Chapter 1: The Universe

Chapter 1

The Universe

It is the aspiration of this text to begin a philosophy of the future. A clear and unequivocal ideology that will allow us to break free of medieval market ideals and contemporary capitalist propaganda. To do so we must return to the beginning of philosophy, if there is such a place. We must set our foundations deeper than the Greek mind, and dig below the bias of religions and political theory. We must construct our philosophy upon a lasting theoretical foundation. It must establish its arguments where possible, beyond the reaches of an ephemeral ‘good’ and ‘evil’, upon the bedrock of accepted science, of evolutionary biology, cosmology and evolutionary psychology.

We must begin our journey by firstly considering how the Universe is constructed and how the phenomenon of thought may play a role in that construction. It is out of this ‘form’ that our earth, that nature and we ourselves have evolved. If indeed the universe is infinite, it may or must contain infinite possibilities, as such the possibility that the universe might be able to comprehend itself finds manifestation through the illusive and mysterious phenomenon we refer to as thought. 

Unlike other living entities, thought provides we humans with the experience or the impression that we are distinct from the physical universe, that we can comprehend it from the ‘outside’ so to speak. Yet we also know that we are not in fact distinct from the universe, that we are an integral part of it. In this respect thought, philosophy and cosmology are comfortable bedfellows and we must begin our philosophy by recognising and exploring the intimacies that unite them.

We must however embrace the flaw of all philosophies and establish our theory upon a series of assumptions. No theoretical work can embark upon its journey without a raft of assumptions upon which it will attempt to stand upright and navigate the abyss.

All theory and all cosmology can perhaps be dismissed with a reiteration of the distinct possibility that ‘nothing is real’ and ‘all reality is mere dream or illusion’. Our first brave assumption therefore, is that the Universe does exist and that out of it's cosmology; the earth, nature, and we ourselves are formed.

We further assume that there is an entity that is integral to and yet fundamentally distinct from these mechanical and energetic processes, one that is described and experienced as thought. As such, we assume the existence of three distinct entities: matter, thought and life. When matter is apparently animated by thought we describe that interaction as ‘life’. From a human perspective the interaction between thought and matter is particularly interesting in that it allows ‘thought’ the opportunity to consider itself.

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We further assert that this entity we experience and describe as ‘thought’ plays an essential role, not only in our comprehension of the ‘external’ but in the form and function of the universe, in the very manufacture of that external.

If we are to pare human behaviour back to its origins we arrive at the conclusion that behaviour is motivated by instinct, that instinct arises from nature, and that nature has arisen from and is a consequence of, the cosmology of the universe. No animal can choose the instinctual imperatives that are the fountain-head of its behaviours. These imperatives are the prerogative of nature, they arise out of nature, and as such they represent some direction towards which nature is striving, and out of which nature has arisen. It is through instinct that the form function and evolutionary objectives of nature and ultimately the universe itself  are manifest.

Although we cannot pretend to be entirely cognisant of the 'objectives' of nature, or the cosmology of the Universe, we can be certain that there is such an objective or a purpose, our physical existence is mterial evidence of that 'purpose'.  We can observe through science and teloscopy that the Universe is expanding towards some future form, the form of tomorrow.  This is apparent every day in both our continued and evolving existence, and the very expansion of the material universe itself. This movement from a particular point in the past, towards a particular point in the future is evidence enough that the universe and we ourselves are moving towards a certain form that exists within the future, and it is towards this future form, this 'purpose' this tomorrow that the Universe appears to be striving.  As such, we must begin our attempt to understand the instinct that directs our behaviour, with a consideration of cosmology and the origins of our Universe.

Whilst adhering to accepted cosmological principles, we must ask how nature has arisen within, or out of this material universe, and what role thought itself may have played in this process? We need not be afraid to pound upon the gates of heaven.

As nature must adhere to cosmology, to gravity and the laws of the universe; human psychology must adhere to nature, and to the principles of evolution. It can therefore be concluded that human psychology must ultimately function in accordance with certain cosmological principles.  That thought must have its origins within certain timeless and immutable cosmological objectives. These objectives are difficult to determine, and we are limited in our capacity for understanding, by our capabilities of understanding. We are perhaps more reasonably equipped to understand the Nature out of which we have evolved than the cosmological principles out of which nature has evolved?

Nature is in existence in order to satisfy some particular set of cosmological principles. Some time ago here on this rock floating in space, the cosmos, the universe ‘decided’ through the interaction of these mysterious principles, that this thing called nature (of which we are a derivative) should have come into existence.  Nature itself, life itself, is a consequence of the interaction of cosmological forces existent beyond our world and permeating every infinite aspect of our infinitely finite universe.  Each act thought or deed effected by life and human life, is ultimately a manifestation of  these primordial, cosmological principals. Behind each thought act and deed, lie our instincts behind these ephemeral and mysterious motives lie the secrets, and folded mysteries of an entire universe and an infinity of time.

"I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain.

 To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.

Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

Emerson: Self Reliance

Towards a general theory of reality.

Human psychology is derived from nature, and nature is derived from cosmology, understanding in either of these areas is predicated upon an understanding of the other.

In truth a philosophy of the future would require the ordered development of; a theory of cosmology, a general theory of Nature, followed by a general theory of psychology and ultimately a functional philosophy that bases its dictates upon duly established cosmological and natural principles.

The scope and needs are far too broad to be met by a single text, and as such this work must limit itself to a theory of psychology out of which we shall attempt at a philosophy of the future. That is not to say that we cannot dabble in cosmology, for herein lies the secret of our existence, and about the periphery of this intellectual universe, we encounter some of the greatest minds in the short history of our race. The philosophy attempted at here is of the future, and as such it is limited by shortcomings in our understanding of; cosmology, nature, and human psychology. To date much has been accomplished in these areas. Similarities, common threads amid the works of; Einstein, Freud, Heisenberg and others can be identified and united to offer us the beginnings of a more comprehensive theory of reality.

 

Whilst the breadth of the task at hand might appear impossible knowing how to go about it might prove to be half the battle.

In terms of our philosophy we must first attempt to discern why the human mind functions as it does, before we can attempt to impose upon it any philosophical methodology that would claim to be ‘right’ or the ‘best way’ or the ‘good as such’. If we are to assert that instinct arises out of Nature we have no choice but to identify what is the purpose towards which Nature strives what is her primary objective?

If indeed such a purpose exists it might be shown that human instinct is derived from this very ‘purpose’ that our instinct attempts to direct us towards this natural imperative.

Clearly the human animal is motivated by desires. All human behaviour is effected towards a specific purpose, a conscious or subconscious objective, towards the satiation of overt or covert desire. All of our desires have an instinctual basis.

Ultimately we ourselves gain nothing by existing for such a brief period, at the end of which we die and are forgotten. In brutally practical terms as private individuals, unless we allow ourselves the luxury of a God; life is utterly meaningless. And yet, despite the deeply private truth of our mortality, despite the apparent (or un-apparent) pointlessness of it all, with or without a God... we will to live. We desire to exist, to struggle-on, despite and even in spite of the reality that as true individuals we are truly alone and that death is inevitable. Something within us, convinces us that we should play this silly game out to its meaningless end. An end where only Nature and the Universe might profit by our efforts. And even if we are fool enough to give our lives the meaning of some ‘hope’ or tangible benefit in the future of civilisation or in the ‘big picture’...., the science of a camp fire instructs us empirically that the sun will one day fade, and the earth will return to the same nothingness out of which it mysteriously formed. One wonders at times why we are inclined to take things so seriously.

Have fun whilst we are here

It may be that the single greatest pleasure in life is derived from correct thinking. Those who think correctly, and (quite ironically) those who do not think at all are invariably the happiest amongst us. If it is safe to assume that happiness is the highest state and the purpose of individual existence, we can assume that the happiest amongst us are either blissfully wise or blissfully ignorant.

Determinism and the Objectives of Nature

“Every day is like Sunday. Every day is silent and grey.” Morrissey

There is undoubtedly a kernel of truth in almost all of the philosophical paradigms that have stood the test of time — so too with the notion of determinism. In the extreme view, determinism suggests that things happen because they are meant to happen, that there is nothing random, that all events are a determined and inevitable product of the past.

The notion that the course of all events within our universe was ‘determined’ at the moment of the Big Bang is often used as an argument against free will, and against the ideas of randomness and chaos. In truth, the argument is purely didactic, for we have no way of knowing whether or not our futures or the future of the universe are predetermined unless we can predict the future, or prove that the future is at least predictable. If indeed it is, the determinist view may have some validity.

Regardless of the debate, however, in a certain sense the future is predictable. We know, for example, with some certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow; we also know that one day in the (hopefully distant) future this prediction will be incorrect, if not objectively then at least subjectively so. Therefore, to a certain degree we can predict the future and in this limited sense, there are certain deterministic aspects of our existence and of the universe within which, or through which, we live.

In 1814 the French philosopher Pierre-Simon Laplace postulated an entity that could theoretically predict the future. Laplace suggested that we can regard the present state of the universe as being both a product of the past and the cause of the future. He proposed that an intellect that could know the position — and all of the forces acting upon — every atom in the universe would be capable of predicting the future form of the universe, and hence the future of the universe. This putative entity is often referred to as ‘Laplace’s Demon’ and it has been used to lend some theoretical weight to the determinist cause. In practical terms, Laplace’s Demon is arguably another example of the common and entertaining practice of philosophers to render the impossible possible, through the creation of an impossible imaginary entity — or in this case, ‘Demon’.

A devoted determinist might similarly assert that in respect of human psychology, thought is equally predetermined; that there is nothing we might ever think that we were not destined to think from the moment of the Big Bang. In support of this bold statement, he might make the observation that as a product of his thought, man exerts an influence upon the physical environment of our planet; if the present physical form of the earth has been determined at the point of the Big Bang, it follows then that the human thought responsible for influencing the physical structure of the planet was also determined at the point of the Big Bang.

Personally, I imagine if we were to ask a determinist to present her vision of the universe in a rational form, the analogous image of a large, solitary cloud floating above our heads might prove irresistible. When we look at a large cloud floating in the sky on a still, calm day, we are presented with the image of an object that is apparently well defined and determined in its shape and outline against the clear canvas of blue. Between the blinking of an eye the overall shape, size, and structure of our cloud appear constant. However, in reality our cloud is composed of a teeming mass of vapour, condensed water, and other molecules that are all shifting and flitting about with the turbulence and chaos of steam emerging from the spout of a kettle.

The component parts of our cloud move with a randomness and chaos that might lead the individual molecules themselves to ‘believe’ that they are free, undetermined and moving randomly within the limitless bounds of a formless universe. In truth, however, these molecules and their movements are integral to the defined structure of the cloud. Each molecule must move in the manner in which it moves, if even the most transient form of the could is to exist. Similarly (our determined determinist might add), we humans flit about the surface of our earth, busy in the assignation of a relative importance to various aspects of our existence, whilst the overall magnitude and direction of the universe has been determined long before our coming into existence. On the whole, we believe that we are free and yet we must behave as we do — we have no choice, if indeed the form and structure of the universe are to be maintained.

We thus arrive at the deduction that renders determinism so unpalatable — that human beings as a race and as individuals will never accomplish anything. We will never achieve anything, and will never amount to anything more than precisely what we have been determined to amount to from the beginning of time. Clearly, the determinist view is all a bit depressing, as it absolves us of the credit for anything we might do in life, and anything we feel the race has accomplished. In a philosophical sense, it nullifies any subjective purpose to existence and in doing so, might encourage us to either throw in the towel or wear black and listen to Morrissey for most of the day.

An interesting addendum to the determinist view is to be found within the cosmological notion of a ‘Closed Universe’. Here, the suggestion is that the universe is in the expansionary phase of an infinite Bang-Crunch cycle, that the expansion of the universe will be followed by a contraction, which will be followed by an expansion again, another contraction... and so on. In this instance, not only are we destined to live predetermined lives, but we have been repeating these same lives over and over in exactly the same way for countless millennia. You have apparently read these lines and stifled that same yawn an infinite number of times already.

A Closed Universe suggests that at the moment of the Big Bang (an estimated 14 billion years ago) all the matter in the universe was discharged from the singularity that existed immediately prior to that first pivotal event. According to this view, the various galaxies, planets, stars, dark matter and dust particles constituting the material of the universe are presently hurtling across space as a consequence of that initial bang. It is predicted by some that this universal expansion will at some point begin to slow and eventually, as a consequence of gravity, will grind to a halt. At this point (again as a consequence of gravity), the various components of the universe will begin to contract towards the ‘Big Crunch’. The ‘Crunch’ eventually ends with all the matter in the universe condensed once again into a singularity the size of a pinhead, another big-bang ensues, and so the process continues on ad infinitum.

There are many interesting notions around the Big Crunch. In this phase of the cycle, the universe would be moving in the opposite direction and as such, things would happen in reverse; time would move backwards. We would each have the opportunity to arise from the grave and live our lives in reverse. Indeed, relative to the Crunch that may have preceded our current expansionary phase, that is exactly what we are doing now; living our lives in reverse. During the Crunch, instead of a universal tendency towards chaos, the laws of thermodynamics would be inverted and the tendency would be towards order. Broken cups would reform, old people would grow young and the bed would never have to be made again.

Conversely, in an Open Universe, expansion continues forever at a speed that is too great for gravity to ever slow it down. At present, it is this view that seems to hold sway amongst most astronomers and cosmologists alike. Data from the Hubble telescope appear to suggest that the velocity at which galaxies are moving away from each other is increasing rather than decreasing. However, this paradigm may soon shift and permit scientific theory to enjoy a similar and perhaps equally infinite oscillation between an open and closed model of the universe.

Matters are not helped by the fact that calculations based upon the expansionist theory, and that of the Big Bang, result in the universe being much lighter than it should be; that one-fifth (or thereabouts) of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for, and as such the equations can only be balanced by the creation of a non-existent matter, or ‘dark matter’. It gets better! Neither is there sufficient energy in the universe to account for things and (perhaps not surprisingly), physics and cosmology have offered us ‘dark energy’ to account for this additional shortcoming.

Both of these particular entities share the remarkable quality of simultaneous existence and non-existence. And as you read these lines, a veritable army of scientists around the world is attempting to find evidence for the existence and non-existence of these ‘substantial non-substances’.

Clearly, there is more to the story. Perhaps cosmology is suffering from the same early growing pains that all science must endure? Perhaps, as yet, its prognostications amount to little more than a ‘vindication of its own flawed or simplistic methods’. This might seem an unduly harsh criticism, however when one considers the material bias that science has towards the physical existence of things, that it is only prepared to accept the existence of things when there is ‘hard’ or ‘material’ evidence for existence, the limitations of cosmology and indeed empirical science in general become apparent.

One can easily assert there are a myriad of ‘things’ that possess characteristics that are attributed to dark matter or dark energy.

One would think that the very existence of thought itself (as it is perfectly representative of a ‘thing’ with no substantive or material basis) would have encouraged science to throw off this material bias long ago. However, to do so would mean that science may have to embrace philosophy and in an age where devotion to the material is one of its defining qualities, such an embrace is arguably becoming less likely by the day.

Could it be that our view of the universe is unduly simplified by the fact that it is precisely our view, and is therefore limited by our abilities to view and to comprehend? Science binds us to measurable ‘things’, to observable forces. It permits us to comprehend the subject and the matter of the universe, and yet it does not lend itself so readily to the ‘idea’ or the ‘concept’ of the universe.

In our certainties with regard to reality, the only thing we can be certain of is certainty itself — or in other words, the only thing we can be certain of is thought. Yet we construct our world and our lives as though the inverse were true, as though material reality were more real than its perception. In doing so, we overlook the inescapable fact that nothing is more real (and yet more unreal) than thought.

The putative existence of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ brings science to a possible crossroads, one where we might ultimately discover that thought and the process of observation play an active, determinate and exoteric role in the material form of that which is being observed.

In 1807, when Hegel published his great work Phenomenology of Mind, the limitations of physical sciences were as profound then as they are today Hegel writes:

“The easiest thing of all is to pass judgements on what has a solid substantial content; it is more difficult to grasp it, and most of all difficult to do both together and produce the systematic exposition of it.”

The qualities of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ are not new to man and we need not scurry about trying to prove their existence and non-existence, for they share all the characteristics of thought itself. As such, it may be that ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ cannot be comprehended, no more than the universe itself can be comprehended without first understanding the ‘dark energy’ of human thought.

It is likely that the act of comprehending the universe may be as much an

influence upon its form and function, as the force of gravity or the electrostatic attraction between the charges. It may be that when man looks through his little lenses, outward into the far reaches of the universe, what he sees when he encounters non-substances such as ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ is the process of his own thought starring back at him?

“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”

Heisenberg, Uncertainty Paper, 1927.

An interesting parallel can be drawn between the macroscopic structure of the universe and the sub-microscopic world of quantum mechanics. In 1927, when Heisenberg proposed his Uncertainty Principle, he shook the pillars of his day with the assertion that (in the case of quantum particles) the act of observation alters the conditions of that which is being observed. It is perhaps not entirely unreasonable to suggest that in the macroscopic structure of the universe, observation or subjective comprehension may prove to be a determining influence upon the form of that which we are attempting to observe in daily living.

The notion of thought as an influence upon the physical form of the universe is not new to philosophy; it has undergone several evolutions through the centuries. In the ancient world, this attenuated functioning of thought is sometimes referred to as ‘nous’. In recent times, we have seen its hypothetical extension beyond the brain and into the material substance of the universe, expressed in contemporary notions of telepathy, telekinesis and pyrokinesis, et cetera.

Whether contemporary practitioners of these high-pathetical-hypothetical forms of ‘thought projection’ ultimately turn out to be hoaxes is not at issue here; what is important is the recognition that the idea of an extra-corporeal component to thought has persisted with us throughout history. Contemporary expressions of this idea are not mentioned here in an attempt to encourage an already-stretched credulity towards mystics, faith healers, or spoon-benders, but rather to note that the idea of an external function of thought is as old — or perhaps even older — than thought itself.

Mind over matter?

“I heard a man reading from a book of one Anaxagoras (he said), to the effect that it is mind which arranges all things and is the cause of all things.” Plato Phaedo, 97 BC.

A curious footnote to the concept of thought as a motive force within cosmology comes from fragments that remain of the work of Anaxagoras, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Athens around 500BC. Perhaps his most interesting contribution to philosophy and cosmology arises out of his assertion that ‘Mind’ plays an essential role in the material form and the movement or ‘rotation’ of the universe. According to Anaxagoras, ‘Mind’ pre-exists humanity; it is an entity that is distinct from matter and invests itself into living beings to a greater or lesser degree — a dog, for example, has more ‘Mind’than a tree and less ‘Mind’ than a man.

The interesting thing about Anaxagoras’s notion of ‘Mind’ is not merely that it exists external to man, but that ‘Mind’ is responsible for the initial construction and continued existence of the universe in its present material form.

Anaxagoras maintains that in the beginning, all the matter of the universe was spread across infinity in the form of an infinite super-fine mix. A mixture of every-thing with everything else. Then, at some position within that vast superfine plenum, ‘Mind’ set the universe in motion. It is this movement (or rotation) that is responsible for the gradual concentration of the initial ‘fineness’ into the material form of the universe as it exists today.

Differences in various forms of matter are accounted for by the fact that, like a turning wheel, the rotation of the universe is faster at the periphery than it is at the centre, and by the fact that denser matter within the fineness will clump together as the mix is rotating.

“The dense and the moist and the cold and the dark came together where the earth is now, while the rare and the warm and the dry (and the bright) went out towards the further part of the aether.” DK 59 B15 Simplicius. Physique 179,3.

One cannot escape the suspicion that the old Greek may have been soaking his bunions in a basin of water, into which some substance may have been added and dissolved. Into the centre of this potentiated soup he poked his walking stick and began to stir in slow and steady circles. The eddies, vortices, currents and counter-currents experienced by the mixture, he then relates to the ‘rotation’ of the universe, a motion that separates the matter that is the stars, the planets and ourselves, much like the churning of milk into curds and whey.

Anaxagoras’s cosmology appears to be composed of three principle ingredients:

1) The infinite fineness which is the material mix of everything mixed with everything else;

2) The separate and distinct entity, that is, ‘nous’ or ‘Mind’; and

3) The third and final ingredient is the ‘aether’, or the space which apparently contains both ‘Mind’ and matter.

Interestingly, Anaxagoras’s use of ‘Mind’ or ‘nous’ does not appear to refer to the thought of human beings, nor the thoughts or ‘Mind’ of a particular divine creator, but rather to the idea of mind or thought as a distinct entity — divisible from, and independent of, material form.

All other things partake in a portion of everything, while ‘nous’ is infinite and self-ruled and is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any… for in everything, there is a portion of everything. (Simplicius. Physique. 164,24; 156,13; Vgl.16,32.)

Because the initial material fineness of the universe represents a mix of everything with everything else, nous or Mind must be separate from this plenum. If nous is a constituent within the plenum, it would follow that all material objects in the formed universe would contain a portion of ‘nous’. On the contrary, Anaxagoras believed that only certain material (living things, for example) is invested with nous — plants, animals and humans, to a greater or lesser degree.

“Nous has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have life. And nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by nous.” Ibid.

Although physics of today has much to say in refutation of Anaxagoras, it has perhaps as much to say in affirmation of his basic reasoning — that there is perhaps a vein of thought, a precept behind the translation of Anaxagoras’s cosmology, one that not only maintains its relevance, but may prove to be timeless.

If we take Einstein’s assertion that mass is equivalent to energy (as related by the formula e=mc2), we see that all mass can be conceived of as condensed quanta of energy. As such, in our contemporary notions of what ‘energy’ actually is, we may find the ‘infinite fineness’ of Anaxagoras’s early universe.

Of mass and energy, Einstein states the following:

“It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing — a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E is equal to mc2, in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa. The mass and energy were in fact equivalent, according to the formula mentioned before. This was demonstrated by Cockcroft and Walton in 1932, experimentally.”

Albert Einstein, 1948.

Should we consider mass or matter as the concentrated form of energy, we arrive at a contemporary candidate for the ingredient, (the fineness) the infinite plenum that Anaxagoras conceived to be existent at the beginning of the universe.

“All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. And, when all things were together, none of them could be distinguished for their smallness.”

Simplicius. Physique. 155, 23DK 59 B1.

Within the confines of Big Bang cosmology, neither is it difficult to conceive of a point in the early history of the cosmos where all that exists is the energy that will penultimately condense into the mass of our material universe. This point we can imagine to be located somewhere within the vastness of that first nanosecond following the Big Bang. Here, it is possible to conceive of a moment in the early history of the universe where all that exists is energy (the infinite smallness of all matter).

However, this energy required (and requires) some motive force, some imperative so that it will concentrate itself into the material form of matter, of our universe.

Thus, the cosmos is in need of a second ingredient, an entity that will direct the transformation of energy into matter, and that of matter into energy. Anaxagoras describes this motive as ‘Mind’, an entity that we have a relationship to and with, by virtue of the fact that we are alive, that we (like all life) are representative of matter and energy that is animated by thought.

 

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny?

Anaxagoras was hardly the first philosopher to relate the behaviour of matter on a small scale to the grand structure of the universe. In a certain sense, we do the same when we notice that throughout nature there are instances where the microscopic is reflected in the macroscopic. How the pattern of veins on the face of an old man may reflect the denuded branches of an oak in winter, or how the classical ‘picture’ of an atom, with its nucleus in the centre and orbiting electrons, should in some ways resemble the form of our solar system.

The practice of extrapolating macroscopic patterns of form from observations at the microscopic level found favour for some time in the biological sciences. It persists today in the observable and somewhat mysterious relationship that exists between phylogeny and ontogeny. In the 1890s, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel noted that during the development of the human embryo, the embryo passes through certain stages, which in some respects are reflective of the evolutionary development of man. Haeckel wrote: “I established the opposite view, that this history of the embryo (ontogeny) must be completed by a second, equally valuable, and closely connected branch of thought — the history of race (phylogeny). Both of these branches of evolutionary science, are, in my opinion, in the closest causal connection; this

arises from the reciprocal action of the laws of heredity and adaptation...

ontogenesis is a brief and rapid recapitulation of phylogenesis, determined by the physiological functions of heredity (generation) and adaptation (maintenance).” (Haeckel, E. 1899. Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the 19th Century.)

Although an exact correlation between ontogeny and phylogeny has been broadly refuted, a relationship of some kind persists between the two, and is summarised in the more widely-accepted notion of ‘weak recapitulation’.

For whatever reasons, the human embryo passes through stages of development at which points its form is markedly similar to embryonic forms of species as diverse as fish and fowl. During development, human embryos exhibit the transient anatomical forms of a ‘tail’, or ‘gill slits’. Whilst these structures disappear in the later developmental stages of the human embryo, they persist as gills or tails in the embryos of their respective species. Haeckel and others attempted to explain these similarities with the hypothesis that during development, the human embryo is reflecting (or ‘recapitulating’) the overall evolution of life.

When the human embryo passes through the stage where it resembles that of a fish, it is ‘recapitulating’ the evolution of mammals from a common piscine ancestor. When the human embryo exhibits a tail, it is once again recapitulating the form of our common tail-bearing ancestors. The theory was undoubtedly one of those occasions where, for large number of people, everything just seemed to make sense. Indeed, if we were in the stands in the 1800s and observing the intellectual contest that was raging between Haeckel and many of his contemporaries, we may have been tempted to root for our man Haeckel in his championing of the patently ‘obvious’ — of a phenomenon to which we can all somewhat relate.

However, some of the drawings that Haeckel used to substantiate his ideas were shown to be inaccurate, and the theory was largely and often quite vehemently dismissed. Perhaps the gentlemanly world of 19th Century science could tolerate no more assaults upon a theology already bruised and battered by the work of Darwin and Wallace. Indeed, science may not have been willing to condone the recapitulation theory driving the last nails into the coffin of contemporaneous theological dogma.

Regardless of the reasons for the near-absolute dismissal of recapitulation, one cannot help but wonder if the baby (or in this case, embryo) might have been thrown out with the bathwater? For the present, we are left with the uncanny similarity between the embryonic forms of diverse species as being somewhat of an enigma.

Whilst Haeckel and Anaxagoras may have been (temporarily) silenced by modern physics and modern biology, the basic premise behind their work lives on. It remains a theoretical possibility that the material evolution of the cosmos and the biological evolution of life may be moving in accordance with a blueprint of some kind and may perhaps be motivated by an exogenous and pre-existing modus of thought or instinct. There is little doubt that at this assertion, theologians and dogmatists alike may find cause to jump with delight and insist that talk of ‘exogenous thought’, or recapitulation of some ‘pre-determined’ plan, might point to or confirm the existence of a God — that the simple substitution of God for the notion of external thought, or as the ‘creator’ of the blueprint to which cosmic and biological evolution appear to be adhering, is enough to complete the picture of the universe.

However, to follow these conclusions is merely to construct another cul de sac upon the road to reason, for to assign theological definition to thought (either external or internal) is simply the application of a label for private or personal reasons and has little to do with understanding. One can certainly assign the word ‘God’ to thought and indeed, thought may exhibit all the finality and supremacy that theologians assign to their gods, however it does not follow from this that religious dogma has been either proven or disproven. In the last century, this was apparently a cul de sac wherein many philosophers were willing to park the vehicle of enquiry and sacrifice the inexplicable to God.

For our purposes, we have merely asserted that thought exists and may exist external to man. That fact — that others may wish to call thought ‘God’ and offer an encyclopedia of definitions as to the ‘who-ness’ and ‘what-ness’ of God — is of no concern here.

In some respects, the evolution of the cosmos towards a definite (if not already defined) future, and the possibility of an external component to thought, are notions that assail the dogmatics of contemporary science in a manner similar to the manner in which evolution and science have assailed the battlements of theology for many centuries. Perhaps the tables have turned? We can only hope that science will not be as quick to establish an inquisition, root out dissension and burn its heretics at the stake. Certainly, this is a contest than can only be fairly waged upon the neutral territory of philosophy, a place where all must come without prejudice and without faith in anything other than reason and truth.

Suffice to say that the theory of recapitulation may recapitulate itself one day in a form that is acceptable to neither science nor theology.

In 1977, Stephen J Gould revisits the subject in his book Ontogeny and Phylogeny, which opens with the following lines: “I am aware that I treat a subject currently unpopular. I do so, first of all, simply because it has fascinated me ever since the New York City public schools taught me Haeckel’s doctrine, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, 50 years after it had been abandoned by science. Yet I am not so detached a scholar that I would pursue it for the vanity of personal interest alone. I would not have spent some of the best years of a scientific career upon it, were I not convinced that it should be as important today as it has ever been. I am also not so courageous a scientist that I would have risked so much effort against a wall of truly universal opprobrium. But the chinks in the wall surfaced as soon as I probed. I have had the same, most curious experience more than 20 times: I tell a colleague that I am writing a book about parallels between ontogeny and phylogeny. He takes me aside, makes sure that no-one is looking, checks for bugging devices, and admits in markedly lowered voice: ‘You know, just between you, me, and that wall, I think that there really is something to it after all.’ The clothing of disrepute is diaphanous before any good naturalist’s experience. I feel like the honest little boy before the naked emperor.” (Gould: Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977.)

The general notions of ‘Mind’ or ‘recapitulation’, may yet have some relevance in the context of an overall theory of the universe; in determining the ultimate form of the theologian’s ‘God’, or a mathematical formula that precisely describes the grand design of the cosmos, only time will tell. One thing is almost certain, and that is that these notions represent parts of the puzzle, parts that have been excluded not as a consequence of their failings when subjected to intellectual scrutiny, but rather as a consequence of pre-existing dogma. In terms of a more complete and comprehensive view of the cosmos, Anaxagoras and Haeckel might well have been looking at the wrong things; it remains to be seen if they were looking in the right place, nonetheless.

“And now I know how Joan of Ark felt as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt... ”

Morrissey.

We are led to believe that under the same conditions, matter will adopt the same form when it is subjected to the same force(s). The similarity between the embryonic forms of divergent species, or that between the imagined form of an atom and that of the solar system, is hardly coincidental — nor can it be the result of chance alone. This similarity, this near-universal and pervasive recapitulation of form, is more likely to be a result of either the interaction of additional and unknown forces acting upon matter and the universe, or is perhaps a consequence of the interaction of known forces upon matter, but in a different way or by a different mechanism… that has yet to be determined. For the present at least, the only example of such a force (the shape of which is known and unknown to us in equal measure) is that of thought.

As matters stand, in shaping the material form of life and that of the material universe, there appears to be more to the picture than: the forces of gravity; the electrostatic attraction between charges; and the forces at work within and between atomic particles.

Anaxagoras may have been one of the first to offer the intriguing concept of ‘Mind’ as the architect of the cosmos. Could it be that we observe this exogenous influence in determining the uncanny relations between the macroscopic and microscopic? In distinguishing between these two worlds, we apply the relativity of size, of time and space, which are not only dependent upon, but quite possibly manifestations of, a thought.

In fairness to Anaxagoras, it is only a crude assumption upon our part that (our) thought arises within our heads. Nobody truly knows from where or how thought arises, no more than anyone knows of the ‘substance’ of thought. Is it just as valid to speculate that thought may be a process that exists outside of our heads — that our own ‘individual’ thoughts are merely a consequence of how the physical substance of ourselves interacts with an external entity, one that might evoke within us the experience of thought? That our thought may be an example — perhaps the first and only example within the universe — where thought has evolved the ability to contemplate itself, in a manner similar to Aristotle’s god, the Roi fainéant or ‘do-nothing king’.

The thoughts we ‘receive’ and process may well be a consequence of our material selves, of our unique position in space and time. If, for example, we imagine each human subject as a radio receiver that is (in a material sense) constructed differently by virtue of his or her genetic make-up and we imagine the position in space and time that this subject occupies, to be analogous to the frequency to which each receiver is tuned, and if we further imagine thought as an infinite variety of radio waves existent throughout space, each ‘receiver’ will pick up or experience that same external thought differently, and so each individual will have different thoughts, derived from the same external source and held in common, relative to the nature of the physical make-up of the thinker and his position in space and time. The notion of thought as external to the human subject is touched upon by Nietzsche when he offers his refutation of Descartes’ famous Cogito ergo sum 17.

"With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasising a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognised by these credulous minds — namely, that a thought comes when ‘it’ wishes, and not when ‘I’ wish; so that it is a perversion of the facts of the case to say that the subject ‘I’ is the condition of the predicate ‘think’. One thinks; but that this ‘one’ is precisely the famous old ‘ego’ is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an ‘immediate certainty."  (Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 1.)

When we begin to assert that thought may have an external origin, we approach the experiences of the insane. Perhaps we should remind ourselves that Nietzsche’s last act of sanity is said to have been the tearful and pitiful embrace of a horse that was being flogged by its master on the streets of Turin. Once we begin to divest ourselves of the ownership of our thoughts, we begin to undermine the rather presumptuous basis of our existence — and perhaps more importantly, that of others.

Thought, as an entity that is external to the thinker, might have us rephrase Descartes’ assertion that “I am, therefore I must think as I do”. In this instance, thinking becomes the unavoidable product of material existence, the interaction of a material self with a universal stream of consciousness that exists beyond ourselves and forms the very matrix of the universe within which we believe ourselves to exist. In this sense, all material is a product of thought and all animals can ‘think’ (a notion that would probably have been soundly rejected by the era of Descartes) and they think in a manner that is a product of their material form, their position in space and time, and how both position and form interact with the external matrix of thought. This admittedly uncomfortable suggestion may offer some insight into some interesting phenomena that are experienced by most of us, and yet have little material or scientific basis.

Deja vu, (the experience that one has encountered the same event at some time in the past), the remembering of past lives, ghosts, the psychiatric experiences of schizophrenics (in that their thoughts do not belong to them) et cetera, would appear to be part-illuminated by the notion that thought has an external component.

The prevalent idea that thought arises from within us has a clear religious impetus and a history that is somewhat analogous to the original notion that the earth sits at the centre of the universe. The contrary assertion that thought may not originate from the centre of man might be expected to fall prey to the same resistance that saw Galileo exiled and Giordano Bruno, as well as countless others, burned at the stake.

In some respects, the vilification of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy by some modern thinkers (usually under the pretext of his nefarious association with the National Socialist Party and his failure to condemn either Hitler or the Nazis) may be an example of our contemporary burning of philosophical heretics. As Bruno challenged the thinking and the dogma of his day by removing the earth from the centre of the universe, so too does Heidegger remove thought from the epicentre of human subjectivity: “… A mood assails us. It comes neither from ‘outside’ nor from inside, but arises out of being-in-the-world, as a way of such being.[...] Having a mood is not related to the psychical in the first instance, and is not itself an inner condition which reaches forth in an enigmatical way and puts its mark on things and persons.” (Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, p175-177.)

All the world’s a stage.

It is often stated that the greatest stories have already been told. Perhaps in a literary context, much of the drama preceding Shakespeare and much of that which has come after him can be considered as temporal modifications of existing or pre-existing thematics. Certainly, the historian must tell and re-tell what is essentially the same story over again, and yet in this context it is not so much what is being told, but rather the manner in which it is being re-told that will determine whether or not we will continue to turn the pages and whether any particular historical analysis is to remain alive. With rare and consummate eloquence, the eminent American historian and philosopher Will Durant states as much throughout his (or more correctly he and his wife Ariel’s) monumental work The Story of Civilisation. Durant weaves into the colourful pageantry of human history a gentle and pragmatic philosophy that stands apart from the debauched and brutal ages. He paints a tapestry of ages and epochs, which he describes with an eloquent partiality that is gently and yet quite firmly upon the side of philosophy and reason. Indeed, he himself, in the telling of it, modestly reminds us of the intelligence and moral pragmatism that is within reach of all men, despite our history of — and propensity towards — war and cruelty.

In many respects, it is not the origin of an idea that is important but rather its position in space and time that allows it to grow and become part of the fabric of our view of that which Durant refers to as “ephemeral reality”.

Whilst we can quite easily become lost in the apparent molecular structure of a particular object, or its functioning at a cellular level, the further away from the object we position ourselves, the more clearly can we see the essence of what it is or what we understand it to be. That the object is essentially a tree, we only recognise at some distance and we must put even more space and time between ourselves and the tree if we are to see that the tree is merely a constituent part of the essence of the forest. If we were to keep moving backwards from our forest, our country and our continent... might we not at some time perceive the essence of our earth, our galaxy and our universe?

Woven into the erratic and often schizophrenic tapestry of human history there is an inevitability of thought, a macroscopic flow to thought that is generally overlooked. This notion is highlighted particularly well when historians attribute inventions or ideas to their inventors. For example, when we read something like: “It was Thomas Edison who gave us the long-lasting light bulb” or “Henry Ford brought us the motor car... ” and so on. There is here the implicit suggestion that were it not for Edison, the modern world might have to function without light bulbs or, were it not for Ford, there would be no automobiles. Although we cannot return to the past and assassinate either Edison or Ford in order to test this hypothesis, there is something foolish in the notion that the long-lasting light bulb or the automobile would not have eventually been conceived of by another man or woman.

When we make such an assertion, we are airing the reasonable suspicion that the concept or thought as it pertains to the object, for example the ‘light-bulb’, is as independent of Thomas Edison as it is of any particular individual. That Edison experienced these/his thoughts in the necessary place and time that allowed for their acceptance, and ultimate application to the material form of a light bulb, is an assertion we cannot avoid.

Anaximander, a Greek philosopher circa 500BC, postulated a theory of evolution that is not a million miles from the work of Darwin and Wallace. As alluded to earlier, the cosmology of Anaxagoras has parallels that are to some extent recapitulated in modern cosmology. Lucretius may well have been the Nietzsche of his age; Sophocles the

Shakespeare; Napoleon the Alexander; Rommel the Attila… and so on and so forth.

Ideas are invariably embellished with the cultural, linguistic and philosophical bias of their respective eras. Like the engravings of prehistory, their clarity is eroded and defaced by time. If we attempt therefore to remove the temporal, translational and cultural biases from the reasoning or mores of a particular age, we may find that much of the thought and many of the ‘ideas’ of modernity have been with us for as long as records and perhaps as long as thought itself has existed. Might we even be tempted to conclude that thought is more likely to behave more as a functional constant, than an entity that is born anew within the mind of man?

Much of contemporary philosophical and scientific thought is but an echo or revision of an Hellenic or pre-Socratic precursor. There are parallels in thought between philosophers and scientists vastly separated by space and time, just as there is a parallel of thought when one person exclaims with surprise to another: ‘I was just thinking the same thing myself!’

Although it pertains to the subject matter of religion, the following quotation from Nietzsche is illustrative here: “When human life — before the eyes of all — lay foully prostrate upon the earth, crushed down under the weight of religion, which glowered down from heaven upon mortal men with a hideous appearance, one man — a Greek — first dared to lift up his mortal eyes and stand up face-to-face against religion. This man could not be quashed either by stories of gods or thunderbolts or even by the deafening roar of heaven. Those things only spurred on the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the tight bars placed on nature’s gates. The living force of his soul won the day and on he passed, far beyond the flaming walls of the world, travelling with his mind and with his spirit the immeasurable universe. And from there he returned to us — like a conqueror — to tell us what can be and what cannot, and on what principle and deep-set boundary mark nature has established all things. Through this knowledge, superstition is thrown down and trampled underfoot and by his victory, we are raised equal to the stars.”

The many who are more versed in philosophy and classical litterature than the author might recognise that the foregoing is not taken from the work of Nietzsche, but rather the Roman poet Lucretius (On the Nature of Things). Yet the ‘Greek’ referred to here might just as easily have been Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

Whilst we can reasonably suggest that Nietzsche’s thought may have been influenced by the works or thought of Lucretius, it is of course more difficult to suggest that the thought of Lucretius was influenced as much by that of Nietzsche, who lived almost 2,000 years after him. Yet if we suggest that thought or some portion thereof is independent of the thinker, that we might for example still have light bulbs in their present form without the existence of Thomas Edison; that the worn adage of ‘history repeating itself’ may be a consequence of the reality that it marches to the tune of an external and constant variable that is thought; then we are left with our physical form and our position in space-time rather than a thinking-self as the principle determinants of our experience of thought.

If we further refine this notion to suggest, as Leibniz does, that physical form is a consequence of position in space-time, we are left with space-time as a principle determinant of thought. Indeed, if we are to have any truck with Immanuel Kant’s notion that space and time are products of thought, we are left with the reductio-absurdum that thought itself is the principle determinant of thought. Yet, we cannot imagine a thought that has no-thing to think about and as such, we might suspect that there is a dynamism between matter and thought, that one is a product of the other, or that both (like matter and energy) are perhaps differing forms of the same substance — perhaps thought brings matter into existence and matter gives thought some-thing to think about?

An additional point here is that we should not become lost in the ‘correctness’ or ‘incorrectness’ of thought past or present as it relates to the changing form(s) of matter, but rather the observation that ‘new’ thoughts ‘new theories’ or new ideas may not simply spontaneously arise within the mind of a single thinker, but may have been in existence from the beginning of the universe. As such, it is as much our circumstance, our position in space and time our ‘being in the world’ that is responsible for the thoughts that we firmly believe to be our own.

“All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen’s discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.” James Joyce, Ulysses.

Throughout history the essence of Einstein’s relativity, the essence of Darwin’s evolution, that of Shakespeare’s plays, and the perambulations of Bloom in Joyce’s Ulysses, can be found independent of the works and thought of each of these great thinkers. Their greatness and the greatness of their works is not denigrated by the observation that it may not be an entirely individual creative process that has culminated in the particular inimitable masterpiece, but rather the interaction of a position in space and time and a willingness to embrace or give material form to a thought that is iconoclastic and yet omnipresent and available to us all? There may be little more to creative genius than being in the right place at the wrong time and saying the things that shouldn't be said.?

On calling a spade a shovel.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant refers to space and time as “intuitions” as being related to, or an extension of, the process of thought. He does not insist that this ‘intuition’ is entirely endogenous in origin, nor does he suggest that it is not. However, in the assumption that thought has its ‘seat’ or its origin within the human brain, it follows (in a Kantian sense at least) that the truth of external reality, of space and time, exists within the eye of the beholder.

Whilst the process — the functioning of thought in constructing the form of reality — may posses a subjective validity, it does not follow that this thought or intuition is generated either subjectively or endogenously, as opposed to being cosmic in origin and merely processed endogenously. In this sense, both the eye and the beholder might well be the product of thought rather than the inverse?

If the history of scientific theory is anything to go by, we may be inclined to suspect that the answer to this question of thought-origin lies somewhere between the two hypothesis; in the form of a functional equilibrium between the subjective experience of thought and the practical functioning of exogenous thought in the construction of matter-perception. It is possible that such a functional dynamic is the matrix within which, or upon which, external reality is perceived.

Of space and time, Kant writes: “What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or, are they merely relations or determinations of things, such, however, as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition; or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective constitution of the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any object?” Critique of Pure Reason.

Contemporary physics and quantum mechanics may well be upon the brink of calling a spade a shovel. Science may soon be compelled to embrace philosophy in recognising that the process of thought, (vis-à-vis the ‘act of observation’) plays an active and deterministic role in the ‘behaviour’ of matter, and therefore in the macroscopic structure of the material universe. The offspring of this somewhat reluctant union between science and philosophy may ultimately take the misshapen form of a general theory of reality, one that not only attempts to define thought, but also its role in moulding the fluid form of reality as we perceive it to be.

Should we carry further the notion that a dynamism between endogenous and exogenous thought is a principal determinant of both material form and space-time, interesting possibilities arise. It follows, for example, that each different material form of life should perceive reality and space-time differently, relative to the difference in their respective material forms — that the universe as perceived through the deep, languid eyes of a calmly cud-chewing cow, may be an entirely different universe to that which is perceived by ourselves.

It follows too that time may be a product of the interaction between our material selves and an external modality of thought; time may wait for no man and yet it perhaps moves at an entirely different pace for each of us.

Ultimately, a description of the operational dynamic between space-time, energy and thought will necessitate a cataclysmic paradigm shift; a fundamental change in how we see the universe and how we see ourselves as thinking objects, within that same universe.

In Critique, Kant encourages us to ask what amounts to one of the most fundamental questions facing humanity in the course of our brief existence. Arguably, the most crucial and integral ingredients to reality are space and time. Therefore, in asking: “What are space and time?” Kant poses the most fundamental question of all, namely: What is the nature of reality?

The question contains within it an interesting irony, one that many philosophers identify after a lifetime of consideration — namely the rather Beckettian assertion that the nature of reality is to question reality; and that the answer to the question is simply a reiteration of the question itself.

Within this particular question, Kant touches upon the conflicting views of Newton and Leibniz, as detailed in an interesting correspondence between the two at the turn of the 18th Century. For Newton, time and space are universal constants, existing independent of each other. Time has a linear quality, marching from past to present and onwards to the future; a resolute Christian solider, unaffected by, and independent of matter and space.

Leibniz, however, maintains that space is a product of matter, that space only exists when it defines the nothingness that exists between two different objects or points.

For Leibniz, the existence of matter within space is an ‘event’ and events are points in time. Interestingly, Leibniz also insists through his ‘Law of Indiscernibles’ that there is no such thing as identical things; that if two objects occupy different parts of space, they are different objects and if they are deemed to be identical, they are in fact the same thing.

Kant draws a line beneath this ‘debate’, or at least between the views of Leibniz and Newton. He asserts that space is not absolute and that it cannot exist independent of observation, or independent of thought: “We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a representation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phenomena.” Ibid.

We are compelled to immediately as, what does Kant mean by the assertion that space is a “representation a priori”? Is this not simply thought that has yet to become thought?

For thought to exist before it has been experienced, it (or its trigger) must exist outside the observer, or at least beyond his present frame of reference — a view that is perhaps not dissimilar to Anaxagoras’s initial hypothesis of ‘Mind’ investing itself into inanimate matter that is spread throughout the universe in an ‘infinite fineness’.

Kant follows through with this reasoning and arrives at the following conclusion: “Hence it follows that an a priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all our conceptions of space.” Ibid.

That space is somehow constructed by the mind as the ‘place’ wherein matter and our existence can apparently occur is a philosophical assertion that has had to wait many years before some ‘evidence’ could be produced to sustain the idea. The time that has passed between Kant and Quantum Mechanics, illuminates the chasm between philosophy and the material sciences. Clearly it is easier to think idea than it is to prove it beyond doubt, or at least to gather the evidence that might point to its veracity. It is a tantalising yet hopeless endeavour to imagine what Kant Leibniz and Newton might make of quantum mechanics, of its ‘double slit experiment’, and of the assertion that particles behave ‘differently’ when they are observed. We may yet be upon the threshold of recognising that this ‘observation’, this process of thought itself, is not merely a mechanism of analysis but one of creation. To answer the questions which quantum mechanics is every day unearthing, we may not need to develop new sciences as much as we need to re visit the older ones.

The ingredients.

We ourselves are apparently composed of atoms that are no different to those of the stars, galaxies and cosmic dust particles that make up our universe. Within the known universe and the reality of our experience, we are readily aware of five distinct entities:

• Matter

• Energy

• Thought

• Time

• Space

Arguably, we are only aware of thought and nothing else. A conception of all other ingredients to the universe is of course entirely dependent upon thought. However, (leaving this awkward fact aside for the moment) if we assume the perspective of an entity observing us from outside of the universe, it is possible to condense these entities such that only three remain; thought, space-time and matter-energy.

Relativity teaches us that space and time are one and the same, referring to either or both as space-time. We shall not dwell upon the reasoning of cosmologists or quantum physicists here and (for the moment at least) we shall simply take their word for it. We will further accept the prevailing Einsteinian assertion that matter and energy are interchangeable, that one is simply an alternate form of the other. The relationship between the two is highlighted by Einstein’s famously familiar equation e=mc2 and we will expound upon this no further for the present time.

As such, we are left with three simple ingredients, which constitute the ‘recipe’ for both the universe and our external reality: thought, matter-energy and space-time. Any theory upon the nature of reality, or the form and function of the universe, must hence offer some explanation of the dynamic between these three distinct, and yet mutually-dependent entities.

How to make a Universe..

Apart from purely conceptual phenomena such as; dark matter, dark energy, ghosts, unicorns, love, or thought itself, we can observe nothing in the material universe other than differing states of matter and energy; the effects of these states upon each other; and the time that has elapsed between these apparent changes. As mentioned already, all of this observation is contingent upon the functioning of thought.

We are compelled to undertake our observations within the context of time and through the application of thought. However, the observation of change is complicated by the fact that the act of observation itself is also subject to change, as the observer is not the same observer before the observation as he is after. A modicum of time has passed, the observer and indeed the universe in its entirety is no longer in the same place that it was prior to the act of observation. In this sense, all observation is merely and essentially a description of the past, of change that has already occurred.

Despite the reality of our constantly changing state, we insist upon the impossibility of permanence, of sameness, and continuity. We speak of a present tense, of a here and now as though it were a given reality despite the fact that it is an absolute impossibility. The moment this ‘here and now’ is considered it has become a recollection of the past. Only the future and the past are real. Between these two states, between the transition from future to past, the act of observation must attempt to freeze time and attempt at the impossible creation of a ‘present’.

It is this ‘fixation’ of thought and time through the activity of observation that may have a mass effect upon the structure of the universe, or at least upon the structure of that which is being observed? In this crucial instance, when observation insists that time must stand still, the act of observation may ‘create’ the space-time within which it becomes possible if not inevitable for matter, for that which we perceive to be the form of the material world, to come into existence.

Observation may create space-time and instigate the apparent condensation of energy (of Anaxagoras infinite fineness) into the transient forms of that which is external and is perceived to be our particular and particulate version of ‘the real’?

An impossibility of the Now.

The impossibility of a present tense brings us to an immediate criticism of Descartes 'cogito ergo sum', the assertion 'I think' presumes the existence of a present tense, within which this act of thinking occurs. Although one cannot contradict the assertion that there is a process of thought that occurs within or is experienced by this “I”. What is at issue here is the implicit notion that this activity or process of thought is occurring in the present tense. Much is lost within this dangerous presumption and much has been lost to philosophy in our ready submission to this false and impossible position. In the assumption of a present, Descartes has already assumed that which he attempts to prove. When he is finished thinking he has already had his cake and eaten it too.

Whatever we can say of reality, whatever we can say with certainty in respect of our existence, we can assert with confidence that there is, never was, and never will be any such thing as ‘a present’. Any attempt to grasp such a state is like trying to collect river water in a sieve. Once the present is pursued or even contemplated, it has already become the past. The brief moment in time that it takes for an observation to become manifest in our brains, guarantees that we will only every perceive things that occurred in the immediate past. When we look to the stars we observe them in the past, we see how they once were and not how they ‘are’. We see light which left them many light-years ago. For all we know, that star by which we are guided, may in reality have burned out and disappeared from the heavens long ago. So too when we look at our world, we seen only an image of what once was, by the time the light from any particular object has reached our eyes the object has become a different object entirely. The universe has expanded so the object has since moved into a different position in space and time, its atomic particles have decayed or shifted, its mass has changed (ever so slightly) its density has changed, its position has changed, its colour etc etc.

When we examine the concept of time, we can consider a potentially infinite future. Indeed we have some evidence of the existence of ‘a future’ for we believe with confidence that new thoughts will be experienced. As time passes, we have a recollection of those thoughts having been experienced. We can assert with some certainty that for as long as we continue to exist, events will occur, things will happen to us. We are confident that, there are events which are yet to occur, and that these events reside within the future.

It may be that the Universe is expanding into these future events, that they will be experienced as soon as the periphery of the universe encounters them? Whether we are travelling towards the future or whether the future is travelling towards us is inconsequential. Although we cannot see the future we can with some certainty look towards it and we can recall having experienced events that have arrived to us from this future state.

With a similar degree of certainty we can consider a ‘past’. We have some evidence for the past because it is the state within which we experience our existence.

The present is and must remain an impossibility it is a moment that is infinitely divisible and must be experienced as an infinity if it is to be experienced at all. Our material form prevents us from experiencing this infinity of the present moment. To observe or experience the present, time would have to stand still, all motion must cease, and yet material form through the motion of the universe and the antagonism of its atoms, is incapable of such a stasis. Therefore the attempt by consciousness towards a present is an attempt at the impossible. It is an important attempt nonetheless for the present is the state within which we believe that we exist and within which we recall having once existed. As such it is this ‘present’ and not religion that is the greatest of our ‘faiths’, and it may be the god we have to surrender in our pursuit of the real.

Unlike the present the past is very real to us, it is perhaps the most real of all. We can recall and even confirm with others that we and they have experienced certain experiences — that we and they have read and perhaps become bored by the preceding lines, for example. We construct this past out of finite pieces of an infinite present, we can never recall exactly what that present was but only the particular pieces which we and others deem to be of relevance.

We can supply no end of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence for the existence of our ‘past’ and that of a future towards which we look with some certainty. However, we can provide comparatively little evidence for the existence of ‘a present'. It is this same 'present' within which Descartes assumes himself to be thinking.

Whilst we can apply the concept of infinity to both past, and future, significant difficulties arise when we attempt to apply infinity to the notion of a present. Logically, we can assert that a moment in time can be infinitely divided, that each moment of this present is infinitely divisible and therefore contains an infinity of time. As such, a single moment of the present can neither exist, nor can it ever be experienced. Should we attempt to experience the true, infinite and entire duration of a present moment, the experience of that moment would last forever.

Perhaps the existence of a past and that of the future can be as easily negated as the existence of a present? As already mentioned, the evidence for either is purely circumstantial. The point here is that our subjective experience of existence can more readily be applied to a confirmation of both past and future, than the impossibility of a present.

What is crucial to recognise here is the fact that because the present cannot exist, it does not follow that the present does not attempt to exist. It is this ‘attempt’ a present which we describe as ‘experience’, or 'being in the world' and it is this attempt that is embarked upon at the initiation of each act of observation.

Our notion of a present is predicated upon a state of zero time-motion. If ever an observation was to culminate in the actual experience of the present moment, that moment must expand to meet the infinite demand of zero-time.

I can never think, as Descartes asserts, if I were to do so I would be incapable of ever doing anything else and my first true thought within this present tense would expand outwards to fill the reality of its infinite nature. Within that moment, the universe must return to, or begin to occupy a state of absolute zero motion, and hence adopt its ultimate and absolute form; that of an infinite and static plenum, one where motion has ceased and material existence becomes impossible.

Although it cannot exist for us, (for the human observer locked as we are into the perpetual motion of our material form), it is within this ‘present’ that the universe actually does exist in it’s unobserved form — that of a static, motionless, quiescent and infinite plenum.

The act of observation is the attempt by the conscious modality of thought to ‘fix’ the universe, and thereby cause the ‘a present' to come into existence. Through this attempt at observation, the universe is instantly compelled to become fixed, to become resolute and impossibly finite. Were the universe to ever successfully pause and actually reflect to the observer the reality of ‘a present’ and hence the reality of infinite time, the universe would become frozen within that very moment and it would cease to exist.

It is not the future we must fear, nor the past, but rather the attempt via consciousness and observation to secure or to create a present. If we are ever entirely successful in this endeavour, if one fine morning we should awake and suddenly develop the ability to experience the infinite nature of the present moment, of the ‘here and now’, we would never make it to breakfast. We are constrained and prevented from experiencing the present moment in its real form, by the fact that we are evolving material beings in motion. The only manner by which we can experience the totality of a moment is at the moment of our death when consciousness is no longer constrained by its material form. The question then is whether consciousness requires a material form in order to exist? If it does, if thought has no exogenous component the death of the individual is the death of consciousness. If it does not, if thought has an exogenous component, then it is possible that in terms of consciousness, death is merely the beginning the first opportunity to experience the here and the now.

I thought, therefore I was.

If we revise 'I think, therefore I am' to its more rational form of 'I thought, therefore I was', we see immediately that the removal of the present tense disturbs the implicit certainty of existence, for I can no longer assert that I 'am' anything at all — only what my memory asserts that I once was. And yet, we must not make light of this crucial junction between future-thought and recollection, for it is between these two aspects of time that reality springs forth, that existence has occurred and the universe has adopted its material form.

There is a process occurring at the turbulent junction between future and past, and it is through this process, through the impossible attempt (via the modus of observation) to contain infinity within the finite, motionless form of a ‘present moment’, that the universe comes into being. It may well be that in the very act of observation we ourselves are the creators of our very own universe? If this is the case we have a lot to answer for.

The fastest mouse in all of Mexico city.

As thought arises from the future and moves towards the past, it must do so at a certain 'speed' or rate, and yet, being devoid of material form and entirely lacking in inertia, it is reasonable to suggest this speed to be infinite and that nothing in the universe can move faster than thought.

As thought moves towards the past, our infinite and static universe may adopt the evolving material form that we experience as reality. The static plenum, the matrix of the universe as it exists within the actuality of an infinite present, may be continuously compelled to adopt a new, fluid and evolving form; one that is relative to and a consequence of, the movement of thought, a form that is brought into existence by consciousness and its reflexive attempt at ‘a present’.

Therefore reality can perhaps be conceived of, as as the modulation of a static, fixed and timeless plenum. The perturbations within this plenum (the movement of our material universe) may be an apparent consequence of the manner in which our observation attempts to fix thought upon a finite and ultimately impossible moment of the present present, the partial success of this impossibility may allow us to percieve reality in the its real and fluid form.

It follows that nothing that we can observe within the universe has any permanence; that all things we observe are in a state of flux, that we can not observe the same object twice. In this sense, all matter is transitory and we can assert its permanence with far less certainty than its transitory nature. All form is illusory, as it will no longer be in existence within the relative blink of an eye -we can never look twice at the same object and never twice at the same universe. We are reminded of the words of Heraclitus, that “nothing endures, only change”.

Time is the space within which thought can occupy itself.

As thought is essential to any observation, and the passage of time renders observation impossible we must consider whether there is a causal — or indeed, reciprocal — relation between thought and time? Such a relationship is not as improbable as it might initially seem. Indeed, to a greater or lesser degree, the influence of our thoughts or our particular state of mind upon our subjective experience of the passage of time is familiar to us all. For example, if we recall how we experienced time in our childhood, many might agree with the assertion that time moved more slowly when we were younger. Think of the short duration of the hour normally allotted for one’s lunch break, in comparison to the pain that a young boy or girl might express at the thought of having to wait for the duration of an hour upon a particular occurrence, or the passage of time whilst we are waiting for something to happen; for the kettle to boil or the bus to arrive. Thomas Mann had much to say on the subject of our ability to influence the passage of time.

“A great many false ideas have been spread about the nature of boredom. It is generally believed that by filling time with things new and interesting, we can make it ‘pass’, by which we mean ‘shorten’ it; monotony and emptiness, however, are said to weigh down and hinder its passage. This is not true under all conditions… years rich in events pass much more slowly than do paltry, bare, featherweight years that are blown before the wind and are gone.” Thomas Mann, Magic Mountain.

Because most of us have clocks upon our walls or watches upon our wrists that are more or less precisely synchronised with another in Paris or London, we negate the validity of our own subjective experience of time in favour of the collective notion that it is independent of us.

We have somehow concluded that time does not belong to us and its passage has little relation to our thought. In doing so, we may have condemned ourselves to a miserable life expectancy of some 70 years and to so many precise revolutions of that omnipresent mechanical device. In this respect, we may have deprived ourselves of the potential infinity of each moment — of ownership of that which we know in our hearts to be the most valuable possession of all.

In 1986, researchers at the University of Arizona measured the subjective experience of time in the context of various psychological states. Subjects were requested to estimate the passage of time whilst being exposed to passive or ‘oceanic’ imagery such as a calm sea, while different subjects were similarly requested to record their experience of time when exposed to active imagery, such as a fleeing thief or a speeding train. Perhaps not surprisingly, the following results were obtained:

“The results, obtained from the present study, aside of asserting validity for the Knapp’s scale of attitudes toward time, also augment this diverse and varied body of knowledge about correlated differences in time perception. The described results support the generally observed pattern; subjects with passive, ‘oceanic’ time imagery experience time as dilated, while time perception of subject with active time imagery is accelerated. These conclusions are supported by the comparisons of subjective estimates of time with their objectively measured physical time intervals and by a wealth of related studies of the sense of time, pervasive and ubiquitous, determinant of manifold qualities of our experience.”
 

Krus, D.J, & Fletcher, SH (1986) Time: A speeding train or wind-driven sand? The estimation of fixed temporal intervals as related to images of time. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 62, 936-938.

The recent history of our civilisation has been spent quite secure in the notion that our subjective experience of time is invalid, unless it conforms to the atomic clock upon which we rely to standardise our time. However, it may be that there is some truth, some reality to the subjective and individual experience that time is influenced by thought .

An evolution in thinking?

Should we remove ourselves as the epicentre of thought, and allow the possibility that thought exists as an (admittedly ill-defined) entity with a functionality external to man and integral to the structure of the material universe, we expose some interesting theoretical possibilities for a new cosmology.

It is possible, for example, to suggest that light may not travel at 186,000 miles per second, but rather that the universe is static and timeless and it is only thought that 'moves'. That light or matter-energy appears to move at the point when we create and then simultaneously impose a relative speed upon time, through the very act of observation. In this sense, it is not the speed of light that we are observing, but rather the speed of our ability to observe light. The finite speed of light, as such, may be a product of our finite ability to measure or to perceive different aspects of the universe and in this respect, the speed of light is not an absolute in measurement, but rather the present absolute in our capacity for observation or understanding.

Observation or thought must function within the confines of physiological form and all of the senses are subject to limitation within their respective physiological form. Technology enhances our senses and adds to the unaided vision the vistas afforded by the Hubble telescope. Indeed, each age applies the ne plus ultra to the physical world at a point where its technology or the ability of its senses and its imaginations can perceive no further. For the ancients it was the visible horizon, beyond which an unwary sailor might fall from the edge of the world into the infinite void. For our era, the speed of light has been the limit to observation and to the calculations of physicists and mathematicians. However, recent experiments in Bern, Switzerland, have 'discovered' the existence of particles that may travel faster than the speed of light. Science may have to return to the drawing board and our existing model of the universe may have to be reconstructed to a different scale, its new boundaries fixed once more by the newly-defined limits of our understanding, our reason and our imagination.

With every observation, the movement of thought is compelled to 'pause' and observe itself. Through this very process, the light and matter-energy that are the static plenum of the universe may be compelled to adopt the transient — or at best fluid — form of reality; to appear before us in the modality of that which Russell refers to as 'sense-data' (See Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Feb 2011).

We think there is movement in the universe, that the material universe is characterised and defined by motion, when in reality all light and all matter-energy within the universe may well be eternal and static, relative to the movement of our thought. Light, energy and matter may represent alternate, temporal, and entirely perceived forms of a single static plenum, the substance that is the universe.

As a by-product or brute consequence of this impossible attempt at the creation of a 'here and now', matter-energy (hitherto timeless) must immediately conform and confine itself to this instantaneous condensation of space-time into the moment; into the briefest moment of an impossible 'present'. As a consequence of this act, as a collateral expression of this confinement (of a hitherto timeless universe into the immediate impossibility of a present), reality as we know it, or as we perceive it to be, comes bursting and exploding into existence, persisting in all of its splendour for no longer than the duration of the very observation that brought it into being.

If thought is not entirely generated internally and does indeed posses an exogenous component, that component must arise from somewhere, and in some manner. It is at such a point that theology may be eager to supply an answer. However, leaving aside the various notions of God or divinity for the moment, we can assert with some certainty that there are certain attributes of thought that may give clues to its putative external origins.

If it exists beyond us, thought must be formed somewhere and must move from that somewhere to its perceptive state or locus 'within' the brain (if indeed that is where it is perceived). Therefore, if we apply an external existence or functionality to thought, and we are confident that we ourselves exist, we must apply a movement of thought from this external focus to the 'I' that believes itself to be thinking.

Of course, we cannot assume that the self is static relative to the movement of thought. It can as easily be asserted that exogenous thought is static and that it is our endogenous experience of thought that 'moves'. In this sense, it must be affirmed that our application of the idea of movement is in purely relative terms. The difficulty in establishing which aspect of thought is in motion, or whether there is motion at all, is analogous to looking out of the window of a train and observing the movement of another train. Unless we can catch sight of the platform, of some non-moving aspect to the universe, we cannot tell which train is in motion. In like manner, we cannot say for certain which aspect of thought is in motion; endogenous or exogenous, only that there are two components of thought and there is an interaction or ‘coming together’ between the two.

Of our own experience of endogenous thought, we can state with some confidence that it arises in the future, is attempted at in the present, and is recalled as having existed in the past. It is the 'movement' along this path (from future to past) that we refer to when we apply the idea of 'motion' to thought.

 

Zeno's paradoxes
 

“If everything, when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.” - Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5.

The paradox of the arrow can be understood as follows. Imagine an arrow that is shot from a bow and aimed at a particular target some distance away. We can consider the distance from the tip of the arrow to the point where the arrow strikes its target as the path that the arrow must travel after it leaves the bow. If we further consider that this length, this path of the arrow, can be divided into an infinite number of points, then we are stating that the arrow must pass an infinite number of points before it can strike the target. If the arrow must pass an infinite number of points, it must take an infinite amount of time to do so, as it must take a certain amount of time in order for the arrow to pass two consecutive points.

Therefore, the arrow must take an infinite amount of time to reach its destination, and as such it can never reach its destination. In this manner, it is shown that in the context of our present view of reality, either movement itself or the persistence or 'sameness' of the arrow throughout the experiment is fundamentally impossible.

This paradox, along with many other variants of it, exposes us to logical problems that our present view of reality cannot yet surmount. This is quite simply because our present view of reality is likely to be mistaken and somewhat biased by the historical significance that we afford to classical Newtonian physics. Such doctrines of physics are predicated upon the impossible existence of a 'present' and upon the notion that observation is passive and that thought functions entirely within the confines of the brain.

The famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics, in conjunction with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, can fairly be considered as belonging to the family of Zeno's paradoxes. Together, these contemporary anomalies expose us to the same essential truth; namely that the realities of space-time, matter-energy and thought cannot be reconciled within the context of our current view of reality.

Rather than continuing with the present effort to reconcile paradoxical observations with a flawed conception of reality, perhaps what needs to occur is the revision of our conception of reality and its reconciliation with Zeno, quantum mechanics and philosophy. When we do this, we may come to suspect that Zeno's arrow and its motion are as much a product of the act of observation as the behaviour or form of atomic particles are a product of their being observed. Zeno's paradox is resolved if we posit that the arrow that left the bow is not the same arrow that has arrived at the target. In the interim, not only the arrow but also the entire universe has been reformed as it attempts to conform to the act of observation.

To be and not to be

In many respects, throughout the history of civilization, from the Greeks to today, evolution in a philosophical or intellectual sense has been more about breaking free of dogmatics, rather than a natural evolution of thinking. The paddock wherein thoughts might be cultivated into the ephemeral reality or the belief systems of an age is not equally fertile. There are patches where particular ideas might receive more light and rain, and patches that remain forever in the shade. Here and there seeds of equal or even greater potential will struggle much harder to reach the daylight and to remain alive.

This disparity in the potency and vigour of various theories is rarely, if ever, correlative with their intellectual merit. The longevity of an idea reflects its ability to attach itself to the mind of the masses, which ultimately is the same soil that must sustain a particular notion through the ages. One wonders if the philosophy of Leibniz would have survived to this day were it not for the fact that it ultimately comes to rest upon the doorstep of theology and hence can attach itself to the universal and timeless appeal of God. In a similar vein, the philosophy or social theory of writers such as Wilde remains somewhat alive because much of his popular theatre and drama has attached itself to the universal and timeless appeal of humour and entertainment. To this end, consider the fame of Wilde's Importance of being Earnest as compared to that of his anarchic essay The Soul of Man under Socialism.

 

The potential for an evolution in our thinking is infinite, and yet it is almost equally limited by the constant embargo of dogma and the temporal necessity to pay homage to the accepted mores of a particular era. Arguably, from the pre-Socratics onward the intellect appears to have evolved in a 'one step forward, two steps backwards' sort of fashion; that the theories of Anaximander or Anaxagoras were stymied not by their lack of potential or dead-endedness, but rather by the ability of established dogma to silence all heretics — a censure that is as alive today as it was in ancient times.