Essay Abstract

PRESENTISM speaks to the transcendental à priori intuitions of space and time, and the momentary arrangement of an actual universe; its precepts, though, are subject to impurities and to what IMMANUAEL KANT calls à posteriori intuitions. KANT uses the terms à priori and à posteriori to divide and classify aspects of sensibility and understanding; pure à priori referring to the form of intuition and conception, and à posteriori to content and matter; form being that which makes the capturing of experience possible. It should come as no surprise, then, that no form or substance is brought to mind by terms which deal with thoughts and things ethereal. Physicality underpinning cognition, being as unreachable as space and time, is given over to physics and metaphysics as different questions. Today, physics is abuzz with information theory, and the current question drawn up on the back of computer science is "It from Bit or Bit from It?"; in metaphysics it is "Form from Substance or Substance from Form?", in theology "All from One or One from All?", and last but not least "Present as Measured or Measured as Present?". Questions concerning the creation of information, the nature of space and time, gravity, and the forms and substances of cognition deserve a single hypothesis. Substances metaphysical and forms once beyond our reach are being brought into the physical domain proper, and with every addition metaphysics becomes more concrete. Continuing evolution of metaphysics, philosophy and cognitive mechanics means we are now in a position to defend unification. Defence, though, demands words which remind us that things once ethereal are being treated as real or logically certain; to that end we use the words fabric and canvas. All this, so we can present both a cogent exposition of hypothesis and defend creation's form and substance.

Author Bio

Software Engineer by profession for almost ten years; with a strong interest in artificial intelligence and the engineering of artificial neural networks. I have an interest in astronomy, physics and all things philosophical, including theology. Not shy, nor unwilling to offer an opinion.

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Zoran,

Great read. In my essay I end up emphasizing Information a bit more than Substance, but I must admit I am in agreement w/ a lot of what you're saying. While I give a slight edge to information (i.e. how can inert substance spontaneously create meaning w/o 'intelligence'), it is impossible to ignore the fabric of space-time (or simply 'space', or whatever else you want to call it) in the equation. Like you said, how can Information have meaning w/o an interpreter of sorts?

Take care,

John

    Mr. Mijatovic,

    I thought your essay was very interesting. I was especially impressed reading your ideas about "the void" and the "Form from Substance /Substance from Form segment.

      Zoran

      Physical existence, ie what physics is analysing, is that which is potentially knowable to us. We will never know a lot of it, but it is the potentiality which delineates it. And it is knowable because it is physically receivable (or can be validly hypothesised as being so, ie virtual sensing). There may be an alternative to what is potentially knowable to us, but since we cannot know it, that is irrelevant (this is science, not religion). We cannot transcend our own existence. The subsequent processing of what is physically received is irrelevant to the physical circumstance, as that has already occurred, that processing results in a perception of what was received.

      Physical existence is purely spatial, there is no time in any given existent reality, that is concerned with the rate at which reality alters, and there is only one reality at a time (a physically existent state of whatever comprises it), in a sequence (ie the present).

      Paul

        Zoran,

        A simple question about time;

        Does the earth travel this fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow?

        Or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates relative to the sun?

        Is time the basis for action, or an effect of it?

          Hello John.

          First of all, thank you for reading my essay, for your comments and advice, I thought you might like parts of it. But, I can't believe how quickly you got the gist of it. I was in the process of adding a short comment to your essay, but I now intend to change the gist of it so that you can understand both works from a slightly different perspective. But it's quite long, so I hope you don't mind.

          Many thanks.

          Zoran.

          Hello Mr. Fisher.

          Thank you for reading my essay. I will try to post a comment on you essay, if I can, but I am sure you appreciate that most essays here are beyond my technical expertise, and I should not comment on something I don't understand. That said, I point you to the comment I left for Mr. Maguire (Essay 1787), which I think you may be interested in.

          Zoran.

          Hello Mr. Merryman.

          Thank you for reading my essay. Unfortunately I can't even try to answer your question because I do not understand it. I suggest you have another look at my essay, within which I specifically exclude the possibility of the fourth dimension. And I am sure you can appreciate that commenting on something that does not exist should be left to that exact statement, that is, that it does not exist. I hope that helps.

          Zoran.

          Hello Paul.

          Thank you for reading my essay, and your relevant comments. I must say, I agree with many of your comments, but I disagree with some also. For instance, I do not believe we should lay down and turn over at every dead end, and I am glad to see essays here urging us on, and others saying give it a chance; this is science, and both sides play a part. You are correct in saying that we are always one step behind what is actually happening, but with logic and real science we can make predictions and in that sense be one step ahead. In my essay I speak of the block-universe conjured up by Presentists in order to accommodate Einstein's fourth dimension, something which demands an external observer, and something which looks more like theology than science to me. I suggest we all stick to science.

          Zoran.

          Zoran,

          That's my point as well. There is no 4th dimension. It is a model of sequence, like narrative. Which is ironic, because physics insists their models see beyond basic intuitive beliefs, yet time as sequence is as much an effect as the sun moving across the sky. We experience time as sequence, much as we experience the sun moving, but it is the earth and the events which are moving the other way.

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          • Post #12

          Zoran,

          Hi. Nice essay! I'm not very well versed in Kant's philosophy, so a lot of your essay was over my head, but a couple of things really stood out that I agree with. I thought we'd have some agreements based on your comments at my essay. Anyways, my two comments are:

          1. If I understood it correctly, you point out how all things, material and supposedly immaterial spring from a metaphysical fabric. I totally agree and would say this metaphysical fabric would be similar to what I called an "existent state" in my essay. The following quotes from your essay were very good!

          "...we do not shy away from the certainty that all things truly immaterial, i.e. happenings, spring from material, cell and fabric. ...Nonetheless, in the following pages we present for judgement a hierarchy of "fabrics à priori" from which all things spring, even the subatomic phenomena described by the standard model of physics...."

          "When it comes to things immaterial or without extension the word abstract has a place, but, apart from gravity and some loose threads in the standard model of physics, metaphysics is now concrete, and with cognitive mechanics the ethereal meaning of the word will be relegated to the side line, and the flights of fancy of mathematics also."

          2. In your section on Separation, Aggregation and the Void, you suggest, I think, that the void performs two seemingly opposite functions and may be the basis from which the Cosmos springs? With this, I totally agree and have argued at my website and in a previous FQXi essay that the words "something" and "nothing" are two different names for the same underlying thing, the supposed complete lack-of-all. I argue that if we got rid of everything we could think of from our universe (all space, time, matter, volume, energy, matter, ideas/concepts, and minds), than what's left really isn't the lack of all existent states. Instead, the complete lack-of-all, in and of itself, defines the entirety of what is present, and as such is an existent state (similar to the null set). That is, our word "nothing" for this supposed lack-of-all is incorrect. We can never really have "nothin" because even the lack-of-all is an existent state. So, if we could think of the lack-of-all, or the void, in a slightly different way, we'd see that it's an existent state, or "something", and can be the existent state from which everything springs.

          I'm not sure if you were getting at something similar, but it sounded a little bit along the same lines.

          Well, it was a very good essay, and I agree with your main points.

          Roger

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            • Post #13

            Sir,

            I apologies; my first answer was based on a quick search of essays for yours. I fail to see how I missed it, and your valued insights. I would like to add something to my previous answer, I hope you don't mind. While I say that the fourth dimension (time) does not exist in actuality, there is no doubt in my mind that our insights can not exist as knowledge without the representation of time as a fourth dimension in some way; and that's the trick, to know the trick. This trick, is different to the trick which makes a simultaneity of impressions on our intuitive canvas possible, but it's a trick nonetheless, and as evolving creatures we have learned a great many tricks which we must now separate from reality.

            Thank you for your post and your essay.

            Zoran.

            Hi Roger,

            Thanks for reading my essay, I enjoyed your essay because you're trying to get to grips with the nature of our existence. And while I can't say that something and nothing are the same thing, there are a great many things we agree on. I try to think of the void as a backdrop, and when I think of the Cosmos as a thinking thing, the backdrop is the lack of thought, and it doesn't matter whether I zoom out to imagine whatever I can imagine, or zoom in until my imagination can't imagine anything smaller, only to find room for more of those smallest things, I find it easier to imagine the space between those smallest things as a lack of thought, because if I think of it as room for more things I think of it as something. At some time in the future we may find that a lack of thought is something, but not today.

            Zoran.

            Hello Hoang cao Hai,

            Thanks for reading my eassy, and your best wishes.

            Zoran.

            Mr. Mijatovic,

            I am a decrepit old realist. I write like one. If you understand the story of Little Red Riding Hood, you will understand my essay.

            Zoran,

            Thank you for appreciating this. You would be surprised how few people with any background in physics are willing to consider it. It seems so simple and obvious when you stop to think about it, though given that sequence is the basis of history and logic, it is a bit "counterintuitive," but presumably physicists are able to think counterintuitively. The real problem is that it upsets the "fabric of spacetime" as a causal property. Not only does this eliminate the conceptual basis for such ideas as wormholes and blocktime, not to mention gravity as curvature of this "fabric," but an expanding universe as well.

            Arelated issue I keep raising about current cosmology is that while it assumes space expands, it maintains a constant speed of light against which to judge it. For example, if two galaxies are x lightyears apart and grow to 2x lightyears apart, that is not expanding space, as measured in lightyears, but increased distance. Consider Einstein said, "Space is what you measure with a ruler." If the ruler of lightyears is not expanding, but more are being used, that is therefore not expanding space! I recently debated this point over at Jennifer Ouellette's blog at SciAm, with Cormac O'Raifeartaigh, if you want an example of how it just doesn't register, even if it isn't refuted.

            Ps, I'm brodix. Debate starts at post 15.

            I understand, and I hope my comment on your essay helps to stub the toe of all those who are not looking where they're going.

            Cheers.

            John,

            Thanks for the link to Jennifer's Blog; her picture at the bottom looks better than the one at the top, but then it may have been a mind boggling hair day when taken. She sounds down to earth, and anyone who knows how to drink a pint can tell time in hierarchical space-time. Sorry, couldn't help myself; anyway, my work is obscure, me too, but if she tries to take strips off me I will protect myself. Beware! I protect myself with words, I do not throw symbols, idols, or a bunch of heavy books at those who throw shoes. But I am sure I will eventually be caught out in my spelling, because it's attrowscious.

            Zoran.

            Zoran,

            I, of necessity, tend not to take myself too seriously, but as you say, am willing to defend what I see as important.