The Quantum Mechanical Argument For Essentialism

(This is a fragment of my philosophy of Archephenomenalism that appears in various threads in this corner of the forum. I don’t think that you really need all the arguments that lead up to this point, let me know if the science side of it is a little vague—I will do my best to explain it. This is unedited and raw---I tend to spend several weeks editing and clarifying, but I thought I would share it with you guys first before it is incorporated elsewhere.)



In the 20th Century, philosophy had become pretty smug about once and for all eliminating what many referred to as the illusion, the fallacies, or even the primitive superstitions, of essentialism (or the idea that essence rather than existence is the ground of our being). Their argument follows that there are no eternal forms, or a nature, that makes all existence what it is. There is no Ideal behind all that exists. Life forms therefore have no soul, nor is there any animating force. The Tao is illusion, and we live in nothing more than a material universe free of any god or gods. Man became so sure of himself just as we find ourselves in a philosophical crisis—watching the Age of Nihilism play out all around us, where there is no truth, no value, no meaning—just the end game of an objectivist world where everything, and everyone, has been completely objectified into an object—targeted for exploitation.

But then there is the strange reality of Quantum Mechanics. Yes, science—that area of thought that Kant severed free from all the ties and fetters of Idealism—which is now painting a reality that screams the need for essence. The problem this presents to science, as it sits heavily on a foundation of materialist assumptions, is revolutionary to say the least, and yet fully unrealized. To explore this problem, let me provide a philosophical perspective based on my own philosophy of Archephenomenalism

Archephenomenalism posits that the wave of wave-particle duality is a nonphysical thing of the timeless 4th dimension. Einstein saw the 4th Dimension as time, because our existential experience of the 4th dimension is that almost infinitely small moment of Now. We live on this side of the speed of light—experiencing a continuous flow of successive Nows, and therefore, in our reality, time is experienced. But on the other side, at the speed of light, and where what we understand to be waves manifest, there is no time.

Science tells us that a wave spreads all through time and space—and that it is at each and every point in that wave simultaneously. Quantum Mechanics refers to this as being super-positioned, and experiments demonstrate that all quanta---subatomic particles, particles, atoms, and even Bucky Balls (which are not really quanta per se), are in fact waves. They have momentum. And the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that was developed shortly after it was discovered that all quanta exhibit the phenomena of a wave and a particle, tells us that we cannot know both momentum and position at the same time.

A particle has a position—a single position in space-time. In other words it has a single position at a single point of time within our physical universe. A particle can have mass, it is physical, and it has a place in a 3-dimensional reality. A wave does not have a single position in time or space. If it exists simultaneously along itself as wave, it cannot have mass. We could certainly argue that it can simultaneously be a particle and a wave, i.e. that it has mass even as it is a wave, but if we are speaking in terms of a physical reality, this would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as we would simultaneously know both position and momentum.

The wave is therefore both timeless and without mass. This implies that it is a nonphysical thing—something that is very scary to scientists and their dogmatic adherence to materialism. But if you were to turn to the definition of physical in just about any dictionary then, outside of the medical and sexual definitions, you would see that it is something that is material, concrete, and has a physical form that can be experienced through the senses as opposed to the mind. In fact, the mind itself is defined as nonphysical because it is only experienced within itself, and is neither concrete nor material. Therefore, in philosophy you have the mind-body duality which refers to a physical (body) and nonphysical (mind) duality.

If a wave exists continuously through time and space—across multiple dimensions—then it stands to reason that it is not a 3-dimensional thing, i.e. an object of the physical dimensions. Picture for example, based on the definition of a wave that I have given you, a wave of light travelling through the universe, for example, a wave of light travelling from a distant star 400 Million Light years away. From our physical perspective, it will take 400 Million years for that light to reach your eyes here on earth. As you picture it, don’t forget that Quantum Mechanics tells us that it is superpositioned.

Because our human perceptions are based entirely of an understanding grounded in the physical world and its 3 Dimensions, I am almost completely certain that you pictured a single 1 dimensional ray of light as a wave speeding through the universe from that distant star to your eyes. If you then added in that it was superpositioned, then you may have understood that it wasn’t even speeding along, but was somehow simultaneously everywhere at the same time along that single 1-dimensional wave. You may have even borrowed from classical science and saw that it was an electromagnetic wave and was therefore actually two waves fluctuating around each other, one magnetic and the other of electrical energy.

One problem of this way of seeing light as a wave is that you are still giving it a position, which violates the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In fact, if I’m right, you are not even seeing it as 4-dimensional, but 1-dimensional—a single ray of light, and it is that 1-dimensional point through all of space-time that is the position you place it at. But this is the same mistake everyone makes, because far be it for any of us to easily, let alone automatically, be able to picture anything of a 4th or higher dimension, not to mention something that is nonphysical. (After all, any time you add a new higher dimension, you get a whole plane of new infinite directions.) Part of the problem is that you are still seeing the wave in terms of the particle it represents. From a physical standpoint, a particle does not manifest until that superposition has collapsed into a single position—what we refer to as a quantum wave collapse or probability wave collapse. Even scientists who understand what superposition really implies have a hard time with this.

A superpositioned wave exists everywhere clear across the universe. In other words it is not an object of Classical or Newtonian science (another definition of the Physical). It is clearly then a thing of the 4th dimension. In fact, the difficulty of trying to picture any 4-Dimensional object is exemplified by any attempt you may make of trying to picture a spinning 4-Dimensional object.

But in order to try to understand what we call a 4-Dimensional wave, let’s consider another quantum for you to picture—an electron orbiting an atomic nucleus somewhere in your computer screen. Classical science has us picture the electron as if it is, literally orbiting the nucleus, like a planet around a sun. If we try to measure its position, there will be a probability wave collapse and, indeed, it will most likely be somewhere as a particle around that nucleus with an exact position in space-time within that moment. But Quantum Mechanics shows us that it does not actually orbit the nucleus, instead it surrounds that nucleus—covering every infinite position around that nucleus all at the same time. Yes, I said infinite, which means that the distance from that nucleus has no meaning, and that this superposition means that it is also currently, simultaneously, somewhere behind you, on the other side of the moon, and on all opposite sides of the universe, and everywhere else. In fact, it could even be inside the atom as we shall see (because the atom too has no position unless we measure it). It carries quantum information that says that if we try to determine where its position is it will have the greatest probability of being somewhere near and around that atom, and it will have the least probabilities of being somewhere distant from it; hence it is called a probability wave.

But clearly, more than a wave, it is more like a field. Except that there is still one problem—we perceive it as having momentum. Our preconceived 3-dimensional notions of reality still don’t let us off the hook of comprehending this superpositioned reality. Remember, not only is it everywhere through space as a field, it is simultaneously everywhere through time, which is why we understand it to have momentum. Therefore if we were to determine its position somewhere around that atomic nucleus, it is at the same time possibly moving from one copper atom to another in a wire, minutes, hours, days, or weeks earlier (from our perspective where we experience time). Somewhere in our past it may be leaving an Iron molecule in an intense spinning magnetic field within a generator at your local public utility. At another point it could be an electron within a rock buried in the earth, or floating in interstellar dust before the birth of our planet. It may appear somewhere in deep space, or in the moon, and because it is superpositioned, in a few moments it may actually appear somewhere on the other side of the universe. Right now it is also a photon, or particle of light, in the intense explosion of light known as the Big Bang. It is in all these places simultaneously because it is superpositioned not only through all of space but all of time.

But wait a minute, I just told you that we cannot simultaneously know both position and momentum, because that violates the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and now I have told you that simultaneously that electron has many positions and no positions (momentum) all over the universe in many different times. That is true, but the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is not violated because Archephenomenalism states that only the present can physically exist, which has three implications here: 1.) in the present we cannot know both momentum and position, only one or the other; 2.) because it is superpositioned through all of time, but time is only understood from the physical 3-Dimensions, then the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle only refers to our physical reality which is the only point where it can have a physical position (and is otherwise nonphysical); and 3.) because a superpositioned reality is more akin to a field than a wave represented by a moving ray, the perception of momentum as movement is a human construct from our own experience of time. Even the universal constant, the speed of light, which is literally the speed of time as we experience it, becomes a human construct.

In a superpositioned reality where everything is everywhere, and in every time, where can there be any movement to? We cannot move to a new time, nor can we move to a new place. We might try to argue that movement occurs in the present, but the physicality of the present is determined, according to Archephenomenalism, by the manifestation of the physical—in other words, the Probability Wave Collapse that creates the single space-time position of each quantum currently manifesting a position anywhere and everywhere across the universe. Since each quantum has a single position, it cannot be in motion (---what the Ancient Greeks knew from their philosopher, Zeno, and what modern Quantum Mechanics understands as the Zeno Effect).

As far as the movement of waves in the present moment, our present, as experienced as time, is determined by that very same speed of light. If light, for example, moves at the same speed as the process of time from our perspective, any sense of movement in the smallest moment is nullified, as light changes position exactly with our perspective of time.

So how is it then that we can perceive momentum and understand the process of time? In order to do this, if the physical is only possible within the present moment, we would need to transcend this physical reality—which would require a nonphysical side to being human. Coincidentally, you may recall that I earlier wrote that by definition the mind is nonphysical. This enables us to transcend the physical moment of Now (what I refer to as the Quantum Now), and through Husserlian Retention, experience each moment as a continuing succession of time. The philosopher, Husserl, used retention to refer to that mental dynamic where we perceive reality from one moment to the next. Retention, for example, enables us to listen to a piece of music and not have to re-remember the whole song played so far within each new moment. (I have added that the object of Husserlian retention is Material Retention, the perception that material reality continues from one moment to the next, however if only the present moment has actual physicality, Material Retention is in fact an illusion.)

The implication here is that all movement is a conscious construct. This takes us back to the question, in a superpositioned reality, where would anything move to? Clearly it can move nowhere—neither in time nor in space. The perception of movement only happens from one present reality to the next. It is as the story is told in Sutra of the 6th Buddhist Patriarch, Hui Neng, when he responded to two monks arguing over a pennant moving in the wind. The first monk said that the flag was moving, while the second one argued that it was the wind that was moving. Hui Neng answered that it was neither, it was their mind that was moving (and no, Archephenomenalism is not a Buddhist philosophy, nor one that adheres to any other specific religion).

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this philosophy is telling us, and the number of scientists that agree is continuously growing, that the best resolution to the contradictions between Quantum Mechanics, Einstein’s Theories of Relativity, and Newtonian Physics, is a holographic universe. A hologram always has one less actual dimension from the dimensional reality it arises from; therefore it is limited in how it constructs the reality of its sourced dimensions. In a hologram, the pennant cannot move, the wind cannot move, even an electron cannot move—only mind can construct that movement. Only mind perceives that extra dimension.

This is why when you look through a glass with a holographic photograph recorded inside it, you are looking at a 2-Dimensional image, but your mind perceives 3-dimensionality. (Yes, we could argue that it is a picture of a light field, and the holographic phenomena is created by interference of the light passing through, but this does not change the fact that it is 2-Dimensional and yet we perceive it as 3-Dimensional.

If the three physical dimensions only exist within the present, then all reality that exists outside of that is nonphysical, and this is the problem we have with trying to understand a superpositioned, timeless, nonphysical, reality. The concepts, the math, the science it produces, is all too easily understood in terms of physical reality. The theory of decoherence, for example, in Quantum Mechanics, a concept that Archephenomenalism even incorporates into its understanding of reality, is based on a concept of probability waves moving in coherence, until a decoherent interaction between two quantum results in a probability wave collapse. But as we have seen, in the nonphysical 4th Dimension, there can be no movement. And this brings us to the subject of this piece—the Quantum Mechanical argument for Essentialism.

But first we need to fall a little further down into the rabbit hole. So far, in trying to picture a superpositioned reality, we have only been talking about an electron and a photon. Certainly we cannot stop there. Science tells us that there are also other electrons around that same atom, and around every atom, and between atoms, and there is light everywhere, and protons and neutrons, which themselves are composed of quarks, and muons and gluons and even Higgs Bosons---all of these particles and subatomic particles, and the atoms and molecules they form, are all superpositioned except for those almost infinitely brief moments of the present when, individually, their positions are needed.

All of these quantum waves are fields spread everywhere throughout all space and time, and this too is testament to their nonphysical reality. From our Newtonian perspective of physical reality, we cannot understand how all of these quantum can be superpositioned around and literally within each other. Where does one end, and another begin? Or is that even the case?

The philosophical conclusion of such a superpositioned reality is that the 4th Dimension, being motionless and timeless, in itself has no meaning. There is no entropy. There is no change. There is nothing but a universal field of energy, and yet it is from this field that each physical present moment of physicality emerges as a simultaneous flash of probability wave collapses clear across the universe.

This presents numerous problems, such as the fact that the arrow of time, as we experience it, is one of increasing entropy. Or that we do in fact experience motion. And one very critical problem, how does mass maintain inertia.

Philosophically we could approach this problem of inertia in terms of Sartre’s historicity. Consider, for example, the Chopping Block at the Tower of London, which was used to chop off the heads of traitors, criminals, and unwanted royalty alike up until 1747. If only the present has physical existence in any given moment, then there is no history to each moment of now. Yet that wooden chopping block has cracks from both its age and the stress of the use it was put to. In a more morbid sense, one can also find telltale nicks, chops, and slices in the wood. If the present represents only that present, why do these nicks, cracks, chops, and slices continue to exist, telling tales of a history of painful misses, or the multiple attempts before success could be achieved, and the many unimaginable struggles, pain, and suffering inflicted by so many executioners? How can these be retained from one moment to the next, even over hundreds of years? The quantum that make up this chopping block are spread with all the other quantum of the universe, all through space and time, and could potentially appear anywhere at any given time. (And then, if while no one was looking, I was able to carve my own initials into this wooden artifact of British history, from that point forward, possibly for centuries to come, my initials would also be maintained along with the rest of its history.)

Or, in another example, since we have also discussed motion, consider if I was to attempt to reach the speed of light. The closer my momentum gets to the actual speed of light, the higher my inertial mass becomes, causing my body to increase in mass, until an infinite amount of energy is required to break the light speed barrier. But if my body itself emerges, within each new moment, from a dimension where there is no movement, nor even meaning, then how is this increasing inertial mass maintained, and where does it come from?

And why does that electron we talked about earlier, even appear around that atomic nucleus in your computer screen?

All of these questions boil down to how physical form—existence as we know it—is maintained. In other words, the question of essence. Modern Man was able to dismiss the concept of essence as form by assuming that material objects and physical reality continued relatively unchanged throughout time from one moment to another. When all the components of a physical existent stay in place, without a superposition across all of space and time, existence can give rise to essence rather than the other way around. Or as Sartre exclaimed, the essence of an object is in its appearance.

But now we understand that the material components of a physical existent do not stay in place. In fact, even as they are there, they are also all over time and space. Quantum Mechanics has turned reality completely upside down, and now it appears that it is the many scientists, and philosophers today who tout the superiority of a materialist cosmology that are in fact dealing in primitive fallacies.

One cutting edge cosmological theory is that it is latent light energy itself, as it exists across the universe as a zero-point energy field, that provides this inertia or essence to give form and maintain historicity to all physical things. This makes sense considering that the universal hologram must emerge from this 4th dimension of energy. But it still does not answer how this can happen in a dimension without meaning or movement. In fact, it is the very lack of meaning and movement that screams the need for essence to give rise to physical form.

But you may recall that we already answered why the electron will probably appear around that nucleus of the atom within your computer screen. It is the encoded probability of the quantum information within that wave—or more correctly, that field. Therefore this superpositioned field may exist in a nonphysical sense clear across the universe, but in that given present moment of now, it is also a physical particle, with a single position in space-time due to its quantum information, and in another moment it will probably manifest in another position, once again due to its quantum information. Perhaps in that moment, it will be in a wire in your computer, or causing a photoelectron in another atom to give off light enabling you to see your computer screen, or carrying altered quantum information after you hit your Enter key, in order to send data across the internet, or maybe it will appear on the other side of the universe. It is all based on this quantum information to provide meaning from a meaningless superpositioned dimension.

But if this is the case, then quantum information, in order to bring meaning into a meaningless field of reality, must also transcend that reality, for where else would it attain, and maintain meaning? This is just as we referred to earlier in regards to the human mind and the Husserlian retention that enables conscious beings to perceive time, movement, meaning, and understand them from the many phenomenon that make up our reality.

Interestingly enough, while the mind is also defined, as we said earlier, as nonphysical, it is not experienced as a superpositioned reality, even as we transcend the physical moment. Instead it is experienced as our own subjective center to the universe, in both what we perceive as time and space. It is from this subjective center that we perceive reality, remember the past, anticipate the future and exercise volition. We even conceive acts and concepts of creativity. All meaning for us comes from, or is created at this subjective center. But since we transcend not only the physical present, but also maintain meaning and information, our own minds themselves could be transcendent of the 4th Dimension as well.

It stands to reason that the quantum information (essence) that gives rise to physicality through each individual quantum is also a subjective center point to the universe within that moment of now, but that transcending that moment, it also maintains information, i.e. meaning. Since form is maintained by all the manifesting particles of a given physical object, seemingly through time, we must conclude that this quantum information is not only subjectively expressed and maintained but also locally coordinated and collectively expressed.

Unlike the essence of the Platonic form, where a table, for example, has the essence of tableness, a table has its own unique essence that maintains its own history, and is subject to the history as it is shaped through each and every present moment.

One might try to argue against this need for essentialism by stating that material retention as illusion is a fallacy, and that material objects do maintain an unchanging existence from one moment to the next. But if this is the case we are simply extending the same problem over multiple moments of now. First of all, there is still a quantum uncertainty, so the problem remains that at some point each and every quantum within that object will not have a position. In fact every quantum is in motion, so that loss of position, and having a momentum, is in fact an instantaneous new moment. The position that existed is in the past and has no more physical existence. Even classical science agrees that an electron, for example, is in continuous motion, such as the one circling the atomic nucleus within your computer screen. Then you have other problems, such as that you would need still new quantum information (essence) in order to determine why one quanta would maintain a physical position longer than another, or when it would resume moving. Clearly the quantum reality requires a continuous flux of collapsing quantum and un-collapsing quantum. From this emerges our experience of time and movement.

Moving still further into the rabbit hole, just like with the concept of essence as it was understood in Ancient Greece and has been understood throughout the history of philosophy, we see a possible affinity or connection between essence as quantum information and the nonphysicality of the human mind. This is why the Ancient Greeks used the terms eidos for ‘essence’ and ‘form,’ which also means ‘idea.’ And therefore, Hui Neng was right, it was their minds that moved.

But as one can see, if Quantum Physics is right, and physicality emerges from a reality of superpositioned quanta, that by their very superpositioned state, becomes a meaningless, timeless, and motionless field of nonphysical energy, then it becomes necessary for information—essence—to be introduced in order to provide the reality that we experience, understand, and gain meaning from.

In this manner, despite its superpositioned reality, the 4th Dimension is a dimension of infinite potentiality. It’s energy may exist as a field that simultaneously exists everywhere from the beginning of time to the end of time (and possibly beyond), but through the essence provided by quantum information subjective positions of physicality could arise at any point in any combination, altering quantum information as it generates phenomena moving from one moment (Quantum Now) to another. That is to say, our own existential reality can still be one demonstrating the arrow of time—in other words, one of increasing entropy. Mass maintains inertia, and momentum or position is perceived. History is maintained. And even we, as conscious individuals, have the ability to alter reality—assuring that we have free will and existential freedom.

Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

Great response, MeAgain!!

Perhaps this part needs to be rewritten or clarified more. Einstein and his math professor labeled the 4th Dimension as time, and that is how we experience it. But the barrier of time is the speed of light, and Einstein's math actually equates the passage of time with the speed of light. This creates an interesting problem which Einstein understood--while we as physical beings move through our 3 physical dimensions (space) light moves through the 4th dimension (time). In the same way we are pushed through time, light is pushed through space. We are unable to move in time, in the same manner that light is unable to move in space.

All of that is speaking from the perspective of experience, and we then deduce that the physical universe is one of space (the 3 physical dimensions) and time (the 4th Dimension). But remember that Einstein tells you that at the speed of light, time is zero, and as we have seen, the 4th dimension is the dimension of light.

Einstein will also tell you that from our perspective light is in motion, streaming by us in every which direction at an amazing 186,000 miles per second. But this is the universal constant, and from the perspective of light, it is the universe that is flying past in every which direction at the amazing speed of 186,000 miles per second. To complicate this, we can add that the universe only flies past it when it is a particle, a photon---and this is entirely from our human perspective because only as a particle does it interact with the physical universe, and that happens in time as we know it. On the other hand as a wave, all of time happens to light in a single instant, because again, the Theories of Relativity place light as zero time.

To light there is no time, but our experience of light is one of time.

Therefore Einstein and I are still talking about the same 4th Dimension. He described it from an existential or human perspective, while I speak of it in terms of a more absolute perspective. The major difference here is that I label the 4th Dimension as nonphysical, while many scientists maintain that it is a physical reality, and yet even in science the physicality of the 4th dimension is a bit of a controversy.

You might recall recently that you said that I am reintroducing a duality of physical and nonphysical. I responded that I am actually deconstructing (in a Derridean sense) the physical-nonphysical duality. Modern Man may think he has escaped this duality-----but the Post-Modern Crisis proves that it is still there. As Derrida would say, we are still wrapped up in trying to find a center, even though we have placed such a strong dominance on the physical (which cannot be a center because it is always subject to deconstruction in to the nonphysical, and visa versa).

I start this process of deconstruction (in a Derridean fashion) by reintroducing the nonphysical to modern man. Further down the rabbit hole is where the actual deconstruction takes place. (And in your response----you—very impressively—jump right down towards the bottom of the rabbit hole).

Archephenomenalism states that the physical exists only in the present. My philosophy attempts to resolve the two polarized opposites of the cosmological theories on time—presentism and eternalism (and through that I believe I fundamentally reconnect Continental and Anglo-American philosophy).

In a simplistic manner we are simply, once again talking in terms of the difference between dimensions, but it is deeper than that.

The present---what I call the Quantum Now---consists of all simultaneous probability wave collapses all across the universe---in other words----it is all simultaneous manifesting particles----everything that currently exists in a physical sense. It is the hologram we understand as the universe. But it is gone as soon as it happened----because every quantum is in motion, and we can only know position or momentum, not both (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). Once those positions---that present---is gone, that physicality is no more. All that is left is phenomena---quantum information. But just as quickly there is a new physical present.

Time as we understand it only exists in the mind---we transcend the physical, and even the 4th dimension. Time can also be described in this interdimensional interaction (though I actually posit that the 3 physical dimensions emerge from the 4th in each new Now, rather than interact with the 4th) that I just discussed. In this manner: the present emerging from the eternal. But the eternal (the timeless 4th dimension) is not a physical actuality, it is a potentiality----because it is nonphysical energy everywhere in all time.

Time, as we understand it, requires a physical reality. The eternal 4th dimension is nonphysical and superpositioned----as I said, there is no new time to move to, no new place to move to----it is everywhere. Because it is already across all time, we can call it eternal, but it is timeless because it is nonphysical-----i.e non-positional, meangingless in and of itself.

The physical only exists in the present. In each new now, all past nows and all future nows do not exist, it is only, Now. Therefore at a physical level there is also no time. Only mind understands time.

This may seem like mincing words but there are significant implications---for example, Archephenomenalism posits that computers or robots will never attain true sentience---because they are trapped by physicality. There are significant implications in regards to time travel, and so forth. The biggest implications are of course at the bottom of the rabbit hole.

(This by the way is very compatible with string theory in the sense that instead of multiple strings, there is only one string at a time---a single string representing the whole hologram. Something that scientists too have suggested.)

There is a lot to digest----let me stop here---perhaps making a separate argument on this by doing so. I will respond to the next part this evening (I tried to conjure my wife away to the 4th dimension, but she is still with me in my present---darn it.) Let me say that in the next part, you jumped right down into the rabbit hole----very impressive.

I apologize that there is so much------but I really, really, really thank you for taking the time and digging into it and challenging it! Please don’t stop!!!!

 

Existentialism is western dualism interpreting the paradox of our existence as meaningless because it assumes that everything is either true or false. A Contextualist argument is that logic has no demonstrable meaning outside of specific contexts. Instead of the fourth dimension the only explanation required for quantum mechanics is that nature obeys yin-yang dynamics which exclude any metaphysical extremes. For example, you can't create a perfect vacuum in a paradox of existence simply because metaphysical extremes are forbidden and a context without any content is simply meaningless nonsense. The law of identity goes down the nearest rabbit hole or toilet of your preference because everything depends upon the specific context for any demonstrable meaning and you can either become filled with angst or decide everything is goovey in a paradox of existence where you get to interpret it however you might wish.

 

You are exactly right----and as I said, you are jumping right towards the bottom of the rabbit hole. Archephenomenalism is a phenomenalist philosophy—a philosophy that is based on the concept that all we can know to be true is phenomena (and here I thought it would keep it simple to not go into this deeper aspect). Phenomenalism, as a philosophy, can range from simply not being able to experience reality as it truly exists (because we only experience the phenomena of physical reality) to physical reality actually being illusion and only phenomena is present.

Arche, as you may recall from previous discussions, is First Cause (among other Greek meanings, all of which are pertinent), and I place the First Cause as ‘Mind.’

Anyway---to your post---this is a difficult subject to communicate, because even to talk about time as nonexistent, for example, we still communicate in terms of time. The problem is that there are many layers to reality that we are breaking through. First we have to deal with reality as it is perceived, which is relatively close to reality as it is experienced, next there is a deeper level of reality which is reality-in-itself—which we believe we are gaining an understanding into through science. Classical science deals with reality as we experience it, but Einstein’s theories and Quantum Mechanics deal with reality of a deeper level---and the problem now is incorporating all three levels together----and the holographic model seems to be the best way of doing that. (And even though Phenomenalism as a philosophy began several hundred years before anyone even knew of a hologram, the holographic model and Phenomenalism are custom made for each other.) Finally there is the Absolute level of reality—the universe as it is as a whole.

The phenomenalist problem here is that even the reality that we think we are gaining understanding of through Quantum Mechanics and cosmology is still perceived through phenomena, rather than the thing in itself. On the other hand, the math behind such research is very predictive indicating that we can assume that we are gaining a very good handle on the universe as it is, or at least, as it appears to us through the phenomena it generates.

The discussion begins at the human level of reality---reality as we perceive and experience it. Time as we understand it exists as we perceive it—but this is a mental perception. At a deeper level time exists only as the present, and in this I will correct you---the only time that actually exists in a physical sense is the present Now. The Quantum Now is not outside of time, rather it is the only form of ‘physical’ time. In fact, this is the only time we truly physically experience, the experience of the past and the future is once again a mental experience. (Though our experience of Now is much greater than the actual Quantum Now but then that is the only way we can make sense of reality.) I hope my last post cleared up the bit about time---the present arises from timelessness, and time as we understand it is a construct of mind.

So how does the present arise from timelessness----by essence, which is, in fact, mind. So we now have a circle—the mind, which understands time, gives rise to the present (as physical time), to be perceived by mind, which understands time.

You are right, we are dealing with the experience and the experiencer----or the perceiver and the perception (percipi and percipiere (excuse my Latin spelling here)). Space-time is not necessarily required because what we are experiencing here is the phenomena, not the object. Nonetheless we do experience 3 dimensional reality, and space-time, so at an existential level, this is reality and our starting point for trying to understand the universe.

I did briefly touch on the point that Archephenonemalism treats each point of the present physical Now as a subjective point. This begins yet another deconstruction---The Modern world is overly focused on objective reality, and this dominates and represses its binary opposite: the subjective. Our deconstruction begins by placing the subjective as the dominant perspective—which is really entirely how we experience the universe.

Every Quantum Wave collapse happens the way it does through the quantum information encoded in the two quantum during the decoherent event that gives rise to the probability wave collapse. They leave the collapse with additional quantum information. For example, when a wave of light is absorbed into an atom (as we understand from a physical perspective), for an infinitesimal moment that light manifests as a particle—a photon, and that atom manifests as an atom (or actually a corner of an atom, such as an electron). They both have a simultaneous position (a collapse) and this position is determined by the probabilities within the quantum information. Once the collapse is over, they have new quantum information (phenomena). The same photon may undergo numerous collapses with points within the atom as it is absorbed into the atom. That photon, or more specifically that quantum information represents a subjective point of reality, as does the electron or other quanta within the atom having its own subjective perception.

Now here you may want to argue, ‘how can an electron or photon have a perspective?’---but it does have----just like any other form of mind, an intentional object: the quantum information it carries. It has the quantum collapse which has altered or given it new quantum information: a physical perception or experience. And it returns to wave form with new or altered quantum information: A memory or historicity which it carries (According to Quantum Mechanics, quantum information cannot be destroyed, but it can be altered, or transferred).

Because each material point (each collapse) represents a subjectivity, it represents a perceiver (experiencer as you said), its perception is the new or altered quantum information it now carries. Its experience is an experience of the ‘Other,’ i.e. the other quanta. In this manner every point is subjective and dominant, just as every conscious being is subjective as well.

But if every point is subjective, then every other point in the universe is objective to that point. So the deconstruction continues, and every point is both subjective and objective. Ultimately we arrive at the point where the experience and the experiencer are the same-----they are all just a part of the same thing at the absolute level of mind. At this point the physical and nonphysical is also deconstructed and, as you pointed out, even the illusion of material reality becomes more than just a material retention---but complete illusion. Everything at the absolute level is reduced down to only first cause---Mind.

And mind creates past, present, and future, and the whole illusion

And now we have presence, so we return to the existential reality we live in---the nihilistic Modern Age with its infatuation with the physical and the objective, and because we have used rational and objective science to return what Derrida called, Presence---the Transcendental Signified (his other term) we can now bring meaning, value, and significance back to Man and his culture. We have also deconstructed our old divisive dynamics that we have carried from the dawn of civilization, and that make up the modern Zeitgeist---duality, group ethic (subjective vs objective), etc. We now have a new essentialism that is determined by potentiality, rather than restricted by its own nature. It many ways it is an undefined essentialism that is completely subjective---promoting multiplicity rather than duality. Finally, if the mind after all embodies seemingly infinite potentiality, it also manifests existential freedom.

 

Please elaborate more on your first assertion over existentialism. Granted existentialism gave rise to a culture of nihilism in Post-War Europe, but I would argue that this has more to do with Europe’s post-war existential crisis then existentialism itself. Existentialism for me was an attempt to face the developing Post-Modern Crisis by a return to the subjective.

Existence where truth is relative may seem paradoxical, but that is exactly what the Modern Age is struggling with as we undergo a natural deconstruction of the traditional concepts of Universal Truth---truths that, once again, were developed in the planter cultures along with the dawn of civilization. (It is no coincidence that this process took place along with the rise to prominence of Einstein’s theories). Truth as well is a construct of mind and is perceived and experienced at a subjective level. The Age of Nihilism is really an age of deconstruction of meaning, value, and truth----the whole history of religion and philosophy in the West has taken us to this point. As the contemporary truths, values, and meanings (that we have constructed into the divisive and destructive world we have today) are deconstructed we must come to terms with new truths and values, or face cultural collapse. All truth, value, meaning, are constructed in Mind and mind is subjective.

At an absolute level, the 4th Dimension is mind too, but at a lower level it is potentiality, but meaningless as a superpositioned realm. It is quantum information that provides meaning----mind.

 

Western dualism is older than the golden age of Greece and is based upon the assumption of the exclusion of the middle which asserts that something is either overall true or false. Fuzzy logic and humor can take a very different approach to the same issue of how to analyze something to see if it makes any sense. According to classic logic jokes just never make any sense and are merely nonsense to be ignored. Hence, westerners are known worldwide for their serious expressions and rugged individualism where they bite the bullet as the straight man who never gets the joke. Its your basic memory centric chicken flock pecking order way to organize and memory has proven to be the only reliable way to assess someone's career potential. Humor is political with the Athenians killing Socrates for demonstrating so well how the peasants could use fuzzy logic to defend themselves, while one of the first things Hitler did was make it illegal to crack jokes about the Nazi party. Existentialist angst is merely the indivisible complimentary-opposite of humor because beauty and humor define one another.

 

I am talking about time in terms of Minkowski Space-time----Minkowski helped Einstein introduce time as the 4th Dimension into his theories. But even more so than that, I reduce the Quantum Now to the smallest possible increment of time and space----the point below which the contradictions of the theories of relativity and Quantum Mechanics do not allow for a reality as we know it. Therefore the only physical time I allow for is that of 1 Planck Time----the amount of time it takes a photon to cross 1 Planck Length. One reason I do this is because it is the closest to zero-time we can become and still allow for physical phenomena to exist in a meaningful way. At one Planck length, the issue of vacuum is not even relevant.

But it doesn’t matter because when we refer to light in a vacuum, it is our way of speaking from a physical perspective of light as a wave. In other words it is light that encounters no, or very little decoherence---which is to say that it does not manifest as a physical particle, or does so at a very limited rate. Remember, Archephenomenalism posits the wave as nonphysical.

Light appears to slow down when it undergoes multiple points of decoherence, such as going through a crystal. This means it is undergoing multiple quantum wave collapses to physical manifestations. This is the Zeno Effect that has recently been demonstrated in laboratories. It boils down to evidence that we can slow and stop atomic movement through observation. But decoherence may also alter the direction of momentum. One theory suggests that a photon, when inside mass, or even as mass (based on a highly predictive theory that mass is really just trapped photons) has a back and forth jiggling momentum—still moving at the speed of light, but not in a straight direction. Then there is the possibility that we are not even seeing the same photon, but a reflected photon after each decoherent event (wave collapse)-----when light is reflected, it is actually a case of the original photon being absorbed into, and a new one being released from, an atom.

In any event, according to Archephenomenalism, when it has momentum, it is nonphysical and we perceive it to be traveling at the universal constant. (But remember, if the universe is a hologram, motion is really a construct of the mind.) When it is manifesting as a particle (such as what we refer to as not traveling through a vacuum) it is creating phenomena which we perceive as physical and is therefore subject to interpretation by, and construction of, the mind. Consider quantum entanglement for example.

In quantum entanglement, two entangled or connected particles, moving away from each other can be shown to share information instantaneously, despite their distance. The problem for science is that this means they share it faster than the speed of light, which goes against physical rules. They could be light years apart yet still share this info instantly. But if the 4th dimension is timeless, then the speed of light is irrelevant.

This means once again that the speed of light, i.e. time, i.e. motion is again a construct of mind, and is always subjective, even as it is universally constant (i.e. there is only one physical now across the universe at any given moment). Archephenomenalism gives us several ways to explain this, depending on the perspective of reality we choose because the experience of time is relative, local, and subjective. But most significantly there is a scientific perspective: we can speak of the speed of light as the emergence of the physical dimensions from the nonphysical 4th dimension. Then there is the Metaphysical perspective: the speed of light is a construct of the mind.

 

That would be great----let me edit it a bit first.

 

The speed of light can also be simply defined as context dependent due to the Simultaneity Paradox of Relativity. A photon that leaves the Big Bang only to arrive at the Big Crunch never accomplishing a damned thing is simply mystical metaphysical gibberish. Energy outside of the context of it actually doing something is as demonstrably meaningless as a shadow without a light. The Hubble Horizon merely expresses the context dependence of what we call mass and energy with Finnish researchers recently converting electron charges into usable energy without expending any energy in the process.

 

That is very interesting Wu Li Heron. I agree, but with the caveat that dualism is not only a Western dynamic, but a natural evolution in every culture as early man began to plant and work as a group, and eventually developed city-states and the institutions of civilization. The difference between cultures depends on how they integrated their own indigenous roots. But you still find different levels of duality. In Hinduism there is a very strong duality between the physical and the nonphysical with the dominant (good) side being associated with the masculine and the repressed with the feminine (though this too is largely influenced by early Indo-Europeans). In India, the feminine is stronger, and more respected, among the older indigenous cultures and castes that preceded the Aryans.

Taoism, on the other hand, is grounded in its Ural Altaic indigenous roots, so while you may have the duality of the yin-yang, it is not a centerless polarized duality. For example, it does not determine life as much as its blending and flowing determines reality as manifested through the trigrams (and it is from there that we get the I Ching). Shinto is even stronger in this regard---presenting a cosmology very typical of indigenous spirituality, and its multiplicity with very little dualistic structure. There is a healthier ethic of 'finding balance' in such cultures and belief systems that are more closely tied to their indigenous roots. Duality on the other hand is conducive of an overly inflated ego-shadow complex and alienation from the subconscious.

I believe that we are trying to return to these indigenous roots---not in a Romanticist sense, but in a grounding of our philosophical outlook. This is also a part of Archephenomenalism. Western culture, particularly the American brand, is the defining and guiding culture of Modern Global Culture. The Post-Modern Crisis, and the increasing nihilism is part of the breakdown of these old, what I refer to as, Post-Planter cultural dynamics and understandings. Deconstructionism is another example of this. The reality of Quantum Mechanics I believe will alter our philosophical outlook much as Einstein’s theories are doing today. The changing cultural structure, context, and cultural dynamics evolving as we move deeper into the information age is another factor at play. I am not talking about a utopian change here, but it is a significant philosophical change in a future where failure to change will ultimately prove disastrous for our species.

Hunter-gatherer cultures, and those planter cultures that still maintain much of their hunter-gatherer ethics are very multiplistic, which makes greater sense in a world where nature is the guide. They place heavy emphasis on the individual. (In fact, I argue that the rugged American individualism is really just a persona masking an elitist group ethic. It is only in indigenous populations where you find an authentic individualism where the individual is valued for who and what he/she is, and is always evolving into. This is very different from the West where you ‘have to become somebody.’) I have yet to find a hunter-gatherer culture where such ethics and beliefs are not the case. Archephenomenalism seeks to bring the emphasis back onto the individual, and promotes multiplicity over duality, the subjective over the objective, etc.

I believe humor is an important part of this. Archie Bunker in the 1970’s helped break down some of the racism of America----people could see it in themselves, even if they did not realize they were seeing it. Political satire is very important in America today-----I hope that it is raising the awareness of young people at least of the current political madness this country is undergoing.

 

This thread hurts my brain. I'd probably need to study it for a week if I want to comprehend it all.

 

I am writing a book---the working title is The Philosophy of the Quantum Now. I am hoping that I present this and the rest of the stuff in a simple enough format that it is easily digestible for public consumption. It is part of 3 books that deal with the Post Modern Crisis. I have another roughly 120 page book that I hope to upload as an e-book soon with the the working title, An Archephenomenalist Perspective on Reality in 5 Parts. That one would take a little understanding in Quantum Mechanics and Philosophy to understand.

But, Ashaliscious, I believe that if you could grasp the metaphysics presented here----it is like a drug trip. It is kind of like, "Ohhh wow, man."

The really crazy thing is----if you go over to the DMT threads-----you will find people relating how they see reality from their DMT and it has amazing (to me) similarities to my own philosophy.

 

I do fully intend on taking the time to read your thread in it's entirety, actually. I just need to do so at a time where I can have complete focus, which is most definitely best during the morning with a hot cup of tea. I look forward to it.

 

But this is the beauty of the Archephenomenalist interpretation of the superpositioned realty. (And to be honest, as we understand superpositioned states, I don’t know how it could be any other way.)

Consider, for example, if it was an actual photon that was simultaneously all along its path from the big bang to the big crunch. Or even consider if it was the 1-dimensional wave that we tend to see the wave side of the wave-particle duality at due to our inability to picture things in higher dimensions. If it is simultaneously through all of time at once then we are faced with the argument that even though I am experiencing light in the present moment, thinking that tomorrow is filled with potential, that same light is right now at the same time, already experiencing the end of time, just as it is also right now experiencing the beginning of time. The very same light I am experiencing now has already been there, done that, for the rest of time.

I may be happily planning a marriage in the near future, and looking forward to a long life with someone I dearly love, but instead I will be executed tomorrow by a douche bag cop without cause during a minor traffic stop. There is no way to avoid it. There is no taking an early turn on a whim, or getting a late start because of some inconvenience, there is not even any way I could handle this cop differently, because everything has already happened. Light has already manifested everywhere it will manifest, and everything is therefore set in place. I just have to go through the motions of my predestined life.

This can also be connected to the problem of traditional essentialism----that everything and everyone is a product of their nature; their essence. For example, traditional essentialism runs into the reductive thinking of concepts such as, a person of color is substandard and likely to be criminal and lazy because of his/her essence (a non-white essence). Homosexuality is evil and wrong because it is a sin against nature. Women are best suited for work in the kitchen, the bedroom, and raising kids. A loser will always be a loser. And so forth.

Essentialism always assumed that people and things could not go against their nature, because their essence was an otherworldly thing that had already predetermined their nature---or what we could revise into a Quantum Mechanical context: the superpositioned waves that make up the particles they are composed of, have already been and done everything that person is going to do.

HOWEVER, if the superpositioned reality is examined philosophically according to how science describes it, superpositioned waves can embody all possibilities: it is everywhere in every time already. All that is needed is for a something to come along and determine which possibilities will actually manifest---something to bring meaning into the universe. Theoretically we have this mechanism in the form of Quantum Information. Metaphysically it is Mind that provides this.

Consider, for example, what meaning would there be in the universe if there were no conscious beings within it, and no consciousness whatsoever?

I posit that mind determines what will actually manifest, and what and how it will be experienced in a universe of absolute and already superpositioned potentiality. This solves the problem of entropy. Anything can happen in the future. And if mind is the essence that determines one’s being, anything is possible, because mind is creative and free to choose in a universe of possibilities.

Quantum information is one thing, but consider the power of the human brain. There are well documented experiments done at MIT that demonstrate, very significantly, how we can change reality though our own volition; including such things as the growth of insect larva, the .ph of water, and the coagulation of blood (to name a few). Or, for example, there are several laboratories that have demonstrated that the Quantum Zeno effect is real (that we can impact quantum reality through observation). In short, we do have a hand in choosing our fate, who we will become, and what we will do.

But there is also the Great Other---if the universe is all subjective, as I pointed out in a previous post, it is also the ultimate objective Other to every subjective point within it. The universe is filled with Quantum Information shaping the trend and path of nature. Quantum decoherence, left alone to happen as it does naturally, is the flow of nature----it is the Tao that Lao Tzu said could not be spoken. It is the universe finding its own path, and thereby manifesting on a material plane. It is the universe finding its own meaning (which implies that it must also perceive).

 

Frequently I tell people when the student is poorly prepared the master is rudely awakened! Which is my tongue-in-cheek way of saying the minute you think you already know the answers you set yourself up for a rude awakening. Even the human brain actually works on the same principle with the visual parts of the brain organized around looking for what's missing from this picture. Already the electron wave has proven to be infinitely divisible, while its particle-like aspect is considered fundamental and indivisible. The question is and always has been just what the hell anybody has been looking at and the simple answer is synergistic-normalization or yin-yang dynamics. Already the physicists have begun assembling their overall research looking for yin-yang patterns and it should become obvious soon.

The context determining its own context promotes a Wheeler style Participatory Anthropic Principle and its comparable to merely assembling a puzzle where the larger picture should make itself obvious within decades at most by the simple process of elimination that, ultimately, the only thing we can know is that we know nothing. Where the actual confusion comes in is quantum mechanics are formulated in infinite universes, yet, quanta can appear to go both forward and backwards in time according to the same mathematics. Nature is hiding the identities of what is space and what is time just as she does with the surface of a black hole simply because of the extreme juxtaposition of the metaphors. Another way to express the same idea is that nature simply cannot produce metaphysical extremes due to yin and yang normalizing everything synergistically. Nature abhors a vacuum and is even afraid of perfect darkness all because she forbids metaphysical extremes.

 

What's coming will ensure Vaudeville will never be the same again because beauty and humor are complimentary-opposites and, already, the first quantifiable theory of humor has been established. What western society has done is promote the beauty of the mathematics at the expense of their own sense of humor. Similar to the "Vulcans" of Star Trek. It means a simple systems logic should be able to predict every future pie-in-the-face academics will receive in their work. The entire history of science could be scientifically represented based upon first principles as a slapstick comedy of errors. A future shock that Alvin Toffler did not predict.

 

Except that Wheeler treated Quantum Information as the Arche, or First Principle. I say that Arche is Mind (or spirit, or however you want to label it----god, even), therefore I disagree with his concept that the universe is a massive digital computer. I say that the Quantum Information is the way that science made sense out of each quanta having an intentional object (which is a phenomena of mind). I have no problem with mind creating its own context. This would represent the active dynamic of conception, rather than the passive dynamic of perception. But I would argue that in each quantum event perception plays a significant role, and therefore the context is perceived from a historicity or from the ‘Other’ even more often than it is created (conceived).

Even if in the end we truly know nothing, does that mean we should give up all attempts to try to inject meaning and value back into Modern culture?

The concept of multiple universes was created to get around the observer. More recently the concept of decoherence has enabled quantum physicists to say that physical reality can manifest sans observer (but that it does not eliminate the observer (for example, in the double slit experiment) as is popularly assumed). Archephenomenalism demonstrates that we do not actually go back in time as suggested in examples such as the Wheeler Delayed Observation Experiment (again, because the 4th dimension is timeless and only the present has physicality---I have discussed this in other threads), furthermore Archephenomenalism also provides an explanation of entropy and the arrow of time.

But here is something to consider----is this synergy played out, as Kant suggested, at a mental level? In other words, in a Kantian sense, is it simply that we can never know the thing-in-itself, for our ontology is largely a mental construct. Therefore even if the universe is a hologram (as the number of scientists that believe this is growing day by day) and that this was a metaphysical extreme, we would never know it, because the conscious mind, controlled by a Jungian ego, does not allow us to perceive reality at such an extreme.

It may seem that such an argument downplays your yin-yang synergy, but if it is such that esse este percipi (existence is perception), the universe itself is nothing more than a hologram, and mind is behind all of it, then of course it is very significant.

My philosophy started out as a response to the Post-Modern Crisis, and the growing nihilism of the Modern Age. But along the way, I was introduced to a reality that is, by any materialist, naturalist, or atheist definition, a metaphysical extreme. I am referring to indigenous spirituality---what the modern world is very good at dismissing as primitive superstitions. But if you participate in ceremony, particularly certain ones, there is no more denying a metaphysical side to the universe. A yuwipi ceremony is one such ceremony. In a bona fide yuwipi, you will see and experience things that cannot be faked, and try as one will to dismiss them, they cannot be dismissed.