IMPORTANT QUESTIONS (Continued)

I’m back after a grueling week with search and rescue teams in the Ozarks, nursing a few scrapes and bruises. After posting the “rest of the story” concerning our search for a lost camper (who happened to be my son Joshua) with, fortunately, a happy ending, I’m back on the thread of thought I was pursuing before, about the most important questions we can ask as human beings. 

To refresh your memory before going on, you may want to re-read the post “THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS” posted April 29, 2016 and “WHY MAINSTREAM SCIENCE HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO ANSWER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS” posted May 3, 2016.

Those posts lay the groundwork for discussing important questions like:

• Who are we?

• Where did we come from, and where are we going?

• What is the meaning and purpose of reality and human existence?

Four paradigm-shattering discoveries were mentioned in those posts:

• Relativity

• Quantum Mechanics

• The Incompleteness Theorems

• The Third Form of the Substance of Reality

In order to see how these discoveries have revealed a reality we had only glimpsed vaguely before, and how they have led to a radically new understanding of the nature of reality, we need to take a brief look at three profoundly relevant concepts: existence, logic and infinity. The limited understanding we have of these three concepts, has been divided up in the dualistic and fragmented approach of academic formalism and specialization between the studies of ontology (the nature of reality) and epistemology (our understanding of it). Massive volumes have been written on ontology and epistemology, but with due respect, much of the sophisticated academic thinking is superseded and made obsolete by these new discoveries.

Consider the following positions articulated by some of the most powerful thinkers of the past:

 Leibniz (The Principle of Sufficient Reason) – For every meaningful question there is an answer.

Russell and Whitehead (Principia Mathematica) There are three types of statements: True, False and meaningless.

Gӧdel (Incompleteness Theorems) – There are meaningful statements of questions that cannot be answered within the logical system within which they were stated.

Close-Neppe (The Triadic Distinction Dimensional Paradigm) – The universe is the ultimate logical mathematical system, and the logical structures of basic number theory and geometry reflect the logical structure of Reality.

There are other scientists who have somewhat similar notions about the mathematical nature of the universe, for example, Joseph Brenner, in his book “Logic in Reality” says the fundamental physical structure of the world is logical and mathematical. 

And physicist Max Tegmark, in his book “Our Mathematical Universe, My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality" says: “This means that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematical (a mathematical structure), making us self-aware parts of a giant mathematical object.”

If you accept that the physical universe, along with whatever reality it is part of, is a logical system, then the evidence of relativity, quantum mechanics and the Incompleteness theorems, taken together, strongly suggest that reality, defined as all that exists, is a logical system, and it is infinite. 

This requires a radically different approach to understanding reality and answering those most important questions. Why? Because current science is fragmented by academic political correctness and departmental specialization, producing a dis-jointed group of logical systems of thought that have conflicts and paradoxes, indicating that something is missing. For example, the mathematics of relativity and quantum mechanics are non-commensurable.

The currently prevalent mathematical tools used by science are inadequate and in some ways inappropriate for effective application in our infinite, quantized reality. As discussed in many earlier posts (search archives for Calculus of Distinctions and related topics) Newtonian calculus, based on the exact opposite of quantization, i.e. continuity of variables of extent, must be replaced by the more comprehensive calculus of distinctions, which also incorporates the actions of consciousness. Once that is done, many things that the current paradigm cannot answer are explained.

To be continued.