Nothing is fundamental by Francesco D'Isa

Dear Francesco,

thank you for a very clear, and well-written, exposition of Nagarjuna's philosophy---to me, Nagarjuna has always been one of the most subtle Buddhist thinkers (although that may reflect no more than my lack of knowledge of most Buddhist thinkers), and the concept of dependent arising, while challenging to one educated with the idea of independent substances, was a great influence on my own thoughts. In fact, an earlier version of my essay contained some discussion of this influence that was cut due to length constraints. But I couldn't have done Nagarjuna's thought justice, so I'm happy to see that you've undertaken this task.

Your treatment of the paradox of relativism is intriguing. I have to spend some time thinking about it, before I can really address it. In some ways, it harkens back to the logic of Catuskoti, it seems to me.

I have to dash out now, but I hope your essay will do well in the competition, it certainly deserves to!

Dear Francesco,

Thank you for comments on my essay. They are much appreciated. I shall not discuss them here, because this is the place to consider your essay.

One question I have is the connection between the statement "Everything is relational" and the statement "Nothing is fundamental." It seems that the former does not necessarily imply the latter. Let us assume for purposes of argument that natural laws cannot exist without entities to which those laws apply, and that, similarly, entities cannot exist without laws that govern them. Then the reality of the laws would be relative to the existence of the entities, and the existence of the entities would be relative to reality of the laws. Nonetheless, it might still be true that the laws are more fundamental than the entities, because the laws apply systematically to everything, but each entity has only a limited and local significance. A single entity, or a group of entities, might disappear, while yet the general order of nature remains the same. On the other hand, if somehow the laws were abolished, the system of nature would collapse into chaos.

Here is another way to make this point. If one thing is more fundamental than a second, the first is related to the second, and perhaps the first thing requires that relationship for its very existence. However, the relationship is non-symmetrical. So long as both things exist, and each does require the other for its existence, the first thing accounts for or explains the second, although the second does not account for or explain the first. An essential relationship need not be symmetrical. At least, this possibility might be worth considering.

On another point, it was good to see a thinker like Nagarjuna brought into the sort of discussion where he might ordinarily not be mentioned.

Laurence Hitterdale

Congratulations Francesco,

Your essay is the most persuasive of any I have read to date, enhanced as it is by compliance with FQXi's evaluation criterion that essays should be 'accessible to a diverse, well-educated but non-specialist audience.'

Perhaps you should have qualified your title with the prefix 'As far as I know ...' We simply don't know what we don't know - and that is one of many absolute truths, contrary to the notion that 'every truth is a belief.'.

While you use the terms 'exist' or 'existence' more than once, you have not elaborated upon the idea of existence. If you hold to the view that 'existence' is 'nothing' in the absence of 'something' or some 'things', and therefore does not warrant consideration, then yes, your title still holds. You can still maintain that 'existence' depends upon one or more relations but that does not deny 'existence' from qualifying as being fundamental to consideration of any and every other 'thing', including ideas.

Thanks for the ride.

Dear Francesco,

It is a pleasure meeting you here in this FQXi Essay Contest. In fact, I live in Prato, near your beautiful Florence.

I find your Essay very interesting and a bit provocative. I did not know Nagarjuna's theory, thanks for raising it to my attention. In fact, I am not a philosopher and, despite I am a physicist of gravitation, I am not involved in LQG.

I have a bit provocative question on your statement that "every entity's intrinsically relational nature". In that case, can we claim that such a intrinsically relational nature is fundamental? OK, you can reply with your final statement that "we do not consider "fundamental" absolute relativism itself". This sounds good from a philosophical point of view. But, from the physical point of view, your statement that "every entity's intrinsically relational nature" recalls me on one hand, the physical concept of general covariance, and, on the other hand, the quest for a unified field theory. In both of the cases, such concepts seem fundamental, at least from the physical point of view.

In any case, your Essay is a very entertaining work which deserves the highest score that I am going to give you.

Maybe you could be interested in my Essay, where I discuss an approach to the fundamental issues in physics ... with Albert Einstein! In addition, as I see that you are a prolific writer, I signal you my first popularizing book titled "Onde gravitazionali. La scoperta del secolo". Maybe we could collaborate in the future.

Good luck in the Contest.

Cheers, Ch.

Dear Francesco,

Thanks for your kind reply. I substantially agree with your answer that the mathematics used for these laws is relative. I have been often criticized by some colleague for this thinking, but it is my opinion that there are no exact sciences in Nature.

It will be my pleasure talking with you about Fqxi unrelated issues. I will contact you soon.

Cheers, Ch.

Hi Francesco D'Isa

Very nicely said... "idea of a system of "fundamental" rules is misleading, because of every entity's intrinsically relational nature" , you are correct in saying that Nothing is fundamental Dear Francesco D'Isa......

............. very nice idea.... I highly appreciate your essay and hope you may please spend some of the valuable time on Dynamic Universe Model also and give your some of the valuable & esteemed guidance

Some of the Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model :

-No Isotropy

-No Homogeneity

-No Space-time continuum

-Non-uniform density of matter, universe is lumpy

-No singularities

-No collisions between bodies

-No blackholes

-No warm holes

-No Bigbang

-No repulsion between distant Galaxies

-Non-empty Universe

-No imaginary or negative time axis

-No imaginary X, Y, Z axes

-No differential and Integral Equations mathematically

-No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to GR on any condition

-No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models

-No many mini Bigbangs

-No Missing Mass / Dark matter

-No Dark energy

-No Bigbang generated CMB detected

-No Multi-verses

Here:

-Accelerating Expanding universe with 33% Blue shifted Galaxies

-Newton's Gravitation law works everywhere in the same way

-All bodies dynamically moving

-All bodies move in dynamic Equilibrium

-Closed universe model no light or bodies will go away from universe

-Single Universe no baby universes

-Time is linear as observed on earth, moving forward only

-Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis no interdependencies between axes..

-UGF (Universal Gravitational Force) calculated on every point-mass

-Tensors (Linear) used for giving UNIQUE solutions for each time step

-Uses everyday physics as achievable by engineering

-21000 linear equations are used in an Excel sheet

-Computerized calculations uses 16 decimal digit accuracy

-Data mining and data warehousing techniques are used for data extraction from large amounts of data.

- Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true....Have a look at

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_15.html

I request you to please have a look at my essay also, and give some of your esteemed criticism for your information........

Dynamic Universe Model says that the energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation passing grazingly near any gravitating mass changes its in frequency and finally will convert into neutrinos (mass). We all know that there is no experiment or quest in this direction. Energy conversion happens from mass to energy with the famous E=mC2, the other side of this conversion was not thought off. This is a new fundamental prediction by Dynamic Universe Model, a foundational quest in the area of Astrophysics and Cosmology.

In accordance with Dynamic Universe Model frequency shift happens on both the sides of spectrum when any electromagnetic radiation passes grazingly near gravitating mass. With this new verification, we will open a new frontier that will unlock a way for formation of the basis for continual Nucleosynthesis (continuous formation of elements) in our Universe. Amount of frequency shift will depend on relative velocity difference. All the papers of author can be downloaded from "http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/ "

I request you to please post your reply in my essay also, so that I can get an intimation that you replied

Best

=snp

Hello D'Isa,

Well done!

Well, you essay definitely meant that everything has a relationship. Indeed, I think that everything has a relationship and that is what we call as "Pattern" which relates to mathematics.

Kind Regards

Ajay Pokharel

Dear Francesco,

i have some further annotations about the antinomy your presented in chapter 6 of your essay and would be happy if you could evaluate my considerations.

The antinomy states that "Every truth is relative". As you outlined in the essay, such truths are relative to other truths. If these other truths wouldn't exist, those truths that refer to them couldn't exist either.

So it seems that if I cut out any truth out of such a system of interdependent relationships, I end up with what Nagarjuna called 'emptiness'.

But you need not invoke a violation of the principle of non-contradiction to make your sentence R true under all circumstances. What it says is that there are relative truths and there are absolute (fundamental) truths. The absolute truths are absolutely true relative to an absolute reference frame, the relative truths are merely true relative to a reference frame that is itself relative. the absolute and the relative realms are relative to each other, without altering their truth values.

The relative truths are possible only by negating the rule of non-contradiction, but nonetheless reside within ordinary logic, since it is logical that by negating the rule of non-contradiction, one can 'prove' or 'disprove' everything. I put the words 'prove' and 'disprove' in quotation marks, since nothing can be proven with a system that does not obey the rule of non-contradiction.

If I have a yard stick of length one meter and a yard-stick of length two meter, the latter is longer than the former. Negating the rule of non-contradiction or reside to some visual illusion does not help. We build our technologies from such differences that are true. Surely, if the meters do not exist anymore, the statement that one yard-stick is longer than the other would be an empty statement. But the statement that one yard-stick was longer than the other would remain true.

If the physical world will end at some point in time in total emptiness, it will remain true that one yard-stick was longer than the other, otherwise one cuts out a relative truth out of the totality of relationships and this totality should colapse like a domino-effect, if this totality is indeed an interdependent net of relationships. Nonetheless cutting out a truth out of this totality, one had to assume that one exactly knows what total emptiness really means. It then would mean some irrational, unfathomable magic, that leaves intact the other relative truths which were once only defined to be true in relation to the truth one has cut out.

I strongly suspect that talking about 'emptiness' as a real ontological possibility is talking about something we really don't know what we are talking about. One cannot know what total emptiness really means exactly, and at the same time pretend to not know what it exactly means (hence, nonetheless labeling it as unfathomable). Either it follows some rules or it doesn't follow some rules. If one pretends that it does both things, one merely pretends that total emptiness isn't totally empty, because it behaves in some way (randomly).

One can only properly define such a total emptiness relative to some existing relationships by merely taking away all these relationships, hence in this case this emptiness wouldn't be anymore an irrational, unfathomable magic, but again relative to the relationships one has eliminated. It would merely be an imagined antipode of existence, an antipode of Descarte's cogito ergo sum.

Nagarjuna's lines of reasonings start with that subjective knowledge of existence (cogito ergo sum) and ends there, because Nagarjuna confused the external world with the internal world - because he concluded from the known (his inner world with its opposite and / or complementary aspects) to the unknown (total emptiness): if he takes away all relationships within himself (in the case of his death), then the fundament of the world must be total emptiness, so he concludes. But as we know, when people die, the world will still exist. So Nargajuna confuses the cogito ergo sum and his own dead (or dead in general).

The moral of all of this is for me that we cannot really know what it means for everything to be 'totally empty', we even cannot know what it means for individuals to be dead. And since we can't know how it is to be dead (since in this state there is no perception anymore), we end up with a contradiction of wanting to know how we should think about existence, relative to total emptiness. About the latter we don't know anything, so we conclude that we also don't know anything about the former. That's Nagarjuna's logic, and it is logical insofar that it is consistent, hence follows some coherent rules. Even the consequences of eliminating the rule of non-contradiction are logical for us, so that at the very end, either 'total emptiness' is magical nihilism, a contradiction that generates a seemingly non-contradictory world, or it is something we don't know what we are talking about. As far as physics and the external world is concerned, I would say that this external world doesn't show any signs of deep contradictory behaviour (even the imagination of purple unicorns cannot alter this), so I would say that Nagarjuna's system of explanations is due to the fact that he simply didn't know why he exists and why he at some point in time had to die. Many people don't know either, but due to common sense, this isn't necessarily a reason for magical nihilism.

I would appreachiate your points of view on that as a philosopher.

Best wishes,

Stefan Weckbach

Dear Francesco,

thank you very much for your reply.

I would agree on most of what you wrote, except for the case of absolute truths in relation to relative truths.

There is a subtle difference in constrasting the relative with the absolute. It mustn't be another relationship as we usually think about all the other relationships that mutually define each other and do both vanish if one part of such a relationship vanishes.

As I tried to outline in my essay, for logically thinking about reality, one has to presuppose that there is truth and falsehood independent of personal evaluations.

If something turns out to be true, its possible truth value 'False' vanishes, but its truth value 'True' remains. If something turns out to be false, its possible truth value 'True' vanishes, but its truth value 'False' remains.

By presupposing that both truths values, 'True' and 'False' can only coexist and if one of them vanishes, the other must vanish too, one introduces absolute relativism. But the crucial point here is that this absolute relativism is constructed by the premise that a realm of absolute truths must have something to do with a realm of relative truths and the concrete ontological connection is identified in the subject's mind and its inability to unequivocally discriminate between some absolute and some relative truths.

My point to deliver was to elucidate that absolute relativism is arbitrary in exactly the sense that the subject is free to correlate whatever it wishes to correlate with each other. As you rightfully noticed, if the results of such deliberate correlations would in every case reflect an ontological truth, we would end up not only in a deeply contradictory world, but also in a deeply arbitrary ontological world and the very notion of an external world (ontology) would vanish - together with the epistemological world. All the mutually exclusive opinions of different conscious subjects about certain possible truths cannot all be true at the same time, unless one denies the existence of some fundamentally invariant ontological elements.

Again here too: making the terms epistemic and ontological interchangeable and strongly interdependent, if one part of the equation vanishes, the whole equation vanishes. But this can't be the case, since if one nonetheless adopts to absolute relativism, nothing really vanishes, neither the external world nor the internal world. It is only in the imagination of the subject, since this subject is confronted with the vanishing of the world - of *his/her* world - when the subject dies. This shows that absolute relativism isn't a realistic option, since when a subject dies, the ontological world will remain in existence.

According to your framework, the same must then be true for the truth values 'True' and 'False'. If one of them vanishes, the other isn't forced to vanish, but must remain existent. Since we can adopt the same logic to the values 'absolute' and 'relative', even here, if one of those attributes should vanish, the other attribute should further exist. Surely and obviously, it is an unreasonable thought to assume that some 'relativity' or some 'absoluteness' should 'vanish' at all - how should this be possible without some magic or deep irrationality one is tempted to ask.

If we nonetheless erase 'absoluteness', we arrive at absolute relativism with its inherent problems described above. So the only possibility left is to erase 'relativism'. One can only do this by realizing that 'relativism' is a concept that is intimately intertwined with the human ability to make certain choices. In fact, human choices can deny the existence of absolute truths. But can human choice also deny the existence of relative truths? I think human choice can't do that, because relative truths absolutely depend on the human ability to make choices. In this sense, relative truths are no truths, their truth values are undefinable for the single case. Relative truth values can only defined globally as 'relative' - due to the fact that human choices are possible, but not for the single case, since these single cases the whole lot depend solely on the choice of the subject.

If one denies that humans have a choice at all to accept something as true or false - for example due to a strict determinism - then even the concept of absolute relativism must fail, since there is an absolute truth behind everything, namely strict determinism. Even the assumption of such a strict determinism may occur as a relative truth in your framework, since it cannot be proven or disproven. But this does not mean that neither of both possibilities is an ontological fact. It is simply unclear (maybe forever) whether or not such a strict determinism is ontologically the fact or not.

One can surely also say that neither determinism nor 'inderterminism' (human choices) are ontologically the fact. I think Nagarjuna would have replied so. But what would such a statement *mean*? I think it would simply mean that we really don't know what's really, really ontologically most fundamental. But again, that we don't know this does not mean that it doesn't exist. Nagarjuna may again reply that it surely also can mean that such a most fundamental does simply not exist, because the 'most fundamental' is incomprehensible emptiness. But that is only the perspective of a human being imaginating his/her own being dead. The ontology of existence does survive this, otherwise we end up with solipsism.

Francesco, I would like to thank you for an engaging discussion and for your openess to discuss some fundamental issues. It will always be a pleasure to discuss with you these things.

Best wishes from germany,

Stefan Weckbach

Dear Francesco,

since in my previous post the blank lines have been eliminated, I post my comment again, trying to convince the system to behave in the normal way.

So thank you very much for your reply.

I would agree on most of what you wrote, except for the case of absolute truths in relation to relative truths.

There is a subtle difference in constrasting the relative with the absolute. It mustn't be another relationship as we usually think about all the other relationships that mutually define each other and do both vanish if one part of such a relationship vanishes.

As I tried to outline in my essay, for logically thinking about reality, one has to presuppose that there is truth and falsehood independent of personal evaluations.

If something turns out to be true, its possible truth value 'False' vanishes, but its truth value 'True' remains. If something turns out to be false, its possible truth value 'True' vanishes, but its truth value 'False' remains.

By presupposing that both truths values, 'True' and 'False' can only coexist and if one of them vanishes, the other must vanish too, one introduces absolute relativism. But the crucial point here is that this absolute relativism is constructed by the premise that a realm of absolute truths must have something to do with a realm of relative truths and the concrete ontological connection is identified in the subject's mind and its inability to unequivocally discriminate between some absolute and some relative truths.

My point to deliver was to elucidate that absolute relativism is arbitrary in exactly the sense that the subject is free to correlate whatever it wishes to correlate with each other. As you rightfully noticed, if the results of such deliberate correlations would in every case reflect an ontological truth, we would end up not only in a deeply contradictory world, but also in a deeply arbitrary ontological world and the very notion of an external world (ontology) would vanish - together with the epistemological world. All the mutually exclusive opinions of different conscious subjects about certain possible truths cannot all be true at the same time, unless one denies the existence of some fundamentally invariant ontological elements.

Again here too: making the terms epistemic and ontological interchangeable and strongly interdependent, if one part of the equation vanishes, the whole equation vanishes. But this can't be the case, since if one nonetheless adopts to absolute relativism, nothing really vanishes, neither the external world nor the internal world. It is only in the imagination of the subject, since this subject is confronted with the vanishing of the world - of *his/her* world - when the subject dies. This shows that absolute relativism isn't a realistic option, since when a subject dies, the ontological world will remain in existence.

According to your framework, the same must then be true for the truth values 'True' and 'False'. If one of them vanishes, the other isn't forced to vanish, but must remain existent. Since we can adopt the same logic to the values 'absolute' and 'relative', even here, if one of those attributes should vanish, the other attribute should further exist. Surely and obviously, it is an unreasonable thought to assume that some 'relativity' or some 'absoluteness' should 'vanish' at all - how should this be possible without some magic or deep irrationality one is tempted to ask.

If we nonetheless erase 'absoluteness', we arrive at absolute relativism with its inherent problems described above. So the only possibility left is to erase 'relativism'. One can only do this by realizing that 'relativism' is a concept that is intimately intertwined with the human ability to make certain choices. In fact, human choices can deny the existence of absolute truths. But can human choice also deny the existence of relative truths? I think human choice can't do that, because relative truths absolutely depend on the human ability to make choices. In this sense, relative truths are no truths, their truth values are undefinable for the single case. Relative truth values can only defined globally as 'relative' - due to the fact that human choices are possible, but not for the single case, since these single cases the whole lot depend solely on the choice of the subject.

If one denies that humans have a choice at all to accept something as true or false - for example due to a strict determinism - then even the concept of absolute relativism must fail, since there is an absolute truth behind everything, namely strict determinism. Even the assumption of such a strict determinism may occur as a relative truth in your framework, since it cannot be proven or disproven. But this does not mean that neither of both possibilities is an ontological fact. It is simply unclear (maybe forever) whether or not such a strict determinism is ontologically the fact or not.

One can surely also say that neither determinism nor 'inderterminism' (human choices) are ontologically the fact. I think Nagarjuna would have replied so. But what would such a statement *mean*? I think it would simply mean that we really don't know what's really, really ontologically most fundamental. But again, that we don't know this does not mean that it doesn't exist. Nagarjuna may again reply that it surely also can mean that such a most fundamental does simply not exist, because the 'most fundamental' is incomprehensible emptiness. But that is only the perspective of a human being imaginating his/her own being dead. The ontology of existence does survive this, otherwise we end up with solipsism.

Francesco, I would like to thank you for an engaging discussion and for your openess to discuss some fundamental issues. It will always be a pleasure to discuss with you these things.

Best wishes from germany,

Stefan Weckbach

o.k, fqxi has formatting problems. Sorry Francesco, you have to read it as it has been translated by the system.

Hi Francesco, since i don't know when the system's formatting abilities will work again regularily, i attach my comment from above as pdf-file. I wrote to fqxi to repair the formatting procedure, since the problem is virulent also on other essay pages.Attachment #1: FrancescoDIsa.pdf