The Hole at the Center of Creation by George Gantz

Hi George,

A wonderful contribution and quite fundamental. I tend to like such essays.

Regarding Zeno supporting a conclusion that movement was an illusion, I fully agree that this would be so without some fundamentally significant change in how we view space and time. I however suggest that while calculus is useful to quantify motion, it does not fully address the fundamental basis for it. For example, calculus admits that space is infinitely divisible and Zeno's Dichotomy Argument was formulated to show that with infinite divisibility, motion would not even start in the first place. To avoid the problem, the "infinitesimal" was created, a quantity that can be zero and not zero at the same time, i.e. neither dx = 0 nor dx тЙа 0. When you therefore say, "The invention of calculus fundamentally reaffirmed the notion of space and time as infinitely divisible continua", I have an alternative view. The idea I propose in my essay is that we exorcise the spell cast on our physics by Parmenides, who was Zeno's teacher.

I argue and try to demonstrate in my essay that what you call, "the process of the separation of One {1} from the Void {0}..." is not just a once and for all event but a continuing event underlying all activity and motion in our universe up till this very moment. Even today, you have yourself caused the process of One from Void several times and vice-versa, the reverse which you did not much discuss, Void from One. Even, if you do not agree with my hypothesis, I believe you will find it interesting.

Best regards and all the best in the competition,

Akinbo

Dear George,

Thank you for your comments on my essay - I left some comments about them on my forum.

Your essay is one of the most interesting I have read so far, and I hope it does well in this contest. I really like your dichotomy "Hole at the Center of Creation" / "Whole that Encompasses Creation". Your concept of "Hole at the Center of Creation" reminds me of this quote from Borges, in his essay "Avatars of the Tortoise":

"We (the undivided divinity operating within us) have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and external crevices of unreason which tell us it is false."

I agree with your statement "Assuming that the world is logically consistent, there are truths about the world that cannot be proven from within the world"... but only if "the world" means the finite part of reality that we observe. I believe that the "Whole of Creation" (the Maxiverse) is infinite, and that in this infinity, issues such as Gödel incompleteness no longer hold: therefore, I believe the Maxiverse is logically consistent and contains no truth that cannot be proven.

I find it interesting that you reference Rudy Rucker's book "Infinity and the Mind", when you say that "in Cantor's paradise of multiple infinities, it is impossible to conceive of the largest infinity". As I explained to Alma Ionescu on my forum, I read Rucker's book back in graduate school and it had a major influence on my own views about reality. The fact, explained by Rucker, that it is impossible for a finite mind to conceive of V (Absolute Infinity, the largest possible infinity) was, for me, not a bug, but a feature: to me, it seemed natural to equate the totality of existence, U, with this Absolute Infinity: U = V. And since V does not contain any information (as Rucker explains on page 136 of his book), this means that the Maxiverse considered as a whole does not contain any information, which makes it plausible that it just "is" --- that it exists by itself, without needing anything outside of itself to bring it about.

I fully agree with some aspects of your creation story, in particular, the fact that the first stage is the separation of One {1} from the Void {0}. My favorite fiction author, Greg Egan, once said :

"I suspect that a single 0 and a single 1 are all you need to create all universes. You just re-use them."

But I have a question about stage 2, the process of coming-into-being. If I understand your story correctly, you believe stage 2 requires something, "The Voice", that stands "outside" the totality of what physically exists and intentionally wills it into existence. But what could this Voice be? If it can have intention, it must be fairly complex, possibly intelligent... but to avoid the need for a Higher Voice to will it into existence, it must be "self-existent"... How can the non-zero information encoded into the Voice be "self-existent"? Where does the information come from? I am well aware that these questions are as old as philosophy itself, and that they are not easy to answer, but I am curious to know more about your opinion about them.

Marc

In response to your comment above..

Thanks again George. I think it would make the world a better place, so I look forward to the opportunity to work with you, collaborating to further explicate some of the threads discussed.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dear George,

I greatly enjoyed your essay. I am curious whether or not you think something like the philosopher John Leslie's "Goodness" or Robert Nozick's "fecundity" would fill the hole?

http://utopiaordystopia.com/2014/05/04/why-does-the-world-exist-and-other-dangerous-questions-for-insomniacs/

Please take the time to check out and vote on my essay for this contest.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2391

All the best!

Rick Searle

Dear George you say "much obliged"

I can truly say "for nothing" !

Best,

Vladimir

Hi George,

I was wondering if you thought that Zeno's paradox could be cleared up if the universe were proven to be finite (and discrete) in both time and space? I actually don't think this finite view of the universe is too far off what is accepted by modern physics due to ideas such as the Planck Scale and Quantization. From this perspective, (continuous) movement may still be considered to be an illusion, much like the images in a movie never "move", they only discretely change positions (states) in each subsequent frame of the movie. This relates to my Digital Physics movie essay if you'd like to take a look at that.

Thanks,

Jon

George, very creative essay and a nice sentiment about the whole. I liked the history of scientific philosophy and overall found your ideas interesting - I gave you a high rating, and thank you again for your kind comments. Your questions that you posted on my thread inspired me and you can see my answers there.

Thanks again, Steve

Some thoughts George..

The film that first brought public attention to Arnold Schwarzenegger was called 'Stay Hungry' and the movie's theme pertains to the topic of your essay, as per my comments above. The title refers not only to the reduction of body fat, so you can better show off your muscles, as it also spoke to the ideal of remaining competitive, always striving to improve yourself, and so on. This is somewhat the Apollonian ideal or archetype, as well.

But perhaps the same applies in the evolution of consciousness, where one must cultivate a hunger and thirst for knowledge - and stay hungry, maintaining an appetite for learning and knowing - in order to learn and grow in understanding. This would again make a hole at the center of creation an essential feature of reality, serving to bring transcendental qualities like those seen in creatures with self-awareness into being - which would otherwise lay dormant.

More later,

Jonathasn

oops...

finger slipped.

JJD

Dear George,

I like the idea to create your own creation myth without ignoring our knowledge about nature. I would lke to share a myth, that I like sometime to tell to my kids, that are still very young and got a new brother only recently.

"At the beginning they have been in paradise. And they where naked and not ashamed. But then they ate from the tree of knowledge and could distinguish between true and false. Between good and bad."

The myth seems to tell the difference between the simple cognition and the reflective cognition, which creates the separation of subject and object, of perception and acting. It creates the distance needed to comprehend the word objectively. With the loss of the ability to participate with world, with life.

It is beautiful and sad to see my kids slowly leaving paradise.

Best regards and thanks for your nice comment in my forum

Luca

Hi George--

Your essay was a joy to read. I loved your lyrical touch. I now see why you took the time to read and comment on my essay. We approached infinity in complementary fashion. You chose to use infinity in a metaphysical way, which is perfectly excellent. My approach was simply to kick physical infinity off the physics island. I'd like to think that we are both right. I also loved your use of both "hole" and "whole" at the center of creation. Nicely done!

In the small world category, we are both Stanford grads (me, '77) with Honors in Humanities. Only later did I go on to get degrees in physics (at other institutions).

Best regards,

Bill.