Month: June 2020

Meandering Notes on Reality

Perception
Idealism
The Tree in the Forest
Physical Reductionism
Brains in Vats
Direct Apprehension of the Noumenon
Monism Versus Pluralism
What I Really Think

Our Perception is Arbitrary

We think of reality as being external to us, but basically, what we think of as reality is notions in our minds.

  • Sometimes, we misperceive something and believe a part of reality to be one way while actually it’s another way; for example, in the case of a mirage.
  • Many people disagree on certain key facts about reality, due to different ways of thinking, different indoctrination, and differing predilections. Take for example the “evolution” vs. “intelligent design” debate.
  • Alteration of the brain (whether through chemicals like LSD, poking around in it, or damage) can alter our perception of reality and can even cause us to change our basic outlook on life.
  • Scientifically, we know that “everything we know” about reality is collected by sense organs by way of complex chemical and physical processes, then sent via nerve cells to the brain, and then processed by various centers of the brain on both the conscious and unconscious levels.
  • I wrote more about this here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/kants-phenomena-and-noumena/.

To take the last point further, it would seem to follow, given the “arbitrary” nature of our sense organs, that the reality we construct from their signals is also relatively arbitrary compared to reality-as-it-is, or “that from which the signals originate.” Why does vinegar smell one way and vanilla another? Why does blue look one way and red another? Also, we perceive color in 3 dimensions (yellow<->blue, green<->red, and dark<->light), though in actuality any given color constitutes a continuous spectral envelope of light frequencies, and not to mention that the light we see constitutes only a 28th of the entire electromagnetic spectrum (on a logarithmically scale). And our visual plane is actually 2-dimensional (with apparent depth added by way of parallax/stereopsis), while reality is obviously 3-dimensional, at least on our scale of reference. (If we could actually see in 3 dimensions, we would see not just unobstructed objects’ surfaces which are facing us, but all the objects behind them as well as their complete insides.) Just to give a few examples.

But I said that it’s arbitrary compared to reality-as-it-is, but can that phrase have any meaning? If perception of reality requires a modality of perception, then wouldn’t that modality, per its own limitations or its being distinct from other modalities, necessarily be arbitrary in any imaginable case? Or could we imagine an omniscient frame of reference? But even if we do that, do we know whether God has a choice in how He/She conceptually frames reality? I.e., He/She may know everything, but can He/She organize that in His/Her mind in many possible ways? And also, if the sum total of all that exists is infinite in content and variety, then any particular conception of reality has to be qualified by limitation—otherwise knowing everything at once would add up only to some sort of whiteness or singularity—and therefore it has to be “arbitrary” per its given parameters of limitation. I wrote about why everything that can possibly exist exists “somewhere” (and therefore why the sum total of all that exists is infinite in content and variety) here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/proof-that-everything-that-can-possibly-exist-does-exist/.

By the way, a somewhat tangential point to consider here is that, while we beings of limitation model reality in a way that’s imaginative of things existing outside of us, an omniscient and omnipresent being probably makes no distinction between the “inner” and “outer,” and that also brings into question whether He/She has any “modality of perception” as such. But again, if He/She doesn’t, would it just be the singularity/whiteness for Him/Her? Or would He/She have a mind that organizes Him/Herself and reality at once (their being one-and-the-same) in some way? Or would that in itself also be a “modality of perception”? (That borders on being a semantical question.) It’s interesting to note that His/Her having a mind might also imply some sort of self-organization on a meta level; for example, an organization of “soul” versus “body” versus “mind”… especially if God indeed created us in His/Her likeness (as we have a soul, body and mind, or we could say we at least have a body and mind if you don’t believe in souls).

Oh, I also wanted to mention that, when you consider an analysis that reduces reality (or, at least, everything we can know about reality) to a model and memory in the mind, it definitely seems to bring into question just what the nature of “illusion,” as being the opposite of the reality of something, is. I would posit—at least under this framework—that an illusion is what we call something after we update our model of reality to something more comprehensive and self-consistent that semiotically defies a fact that was previously thought to be the case. If you never find out the mirage isn’t an oasis, you’ll never call it an illusion…if you never call it an illusion, how are you to argue that it was? I suppose, if you did, you would refer to external information about the surroundings which you’re not hypothetically aware of when you don’t call it an illusion. But of course, those proposed circumstances (that negate it being an oasis) are still an imagination of the mind (because we can only know of, speak of, or reason about reality inasmuch as it exists as notions in our mind), despite their being proposed as meta to what you know in the hypothetical of the apparent oasis. I wrote more about the nature of illusion at https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2023/03/31/on-the-nature-of-illusion-and-maya/.

The Tree in the Forest

(It’s like the question about the tree in the forest when nobody’s around. Obviously, if a tree falls, it physically must make a sound. The question is, in a sense, about whether the tree really falls if it falls. The paradox comes in when one imagines a tree to be falling, and then tries to imagine the absence of anybody to know about it. If you don’t know about it, how are you imagining it? This paradox exploits the fact that what we take for “reality” outside of us is mental content. It helps the paradox that we’re slightly more aware of the perception of sound being self-centered than we are with visual imagery. I wrote more about the tree-in-a-forest question here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest-and-no-one-is-around-to-hear-it-does-it-make-a-sound/.)

Idealism

Another point about reality-as-it-is” is that we tend to think that there’s “what we know of reality”—which is necessarily ideational—versus reality-as-it-is, which, presumably (except to metaphysical idealists) is not ideational—it’s simply made of dead matter. But the problem here is that we cannot possibly conceive of or talk about such a reality (or such an aspect of reality) non-ideationally. So basically, if we posit a non-ideational reality, we can necessarily have no idea what we’re talking about. There can be no greater dichotomy to consider than the proposed dichotomy between the ideational and the non-ideational (because all other dichotomies involve conceptualizable counter-items which are thereby subject to the process of comparison). Considering that we can necessarily know, speculate or prove nothing about non-ideational reality, it may prudent, per Occam’s razor, to do away with the idea of a non-ideational reality altogether—in other words, to adopt metaphysical idealism, which I write more about here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2020/02/07/why-im-an-idealist/.

Physical Reductionism

Some may object and say that ideation, a product of consciousness, is only an “emergent property” of non-living matter, limited to the brains of organisms, and that therefore it’s injudicious to simplify one’s ontology by making consciousness primary and apparent matter secondary. I have three arguments against this:

1. It’s your own mind and thoughts that you were first aware of from the day you were born. Beyond that there was only sensation—sight, hearing, etc. Over time, you developed a model of the world based on the consistencies in this sensation over time and space and your interactions with it. (“Your interactions with it” can be analytically broken down to how your sensations change in reaction to conscious volition; i.e., even observing that your leg moves after willing it so is a modicum of sensation.)

So, the inner world of mind or consciousness therefore precedes the development of the “outer world” in time. It’s also primary to it in terms of contingency, in that you can have inner thought without positing an outer world, but you cannot posit an outer world without having thought. This makes mind or consciousness, in some sense, epistemically primary to the external world. And since epistemology deals with how we know things, it therefore takes precedence over metaphysics/ontology in the analysis of anything.

2. We must necessarily use thought/ideation to conceive of the possibility that the mind and consciousness are emergent properties of brain matter. So, what’s happening now is that one’s personal thought gives rise to and thus accounts for the notion of dead matter, and then imagines that this dead matter gives rise to and accounts for his mind/thought. In regard to primacy or accountability, this is like the Oroboros—the snake that eats itself: it is a logical paradox.

3. In a normal reductive relationship, there are certain invariants and contiguities that make it reasonable to assume an “identity” or equivalence relation between the two concepts—that is, between what’s being reduced and what it’s being reduced to. For example, a car may reduce to a set of car parts working in certain conjunction, and in that case both the car and the car parts are material items. You can see, touch, hear, smell and taste them. In the case of atoms, you can’t possibly see them, but we have indirect evidence that they play in the arena of matter by the usual means—mass, inertia, physical effects and affecters, etc. I’m not proposing that these contiguities or invariants are sufficient conditions to assume equivalence—only that they’re necessary conditions.

Now, the problem with reducing mind to matter is that none of these invariants and contiguities exist between what we think of as the contents of mind and what we think of as physical items. Basically, when we say that an idea reduces to a certain neurochemical pattern or process, it doesn’t mean anything. We have no epistemic basis on which to link the two concepts in any sensical way that comprises identicality. While we may claim identicality in a kind of limp-wristed, ivory-tower fashion, it lacks any kind of fundamental coherence; it’s more like a placeholder for a concept standing in as an actual concept—a kind of understanding by proxy. The best we can scientifically do is to correlate physical causes and effects with consciousness’ activity.

I wrote more about this subject at https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/notes-on-science-scientism-mysticism-religion-logic-physicalism-skepticism-etc/#Emergent and at https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2020/06/19/argumentum-ad-absurdum-re-physical-reductionism/.

Brains in Vats

Some people speculate that we’re “brains in vats” or similar, that all of reality is an illusion, being fed to us via some artificial means. I think that while this is not logically discountable, it’s unlikely. In truth, I have no doubt that this speculation is false (except perhaps in an abstract/spiritual sense), but as for what I can argue, I’ll just say that it’s unlikely. Going back to Occam’s razor, the indirection required for a brain-in-vat-like scenario proposes an unnecessary “additional entity,” roughly speaking. More accurately speaking, it just complicates things. I say the latter description is more accurate because (a) it’s not so much about additional entities as it is about indirection and deception, and (b) Occam’s razor is best limited to scientific theories. (I wrote more about (b) here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/notes-on-science-scientism-mysticism-religion-logic-physicalism-skepticism-etc/#Occam.) However, “just complicating things” makes it more unlikely for the same reason that Occam’s razor works. In order to have a brain-in-vat-like scenario, this scenario must exist within some actual reality, with all of its complexity, and that reality in itself is, prima facie, no more or less likely than this reality. And then add the element of indirection and deception, for example you could add an “evil demon” (who actually cares enough about you to constantly, and consistently, fool you).

Not only that, but this sort of elaborate indirection takes more energy…as a sort of universal principle, reality tends toward the path of least resistance or lowest energy requirement. That’s why rivers run downstream, electronics can short-circuit, and people generally care more about living their own lives than about what you’re doing at the moment. Performing such an elaborate hoax as a brain-in-vat-like illusion—even if it’s by an evil demon—takes more energy, and therefore is less likely.

And thirdly, if it is all a brain-in-vat-like illusion, the longer it runs, the more complexity it has and the more observant its subject is, the less likely it is to continue without any noticed kinks/inconsistencies exposing it for what it is or at least raising a justified doubt. For example, in The Matrix, the same black cat was seen crossing twice, which they then inferred probably implied a “glitch in the matrix.”

Simulation Theory Debunked

Similarly, the idea that the universe is a computer simulation heavily violates Occam’s razor. People reason that advanced civilizations would run many more simulations of worlds than there would be actual worlds, therefore we’re probably in a simulation, but they forget that that introduces a much vaster realm of existence than ours full of advanced civilizations with gargantuan computers holding at least as much information as our perceived universe. I wrote more about this at https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2023/12/17/on-simulation-theory/ and at https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2019/09/13/no-were-not-living-in-a-simulation/.

Direct Apprehension of the Noumenon

Some other things I want to say about the phenomenon of perception..

It’s interesting how perception is framed as the “link” between some fundamental “self” versus “other” dichotomy. Some philosophers seem to lament (or at least to conclude) that it’s impossible to have “direct apprehension of the noumenon,” and yet those same philosophers, by their reasoning, would make it logically impossible to do so. If it’s logically impossible to do so, then the very concept of “direct apprehension” of a thing-in-itself is necessarily meaningless and nonsensical, thus making any argument, either for or against such a “phenomenon”, necessarily incoherent and meaningless. Well, that is not strictly true, because the concept could be proven self-contradictory by means of the definitions of the respective words (such as how you would disprove a “square circle”), but to do so would be to reveal the vacuity of their arguments (as definitions are somewhat arbitrary, and their accompanying deductions are trivial), so of course that’s not what they’re doing.

If somebody had a direct apprehension of the noumenon, I’m sure such philosophers would argue that, because the object is not them, the apprehension must therefore have somehow come from outside of them, and thus must be some sort of perception. This begs the question, of course. If apprehension of a thing is necessarily perception, and perception is necessarily indirect, then “apprehension” of a “noumenon” is necessarily not “direct”. But then it’s just a matter of semantics, and they’re just arguing with themselves. Is it really necessarily perception, and is perception really necessarily indirect? What if all things are really unified?

Another strange thing about this framing is, if the object reflects light to the eye, which then refracts it projecting it onto the retina, whose cells resonate with various light-frequencies and then relay that information to the brain via the optic nerves, and then the visual cortex processes this information to produce a qualia, which is what we first become aware of (presumably somewhere else in our brain…)…exactly where do we draw the line between what’s happening “internally” and what’s happening “externally”? Are the qualia parts of us, or are the qualia something we perceive? If they’re something we perceive, is the perception part of it us, or something that we experience? If they’re something we experience, what are we, such that we could identify ourselves independently of self-experience? If the perception of the qualia is part of us, how do we know where the perception of it ends and the qualia begins? If the qualia is part of us, how do we know where the qualia ends and where what caused it begins? At exactly which nerve synapses does the qualia begin and completely non-experiential causal relay of visual information end? Is it some specific nanometer between temporal lobe and the visual cortex? Between the visual cortex and the optic nerves? Between the optic nerve and the retina? Between the retina and the photons that just hit it, are hitting it, or are about to hit it? And what of the path the photons took prior to hitting it?

Really, you just have the brain, the nerves, the sense organs, what’s outside of them, etc., and they’re all just integral pieces of the same confluent reality. That makes the miracle of perception easy, in some sense, but the hard part is, of course, still the mind-body problem. In fact it kind of underscores this quandary, by showing the arbitrariness of the boundaries of a supposedly physically reduced consciousness, vis a vis the “boundaries” of consciousness qua consciousness. (I could say much more on the mind-body problem, but I don’t want to digress too much.)

I write a lot more about the noumena here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.inhahe.com/2022/01/23/kants-phenomena-and-noumena/.

Monism Versus Pluralism

As for the monism/pluralism issue, I say that reality is neither monistic nor pluralistic. Actually, it depends on the definition of monism. Merriam-Webster gives 3 of them:

1. a view that there is only one kind of ultimate substance

2. the view that reality is one unitary organic whole with no independent parts

3. a viewpoint or theory that reduces all phenomena to one principle

Definition 2 I’d agree with—it’s pretty much the logical negation of pluralism/dualism, so to reject pluralism/dualism is pretty much to accept #2.

Definitions 1 and 3 are perhaps functionally equivalent, because how could we ultimately separate form from function? As perceiving beings, we can only identify a substance functionally (i.e. in terms of what it does/how it interacts with us and the rest of reality), at least in our analytical frame of mind. And a principle, of course, is a rule about how something is done. Either way, I reject both 1 and 3 as logical possibilities.

There cannot be one substance because, in order for that substance to have a characteristic, it must be distinguishable somehow from other substances. If it is the only substance, though, there is no other substance to compare it to. As a “pure” substance, it would have no individual characteristics, and thus no particular relation to anything but itself—a tautology. It would be infinitely simple, and yet it would constitute everything we see. This is a contradiction because differentiation requires complexity. Also, in the real world the simplest possible thing, information-wise, might be, say, a binary unit. In that case, it contains the smallest possible amount of information: it’s either on or off. In the case of a universal infinitely simple substance, its simplicity is even simpler than that, because there are no 0’s outside of it to compare to in order to call it a 1, or no 1’s outside of it to compare to in order to call it a 0. It’s thus vanishingly simple, going neck-to-neck with non-existence itself. Even if we were to grant non-existence the power to give rise to (or to otherwise constitute) all of existence, non-existence would thus be unlimited in every sense of the word, and an unlimited substance is not a substance, because it’s only limitation that can give it a specific identity; otherwise, what would differentiate a monistic substance from simply “everything”? And since everything is already a given, just positing “everything” wouldn’t address the question of monism.

Furthermore, in the real world, everything we know and identify we know by contrast to something else. Though this is harder to argue for; here are some simple counterexamples: water, which constitutes over 80% of the human body, has no taste. Air, which is also ubiquitous, has no taste. Color-blind people often don’t know they’re color-blind until they’re tested! And what we call “white light” isn’t even an equal proportioning of the various wavelengths—it contains way more yellow-orange than blue, for example. However, on the other hand, we know we’ve encountered water because it feels colder on our skin, or because it bends light differently from its surroundings, etc., and similar arguments can be made for the other examples given.

And also, if it’s a substance with a more complex set of characteristics (as opposed to what I called a “pure” substance) affording it its identity, then its set of characteristics is equivalent to a set of ways in which it interacts with another substance; otherwise, what does it mean for it to have one characteristic instead of another, or even to have any characteristics at all? In the absence of any other substance to interact with, therefore, it can’t have any such characteristic, and therefore it can’t have a specific identity, and therefore it can’t be called a substance per se, as contrasted to its being designated simply “everything” or “reality”, which, again, would beg the question.

Likewise, if it’s a single monistic principle, this means all of reality behaves according to certain rules as opposed to some other possible ruleset, but how can we know what reality is doing if we can’t compare it to any other reality that’s doing something different? We can look at how its own parts interact with each other, but this doesn’t suffice, because it all boils down to the same rule, or set of rules, so we’re not actually comparing it to anything but itself. But what if we imagined a different universe which we could contrast this ruleset to? Well, then, there are as many possible ways of identifying this ruleset by way of contrast as there are possible universes to contrast it to. And you can’t just exhaust all the possibilities and then come up with a sort of summary contrast, because the sum of all possible situations is just The Whiteness, and you’re left where you started at, or perhaps you’ve narrowed it down so specifically that its identify is infinitely narrow and thus vanishes. This is the same reason you can’t simply imagine other universes to satisfy a comparison in the previous paragraph.

Another consideration is that, in order to compare two universes, there must already be some sort of metaphysical agreement between them or there is no relationship or basis of comparison between them. And you can’t separate that metaphysical agreement between them from the monistic principle in question…more on that point in the coming paragraph about pluralism.

Another interesting point is exactly how we should conceive of a “principle.” Is it a ruleset? And is a rule just a principle (yay for circular definitions here :P) of certain limitations imposed on possibilities, a sort of “filter” on what can possibly happen? Or is it more of a current and contextual modus operandi of beingness itself, like the contours of a fast-flowing river at any given second? And how do we even distinguish those two things? Of course, in either case, the concept of a principle is founded in limitation. In one case it bounds the flow of events, and in the other case it’s just nature’s flow at a specific place and time (and, maybe, consideration). The interesting thing about a principle formally postulated is that it must make a distinction between the things that it bears upon and the behavior of those things. It’s simply because without this, we can’t analyze its subject in a systematic way in order to draw limitations on its behavior. However, such a distinction seems, to me, to be always forged. Like I said before, analytically speaking, form and function must boil down to the same thing, so in other words, things are their behavior. Consider the fact that nothing in nature is not in flux: even a solid rock is composed of atoms jiggling around in their niches, and the atoms themselves are composed of internal parts in constant motion. (I write more about why you can’t separate form from function here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2020/06/18/form-is-core-function-identity-is-core-properties/.)

As for pluralism, the reason I reject it is that, if two separate entities were really separate/discrete/disparate/distinct on every level, then there would be no possible relation between them. There would be nothing to define how they interact with each other, or even a common ground for both things to be taken into consideration by the same observer (and presumably for them to be “in” the same universe—whatever “in” means there). Or if both things were covered by a common external rule, then there must be some common ground between the metaphysics of the rule and the metaphysics of the objects, because otherwise, each object being utterly unique unto itself and therefore not accountable in relation to anything else, there would be no telling exactly how the object fits into the rule or even whether it does. So in reality, it is the underlying common ground between any two objects that determines the principles of their interaction and their inter-relationships.

What’s interesting about “apparent differentiation” is that even its appearance requires differentiation in point of observation. The thing about differentiation in point of observation is that one point is differentiated only relative to another point; they have no objective disposition, and the whole remains singular. The differentiation exists only relative to itself, like a universe whose sum total of energy adds up to 0 and whose sum total of velocity adds up to 0, or a quantum particle/anti-particle pair that randomly springs from nothing and then cancels itself out just as quickly, or time which happens to require space to be measured while space itself requires time to have any meaning, so that when time and space are taken together as a whole, we and the “current” universe can only be considered as the same singularity from which time and space sprang in the Big Bang.

I wrote some more about monism versus pluralism near the middle of this essay: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2024/08/17/what-is-love/.

What I Really Think

So far, I’ve just covered what I can argue about reality. What I actually think about reality is that it’s utterly unlimited and infinite, and singular but with contextual differentiation. All minds are one/connected, all souls are one/connected, consciousness and matter are one/connected, the individual and God are one/connected, and internal and external are one/connected. Therefore, thoughts influence reality (actually, I’d say, they ultimately create it), and there’s no barrier to what philosophers call “direct apprehension of the noumena,” as perception itself is like a kind of moderated split-mindedness.

When I say that reality is utterly unlimited, though, I probably have to appeal to a broader view than the content of any single material universe/timeline such as this one. Many-worlds theory may come close to such a consideration, but even it probably isn’t enough, as its own structure entails its own limitations. I wrote more about many worlds in the second part of this essay: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2022/01/14/why-are-you-you-and-not-somebody-else/.

Notes on Existence and the Multiverse

  • The weak anthropic principle does not automatically answer every profound question about why the universe is the way it is, and it does not defeat the whole enterprise of cosmology as some scientists lament, because it requires a “selection principle” determining which universes come into existence. This selection principle itself begs to be explained, and its existence must be justified to assume that the weak anthropic principle explains, e.g., the fine tuning of the universe.
  • Multiverse theories such as the string theory multiverse or the quantum field theory multiverse may not cover all universes that exist. They could be a very small, perhaps infinitesimally small, fraction of all the universes that exist. There could be layers and layers of multiverses, perhaps in a tree pattern, where sibling multiverses share similar metaphysics/physics principles and subsets or more general levels of those principles are shared with parent layers and smaller subsets or even more general layers of principles are shared with parents of parent layers, etc. etc. It may also be less like a tree of different multiverses than a network or maybe just some unstructured plethora of them, possibly situated in different places within a much larger, non-mechanistic spiritual reality.
  • Our physical reality could be a paradigm of interaction based on a mathematical principle, instated for unknown purposes by a (probably enormous) spiritual entity. Of course, if the spiritual (or otherwise non-physical) realm or realms are infinite, then there is probably an infinite number of physical realms just by virtue of the fact that the creation a physical realm is something that sometimes occasionally happens here and there.
  • Even in a multiverse of an infinite number of universes, its metaphysics could make some possibility-bins’ (where the bin sizes and delineations are arbitrary) possibilities more frequent, and hence more likely, than others. This provides a basis for inference and extrapolation about states of things at one place or time based on states of things at another (i.e., prediction and memory), because if every possible universe exists with equal probability, then there’s nothing to select for order in the next second or across any distance from here and now (just like a song has order because its creation selected from all possible sounds, the vast majority of which are simply white noise). It could also be interpreted as an explanation for probabilistic causality as revealed by quantum physics. (As far as I know, the mathematics of infinity allows for some infinite areas in an infinite continuum to be more dense than others. The reason I mention possibility bins is because how else would you compare such densities?)
  • Some, maybe even most, universes may not be physical at all, though it’s possible that the containment and separation required for the concept of multitude of universes only applies to physical realms, and that though the non-physical realm may be unlimited and may involve an unlimited number of more and less stark disjunctions or parts that are just fairly separated, there aren’t boundaries of the type that would justify the use of the term “multiverse.”
  • Why does anything exist, as opposed to nothing? I have a pet theory. It’s always the context of a possible thing or situation that determines whether that thing/situation is made manifest or not. This context includes all relevant factors, including local information, the physics of the universe, and even metaphysical principles. But there can be no greater/deeper context/metaphysics than existence itself to determine whether anything/everything exists or not. So, in the absence of any more-overarching metaphysics than the totality of existence to determine whether something is manifest or not, on that level, every possibility is manifest.

    You may ask, “why isn’t the possibility of nothingness the one that’s selected instead?”, and the answer is that it is. Both the possibilities of nothing existing and everything existing are manifest, because in the absence of a greater context to determine eligibility, all possibilities are manifest, but of course, you can’t and don’t notice the nothingness. All you can notice is the somethingness.

    You could argue that possibilities are a mental thing, the product of speculation, and that supposing ontological possibilities is supposing an existing thing/situation/metaphysics that can give rise to possible states, thus contradicting the idea of every possibility being made manifests in the absence of any deeper context, but to ask why anything exists as opposed to nothing presupposes that there are possibilities and that nothing and existence are two of them. So, my answer is not supposing anything not presupposed by the question. We cannot escape our own episteme while exploring ontology. Due to both the absolute primacy and non-empirical nature of both metaphysics and epistemology, at some point metaphysics and epistemology are inextricable from each other.

    I suppose you could argue that, in the absence of an overarching metaphysics beyond existence and non-existence, there’s nothing to determine that “every possibility would be manifest” (including the possibility of nothing) instead of “no possibility would manifest,” but maybe in the lack of an overarching metaphysics beyond existence and non-existence to determine if “every possibility would be manifest” (including the possibility of nothing) and “no possibility would manifest,” both manifest, and then you could then make the same argument again recursively, ad infinitum. What would be the end result in the case of an infinite regress?

    I wrote a step-by-step proof version of this argument here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/proof-that-everything-that-can-possibly-exist-does-exist/.
  • In order for two things to interact with each other at all, they must share some common substrate or metaphysical design so that they have a basis/a set of rules/a protocol by which to interact. There must be agreement on how an action of one thing affects the other and vice versa. As the dynamics of a thing’s actions are presumably based in the laws of physics, and all things in our universe supposedly behave and even compose according to the same laws of physics, you’d think that as a general rule it’s probably underlying mechanics or composition of two things that they have in common that engenders said agreement.

    If there were many different types of things—that is, different types on the level of being fundamentally incompatible—in the same “space” (besides the fact that spatial relationships probably don’t apply to things that are incompatible enough not to have a basis for interaction), you’d only know of those things that have a composition that’s fundamentally compatible with yours, because to know of something is for it to affect you. (See https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2023/06/17/on-the-meaning-of-exists/.) So, it’s possible that everything possible or some subset of everything possible exists “in the same space” and what we call the universe is only the set of those things that operate according to a specific modus operandi, that is, the laws of physics or perhaps the laws of physics as we know them.

    It kinda follows that what universe you’re in is a function of the organization principle of your being, or perhaps the mode of your perception.

    I say “in the same space” even though spatial relationship wouldn’t necessarily apply across different modalities of being, but the principle of space itself probably arises from a mode of perception or, equivalently, a common mode of being among objects in the same spatiotemporal universe anyway. So, “objectively,” they’re in the same space in a sense or might as well be, with respect to the idea that our mode of perception or modality of being selects for them.
  • Although the above reasoning was done with physical universes in mind, it could also possibly explain what’s often termed the “law of attraction.”

    If everything that can possibly happen happens, then there is some reality somewhere where any given person expects or desires for any given thing to happen. A principle that what you expect or desire on the deepest level tends to happen in the world would not be contradicted by the fact that everyone probably desires or expects different things, if there is some kind of organizing principle in effect where people on similar paths of desire or expectation share the same reality-state out of all reality-states. Thus major world events and developments can be more-or-less products of personal will or belief.

    I suppose if all possibilities are manifest, then that includes possibilities where many people strongly believe or desire different things, which would contradict personal will influencing world events and development, but then such possibilities could be only a relatively small/rare subset of all conceivable realities that exist, or that exist according to the organization principle that allows for belief or desire to inform reality. (That last possibility goes back to the idea of layers of multiverses and metaphysical principles mentioned earlier.)

    Of course, it’s obvious that there are many different beliefs and expectations among people in the world about everything, including world events and development, but that is also known to those who already espouse the idea of the law of attraction. This implies that it is not “absolute” for lack of a better word; it may be in effect but may only apply in certain ways or circumstances. Also, people tend to believe and desire different things on different levels of their beings and at different times, producing mixed results.

    Another thing that could bring people/spirits together into the same quantum reality is parallel choices or actions they’ve all made, resulting in the same consequences.
  • It’s also possible that, for some reason, in order for one’s path through the multiverse to remain appropriate to their choices, beliefs and desires, sometimes a person must end up in a reality whose past physical timeline differs from that of the reality they were previously in, hence giving rise to the Mandela Effect. (I’ve had personal experiences with the Mandela Effect I’ve described here: https://www.quora.com/Have-you-personally-experienced-a-Mandela-Effect-change-Will-you-share-your-experience-with-us/answer/Richard-A-Nichols-III.)

    One possible contention with this theory of the Mandela Effect is that, if presumably memories are stored in the brain, why doesn’t switching into another timeline also change the state of the brain’s memories (along with the rest of that timelines history), hence making it so that nobody ever knows they switched?

    Possible answers are that not all of memory is brain state and it’s only the physical aspect of the timeline that switches, or that some of the brain state remains the same when everything else shifts, in accordance to how closely intimate the brain state is to the person’s being; i.e., maybe the mechanics of this timeline switching are “organic” in a spiritual sense or up to open-ended interpretation by consciousness, as reality is ultimately made up of consciousness, and the lines between what’s changed and what’s not changed are drawn in convenient/graceful places rather than things being more strict and absolute like what we normally observe on the gross plane.
  • If our consciousness can transition to, or otherwise just find itself in, any extant reality just as long as it accords with their path, beliefs, desires, expectations, karma, choices/actions or whatever, then it’s possible that we could find ourselves in a reality having any possible past, except there would apparently be selecting principles in place, such that the reality must conform to your memory about it, and that the past must be more-or-less consistent according to some principle of causality. I say more-or-less because you never know, miracles (or the Mandela effect) could happen. I’ve personally had many experiences confirming the notion that reality, including the past, is created in the moment and is only constrained by what you know of the past what’s affected you. (See the above point about reality self-organizing such that everyone gets their wishes to see how this possibility can be consistent with many people remembering or having been affected by different aspects of the past.)
  • It may seem contradictory to think that desire generally influences reality, because in your experience it doesn’t. But there are different levels and kinds of desire. In fact, what you want is repelled from you, because wanting something entails a belief that you do not now have it, which is then reflected in your experience. But there are other levels of what one truly desires, which one may not even be aware of. Also, in my experience, desires are often realized when they’re just preferences without need attached. Usually, I’ll get what I want as soon as I totally, genuinely accept not having it as being “okay” and then forget about it, ironically.
  • “At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminable place, predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.” —Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune
  • Conversations with God Book 1 by Neale Donald Walsch has a lot of interesting info on how and why God created the universe, what came before it, and what our purpose here is. So does Conversations with God Book 3.

Cascades of Flux (Brief Version)

All matter/energy is constantly in flux. What appears to be solid, such as a desk, is actually made of trillions of tiny atoms, each one vibrating in place, and each one made up of waves of electron fields around nuclei that are made of vibrating protons and neutrons which are in turn made of moving quarks. Force fields are in flux because they emanate from matter which is in flux, and force fields aren’t matter or energy anyway—they’re just mathematically defined causal relationships between physical things.

The laws of physics appear to be static, but they all boil down to two aspects: 1. the aspect of it that is necessarily true just because it’s logically consistent with the rest of physics (this aspect is why we’re able to do derivations in physics), and 2. the aspect of it that comes purely from observations. The first aspect is necessarily static just because logic itself can’t logically be any different, but there’s no justification to assume the other is static just because the observations seem consistent over time.

Since everything else we observe is in flux, chances are that those things are in flux as well—they just change too slowly to be noticed. Add to this the fact that there’s no ultimate way to distinguish between the physics of matter and energy and the physicality of it. The so-called “laws” of physics are not a separate thing “acting on” matter and energy. The closer you look, the more these two things blend together. One way of saying this is that form is function. How can you know the form of something other than through how it interacts with the observer? And how it interacts with the observer is its function. And the functionality of matter and energy is the physics of it. I wrote more about why form is necessarily function here: https://myriachromat.wordpress.com/2020/06/18/form-is-core-function-identity-is-core-properties/.

All of physicality boils down to matter, energy and fields. Matter is in turn a pattern of seething energy, and fields can’t, even in principle, be defined or observed in any way other than as causal relationships between matter (or likelihoods of observing matter, in the case of probability fields), so it’s safe to say that fields are merely an aspect of physics rather than of physicality per se. And what is energy other than an aspect of matter’s behavior, and what determines its behavior if not the internal logic and mechanics of it which is what physics reveals?

Also, as I mentioned in this essay, Emmy Noether proved that the conservation of energy logically follows from the consistency through time of the laws of physics. And what is the concept of energy other than an invariant? What sense would energy make if it weren’t conserved?

So, everything physically observed is in flux, and there’s no ultimate way of distinguishing between physics and the physical. And physics is derived from only from a combination of observations and pure logic, while we can only observe the physical, and most of what we observe seems to change constantly. So, all of this would seem to suggest that the constants in physics, such as the speed of light and the gravitational constant for example, aren’t actually constants but are only assumed to be because they’re so slow to change.

This essay is the third installment of essays of mine conveying basically the same idea, for some strange reason. One can be found at the link above, the other can be found here.

Cascades of Flux

Inasmuch as physics equations are based in pure logic, it is illogical to suppose that they might change over time. There is also an aspect of these equations that is not determined purely by reason, but by observation. Let’s take the example of F=ma. It seems to be somewhere in between the two aspects: physics that’s determined by reason, and physics that’s discovered through observation. Without empiricism/observation, there would be nothing to apply the equation to, and it may be conceivable that there could be a universe where the equation is slightly different, although it seems it would be an absurd one that dynamically bends backward over satisfying the modified equation in every situation.

On the other hand, there’s a large degree to which, given the context of the universe as we know it, F=ma is merely a tautology. It’s merely consistent with the rest of the given rational framework. (Einstein said in ‘Geometry and Experience’, “… Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things? In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this: as far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.””)

This is because in a world with inertia, it only makes sense that increasing energy (and hence speed) linearly would require putting in more effort linearly, thus making force proportional to the first derivative of speed (so we have the F=a part), and of course doing this to twice as much stuff should of course require twice as much effort (so we have the F=m part). It wouldn’t make sense for force to act on increasing amounts of mass non-linearly.

Take Galileo’s experiments with dropping the differently sized cannonballs from the church tower, for example. The force of gravity has to pull them all down with equal acceleration, implying that the force of gravity is both multiplied by the amount of mass (as it acts on all mass equally) and divided by it (inasmuch as we consider the total force of gravity), because otherwise—if heavier cannonballs fell faster—then it would be a paradox if Galileo were to have tied a lighter cannonball to a heavier one and dropped them. The lighter one would have pulled the heavier one up while the heavier one pulls the lighter one down, thus resulting in some sort of average acceleration…but then how thick and dense would you mave to make the material connecting them before they’re considered one thing and hence add up their accelerations rather than averaging out: why an arbitrary value such as that, and what would happen right at the borderline?

(When it comes to F=ma, you’re performing the multiplying phase mentioned above and not the dividing one, because you’re reducing the force applied to every unit of mass to a single point of impact or other influence, which is made possible only via the nature of the solidity of solid matter, and thus you’re considering the total force being applied to every unit of mass, hence the multiplication by m.)

A more interesting consideration might be that, since the implications of a Newtonian universe versus a relativistic universe seem to differ only slightly (consider the fact that, in in the past, we had mistaken the universe for being Newtonian), the universe might evolve from one to the other, say, from a relativistic one to a Newtonian one.  However, this doesn’t work for several reasons.

First, the implications of the equations go deeper than the slight differences observed in our everyday world. For one, space and time would have to evolve from being inseparable to fundamentally distinct. Since space and time in this universe are epiphenomenal, and also fundamental, this is no small step. The universe would have to completely change, the old universe becoming nothing but a memory before the new universe comes about—as opposed to smoothly slipping from one to the other. (Yes, an infinite speed of light would give results identical to Newtonian mechanics, and that’s possible under Maxwell’s equations, but you couldn’t actually make any sort of gradual transition between an infinite value and any finite value, per the nature of infinity.)

Second, it’s possible that reason alone can arrive at the conclusion that space and time are intrinsically connected, by virtue of their metaphysical co-dependence, and that Newtonian physics was therefore merely shortsighted/illogical to begin with.

Third, a shift from the Newtonian cosmic modus operandi to the relativistic would be more of a sudden, dramatic paradigm shift for all matter in the universe travelling at relativistic speeds and for any perspective that more elucidates relativistic effects in the universe, such as a perpsective that simply sees across a vast distance and thus highlights the vast separation of light cones in the relativistic version of the cosmos.

So, while large-scale change characteristically happens through analog continua, a change from Newtonian physics to relativistic or vice versa would be more of a gratuitous, massive binary shift since there are the only two possibilities in this arena of consideration, and they are discrete, because they are paragons of internal logical self-consistency, thus with no wiggle room, and no continuity between one paradigm and the other.

It is also noteworthy that it is the relatively high value of c that allowed us to think in Newtonian terms to begin with, thus that argument illustrates the essential illusion behind this “interesting consideration”: inasmuch as the universe could transmute to being Newtonian, it was already there, and vice versa, because it is the value of c that sponsors the apparent proximity between the two systems.

Traditionally, the laws of physics are considered to be immutable, and the states of affairs that they act upon are considered to be in flux. To me, this seems to be regarding the laws of physics in an almost religious way, although it’s understandable because reality does appear to be this way. 

I would like to point out, first, that the entirety of the “states of affairs” is in flux. Matter is a process. Atoms “bounce off of” each other constantly, electrons travel around the nucleus (or their probability fields oscillate, or whatever), the quarks in the nucleus are moving around, etc.  Every time we see stasis we are merely objectifying repeating patterns of motion that are too small to be seen. The atom appears to be a constant object because its internal processes remain within certain parameters. This doesn’t mean that the parameters themselves are “states of affairs” that are not in flux. The parameters are merely limits that derive from the logic of physical law. For example, the earth has a certain abstract delineation in space because it is held together by gravity, but its breadth on a smaller scale is constantly in flux, as its matter is in motion. 

To focus on the “energy” side of things, light, or an EM field, is of course a propagating wave, and is thus in motion. The staticity of a force field like gravity or electrostatic charge is not really a state of affairs because the force field only exists insofar as it produces an effect. It is not a thing-in-itself. It is an aspect of the way material interacts with other material across distance, which is a manifestation of the laws of physics themselves. It would be superfluous to posit the existence of a force field in-itself when (a) its state is completely supervenient (in the philosophical sense) upon the state of the matter that engenders it, and (b) it can only be known/detected or influenced through its effect on matter. So, the posited phylically existing force field woul be functionally isomorphic to the mere equations describing the force field. Secondly, since the mass that manifests a gravitational or electrostatic force field is constantly in motion, and is itself a process, the gravitational or electrostatic force field actually consists of uncountable tiny waves of force propagating outward at the speed of light and averaging out to a practically static field; so, there is no such thing as a static force field.

Universal flux is given rise to by the causal interconnectedness of everything. Unpredictability is given rise to by two things: 1. Causal, chaotic systems, and 2. quantum indeterminacy/”absolute randomness”. You can predict some things better than others, but certainty and precision can never be 100%, and thus stasis can never be 100%. (This is why there is no such thing as a temperature of absolute zero in the universe, temperature being a measure of the motion of molecules.)

Another point I want to make is that physical laws do not “control” or “act upon” matter and energy to “make” them do what they do. If a law acted upon matter, there would have to be an active agent, and that active agent would have to have further laws that control its own animation. Or, for law X that says matter must behave in a certain way, there would have to be a law Y that says that matter must behave in accordance to law X, and a law Z that says matter must behave in accordance to law Y, etc. At the bottom of this pile of turtles, there would have to be a set of rules that maintain themselves just because, and it’s equally (actually, more) likely that matter maintains its behavior just because (as opposed to being dictated by abstract “laws”).

Furthermore, if time is sponsored by laws “controlling” matter and energy, there must be a meta-time that makes it possible for these laws to commit the process of exercising this control. 

Also, control and action as we know them require an expenditure of energy. “Control” is a very humanistic concept that essentially requires intended result and active manipulation to narrow down the possibilities in the flow of energy/matter from many to a selected few. This requires energy expenditure in nearly the same way that Maxwell’s demon does, so if physical laws “controlled” matter then it would grossly violate conservation of energy.

So, how does physical “law” “work,” or limit what we think is possible, or act as the selector of possibilities, such that the selected is not forced and thus doesn’t require energy expenditure to actualize, or actively select, the selection? The answer is that the process of behaving in accordance to physical law is the process of being logically self-consistent. For the universe to violate a law of physics would be illogical, and one would recognize the specific absurdity if one were able to apprehend the entire situation on all levels. In other words, anything one imagines to be a possibility that physics won’t allow is no more logical than a square circle. (Notice that physical laws are described in the form of mathematical equations, and math itself is nothing but a big tautology of pure logic.)

Therefore, the only immutable aspect of the laws of physics is what is derived from pure logic. Everything else is subject to the states of affairs/the flow of time/change. Of course, some things change more slowly than others. (See the “the entirety of the ‘states of affairs’ is in flux” argument above.)

If you were to do something that a naive philosopher might call “violating a law of physics,” such as by figuring out a way to travel faster than the speed of light, or by inventing an anti-gravity machine, what you are really doing is utilizing a higher order of physics that supersedes the “law” in question.  If you thought that Newtonian mechanics was the true law of the universe, you could violate it by flying two atomic clocks around the earth in opposite directions in fast airplanes.

In regard to higher orders of physics, how high does it go? Perhaps it goes all the way up to pure logic. (Or maybe, metaphysically, there simply layers and layers of what I’ll call “world texture” that results in what we perceive as immutable laws, or some combination of the pure logic and word texture; and if that’s the case, the “world texture” part of it could easily be mutable over time.) If you can use a higher order of physics to violate or affect a lower one, then in between the higher order and the lower order is the input of a state of affairs—meaning that the lower order of physics is an implication of the higher order given a specific current or typical state of affairs, which is what you are controlling if you are “violating a law of physics.”

So, again, the only immutable aspect of physics is pure logic.   

The issue that I’ve been driving at here all along is the decision to include “constants,” such as the speed of light and the gravitational constant, in with the supposed immutability of the laws of physics. You use a constant by plugging it into an equation. The constant comes from observation of the states of affairs, ultimately. It is arbitrary to consider the constant a part of the actual “law” and all other inputs to the equation merely parts of the states of affairs that the law acts upon. (This is also quasi-religious thinking: “We don’t know why c is the value it is, but we know that it will never change and has never changed.” It might as well be God-given.)

It would be easy to say that it could go either way—maybe it’s changeable, maybe it’s not—if it weren’t for all of my above arguments. Everything is in flux but the laws of physics, and those are only constant inasmuch as they are manifestations of logic. 

It follows from everything I’ve said that including “constants” in with the supposed immutability of the laws themselves is simply incorrect, unless the values of c, G, Planck’s constant, or whatever can be derived from pure logic. The best I can imagine is that it would be derived from pure logic given another “constant” to base it on, thus making it supervenient upon that other “constant” (with the possibility of that constant being derived from another constant, etc.), in part because these constants are necessarily in arbitrary units of measurement.

Perhaps c can be derived from G, or vice versa, or both, or they can both be derived from some other constant(s) (but I think this would imply you could derive one from the other as well), thus if they changed they would have to change together. Perhaps not. If they can’t, we can only assume that they are independent, and if they are independent there is nothing to keep them in constancy with relationship to each other, except “inertia” (e.g., of the “metaphysical world texture”). (If they are not derived via logic, they are somehow handed down from the states of affairs, and if they are not logically dependent on each other, they are handed down from independently variable states of affairs.)

c and G change so little that we don’t consider them variables, and they may change so little that no significant change in them has happened in the life of the universe. But for them to be exactly the same would require an immutable reason that they are what they are, and the only reason that fits that bill is logical necessity, and we (probably) can’t derive c or G from logic alone. It’s unlikely that they can be derived from logic alone because they are such seemingly arbitrary and large/finely specific numbers.

I suppose it only makes sense to say that they are intrinsically large (or finely specific?) numbers with respect to some kind of fundamental quantization to afford an objective unit of measurement (i.e., because 1 unit of something would have some absolute meaning, being the smallest possible value), and this quantization would have to be incorporated into the axioms of the logic at hand. This would, of course, make it much easier to derive their values through logic. However, without some kind of intrinsic quantization, perhaps they’re still baseless with respect to any logical axioms.  

Now I will attempt to go more in-depth in regard to the speed of light being a state of affairs. 

Imagine the universe as a completely dynamic cascade of change, some aspects changing faster and some changing slower. We have no choice, personally and evolutionarily, but to wrap our minds around the more slower changing aspects as a reference point for the faster changing aspects, lest we be lost in confusion. We thus perceive the more slowly changing aspects as the structure of the universe.

The more consistent patterns of behavior in the universe—i.e., the ones that repeat themselves—i.e., “laws”—are slower-changing aspects to the degree that they’re exactly the same behavior repeated, which is a limited degree because every situation/event has its specific, unique combinations of properties.

Well, they say that all electrons are identical, so maybe this “folding” consistency into deeper structure applies not only across time but across space, too, when entities are considered to be identical to each other. In other words, maybe there is only one electron, for example, and it is part of the deep/slowly changing structure of the universe.

So, what we have is basically a cascade of change, with the fastest/most chaotic changes at the figurative top, and the slowest/most uniform changes at the figurative bottom. The speed of light can probably only be at the bottom.

I wrote a more brief version of the same basic concept expressed here, and another one here.