View of reality
- From: brodix@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 12 Mar 2006 15:32:50 -0800
This is something I've been working on;
There is a basic factor which has been overlooked in how we conceive
of reality. Time has two directions.
As point of reference, the observer goes from past events to future
events, but as frame, these events go from being in the future to being
in the past.
Time isn't a dimension because the frame of reference does not
constitute an absolute against which the point of reference transcribes
another dimension. It is a process in which the point and frame move
relative to their respective influence on one another. Content and
context go in opposite directions. To the hands of the clock, it is the
face going counterclockwise.
The unit of time goes from beginning to end, but the process of time
is going toward the beginning of the next, leaving the old. A day is
measured by the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, but the
reality is the earth is rotating the other direction. As our day ends,
others are dawning.
Our lives are units of time going from beginning to end, while the
process of living goes on to the next generation, shedding the old like
dead skin.
Think of a factory; The product moves from initiation to completion,
but the production line faces the other way, with its mouth consuming
raw materials and finished product being expelled.
This relationship of the process and the unit is one of perspective. A
unit at one level is a process at another and vice versa. We go
through time as time goes through us. What matters is energy generated,
whether calories burned, or wages and profits earned.
Time is not so much a projection out from the present event, as it is
a coming together of factors to define what is present. The past is the
influences which define current order and the future is the energy
which will motivate that order. When this order is an open set, it
absorbs fresh energy, defining it, so the future is a continuation of
the past. When the order is a closed set, the energy accumulates in
open spaces and the future becomes a reaction to the past. Evolution
and revolution.
Reality consists of energy recording information. As the amount of
energy remains the same, old information is erased as new is recorded.
This information is a product of relationships of the manifest energy.
The only absolute frame is the present, so any action is balanced by an
"equal and opposite" reaction. Reality is the energy defining the
space. Time is a function of the information. "Past" and "future" do
not physically exist because the energy necessary to manifest them is
manifesting the present.
Time, like temperature, is a method of measuring motion, not the cause
of it.
The bottom up processes and top down entities they create, which then
define them, are all around us. Democracy is a process. The Republic is
an entity. Capitalism is a process. The corporation is an entity.
Russian communism failed because it tried to take the process of the
economy and turn it into a single unit, strangling fresh input. Chinese
communism has so far succeeded because it has turned itself into the
worlds largest corporation.
To survive, an entity must enforce some degree of discipline,
otherwise cancers tear it apart. On the other hand, when the police
function gets out of hand, it is a form of autoimmune disease and is
just as fatal. The pendulum swings back and forth because we don't
want just a flat line down the middle.
Why is something seemingly logical overlooked in our conception of
reality? The mind is a process and its product is the thought. So it's
natural for our understanding to congeal as units. Even though science
understands objective reality is an illusion, modern physics is still
trying to define it in terms of the unit. Be it particle, wave, string,
Big Bang, even time and space are considered to be ultimately
quantized. These discrete units measure out some linear length of time
from the moment they are formed until they dissipate, but unit and
continuum are two sides of the same coin. One defining, one creating.
What of our religious assumptions? We have this narrative story about
a spiritual entity leading humanity forward. The notion of God started
out as a personification of the tribal soul and anthropomorphization of
the elements of nature. Three thousand years ago, it was cutting edge
logic to combine all these manifestations into one.
The problem is that one isn't the absolute, zero is. The medium and
median are essence we rise from, not a focal point from which we fell.
A spiritual absolute wouldn't be a singular entity, definable
quantity or extreme, but, like zero, both void and center.
An all-knowing absolute is a contradiction. The absolute has no
distinctions, while knowledge is an endless process of distinction and
judgment. That is why a triune deity makes some sense; Father, Son,
Holy Ghost. Absolute, extant, infinite. Past, present, future. Order,
complexity, chaos.
Good and bad are not a metaphysical dual between between the forces of
light and darkness, but the binary code for conscious decision. A
bottom up accumulation of billions of years of biological yes/no,
on/off, I/O.
For the process, good and bad are relative. What is good for the fox,
is bad for the chicken. For the individual, such distinctions may as
well be absolute, at least for the chicken.
The moral argument for monotheism is that belief in God instills
respect for law and order. I would point out that the natural tendency
to identify ones own soul as an expression of God sometimes results in
the impression that ones natural impulses are potentially infallible.
Our current President would be a prime example. If we were instead to
view that source of being as the essence from which we are all
striving, yet fallible expressions of, then the more natural tendency
might be to think before we act.
All of reality is both absolute and infinite, but when you separate
out one point of reference, it is all relative to that point. This is
what makes our individuality so overwhelming. We overcome that enormity
by focusing on the details of living and this ties us back to the
larger whole.
The reason life sometimes seems meaningless is because the concept of
objective 'meaning' is static and reductionistic, while life is
dynamic and holistic. It is when we distill away all that seems
transitory about life, searching for that hard little nugget of value,
that we have lost all we threw away and have so little to show for it.
Everything has subjective purpose. That is what ties it all together.
There is a time in one's life when the father goes from being the
model one follows, to the foundation one rises from. I think humanity
is nearing that point.
Regards,
John Brodix Merryman Jr.
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