TFNR - The Fundamental Nature of Reality
A few words about what I intend for the expression "The Fundamental Nature of Reality".
The single terms:
- Fundamental – What lies at the very basis of Existence, of Reality—something that transcends what we commonly observe and experience: Energy, Matter, Particles, Waves, Forces, Fields, etc. The Elementary Events produced by the Source of Reality are the primary expression of Existence.
- Nature - The type or essential characteristic of something.
- Reality - Everything that existed (the root of the present existence), exists (actual) and will exist (potential). Past, present and future.
All together:
- a description of what exists, what happens, how it happens (Ontology, Phenomenology and Dynamics) in the terms of the Action of the Primary Source of Reality,
- the core of this System of Knowledge—the Evolutionary Knowledge (Evolutionary Physics, Metaphysics, and Meta-metaphysics)—which studies Reality as a complex unitary phenomenon (Physical, Cognitive, and Metacognitive Reality),
- the focus of this research project, which aims to develop and promote a new vision of Reality and the Universe.
In summary...
As mentioned above, we can describe Reality as a unitary and articulated Process of Formation and, simultaneously, as the product of that Process: the Universe in evolution.
We can identify only one input to the Process—a pair of fundamental and elementary (sub-)Entities: a Force and a Field, the two aspects of the Source of Reality. A unique and fundamental force, which we call "the Fundamental Force", or "the Force", is responsible for all the work that creates Existence in its most fundamental Essence / Form—the "Elementary Action"—and "the Elementary Field" upon which the Force acts.
The output of this Process, empowered by the Force, is represented by Complexity—the emerging organization of Events into Processes, Structures, and Forms of increasing Complexity. This is the result of the incessant Evolution of Information.
Emergence is the fundamental dynamics through which the input leads to the output—to the Universe in evolution—the way Reality forms at every level of Existence. In short, Reality incessantly emerges from the organization of the Field under the ceaseless Action of the Force.
The next question is inevitable: what emerges—what exists? Briefly, we can say that Entities exist because they produce Existence, Events occur arising from Entities, and Relations evolve into the Essence/Form of Reality. Processes, in turn, can be considered Derived Entities—Sources of subsequent Events, structured by evolving Relations within unfolding Processes. And so on.
Reality and the Universe are complex "Derived" Entities resulting from the universal Process of Formation and construction—Derived Entities that express and manifest themselves (Events) and interact (Relations) to produce Phenomena, Processes. These Entities evolve from elementary levels to increasingly complex ones. The features and properties of that elementary level—an elementary unitary Field, incessantly animated by a fundamental, pervasive, and constant Force—determine the Form and dynamics of the entire evolving Universe.
In short, Reality is a process—an evolving, organized set of Events—that expresses itself in three dimensions: causal, spatial, and temporal. This organization, emerging from the Evolution of Relations among Events, defines the level of Complexity of Reality—whether the whole Reality or a specific Space-time domain.
In this sense, we can describe Reality and the Universe in terms of the Existence of Entities, the occurrence of Events (Creation), and the Evolution of Relations among Events:
- In terms of Entities and Existence, at the most elementary level, Reality is the Process of manifestation of the fundamental Entities emerging from the Source of Reality—the Fundamental Force and the Elementary Field—transmuting the possible into the actual, the Non-Existence (Nothingness) into Existence. At more complex levels, derived and structured Forces act upon derived and structured Fields, producing increasingly complex forms of Existence—bringing into being more complex Agents and Acted, Forces and Fields, in an incessant complexification of Reality.
- In terms of events and occurrences, Reality is the process of manifestation of Action—the transmutation of the Elementary Field by the "Action" of the Fundamental Force. At the fundamental—elementary—level, this manifests as variations of the elementary dynamics of the Field (Events), which in turn become new sources of causal action. Ultimately, Reality is the expression of the causal principle upon the Space-time aspects of Reality—the Action of the Force on the Field—and, in the domain of Complexity, the Derived Action of Derived Forces on Derived Fields. Through coherent sequences of Events, the history of Reality is constructed, and with it, the ever-changing world of possibilities—actual and potential. While Entities and Existence focus on Causes, Events and Existence highlight effects—effects of Causes, Actions of Forces.
- In terms of Relations and Essence—Form—Reality is the Process of Formation of new Information, In-Form-Action, new correlations among Events, new patterns of organization, and new networks of Relations emerging from the most elementary levels of Reality. It is a Process of structuring the Field, evolving toward increasing levels of Complexity.
Within this framework, the main key words are: Nothingness, Force, Intensity, Field, Constraint and resistance, Events, variation, mutation, Existence, Creation, Action, Relation, Information, organization, Evolution, Complexity, Structures, Forms, life, Universe, Reality.
Reality is a unitary process, where the Fundamental Force (the causal Agent) and the Elementary Field (the variational Acted, the spatial and temporal substrate of Existence and Essence / Form), together forming the Source of Reality, are the causal and the variational substrate of everything that exists. This unitary Process consists of two integrated and incessant sub-Processes: Creation and Evolution. The former, in a causal sense, produces the fundamental substance—the Action, the most elementary form of Existence—while the latter organizes this substance, evolving it into more complex Forms. We call this Information (Structures of Information and Forms), which represents the Essence—the Form—of Reality.
The Force (the causal agent) acting on the Field (the receptive entity) creates the Elementary Action, in its elementary forms: perturbation, translation and rotation, that correspond to the three fundamental modes in which the Reality express itself: variation (or mutation), propagation and conservation. In other words, the interaction between the two fundamental entities in which the Source manifests itself, producing the Elementary Events, the Elementary Action, creates the Existence. We call this sub-process: Creation.
The Elementary Events, that compose the Action, under the incessant pressure of the Force, auto-organize themselves in more and more complex forms. This is the Information. The further organization of the Information forms the Physical Structures that compose the Physical Forms that populate the Physical Universe, and, at the more complex levels of Reality, the Meta-Physical Forms, that represent the cognitive side of Reality. We call this sub-process: Evolution.
These two sub-processes make up a unitary process, the "Process of Formation of Physical Reality", as part of a wider process (the Process of Formation of Universal Reality), that include the Meta-reality, or Meta-physical, Cognitive, Reality (the realm of the immaterial forms produced by the living beings), the more complex product of the evolution of Physical Reality.
In facts, only for descriptive purposes, we can identify a Physical Reality, the realm of physical forms, and a Cognitive Reality (or Meta-Reality), the realm of the metaphysical forms, the representations of Reality that the living beings incessantly create in their lives, In the incessant evolutive exploration of the world, the actual and the possible. Meta-reality comprehends Meta-meta-reality, the domain of meta-cognitive processes, the object of study of the Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences, that study the process of formation of the representations of Reality, the way in which living beings develop their knowledge about Reality, at any level of complexity. In this paper, we will essentially focus on Physical Reality and the Physical Universe. Meta-reality will be the object of a further paper, dedicated to the cognitive side of Reality.
In a nutshell, we can say that everything we know of the world is intrinsically metaphysical. Knowledge itself is a metaphysical fact. We know the world through direct experience that forms in us representations of an objective reality that in fact we never can hold within ourselves. Everything that exists, in fact, happens. Knowledge assume the memory of the experience, the construction of models, of organized sets of representations of the objective Reality. Therefore, while all that is in our representations is metaphysical, the object of our cognitive representations (sensory, perceptive, emotional, rational, intellectual, cultural, etc. in a crescendo of cognitive complexity) is physical. Among the objects, structures and metaphysical forms, we find the representations of events, structures, physical forms, but also the representations of representations, also here, in a crescendo of complexity that leads us to the same representations of our own cognitive activity (the meta-metaphysical, or meta-cognitive, side of Reality).
As stated above, we can consider the Universe as the present temporal section of Reality, that includes everything that exist at the present time (it comprehends all the new events in the moment they occur, and all the products of the incessant forming Reality, the Information, the Structures and the Forms, that, at each instant, are propagating in space-time from every single event occurred in the past, in a relativistic meaning). Nothing can exist outside the Universe and the Universe is everything that exists. Reality includes each existing material, immaterial, manifested, expressed, actual or potential form. It's real and natural, is part of Nature, everything that exists, whatever its form is.
We cannot make direct physical experience of the Fundamental Force, the Elementary Field and the Elementary Action, the “world of absolute”. We are creature of Information, we are made of relations, we live in the “world of relation”, as any other Form that compose the Universe, nets of relations among elementary events in the Field, and among more complex events in the derived fields that characterize the “normal” reality. We, and the experimental equipment that we build, can only make experience, in other words “measure”, facts in the field of the phenomena of Information, events that concern Structures of Information, that organize events in the Field of Elementary Action.
So, about the nature of the Force, of the Action, the dynamics of the Field, and so on, we can only make inferences. We can only make experiments to indirectly explore the elementary level of Reality, observing and measuring the effects generated by the elementary phenomena through the phenomena concerning the Information and the Structures, that the Information forms.
As anticipated in the previous sections, the Fundamental Nature of Reality can be considered the core of a new system of knowledge under construction, centered on evolutionary issues at all levels of Reality. Creation and Evolution (together composing the "Formation"), two complementary ways of manifestation of the Primary Source, interact in the incessant construction of Reality and the physical and cognitive Universe.
In this chapter we will try to delineate the points of view and the perspectives of observation (origin, domains, properties, dimensionalities and dimensions, levels, scales, aspects, principles), which allow us to identify more clearly the characteristics and properties of Reality, to try to understand its global functioning and to better frame the various fields, described today by fragmented and partly incompatible theories and models, in a more unitary, connected and profound vision.
A few more words about this project of research:
- why
- to build a new vision of Reality, more unitary, broad, connected, profound to overcome the fragmentation of the current scientific panorama
- what
- TFNR
- Reality (Physical, Cognitive, Metacognitive Reality), Universe, Knowledge, what exists, what happens, how happens, etc
- how
- hypotheses
- formulate or resume hypotheses that can outline a research path that can lead us out of the growing crisis emerged in physics and cosmology
- new ways
- identify new ways, new conceptual and formal tools to push forward our knowledge of Reality
- next way
- contribute to the development of a new scientific paradigm, where simplicity, elegance, naturalness, mathematism are not targets, or essential tools, prerequisites for research, filters that direct its destiny.
- hypotheses
- who
- researchers with open mind, people who really want to know how Reality works (a real interest to understand how reality works)
Links to the tables of contents of TFNR Paper
