Taming of the One by Helmut Hansen

Dear Mr. Smith,

you're absolutely right in pointing to the case of Giordano Bruno, and it is extremely important that such cases should never be forgotten. Since the Catholic Church still believes she is in the possession of the ultimate truth about reality, it is necessary to investigate this truth in a systematic and openminded way. As long as there is no real scientific basis for the One, something like a modern metaphysics, the Catholic Church will continue to threaten the freedom of the human mind.

But until now no one has found a way to conduct metaphysics in such a scientific fashion. As far as the One, that is, the assumption of a transcendent foundation of the Universe, is concerned, the belief in the guise of religion is still the dominant force: It decisively determines how we think about this One. This force is profoundly irrational. In its fundamentalistic form it is even highly dangerous. In other words: If we leave the interpretation of the One faith, then we leave it irrational forces.

In the past we had to accept this dominant role of faith because no one knew how to conduct metaphysics in a scientific fashion. But this task can as conceived by me be done. The key to it is precisely the property of transcendence, which previously represented an insurmountable barrier of knowledge. This barrier can actually be overcome, because transcendence is with respect to the physical universe such a restrictive condition that the possibilities of how the universe might look like, are so far limited that only one structure is likely.

Dear Mr. Ramos.

if the theological property of invisibility is really the result of a specific conception of our Universe, that is, the result of a certain kind of radical non-duality conception, as I tried to show in my essay, then the One cannot, in principle, be a God, who is for example able to reveal himself in a burning bush. If nature does follow the Principle of Radical Non-Duality then the One is literally invisible. Invisibility is no longer usable as a diffuse philosophical description of a hidden God. It maintains instead of that a very precise physical meaning. But this does not mean that the One cannot be experienced by human beings. It can. All mystical traditions are talking about the experience of limitless bliss which comes up if a human being is going to enter this invisible sphere.

Dear James,

physical largeness is a necessary condition for the One. To put it more plainly: The existence of the One can only and if be assumed if the coincidence of the Smallest (= infinite Small) and the Largest (= infinite Large) is physically realized, because this very specific condition describes, how the One is encoded into the physical universe in such a way, that it can be everywhere (i.e. of being omnipresent), but no one (= no observer) can see it (i.e. of being invisible). If this condition is empirically not realized, then the existence of the One must be denied. Actually it is the crux of the entire research program of a modern metaphysics.

To make this program more understandable, let me give a basic explanation: The starting point of it was the class of all those attributes which were usually ascribed GOD; attributes like Omnipresence, Invisibility, Absoluteness (to be uncoditioned). Although we are aware of these properties for more than two millennia, it has never been examined in more detail, what physical implications are involved. For me, a point from the beginning was very clear: If the ultimate foundation of our Universe was really characterized by such unusual properties, like invisibility (i.e. transcendence), then it must have an equally unusual structure. The coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest is integral part of this structure. Physically we would talk about it as a boundary condition at infinity.

Helmut

To Mr. James Putnam:

Hi James,

the One itself (!) does not have any physical property: it is beyond of every physical property. The One f.e. is neither large nor small. It is beyond of every spatial relation. This demand is guaranteed by the demand of the coincidence of the Smallest and the Largest. Properties like invisibility are not usual physical properties. We can say that the Universe does have a radical non-dual conception and we may even be able to prove its existence experimentally, but we cannot prove that there is something like the One, which is the root of this conception, because the One is by its very nature invisible. The One is physically out of reach.

That is the meaning of transcendence. But this does not mean, that the structure of the Universe can be vague and not determined. The opposite is the case. To possess a foundation that is out of reach the visible Universe must satisfy very special conditions. The Principle of Radical Non-Duality is describing some of these conditions. In line No. 3 of my table you can find the notion v = infinite. If the One shall be the omnipresent foundation of the universe, the speed of light cannot be the ultimate limiting speed of the universe. An entity or force which is essentially restricted by the speed of light cannot be everywhere at the same time, because the speed of light is finite: It needs time to connect remote points of space.

If an entity shall be omnipresent the speed has therefore to be infinite. But as the property of omnipresence is exclusively (!) related to the One, no physical object or process can reach this speed. Hence, this speed must physically be unreachable.

Such a condition would have far-reaching physical consequences. Space and time f.e. could not be structured in a relativistic way, because in special relativity the metaphysical segment from c until infinite is not considered. If we like to know how space and time have to be structured in a Universe with a metaphysical foundation like the One we have to complete the relativistic space-time-picture (i.e. the Minkowski-Diagram) in such a way, that the ultimate limiting speed is not c, but infinite.

Following this metaphysical demand the structure of a MANDALA could finally be identified as the supplemented space-time-picture. And this archetypal picture, consisting of a scale-invariant set of circles and squares, offers a completely different interpretation of the Michelson-Morley-Experiment. (I have written a German book about this issue: Die Linien des Alten / Einsteins letzte Vision; The Lines of the Old One / Einsteins last Vision).

In summary: the One may be indescribable, but the physical consequences for the structure of the universe could be considerable.

Helmut

Dear James,

to say the One is omniscient is suggesting that there is a Being who knows everything. but as far as there is any who or ego omniscience is impossible. But if you are able to leave your personal restrictions and habits behind you will realize more and more that at the most fundamental level of the Universe there is no difference between knowlegde and thingness. If we were even able to recognize this deep unity of knowledge and thingness as the true essence of our universe we would, in fact, know everything. Already in 1930 the astrophysicist Sir James Jeans wrote the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.

Although physics was originally dealing with things like moving planets and balls, today one of its driving forces is actually the discovery that information could sit at the core of physics. The great physicist Archibald Wheeler coined the expression IT from BIT. This phrase symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical Universe has at a very deep bottom an immaterial source. In the past we have stressed the IT-Dimension, but now we are going to discover the great importance of the BIT-Dimension.

But if we were able to advance our consciousness to the ultimate level, i.e. to pure Oneness, we would discover that there is even no difference between IT and BIT. In other words: The universe cannot completely be digitalized. (There are in fact different physicists, who are believing that our universe is, at heart, describable by information. The Physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker f.e. proposed a theory of so-called ur-alternatives; a specific kind of logical atomism. It was first proposed in his book Einheit der Natur (1971), which was translated into English in 1980 as The Unity of Nature). But according to a modern metaphysics there would be a difference between a computable universe and a universe with a metaphysical foundation like the One. Such a universe would base upon something, in which all fundamental (!) differences are solved into Oneness. In Buddhist philosophy just this solved difference between IT and BIT is expressed in the so-called HEART SUTRA: Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form. Form and emptiness are representing as conceived by me the transcended terms of energy (IT) and information (BIT).

As our deepest essence is related to this Oneness, we are fundamentally free. We are not only determined by a big mechanical machine a la Newton, we are also not determined by a sophisticated program running on a big computing-machine. We are simply captured by the limits of our mind, which are expressed in its most advanced form by our present physical theories. If we like to see the universe from a metaphysical or, let say, spiritual point of view, we have to extend our theories. f.e. the special theory of relativity. In the added paper Do Space and Time have an Archetypal Design? I give an overview how this extension led to the discovery of the Mandala.

(A similar paper was presented during the 14th Natural Philosophy Alliance Conference at the University of Connecticut/USA in 2007 (Proceedings of the NPA, Volume 4, No. 1, pp. 115).

HelmutAttachment #1: Do_Space_and_Time_have_an_Archetypal_Design_Hansen_2007.pdf

Dear Steve,

thank you very much for your different posts. I did not understand them all, but the last two I did.

MANDALA: To my opinion this archetypal structure describes how space and time are organized at the most fundamental level. The (inner) sphere and the (outer) square can be read as different expressions of the constancy of light. If you set c = 1, this possiblity becomes visible. It means, that the constancy of light, that is c, is not an unambiguous constant as we still believe today. There are, in fact, two geometrical versions how it is physically realized.

IT from BIT: The binary digit (bit) can be interpreted as the most elementary way to measure form. The German physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker has elaborated this approach in detail. He used it to derive the 3-dimensionality of space. Hence, it seems to me that there is a hidden connection between IT from BIT and the structure of the MANDALA.

Helmut