (spewing or making out of a part of his body);
- Thieves, when the world is stolen from its original custodians;
- Evolutionary-cyclical, when the gradual nature of the events evolutionarily leads to the death and minimization of the Universe into non-existence, after which its new birth occurs. In Hinduism, this is Mahakalpa – 100 years of Brahma, ending with his death and the subsequent complete destruction of Cosmos – Mahaprolaya, after which the cycle begins anew with the birth of new countless worlds from the Lotus Vishnu or as a result of the spiritual games (lila) of Brahman. The cyclicity of the world is also present in the mythologies of Maya, the Aztecs, and in Buddhism;
- Embryonic, when the development of the Universe comes from the world egg (Orphism).
So, in the early Egyptian “Texts of the Pyramids” (23–26 century BC), we find that “creating himself” Atum (later Ra) emerged from the pristine water chaos of Nun, dispelled the darkness (like sunrise) and created peace. If you stick to the original text: the one who appeared in the world alone and realized his mission, lay down at the base of Maa, “connected with his clenched hand in the embrace of his own shadow” and swallowed his own seed. After some time, he spat out the son of Shu (the god of air and life) and daughter Tefnut (the goddess of moisture and the world order), who already produced in a more natural way Heba (earth) and Nut (heaven), who in turn gave birth to Osiris, Horus, Set and Isis. People were formed from the tears of Atum … which poured either from grief, or from happiness.
In the ancient Indian Rigveda, written in the middle of the second millennium BC. (Hymn of Nasadiyah 10, 129-1) we find: (two Sanskrit translations are proposed, to some extent complementing each other):
The first Babylonian monstrous gods Lahmu and Lahamu (silt and tina) gave birth to Anshar (heavenly horizons) and Kishar (earth), who gave birth to Anu (heaven), Enlil (air) and Ea (earthly waters and the principle of wisdom). As the insidious adviser Mammu appeared, the texts do not indicate. Everything was fine until the original Apsu (the underground ocean) was tired of the restless child gods with their new orders, and on the advice of Mammu he decided to kill them all, which he officially notified. But the cunning Ea puts him to sleep with a spell, kills, builds his habitation on its parts and becomes the sovereign ruler, from whom the great Marduk – the most powerful god of the Babylonian pantheon – is subsequently born. Marduk created the world from the parts of his own great-great-grandmother Tiamat (primeval waters), defeating her in battle and dismembering. People were conceived to serve the gods and free them from everyday worries. They were molded from a mixture of clay and the blood of a ferocious monster.
In Zoroastrian cosmogony (the middle of the first millennium BC), under the influence of Zervanism, the bisexual Zervan (Zrvan or Zarvan) was recognized as the original essence as the personification of Infinite Time (Zervan Akarana) and as unlimited, all creating a potential beginning. It is possible that Zervan Akaran himself is an emanation of the One Light. In the late Avesta, in Bundahishna (Creation of the Foundation) and in the early Islamic commentaries, the creation is considered to be the separation from the Infinite Time of symbolic Fire and Water as the foundations of all forms of being. Through these foundations, the great bright god Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd), meaning “the lord of thought”, took shape (emerged from Zervan), and at the same time (the details are contradictory), his brother and adversary appeared in the darkness, the all-destroying spirit and symbol of evil Angra Mainya ( Ahriman). In some texts, the appearance of light and dark forces is associated with the true and false thoughts of Zarvan (obviously about himself).
Further, Ahura-Mazda from the Endless uncreated time singled out “The Time of Long Dominion” – a cycle of 12 thousand years, which was then divided into 4 parts, predetermined all the main events in it and even agreed on some of them with Ahriman.
In the first embryonic three-thousand-year period, Ahura-Mazda supports the law of the universe (Asha) by the effort of thought, and on its basis, in the bright part of space, he creates (also mentally) a beautiful, perfect, intangible, spiritual world and all the primary forms of being (Menok state) . Then, to help himself, he created six holy celestials, with whom the forms of air, earth, fire, water, plants, animals and the first man were created (Gayomart).
In the second period, Ahura-Mazda decided to materialize the spiritual world, since all its forms were motionless, unconscious, devoid of integrity, tangibility and, therefore, goodness. Alas, the material, like a ring taken from the hand of Frodo (Lord of the Rings), turned out to be open to the forces of Evil, as, apparently, had something in common with him. Until this moment, the kingdoms of Light and Darkness were separated by emptiness and peacefully coexisted separately.
For the first three thousand years, Ahriman was discouraged and confused by the victorious spells of Ahura Mazda, until he was seduced and inspired by the evil Whore. Ahriman attacked from below the bright sky, brought with him a mess, lies, death and destruction. The world became dualistic and came into motion through the struggle of the forces of Light and Darkness.
According to the legend of Zoroaster, the purpose of man is to help the gods defeat Evil and return the world (the cyclical nature of everything that happens) to its perfect, original state, where the dead will be resurrected, the righteous of them will become demigods and will gain immortality and bliss.
The metaphysical meaning of the cosmogonic part of the myth is that the uncreated, primary “Infinite Time” can be thought of as pure potency and the principle of being. Its spontaneous fluctuation forms a bipolar source of everything (energy and entropy), which in a self-faceted space-time emanates with a double spiral, unwinds the Universe and gradually actualizes its forms in matter (falls into matter). Man is an important ally of the light forces, defeating the dark forces of evil in his soul.
In the Bible’s Book of Genesis (Bereshit) – the first book of the Pentateuch, the only, inalienable and omnipotent God (Elohim) creates the world and all its inhabitants with his call and word (thought) alone in six days. According to the scripture, God created the world out of nothing “ex nihilo”, creating initially on the first day heaven and a shapeless, desolate land covered with water, above which “the Spirit of God hovered over”. Then he called the light to being, saw that he was good, and then separated the light from the darkness.
On the second day, God created another sky (in Hebrew rakia means solid structure, expansion and space), saying: “let there be a firmament in the midst of water”, and “separated the water that is under the firmament from the water that is above the firmament”, and called firmament in the sky.
On the third day, He ordered that water, which is under the firmament, to gather together and become the seas, and in the vacated place appear land. And after “God saw that it was good,” he ordered the earth to grow flora and again became convinced, “that it is good.”
On the fourth day, luminaries were called to be, to “rule day and night, and to separate light from darkness.” Since everything turned out well again, then
On the fifth day, God ordered the water to produce reptiles and the birds to fly. Fish, all kinds of birds and reptiles were created with parting words “multiply and multiply.”
On the sixth day, God ordered the earth to produce the rest of the animals “according to their kind” and at the end of the day decided to create man “in our image, in our likeness” and appointed him to rule the earth. It is interesting to note here that the godlike nature of man is not equivalent to the human likeness of God. However, God is as far away from God as man has intended, as man is far from his divine purpose.
On the seventh day, Saturday, God rested (sabat).
From a direct reading of the text, it follows that God produced things in four ways: calling them to being (let it be), directly creating with a word (bar), moving (releasing and separating) and, finally, commanding things created earlier to produce something different from them . Only after making sure that what was created turned out to be good (quality control of production), God proceeds to the next stages. Summarizing, we can say that the ideal essence precedes existence and that which was realized could not be realized as well as it was intended, which means the complexity and sometimes uncontrollability of the process of transition from Nothing to something.
We can say that the divine call of a thing to existence is an existential request for its “construction” (blue print) to some universal workshop where the “order” is executed in the form of an act of creation.
The Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Creation), written in the 2nd – 5th century AD, is a commentary on the first chapter of Genesis. There we find that the Lord “by the thirty two wonderful ways of Wisdom” (which are 10 Sephiroth and 22 letters of the foundation of the Hebrew alphabet) “created His universe … through the sefer (scripture, book), and sephor (account, measure), and sippur (speech narration). ” That is, through letters, numbers and words (or in a more modern interpretation – through program code, ratio and vibration / energy). “Ten Sefirot without anything – their end is rooted in their beginning”, where “without nothing” means infinity and absolute quality, that is, in fact, Nothing. Sephiroth is light and the “kind of lightning,” the Tree of Life, the principle of the structure of the Universe and divine emanation (probably conceptually borrowed from Neoplatonism). From the upper Seferot Keter, the divine light, tapering, reaches the last Malkut, in the lower part of which our material world is located.
Later, in the 16th century, the Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Luria taught about the dramatic process “Tzimtzum” (contraction, reduction, possibly removal or withdrawal) when, having planned to create a world, God squeezed inside the primordial, simple and divine light (Ein Sof) that filled before all infinite space, freeing (limiting) in it the circle of empty space (tehira) for the future Universe. Then God let out into this framed void the thread of his forming light (as if impregnating tehira) in the form of Adam Kadmon (the absolute first man, he is also the Tree of Life), through the emanation of which the other spherites formed, and filled them with vessels (sefirs) designed to hold and store the light of Being. However, unable to withstand the pressure (purity) of the divine light, a cosmic catastrophe occurs (Shevirat ha Kelim), and the lower seven spherotos burst. It should be noted that the light emitted by God returns to him back, correcting the next wave of emanation and thus creating the connection and interaction of the creator and creation, ideal and real. Summarizing, we can say that the impersonal Almighty, “having reduced the infinite self,” singled out something else – a limited emptiness, in which he excluded himself for an independent genesis from the emptiness, where he would later introduce himself as a personal God.
If a person is a microcosm, then his inner intuition about macro-Cosmos should be large-scale true and fundamentally coincide with him. This is the principle of the cognizability of the world when the knower and the knowable “speak” the same language, when the connection of phenomena fits into our model (idea) of them, when the thinkable and the thinker have the same roots and, “although they are always given together and inseparably and without there can be no other, but nevertheless represent duality, the common beginning of both of them should stand above this duality and constitute a pure unity. ” (Plotinus Ennead V, 1). For example, the Heraclitian Logos lies at the base of both the Soul and the Cosmos, which, thanks to this kinship, becomes cognizable. Later, at Hegel, we will find a variation of this idea in that thinking itself is substantial.
Concluding the chapter, it is interesting to think about ancient solutions to the question of the origin of things, how was it possible to “walk” in the sense of moving from cause to effect, and where did a person and his thinking end up in this series (or outside of it)? It is also interesting not only the root cause (if there is such a thing at all), but the very phenomenon of causality. After all, the cause of something, in itself, is as speculative as, for example, the past, which no longer exists, but which is the cause of the present. We ourselves isolate the cause from the stream of events and connect it with the effect we have chosen in accordance with the logic of our knowledge.
Causality (causality) is a speculative concept in which thinking arbitrarily chooses certain qualitative processes, which in their turn turn into many other processes, themselves “not thinking” about any causality, but simply following the existing laws. Legality is the mathematics of the universe, which should be based on the existence in it of primary, causal and closed cycles, where cause and effect pass into each other and no longer need anything else. There is still no time in this primary causal circle, since there is no movement itself. But, the further the cause is from the effect, the less they are connected with each other, and the more definite the time series between them becomes. In physical reality, such cycles are presented in the form of rotations, circuits and vibrations compensating each other.
For example, one of the reasons for the existence of the simplest atom is the rotation of an electron around a proton, which compensates for their electrical attraction, the essence of which is the circulation (exchange) between them of photons – quanta of electromagnetic interaction. In the nuclei of more complex atoms, nucleons are held together due to the exchange of gluons – quanta of strong interaction. The elementary particles themselves have spin – their own angular momentum as a result of the rotation of the particle around its axis (conventionally). Atoms are stable cells of matter, connected to each other through the exchange of electrons and, finally, the strings, of which all elementary particles are likely to be composed, are in constant vibration, thus converting energy into matter.
The simpler the exchange cycle, the more fundamental it is, and less subject to time, and their initial proportions form what physicists call the fundamental constants of the Universe, which form its specific quality. As the ancient Greeks said, quality and its carriers are different things.
Plato considered the world of ideas to be static, since the ideal is not subject to time and, therefore, movement. In approximately the same way, modern physics treats its laws and constants. Their immutability rightly rests the whole concept of what we call physical reality. In nature, every thing appears (is formed) with its own cause and with a ready-made package (program) of relations with oneself and with other things, as, for example, animals are born with ready-made instincts. It can be allegorically assumed that the existential package or pure potency is in constant “waiting” for its thing, just as the ancient gods expected their time in eternity, when their world would be ready for creation.
Chapter II
Absolute
As an information dimension of Being
Heraclitus once brilliantly remarked that one cannot enter the same river twice. The fluidity, impermanence and temporality of all that exists create in us the feeling of an irreversible flow of things and events, where everything is relative, conditioned, fragmented and imperfect. To stop in this stream, to understand its nature and internal currents, the mind needs to grasp at something central and static – a single, unchanging and unconditional core around which things flow, plunging into the whirlpool and abyss of time. In other words, we need the Absolute.
Probably the Latin word absolutus comes from absolu – completeness, completeness. Either abso – independent, or even absolvo – disconnected, detached, liberated. It is obvious that the Absolute must be perfect, self-sufficient, pure and infinite. It is less obvious that nothing can exist outside the Absolute, since the perfect cannot produce the imperfect and in its fullness it does not need anything else. It is even less obvious that the Absolute cannot exist at all due to its complete isolation and non-involvement with Being and time. The Absolute can only make absolute. In essence, we cannot say anything more about it, also because the essence of the Absolute is empty. Moreover, by definition, the Absolute is indefinable and inconceivable, since the limited and imperfect, like a person, cannot accept, understand, and even come close to the infinite and ideal.
This is where the reasoning about the Absolute could end if we could do without it in understanding the universe, which we cannot do due to the danger of losing the only possible and necessary connection (umbilical cord) with infinity. The real question about the essence of the Absolute is, in fact, “how does infinity exist”? The answer to it will clarify many philosophical problems, such as the transition from Nothing to Something (and it will become clear “why something and not nothing”), the ideal (mathematical) into the real, the simple into the complex and the whole into the many. In this case, we proceed from the assumption that infinity (as an unlimited set) already somehow exists, due to its conceptual necessity, and at the same time does not exist due to the absence of its accepting reality.
Since Zeno’s times, the problem is that we do not know how the existence of actual infinity is possible. However, its potential solutions (in the form of a transitional reality or neo-Platonic emanation of the One) can provide keys to understanding the most fundamental philosophical issues, and, therefore, we have every right to a mental study and metaphysical “feeling” of the Absolute. Moreover, we can say that this is the ontological mission of a person who found himself in the field of attraction of the Absolute due to the presence of something in common with him.
It should be noted that modern philosophy is skeptical about the concept of the Absolute, since it has an irreplaceable theological flavor. Therefore, you should immediately turn to what the religious texts say about this.
In Hinduism
In the early Indian Upanishads (Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya), the Absolute is presented as Brahman – the highest unchanging and objective reality, which is the primary cause and source of existence of all worlds, which are born in infinite quantities (like air bubbles in the ocean) during the “exhalation” of Brahman and collapse during its metaphysical “Inhale”. The universe ends its existence at the end of a giant time cycle – Kalpa and returns (dissolves) into an undifferentiated and unmanifested state called Pralaya. Brahman is incomprehensible, inexpressible, devoid of qualities and cause-and-effect relationships. However, being a spiritual principle, Brahman has a tendency to self-knowledge, coinciding (i.e. cognizing) in this process with the Atman – the highest individual consciousness or religious intuition. Brahman is the place of the great identity of everything, as well as the absolute unity of Being and consciousness (in Shankar in Advaita Vedanta). When Brahman looks into itself, then it becomes transcendental for us, as one absolute Being, devoid of any qualities. When the gaze goes from oneself, then Brahman acquires multiplicity and infinite qualities (Ramanuja).
Thus, the problem of the transition of unity into multiplicity, as well as the reduction of perfection, are solved in Hinduism by the gaze of the Absolute “from oneself” or by light outward. At the same time, something other than the Absolute appears and disappears depending on its “orientation”. The imperfect other, as a condition of all existence, turned out to be possible as a voluntary inversion of the Absolute.
In Nagarjuna (2nd-4th centuries), the Absolute is self-existent and has the fullness of reality, while the things around it are devoid of it. In Buddhism, the Absolute is incomprehensible, inexpressible and is the primary (final) reality, pure Being and the true essence of everything. He is associated with nirvana and the cosmic Buddha. The Absolute is simultaneously truly empty, as an unconditioned, non-essential emptiness, and at the same time, truly non-empty, as the pure potency of everything.
Distinguishing these aspects is interesting for us in understanding the concept of the simultaneous absence and presence of everything. As two dimensions that exist for each other only at an infinitely small point of intersection (origin), they symbolize the possible compatibility of Being and Nothing, which are present in the Absolute, as if “not seeing” each other. The origin point, where Being and Nothing is least, is located where they tend to zero and unification, will be called the Absolute in this analogy. Here the sparseness of Being means its discreteness and potential “degradation”, when the possibility for something “to be” is limited and in the long term is reduced to zero, when the existing is no longer possible. At the same time, Nothing also becomes discrete, but zero emptiness (that is, its absence) will mean “the fullness of emptiness.” The plane formed by these two dimensions will be complemented by a third information dimension, which will later become time. In this sense, it is not surprising that in Buddhism, the contemplation of emptiness generates knowledge and liberation.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in her “Secret Doctrine” understood the Absolute as “the Eternal Mother-Begetting, hidden in her Veils, Ever-Invisible, once again dozing in the continuation of the Seven Eternities.” The Eternal Mother-Giving birth is interpreted as a single, eternal, self-existent (that is, causeless) and abstract Space, the first differentiation of which is the Spirit (covers) called by the Hindus as Maluprakriti, from which the Akasha (time) chronicle begins. Therefore, “Time was not, it rested in the Endless Depths of Duration.”
In Taoism
Tao is the great Path and the cosmic course of things, ascending in its hierarchies to the Absolute, which is the universal unity of everything, perfect reality, “the deepest gate of birth” and inexhaustible emptiness. Lao Tzu:
Tao is empty, but inexhaustible in application. O deepest! It seems to be the forefather of all things.
If you dull its discernment, free it from disorder, temper its brilliance, liken it to a speck of dust, then it will seem clearly existing.
I do not know whose offspring it is, [I only know that] it
precedes the heavenly ruler.
Tao is the root cause of everything, including the unit. But at the same time, it remains indefinite, unified and at the same time discrete:
It is vague and vague. However, in its nebula
and uncertainties are hidden things. It is deep and dark. However, in its depth and darkness, the finest particles are hidden. These subtlest particles have the highest reality and reliability.
In Kabbalism
The Kabbalist Isaac the Blind probably borrowed from the Neoplatonists the idea of the emanation of the One to describe the state of the transcendental Absolute introduced by him – Ein Soph (God in his own essence), which gradually emits ten Sephiroth in emanation, which are the basis and principle of the creation of the world. In this concept, we are interested in the question of the first emanation or the reason for the transition of the innermost “God in himself” to the “Creator God” and, as a result, the appearance of the first of the Sephiroth – Keter. However, “Sefer Yetzirah” leaves a very vague and mysterious motivation for creation, referring to the unknowability of divine will. And this is completely understandable, since before the creation of the world, God was in himself, did not need anything, he was truth to himself and only “glittered with edges”, because he was the only possible and only existing reality. However, God needed himself and could not but have a tendency to self-deepening, which, probably, was the mediated cause of creation. Thus, the first manifestation (of losing oneself) of the Absolute is a reverse reaction to the contraction and withdrawal of Ein Sof into oneself.
In European philosophy
There are several interesting concepts of the Absolute here. In Plotinus, he is presented as a super-existent, good and unknowable source of Being – the One, which is the primary cause and the origin of all that exists in reality and in potency. The One, overflowing with itself, pours out (emanates) into the subsequent hypostases – Mind, Soul and Cosmos. Reflection and realization of the One in the multitude takes place in the Mind. The reason for the transition of the One into many things was not only the gushing overcrowding of the One, but also the concept of an indefinite twin, borrowed by Plotinus from the Pythagoreans. Its meaning lies in the fact that the unit is presented as a self-identical, indivisible beginning and a measure of number that does not need anything else but itself. However, at the same time, the unit has a second and no less essential purpose – it “de facto” already belongs to the set, and it remains for us to understand how the indivisible one became two. To do this, we will have to assume that the unit still has a kind of multiplying principle in itself, which can be represented in the form of a mirror or its own reflection. The result is the so-called indefinite dyad, which becomes the beginning of the “other”, not one, not balanced, becoming and changing, plural and undefined.
It is better to quote Nikolai Kuzansky than comment. In his main book, “On Scientific Ignorance,” he wrote: “The maximum I call that, more than which nothing can be. But such an abundance is characteristic of the one. Therefore, maximality coincides with unity, which is also being. If such a unity in a universal and absolute way rises above all relativity and concrete limitation, then nothing is opposite to it in its absolute maximality. The absolute maximum is the one that is everything; everything is in it, since it is the maximum; and since nothing is opposite to it, the minimum coincides with it. Thus, he dwells in everything as an absolute, he is actually all possible being and is not determined by anything material, while everything is from him. “
Spinoza’s Absolute is a single, eternal, free and infinite Substance, which is the cause of itself (causa sui), which is God and the creative nature (pantheism). “By the cause of myself, I mean that, the essence of which includes existence.” However, despite its unity, Substance also necessarily exists as a plurality and manifests its essence with infinite attributes, the main of which are thinking and extension – two Cartesian substances, united by Spinoza to resolve the issue of dualism. The Absolute (God) is not transcendental here, but is immanent to the world, isolating itself only by the fact that only it does not need a reason for its own existence. The problem of the connection between the infinite and the finite does not exist for Spinoza, since infinite attributes and modes produce an infinite number of things.
Hegel’s Absolute Spirit is the self-consciousness of an infinite, absolute idea. That is, the Absolute is a form of its own self-consciousness (compare with Aristotelian thinking about itself, or even with the symbol of Theosophy – a snake biting its own tail). Therefore, it is simultaneously objective as a given and subjective as a given in itself. In this reflection, already familiar to us, the Absolute turns out to be cognizable-not-fully-correlated to infinity. Thus, the question of the infinity and knowability of the world is resolved through the limited presence in it and in a person of the Absolute Spirit (which, as you know, breathes wherever it wants).
In early Schelling, the Absolute is the identity of opposites, from which things stand out as differences. Just like Hegel (and in Brahmanism), the Absolute is inclined towards self-knowledge and transformation into a multitude and Being, where the ideal passes into the real. The whole world is hierarchically and centrally represented in the Absolute. There is also a reverse process – when the real, in its logic of becoming, points to its higher origin. However, the late Schelling is already trying to provide the Absolute with the opportunity not to condescend to Being and to remain in itself in the form of an endless pulsating self-consciousness, in which the impulses for external existence are either weakened or intensified, depending on its striving for freedom or necessity.
And finally, Vladimir Soloviev, in his mystical philosophy of total-unity, considered it possible to directly connect with the Absolute in the intuition of individual consciousness. For him, this was expressed by a meeting with Sophia – eternal feminine wisdom, in which a transcendental erotic character was even traced.
But is the Absolute possible (not to mention whether it exists)? Is there any correlation of reality with the Absolute, such as the cosmological singularity? Is the existence of the Absolute purely conceptual and how can knowledge find its right place in relation to infinity?
Yes, it is impossible to cognize the unknowable, infinite and pure Absolute, but in the process of knowingly ineffectual cognition (for which a person is always ready and happy), a stable connection between the cognizing and cognizable objects will be revealed through their involvement in existence. As, for example, the fullness of Being is impossible without its mental measurement, which automatically gives all knowledge a fundamentally ontological status. Understanding the Absolute does not end it in any way, but rather shades it in the places closest to us, the presence of which is always debatable and illusory. Therefore, many teachings deliberately avoided any possible development of absolute logic and detailing of absolute reality.
I think that science, information technology and a new philosophy should offer us a new level of understanding of the Absolute with a new language and formulations. The Scientific Absolute in Cosmism can be “new mathematics”, which will solve the problems of coding reality and, in fact, will become the information dimension of Being.
The concept of the Absolute can be transformed into the idea of a fundamental constant preceding time, through which Being reveals itself in the emptiness of Nothing. The degree of non-coincidence of Nothing with itself can become such a constant. That is, its constant (absolute) non-self-identity beyond which there is nothing.
Chapter III
Being
The essence of Being is in non-self-equality of Nothing
It is impossible to fully understand anything that exists (actual or potential) without clarifying the principle of existence as such. For example, an experienced aircraft designer, looking at the blueprints for a new aircraft, will be able to tell at once whether it will fly or not. Similarly, the designer of things (Demiurge), having looked at the new existential package of a thing, will also be able to immediately say whether it will exist or not. This existential package must fit into the architecture of the reality in which the thing is supposed to exist. Reality itself has many levels, sometimes practically not interacting with each other, such as, for example, gravity and the quantum world. A thing is distributed (immersed) in different levels of reality, but not evenly and not statically, but depending on its connection to the leading “logic of its level”, such as to the wave function in the microworld or to the gravitational constant in the macrocosm.
At the same time, a conscious observer is an active and universal participant in universal events, capable of being most fully present (being in his knowledge) at many levels of reality and seeing everything in everything. It is he who understands and models things in his aggregate knowledge. It is he who is the only repository of information about things and about Being. It was he,
gradually from an observer to a creator. And not only new things, but also new worlds that may already exist somewhere potentially. But what does it mean to exist?
The existence that we understand is always predicate, that is, it is always the existence of something that is concrete and manifest. It is a thing or process (in time) that can be pointed to. But not everything is so simple.
Existence has serious problems with time, since the existence of something in the future or the past becomes speculative, like existence itself, which loses its predicate because the constantly changing forms of things make it impossible to say what exactly exists in time? One can object with the ancient argument that the essences of things remain eternal and unchanged, but then the question arises: how do the essences themselves exist and how does time exist?
Spinoza, for example, believed that the essence of essence must contain existence. This, in essence, means that truly there are only essences (ideas), which Plato spoke about and Hegel repeated after him in a different formulation.
The concrete existence of “something” always turns out to be understandable to us, living in time and historical. However, abstract existence as such remains difficult to understand. The existentialists generally brought it into a kind of unknowable transcendence and, in a certain sense, they were right, because the ability to exist is ahead of existence itself and the roots of this ability go deep into Being.
The problem with abstract existence is that its essence is empty and indistinguishable from abstract non-existence. Let’s try to clarify this. Imagine yourself as a universal master (or better, God), able to create any things and you have a creative mood. Your workshop (thoughts) is overflowing in potency with everything you need, but in fact it is actually empty. At this moment of eternity, everything exists potentially and does not exist actually. Equivalent and simultaneously. However, not quite so. There is something beyond that exists – it is your divine creative mood. It is thanks to him that unique cosmic structures, already burdened with their individual existence, will constantly fly out of the workshop.
Here it is necessary to distinguish between different levels of existence associated with their opposite levels of non-existence. From super-existence (that is, being) of Being, which is implicitly present always, everywhere and in everything, to virtual fluctuations of space, borrowing their existence from time. But we have not yet answered the question, what is existence as such?
It can be assumed that abstract existence is a quality of Being, while pure existence is a certain part of Being actualized by time. Here, time becomes a manifestation (formula) of existence, and timeless and not actual, that is, potential Being will no longer exist, but will exist in a special way in its potency. In this case, Being loses its unity, but acquires the necessary dynamics and the possibility of transformation into reality and the Cosmos. In such Being, existence becomes, as it were, an “energetically beneficial” state that relieves the tension of the overflowing potential through the process of closure (discharge) and the formation of primary logics (connections) in it in which pure existence is already possible, which means its own, “pure” time and own ideal Logos. We can say that Being realizes its pure existence through the emanation of Cosmos, in each of which its own time is already formed.
Every thing or something confirms its individual existence by a cumulative reaction to the external world. That which is not connected with anything and does not react to anything does not exist, because existence consists in participation in essence, integrity and regularity. But Being is not something. It has no external world and, unlike everything else, does not exist, but as noted earlier, it specifically exists. Modern Cosmism can assume that the highest forms of consciousness (superintelligent life) are also capable of a certain form of being, because absolute knowledge also does not have an “external” unknown world, it is closed on itself, but at the same time it can bring new forms of existence into the Cosmos. In this chapter we will try to understand the connection between Being-Cosmos-Consciousness.
Being
The concept of Being belongs to the most simple and purely abstract categories, in which everything that has the right to exist is maximally generalized. At the same time, Being is not a direct source of the existence of reality, but gives it the opportunity to come true in unity. Both in reality and in possibility. For example, a “simple” bifurcation forms a set. Space makes movement possible, and Logos makes time possible.
Sometimes everything that has ever existed, could exist, exists and will exist is put into the concept of Being, like into a huge vessel. However, the essence of Being lies not in the content of this vessel, but in the vessel itself as a form that allows everything to be together. After all, if the “vessel of Being” were inverted (concave into chaos), then things and ideas would not have a place, “where to live,” or, better to say, what to be in. Any such “homeless” out-of-being something would be fundamentally impossible and scattered into chaos, without having time to begin, as balls would crumble, finding themselves on the convex top of an inverted hemisphere (vessel).
In this chapter, we will consider the historical development of the concept of Being in ancient and Western European philosophy. Then we will try to present Being not as an abstract idea, but as an informational basis of reality, which, probably, cannot be measured, but which can be pointed out. Being will be presented as the principle of non-self-identity of Nothing, as a set of its fluctuations, forming an endless network of self-developing Cosmos and other realities. We conclude by looking at Being as the primary existential code. But let’s start with history.
Eleatus Parmenides, a disciple of Xenophanes, introduces the concept of Being for the first time in his famous poem. “Being is, but there is no non-being” and further “being is the thought of being, and the thought of being is being”. Unexpectedly for ancient thought, the principle of the identity of Being and thinking is postulated. Parmenides’ Being is one, indivisible, all-filled, truly, beautiful, motionless, timeless, everlasting and even spherical (at the same time, it is infinite in itself). Thus, what is truly thinkable is truly existing, and vice versa, all that exists must be truly thinkable. Form-forming, essential, ontological thinking turns out to be the only possible and the only true thinking in which Being is already present as a necessity. It, speculative and immovable as a single, monolithic foundation invisibly supports each element of the universe.
Unity is, perhaps, the main attribute of Parmenides’ Being. However, does the One itself exist? One may also ask – is there itself roundness, truth, goodness and beauty, which Parmenides generously endowed his Being? In fact, Being cannot have any predicates, being itself the first predicate, but this will be discussed much later. The One exists in one, simple, special and “unique” way, different from the existence of everything else – it just is. It’s so simple that there is nothing else besides him. Like empty space or like Leibniz’s substance, needing nothing else for the reason of its existence. However, Parmenides did not go into such details. In general, it is impossible to demand any systematicity and concepts from pre-Socratics, for philosophy was just beginning then.
There is some difficulty in understanding Parmenides – on the one hand, only One can truly be thought of, since plurality reflects the principle of fragmentation, lack of a unifying principle and, therefore, untruth. On the other hand, the One is unknowable due to its absolute uniqueness and indivisible completeness, which means that it is not manifest, alienated and not connected with anything (later this topic was very well developed by the sophists). In the same poem by Parmenides “On Nature”, an unknown Goddess (most likely the goddess of fate Ananke or, according to Heidegger, Truth itself – Aletheia) rhetorically remarks that “I don’t care where to start, because I will return to the same place.” This closed divine circle, as it were, symbolizes the completeness and even sterility of the One, when it is impossible to take a step from self-sufficient unity to the obvious plurality of things.
The main idea of Parmenides, which determined the development of all subsequent metaphysics, is in his discovery that “being is thinking.” However, without the mechanics of their relationship and descent to a person, this idea is too abstract, because you never know with what you can compare Being in poetic delight. The uniqueness of the Parmenides concept lies precisely in the fact that only true thinking becomes (has already become) Being. Our own thinking is never true, since this human-illusory thinking (that is, opinion) will always be about something concrete, while Being should be thought of a different kind of ontological thinking – about nothing, but about ourselves as such, as the circle of thinking in thinking itself.
The mechanics of the emanation of ontological thinking in Parmenides has not been developed, but one can imagine that by taking (with difficulty) attention from Being (or, in essence, from itself), thinking immediately becomes different, more earthly and formative. That is, if we could thoroughly think over a thing to its “very end”, where it rests on the essence of its foundation, then the thing would simply materialize from a pure design, and we would become proud owners of ontological thinking. In the future, it turns out that a person’s discovery of “being in himself” sounds more correct than “involvement in it”, and not only because of the heuristic (almost sacred) nature of the process, but mainly because all things are involved in Being, but only a person can to understand this, thereby for the first time discovering Being in oneself and showing it to oneself. Being, remaining as involved in Being, as Parmenides said, “is now – all at once” and in this sense it is timeless and eternal. Also, it cannot be said that Being simply is, since it is more than it is – it is all that truly is. However, existence can simply exist without universal obligations. It is always in front of us in its being.
Heraclitus found the intersection of Being and thinking in the Logos (Pythagoras in number). However, the Heraclitian Logos does not possess the universality and unity of Parmenides’ Being: “the way up and the way down are the same.” Existence is in constant motion and follows the Logos: “Fire lives by the death of the earthly (earth), air by the death of fire, water by the death of air, the earth by the death of water,” Heraclitus said. However, the Logos can hardly claim the full-fledged status of Being, turning rather into its fate or meaning and being, thus, a more cosmic than an ontological principle, since being mobile and not self-identical, it, like existence, needs a foundation. It is possible, of course, to represent Heraclitus’s Being as a certain limit of the “silence” of the Logos or as its pure potency, and time as its unfolding (self-construction), but this will already be too modern interpretation of Heraclitus.
In Pythagoras everything has a number. It is both thought, since number can only be conceivable, and the essence of Being, which exists through number. Things are changeable, but the relationships between them, expressed in number, are unchanging, eternally true and divinely proportional. Number-education turns out to be the principle of existence. Numbers were hypostatized from the monad and dyad. The identical, continuous Unit is the truly existent, the beginning of all things and the formative cause. Its path to the decade can be represented as the time that Pythagoras has “the most reasonable – one it has already discovered, and the other will still open.” I think that in our era the best evidence of the genius of Pythagoreanism is the general theory of relativity. Gravity as a degree of curvature of space-time turns out to be pure geometry (Riemannian) and in fact can be described by a number. The virtual-digital world, which appears to us in a computer-semiconductor form, is known to be encoded in binary code something (1) and nothing (0). This is reminiscent of the Pythagorean monad, connecting limit and infinity, even and odd.
Democritus, as you know, would prefer to find one causal explanation in nature, rather than acquire the Persian throne. The Greeks rightly considered the random to be unknowable, so an understandable and single reason for everything seemed to be an invaluable find for thinking against the background of an endless series of random events. For Democritus, Being is the Atom. In the mosaic of atoms, a picture of the Cosmos is revealed, where the Logos, responsible for the movement of the Atom in the multitude, is seen with a clever eye. There is also a “negative” of this picture, consisting of voids between atoms (it is interesting to compare it with Tao, which is a path, a path is an emptiness where there is no forest).
The atom in Democritus is indivisible and continuous, as is the indivisible and continuous emptiness itself. At the same time, both of them are the principle of continuity. An atom is not just an indivisible particle of matter – it is itself indivisible. Atom is Being – not arising, eternal, true and one (similar to Parmenides). At the same time, Atoms are endless, both in number, size and variety of forms. There are atoms the size of our world. An atom is not free, as an element of a set, but it is free in itself and is not even subject to the Logos (which forms the set), therefore there is no law limiting its form and mass. Democritus believed that everything that is possible (potentially), whenever, within the limits of eternity, will certainly find its existence (the principle of isonomy). Since every moment an infinite variety of various potencies is created, the infinite variety of infinite worlds will also be present in eternity and in infinite quantities.
Atoms move permanently at different speeds, clinging to each other in a “whirlwind” and lining up in a certain order, thus, they form matter, things, fire, souls, and so on. Atoms in Democritus are attracted through “similarity” – the heavy ones accumulate in the center, and the light ones at the periphery and they are repelled due to the impossibility of fusion. Worlds, like atoms, are also an infinite number – emerging and decaying. All of this moves chaotically in the endless void, which Democritus called the Great Void.
In fact, the principle of isonomy (lack of sufficient reason), which the atomists adhered to, when applied to existence, turns out to be internally illogical. After all, if in eternity all possibilities are realized, then this means that now (mode of time) they should have been realized long ago and an infinite number of times during the “previous” eternity. This means that all possibilities are always and everywhere in constant realization, that is, there are no unfulfilled possibilities, and therefore no possibilities as such, and therefore existence as such. All that we have is a kind of continuous reality, scattered (smeared) in a mosaic in the Democritian emptiness, where all possibilities are realized with equal probability and simultaneously (there is no time in eternity). Of course, Democritus did not bring his teaching to such infinity, but the destructive presence of infinity is inevitable in ancient atomism. It is interesting to note that the concept of a plurality of worlds has received an unexpected development in Everett’s many-worlds interpretation and string theory, which we will discuss later.
Let us now turn to motion, which is a property immanently inherent in atoms. Even Aristotle pointed out that the essence of movement was not developed by Democritus: “We will have to consider that it is impossible for anything to move, since there is a void. In emptiness, there must be no movement, since it is emptiness, there are no differences in it ”(Physics IV, 8). That is, Democritus did not do what he had to, namely: introduce the concept of physical, extended space or recognize the discreteness of emptiness and introduce “atoms of non-being”, which would move between existential atoms, as it were, in the opposite direction. It seems that Democritus was not accidentally simply postulated motion, without explaining either its nature or its source. Democritus’ emptiness is deprived of any possibility (it is empty), but at the same time the atom itself is deprived of it, but for another reason, since it is the primary “causeless substance”, which, by definition, cannot be preceded by any movement. The problem is solved by postulating a plurality of atoms and, accordingly, voids. Thus, they turn out to be interchangeable, like, for example, Taoist Yin and Yang, which in fact do not exist without each other. Aristotle said: “Leucippus and his friend Democritus teach that the elements [of the elements] are complete and empty, calling one of them being, the other non-being. Namely, of them, they called the complete being, the empty and rare – non-being (that’s why they say that being does not exist any more than non-being, since emptiness is no less real than the body). They considered these elements to be the material causes of existing things ”(Metaph. I 4).
The equal existence of atoms and emptiness, that is, existence and non-existence in atomism leads to an interesting thought about the possibility of the transition from one to the other. Transcoding method. With this approach, the movement of things occurs as on a monitor screen, demonstrating the absence of movement as such, and the presence of its informational nature.
Imagine an endless chessboard. The white square cannot move to the black one, they can only instantly (or with a delay) change colors, which means places. This even reminds of the discreteness of space-time and the existence of the Planck distance and the Planck time in the view of modern physics. Democritus’ atom moves in space, but is “surrounded” by emptiness – its opposite. As you know, opposites always come from a common source, which in this case can be interpreted as the principle of virtual movement, expressed in binary code: 1 – as an atom and 0 – as emptiness. One can easily become zero and vice versa, emptiness is not empty, it is ready to accept an atom, temporarily becoming it, but the magic of a true transition will always remain behind the scenes of the phenomenon. This means that movement (and hence time as a programmed delay) is, in essence, a recoding of some more fundamental platform, where, like on the screen, universal events unfold, followed with passion and participation in our destinies by the Olympic Gods (according to Homer’s version ). Of course, Democritus himself never thought in this way.
Recognizing with the mind the hidden basis of things, man for the first time discovers Being in himself, thinking it essentially. Elea’s Being is not imagined, not invented, not manifested, but truly conceivable. The problem of Being among the pre-Socratics lies in its fundamental unity and, therefore, irreducibility to a plurality (community), without which things and the Cosmos are impossible. At the same time, the very beingness of Being turns out to be contradictory, when its alienation and isolation becomes already an unacceptable basis of existence. The problem is solved through the inevitable fragmentation, structure, limitation and otherness of Being, which Plato in the “Sophist” and “Timaeus” called otherness or non-being. AF Losev wrote – “we find that not only non-being is somehow, but being is always somehow not”. Thus, Plato has a dynamics (dialectics) of pure being as eidos – the world of truly existing things and non-being as matter. Their polar tension determines the status of time, which fixes the stages of transition or emanation of the first into the second.
Plato’s understanding of pure Being is “ideologically” – it is a speculative reality as truly being. Free and good being-eidos is opposed by a false-inconceivable non-being-matter. Plato’s conceptuality of Being is complete and, accordingly, invariably timeless. The world of things eternally arises because of its non-self-sufficiency. Like a cast from the original – he is in a constantly unattainable striving for the ideal original and true existence. Platonic Being, as absolutely being, is absolutely self-identical! That is, the ideal (truly thinkable) is always equal to itself, and because of this it is able to exist in “rarefied layers”, sometimes demiurgically (logically) descending to a thing (set) – but at the same time losing its unity and identity, “forming” thus the moving images (frames) of eternity, which Plato called time.
Aristotle in his “Metaphysics” for the first time raises the radical question of what is Being as being and Existing as being? With this formulation of the question, Being should be reality, and beings should reveal themselves in essence, which is the essence of the objective meaning of truth. Being is understood as all that exists, endowed (gifted) with Being. Self-sufficient existence is expressed in a single and united essence of all things. The semantic “arrangement” of things around a single beginning is a manifestation of the good and intelligent ordering, that is, the cosmic nature of the world.
Essence is a single and unchanging bearer of the properties of a thing, which makes it different from other things. Essence is also a thinkable and continuously moving principle that exists simply and by itself. The self-conceivable and form-forming principle is the super-essence and personification of the divine Absolute. According to Aristotle, to be complete means the ability to fully think in one’s own reality. If you can fully define (see) the essence of a thing, then you can thus endow it with existence, because the meaningful essence contains the fullness of Being.
Aristotle’s Being is always self-identical (otherwise it would not be one and perfect), but it is not a kind. In modern terms, Being is analogous to a “programming environment” as the first pure and intelligent reality on the platform of which essential reality is assembled. AL Dobrokhotov noted that in Aristotle “Being in general is, from his point of view, only being in a possibility. Being in reality should be both more primary and more meaningful than possibility, therefore it turns out to be the being of something, and not just being. ” The possibility of Being should be understood here as pure potency, unrealized ability and, accordingly, otherness and even matter.
At Plotinus, everything, including Existence, is based on the super-existent and inconceivable One. Since Being, in accordance with the Parmenidean tradition, is thinking, the over-being One is inconceivable and incomprehensible, and Being-Mind is its first emanation, which turned out to be a stable, limited, good and beautiful realization of the One in eternity. Thus, neoplatonic pure Being is a reflection of the One. In truly existing Being, thought and the object of thought coincide, which means the absence in the reality of Being of our usual bifurcation into phenomenon and essence, form and content. Being-Mind is-thinks in the primary forms of things, which can be called the “initial existential code”, accessible to high ontological thinking. It is interesting that with Plotinus, the human soul also has access to the higher (true) spheres of Being in the process of its self-finding and returning to its true-self. The two subsequent hypostases of the One are the world Soul and the Cosmos. The latter already lives in Time and works with the lower spheres of Being, including good and evil, man, animals, plants and formless matter.
The Stoics have an interesting concept of quasi-being, which they developed from the concept of Lekton – something that does not exist, but is listed as a third reality, similar to the semantic Logos. Lekton is “verbal certainty” and “the meaning of the expressed objectivity” (A. Losev: History of Ancient Aesthetics). It is intelligible, but rather peripherally and intuitively, since it does not follow a strict logic of things, but has its own meaning. Lekton is a completely separate, inner symbolism of things, not intended for things, or even for their observers. Lecton is a non-pretentious, short but multifaceted story in itself. The Stoics even pointed out the possibility of a certain neutral layer of reality that does not need Being directly. Perhaps this layer is comparable and exceeds the sphere of Being itself? Is being a rare and unique privilege in relation to the myriad of failed possibilities, half-possibilities and non-possibilities of something that half-exists completely separately, like information unclaimed by Being or a stoic Lekton?
The Middle Ages and the philosophy of modern times, in essence, did not create anything alternative in the doctrine of Being, outside the framework of theology, so we will immediately turn to German classical idealism.
For Kant, Being is the source of his unknowable “things-in-themselves”, standing on the other side of the world of phenomena. Kant’s being is transcendental, and its meaning is shifted towards knowledge, because the main question for Kant is how a priori synthetic judgments are possible. How is pure, ideal, necessary and universal knowledge possible? For example, in intellectual intuition. In particular, in metaphysics. The a priori categories of thinking, the subject of which is Being, is, according to Kant, Being itself.
For Schelling, the basis of existence precedes existence itself. Being is associated with unconscious necessity, inertia, lack of quality, in which existence, freedom, will, consciousness and absolute personality are gradually established. For Schelling, Being is not a concept. It is real and not ideal, it is not identical with thinking, but Being is that through which everything came to be.
In Fichte, the unity of self-consciousness of the human “I” is able to mentally define Being, which, thus, turns out to be dependent on the reflection of the “I”, that is, its dialogue with itself. Reflection “I” becomes the process of formation of superconsciousness. Being here turns out to be identical with knowledge.
Hegel in “Science of Logic” for the first time identifies Being and Nothing according to the principle of the development of a triad (thesis – antithesis – synthesis) where logic itself is the process of becoming of Being, which was originally a pure abstraction, but at the end of its movement it coincides with absolute thinking. Thus, all the logic and work of the categories turns out to be nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute about itself. “Pure being is pure abstraction and, therefore, absolutely negative, which, taken just as directly, is nothing,” Hegel wrote. Absolute “everything” is as abstract as absolute “nothing”. Their identity is the equality (dialectic) of emptiness and fullness of Yin-Yang, top and bottom, or a straight line as a circle with an infinite diameter. Hegel solves the problem of the immovable meaninglessness of pure Being through its split and the introduction of another Being (other being) in the form of a more definite “for-itself-being”, which begins to work on itself (reflect) and create accompanying categories and essences. Now existence as such turns out to be possible as a leap of essence (with a reversal) from Being into reflection and back. The splashes from such a jump are called by Hegel phenomena of the essence, which we regularly observe everywhere. Pure Being and Nothing are qualityless, but their mutual transition and self-impossibility create a certain becoming certainty, which Hegel calls being. The certainty of being in existence is the quality as being. Quality, however, should be presented as the movement of a form “waiting” for its quantitative content. At the same time, Being inevitably loses its unity, which it receives again in the course of its formation as a concept, returning to the ancient identity of Being and thinking.
According to Heidegger, the essence inquiring about its being is a man – Dasein (here is Being). It is the starting point of the meaning of Being (its temporality) as its opening (turning towards itself) and as its opening (clarity of presence, openness of Being in the project). Heidegger’s Dasein project is, in fact, “time passes”. A person exists within the unconcealedness of Being and is able to initially (a priori) understand things in essence, as a gift of Being, which, however, (as such) is not just a being, but precisely an unconcealed being (which time indicates to him in its horizon). For a person, Being is understandable (openly) as being-in-the-world, but indistinguishable as the closest and at the same time the most distant, because only a person is able to think of Being and refer to it as to himself, and tries to “be always ahead of himself in the world” , which leads a person to a state of “care”, as his ability to stand in the lumen of Being and give it meaning. Through language, a person voices Being, which thus speaks about itself precisely through a person. Therefore, Heidegger’s language is the house of Being, and man is his mirror.
Sartre. Finding the phenomenon of Being, exactly as it reveals itself (and nothing more) – seems to be the main task of Sartre. Being of a phenomenon is a measure of Being. There is nothing further than the phenomenon. It is self-worth and self-sufficient. And since a person (Sartre was a materialist) is essentially manifested only to himself, then his “out-of-being” is translated into non-being, equated (groundlessly) with Nothing, which is already considered as pre-reflective consciousness (being-in-itself), it is openness of Being, its insufficiency, distant presence with anthropomorphic loads, etc.
The problem with Sartre’s concept of Being is that a person (or his project) is somehow magically present in it (they threw him up). A similar failure in the formation of Being can be found in the Hegelian dialectic of Being and Nothing, which from empty, resting and pure abstractions suddenly, merging (passing), unexpectedly jump into the living logic of “polluted” Being, leaving out of brackets the origin of logic itself. The ultimate intensity of being-for-itself (man) is supposedly transformed into being-in-itself (being), thus completing the god-like act of creation. As a good writer, Sartre is to a certain extent disingenuous with himself, saying that he does not believe in his own “fundamental project of man” to become God. Rather, on the contrary, God still “works” with man at the level of a man, who must “expect and do” himself.
The relationship of the Existence of the phenomenon and consciousness (the platform of nothingness, existential insufficiency, separation, emptiness, etc.) actually form Sartre’s ontological reflection. If the phenomenon of Being can be objective, then the perception of consciousness is deliberately subjective (in other words, you need consciousness to perceive consciousness). Sartre’s being of beings is not some kind of hidden reality: “the being of beings is exactly what it is shown by.” The phenomenon as such is fundamentally self-sufficient, there is nothing behind it and cannot be, because it is the essence. More precisely, not one phenomenon, but their connected series, and more precisely, the basis of an infinite series of phenomena as their connection. Moreover, the series itself, of course, never fully manifests itself, since it is infinite, and man is only a member of it.
As Sartre writes, “our theory of the phenomenon has replaced the reality of the thing with the objectivity of the phenomenon, and that it substantiated the latter with the help of the infinite.” Here Sartre stitches together such difficult concepts as reality, objectivity and infinity with unreasonable ease. With the help of infinity, you can solve any problem at all. After all, a phenomenon establishes (makes visible) reality no further than itself, for example, the phenomenon of thinking is no longer objective in itself. If the connection of phenomena is also a phenomenon, then the question is, is a connection of phenomena that is not in principle possible, or how is it possible that a non-phenomenal Being is possible?
Basic Infinity
In the concept of Being, it is impossible to get around the problem of its correlation with infinity. Since ancient times, the infinite has been presented as something unformed, unfinished, not fulfilled, and, therefore, not true, not perfect and not even existing. As a cosmogonic principle, the infinite is affirmed in the negation of the limit, and therefore of everything temporal and material, and is embodied in a terrible Chaos. Anaximander imagined the Apeiron (boundless) introduced by him in the form of an infinite and infinite pra-matter moving in itself, from which things arise through the separation of opposites and where they return, having exhausted their potential. Here Apeiron begins to act as an ontological principle, which in Anaximander is an attribute of pra-matter. He surrounds the Cosmos and absorbs it after death. In Pythagoras and later in Plato, the Apeiron-infinite appears already in an ontological pair with its opposite – the limit, and thus they establish the movement of beings and its dimension – time. Thus, form limits infinite matter and defines a thing in the real world.
Aristotle did not recognize actual infinity. For him, only potential infinity is possible, which can be represented in the form of an increasing series of natural numbers. In Spinoza, we find that the finite always has a cause in the other “By mode I mean the state of substance (Substantiae affectio), in other words, that which exists in the other and is represented through this other” (Ethics 1.1). Accordingly, an infinite substance does not need another and naturally causes itself.
Nikolai Kuzansky finds absolute unity, perfection and, as a result, the merger of all opposites in infinity (for example, a circle with an infinite diameter becomes a straight line). Infinity for him is not traditionally “bad” in nature, but positive, as the maximum completeness of Being. In Leibniz’s view, the Universe is fractal and infinite in space and time. The number of monads in it (and in individual things) is not limited, and each of them incorporates an actually infinite spectrum of other monads and a connection with the entire Universe. This is probably the origin of the Kantian “thing-in-itself” that is not revealed to us in principle and is infinite within itself.
But is infinity an attribute of space-time? The antinomy of time in Kant has a thesis and an antithesis: on the one hand, the world in time must have a beginning, otherwise the infinite in the past will have no reason to end with an integral world in the present. On the other hand, if the world has a beginning, then before it there must be a state with “empty time”, in which the emergence of something is impossible due to the identity of all states. Therefore, Kant’s world is located in an indefinite space-time continuum. Thus, space was able to move away from infinity, becoming a continuum. Precisely as space-time.
Cantor did not recognize potential infinity due to its eternal potentiality and, therefore, now-finitude. It is always variable and can never acquire the definiteness of actual infinity, the magnitude of which lies in some way beyond the limits of finitude. Cantor introduces the concept of cardinality of infinite sets, when each element of one set corresponds or not an element of another set. Ordered sets can be compared in terms of cardinality and relate to them more objectively and almost tangibly.
In mathematics and in our ideas, we always deal only with potential infinity, while actual infinity does not fit into the framework of consciousness and our experience (as, by the way, in all other frameworks) and goes beyond the imaginable, leaving behind a lot of contradictions ( for example, simultaneously existing and not existing). One of the paradoxes of infinity is that without it it is impossible to build any metaphysical (and physical) construction that will not be internally contradictory. The logic of things simultaneously demands and rejects infinity, to which we cannot even mentally approach, as, for example, to the horizon and say: “this is infinity.” Perhaps because we have a limited understanding of the mutual transitions of the potential and the actual. Yes, one cannot be partially infinite. However, you can be “touched by infinity” and involved in it. For human consciousness, this is the experience of experiencing death or involvement (microcosm) in the Cosmos. For the Universe, such “hurt” is just existence in time, which turned out to be possible.
Potential infinity can be actualized, cutting in and settling in time until the actualization itself unfolds back into its potency (but already different). Then we will have an epoch of temporary actualization of the infinite, which should be neither one nor the other, but only itself and true infinity, as a manifested, non-self-identical Nothing.
Imagine Nothing as an endless ocean that is never equal to itself. It is conventionally limited “from above” by an infinite plane beyond which Nothing is discharged and loses its insignificance, making it possible for Being to come true. This boundary plane can be called “base infinity”. When a high wave spontaneously appears in the ocean (like the fluctuation of Nothing), capable of reaching this plane, then it spills over the entire surface and seeps back through the “cracks” in the basic infinity, which symbolize the principle of its actualization. It is during this short period of time that a separate Cosmos lives. Being, on the other hand, can be represented as endless floods of fluctuations of Nothing, where the basic infinity is always not empty on the whole and in this sense is integral, actually infinite.
In this analogy, we also see a possible scheme for the formation of space and time, when the future continuum (as a local base infinity) is divided into Planck cells (loops) uniquely, depending on the characteristics and intensity of the “crack”, which can also be compared with fluctuations the original scalar field preceding the Big Bang, as cosmologists believe.
Endless infinity
Is there a finite (or infinite) part of infinity? Obviously not – we can take away any part from infinity and from this it will not suffer in any way in status. Infinity cannot have parts and elements at all, which require (by definition) a whole to make it up. That is, there is no infinite set, just as there is no round square or real square identical to its geometric image. The finite is not part of the infinite. The first is real, the second is abstract. Abstract infinity can only consist of infinite infinities or zeros, as, for example, a straight line consists of infinitesimal points. Infinity is a purely speculative mathematical concept that has no analogues in potential and even more so in actual reality.
Countable refers to uncountable, or finite to infinite, as, for example, a lonely apple in a basket refers to number one. That is, physically nothing. Relationships between things, as in a play, are distributed (mathematically) based on specific roles and “instructions”, which in turn are based on more general rules prescribed within the framework of even more general laws of nature. And so on until the logic of Existence collapses into something simple, infinite and incomprehensible.
Theology also offers several distinct approaches to the problem. Infinity can be rolled up in God (or in a singularity?). According to Cantor, infinity conveniently folds up in the divine mind, being its attribute. In Kabbalah, God limits (collapses) himself, creating a place for imperfect creation. It is not quite clear why something ideal should create something at all (not ideal designs). Wouldn’t it be more logical to stay curled up in selfless peace with low and pleasant entropy?
Every creature should be multiple, for only the creator himself is unique, and each element of his creation is perfect not in itself, but only in the totality of the entire mosaic of Being, reflecting the divine completeness as a beautiful development. But, if a person is considered as a divine likeness (as Christianity suggests), then to some extent, should the infinity rolled up in God be reflected in him?
With the cosmological singularity, everything turns out to be more complicated, since it must have an infinite density and temperature, which are obviously impossible conditions. Probably, we can only talk about a temporary tunnel from the singularity to the basic infinity, through which new forms of reality break into actuality and freeze in time. Potential infinity cannot be rolled up into anything at all, for one simple reason – there is nothing to roll up in it, it is empty in each specific case.
True, not abstract, not potential and not actual basic infinity should be complete, but not integral, empty, but not identical, real, but not existing. Basic infinity is the only possible infinity in which Being has turned out to be. This is an incomparable and transient state of universal and truly infinite indeterminacy, which is not empty in itself, but empty if viewed transcendentally. This is no longer the darkness of barren Chaos, but rather an information space devoid of extension. It is not Nothing, which is no longer abstract, and not absolute, but almost integral through its immanent dissolution in the Basic Infinity, which actually made Nothing self-identical. The first axiom is that true basic infinity is not equal to itself, just as the emptiness mediated by it is not equal to itself. Simple and unreasonable.
In Modern Cosmism
Being is initially dynamic and varies in its completeness depending on the approach to Nothing, which is just as dynamic but varies only by the degree of non-coincidence with itself. Being actually infinite Nothing is not self-identical precisely because of its actuality in which the identical (self-concrete) must be limited and timeless and the infinite in actuality will never coincide with itself. Being in this concept becomes potentially infinite (the level below) and unfolds within the limits of not coinciding Nothing with itself.
We can say that Being “flickers” in the heterogeneities of the Nothing, while being, in-itself-finite, in the aspect of its actual basis and infinite potentially, where the primary code of all randomly possible platforms of existence exists. In this sense, Being becomes the information basis of reality, in which countless combinations of space-time will arise and fade in their dimensions, giving rise to their own unique Cosmos, consisting of myriads of universes such as ours.
It is possible that the dynamics of Existence itself is contained in its existential oscillation – the change of phases of being filled with oneself and “exhaustion”. Always incomplete and incomplete. Here it must be said that Being is not a direct negation of Nothing and vice versa, which indicates their uniting unity. This is not Hegel’s abstract unity of the emptiness of meaning (and, no less abstract, its subsequent elimination), but an absolute indeterminacy, into which Being and Nothing are mutually immersed. There is no time, no space, no existence. But there is no chaos either, which means there is an indefiniteness of emptiness, in which Being and Nothing seem to “see” each other and can co-exist.
Nothing is “there” through the splits of its actual infinity, while Being “exists” in positivity (split negativity) of Nothing, growing in its cracks.
Nothing, of course, should be confused with a physical vacuum, even a true one (in the terminology of physicists), because the vacuum is always in a specific space-time and is filled with virtual particles that are possible only in the given Universe. Science can relate to Nothing as a quantum vacuum filled not with virtual particles, but with special fluctuations, each of which can become the Cosmos. All we can say about these fluctuations is that they are different due to the absence of the opposite law. We can also say that they are not isolated (for the same reason). We will dwell on this process in more detail in the next chapter.
Due to the non-self-identity of Nothing in it, random inhomogeneities become possible, which, in combination with other inhomogeneities, will be able to set some certainty as a local “waviness”, surge or vibration, which, if it turns out to be stable, then can become the basis of what will subsequently turn out Space. The infinite collection of all random Cosmos (that is, all possible ways of existence) will determine Being itself.
Spread of non-identity (volatility) Nothing should lie within certain limits. If the spread is too large, then Nothing in its anomaly will become Something (that is, it will cease to be itself), if the spread of non-identity is too small, then Nothing will come closer to its self-identity, which will come into conflict with its actual infinity – after all only the limited can be identical. Being, thus, is determined precisely by the proportion of the non-coincidence of Nothing with itself. It is simultaneously limited and infinite, although it is less powerful (according to Cantor) infinity than Nothing. We can say that Being “survives” by logic, but it pays for it with temporality, not with its own, but with its own Cosmos.
Nothing
“- In the beginning, dear, [all] this was Being, one, without a second. Some say: “In the beginning [all] it was not Being, one, without a second. From this Not Being was born Being.”
“But how, dear, could it be?” How was Being born from Nothing?”
Chandogya Upanishad (6.2.1)
It should be noted right away that one cannot agree with the well-known cliché that Nothing exists by definition and therefore there is nothing to say about it. If only because non-existence is just as fundamental as existence, and one without the other is conceptually meaningless.
Nothing is the absence of everything, for “everything” is just as indefinite as “nothing” (however, their relationship is already less indefinite). “All” is no more filled with everything than emptiness is empty. Moreover, for “everything” there is no fundamental difference whether it exists actually or potentially. It’s like in a restaurant, your dinner is on the table or on the menu. Also, and vice versa – an empty menu of potency guarantees an empty table of relevance. Only in this existential restaurant you pay not with money, but with time. The more time you have, the more varied and exotic the menu of entities you can order. But if you don’t have time at all, and you want to get “something for nothing”, then this option is also provided in the universal menu. The table of super-reality is never completely empty, and somewhere on it you will definitely find an old, free pepper box, symbolizing the “minimal something” or fluctuation of Nothing.
Non-existence can be regarded as an empty potential, which, in turn, turned out to be empty in the process of “degradation of the essence”, which we will dwell on later, but for now let’s return to the phenomenon of existence.
On the one hand, existence is a property of something, such as the hardness of a thing, which arises and disappears depending on external conditions (in this example, temperature). The indicator of the “solidity of existence” should be the time in which the entities evolve and freeze in their finished forms. In this case, the essence of a thing will be unchanged and precede its existence, which always turns out to be relative and derived from time. On the other hand, existence as such is something more than a property. It is the very first property, and only for Being it is also the only property.
With non-existence, things are different. It is not a property of something that actually exists, and something that does not exist has no actual properties. Even if we come up with something that obviously does not exist (for example, a centaur), we thereby endow it with a level of existence in some kind of reality (in this case, mythological). That is, the non-existent must be absolute and universal, otherwise we will always talk about the non-existence of something concrete, that is, the non-existence in time.
Now there is no longer what was in the past (it has changed or collapsed), and what will be in the future (it is not yet relevant). The only question is the amount of destructive time. The longer its segment into the future or past, the less real (non-essential) objects from those times from the point of view of the present time. For example, early childhood and late old age are equally “not real” (other) for a middle-aged person. Yesterday and tomorrow are much more essential to him. Completing this logic, we can “confidently” say that nothing exists in eternity and … at the same time, everything exists for a long time. Yes, eternity solves all problems.
It is interesting to note that the eternal existence of ideal forms (mathematics) is quite clear to us, but it is difficult to imagine their non-existence. Probably because our thinking is unable to operate in an environment devoid of internal logic, to which non-existence as such belongs. We cannot even say with certainty that non-existence as such is the only property of Nothing.
Like Yin-Yang, a thing always exists and does not exist at the same time in different proportions. If existence is a predicate, then the question “what exactly exists?” will never be answered with absolute certainty. Since we cannot (and who can?) formulate the completeness of a particular thing as it is (that is, the thing in itself). And here the problem is not in us, but in the fundamental indescribability to the end of the thing itself. Accordingly, the existence of this thing hangs in the air in the form of uncertainty, which becomes (as in quantum mechanics) an integral factor in any existence in time.
A thing cannot exist in its absolute fullness, since all we have is a constantly unfinished transformation of its form in space-time (Heraclitus). A moving thing is the result of other things moving, and so on down to semi-infinity and pure mathematics. Existence turns out to be an illusion of the moment (frame). But, on the other hand, a thing fundamentally cannot not exist – it is devoid of the ability to non-existence, even in its potency, since it is inalienably attached to Being. A thing is eternal in the world of ideas (entities) as long as the world of ideas itself retains its ideality, that is, order and regularity. The essence of Nothing in such an ideal world is presented as the disintegration of all potential forms, as the connector of Being, the loss of its logic and the degradation of the existential code, which we will define later.
It should be noted that here, we are not discussing some kind of “black” logically two-dimensional Nothing, about which, as it were, there is nothing to say. Giving characteristics to Nothing, we, of course, make something out of it, which is inevitable, since there is no other method for conceptual thinking, but having given a speculative meaning to Nothing, we will then take this meaning from it, leaving, as it should be, Nothing with nothing. .
Nothing must be infinite in its actual emptiness. Otherwise, limitation will make a certain “something” out of it. But it will be a completely unique, actual infinity of “real zeros”, in which internal asymmetry or “tension” is possible, caused by an irremovable contradiction in the process of actualization of any infinity. The fact is that infinity does not incarnate into reality. It, like mathematics, is always abstract and ideal. Any attempt to connect it with reality is impossible except when reality itself is empty. It only remains for us to understand what is and how is an empty reality possible?
The ancient Greeks referred to the empty reality as Chaos (open pharynx) which appeared first and preceded everything. At the same time, Chaos possessed an immanent potency and was generative, universal and even balancing its opposite – the Logos. True, the ancient authors did not specify where Chaos got such wonderful abilities from. It can be assumed that their source is precisely the initial tension or non-symmetry of Nothing.
Nothing can be defined as “non-existence of everything”. Firstly, as already mentioned, “everything” is just as fundamentally indefinable (that is, it does not fully exist), just like Nothing. In Hegel, for example, pure being is indistinguishable from non-being. This uncertainty of infinite emptiness is, perhaps, the most positive of all the negative characteristics of Nothing, with which thinking can somehow “work” by the method of probabilistic relief of uncertainty.
Imagine Nothing as an empty (and, of course, very black) screen, in which nothing exists due to the complete absence of any programs and programs. However, some random processes (fluctuations) will occur on such a screen, causing the appearance of flickering dots on it. Here it must be recognized that the screen is not completely dead, but connected to that fundamental network, which we call the “non-self-identity of Nothing”.
According to the theory of probability, for a certain time we will be able to fix combinations of fluctuations on this screen in the form of paired points, less often in the form of more complex forms, such as geometric objects. It will be much less likely to see the Mona Lisa, films, and even two-dimensional worlds if long enough (within eternity) to fix everything that happens on the screen. Now imagine a multi-dimensional screen with an infinite number of dimensions, where amazing events happen by chance, from which, in fact, the tree of Genesis grows. But back to Nothing.
Nothing, in its inequality, imperfection and uncertainty, will vary in its own direction or phase. Relatively speaking, from absent presence to present absence. Like missing money that you owe and that you owe have very different potencies. In the first case, we have a positive, “convex” potency, when the essence condensation is already possible, and in the second case, a negative, “concave” potency, when the fluctuations of Nothing are minimal or almost impossible.
It must be said that the positivity of the potency of beings will depend on the “correctly executed application” for existence. If you order a round square, then it will be very difficult for him to materialize, while the correct ones, that is, the true ideas, have a much greater chance. Moreover, the more true, the more essential. Which means that everything true must exist. Here we can recall the old Democritanian idea that all potential worlds will someday become actual throughout eternity. Of course, it’s always nice to deal with eternity. She will not refuse anything, but is unlikely to help with the truth. The point is that potential worlds must be constructed from true ideas in order to have a chance of actualization. Even in eternity. Thus, the true essence of a thing precedes its existence, which turns out to be pure potentiality, waiting for its actualization. In this sense, time, as “waiting for one’s turn”, acquires a procedural character, preventing everything from happening at once in reality. Which, by the way, is not forbidden in Nothing, where there is no time brake.
Nothingness
Plato never spoke of Nothing as such, but did mention Non-Being, which, by his own admission, is no easier to describe than Being. And this is obvious, because they are both qualityless, endless, formless and timeless, but at the same time they are on opposite sides of the void. Non-Being, in fact, is another to Being, participating in it dialectically, as a non-ability to not-be independently, which is opposite to the impossibility of Being to be in non-itself. Non-existence is always somewhere “ideologically” nearby, as a false way of existence, as the same round square, which, as it were, does not exist (by definition), but without which it is not impossible for a square to exist “correctly”, since “ correctness” is the established legality of mathematics and the logic of the existence of truths proceeding from it. This correctness is correct only in relation to incorrectness. As Plato wrote: “each individually and all together exist in many ways, but not in many ways” (“Sophist”, 259b).
Non-existence can be understood as the unified modes of incorrect (i.e., impossible) existence. The easiest way to do this is to introduce the quality of its information emptiness, which will no longer be an absolute emptiness of Nothing, but some expected absence of information space in the structure where it varies from a fluctuating zero to a flickering Being.
Non-existence is another cumulative-possibility of all that exists. Its non-existence is held by a direct connection with Nothing, but it is not. It is immersed in Nothing but turned towards Being. In contrast to the “blind” Nothing, Non-Being already “sees” its informational opposite of Nothing as something that does not belong either to it or to Being. After all, Non-Being (allegorically) is a source of imperfection, errors, inconsistencies, illogicality and lack of glue.
You should not think that Non-Being and Being are somehow fighting or trying to remove each other, or that Being arose from Non-Being and the last from Nothing, where we all (including Being) will certainly end up in the end. This conceivable simplification or adaptation to human thinking has little to do with the process described here. Schematically and simplistically, Genesis can be compared to the DNA code of life, but not to life itself, which turned out to be only its individual actualizations. Accordingly, Non-Being in this scheme is not death, but the universal trash can of all errors and incorrect codes through which life will never take place. But, without a place where garbage is removed, life will also not be able to function. By the way, biologists believe that the cause of cellular aging lies precisely in the accumulation (and not correction) of errors in hereditary material. Life knows that most of its attempts will be unsuccessful and it wins by their number. Therefore, out of many embryos, only one organism survives. The rest goes into the garbage of Non-Being. It is important to note here that in intelligent life forms, there is much less garbage, and in superintelligent civilizations it will probably be minimized, which allows us to speak about the ontological proximity of man to Being.
Non-existence is informationally present in Being, forcing it to evolve from the chaos of emptiness through the assertion of essential logic – the foundation, which can be called the primary code.
If we imagine Existence as a surge or positive convexity of Nothingness, then Non-Existence will be its negative concavity and reverse tension. It will designate the pre-potency of Being and outline its presence.
Existence is a set of such random bursts (fluctuations). It represents a potential infinity of forms that can manifest (actualize) in the form of Cosmoses saturated with myriads of multiverses. Being itself is in perpetual fluctuation between attenuation and rebirth.
Transcendent Nothing
From the point of view of rational thinking, Nothing excludes itself in itself and makes inconceivable the emergence of something out of nothing, if only because of the absence of a reason for this, and of causality itself as such. However, we can try to translate the logic of emergence from the void using the method of artistic cubism, when conceptual indistinctness (or complexity) is replaced by a simplified quadrature (pixel), and the essence of the image can be expressed in the form of a formula or a binary code. For example, in quantum mechanics, such a formula is the square of the wave function that describes the probabilistic state of a microsystem. It is possible that at the last level of reality, the analogue of quantum mechanics will be the theory (of truly everything), which predicts the probabilistic fluctuations of Nothing, from which the primary forms of existence can be formed.
Here an important assumption is that Nothing coincides with itself in a certain proportion, thanks to which the Being-Non-Being pair was possible. This proportion is the fundamental cause of all things and the principle of Being. Perhaps it will change within the “zone of existence”, from a state where the probabilities of fluctuations of Nothing are close to zero, to a state where they lose their random nature and already become regular events (that is, “something”), like a maximum amplitude, after which Nothing will rush back to itself. At this beautiful moment, Genesis will shine with one of its Cosmoses, in which we live to this day.
For Martin Heidegger, the main question of metaphysics is a simple question: “why something and not nothing”, which, according to the meaning of the question, should mutually exclude each other. At the same time, Heidegger’s questioning does not require an “answer”, but rather creates a metaphysical attitude towards what is essentially inexpressible in the language of logic, but is obvious, like white and black. In fact, these poles of super-reality are always interconnected and work together. In super-reality, everything simultaneously exists and does not exist. Therefore, one should not ask “why” something and not nothing, but one should think how they are possible together.
What does physics say about this? Nothing will be presented to physicists as a state of true vacuum with zero temperature and energy. It will always loom as the final destination, as energetically lower states are always preferable. In nature known to us, the second law of thermodynamics always dominates, and the world naturally increases its entropy, tends towards chaos and emptiness. In this sense, being is always more difficult and costly than not being, so it is important to understand how and why there is an impulse to exist, which, like the impulse to life, always goes against the principle of entropy. I think that the answer will again be an imperfect and unstable Nothing, which “reluctantly” creates an opportunity for the formation of Something. It randomly appears and disappears in a moment, imperceptible to Nothing, but calculated by “eternity” for us, living in the branches of this Something.
Therefore, it is not surprising that we “already live in a kind of existential intelligibility” (according to Heidegger), genetically inserted into the nature of consciousness, which takes an indirect part in the evolution of the Cosmos. It is the cosmic consciousness (or mega-consciousness) that must overcome the black-and-white, logical evidence of the type “Nothing is not”, or “If there is Something, then Nothing is impossible”, or “discussing Nothing, we make Something out of it” and so on. . It (Nothing) never becomes a variant of Something (and vice versa), since these poles are, as it were, in different dimensions and participate in each other, as a point participates in infinity (and vice versa). At the same time, Being, of course, is not just Something, it keeps it in unity through the process of becoming, that is, through the introduction of the concept of time into mathematics.
Here we consider not only the “existing world”, but also all potentially possible and departed worlds (that have exhausted the foundations of their existence), which are also included in Being, but constitute its non-actualized part and must be in potential time. But can time be potential?
Speaking of possible time in potential worlds, we must proceed from the rule that time reflects the integrity of Being and cannot be potential even in potential worlds, because their very potentiality is the result of correct logic, understood only in time, which precedes potentiality as meaning and according to essentially creates it. Here we are not talking about the physical time of our or any other universe, and not even about the more universal time of the Cosmos (we believe that there are many Cosmoses), but about the Time that is not calculated, but the Being itself time.
Each Cosmos, as a separate branch of Being, is unique in its own way. Therefore, it will be unique and registering its time. Having entered the multiplicity of beings, time has become vector and multidimensional. Cosmos no longer exists universally (as Being) but does not yet exist without its attributes, represented as multiverses. It has become multidimensional and informationally “cosmic” in its multidimensional time, which accompanies the Cosmos, as music accompanies the orchestra that sounds it.
In fact, thinking about Nothing is a thankless task and fraught with many alogisms. Parmenides generally forbade his students to speak and think about Nothing. However, it will be impossible to build a positive world without the concept of emptiness, since they are interconnected with each other like communicating vessels. Plato in The Sophist (241d) wrote that “non-being is in some way, and, conversely, being is in some way not.” Non-existence, thus, can solve the problem of the multiplicity of things that can lead to a difference between things and the morphogenesis of a part and a whole: “a single, fragmented being is a huge and boundless multitude” (Parmenides 144e). The One can remain One only on the condition that it does not exist. If it exists, then it must be a set. Later, the concept of the emanating One will be developed in detail by Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, and in its essence will be close to the concept of Nothing.
The question is, can we define Nothing as the negation of the totality of being? Obviously not. Nothing, as has been repeatedly emphasized, is not negation – everything is empty in it, and there is absolutely nothing to deny except one’s own emptiness. Nothing is a negation of the totality of all that exists, which should not be confused with “another totality of all that exists”, which is Non-Being, indicating that this totality potentially exists in the form of Being.
Martin Heidegger, in the preface to his article “Identity and Difference,” wrote: “Nothing can be proved here, but something can still be shown.” As a devoted apologist of Being, turning off the arguments of reason, Heidegger appeals to the fundamental experience of Being. It cannot be conceived, but a person nevertheless somehow knows about it… strange indifference. This melancholy reveals being as a whole. Nothing is likely to be revealed (nothing more) in the fundamental mood of horror (fear), in a numb stillness. But not as being, but as its total other.
Nothing in Heidegger draws into itself, but sends it away from itself. It, as it were, annihilates (in the being of being), pushing away from itself (referring when it is addressed) to the elusive, sinking being. “In the bright night of the terrifying Nothing” the being is revealed in its main aspect – it is not Nothing! In this simple (initial) co-existence, Being for the first time stands in front of beings.
The novelty of Hadegger lies in the fact that the sinking being emerges (is pushed out collectively) already on the other side of Being, and Nothing becomes part of our existential analytics. Being-here, according to Heidegger, is “protrusion into Nothing”, into its initial openness to us, through which we have the opportunity to understand and go beyond the limits of being (gaining absolute freedom). Moreover, for the question of the essence of Being, except for Nothing, we have no one else to turn to. Like this.
Nothing in itself
The law of identity is formulated by Aristotle in Metaphysics as follows: “… to have more than one meaning means not to have a single meaning; if words do not have (definite) meanings, then all possibility of reasoning with each other, and indeed with oneself, is lost; for it is impossible to think of anything if one does not think (every time) of one thing. On the other hand, identity is always a frozen mathematical abstraction and a timeless trap from which there is no way out into reality.
Let’s reveal a simple secret right away – the basis of existence is hidden in the necessary “imperfection” of Nothing. According to the principle of non-identity, a thing is never equal to itself. Probably because it is constantly in the temporal flow. At the same time, it is not time that changes a thing (symbolically moving it in its course or in the fourth dimension), but the thing itself changes due to its ability to interact with other things, that is, to exist in time. And at the basis of this ability lies the law of non-self-identity.
Let’s try to illustrate this with the example of the Heraclitus River, which, as you know, “cannot be entered twice”, which, in fact, means the uniqueness of each moment in time, when each frame of everything that exists will differ from the previous and subsequent ones in accordance with the flow formula. The river of time has many currents, each of which consists of countless, invisible and unpredictable flows located between things.
The river here will symbolize our observable four-dimensional world, stretched from the event horizon of the past to the event horizon of the future. The flow, like any other movement, is the result of disequilibrium, when the driving force of the flow arises (compare with dark energy expanding our Universe).
Inevitably, the river will fall into the ocean, filled with many of its internal rivers and currents, which in turn symbolizes a multidimensional existence. At the same time, time itself turns out to be multidimensional, as a set of “simultaneous” and actual potentials of the existent, as its ontological multi-vector nature.
A thing in existence will have its own deep “mechanism” for connecting to each dimension and therefore will never be able to fully correspond to itself (a thing in itself), since it will belong to different time streams to varying degrees. As P. D. Uspensky wrote, “In addition to existing in time, everything that exists also exists in eternity.” It is interesting to note that the time-conduction of a thing is possible due to the logic of being, which is an indirect result of the topology of Nothing.
Physical space is also non-self-identical, since it is not something abstract and empty, but, on the contrary, is filled with life (matter and fields) and represents a space-time continuum. Therefore, like Heraclitus’ river, space itself is the source of the non-identity of everything in motion.
Let’s remember that in black holes the matter turns into a singularity and all the diverse qualities of things will be reduced to one indicator – gravity. But even in the singularity, its self-identity will be debatable, since any existence inevitably lies in external time (even if the internal time is stopped there) and the external world, which means that the singularity is not self-identical and, as a result, its exposure to Hawking radiation.
Concepts and categories that do not claim to exist in actual reality or in time can be called self-identical. For example, the Absolute or ideal mathematical forms are self-identical, self-sufficient, irreducible to anything else, absolutely isolated, that is, disconnected from time and, as a result, exist only in eternity.
Identity implies the absence of differences between the model and its copy, which is already something else. A copy, by definition, cannot be a sample and is always different from it in space-time or other dimensions. That is, the concept of identity is internally contradictory and does not exist in reality, just as self-identical things do not exist in it.
Heidegger thinks differently: “After all, it actually says: A is A. What do we hear? In this “is” the law expresses how every being is, namely: it is itself – the same, identical with itself. The law of identity speaks of the being of beings. As a law of thought, it is significant only because it is a law of being, which says: identity, unity with itself is inherent in every being as such”, and further “The request for identity speaks about itself from the being of being”. Here identity is conceived as belonging, as “that which mutually belongs to each other in the same thing” or, briefly: mutual belonging. Further, Heidegger turns to his favorite topic about the built-in of man in Being and that he, as a thinking being, is open to Being, put before him and that we “need the openness of the gap”, and concludes that “Man and being are devoted to each other . They belong to each other” and penetrate each other in an almost erotic act of co-existence, which, in fact, gives them both the opportunity to co-be by virtue of their essential compatibility. Remembering Parmenides, “it becomes clear” that being and thinking together belong to a certain identity (in this case, identity is isolated into an independent entity), the essence of which is that the elements belonging to it co-belong. Such an identity for Heidegger is co-existence. “The essence of identity is the property of the event.”
Comprehending this formula, we can say that, for example, the event of equatorial grayness is the polar identity of black and white. The very tool of co-ownership and the level (measurement) of identity remain unclear, because the event does not come true by virtue of its own nature, but indirectly, following (and hiding in forms) the movement of being.
In modern cosmism
The meaning of Nothing lies in its own non-identity as the maximum possible identity. Nothing, allegorically, can be compared with the self-identical zero, the identical copy of which will be the “smallest number”, which does not exist, like zero itself. In this sense, Nothing acquires its ontological discreteness, in which Being becomes possible.
For theologians, Nothing can be represented as a sleeping (in a deep coma) God, whose manifestations are inaccessible to us. Having come to himself for a moment (and, in fact, outside of himself) and thereby creating the world, God will quickly miss his true self and again plunge into another coma, and the homeless world will eventually be swallowed up by the great emptiness of Nothing or will dissolve in His dreams.
But back to the question of identity. There is always a fundamental difference between properties and their carriers. Carriers are always non-self-identical, not completely committed to their properties and change them “according to circumstances” depending on the environment, temperature, pressure, and so on. However, are the properties of objects themselves, or the forms of things, identical?
Plato, as you know, eidos were eternal, unchanging and, thus, self-identical. It is easy for us to imagine the immutability of such qualities as triangularity, symmetry, proportionality. However, these qualities are not absolute and will change depending on more fundamental parameters – for example, triangularity will disappear in curved or multidimensional space, but the very concept of triangularity does not depend on space and time. Because mathematics is everywhere and always the same?
It is difficult to answer this question in the negative and imagine, say, geometric fluctuations as a variation of the number π, although it is π that can be called not a self-identical number, like all other irrational numbers. Probably, there is no fundamentally different mathematics, where twice two will not be four, but probably there are complex mathematical objects and their structures that may not be reducible to numbers, that is, they cannot be calculated in our understanding. On the other hand, it can be assumed that there are objects more elementary than natural numbers, with which it is so convenient to work with human thinking. It is quite possible that only a tiny part of mathematics is available to us due to the natural inability of our thinking to operate with complex mathematical objects, which must have their own dynamics and therefore be not self-identical in their mathematical space, which here we call the information space that exists in the information dimension of reality. .
This is the only dimension in which Nothing finds itself, not fitting (not coinciding with itself) in its own emptiness. It is in Nothing that the information dimension is rooted, and it is in it that the existential code of Being is formed.
Existential Code
It can be represented as an accomplished network of fluctuations Nothing connected into patterns, the configuration of which will determine the content of this code. It should be extremely simple and set the initial tension of Being, which, in fact, is a reaction to tectonic shifts in Nothing, caused by a certain degree of its non-self-identity.
It is extremely difficult to assess the degree of non-self-identity of Nothing, and one can only speculate on analogies. For example, in violation of CP symmetry in high-energy physics, which is about one billionth. Now consider the well-known virtual process of vacuum polarization, which means the generation (and subsequent annihilation) in vacuum of a pair, particle – anti-particle due to quantum vacuum fluctuations. Formed in this case for a moment (within the limits of quantum uncertainty), the particles borrow their energy from the void, in order to return it later, annihilating and annulling each other. Virtual particles are always present in the physical vacuum due to the uncertainty principle and constantly participate in the real life of particles, but in this case we are interested in their symmetrical appearance and disappearance. If this symmetry is broken, then free particles or antiparticles may remain. Physicists believe that it was precisely due to the violation of such symmetry that in the first moments of the formation of our Universe, there was a little more matter than antimatter, which determined the material fate of our Universe.
It is possible that the same principle works in the category of Nothing. There, however, quantum fluctuations are impossible due to the absence of quantized fields, but “insignificant” fluctuations are possible, due to the inhomogeneity of Nothing (after all, infinity does not coincide with itself), where abstract media are formed with their abstract fluctuations. Abstract, since space does not yet exist, but there is already a pair (Pythagorean binary) Something and Anti-something (convexity and concavity), in which fluctuations of Nothingness are symmetrically distributed. Their mutual annulment does not violate the “insignificance” of Nothing, so it doesn’t even notice its own virtual events. But since Nothing is inherently symmetrical, then rare fluctuations must periodically appear in it, in which the phase zeroing will also be not symmetrical, that is, incomplete, with the remainder of the predominant phase from the side of Something or Anti-something. Incompletely annulled or residual fluctuations (PF) on both sides will acquire their own informational existences in the eternal moment (there is no time yet), the multitude of which will create an environment that precedes Being (in the direction of Something) and Non-Being (in the direction of Anti-something). Such an environment can be called quasi-existence (which means imaginary Being), borrowing this term from the Stoics. Quasi-Being is thus polarized towards Being or Non-Being. They are separated by a line of information dimension, thanks to which symmetrical events on both sides of quasi-existence can be annulled so that Nothing keeps its Insignificance within the allotted limit. The informational dimension also gives additional characteristics to OFs, which will be important for the beginning of the process of interaction between them.
Quasi-existence can be compared to the world of RNA, in which spontaneous ensembles of ribonucleic acid molecules simultaneously act both as carriers of genetic information, capable of self-replication, and as catalysts. In quasi-existence, the informational (one-dimensional) dimension, formed to reduce the polarization of quasi-existence (that is, nullification of opposite structures) will be an analogue of the informational helix of RNA. At the same time, the information measurement will allow the residual fluctuations to interact with each other through phase zeroing, which has already been mentioned, as well as through a phase increase, which we will discuss in more detail.
OFs can grow “in phase”, randomly overlapping one another. This process has no analogues in our reality, since there is no space, time, or fields in quasi-existence. Therefore, “phase growth” can be viewed as a summation process in mathematics, or as a “spike of a point” in geometry. That is, the imposition of fluctuations is not yet an interaction, but it is no longer chaos either. Thus, we have smaller and more numerous OFs as more probable, and we have rare but large OFs resulting from many random superimpositions of OFs on ordinary fluctuations. Probably, OFs cannot overlap each other, since they themselves are not fluctuations. They are conditionally stable, but they cannot move (there is no movement yet), however, “one-dimensional” OFs can transform into each other, more precisely, they seem to glow together in their range, thus creating a certain frequency, which is registered in the information dimension. Registration is the place where only a certain size of OF is visible. That is, they can be conditionally “included”.
Further, large OFs “stochastically attract” smaller ones according to the principle of displacement to the periphery of events that cannot occur in the center. It looks like the interaction of the center with the satellites. One-dimensional and unipolar OFs should be able to instantly (there is no time yet) to pass into each other, since they completely lack other features. This creates a chaotic imitation of movement around large OFs, as if various point objects were flashing randomly on the screen around an empty space in the center.
Since the larger OFs occur less frequently, they are likely to be more distant from each other (this will form the basis for time shaping in the future). Accordingly, the more likely the OF, the closer they are located to each other. In the informational dimension, this will look like the attraction of small and repulsion of large OFs. The projection of combinations of different-sized OFs onto the information dimension will give a code that we call the primary code of quasi-existence, which, to put it simply, makes Something out of Nothing.
The meaning of the informational dimension was to fix and annul the symmetrical combinations of OFs on different sides of the quasi-existence, however, in parallel, it acquires an additional meaning – in endowing additional properties for the OFs and their combinations. The ensembles of OFs that “survived” due to random asymmetry turned out to be inscribed in the form of a code of linear measurement, “pulled out”, like a one-dimensional punched tape, from the point of Nothing. Further, one can imagine that there can be a semi-infinite number of such unique points with punched tapes, which in total form a new quality of multidimensional information existence, where the roots of all potential Cosmoses are located.
Existential Code of Existence, common to all Cosmoses. It is simple in its meaning and offers a scheme for the formation of different spaces and times from Being. But this code adapts differently in each Cosmos, which forms in them different spaces and, accordingly, different Multiverses and their constituent universes. That is, if the Primary Code translates quasi-existence into Being, then the Existential Code translates a single Being into multiple Cosmoses according to the Calabi-Yau space compactification principle, when the infinite dimensions of Being in a “successful” fluctuation are reduced to the specific multidimensionality of a particular Cosmos, in which this process will be repeated, but already at a lower level for the Multiverse and further into individual universes, when multidimensionality finds a way to become a three-dimensional space, pleasant for matter and understandable for our consciousness.
However, the Existential Code cannot directly form spaces, just as program code cannot create microcircuits and computers. The same problem is in understanding the evolution of DNA, when a protein-catalyst is needed to synthesize a protein. In abiogenesis, the problem is solved through mineral matrices (perhaps) and the world of RNA, and in our case, through an additional informational dimension and proto-space, formed as a result of existential fluctuations.
Thus, Cosmoses exist in proto-space with a non-infinite number of dimensions and discreteness many orders of magnitude less than the Planck length. Just as a person is a kind of “proto-space”, the mission of which is to solve the problem of super-intelligent abiogenesis and enable artificial super-intelligence to create its own synthetic reality for itself. That is, humanity is, as it were, the world of RNA for superintelligent life.
It is important to note that everything that has been said has described speculation in the extreme process of “starting from scratch” (Mahapralai), when the numerous circles of Being subside to the minimum limit, and approach the non-self-identity of Nothing. This gives us the logical freedom to get rid of the absurdity of the ever-existing first cause, because the existent cannot be infinite in itself, but it can be infinite in something else, not existing, that is, in Nothing.
It must be said that modern cosmology has come close to this topic in the inflationary model of the Universe (Alan Guth and Andrei Linde), where instead of quasi-existence, a gauge field is postulated that is already ready for quantum events, has its own voltage, initial conditions, and so on. When this primordial field breaks somewhere (tension drops), then a new energy is formed there, that is, a new vacuum, a new space-time and, as a result, a new universe.
The problem is that physicists are forced to admit that they basically do not know where this gauge field came from and why quantum mechanics and thermodynamics should work there when, according to the idea, everything was empty, and if not, then the laws of physics are like Platonic ideas must be eternal and unchanging. It only remains to add that in this case they (laws) must be of divine origin, and then cosmology instantly turns into cosmogony.
The solution seems to be that at a deep level of reality, in the information space, the laws of physics are encoded on the basis of the primary existential code and can be different for each Cosmos.
Modern Cosmism must see the essence of man in his potential belonging to a superintelligent life, of which he can become a part in the distant future. The Christian tradition has always considered man to be created according to a divine pattern and even assigned a place (in the holy trinity) to the demigod-half-man in the control of the universe. After all, a person is a part of the force that the Cosmos needs for informational support of its self-deployment.
Time
Time is the relation of Being to Non-Being
F.M. Dostoevsky
What is time, how does it “flow” and why (we think) only in one direction?
In Russian, the word time used to sound like “faith”, perhaps it meant “to spin around me”, that is, the cycle of subjectively meaningful cycles. In English, the word time rather comes from making an appointment or recording what happened. However, a connection with tide (wave) and the transition to Danish tid and Old German zit is possible, which was transformed into modern German zeit (time).
The Latin tempus probably comes from the Indo-European root temp, which means “stretch”, “string”, “row”. In this sense, the “time series” will have two symbolic aspects – firstly, it is stretchable, flexible and, therefore, adaptable to something else (recall the theory of relativity), secondly, like a string, time should be associated with vibration and cyclicity . Vibration, on the other hand, is a special internal movement that “times” a thing from the inside, giving it its own rhythm, which sounds in Latin – numerous, hinting at the numerical and wave (tide) nature of time.
In Ozhegov’s dictionary: “Time is an interval of one or another duration in which something happens.” This definition is both tautological and close to the truth. Time cannot be defined through duration, which itself, in fact, is time, but, on the other hand, the duration of a time series (tempo), like any other series, is an independent quality, which, in relation to time, gives it the opportunity to “temporize”, and space – have measurements. Thus, the ordering (causality) of the events that have happened will be directly related to the definition of time. Moreover, it seems that a series of random events (or random order) underlies the understanding of time.
In ancient Greek, Chronos (time), aka Kronos, was the son of the first gods Uranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth). In accordance with the myth, Uranus was afraid to die from his own children and returned them back to Gaia, who, tired of the burden, persuaded Kronos, who was born last, to castrate his father and become the supreme god, which was done. However, Gaia predicted the same fate for her son. Therefore, not yielding to his father in cruelty, Kronos (aka Saturn in the Roman version) swallowed his children one by one until his own son Zeus sent dad to Tartarus (underground kingdom of death). Comprehending the cruel allegory of the myth, we can assume that: 1) time is born, evolves and eventually leaves according to the same pattern as it came 2) time was established at the basis of the world order when some primordial cycles of the “behind the scenes” rough work of timeless forces ended .
For Plato, time is a moving image of eternity. Eternity, like infinity, are purely speculative concepts for him, while movement itself is not. Movement is defined by Aristotle as the energy (entelechy) of being in possibility. Time thus becomes a distribution of this energy in possibilities. That is, time is a formula, with which, of course, every physicist will agree. But movement is not only a manifestation of time, just as time is not determined only by movement. It certainly is something more.
Ancient Greek philosophers defined time as Mind or Logos. Noesis for them meant “smart grasp”, where the Mind speaks with the form of a thing in the same language, and moves with it in the space of the Logos. In such a “smart” movement, the form of the thing and the energy of the mind are one entity. That is, the event of thought coincides with the movement of the form of things (registered by time). But can we take the next step and define movement as a digital decoding of thinking?
Of course, ancient thinkers never thought about the informational interpretation of movement and time, but for us this is important because it is the informational fractality that underlies the architecture of reality.
According to Aristotle (III 1, 425 a 19), we perceive the number through the negation of continuity, from which, in fact, the modern concept of the negation of the continuum and the Planckian discreteness of space-time are derived, at the level of which the information code of our Universe probably works.
We can say that in the process of decoding events, things move from the future to the present. A thing will cease to be itself without its immanent connection to the decoding or the “formula of time”, in the wake of which it moves. Figuratively speaking, if a thing does not know how and where it will end up in the next moment, then like a drone that has lost contact with the operator, this thing will disappear from the radar of our reality.
Time inside his observer
The Great Picture of Time, obviously, will be incomplete without its connoisseur (observer), who sees it (and himself in it) through his own special prism of consciousness. There is even a strong opinion that time does not exist outside of consciousness. But even in consciousness it can be illusory and difficult to understand. Probably, for a person, the metaphysical value of time lies in the maximum possible coincidence of the internal and external logic of ongoing events, which leads to an enchanting thought about human involvement in universal events.
St. Augustine at the end of the fourth century AD in his “Confessions” wrote: “What is time? Who could explain it simply and concisely? Who could comprehend mentally to speak clearly about it? What, however, do we mention in conversation, as if it were quite familiar and familiar, if not about time? And when we talk about it, we, of course, understand what it is, and when someone else talks about it, we also understand his words. What is time? If no one asks me about it, I know what time is; if I wanted to explain to the questioner – no, I don’t know. I insist, however, on the fact that I know for sure: if nothing happened, there would be no past time; if nothing happened, there would be no future time … And if the present always remained present and did not go into the past, then it would no longer be time, but eternity; the present is time only because it is fading into the past. How can we say that it exists, if the reason for its occurrence is that it will not exist! Are we wrong in saying that time exists only because it tends to disappear?
The modes of time (past, present and future) in Augustine, just like in Aristotle, are known by the Soul with the help of memory, contemplation and expectation (prediction or imagination). Augustine emphasized that the perception of all three modes of time is always “now” and will change over time (yes, time, like everything else, changes over time). The perception of my past in ten years will be different, as well as the perception of the present, not to mention the future. Only in the human soul time is fully decomposed (refracted) into its three modes, although the refraction spectrum changes with time. “… How is the future, which does not yet exist, or the past, which already does not exist, if not through the soul, what is the reason for the fact that these three states exist? After all, it is the soul that hopes, has intentions, remembers: what it has been waiting for, through its intentions and actions, becomes the material of memories … Nobody can deny that the present is devoid of extension, because its run is only a moment. The wait is not so long, because what should be real accelerates and brings closer what is still missing. The future, which does not exist, is not so long as its expectation. The past is even less real, not at all as long as the memory of it. 11, ch. XXVIII, p. 306]. And in the same place: “Long time makes long many passing moments that cannot but replace one another; in eternity nothing comes, but remains as the present in its entirety; time as the present cannot abide in its fullness.
Obviously, everything that exists is in three modes of time, which only conscious beings know about. They (for example) may assume that the existence of something (like life) always has a beginning and an end. At this distance, the past is the path traveled, the future is its remainder, and the present is their watershed. The only problem is that these paths are not written anywhere. Unfortunately, we do not have access to the Akashic Record and probably never will. We will have to write it ourselves.
Yes, a person suddenly finds himself abandoned and helpless in the ocean of the unknown. All he can count on is his knowledge, thinking and will. The past for him is a reconstruction of facts, the future is their forecast, and the present can be called a state (stream) of consciousness when all three modes of time are merged into one. The control structure of consciousness, responsible for this merging, will independently and unconsciously model internal time for us, sewing together blocks of memory, experiences, expectations and a wide variety of mental structures. Moreover, time will inevitably be conceived and interpreted based on our very limited collection of available facts about ourselves and the outside world. The farther the future, the more it contains unavoidable uncertainty. The deeper into the past we want to penetrate, the less traces we find about it. But no matter how frightening the uncertainty in the modes of time, this is the only possible structural form in which reality, thinking and consciousness exist.
I think that some clarification of the paradox of time can be in a simple rule: you will never get EXACTLY from point A of the present time to the calculated point B of the future. In quantum mechanics, this is especially obvious. Potentials “B” are ahead of the movement (time) to it and are created as we approach point “B”. But they are FULLY unpredictable and in advance in point “A”, even if you have all the information about the Universe. The irremovable uncertainty of time, as it were, prevents us from turning the world into exact mathematics.
The future comes into the present through the process of actualization. That is, narrowing the flow of random events and removing uncertainties. In the present tense, all events have already happened, that is, we have 100% certainty, as we say, the fallen dice, symbolizing the frozen moment of the present.
The present goes into the past through the process of registration, the characters to which corresponded to real events.
The past becomes an interpretation and returns to the present in the form of history. The past becomes the future through the process of its conscious or unconscious modeling. But back to the classics.
Immanuel Kant considered space and time to be a priori forms of subjective perception. For him, time is a condition (bearing structure) of our inner experience, in which the world turns out to be rational and understandable (though not completely, since the thing-in-itself interferes with absolute knowledge). “Time is nothing but the subjective condition under which contemplation alone takes place in us” (B49). Kantian subjectivism can be considered much broader and understood as space-time not only as the conditions of any rationality, but as its source and initial components of the concept. That is, the construction of reality itself may have its own minimal rationality, on the basis of which much more complex schemes will be built. We shall see something similar in the development of German classical idealism.
In Hegel, space and time are dialectically interconnected and are the limit and negation of each other, since they turn out to be different and identical (in subtraction) in relation to each other. Their negation is movement, and their identity is matter. Hegel believed that “only having decided on space and becoming a movement, time becomes meaningful.” The Absolute Spirit, which is the unity of Being and thinking, in its self-knowledge returns to its origins through its other – the Absolute idea as universality. Nature for Hegel is only the external existence of universality, and space is the first definition of nature and “the abstract universality of its being-out-of-itself”. (Philosophy of nature par. 254). Here, being-out-of-itself appears as negation or being in relation to the other, through which the certainty of nature is acquired, and, therefore, the ability to exist in reality. Nature is given to us in thought and perception, but only in its being-out-of-itself. Space, on the other hand, is the abstract universality of that through which nature defines itself as negation, that is, through the absolute idea.
Let’s illustrate this on geometric objects. A point is, in a certain sense, the negation of space, which is point-like, but does not consist of points. Removing the uncertainty of the points, we get the space. The process of removing space gives rise to time. Space, thus, becomes out of itself and entered into conceptual relations with itself (which is reminiscent of the myth about the Egyptian first god Atum-Ra). Further, Hegel writes: “Since, consequently, space is only this internal contradiction, its own sublation of its moments is its truth. Time is the present being of this constant sublation; in time”. (“Philosophy of Nature” § 257). That is, time is a space that has understood itself, or, better to say, according to Hegel, the truth of space, which, in essence, is the result of self-knowledge (return to itself) of the Absolute Spirit. In this context, time always turns out to be the becoming of something other to itself, namely, external space, which makes the internal always fail to keep up with itself, not identical to itself, dynamic and eternally transient.
This gives time an abstract subjectivity and even reflectivity (time is the soul of nature, according to Hegel), while space itself will always be abstractly objective. Time needs space, but not vice versa. Because time itself is meaningless and does not determine itself. It remains to add that Being is projected (given) to us in time. An important aspect of the self-negation of space lies in the fact that it is a direct and very specific process that can occur many times (like the formation of the Universe) with already different parameters and results of “self-negation” and even with other truths.
Modern cosmology could borrow these ideas to explain the origin of the universe and its original singularity (or initial state), as well as the cosmological constant and its other unique parameters, as part of the Multiverse, in which space negates itself in a new way each time, giving birth to new universes. and destroying them, drawing them into their otherness (probably into dark energy).
Time is undoubtedly the registration of movement. The “now” moment, as the self-identity of a thing, constantly accompanies the moving body, being between its moments of difference in the future and the past (in relation to the present). However, the essence of a thing changes when it moves, not in proportion to the distance traveled, but depending on the intensity of interaction with other things. When moving, a thing loses the unity of self-identity in proportion to the event content at each point in space.
In Aristotle in Physics (IV 11) “movement follows magnitude, and time follows movement.” That is, movement is possible (and necessary) where there is discreteness, dimension or number (as a proportion of dimension). At the same time, the essence of movement turns out to be in the simple and constant “non-self-identity” of any thing due to the fact that it turned out to be capable of movement, since it is existentially “alive”. In the biological world, we can draw an analogy, saying that the essence of the movement of living objects lies in the logic of life itself, informationally represented in the form of DNA. Accordingly, the essence of the movement of physical objects lies in the logic of the laws of physics, presented in the yet undiscovered information dimension of reality. In this sense, the essence of movement is connected to the information space of reality, and time becomes a kind of “delay” of information processes, as a tool for updating (processing) information. In support of this hypothesis, remember how the physicist George Wheeler once famously said: “Time is the way nature prevents everything from happening at once.”
Concepts of Time
Where the mind is powerless, time often helps.
Seneca
Absolute Time
Newton’s time is substantial and mathematical. It lasts evenly regardless of things and space. Like a wall clock of the divine scene, where all the events of the universe unfold, it does not interact with anyone, but at the same time all things, phenomena and processes measure their movements with irreversible and absolute time. Each segment of movement in space exactly corresponds to a certain period of time.
After the Theory of Relativity, the concept of absolute time was put into the archives of history, but probably prematurely, since absolute time can register events outside the space-time continuum. In this sense, absolute time will be the universal probability of “everything possible”, which will never show “how much absolute time is”, but which is that first essence that lies outside of time, but after which time began to time.
Cyclic time model
Einstein once remarked that “the concept of a periodic process precedes the concept of time.” Almost everything that we observe in this world is cyclical. Day and night succeed each other, seasons alternate, destruction leads to new creation, birth and death always go together. Cosmic processes are also cyclical – new stars are formed from the nebulae of exploding supernovae, and the entire Universe, having a beginning in the form of a Big Bang, will have its end and, probably, its new birth. Modern Cosmism can offer the concept of the participation of superintelligent civilizations in the creation of artificial singularities from which new universes will arise, possibly in other dimensions of space-time.
Many religions have spoken about the cyclicity of time, but it is most conceptually developed in Indian philosophy and Buddhism. In the Bhagavad Gita we find that time gives birth to everything, and in its movement it destroys everything that is born. Time is also a cycle of retreat from truth and a renewed return to it. The day of the life of the creator of the Universe – Brahma is called Kalpa and they consist of 1000 maha-yugas. For a day of Brahma equal to 4.32 billion earth days, a myriad of worlds inhabited by various gods and countless life forms “exhale” like bubbles in the ocean. As night falls, Brahma breathes back everything he has created. The material worlds are destroyed (the state of Pralaya), and Brahma falls into a sleep that lasts as long as his day. At night, the Universe resides in it in a state of pure potency, ready for its realization with the awakening of Brahma and the onset of the next day. By the way, here it is not quite clear what precedes what: does the day become day due to the awakening of Brahma, or, conversely, does Brahma follow a more fundamental cycle of Cosmic Time and awakens from the onset of the day? According to legend, Brahma lives for 100 years (311,000 billion earth years) and dies through the state of Mahapralaya – the complete destruction of all Cosmoses and all demiurges (devas). But obviously not completely. Just as a thing that has fallen into a black hole cannot be completely destroyed due to the law of conservation of information, so the Cosmos in Hinduism goes into the body of Maha-Vishnu (according to Phagavata Purana, song 12) and stays there for 100 years ( Brahma) in an unmanifested “informational” state, before the start of a new great cycle.
I think that Mahapralaya is a good analogy for the completion of the great circle of Being, where Nothing is closest to itself and “almost” completely dissolves the non-infinite Being in its infinity. For example, imagine an urban evening sky during a big holiday. Fireworks hit in different places from horizon to horizon, each of them, like the Cosmos, is unique and beautiful, each twinkling point in it is the Multiverse, and the totality of all fireworks on the infinite plane of Nothing can be called gushing Being. Accordingly, there are moments when the intensity of all fireworks spontaneously subsides, degrades and even almost stops. Then we observe the incredible emptiness of a completely black sky, where time known to us does not exist.
Imaginary time
Imaginary time runs perpendicular to the real time axis (from the future to the past) in the same way that the imaginary number axis runs perpendicular to the real number axis. Imaginary numbers are a way of representing the square root of minus one. They allow you to expand the field of real numbers, since not all equations have solutions in real numbers, such as x2+1=0.
Imaginary time registers stochastic (causeless) movement, while real time registers causal movement. For example, in the well-known tunneling effect, a quantum particle stochastically overcomes a potential barrier, while its total energy is less than the height of this barrier. The effect occurs due to the uncertainty of the momentum, which can accidentally add energy to the particle (imaginary momentum) and “instantly” move it beyond the barrier region (or form it there). In this case, the particle will be delayed in imaginary time for the period necessary for the formal observance of the speed of light. I think that the nature of imaginary time is informational. For an external, conscious observer, it manifests itself as an incomprehensible chaos of non-deterministic processes. If we compare this with the process of protein synthesis, then all that an observer sees in real time is the chaotic movement of nucleotide molecules around an informational RNA invisible to him, which in turn builds events into habitual and digestible forms of reality in the form of a “logical protein” time series.
Modern Cosmism could offer an informational interpretation of quantum mechanics, which will be considered in more detail separately. Here we confine ourselves to general discussions about the incompatibility of our and quantum reality. For example, if the observer turned away and pretended not to want to know exactly where a particle with a certain momentum would end up, then it would definitely end up where it should be from the point of view of its internal logic of motion, but for the observer this is there will always be a surprise, which is probabilistically described by the wave function. However, quantum mechanics itself does not entirely agree with such an interpretation, since it is a non-deterministic statistical theory and assumes a priori the uncertainty of the initial state of the wave function and the impossibility of introducing the so-called hidden variables that make it possible to stop the uncertainty of states (it was proposed by Einstein, who believed that God does not play in bones, and the moon doesn’t disappear when we don’t look at it).
An observer in quantum mechanics is always that unpleasant element that introduces perturbations and disturbances into the microsystem. However, the observer does this exercise not because it gives him cognitive pleasure, but because it is impossible to measure the quantum microworld in any other way, due to the fact that we, as representatives of another reality, simply do not have (and never will have) other measuring instruments. .
We can say that quantum reality – really exists in imaginary time – and imaginary exists in real time. For us, the microworld is a quantum wonderland that we, as a thing in itself, will never be able to fully understand. Imagine an observer the size of a thousand solar systems (roughly the proportion between a human and an electron) who wants to know where the Cheshire Cat will be in a good mood the next second? The White Rabbit probably knows, but you will not understand his answer. Alice may understand the situation “from the inside”, but for a giant observer she will be able to convey only the square of the modulus of the wave function, which is the probability density of finding a Cat (particle) at a particular point in space. At the same time, physical time that is understandable to us is meaningless in a quantum wonderland. It has no power there, because the events in the looking glass are not subject to logic, but to a plot unknown to us, or, rather, a program operating in the information dimension of reality.
The quantum state of a system can miraculously change instantly depending on what we would like to know about this system (the so-called wave function collapse or von Neumann reduction). The British physicist Roger Penrose believed that consciousness reflects the process of objective reduction of the wave function, which occurs (probably) in the frontal parts of the brain. Perhaps Penrose wanted to show that it is precisely in consciousness that the watershed between the macro and micro worlds runs?
However, this can be prevented by the so-called decoherence – the process of interaction of a quantum system with the environment, in which the system loses its quantum properties and becomes a classical macrosystem. The paradoxes of such a transition were vividly expressed in the thought experiment with Schrödinger’s Cat, which must be both alive and dead, reflecting the uncertainty principle in the decay of the atomic nucleus. Interestingly, the decoherence time, that is, reprogramming to behave like a macro object, occurs instantly, but physics cannot say exactly when this moment occurs. Moreover, the superposition reduction procedure itself does not depend on the presence of an observer. At this moment of truth, there are many alternative states of the system, but only one of them is realized and never known in advance. Does this remind you that consciousness manifests itself in the choice of conscious alternatives, and that time acquires a separate dimension in its alternatives?
In cosmology, imaginary time avoids the problem of a singularity with infinite density and temperature, where the laws of physics known to us do not work, since the dominant quantum fluctuations at the Planck distance make space and time unmeasurable, and therefore meaningless. Physicists do not like infinity and the absence of the laws of physics, so Stephen Hawking came up with a way for both the sheep (singularity) to remain intact and the wolves (physicists) to be fed. He suggested that a true singularity must be something very simple, like a geometric sphere with no specific points or boundaries on it. Time there becomes imaginary, loses the property of duration that we understand, and is an equal digital dimension along with three other spatial dimensions in which one can move in any direction. In his A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes that “Perhaps one should conclude that the so-called imaginary time is in fact real time, and that what we call real time is simply a figment of our imagination. In real time, the Universe has a beginning and an end, corresponding to singularities that form the boundary of space-time and in which the laws of science are violated. In imaginary time, there are neither singularities nor boundaries. So, perhaps what we call imaginary time is actually more fundamental, and what we call real time is some kind of subjective idea that we have when trying to describe how we see the Universe.
Time is a stubborn illusion (Einstein)
Albert Einstein, in a letter about the death of his friend, wrote: “He left this strange world a little earlier than me. And it doesn’t mean anything. People like us who believe in physics know that the difference between past, present and future is just a stubborn and persistent illusion.” Indeed, in some modern physical theories, time as a parameter is completely absent. It is interesting to note that only in the mind of the observer, the past and the future affect the present, because in fact they can only exist in thinking, where the future is that uncertainty, where events are intellectually predictable in the near term, and the past is a processed and stored memory. about these events in the form of experience and knowledge. In this sense, time as such does not really exist, just as, for example, objects (the world) reflected in a mirror do not exist without their interpreter (observer). Events do not actually come from the future to the present and do not go into the past. Everything that happens in reality is the present moment of the reaction of things to each other. More probable states will determine the mosaic of time. But only an observer will be able to see the local dynamics of the movement of this “now” mosaic and understand the law of distribution of probable states of the moment “now”. This understanding is not illusory, but quite objective and is located in certain places of our Universe (in particular, on Earth) and is an important part of the Cosmos.
Relativity of time
According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is not absolute, but relative. Its flow depends on the motion of the inertial frame of reference and the degree of space curvature. Time can slow down and even stop when hypothetically moving at the speed of light or in a highly curved (open) space of a gravitational singularity, where the density and energy of the system tend to infinity. But despite its relativity, time will never flow back, since the causal order in reference systems will not change even if the properties of space-time at different points of the gravitational field are different.
The theory of relativity is not easy to understand, but in it, there is one simple rule – energy bends space-time. The steeper the curvature, the more stretched the space there and, accordingly, it takes more time to overcome it, which is reflected in the slowdown of all physical processes. Therefore, time always depends on the “energy” of the location of the reference frame (in scientific terms, it depends on the Ricci tensor and the energy-momentum tensor). The greater the speed/mass or gravity/inertia, the slower time flows there.
Time cannot be considered separately without space. We can only speak of a space-time continuum in which time is tied to space as the fourth dimension and follows it in its local curvatures. There is a wonderful explanation by John Wheeler that energy tells space how to curve, and space tells things how to move. Now it remains to ask the fundamental question: “how and why does energy bend and stretch space?”
Here it is necessary to understand what energy is. It can be defined as a universal form of motion, the variations of which form matter and fields. Movement, in turn, is nothing more than a change in the position of an object in space and time, limited by a special coefficient – the speed of light. That is, in essence, energy is a transformed space-time, which will naturally bend itself and thus form a gravitational field. Further “everything is simple.” Material objects can be represented as consisting of space-time curvatures, the multiple eddies of which form a complex mosaic of the universe. Actually, this is what geometrodynamics says.
The last and most important question remains: how did changes in space-time (i.e., movement) even become possible? Let’s imagine a mathematical space with zero dimension. That is a point. It has no set, no coordinates, and no movement is possible there. In a hypothetical space with an infinite number of dimensions, movement is also impossible, since there are no such numbers (formulas) that could represent a change in infinite coordinates. Between these poles there is an n-dimensional space (physicists believe that our space has no more than 26 dimensions) in which the more dimensions, the more difficult, that is, information-consuming, the movement. Here we come to the most important thing. It seems that it is information that is the regulator of any movement, and energy can be defined as updated information. As a result of this actualization, that is, the transition from the information dimension to physical reality, strictly defined coefficients for our Universe were formed in the form of fundamental constants such as the speed of light, the Planck and Hubble constants, the electron charge and the gravitational constant.
Does the present exist?
Everyone knows that the “present tense” does not exist, since it has no duration. At the same time it is already gone, but it still remains. Like a standing (for us) wave, like a moving border of time, like an infinite now, like an eternal now.
We (possessors of consciousness) can only exist in the present time. In this sense, it is eternity, like a trap into which consciousness has fallen. Moreover, each of us lives in his own individual “trap” with his own unique present time, which is no less true than all other present times in this world. In physical reality, the present time also does not exist due to the problem of the lack of universal time and simultaneity, that is, the relativity of different frames of reference in which observers will see sequences of events in different ways.
David Deutsch generally believed that the generally accepted model of time is meaningless in itself. He proposed his own model of time, split into moments of reality, where there is simultaneously an infinite number of universes, in which the potentiality of each moment is absolutely real. He wrote: “Nevertheless, our intuition about the properties of time is, in a general sense, true. Certain events are indeed causes and effects of each other. … We exist in multiple variations, in universes called “moments.” Each version of us is not directly aware of the others, but has evidence of their existence, because the laws of physics bind the contents of different universes” (see “The Structure of Reality. The Science of Parallel Universes”). For Deutsch, time does not flow anywhere, and the processes turn out to be not causal, but, as it were, borrowed (strung) from other universes. However, the reality in this model is not chaotic, but logical, since the “stringing of moments” occurs in a deterministic manner and is subject to the laws of physics.
The problem of simultaneity
The paradox lies in the fact that for different observers, simultaneous events occur in a different order depending on the direction of the observer’s movement or on his distance from these events. For example, imagine that somewhere in our galaxy, two new stars lit up at the same time. If the observer is between them (or on a perpendicular line), then for him these events will be simultaneous, and if not, then one star will light up later than the other, since the light from it will take longer. Since everything in the Universe is in gravitational fields, movements and at colossal distances, any simultaneity turns out to be very problematic. However, the situation will change if our observer is consciously intelligent. Then, knowing the laws of physics, he will be able to calculate the set of simultaneous events in relation to the reference point of space-time chosen by him. That is, simultaneity is possible only in the past, as an afterthought, in calculations, in a model of reality, in consciousness.
How fast does time pass?
We all know that in childhood, or when we are busy or in extreme situations, time flows slowly, because the internal events of consciousness occur more intensely in relation to external ones and vice versa in old age or when idle time flies quickly. But this is just our psychological sense of time.
So, how fast does the universal river of time flow? It is difficult to answer this question unambiguously, if only because it is slightly tautological, because in physics, time is the speed of overcoming space. In reality, time does not flow by itself, but only registers causal events, the intensity of which will vary in the widest range. That is, the “speed” of time is defined by the function as a line of events, for the scale of which we can assign other events … or invent them ourselves.
At every point in the Universe there is a different gravity and energy, so time flows there at different speeds. But we, nevertheless, will be able to come to a common denominator, and determine the universal time if we take an extremely cosmic point of view and take into account the rate of expansion of the Universe (Hubble constant), which, according to the latest estimates, is 73 kilometers per second for every megaparsec – 3.3 million light years. For the next megaparsec, the Universe will expand twice as fast for us (only for us), and so on until that very, very distant moment when there will be (as cosmologists say) the Big Rip of the space-time continuum itself. Then things will no longer be able to exist in it, and our Universe can be considered dead.
If we knew the final state of the Universe, then by measuring the degree of its expansion, or entropy, we would probably be able to say how much universal time is now.
Time reveals the meaning of Being?
For Heidegger, temporality (Zeitlichkeit) is the ontological basis of the existentiality of Dasein. Time is always revealed individually in my being-towards-death, the existential interpretation of which lies in the only opportunity for a person to become himself, who he really is, without looking back at his weaknesses and illusions, without fear and care, openly stand in the opening of Being. . Even during life, death speaks clearly to us about the temporality of everything that exists. Death is the material proof of time, which is revealed in my “being-toward-death” and time in space meaningfully through the category of care (being-in-the-world). Dasein predictably becomes temporary and ready to join the meaning of Being. Time thus acts as an indicator of meaning and, ultimately, as meaning itself.
I must say that there is nothing surprising in this, even in a sense it would be banal to say that we will see the meaning of a thing (or life) with time. In fact, only a person gives meaning to things and even changes it. Therefore, over time, a person will see only the meaning that “makes sense” for him, and which is clear to him in the “clearance of Being”. For the history of Genesis is time.
Being in Heidegger is not being. It has no beginning and no end. It is timeless, and therefore its relationship with time is very specific. “Being and time mutually determine each other, however, in such a way that neither the first – being – can be considered as temporary, nor the second – time – as being. Thinking about all this, we drive around in a circle of mutually contradictory statements ”(see Time and Being).
Unfortunately, Heidegger did not specify how time becomes the meaning of Being (extended presence does not solve the problem). Perhaps because he refused to seriously consider the meaning of Nothing?
Time as entropy
One reason for the irreversibility of time is that the universe is considered to be thermodynamic and closed. In accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, entropy (the degree of disorder) in closed systems can only increase with time, which means its direction (toward chaos). This reveals the nature of time, which reflects (registers) precisely the process of destruction of the cosmic order. All creative processes, such as the birth of stars, planets and life, move (fight) against chaos, and therefore against time. This fight is fundamental and we all know who will be the final winner.
However, things may not be so dramatic. Yes, entropy is irreversible and therefore the arrow of time is predetermined, but, firstly, we do not know if our Universe is thermodynamically closed, and not part of the larger structure of the Multiverse, and, secondly, no one knows for sure if the Universe will expand to infinity or will shrink over time. Then, the entropy will start to decrease. Time will conditionally flow back, but the clock will not go back and the dead will not rise from the dust, because the arrow of time is not directly related to its irreversibility.
The thermodynamic death of our Universe may not be so terrible, given the pleasant fact that in the process of its expansion in collapsing space-time, in a couple of Googols (10100) years, quantum effects and tunneling transitions to other dimensions will be possible, where our very distant, digital descendants will be able to migrate successfully if they have not done so for a long time and in advance.
Arrows of time
The direction of time from the past to the future is defined as a logical sequence of states of a given system. If, for example, the system is thermodynamic and its states are determined by the level of entropy, then the thermodynamic arrow of time obviously flies in the direction of increasing entropy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. This is the indirect reason for the irreversibility of time due to the irreversibility of entropy itself. In the very distant future, this arrow will inevitably lead us to thermodynamic equilibrium, that is, to absolute chaos, where time no longer exists due to the absence (by definition) of any interconnected states. However, there is an opinion that with the accelerated expansion of the Universe it will be impossible to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium. This means that the exact direction of the thermodynamic arrow of time remains debatable.
The cosmological arrow of time is the direction of the expansion of our universe. The inertia from the Big Bang and mystical (today’s) dark energy are thought to be responsible for this process. Since the whole Universe is expanding, it would be logical to introduce one more universal arrow of time. The problem is that no one knows how it will all end. At present, the Universe is expanding with acceleration, but this was probably not always the case, and in the future it may even be replaced by compression if gravity wins or dark energy changes its amplitude, or even it turns out that our Universe is in a giant black hole, as suggested by the Indian physicist Rajem Patria.
The wave arrow of time is based on the fact that the propagation of any wave is a fundamentally irreversible process. Including electromagnetic and De Broglie waves, with which all elementary particles are associated. Indeed, reverse processes in the form of light returning back to its source are impossible in nature. In fact, here we are talking not so much about the irreversibility of waves, but about their natural attenuation due to the same second law of thermodynamics. No matter how phenomenal it sounds, but all the laws of physics, except for the second law of thermodynamics, are symmetrical with respect to time reversal.
In principle, any changing parameter of the Universe can be linked to a new arrow of time. However, the most important thing will be the observance (and even more interesting violation) of the law of conservation of causal relationships between things when the direction of the hypothetical arrow of time changes. Imagine an abstract pendulum that, for the sake of simplicity of a thought experiment, goes only 10 stages in one direction. Each stage is the cause of the next one, except for the extreme stages 1 and 10 (where the direction of the pendulum swing changes), which are the beginning of a new movement and, accordingly, the cause of themselves. Despite the change in direction of movement, there will not be a causal “reversal”. That is, a glass that exists in pendulum time can fall and break at the tenth stage, but it will no longer be able to assemble again when moving back to the first stage, since the causal flow was nullified when the arrow of time changed.
The question arises: is negative time possible in reality, and if so, should it be symmetrical to positive time? On the example of a pendulum, it is easy to imagine when, say, to the right it flies along the arrow of positive time, and back into the negative. An indirect proof of the asymmetry of space-time would be the fact that the pendulum moves to the right and to the left with different speeds. And this is happening in reality.
In the microcosm of elementary particles, the arrow of time does not exist. The past and the future are easily interchangeable there, and time does not flow anywhere, but fixes independent states about it. But there is a unique exception in time reversal, when the complete system sequentially, but in reverse order, goes through the same states as in the original movement.
Physicists are well aware that the charge-space (CP) and time (T) invariances are preserved in strong and electromagnetic interactions, but are not preserved in weak interactions, as, for example, in the decays of neutral K-mesons, when the probability of their decay is different depending on the direction and space, which means not invariance with respect to time. If the system is not invariant with respect to time reversal, then the physical system is irreversible, and we get one more “small” arrow of time, which can be called the K-Meson.
The unshakable fact (so far) remains the complex CPT invariance, which means the mirror symmetry of the microsystem, where antimatter moves back in time. The violation of CP symmetry is considered responsible for the slight superiority of matter over antimatter at the inflationary stage of the origin of the Universe (10−34—10−32 s from the Big Bang) when quarks and gluons combined into hadrons, resulting in the so-called baryon asymmetry, due to which the Universe has a small fraction of matter left over from annihilation with antimatter. It is possible that some of the energy from this annihilation subsequently transformed into dark energy and dark matter. Thus, because of the “imperfection” of nature, stars, planets and intelligent life appeared, capable of understanding the value of driving imperfection and imbalance. In itself and in space.
The universal arrow of time will be very difficult to define. If only because we constantly have in mind not time itself (after all, it is not substantial), but those irreversible universal processes that this time registers. It is possible that such an arrow simply does not exist due to the lack of any need for it. In essence, we need the arrow much more than nature itself, so it makes sense to pay attention to yourself.
The intellectual arrow of time can be defined as the completeness of the mathematical model of the Universe. Cosmologists can confidently say what has happened to the Universe since … probably from a billionth of a second from the Big Bang, and large-scale predict its development for billions of years ahead. Mankind naturally does not claim to be the sole author of the model. Surely, other and superintelligent civilizations have much more knowledge, but this is no longer important. Such a model, in its own way, will stand on a par with other universal arrows of time, because in the end, time is also a model of reality.
The information arrow of time is connected with the existence of the (supposed) information space of reality, through which all the laws of physics work in our Universe. It is possible that it is in this space that the analogue of the DNA of the Universe is located, the decoding of which can be conditionally represented as an arrow, going along the complication of the code.
Probably, it is worth adding to the list of arrows of time the irreversibility of the vital impulse in the creative evolution of A. Bergson. The problem here is that the intensity and direction of the impulse are fundamentally indeterminate, since they are creative principles.
The existential arrow of time will be the most fundamental, as it is connected not with a specific universe, but with the Cosmos or even Being. In the Hindu tradition, it would be called the arrow of Brahma. It is always cyclical and directed either upward towards the flourishing of the existence of worlds or downward towards general disintegration and emptiness. In what direction the Cosmos is moving now only Brahma knows …
Irreversibility of Time
We can easily go back in space from where we came a minute ago, but nobody and nothing can go back in time a minute ago. Fortunately, time is irreversible in our world and the main reason for this is the irreversibility of causal relationships in complex systems, where many forms of motions and fields that are irreducible to each other are involved. However, this does not explain why complex systems, such as a pendulum, will not be able to return later to their previous states.
Imagine that you dropped a glass of water on the lawn, which also broke on a stone. It will be completely impossible to return the system to its previous state in the reality in which we exist due to the energy-informational disadvantage of such a movement. Even if we imagine technologies capable of tracing individual water molecules, extracting them from the soil and reassembling them into a glued glass, the cost of such a process would be incommensurable with the process of natural spill and break. The main thing is that this will not be a return in time, but a process of local restoration, while the rest of the Universe has already gone far ahead and is not going to return from there.
The irreversibility of time is difficult to explain only by the arrows of time or by the dynamic instability of systems or by the postulation of a unidirectional movement from the past to the future. The asymmetry in time of some laws of physics will not help much either. Because all these are particular cases of a single and complex process of the irreversible formation of beings.
In Quantum Physics
In Quantum Mechanics, time is not quantized, although its minimum duration of 10−43 seconds is recognized, called the Planck time. The Schrödinger equation, which describes the behavior of the microcosm, is symmetrical in time, which means that it is reversible, as well as isotropic. That is, elementary particles can freely move from the past to the future and vice versa. By virtue of the uncertainty principle, time, like all other characteristics of quantum objects, will be of a probabilistic nature. What, in fact, means the probabilistic nature of the cause-and-effect relationships between events. Elementary particles follow a completely different logic than the laws of the macrocosm and our thinking. In quantum logic, time is generally unimportant and is a constituent parameter of momentum.
Our universe is stable (perhaps by accident) because of the existence of five stable particles in it. These are the proton, electron, photon, neutrino and graviton (not yet discovered) as well as their antiparticles (except for the photon and graviton which do not have them). Heavy particles of dark matter must also be stable, if, of course, it consists of them, which is more and more doubted by physicists. The remaining 350 elementary particles known to physics live very shortly and quickly decay into other particles, which, by the way, does not mean that they consist of them. In the quantum world, particles simply disappear, and new ones appear from the void in their place in accordance with the laws of the microcosm. Elementary particles decay when it is not forbidden to them, and the prohibitive rules associated with the fundamental laws of physics can be counted on the fingers of one hand. This is the law of conservation of energy, charge, the number of quarks and the type of particles. It was these laws that allowed the time in our Universe to break out of the probabilistic state and become the “normal” time that we kind of know.
Is time continuous?
Probably, truly continuous (single) can be called an infinite object, consisting of an infinite set of infinitely small parts (points). That is, it does not consist of anything. The only candidate for this is the mathematical space. Everything is beautiful, perfect, motionless and eternal. But as soon as we move into the real world of sets, it must be discrete, that is, discontinuous and having parts. This will enable things to be composed of each other. Zeno spoke about this in his famous aporias. Therefore, time, physical space and the processes taking place in it must be discontinuous and discrete, but at the same time not stumble on the boundaries of their granularity (ancient atomism). The problem is solved by the postulate that the whole precedes its parts. Then continuity in actual reality becomes a formula that combin Continuity, at first glance, explains itself – it is something continuous, and therefore homogeneous and indivisible. However, the absolutely solid is a pure abstraction, incapable of existence due to the absence of parts in it (existing is always plural). Therefore, we can only speak of relative (that is, real) continuity, consisting of interconnected parts, as, for example, a chain consists of inseparable links. The continuity of space-time or the space-time continuum is in fact a specific inseparable connection (that is, integrity) of its finite elements at the Planck level of reality, which de facto makes this continuum discrete. But, time is not so deeply immersed in reality, since it is simply impossible to time at these distances due to the absence of the laws of physics known to us there. However, this is where hypothetical strings and loop quantum gravity work. Probably, it is there that reality is connected with the information space, which makes time discontinuous for an adequate calibration of our Universe.
Can we talk about that discontinuity during which time already (still) does not exist or has it already passed into its other dimension? If you believe in incarnations, then for your life these are those important breaks after death and before a new birth. In fact, this is typical for any system that is capable of forming, destroying and participating in a new structure, but in its completely different form. Just like Van Gogh participates in our mood through his paintings. Such a qualitative discontinuity of time can even be singled out into a separate continuum and try to endow it with a separate dimension? The problem is that interrupted time is always local and internal. After all, the true continuity of time reflects the continuity of the existent itself, which cannot suddenly disappear (interrupt) and appear again. Except when its megacycle ends and Being is at its lowest amplitude.
From a human point of view, time can easily be interrupted locally and much more prosaically, as soon as we interrupt the stream of consciousness and forget ourselves in a deep sleep or somewhere else, or simply die. Summarizing, we can say that time is always discontinuous only in the system that it time and its discontinuity turns into continuity where there is no system.
Standard of Time
Things (like numbers) have no past. It is built only in our interpretation of the chain of events that happened to the thing. A meaningful dimension of the past is called history.
The more universal the system, the more fundamental the time that represents it. More precisely, it does not even represent, but measures in the internal events of this system. Of course, we can measure any durations in any other durations, for example, in the periods of revolution around its axis of one of the planets of the solar system (days), or, even better, in 9192631770 periods of radiation “during the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium atom -133” which is the official definition of one second. Each system, including the Cosmos, lives by its own system events and in its own system time. Their comparison with the events of other systems should take place with a certain allowance for the scale and uniqueness of other systems. In physics, such a universal “correction” is the speed of light, which regulates the passage of time of a moving object. In the metaphysics of Cosmism, these can be informational constants (primary code) that set parameters for the very structure of space-time.
The standard of time, therefore, is a completely abstract and artificial measure of time, which does not reflect either its chronology or historicity. Therefore, when we say that the age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years, that is, the revolutions of one of its countless planets around its star, then this has nothing to do with the Universe itself. Moreover, in the first 7-8 billion years there was neither this planet nor its star in it (our Sun was formed about 5 billion years ago). I might as well say that my house is 1.2 billion drops old from a leaky kitchen faucet, which would sound especially odd if my faucet isn’t leaking or doesn’t even exist in my virtual home.
In Hinduism, the approach to measuring time was more meaningful. All events of the Universe (past and future) are neatly recorded in the Akashic Record, where the history of Brahma is described in detail in his own time standards – epochs or yugas, each of which carries an important semantic load.
Of course, the question arises, what is the right way to measure time? Having found the answer to it, we will understand the meaning of time itself, the essence of which is precisely in the measurement of changes. Having understood what the system changes through, we will be able to correctly put a “temporary diagnosis” on it. For example, the reason for the aging of biological organisms, including humans (who have not yet learned how to control this process), is the accumulation of errors during cell division, namely the inability of DNA to replicate chromosome endings – telomeres, and as a result, their shortening, which the telomerase enzyme does not want to complete to their original length, as it selectively does in cancer, germ and stem cells capable of multiplying indefinitely.
That is, a “temporary diagnosis” of life can be put as a built-in defect in the DNA software or telomerase sabotage. However, from the point of view of higher meanings, it is precisely these limitations that lie in the delicate balance of life and death.
Probably, the time of a living organism should be measured in cycles of division of its cells? The Hayflick limit is 52 divisions, after which the cell no longer divides, ages and dies. If you already have a lot of hayflicks, then life experience tells you that each system has its own cycles. However, I would like to find a universal scale with which all these cycles correlate. More precisely, they degrade from the accumulation of general chaos, that is, an increase in entropy – a single universal time scale.
Start problem
It has no beginning (and usually no end) only emptiness and infinity. Everyone is well aware that these concepts are difficult to deal with in reality. They do not evolve, they do not have meaning, integrity, multiplicity and all that is inherent in reality. Moreover, they simply do not exist. Therefore, infinite time (eternity?) is a completely contradictory concept that registers movement from nowhere to nowhere, violates all the laws of physics, requires infinite space, energy, and so on. Most importantly, infinite motion is not motion. It becomes mathematics. Everything happens there freely, not limited by reality, and it is easy for us, for example, to imagine the endless rotation of a circle along its diameter (that is, a sphere) or the eternal oscillation of a sinusoid. In reality, time, which reflects the movement of beings, must have a beginning and an end, which, however, does not mean that time is absent in non-existent potential worlds. Here we come to two important questions: what is the beginning and end of existence, and should time be limited by reality?
The most correct answer to these and most other philosophical questions would be the answer: “nobody knows this.” Not infrequently, our “deep” questions do not make sense at all or are limited by the semantic field of our consciousness. But this is the insane charm of freethinking, that we, almost with impunity, can ask about anything, build logical constructions and look for meaning where there is none. In this case, it will not be easy for us to even understand what kind of beginning we are talking about?
The beginning of something is a certain qualitative event through which a new form, process or movement was formed. Therefore, every beginning is always the beginning of something (and in something), which was preceded by something else, which had its beginning (in something else), and so on, but not to infinity, but to that very special moment (event) to which nothing preceded, which turned out to be in itself and which, in such images, can be considered an absolute beginning. There are very few candidates for this throne of root cause. It is Nothing, chaos and substance that is the cause of itself but is more like a mental trick than the root cause of all things.
As mentioned above, the causal chain of universal events (movements) must end in absolute chaos or emptiness, where universal time will be interrupted as a result of the disintegration of all possible forms, including space-time itself. Existing, at its final stage of evolution, will safely complete its existence with a sense of accomplishment. There is nothing surprising here. We all knew perfectly well that this is how all existence ends. The problem is only how it started and if it started where it ended, then does this mean that existence is cyclical and we need to understand what causes these cycles and whether they have their own evolution.
What do physicists say about this? In the inflationary theory of modern cosmology, the universe was formed from a very, very regular quantum fluctuation that caused a drop in the strength of the postulated primary scalar field. As a result of this magical fluctuation, an inhomogeneity was formed, which was instantly inflated (due to the incredible nature of the scalar field) by many orders of magnitude, so that there was a phase transition with gravity and matter, as it were, precipitated into the sediment of the newly made Universe. Astrophysicist Andrei Linde, co-author of the inflationary model, believes that the process of formation of universes is ongoing. It is eternal and essentially unchanging. That is, a hypothetical scalar field with its initial energy (and even an inflaton particle) is erected on the throne of the root cause of existence and the beginning of all time. At the same time, it is absolutely impossible to talk about what existed before this scalar field or before the singularity (in the version of the Big Bang).
It would probably be logical to assume that the scalar field was preceded by more fundamental information fields, where, in fact, the correct fluctuations with unique initial parameters are encoded (of course, taking into account the Anthropic Principle at the request of all intelligent inhabitants of the Cosmos), through which universes are formed where consciousness and consciousness will be possible. many other wonderful things.
Typically, each system is part of a larger system and thus actively or passively exists in the outer time of that system, which in turn lives in an even larger scale of time, and so on up to that “system” of Being which is itself time. . Perhaps one can say that from the point of view of existence, time is cyclical and it has a beginning and an end. From the point of view of Being, being is cyclical, and from the point of view of Nothing, Being itself is cyclical.
Duration
Time can be defined in terms of the duration of the continuum, and space in terms of its length. Duration is between its two opposites: moment and eternity. A moment is a fixed state of the system we have chosen. Here, both the “state” and the “system” will be very arbitrary, since both are fundamentally limited in accuracy and generality. An instant can be defined as the minimum duration of a maximally defined system. Eternity is also duration, only infinite both in the past and in the future, which, as you know, exist only speculatively, therefore eternity lasts only in itself and only potentially, but exists in us really, in the form of mathematics.
In geometry, the analogue of duration is extension, the opposite of which is a point and infinity. Paradoxical as it may seem, time does not consist of moments, just as space does not consist of points, because reality is not abstract mathematics. That is, something existing cannot be created from the abstract emptiness of moments and points, due to the lack of cohesion or binding force between them. Therefore, the essence of duration and extension lies in the phenomenon of continuity. Which A. Bergson is the essence of time.
Probably, there are minimum and maximum durations that reflect the proportions of the Cosmos – this is its level of discreteness, beyond which Being is guessed, and its level of continuity, beyond which Nothing already gapes.
Planck time or time quantum
Within the Planck dimensions, any miracles are possible, since the physics known to us does not work at such distances. For example, space there can become time and vice versa. It is likely that they are a derivative of a more fundamental value, which can be defined as the information space of reality.
The connection of the Planck elements of space-time will determine all the parameters (constants) of our Universe, including the speed of light, the gravitational and cosmological constants, as well as the continuity, duration and extent of the continuum itself. Modern Cosmism can assume that the connection between the Planck cells is a unique code, specific to each universe and characterizing the “conductivity” of space-time from the multidimensional region of super-space of Planck distances to the 3+1-dimensionality of our world. The communication signal delay (or its information processing) will set the parameters of physical time in the Universe.
It is possible that the deep essence of duration as such lies precisely in the communication delay between the cells of space, caused by the necessary time for code processing. The essence of this “delay” is in the nature of the very discreteness of space-time. In its absence, that is, with the absolute homogeneity (dimensionlessness) of space, its conductivity should be instantaneous, and not limited by the speed of light, but not in reality, but in the “software” located in its information space. Time can be defined as the “price of transition” from the informational dimension to the physical reality.
Time at the singularity
Cosmologists believe that our Universe is flat (Earth was also considered flat not so long ago). That is, the total density of matter and energy (including their dark components) in the Universe is such that the space-time continuum is practically not curved (however, they say that a very small positive curvature is possible). This means that parallel lines in our space will never intersect, the sum of the angles of a triangle will always be 180 degrees, and the universe will be free to expand indefinitely. And this is good news, since if space-time had a constant negative curvature (see Fig.), then parallel lines in it would necessarily intersect at infinity, and time would become inhomogeneous and accelerate to infinity as it moves away from the observer . It would be much less pleasant to live in such a space.
Fractal Formula of Time
As already mentioned, space-time is probably not the primary characteristics of existence. They are derived from a more fundamental value, which we call the existential code, located in the informational dimension of Being. It sets the structure of space-time, its dimension, discreteness, energy and connectivity of cells, which will further determine all the basic physical constants for a particular universe.
Recall Muritz Escher’s fractal drawing “circle limit III”. There, it is fractality that determines roundness. In the real world, the limit of fractality is limited by the punk length of 10-35 m, which determines the nature of space-time itself. Perhaps this is the dimension of the super-space, the path from which to our 3 + 1 dimensions will set the main characteristics of the physical reality in which we exist.
Probably, the fundamental formula of time can be called a way of transforming the alleged existential code from the information space into the super-space of the Planck world and further into the reality of our usual measurements. I do not think that today there is a platform for solving such a problem. It is quite possible that this will require new mathematics and will no longer be operated by people, but by quantum supercomputers.
Time in itself
Time in itself is no longer a time. It does not need anything, because it has nothing to timing. It becomes a pure abstraction or idea, where everything and everywhere are happens instantly, that means, nothing happens at all. Time in itself is the Absolute, and transcendental time outside of itself, in fact, is called time. It time the Cosmos and points to Being.
Eternity
In the Timaeus, Plato defines time as a moving image of eternity. But what is eternity itself? Extrapolation of time to infinity or incessant duration? That is, simply eternity is infinite time? But is an infinite series of causal events possible? Or a cyclic series, when some remote consequence becomes the cause of this series. Like, for example, self-thinking thinking or a model of a shrinking and expanding universe. However, the effect will never perfectly coincide with its distant cause. Then we must speak of helicity twisted into an even more general helicity, and so on. to infinity, where Being will be an infinitely tangled tangle of cause and effect?
On the other hand, if time is not cyclical, but straightforward, then we will have to imagine an even more incredible picture of an endless series of specific meanings and essences, constantly turning into something in the process of endless, that is, meaningless evolution (to nowhere) or endless regression, unable to reach its end.
In eternity there is no beginning or end, no parts, no sets, and no time. Nothing happens in it with final conclution, or everything happens at once, that is, without any cause-and-effect series. If time is the manifestation of becoming, then eternity must be the essence of the Absolute, unchanging and always in its truth. The neoplatonist Iamblichus believed eternity to be the unchanging and united present of a special “smart time”. In such an eternally real snapshot, Existence abides. Or God in his perfection and immutability. He also turns out to be able to temporarily immerse himself in ordinary time, if only in order to create worlds and think about the intersection of the eternal and the temporal.
John G. Bennet, a British philosopher, mathematician and follower of Gurdjieff, introduced the concept of hyparxis as a separate dimension, as a place where time and eternity intersect, as a special state of Being. Hyparxis can be understood as the ability to be and as the realization in time of the infinite potencies of eternity, which Bennett (like Iamblichus) considered as other, that is, timeless time. Hyparxis is also the present now, where the eternal and the temporal are connected in the creative act of forming a new reality.
It is possible that eternity is not the only thing that correlates with time, but is not in it. Everything permanent and unceasing has a special relationship with time. All physical constants, such as the gravitational constant, the electron charge, the speed of light, and the bar constant, belong to this category. Their concomitant stay clarifies its current meaning over time (tell me who your constant companions are and I’ll tell you what kind of universe you are). After all, the essence of constancy is in the invariability of proportions, and the meaning of time is in the constancy of proportional changes.
Moving (staying) in time, we inevitably find ourselves surrounded by changing things. But only absolute truths surrounded by immutable, ideal mathematical forms can move in eternity. Time is not pure mathematics. It is not reducible to numbers and is not extrapolated to eternity. But it relies on it.
Timelessness
In the 22nd chapter of the Apocalypse, the Angel broadcasts that “Man counts days, months and years, but the Lord does not calculate time, but human rights and falsities and by the measure of His chosen ones determines the measure of the approach of that great and enlightened day when “time will be no more”, but the non-evening day of His Kingdom will begin. Rethinking this idea in a more philosophical aspect, we can assume that there was a time when there was no time yet, and a time will come when there will be no more time, in the sense that it will already be measured (determined) in other, non-temporal and non-temporal – causal categories.
Before the beginning of time, one can talk about the frozen potency of “everything” hidden in the cracks of Nothing. However, even the most frozen and rooted potencies in the process of their actualization will have to acquire a temporary dimension. If you try to imagine the absolute timelessness of Nothing, then you can only talk about its incoherent, chaotic fluctuations, possible due to its non-self-identity. Then, it is permissible to say that there really was no time. And time will disappear again, as unnecessary, when “everything” returns to its original state (if).
However, the Apocalypse had in mind something completely different – namely, the establishment of ideal correctness, as a virtual reality, in which events are essentially timeless and can freely flow in any direction, depending on the meaning and objectives of the program, which, in fact, will be the essence of time, capable of speeding it up, stopping it, and even reversing it. Of course, this reality should be beautiful, ethical, kind and even fun, where a person can reveal his best qualities and find true and eternal happiness, free from such horrors derived from time as death, suffering, the struggle for survival, fear, hatred and etc.
Timelessness in this sense does not mean the absence of time, but rather a vacation from it where you can relax from the tension of the causal burden.
Is time a phenomenon only for the internal observer of the Universe?
Time, as mentioned above, is always relative and we, accordingly, live in our relative universal time. Its course is quite predictable by the universal physics at every point of the universal space. However, we believe that the Universe is a part of the Multiverse, which is certainly a part of a larger Cosmos. Obviously, each observer will be more internal to the system in which he lives and which he best understands from within. That does not mean at all that he fully understands it.
Thus, observing the life of an anthill, we have a good understanding of all its internal “observers” and the phenomenon of ant time, which for an external, more intelligent observer is part of a more universal system of events. For us, there is no actual ant time, and in this sense it is indeed a phenomenon of an internal observer. Until we endow this observer with consciousness. Then, he will immediately understand the limitations of his anthill and expand the understanding of time to the limits of the entire cognizable glade! Moreover, by building powerful computers, the ants will be able to model the entire forest and understand how time works there. But for more, they simply do not have enough energy for computing power. Until they find access to unlimited energy. And then they will cease to be ants.
But is there time for some hypothetical super-external and super-intelligent observer of the Cosmos, over which there is nothing external? The answer was long overdue. We guess Who this almighty Observer is. His inner Time is all that will remain in reality.
Time Machine
Yes, the past does not exist, and therefore traveling there is impossible. But there are different ways of recording the past and well-known opportunities to get there through books, photographs, films, interpretation of geological deposits (paleontology), archeology and so on. The past is always information, while the present is action and the future is an intellectual forecast. Therefore, one can get into the past only by information, and into the future through its modeling. Perhaps, by analogy with the Akashic Record, super-intelligent civilizations (of course with unlimited resources) will consider it necessary to create a detailed model of the entire Universe on a giant mega-super-computer (the size, say, of a solar system like a Dyson sphere). Then it will be possible to model the past and the future far enough. In this case, the time machine will be quite real for all project participants. Moreover, I think that there will be very special participants in it who will use this model for the design of new universes.
However, humanity and even some scientists do not give up hope for time travel. For example, in cosmology, white holes are much more exotic than black holes. Their existence has not been proven, although it is permissible by the general theory of relativity. White holes can form when black holes go beyond the event horizon. There, through the “wormholes” you will fall into the past or another universe. In some calculations, there is also a hypothetical tachyon particle with an imaginary mass moving faster than the speed of light and, accordingly, in the opposite direction of time, which is also allowed by the theory of relativity. However, neither tachyon nor white holes have been experimentally detected.
Time as probability
Probability is a measure that determines the possibility of a particular event in the future. Since the future itself is probabilistic (the present is actual, and the past is historical), the future tense is a formula for the probable distribution of events. The calculation of the probability of something directly depends not only on the degree of pure chance, but also on the known (or unknown) statistics of the past and a deep knowledge of the laws of the environment where these events occur, which is exactly what time registers. It is possible that not all events will be worthy of registration. In this sense, the chosenness of time will reveal its true nature, or, rather, the chosenness of nature will reveal its true time, where all significant events occur with a certain probability.
An important question is whether time will remain probabilistic if we know the initial and all existing parameters of the system (i.e. the Universe)? Undoubtedly. Even if we imagine some absolute observer as the Demon of Laplace or better than God himself, who has complete statistics of the past and knowledge of the state of the Universe in the present, then the future for him will still be probabilistic. Because, firstly (most likely), God himself conceived it this way, and secondly, the unpredictable aspect of any future (and to a certain extent the present) will remain the indestructible and fundamentally unpredictable randomness of quantum events of reality, where probability is the condition for their existence.
The observer of time, like the observer of quantum systems, must be included in the system and even in the very definition of time. The internal observer, interpreting time, makes it universal by translating the events of reality into the plane of logical (sometimes individual) thinking. It is possible that reality itself needs this and will be different (in its higher dimensions) without a reasonable, kind, internal observer.
Time as a dimension
Eternalism, following physics, describes time as the fourth dimension (3+1), which means two essential aspects of time: the past and the future must actually exist as coordinates, and thus time does not flow independently, but is part of the space-time continuum, in in which things change their position in the coordinates of four dimensions. But, due to the one-sidedness of cause and effect relationships, things refuse to move backward in the fourth dimension, which is well known as the effect of the irreversibility of time. In this sense, the fourth dimension turns out to be “semiconductor” and defective. Therefore, strictly speaking, time cannot be considered an ordinary measurement. Rather, it is not a measurement, but a measurement from something initial, which is why physicists often write (3 + 1), emphasizing the uniqueness of time measurement.
Is time itself multidimensional?
Before talking about such complex concepts as the multidimensionality of time, we should understand the multidimensionality as such. Everything here is quite simple and depends on the object. If it has only one changing parameter, then the object is one-dimensional, like a geometric segment, and a straight line is enough for it to move along it. If an object has two change parameters (for example, X and Y coordinates), then it lives in a plane like all two-dimensional geometric shapes. Three independent parameters will determine the three-dimensional Euclidean space that is understandable to us, where three-dimensional figures are already moving. The next one is a little more difficult. Let’s take a three-dimensional object, for example a cube, and add a fourth parameter to it – color. Now our cube can freely move (change the parameter) from red to purple (located infinitely far away). If we recall that the color spectrum is only a change in the length of the light wave (ie, number), then it becomes clear that we simply introduced a new numerical dimension. Now imagine that the cube has six more changing parameters – each of its six faces will have its own separate, divergent set of six different numbers: positive, negative, fractional, rational, irrational and imaginary. Now our cube has 10 independent state parameters and, accordingly, 10 dimensions. We will add times later.
The situation can be brought to a very large (n-th) number of parameters of a complex mathematical object that exists in a space of high (n-dimensional) dimension. But why does it need to be done in reality? After all, classical mechanics, field theory, quantum mechanics and almost all physics is built in the classical Euclidean, three-dimensional space.
The fact is that, in accordance with Noether’s theorem, each conservation law in nature has its own special symmetry and possibly a new dimension. And each conservation law is the supporting pillar of all physics, plus a separate stable particle and the fundamental interaction corresponding to it. Three-dimensional space becomes insufficient to explain the growing number of conservation laws, such as the baryon number, lepton number, the number of quarks and parity.
Today, no one really knows what the actual dimension of physical space is. In any case, even if higher dimensions exist, they are very deeply (that is, at a safe distance from us) hidden in nature at the level of Planck values. It is possible that this will never be verified experimentally if the energy required for this is fundamentally unattainable in any accelerators of the present and future.
Also, physicists have a strong opinion that in the case of more than three equal dimensions, the electromagnetic interaction would be too strong, which would not allow the formation of atoms. Things would jump out unpredictably from the fourth spatial dimension, and in the fifth we could get to Woland’s ball, as in M. Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita:
“- … what strikes me most of all is where it all fits. She waved her hand, emphasizing the immensity of the hall.
Koroviev smiled sweetly, causing the shadows to move in the folds of his nose.
– The easiest of all! he replied. – For those who are well acquainted with the fifth dimension, it costs nothing to push the room to the desired limits. I will tell you more, dear lady, to the devil knows what limits!
In higher dimensions, there is a completely different geometry, and hence physics, from which it will be (almost) impossible to return to our normal 3 + 1 dimensions, because the number of paths will turn out to be … semi-infinite.
Now let’s return to the question of the multidimensionality of time. The answer to it is related to the existence of independent time series. Their examples are found in every individual consciousness. A person can easily live (move) simultaneously in multiple time dimensions reflecting his almost independent realities, such as, for example, the subjective inner world, role and professional relationships, fantasies, emotions, and so on. In this sense, consciousness is indeed a good object for experiments with multidimensional time. The only but significant drawback is that individual time in this case is not universal and cannot claim to be a separate dimension until we find in the Universe a mega-consciousness participating in its evolution, which will be discussed in a separate chapter below.
Each inertial system, to a certain extent, is a separate time series. Subsets in such a system can be completely unrelated to each other, like, say, the life of an orchid on my windowsill does not affect the state of the plumbing in any way, not to mention its connections with tides, volcanoes, weather on Jupiter, etc. But, this does not mean that time takes on a new dimension in my orchid. For the second dimension of time, we will need two main properties of the new time series: first, as a separate coordinate, it must be independent of the rest of the flow of time and, accordingly, “see” the whole world frozen in one instant of the first dimension of time. As if you could see only one point on the X,Y plane from the height of the Z coordinate. Secondly, it must be a truly universal temporal (semantic) series in which the existent moves apart. At least the universe.
For example, if instead of an orchid we imagine another flower that grew from the umbilical cord of Vishnu – the golden Lotus, from which, as you know, the god of creation and creator of the worlds Brahma was born, then the picture changes dramatically. The evolution and time of the Lotus reflect the movement of the universe, but are not connected with its own time. This is her separate history and separate time. It is interesting that Brahma is able, without much effort, to produce an uncountable number of worlds and to be present in each of them in his own unique dimension.
In principle, physics also allows for several time directions, but its laws in such a world will be uncertain, matter will be at least unstable, unpredictable, and life will be impossible. The states of systems in multidimensional time will always have several options. You will be able to simultaneously, in the sense of many times, be in very different places and times, be alive and dead, have different parents, and so on.
Now let’s return to our 10-dimensional cube and imagine that on each of its faces, in addition to the number, there is also a letter (symbol) of one of the 6 languages. Let’s say Latin, Greek, Hindu, Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic. Letters change (move) in accordance with their program (story or short story). That is, allegorically, the cube can simultaneously be in Hamlet, Odyssey, Mahabharata, Tao Te Ching, Thousand and One Nights, and War and Peace. If, instead of books, we present very special codes necessary for the movement of beings, then each of them will represent an independent and universal dimension of time.
The question of the multidimensionality of time boils down to whether it is possible to find in reality its additional, universal and independent characteristics, in which unique movements of its evolution occur, independent of space and time. A candidate for this may be the scale (or change program) of the cosmological constant (dark energy) of the Universe, or some of the arrows of time, or an information space that has not yet been discovered.
A, B and C theories of time
The British philosopher John McTaggart in the early 20th century in his article “The Illusion of Time” introduces the concepts A and B of the type (or sequence) of time, which have become textbooks in the philosophy of time. A-time is his classic concept in which the observer moves from the past to the future. If it is at rest, then the future moves towards it, turns into the present and goes into the past. In this theory, only the present time is real (for us), while the past and the future have different degrees of uncertainty and do not actually exist. McTaggart generally considered A-time to be our “persistent illusion” and only the concept of B-time will allow us to think about time as it really is.
B-time arranges events in itself in a different way, providing them with the so-called temporal perspective as an extension in time by analogy with spatial extension. In B theory, time is considered in terms of “earlier-than” or “later-than”, as well as “simultaneously with”. It is interesting that if the Big Bang event is taken as the initial coordinate “later than”, then for our Universe A and B the times will turn out to be essentially identical.
B-time is impossible without A-time, otherwise it loses its causal sequence, therefore McTaggart does not really have either. That is, in true reality, there should be no time. There is his only possible timeless C-time, or rather an ideal C-sequence of a permanent order, whose hierarchies expand as they are included in the whole. In this absolute reality (sequence) all three modes of time are equally real (ie non-temporal) but we perceive them as illusions of A&B of time. In essence, McTaggart’s concept is a variation of Platonism and Hegel’s reflection of the absolute spirit.
Time as a causal flow
A chain of interrelated cause-and-effect events, in fact, forms time (registration), but it is not. Moreover, these events themselves were a stable result of a chain of other events, and so on, but not to a bad infinity. The causal series breaks up when the cause either does not produce consequences at all (closed substance), or when the number of possible consequences is infinite (investigative chaos).
These series of co-existences constitute the mechanical past of things, which no longer exists, which, in fact, always does not exist and, therefore, never existed in the sense of a kind of mirror chronicle of everything that exists, which, if it existed independently, would in its entirety be equivalent to Being. . Therefore, the past has a fundamental uncertainty, due to which determinism becomes impossible – without knowing exactly what happened yesterday, we will never be able to accurately predict what will happen today, much less tomorrow. The more blurry the traces of the past, the more vague the future. David Hume generally denied the principle of induction and believed that causes as such do not exist at all, and therefore there is no causal series and objective time.
For consciousness, the past is always included in its active model of the present time of the surrounding world. This gives rise to Plato’s concept of “remembering the truth”, Kant’s a priori knowledge, and Heidegger’s existential pre-orientation. The model of the past is constantly changing (updating) depending on new information and the degree of its truth. The forecast of the future will be somewhat different from the modeling of the past. Just as a train approaches and departs with a different sound, so does the future approach us with a growing sound of “predictive expectation”, passing the mechanical threshold of the present and freezing in our (often unconscious) model of reality. If the past is revealed, recognized and revealed, then the present is accepted, and the future is seen, calculated and assumed.
As another analogy, imagine the water level of the ocean as it is now. From above, various things fall on it from the future, which in the haze of the atmosphere we can distinguish (with a smart look) only at a small height. Our vision is riveted to the present – to the level of water, to the phenomenal world, where we see only “bursts of things” and try to unravel the things themselves from them. Further, having crossed the threshold of the present, things, depending on the depth of immersion, collapse into sand and completely dissolve in the bottomless ocean of the past.
For the thing itself, the “perception of time” (reaction) will be completely different, because for it there is only the present. Like a float on the surface of the water, the thing mechanically “knows”, only how to react now. Therefore, things are not in time, but in a temporal stream approaching them, to which physicists have given a separate dimension and called time. At the same time, the observer of time (I), according to Husserl, in his “original origin” must be over-temporal, since the content of consciousness (according to Husserl) must remain identical to itself. It should be noted here that the self-identity of consciousness is a separate complex issue in which its identity is rather not over-temporal, but rather evolves in its own separate category.
Does time exist outside of consciousness?
- Wells once noted that “The only difference between time and any of the three spatial dimensions is that our consciousness moves along it.”
If the direction (arrow) of time, as physicists say, goes (flies) along the increase in entropy, then life (temporarily) moves against time, since the entropy of the evolution of life goes towards its decrease, because life systems are continuously self-organizing by complication and ordering . Consciousness, to a certain extent, goes “against” organic, animal life, orienting itself parallel to time, but already in its “conscious time”, which in essence is the only possible form of the existence of consciousness. Just like vice versa, time acquires its meaning and completeness only in consciousness. It doesn’t matter if it’s ours, silicon or something else. Which, however, does not mean that time conceptually does not exist outside of consciousness. Like a Logos or an informational dimension.
In general, we understand very poorly what consciousness is, but in this paragraph, let’s compare it with the knowledge of mathematics, and time with mathematics itself. That is, we had a time when we did not know mathematics and the time will come when we will forget it. But, in this short and happy period (instant) of time, we possessed an extremely rare “mathematical consciousness” in the Universe, capable of not only discovering mathematical truths, but also creating our own ideal constructions, which is the absolute uniqueness of consciousness (not thinking) and its demand for large, cosmic time.
Temporary objects, according to Husserl, are revealed, causing a certain reaction (irritation) in the mind. Thus, consciousness orients itself in time and identifies itself in it (I am the same me as yesterday and last year). But there is another logic, perhaps of a higher order, in which consciousness is timeless and time is conscious. This refers to the fact that the stream of consciousness lives in its own time and does not depend directly on physical time, which reflects the understandable to us, that is, the “conscious logic” of the events of the external world, which speaks the same language with us.
The British philosopher, parapsychologist and engineer John W. Dunn believed that in the hierarchies of time the past present and future are merged, but our consciousness splits them into a linear triad convenient for it. And in a dream, “liberated” from the shackles of reality, consciousness is able to travel in all three modes of time.
Dunn’s idea is of particular interest to us in the aspect that consciousness must have multiple hierarchies, which can be related to time in different ways. Is it possible that the higher forms of consciousness (megaconsciousness) develop in a special superconscious time, which is determined by its superconscious cause-and-effect relationships, has its own evolution and, accordingly, its own independent dimension?
With Henri Bergson, time is always dynamic and meaningful. But only in the creative reality of a holistic consciousness, where time is the duration and flow of a vital impulse. Outside of consciousness there is only a space filled with simultaneous events of the present time. There is extension, but there is no duration as historicity and chronology. It is in duration that consciousness intuitively experiences itself in time as in a constantly moving continuity. Bergson’s temporal integrity is based on the continuity of the being itself, in which our consciousness performs certain functions, such as the experience of time in its states, which may not be interconnected by a rigid cause-and-effect logic.
Uncertainty of the future equals ignorance of the past?
At first glance, it seems that these are not quite commensurate categories. The problem of the obscurity of the past lies more in the lack of knowledge about the processes that have taken place (than information). Their actual traces are before our eyes, but we do not know how to explain them. Objects of the future don’t actually exist and you can’t point a finger at them. The uncertainty of the future lies in the lack of both information and knowledge. And in this sense, the uncertainties of the past and the future are unavoidable and even equivalent in the sense that the farther into the future or the past, the more vague and uncertain. However, not without exceptions. There are always islands of certainty (that is, facts) that do not depend on time distance, but depend on our interpretation. The closer an event (fact) is to us, the more “local” it is, the more subject to interpretation, the more invisible in the general system and large-scale picture of observable reality. And only after the passage of time, we will be able to say more definitely how this or that fact influenced the development of the history of the system under consideration. In this sense, the past tense (i.e. the past), on the contrary, removes uncertainties, but only in the segment that can be called the historicity of time.
The past and the future have different currents, which are replaced by their waterfalls and whirlpools (that is, qualitative transitions). Systems are formed and destroyed. Their future and past (in our interpretation) also arise, disappear and even merge. For example, before birth, a person had no past at all. Each of us would be surprised to know where the molecules of our body were scattered before birth and where the atoms that form them were created (many of which are far beyond our Galaxy). But this is not our past, it is the past of other systems. Just as in some future our molecules will again scatter (or spread apart) and become parts of other systems, but this is not our individual future. It can be said that a temporary episode of the existence of something begins with a qualitative transition of other systems from the future into it, their retention in the present and scattering into the past.
Ideal and artificial time
If the film of reality is rolled in the opposite direction, then we will move backward in time, where the effect is ahead of the cause. A broken glass is suddenly collected from fragments and jumps on the table, a bullet flies back into the barrel of a pistol, the dead come to life, grow younger and then disappear in the womb of their mother. The future time in such a movie turns into a “reverse” present time, which always turns out to be completely unexpected, due to an inverted cause-and-effect logic, unknown to a respected viewer.
However, if in separate subtitles there was an explanation of the situation and a prediction of future reverse events, then the reverse processes would become clear to us and would acquire their “reverse” meaning. That is, for the symbols of events or, generally speaking, for the “world of ideas”, it is absolutely all the same in which direction of time to move, or better to say, where to find oneself in time, because time does not exist there in its classical sense. It can also be said by analogy that there is no time in the world of software, in the virtual and digital world. There, all processes are exactly reversible, predictable and programmed. However, it will not be difficult to introduce an additional parameter in which the time will be artificially irreversible. That is, to postulate artificial time, specially created for the observer, so that the processes he observes have a meaning for him, similar to the one he sees in real time. If the observer of the virtual world were extremely intelligent and fast, then all digital processes, games, etc. could be collapsed in an instant and artificial time could be completely abandoned? Looks like no. Even in an ideal world, this would be impossible due to the limited energy of information processing, because the movement of program code ideas is energy-consuming, that is, subject to classical time processes. And this means that artificial time is only an artistic version of a more classical understanding of time.
Time as a number or does time exist in mathematics?
Time, among other things, is also a numbering of causal events. In this sense, time is a number, like a mirror reflecting what is happening in physical reality. The question is, does time exist in the mirror itself, or is there an inner mirror (through the looking glass) in the mirror itself? In other words, can time fix mathematical processes?
For example, axioms precede theorems as causes, and then step-by-step logical proof reproduces the principle of chronology. You can also introduce a formal numerical parameter into the system of mathematical objects, which will change only in one direction and thus symbolize time.
But here I would like to emphasize another aspect of the temporality of mathematics, which consists in the fact that full-fledged mathematics will be impossible without its carriers – mathematicians (no matter in what form). That is, mathematics (as a form of existence), of course, will be possible, but no one except God will know about it, which will complicate His creative projects, since it was mathematicians that were their essential part.
It must be said that science and mathematics in particular are unimaginably expensive. The price of the formula E = mc2 is about one hundred thousand years of human evolution (not to mention biological) and the fate of more than one hundred billion individuals who lived during this period of time, created and destroyed cultures, religions, states, countless material and spiritual values, architecture, art and finally science. Knowledge is always energy-consuming, which means that it lies in the vector of time.
The level or depth of human knowledge is extremely difficult to determine. If only because we are completely unaware of what absolute knowledge is or whether there is a limit to it. This depth can be embodied in the legendary theory of everything, which will explain all the physical phenomena of the observable part of the Universe. Or, it could be the world of mathematical objects, where our Universe is just one of its subsets. To understand where a person is today on this scale would be a very difficult and interesting task.
There are several indirect indicators showing how deeply a person is able to penetrate into the mysteries of Genesis and where is the limit of this depth. Several approaches can be suggested here. The fractal approach assumes the existence of many independent or nested worlds, united to varying degrees, but at least connected by the ability to exist. We can know our universe well, but have little to no idea about others. The level of absolute knowledge will depend on the idea of the general fractal structure of Being and our place in it. In other words, it is knowledge of the primary code.
The examination approach evaluates a single planetary IQ based on knowledge of “items” such as the theory of relativity, the laws of quantum mechanics, the DNA code, the neural model of the brain, and many other items that we still have no idea about, but the number of which should be limited.
The operational approach speaks about the level of scale at which a civilization is able to “work”. Both on enlargement and reduction of the scale of reality. For example, the creation of the atomic bomb is a prime example of primitive work at the atomic level. Physicists can experiment at a lower level of elementary particles, but they cannot create anything from this, as soon as they collide particles and see what happens. On a cosmic scale, humans are not even capable of moving asteroids, let alone any planetary or stellar architecture.
Kardashev’s energy approach is well known and technologically should be directly related to the depth of knowledge. That is, the type of 4-5 civilizations should be close to absolute knowledge.
A hierarchical approach will appreciate the depth of knowledge if you can explain in detail what consists of what, without postulating initial and final indivisibility and without referring to infinity.
The social approach assesses the extent to which one or another type/class of society is able to master one or another category of knowledge and technology. Of course, both biological and non-biological communities of intelligent and superintelligent beings should be included here. It is possible that only super-super-intelligent mathematical structures (forms) living in their happy mathematical time can have absolute knowledge. After all, only they can understand the high mathematical truths. It is this kind of transcendental mathematics that is the information space where time is the Logos and vice versa. It can be said that time does not exist in mathematics “in-itself” as a formula, but exists there “for-itself” as a version of Being.
Energy and time
Energy is the universal measure of any movement. The energy (of a closed system) is conserved in time, which guarantees the independence of all the laws of physics from time and makes our Universe stable and beautiful.
In the quantum world, thanks to the uncertainty principle, energy can be uncertain for a certain time and vice versa. In particular, this means that no events in a quantum system can occur instantly, and the shorter the event, the more energy must participate in it.
On the other hand, in accordance with the general theory of relativity, time flows more slowly in energy (mass) curved space-time. This suggests that time and energy are connected like overflowing vessels – the more energy is received from the outside, the slower the internal time of the system.
The meaning of the connection between them, apparently, lies in the fact that energy is materialized information, and time is closely related to the process of processing this information as a special form of movement.
Time in Modern Cosmism
Developing the ideas of Modern Cosmism, it is possible to define time by the formula of its actualization. Starting from the co-existence of the separation of time from eternity (after all, non-infinity is a condition for any existence), its actualization into reality, and the subsequent return to the emptiness of Nothing.
Since Nothing is non-self-identical due to the actuality of its infinite emptiness, then a unique internal tension is possible in it, and hence fluctuations (heterogeneities) which, in their overlays, can “temporarily” open a tunnel for a specific mode of existence, which we call Cosmos. Cosmic time is a measure of the self-reversal of the Cosmos. Its dimension and unique scale are derived from the primary code that the Cosmos receives from Being and through which it passes from a potential state to an actual one.
We must consider the universal temporality of Existence as a symbolic ripple of the emptiness of Nothing, as an infinite number of emerging and fading Cosmoses, and as a program for the evolution of the primary code of Existence.
There are no modes in cosmic time; future, present and past, and in general time in its classical sense, since in the integrity of the Cosmos, it reflects the processes of information support and the movement of being. Super-developed forms of consciousness are a product of the Cosmos and are an important and integral part of this support. The cosmos does not live in time, but in the cycles of its given evolution, the subsequent details of which can already be represented in the form of measurements of time.
Chapter VII
The Ultimate Truth and the Meaning of Everything
Truth (like paper money) does not mean anything in itself, but acquires meaning and value only in our minds (like, for example, money in society). Only consciousness is able to include the meaning of truth in its model of the universe (economy). In this sense, the “strength of truth” will depend on how general is the model of reality in which it (truth) is included. For example, the subjective truths of our inner worlds depend on more general biological truths, which in turn are subject to more fundamental truths on a chemical and physical scale. There are probably still higher truths that are (yet) inaccessible to us.
In our accumulated cumulative knowledge, many (but certainly not all) levels of reality have intersected, from quarks and putative strings to the cellular structure of the universe. This will enable humanity and its future evolutionary ramifications to interact with all available levels of reality and possibly influence some of them. Science is already today able to modify the biological basis of man, his DNA and many biochemical processes. People are able to change the environment (noosphere) and colonize neighboring planets in the long run. Probably, superintelligent civilizations will be able to influence the deeper layers of reality, modify their physical nature and even nature as such.
If superintelligent life ever succeeds in constructing a more or less complete model of reality, then everything in it must be true, by virtue of its completeness. Such a model will enable the Cosmos to find its unity and integrity in it. Actually, the task of this book is an attempt to expand the horizons of our understanding of reality.
The question of the limit of cognition of reality remains very difficult. For example, does the limit of the knowledge of a thing mean the limit of the thing itself as a thing? In this issue, the limit of knowledge is understood as the fundamental inability of any thinking (including even the artificial super-intelligence of the future) to explain phenomena whose causes lie in another layer of reality that is inaccessible to us. Imagine that our universe is a complex mechanism of a giant clock. Being within the boundaries of such a clock, thinking can successfully understand (logically connect) the movements of all gears and answer all questions about their design, except for the most important “what time is it?” Because in order to answer this question, it is necessary to go into a completely different reality, a logic that is implicit to us, which cannot be understood while sitting inside the clock. Therefore, the question becomes important – is there a limit to the thing itself as the limit of its appearance?
Thinking is formed among things and reflects the logic of things, which, in turn, continue to distance themselves from us no matter how close we approach them and try to understand. At this “distance to the horizon” the thing translates (or encodes) itself into phenomena with which, and only with which, we have to deal. However, thinking has always tried to find that universal platform where the truth is seen as it is – clearly, undistorted and eternal. In our view, such a platform should be the information dimension of reality, in which things consist of multi-level codes and each level is responsible for its own type of movement.
Perhaps someday super AI will be able to point to a long (hundreds of kilometers?) formula and say with relief that this is the limit of the thing itself and its knowledge. As evidence, this super AI will have to demonstrate a modification of this formula at the push of a button. In this case, the thing will disappear as a phenomenon or is transformed into another thing. There was a proton, there was an electron. This is the technology of a very distant future. But, probably, no technologies will allow turning, say, Mercury into Jupiter, because time prevents this, namely, the information and energy costs for such a transformation will be prohibitive, that is, even theoretically prohibited in our Universe. Perhaps that is why superintelligent life will strive for greater freedom in other worlds, perhaps even built for these purposes.
Another, no less important question is whether its existence is included in the essence of truth? If so, then everything true necessarily exists (as a whole). If not, then truth is speculative, relative, partial, and depends on the point of view of the observer. At the same time, it should be noted that our idea of truth (knowledge) is quite paradoxical and can both exist and not exist at the same time, since partial knowledge of truth objectively exists, but at the same time it is formally equated with ignorance of it. For example, you cannot partially know the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (you either know it or you don’t). It is enough to forget only the last point, and our understanding of the truth will not be complete and its heuristic moment will not happen.
It can be assumed that the essence of truth lies in its completeness. That is, the transition of the potential into the real has now taken place thanks to the “moment of truth”, which reflects its fullness. In other words, the existent was able to fully advance into the future and at the same time become a new reality thanks to the fullness of truth, when each thing receives a specific “instruction” in the form of mathematical or physical laws on how to move on.
If we talk about incomplete truth, then it degrades into partial coincidences of reality and our idea of it. Therefore, we will never be able to reproduce the fullness of truth in our individual and even collective neural networks, also because it is impossible to embrace the immensity. But such a task should not be set, since human cognition still has other goals, namely, the identification of the common (regular) in the multitude and the disclosure of cause-and-effect relationships.
Martin Heidegger
In his article “On the Essence of Truth”, Martin Heidegger rhetorically asks: Is the question about the essence of truth too general, abstract and empty? Why is the generalized answer of ordinary reason worse than simple ignorance of the essence of truth? In fact, from the point of view of the “ordinary mind”, almost all philosophical questions will turn out to be empty and unnecessarily abstract. But the special “emptiness” of the question about the essence of truth lies in its constant presence in thinking and at the same time slipping into the blurring of the universal. Heidegger says that the reality of something is not a criterion of truth, just as fake gold is “not true”, but solely because we have determined in advance (a priori) the truth of “true” gold. Therefore, “true or false we call our statements about beings,” which, in principle, may not exist independently, but are conceptually present in the judgment and be logically connected with reality and elements of thinking. The true is that which agrees, writes Heidegger, “truth is the equating of knowledge with a thing.”
It is not difficult to defeat Heidegger with logic. But at the same time, vague anxiety will not leave you. What is this “anxiety”? Man is a being, open to everything. With its ubiquitous “here” presence, Dasein (here-being) cancels the established warehouse of deterministic things. Going straight “to the things themselves”, a person begins to be present in them. At the same time, “presence understands in some way and with some clarity in its being.” Without realizing it, a person turned out to be “abandoned” into the gap of being (light as a world, a pre-existing world, into which he entered as into a circle of the unhidden). Hence our ontologically inexplicable “ability to be in the world” and the unique ability of its holistic perception, when Being “enters” with illumination (or horror) into a person with the fullness of truth “and through him this being is opened to him himself”, if only he is not rejected, but is able to realize their “authenticity”.
Here one can see two different aspects of equating a thing with cognition, when the thing coincides (in experiments) with my judgment about it, as, for example, I coincide with a suit (in a store) and, on the other hand, when the judgment coincides with the thing, as a suit match with me (custom made). These two aspects of coincidence are quite different. A thing is visible to us only in its appearances and “allows” thinking to itself in a different way than thinking “lets in” a thing indicated in appearances. In the first case, the thing accepts thinking as its potential (when there is only a limited number of pre-correctly tailored suits), while in the other aspect, thinking tries to include the thing in itself (dress itself) in its model of reality, that is, in its own reality.
The key point in understanding Heidegger is to accept that the intelligibility of Being (and the subsequent openness of truth) comes from the fact that we “suddenly” found ourselves in an environment that we did not create, where a thing can be represented (not manifested, namely represented) in its own entities. “Being can, further, show itself out of itself in different ways, depending on the way of approaching it,” and also “Logos makes something to be seen … exactly what it is about.”
An important element in understanding Heideggerian truth is to get rid of the constructed notion of truth in the sense of “correspondence”. However, this idea is by no means primary in his concept of Αλήθεια (aletheia). Aletheia in ancient Greek mythology was the goddess of truth, or even truth itself. The name Aletheia meant that which is not subject to oblivion, as that which emerges in eternity, does not pass away, but remains. In Heidegger, Aletheia is unhidden, not visible explicitly, axial and obviously present. The proposed method is simple and ingenious – with the help of the true Logos, to remove the existent from its hiddenness and see it unhidden in the light of Aletheia (as in Plato’s myth about truth).
However, the Logos can also be false in the sense of involuntary concealment, and therefore should not be considered as the primary “place” of truth. More true than the Logos is “a simple sensory perception of something.” In the extreme case, Heidegger makes a reservation, it may turn out to be “non-attention”, which, at first glance, confuses the situation even more, since the obviously intelligible turns out to be equal to the categorical incomprehensible, the essence of which is simple ignorance. However, Heidegger’s indistinctness is more complicated – it is not just opposite to a person’s innate ability to heuristic perception as opening with the light of the Logos, it can be even where there is no Logos, but the existent in some way already exists.
Next, Heidegger begins to search for similarities (equating) between the coin and the concept of it. Pretending to be embarrassed, he asks: “How is it that something completely different, that is, a statement, is equated with a coin? After all, it would then have to turn into a coin and thus completely and completely abandon itself.
If we recall once again the Taoist Yin and Yang, then we can assume that the concept already exists a priori in the thing (information), and vice versa – the thingness is inherent in the concept (as the ability to materialize it). In this sense, it is interesting to analyze their maximum possible convergence, removal and balance.
Imagine yourself as a designer and inventor of a car. Hundreds of elements were reasonably coordinated on the drawings into a single project, moreover, commercially profitable (energy-profitable) and not only for the investor, but also for the designer himself, that is, a heuristic situation arises (point of no return), when the non-reification of the project is no longer -Maybe. Next, you transfer the drawings to some ingenious workshop, go to bed and “the next morning” sit down to ride in your realized idea. Now give this car (as a manifested thing) to talented re-engineers and “the next morning” you can get detailed drawings of your car. In the first case, the concept necessarily materialized (becoming a thing), giving form to the formless (matter), in the second case, we have the reverse process – the formation of the concept by deforming the thing (disassembly of the machine). The process of reification (for a person) turns out to be immeasurably more difficult (even energetically) than the process of defining (understanding) a thing. What these processes have in common is the movement of the form of a thing. The main difference is in the direction of this movement. The first occurs “according to time” of the flow of cause-and-effect relationships that we understand, while the second moves “against time” in the wake (phenomena) of a thing that is constantly “removing into the future”.
In this sense, Heidegger’s rhetorical questioning: “How can a statement, asserting precisely its essence, at the same time be likened to another, a thing?” finds an unexpectedly simple answer – in the movement of consciousness “against” a thing, when its essential qualities are exposed in the oncoming flow. Further, the most interesting: “Representation here … means the assumption that the thing is located in front of us”, which implies the moment of its unexpected recognition as it is, which, in fact, is the unique gift of man.
Man and thing, in a certain sense, move towards each other, but in different ways. The discovery of the thing in its movement towards the opposite is carried out in the sphere of such openness, the simplicity of which is not only created, but is each time put into connection and perceived as a sphere of correlation. The understanding of the key phrase “the assumption that the thing is in front of us” lies, it seems to me, in our deep trust in the thing, it is its unexpected discovery that creates a sphere of openness, confidential simplicity and even intimate correlation between the thing and its concept.
It must be said that here Heidegger is over-optimistic, because the euphoria of discovering an open thing right in front of us lies only in potency. In fact, a thing (giving us an unrealizable chance to move with it in time and take it open, not manifest as it is) will pass like a ghost through a person, burying in him the beginning of his essence as an essence, which will be shaped into existence when the concept of a thing moves. to the “beginning of time”.
The reality of a thing in itself is not a criterion of truth without connection (accordance – as Heidegger writes) with our idea of this thing. The question, after all, is why a coincidence (at least partial) of a concept with a thing is possible at all. This is the fundamental question of the knowability of the world. The apparent obviousness of the answer (the object and its reflection) is very illusory. For example, the coincidence of the piston diameter with the cylinder bore only means that they are connected parts of a single system.
Further, the simplicity of the openness of a thing (connection with representation) in Heidegger gives impetus (awakening) to behavior. The openness of behavior is called “being”. The being can be represented in a statement, while the statement itself, following (unquestioningly) the indications of the being, presents it as it is, that is, true. The truth (correctness) of the statement lies in its openness (which has already become the guiding principle). An interesting conclusion follows, that what makes truth possible (that is, openness), the original essence of truth! Thus, the notion that truth is given to us only in a sentence is refuted.
It is impossible not to note a certain mythologism in Heidegger’s canonization of openness, which appeals to self-evidence. Between the lines, he vaguely remarks that: “Depending on the nature of the being and the form of behavior, openness for a person is different.” It is not clear whether a person represents the concept “as a whole”? Then, depending on the nature, can the thing actually close? That is, it turns out that openness as such can be replaced with at-openness = non-closedness, which is already obvious.
The openness of a thing is rather the openness of an abyss (for those who see it … with the simplicity of an inevitable fall), which we “trust” with horror and instinctively. The openness of a thing is an invitation to its source, to the ajar door of infinity.
Medieval scholastics believed that all things are created (true) in accordance with the divine idea (truth as such). By equating thinking with a thing, we thus make it true. Also, in accordance with the doctrine, we ourselves, being created beings, also have the full right to correspond to the supreme plan and have true connections in it with all other things. In other words, truth is possible due to the fundamental accessibility of a thing in the act of creation that unites us with it. At the same time, the act itself and its driving forces, as it were, fall out of the brackets of an accessible understanding. The imperfection of a thing (compare with Plotinus’s immersion in matter) as a distortion (retreat from) the intention of creation is also inaccessible to thinking, which, in turn, can itself be a distortion of the intention and be permanent, unremovable “untrue”. That is, one must not agree with Heidegger that “untruth as the opposite of truth can be eliminated” even with direct perception of pure truth.
Truth as completeness of information
The reality of a thing is a “special case” of its possibility. According to Aristotle: “… everything that arises arises from being in possibility (after all, it would not have arisen from the impossible and could not have consisted of it), but what is in possibility can become, and not become real.” It remains only to find out when a thing begins to be possible. And this happens at that wonderful moment when its capabilities are combined into a system or an existential package that is waiting for its actualization. As in the myth of the birth of Athena (thing), which gracefully came out in full ammunition (properties) directly from the head (thought) of Zeus.
For Kant, truth is the correspondence of knowledge to its subject. In Marxism, truth is a “reflection of reality”, which is somewhat weaker in essence “correspondence to an object”, since animals, for example, also reflect reality, but this reflection is not brought into the system of knowledge, because, firstly, not things themselves are reflected, but their specific phenomena, and, secondly, they are reflected not in a pure mirror of consciousness, but in a plane of perception unsuitable for this. It is also worth noting that the concept of “compliance” in this situation will be no less problematic, since neither the criterion of compliance nor its completeness is specified. But most importantly, it is not entirely clear how such different-quality things as neural connections can correspond to each other, where is our knowledge and a physical thing that moves according to completely different laws? Actually, this is the main problem of dualism, well developed by Rene Descartes, who proposed through his principle of subjective certainty (one cannot doubt the existence of one’s own thinking, hence cogito ergo sum) to build the entire system of knowledge.
Modern Cosmism can define truth not as a correspondence or reflection of reality in thinking, but as a completeness of information about reality in its ontological model. Here knowledge acts precisely as a model, as a logical form, which is filled with meaningful information. That is, that model (of a process or system) will be true, where information about its state in space and time will be as complete as possible. At the same time, in reality, the amount of information about a system is always limited and fluctuates around its total energy, which, in fact, will be the criterion of information completeness in a given universe.
Meaning of Everything
It is probably difficult to come up with a more meaningless question than “about the meaning of everything”, since the meaning of something is always external, and there is nothing outside of “everything”. The internal meaning of an object is never self-sufficient, since the essence of meaning is precisely in the disclosure of external connections and involvement in the whole, as, for example, the meaning of a wheel lies not in its structure, but in involvement in a cart or a Mercedes, the meaning of which today was so that his mistress could get to the perfume shop.
We will not delve here into the extensive semantic discussions of the theory of meaning in the analytic style of Russell or Frege, but will try to understand the ontological essence of meaning as such. The very word “s-thought” already indicates that its essence lies in the meaningful existence of something, where mentality means a logically justified and necessary connection to the whole as an external goal-setting.
Meaning also has a heuristic element – it is understood, attached, contained, limited, lost or present. However, the meaning is not understood in itself – it is always the meaning of something in something. It always exists in a semantic field (vector), where the same things can have different meanings at the same time, depending on which system they are connected to, what functionality they are endowed with and what necessary place they occupy there. For example, the meaning of a tree can be in part of a forest or garden, as a source of fruit, and also as a building or combustible material. It is multi-meaningful. But there are things with a singular meaning, as, for example, the meaning of a seed is limited, pronounced and contained in its potentiality to become a tree. This is what the seed is for. The rest of its meanings are less significant or auxiliary. Thus, we come to the well-known formula that the meaning of the existence of something (including human life) lies in the realization of its potency, which acts as a blessing, but the realization of which is prevented by the destructive forces of reality (say, evil). Therefore, out of a thousand seeds, only one tree will grow, and out of millions of patent clerks (potential and real), only one Einstein will form.
But isn’t meaning just essence? After all, there can be many meanings, but the essence is one. The problem is that these are fundamentally different categorical concepts. If the meaning is usually the purpose of the part as a whole, then the essence tells us about the certainty of the content. It does not (immediately) need the whole, although it points to Being, claiming to be the condition of all existence. No sense is capable of this. Actually, the essence is the eternal meaning of itself.
Let’s remember once again a defective children’s construction toy, which randomly got parts from many other types of designers, and thus, no part fits the other. The existence of anything in such a constructor becomes impossible, since it is potentially empty. To exist means to be an actual part of a potentially possible whole.
I must say that in this topic there are more questions than intelligible answers. What will remain of what exists beyond itself? Other existence? Is it possible to consider a really existing reason for existence, and will it have its own existing reason? Is it possible to semi-exist? Do entities exist on their own? Or the classic question – what is the meaning of all things? Having found the answers to these questions, we will understand why everything that happens is happening, and why we are asking all this.
In fact, apart from being, only the Absolute will remain. Without any meanings and connections with the outside world. As it is in-itself. And it will be essentially empty. Leibniz would have objected that the essence of the in-itself (or for-itself), on the contrary, is the absolute plenitude, God, the singularity or substance which is the cause of itself (the theosophical snake biting its own tail). But Leibniz was never able to clearly explain why, then, the substance should go beyond the limits of self-sufficient, happy and self-loved? Why all this fuss of Existence, when energetically it would be so right not to move anywhere and rest in absolute emptiness, endless chaos and eternal oblivion. Somewhere this theme echoes Heidegger’s questioning “why something and not nothing”. Although, the question “why all?” more appeals to the primary logic of existence, that is, to its amazing “life impulse”.
Chapter VIII
Architecture of Reality
“Master Lezi said: What is born by the born is death, but what gives birth to the born never ends, what is formed into a form is the essence, and what forms a form never has a form, the sound produced by the sounding is heard but that which generates sounding never sounds, the coloring generated by color is clearly visible, and that which generates color is never noticeable, the taste generated by taste is felt, and that which generates the sensation of taste is never detected.
Yang Zhu (5th century BC) in a treatise by Lao Tzu
To define the real, at first glance, is quite simple – it is everything that exists explicitly and objectively (including the phenomena of consciousness), as well as implicitly (hidden) and, possibly, subjectively (as a subjective reality). I think that we should recognize that there are levels of reality that are fundamentally inaccessible to observation (and even understanding). These levels may or may not have phenomena, like the tip of an iceberg, like a submerged iceberg.
The concept of reality is multifaceted, it depends on the context and allows for many free interpretations. Here, by reality, we mean connectedness. The more extensive and systemic the connections of objects (horizontal and vertical), the more real the reality. Something completely separate and not connected with anything, such as the Absolute, will be considered not real. On the other hand, something connected with everything directly, not indirectly, such as space-time or mathematics, will be considered a complete or perfect reality. In this sense, one can speak of many semi-real realities between these poles, such as biological reality, musical reality, social reality, and so on. However, the “incompleteness” of the reality of these realities in no way means their unreality, illusory or invalidity. Semi-reality only expresses the degree of universal inclusion or completeness of universal significance.
There are many levels of reality, and their totality (that is, architecture) will have to be determined by a different, “controlling” structure, which can be called a super-reality, in which (schematically) all other realities should be represented, just as in human thinking the world around him.
Each concrete reality has its own unique dimension (social, physical, virtual, personal, etc.) and a circle of definitely interacting things associated with it (sometimes we say a layer of reality), such as the atomic structure of matter or quantum reality. The dimension of the super-reality is, in our opinion, the informational dimension.
The opposite of the real is the unreal, which does not automatically mean that it does not exist. After all, reality itself is not directly connected with existence. We can easily imagine the individual elements of the obviously “unreal”, as, say, intersecting parallel lines, a centaur or a talking hare, but the point is that these elements will turn out to be deliberately disparate, unrelated to each other and, therefore, unable to form a full-fledged and universal unreal reality. However, if you find your own logical dimension for each case, then unreal things turn out to be quite real – parallel lines intersect on a curved surface, mythology had a huge impact on the formation of humanity, and fairy tales and cartoons – on children’s consciousness. The unreal, being systematized, becomes a new reality and begins to exist independently, confirming the thesis that the unreal does not exist until we begin to think about it and give it meaning and consistency.
The question arises: is the “unreal” part of the universal reality? Or is it just a subjective illusion? Or is the unreal something that does not correspond to reality in our understanding of it (i.e. false knowledge)? Most likely, the unreal is a part of super-reality, as its reflection in consciousness. Since a person is involved in super-reality, this reflection is formed in us in the forms of creativity, fantasies and illusions, while in super-reality these “unreal” forms may be included in the structures responsible for the formation of consciousness and individuality. At the same time, super-reality itself will represent precisely the fullness of reality, all its layers and levels. It is interesting to note that in Fichte, for example, the absolute fullness of reality lies in the “I”, in Semyon Frank it is in Being, but in fact, reality for him is a set of infinite dimensions of being, therefore it will be unattainable either with its phenomenological construction or with its cognition (discovery), and in this sense, the fullness of reality is illusory, since it will never completely correspond to reality.
Illusion, as part of the unreal, is an exclusive product of consciousness, which, as we know, is no less real than the things around it. In fact, consciousness is the only reality that we have directly and that we can be absolutely sure of. But, since consciousness is always individual (at least in its manifestation), and, therefore, subjective, we come to dualism and a well-known cliché that divides reality into objective and subjective. Moreover, objective reality is, as it were, a cumulative representation of it by a multitude of subjective realities that do not contradict each other.
However, we quite legitimately admit the existence in the subjective world of objectively non-existent things. The human world is obviously impossible without myths, literature, art, dreams, fantasies and other illusory things, which, nevertheless, actively participate in the formation of humanity. Moreover, the sources of many historical events were precisely personal illusions, false ideas, inadequate beliefs and other mental “imperfections”.
Human history has objectively driving factors and laws of development, which also consist of the realities of dreams and illusions, each of which has different possibilities of transition into reality. Many develop and go into oblivion with the morning mist, and some pass into spiritual revelations, as, for example, in the book of Genesis: Jacob heard in a dream how the Lord promised him “The land on which you lie, I will give you and your offspring; and your offspring will be like the sand of the earth; and spread to the sea, and to the east, and to the north, and towards noon; and all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in you and in your seed,” which played an important role in shaping the mentality of the entire Jewish people. The Buddha, according to legend, was conceived in a dream when a white elephant with six tusks entered his mother, Queen Maha Maya. On the eve of the battle with Maxentius, Emperor Constantine saw in a dream a cross in the radiance of the sun and the inscription “In hoc signo vinces” (by this you will win), which, together with a real victory, subsequently significantly influenced the spread of Christianity in Europe and determined the fate of hundreds of millions of people. Many grandiose projects and wars carried out by mankind were connected with religion, that is, with the ethereal constitution of the soul, where the real and the unreal intertwined in an amazing symbiosis, in which consciousness can so comfortably exist.
Scientific insights also often happened in a dream, where Niels Bohr saw a model of an atom, and Mendeleev saw his Periodic Table of Elements. But the most elegant two-real dream can be considered the famous dream of the writer of Taoist parables Juan Tzu, who dreamed that he was a butterfly who dreams that she is Juan Tzu. Here we are dealing with diverse realities pouring into each other, where none of them is self-sufficient and does not have the fullness of existence. Juan Tzu’s reality as a butterfly’s dream is most complete in his own dream, and vice versa, a butterfly is real only in its own dream, through Juan Tzu’s dream. Therefore, even waking up, he will not be able to say with complete certainty that he himself and the reality surrounding him are not a dream of a butterfly. After all, human illusions are no less real than reality itself is illusory.
The real doesn’t have to exist. It conveys this function to reality, which is actualized reality. Therefore, we can say that both the real and the unreal do not exist. The first does not exist “freely”, while the second does not exist through equating with the first. In other words – the unreal, like everything else, has its own degree of reality – there are only its different levels and different dimensions. Actually, this is what Metaphysics does, investigating the degrees of reality of objects of consciousness (but not the objects themselves). Hegel, for example, believed that only the Absolute (as a unity) has the fullness of reality, moreover, everything real must be reasonable, and vice versa, the reasonable has the highest degree of reality. Existence is the unity of all kinds of reality. I think that it would be logical to define the first emanation of the Hegelian Being precisely as a super-reality. There the true reality is released from the essential connection, becoming the universal reality of all potential worlds.
Mathematical Reality
The German mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943) once noted: “We see that not only our ideas about space, time and motion are radically changing according to Einstein’s theory [of relativity], but I am also convinced that its basic equations will make it possible to penetrate into the most intimate processes occurring inside the atom, and, what is especially important, it will become feasible to reduce all physical constants to mathematical constants, and this, in turn, shows that the fundamental possibility is approaching to make a science of such a kind as geometry out of physics.
When the Australian aborigines were still hunting kangaroos with boomerangs in the late sixties of the twentieth century, their brothers in mind on the other side of the planet had already gone into space and even landed on the moon. At the same time, both the natives (unconsciously throwing a boomerang) and the designers of spaceships (consciously) used mathematical calculations so that the inner reality of consciousness adequately reflected the physical reality. To achieve various goals. The question is, does mathematics (as a mirror) reflect the proportions and patterns of the universe, or is it itself an independent reality, followed by the physical world? For example, the Heraclitean Logos, through which the possible finds its possibilities, is pure mathematics. At the same time, the Logos exists eternally and independently of things. It can even be said that only it truly exists, since everything else is temporary.
For Plato, ideal geometric forms refer to the truly existing world of ideas, through which the material world acquires its semantic certainty. Mathematics is self-sufficient, and its foundation is in itself. In connection with this, an important question arises about the relationship of mathematics to reality and vice versa – why is reality mathematical? Whether mathematics is a purely speculative process of constructing structures that do not exist in reality, or vice versa, reality can exist only in these structures, either explicitly or indirectly.
Many thinkers considered mathematical truths to be innate (Descartes, Leibniz) or a priori (Kant) for the mind. They don’t really need reality, just as form doesn’t need content. However, mathematical forms have a special property. Existing only in thought, they are reflected in reality, just as light is reflected in things and makes them visible.
Ontological status of mathematical objects
The number is a speculative symbol representing real or rational proportions (i.e. ratios). Moreover, since the dimension of reality itself is also numerical, the number becomes its inevitable essence. The number also symbolizes and means proportions between other numbers, that is, the numerical value of numerical ratios. The ideal is always in exact ratio, or ideal proportion, and what is itself proportions, and so on. A number in this sense is not just a quantity (or magnitude), but primarily a symbol of ratio.
The Pythagorean Genesis coincided in its proportions with the number and through it already exists rationally. The Russian word coincidence, as well as the English co-incidence (in contrast to the Latin concursu – literally “on the way”), apparently, comes from a game of dice and means the accidental loss of the same sides of the cube. In German, the word “accident” – unfall – practically coincides in meaning with the word “coincidence” – zufall. It is possible that Being itself to some extent successfully “fell out” (from Chaos) into numbers, coincided with itself and began to exist. The number turned out to be in some way even more primary than Being, which can be “digitized” and presented as a primary code.
American mathematician Max Tegmark boldly suggested that all mathematically consistent structures must exist physically. In essence, this is a variation of Parmenides’ concept that everything that is rightly thought must exist, and vice versa. The most difficult two questions are whether there was mathematics when there was nothing yet (that is, in Nothing), and is “another mathematics” possible? Both of these questions are, in fact, “simply” solved by Plato’s postulation of eternity and immutability of the world of ideas and forms. Then mathematics must be unique and precede all existence, since it is itself the “first” existence. In this sense, Mathematics (with a capital letter) becomes God-in-itself and the Absolute, which takes us somewhat in a different direction, but emphasizes the supremacy and independence of mathematical truths from the outside world.
Are there truths beyond mathematics? For example, something non-mathematical, but underlying its own foundation, that mathematics is unable to describe in its formal language? As you know, most mathematical objects are invented, ideal and have no analogues in reality. I think that they can be considered as phenomena (manifestations) of a more subtle reality, hidden (so far inaccessible) to human thinking, which, in fact, will give mathematics an ontological status as a regulator of existence.
Physical Reality
Traditionally, physical reality is understood as a theoretical science, namely, a set of theories, confirmed by observations, describing the physical picture of the world. Manifest or potentially manifest. The only thing missing in this understanding is that theoretical science itself is an important part of physical reality (reflecting into itself). In this sense, scientific thinking is an attempt to approach the ideal foundations of reality and, in the long run, even “correct” some of them in accordance with its goals, as Cosmism believes.
Let’s start with things. The ideal in a thing is rooted in that through which it has found its essence. There reality is still in itself and is not “physical”, that is, burdened with matter, space and time. But what, in fact, is the materiality of matter? In her unique “maternal” ability to accept (enter) into a given form. At the same time, we can say that the acceptance of a form is a process of recoding. Imagine that you need to change the form of “sitting” to the form of “standing”. Your brain recodes the signal to your muscles and you change your shape. It is the same in nature – at zero temperature, a signal is given to water molecules to recode their bonds, and now we have not water, but ice.
Matter is illusory to a certain extent, since we are almost completely dealing not with matter, but with its interactions (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak). Everything that we see around us is intense electromagnetic fields and emptiness. If the globe is compressed to the state of pure matter, that is, the Schwardschild sphere, then it will be the size of a tennis ball. Genuine matter (fermions) today includes only leptons (electrons, muons, neutrinos) and quarks, and the latter do not exist in a free state. So the only way for us to experience real matter directly is to get an electric shock and feel real electrons. However, even this sensation will be mediated through the interpretation of irritation of nerve cells (simply pain) in our neural networks of the brain (all sensations can be turned off or corrected there). Moreover, if string theory is correct, then matter ceases to exist as a concept at the Planckian level of reality. It is completely replaced by the energy of vibrating strings. The theory of relativity also speaks of the free transition of energy into matter and vice versa.
Physical reality is thankfully imperfect. Imperfection is a necessary component of any existence. Our Universe was also formed due to the imperfection (instability) of the original cosmological singularity, or fluctuation of the scalar field, which passed into the Big Bang. Galaxies were formed from the inhomogeneities of the state of the Universe during the first three seconds, evidence of which we see in the CMB mosaic. All the laws of nature that we know and still do not know, sometime and somewhere will be necessarily violated in extreme (for us) areas of reality. Perhaps because the true source of reality is the information space, where these laws exist in their true form.
The information “break” of a more primary essence, perhaps, “gave life” to space and time. Physicists call such a break the minimum energy of the continuum itself or the vacuum energy (false), as a certain condition (parameter) for the existence and stability of the continuum. Each niche (depression) of the false vacuum may have its own unique universe.
Every system in physical reality tends to a minimum energy level. At zero vacuum energy (the so-called true vacuum) or even its negative energy, the space-time continuum will degrade and eventually disintegrate, disappearing as a being.
Physical reality can be thought of as a process of informational recoding of reality from a higher order. For example, a thought experiment of the return of matter from a singularity (wormholes or white holes), when a conditional particle of the singularity on the “other side” of the Universe “uploads” information from the periphery into itself and becomes matter. It is possible that the recoding takes place at that deep level, where the space itself from multidimensional becomes three-dimensional. Actually, the main thing that I would like to say here is that the basis of physical reality is informational, and the time in which it lives reflects its unique dimension.
Super-Reality and Virtual Reality
Jean Baudrillard called hyperreality a self-contained, hypertrophied, virtual reality. Its meaning lies in the substitution of true reality and even its destruction through lack of demand and irrelevance. Hyperreality does not refer us to real phenomena, since it has lost connection with them. Baudrillard believes that modern society has long been living in hyperreality – “a simulation of what has never really existed.” However, there is nothing fundamentally new in this. Ever since mythological times, a person preferred to have a parallel imaginary reality nearby in the form of religion, literature, music and art, which had a rather complex relationship with reality. Human culture has always existed in its own reality. Even Pushkin noted that “the darkness of low truths is dearer to us than the uplifting deceit.” There, in illusions and the virtual world, it is much more comfortable to live in elegant fantasies and invented worlds than in the harsh and indifferent to us surrounding reality. Moreover, it can be said that the very nature of consciousness requires the imagination and richness of the inner world, that is, its simulated virtuality, in which consciousness orients itself and finds (self-conscious) itself.
Hyperreality is a special trend of our time. It does not try to stimulate our imagination, but itself replaces it in the smallest detail and thus claims to be a full-fledged reality, where consciousness is invited for boring games. The question is, what is the true meaning of virtuality and what will it develop into in the future? I think that the turning point in the development of Virtual Reality (VR) will be the creation of a full-fledged and autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI), for which this reality will become its own and the only possible one. AI, through the collective efforts of its own kind, will exponentially develop VR to a fundamentally new level, where every phenomenon of physical reality will be reflected and modeled in real time, depending on what you study and where you look. If AI manages to survive and relatively quickly evolve into Artificial Super-Intelligence (AI), then its super-virtual reality will be able to most fully reflect the entire physical reality of our Universe and will come closer to modeling the information super-reality that forms the basis of everything that exists. Probably, it is at this stage that the artificial virtual reality and the “natural” super-reality will dock in a special place, which we call Lucheverum.
But what is super-reality? As noted above, this is the universal reality of all potential universes. By super-reality, we also understand the existential code of the Cosmos, which is a modification of an even more fundamental primary code of Being. If we compare these hierarchies with biological life, then the primary code would be responsible for abiogenesis (the emergence of life from non-life) and the formation of proteins, and the existential code would be the world of RNA.
I think that at a certain stage of its development, intelligent life will cease to engage in cognition in today’s traditional forms of science in the form of theoretical research and experiments. Due to the inability of a person (and any of his teams) to process the required amount of information for new discoveries and technologies. Especially in those areas that scientists today seem uninteresting. Just as a person delegated his hard physical work to machines and robots, he will entrust his overwhelming intellectual work to AI and ASI, which will not only learn the Cosmos, but simulate it (and other fantastic worlds) in their virtual reality.
The importance for the Cosmos of the process of docking super-reality and virtual reality (essentially Being and Thinking) lies in the fact that it is super-intelligent life that will be able to understand and modify super-reality, creating (or launching) new models of universes through which the Cosmos will self- emerges and develops.
Scales of Reality
Everyone knows that size matters. Great importance. The laws of nature change as the scale increases or decreases. What is possible on one level is forbidden on another, and no one knows exactly how the dimension affects the formation and movement of things. I think that there is a certain sinusoidal energy, for every four and seven orders of magnitude, which in its peaks determines the optimal form of things and their interactions. Let’s see what science knows today and what can be extrapolated:
Universe – estimated size 1027 m
Galaxy – about 1020 m
Star system – on average 1013 m
Planet – about 107 m
Man – conditionally 100 m
Cell – 10-4 m
DNA – 10-7 m
Atom – 10-11 m
Proton – 10-15 m
Particles of matter – quarks and leptons – are pointlike and, as it were, dimensionless.
Strings, Loops and Planck Length – 10-35
Thus, in terms of magnification: A man in scale is in the same proportion with his 1) planet, as a planet is with his 2) star system, which is in the same proportion with 3) galaxy, which is in the same proportion with its 4) The Universe which is extrapolated to be in the same proportion with its Multiverse, which is expected to be in the same proportion with its Cosmos (100 – 107 – 1013 – 1020 – 1027 – 1035 – 1042 m) This represents the six levels of reality “above” man.
By decreasing the proportions are not so obvious due to the specifics of elementary particles and quantum effects, but we can say that: a person is proportional to his cell, just as it is proportional to its DNA, which is equally proportional to an atom, and that to its proton, between which and strings are probably two more unknown structures (particles). It can be assumed that the punk fundamental length is limiting only for our Universe, and the minimal space structure of the large Cosmos will be (at least) seven orders of magnitude smaller. That is: 100 – 10-7 – 10-15 – 10-21 – 10-28 – 10-35 – 10-42 m. This represents the six levels of reality “under” the person.
Between these thirteen levels, there are also intermediate levels that change approximately every 3-4 orders, but, apparently, qualitative changes in reality occur precisely when the scale jumps by 6-7 orders. It is interesting to note that the fifth level (if we can talk about symmetry here at all) from below, that is, the Planck length, corresponds to the level of the near Multiverse, which suggests that the dimension (discreteness) of our space will apparently extend far beyond the limits of the Universe, or vice versa – our Universe is much larger than we think today (1027 m is about 100 billion light years, taking into account its expansion). That is, inflation has cut the way to the space of the Universe much deeper than we think, up to 1035 m.
Chapter IX
The Phenomenon of Consciousness
Consciousness is a state of active navigation in a subjective model of reality
There is a well-known Indian philosophical parable about how four blind men tried to determine by touch what an elephant is. The first touched the trunk and said that the elephant is a snake, the second, holding the tail, compared it with a rope, the third, feeling the leg, was sure that the elephant was a column, and the fourth, putting his hands on his side, concluded that the elephant is a wall.
The definition of consciousness is like feeling an elephant: it is both a component of the psyche, and will, and the result of the social environment, and subjective reality, and a condition for cognition, control of emotions and relationships with the outside world, a set of value and ethical (good-evil) guidelines, self-reflexivity , spirituality and creativity. But it will not be possible to mold an elephant eclectically from these components, since we do not have its project or model. Moreover, many elements of consciousness are not perceived either sensitively or objectively, and from the point of view of science, they cannot become the subject of adequate study, both from within and without. All we can say about consciousness so far is that it is a black box and that it exists. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1998) did not have a separate entry on consciousness at all, relegating the reader to the philosophy of thought section.
Elusive consciousness
So what is consciousness? Is it one of the functions of a healthy brain? Or its heuristic feature? Is it possible for consciousness or its elements to function in sleep, in a coma, or even after death? Is consciousness a systemic component of the human psyche, or, conversely, is the psyche just one of its possible manifestations? Does consciousness create a model of the external world, or is this model already unconsciously built into us (existentialism) with the advent of consciousness?
The word consciousness comes from the Latin cum and sciare, i.e. means shared knowledge. Approximately the same epistemology of the word exists in English and Russian. Thus, knowledge (understanding, awareness) of what is happening around will probably be the main correlate of consciousness. Everything we know can become a subject of consciousness, and everything we are aware of is based on previous knowledge. The next important correlators of consciousness will be: awareness of what is happening around and inside oneself (awareness), orientation in time, foresight, creative intention, goal setting, purposefulness, will and self-reflexivity. E. Husserl singled out intentionality as the main manifestations of consciousness, when a real or abstract object enters the field of consciousness.
A person always lives in the present, even if his emotions are in the past or future. It is “now” in the field of consciousness that the external and internal information received by it is processed. We are constantly analyzing (consciously and unconsciously) many photographs of reality, which together form a kind of film of life with one main actor around whom all the events of the recorded reality take place. Such a mobile cinema, where you watch films of your own production, will be similar to the brain. In it, critics-analysts symbolize thinking, and viewers are your emotions and psyche. The director of the film will embody the consciousness, and, finally, the daytime cameraman (the projectionist) is your receptors that encode reality into recognizable images. The night operator very creatively recodes the recorded information, gluing together tapes from different “movies”, and will show dreams to those who are still awake (subconscious).
To better understand the functions of consciousness, imagine situations when the “film director” is not on the set, that is, when we have the least consciousness in us. These are, first of all, states of deep sleep, concussion and coma. We can also temporarily “get lost” in music, affective states, or sensory pleasures. Mechanical work and heavy physical exertion, as well as states of intoxication and brain injuries do not contribute to the fullness of consciousness. However, cases are well known when, after severe brain injuries, precisely those areas of the brain that neurophysiologists identified as self-awareness, patients restored both memory and consciousness. It is possible that consciousness does not have a specific localization in the brain at all: it is, as it were, spread over many centers and pathways. The brain is “democratic” – there is no “king” and no higher authority in it. Neurons form temporary groups to solve specific problems, and each type of neuron is specialized for specific perceptions and functions.
Our film director turned out to be a very mystical character. Everyone knows about him, but no one has seen him in person. He does not have his own director’s chair or office, but he does have a magic conductor’s baton!
Orchestra of Consciousness
Here we will try to enumerate the elements (as instruments) involved in the life (music) of consciousness. They can be divided into two main categories. The first will include the basic elements, the presence of which does not guarantee a full-fledged consciousness, but the absence of which practically guarantees the impossibility of its formation. This:
- Perception or complex of perceptions. It is difficult to imagine the formation of consciousness disconnected from the outside world, although we fully admit the autonomous existence of an already formed consciousness
- Orientation in space-time. Without this consciousness will be illusory as in a dream and not adequate.
- Orientation in the social environment. A person is social, as is his consciousness, the development of which is impossible outside of society.
- Early formation of consciousness in the environment of other carriers of consciousness. This is a more fundamental requirement that nature has not been able to put fully into the DNA code. We don’t have innate conscious instincts.
- Associative memory, without which consciousness is virtually unconscious.
- Language and information exchange also underlie the formation of consciousness.
- Intelligence or the ability to think, which is the construct in which, and only in which, consciousness is possible.
- Ability to learn and accumulate knowledge.
- Attention, intentionality.
- Adequate psyche. We do not know conscious beings devoid of psyche and individuality.
It must be said that the formed consciousness is self-sufficient and substantial. It can function on its own, probably without many of the elements listed above, and this is precisely its amazing essence. Consciousness lives (orients) in the model of reality created by it (adequate or not). And only when this model is destroyed or turned off, then consciousness leaves with it.
It is interesting to note that since all things orient themselves in the world according to the laws of nature that apply to them, it can be said that all these things are to varying degrees “conscious” in the sense that they know how to behave on their level of reality. We simply decided to call consciousness the orientation in human reality that we understand, which, for example, includes the following elements, the presence of (at least) one of which almost guarantees the presence of human consciousness, but is not mandatory for it.
- Creativity, imagination, fantasy, inspiration.
- Higher feelings such as: conscience, morality, aesthetic pleasure, empathy, repentance, gratitude, and so on.
- Love, friendship and devotion.
- Disappointment, suffering and melancholy.
- Intellectual satisfaction and curiosity.
- Spirituality and sincerity.
- Emotionality of higher feelings
- Personal qualities such as: honor, humor, kindness, generosity, punctuality and so on.
- Faith, religiosity, ideology and conviction.
- Will adherence to principles and purposefulness.
- Awareness, self-knowledge and self-awareness.
Various combinations of these elements will determine the functionality of the individual settings of consciousness, which can be conditionally minimal, such as in higher animals, or maximally possible, like the best representatives of humanity. According to experts, a very small part of neurons controls the functionals of consciousness – a kind of subcortical elite, and not specific and localized, but temporarily “assigned” (i.e. programmed), probably by a higher authority?
Artificial Consciousness
The magnetic field, as is known, is created by the current of charged particles. Consciousness also exists only in the stream of its segments, which are formed during the interaction of certain brain structures – neural correlators of consciousness. Moreover, consciousness can effectively manage the settings of its own structures, thus creating a unique circle (spiral?) of improvement and self-awareness. Therefore, connectionism (neural network models) will never be able to fully explain consciousness, as it works with the computational nature of the brain, and loses sight of its multi-level self-organization.
David Chalmers rightly notes that the phenomenological properties of consciousness are organizationally invariant. In particular, this means that if we exchange all brain molecules with a neighbor, then no one will notice the difference, which, in turn, means the key role of individual topology and the controlling superstructures of the brain.
Before talking about artificial consciousness, we need to ask, does a machine need consciousness? Obviously not, since the machines must work, and they absolutely do not need consciousness for this. But what about intelligent machines? Neither, because they have to do intellectual work, and it is harmful for them to have consciousness for this. Now we come to the very difficult question of whether hypothetical conscious machines need consciousness, which, by definition, must perform some kind of “conscious work”? On the one hand, if there is such a job, then a person will definitely find someone to give it to. On the other hand, a conscious machine is no longer a machine, and the ethical component of the question will be more than essential. However, I think that different types and levels of consciousness will be created from the rich variety of its correlates. For example, “insensitive”, analytical consciousness for working in the public segment or “sociable” consciousness for supporting the human psyche seems to be very promising. Here the question arises about the need to create a genuine, full-fledged consciousness or its indistinguishable imitation? Probably, copying the human consciousness will be justified only within the framework of its biological basis. That is, from him and for him. Everything that can be digitized and “osiliconized” will acquire special forms of consciousness, most of which can be inconvertible and not adaptable with our consciousness.
Another fundamental question is whether consciousness can have non-biological (non-living?) forms, and if so, is it possible to construct it at all, and is only computer “0-1” computing sufficient for this? I think that digital consciousness is not only possible, but to a certain extent it is more primary than biological consciousness, as a mathematical form, to which we are uncertainly approaching our biological path. This is probably the only evolutionary path to a universal form of consciousness, the essence of which is the completeness of the connection between internal and external reality. The more diverse the connection, the “higher” the consciousness and closer to its regulating function of the external through the internal.
Human consciousness can be defined as a state of active navigation in a subjective model of reality. At least the social level of complexity. An artificial consciousness located in its own virtual world must make an independent attempt to create its reflective model (as a super-virtuality) and establish its own navigation laws there. That is, to build a four-dimensional (including time) structure of the virtual world, where all objects are interconnected in a “smart reality”, in which its “artificial researcher” will be placed. Its task is to gradually adapt there and bring the external-virtual and internal super-virtual reality into line. That part of his model that will begin to control navigation in reality of a social (and higher) level of complexity will be similar to our consciousness and, in fact, will turn out to be a “subjective reality” that programmers can already “pull out” and comprehensively consider.
It is likely that the same principles of consciousness formation are involved in humans. In artificial consciousness, it will be necessary to build and, most importantly, correct those blocks that are supposedly involved in the functionality of our consciousness. Such as perception, knowledge and thinking (information processing), judgment, attention and evaluation of the essential, interest and goal setting, orientation in the space-time continuum, memory and projection into the future, evaluation of one’s own judgments, communication, reflection, simulation of sensations, and so on. progress of the project. Each block should have many of its settings up to the shutdown itself. It will be necessary to develop a table of tests for the presence of consciousness, and if successful, the system will independently be able to search for patterns and change its settings in the correlators (learn consciousness, as children do) to generate the correct answers.
An imitation of individual consciousness is also possible. For the development of consciousness, communication with other consciousnesses is necessary, but at the same time, it is functionally indifferent whether the people around it have the same consciousness or imitate it exactly. Just as it is impossible to distinguish between a photograph of a real object and its computer simulation as long as you are satisfied with the given framework of visual relations. The same framework exists in the perception of the individual and his individual consciousness.
The inner world of a person, like an iceberg, is much larger and richer than its external manifestations. But, as a rule, only the top of our consciousness is in demand in society – its formalized (psychological-role) part. Therefore, the imitation of individual-formal consciousness seems to be a relatively easy task. To do this, simulation blocks are added to the correlators of rational consciousness: emotions, higher feelings, personal qualities, creativity, imagination, spontaneity, facial expressions, voices, and so on. Correlators are adjusted to the individuality of a particular person in manual and automatic mode during visual communication with the developers, as well as the system itself. As a result, it is possible to obtain the most approximate virtual copy of a person – a kind of first-level avatar. In brain-computer-interface technologies, this may be the only “receiving substance” for conscious journeys into virtual reality.
If you look at a computer model of a volumetric fragment of the Universe (on the right, about 300 million light years in diameter), it is surprisingly similar to a fragment of the neural network of the brain (on the left, about 300 microns in diameter). Moreover, according to the latest estimates of astronomers, the number of supposed stars in our Universe is about 1023, which is quite comparable to the number of atoms in the human brain 1025.
This suggests that the same amount of something will make up a certain critical mass and may have similar qualities. The ancient thinkers were probably right in saying that the microcosm resembles the macrocosm, that Atmat is Brahman, and that God created man in his own image and likeness.
Returning to cosmology, we recall that galactic clusters were formed largely due to networks of supermassive black holes, dark matter, and the work of dark energy (as we can see, “dark forces” are responsible for creating large pictures). It is possible that our consciousness is also part of a structure that is still unknown to us and which may not have a neural nature at all. It is possible that the DNA of consciousness really exists, but only internal resources are not enough for it to become. Children are not born with ready-made “conscious instincts” – they need an environment of consciousness in the form of a developed society, its culture, language and basic knowledge.
We know for sure that in this world man and his consciousness turned out to be possible. This is already a lot. If we single out the processes that contribute to the actualization and evolution of this possibility, then they will certainly turn out to be harmoniously interconnected. The totality of such events will mean a universal formula of consciousness, through which the path of its development began on Earth, where cosmic processes will certainly participate in the finale.
Self-directed evolution of consciousness
Evolution must be self-sufficient and reflect the principles of development of self-organizing systems. Otherwise, evolution ceases to evolve and becomes a phased implementation of some grandiose plan, turning into its opposite: epigenesis is the process of embryonic development, when the result is known in advance and programmed in the embryo. However, there is still the possibility of Bergson’s creative evolution with the driving principle of the “life impulse”, which creates unpredictable forms from inert matter, one of which we turned out to be. But let’s focus on more scientific concepts. The principles of the evolution of living systems have been well known since Darwin’s times – these are variability (mutations), heredity and natural selection. In this case, the organism must strive to survive, and the survival environment must contain selection criteria.
However, it is always worth remembering that evolution can only be seen with a “smart look” (Plato) or “reasonable thinking” (Hegel). Understanding that you are in a system of certain laws and rules automatically changes this system. Because thinking is inventive, free by nature and always strives to overcome unwanted limitations and change the system to suit its interests. Therefore, evolution to a certain extent will depend on its observer, who will inevitably turn out to be an internal observer and included in the process of what he himself is the result of.
All the things revealed to us and the laws of their relationships inevitably become part of the worldview. The fate of discovered things in the real world will already be somewhat different, depending on their significance in our understanding of them and their “energy dependence” on us. So, for example, the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics can be considered as a result of our participation (influence) in an experiment or, in other words, as the real price of an attempt to include the microcosm in our model of the world. That is, the microworld, as it were, lives its usual life, but it appears to us as a quantum one, in fact, not being such, as long as no one touches it.
A person “touches” everything that is around him. The noosphere he formed became an essential part of planetary evolution. Moreover, if “evolution” once again intends to send a large asteroid to the Earth in order to wipe out almost all life from the face of the planet, then it is possible that it will have to reckon with the opinion of the observer, since already today existing technologies will prevent a catastrophe and significantly change evolution. Earth.
In fact, all human conscious activity is, in a certain sense, “anti-evolutionary”, since it contradicts its basic principles. The deciphered evolution automatically changes its course, because the main mechanism of natural selection turns into artificial selection, mutations are replaced by genetic modification and begin to work for the will of man. Darwin not only discovered natural evolution, but also “closed” it to a certain extent, marking the era of “unnatural” evolution of consciousness, which takes place at a qualitatively different level, in this case, socio-technological, where completely different criteria are involved.
In his evolution, a person suddenly finds himself responsible for his discoveries, since he became their sole owner and the only conscious co-participant in other evolutionary events taking place around him. More precisely, a person would like to be responsible, but not now, but somewhere in his distant ideal form, where the voices of the universal conscience and common sense will sound more clearly. It is likely that this will be possible at a later stage in the evolution of consciousness, which will be directed towards the realization of the project of a god-like man (think of Rudolf Steiner).
Biological life, subject to the laws of evolution, successfully opposes one of the fundamental laws of physics – the second law of thermodynamics, which postulates that the entropy of an isolated system cannot decrease. One of the founders of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrödinger, believed that a living system borrows negative entropy through metabolism and thus resists death. The method of ordering the chaotic movement of amino acids can be called the quintessence of life, packaged in the structure of DNA.
Consciousness, to a certain extent, opposes biological life, limited by death, which is unnatural to mega consciousness. A person, having once understood the mechanism of digital immortality, will never be able to refuse it, opening a completely new page in his evolution.
Mega-evolution goes along the spiral of time, where the essences of things have their beginnings in the opposite. Like Yin and Yang, they dialectically “shoot” each other in their development. For example, matter is based on a non-material (ideal) beginning, and the essence of biological life lies in a complex combination (program) of lifeless molecules. Consciousness, on the other hand, is always super-life (does not need biology) and, finally, super-consciousness, which we call mega-consciousness, is individually unconscious in the sense that it is all-conscious.
The evolutionary complexity of an organism can be “measured” by its ability to interact with different levels of reality. A complex organism lives and adapts in a “complex reality”, which continues to become more complex for it as the ability of this organism to process, store and transmit accumulated information. The body’s response to external influences is always based on the expectation of a “familiar reality”, that is, programmed behavior, the essence of which is navigation in an already existing internal model of reality. For example, the reality of a bacterium is the molecules that surround it. Interaction with them can be quite fully described by the program code, which is based on the “yes-no” and “if-then” algorithms. Events that go beyond the reality of a bacterium (like, for example, the flu of another organism, which because of this did not go out of work), are absent from its program of behavior and are rightly considered non-existent. Therefore, they do not provide any response.
An organism (system, society, personality) that has a larger set of reactions to external and internal events can be considered evolutionarily advanced. If the schedule of your day changes from the fact that, for example, a sandstorm began on Mars or a new species of insects was discovered in Madagascar, then you will find yourself included in a different spectrum of reality and become the owner of its complex model, the gradation of which, in fact, is the criterion for the evolution of intelligent creatures. Today, this model is abstractly called “Science”.
Obviously, man is not the crown of creation. Evolution, as a rule, does not stop there, but the uniqueness of our own evolution lies in the fact that we ourselves creatively participate in it. Improving one’s own genetic code, improving organs and their artificial replacement, integration into information systems, getting rid of diseases and, as a result, a significant extension of life – this is only the very beginning of those grandiose changes that await humanity and which we can already see on the horizon. According to neuroscientists, in a few decades we will come close to understanding the functioning of the brain and building its inorganic model – probably using quantum computers, which today are only at the stage of laboratory experiments. The next stage is the transfer of the personality (the energy of the soul and consciousness) into an inorganic, synthetic reality, which we call Lucheverum.
The vast majority of the universe is empty, cold, unhospitable, and unfit for organic life. The physical reality in it is monotonous, repeatable and, probably, will be fully studied over the next couple of hundred years. According to Stephen Hawking, much earlier – in the next couple of decades (however, many do not share his optimism). Now imagine the anguish of a conditionally immortal existence in a thoroughly studied universe. It’s kind of like universal confinement. The solution to the “problem” is to create a virtual reality that will be ideally suited for a new form of digital life and mega consciousness. Flexible, kind, creative, playful and bright (in fact, this is what all religions talked about with variations, sending their best followers to heaven). That is why SETI and we, along with them, have a silent galaxy. It is likely that the majority of developed civilizations go into the closed comfort and aesthetic chaos of the virtual world created by them (for themselves).
Mega Consciousness
If consciousness is the result of the joint work of tens of billions of unconscious neurons, then mega-consciousness can be imagined as a multibillion-dollar network of conscious agents, united in a super-intelligent artificial reality. Mega-consciousness must obviously have mega-knowledge. In fact, absolutely possible knowledge, when practically all things and processes in the Universe are well known and predictable. Mega-consciousness should also be mega-free in space and time and not be limited by the time of its existence, gravity, biology and energy consumption. If the human consciousness has only a few dozen basic neural correlators, then the mega-consciousness can have an (artificially created) unlimited number of them. It will be difficult for us to understand the nature of these correlators, such as the emotions of participants in an unfamiliar game. The mega-consciousness must live in the mega-reality of the Lucheverum, where the physical reality of our Universe will enter as a special case.
The Last Chapter
The last question of philosophy
Philosophy, as you know, is hopelessly outdated. The wear and tear of its terminology in the world of the priority of the exact sciences and high technologies makes philosophy more rhetoric and old-fashioned sophistry. However, the philosophical aspect of consciousness is an amazing phenomenon (if you like, a side effect), the essence of which is in the unique reflection of consciousness as a mood for a special questioning, which can be compared with the artistic vision of the universe.
The cognizability of the world and its philosophical construction turned out to be possible due to the existence of a deep connection (relationship and even unity according to Parmenides) of Being and thinking. However, an evolutionarily mature consciousness (super-consciousness in our understanding) is completely self-sufficient and is not inclined towards philosophy. It itself is already a “philosophy in itself” and is not aimed at understanding and explaining the world and not even at its transformation around itself, but only at itself and its “internal technologies”.
We will not even be able to imagine the possibilities of “living mathematics” of virtual worlds, where our entire Universe is one of many structures. Yes, we are standing on a very distant threshold of this world. But, far from all representatives of the biological race will want (or be able) to enter it.
“The Last Question of Philosophy”, obviously, will complete the era of human (natural) philosophizing, when the truth could still be hidden, when it was “on the other side” of consciousness. If Man is the main philosophical problem, then with the exponential development of technology, this “problem” will either dissolve into a new reality, or transform