EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CERTAINTY
By Kenneth C. Eng
When searching for truth, the most pertinent problem one must grapple with is refutation. That is why certainty is an essential issue to be addressed before any meaning can be derived from existence. It was certainty that the philosopher Rene Descartes was obsessed with, and it was this mania for sureness that drove him to doubt everything. However, while he asserted that his own consciousness was a truth, he never really went much farther than to say that everything else could be questioned. Little was he aware that there are entities in reality that must always be constants. Seventeen such elements are the most primary requisites or reality. These include: logic, consciousness, causality, a timeless genesis, a temporal genesis, destiny, time, space, spacetime, relativity, macrocosm, microcosm, quantum mechanics, uncertainty, unconsciousness, symmetry and asymmetry.
The first truth from which all others are drawn is LOGIC. Whereas inductive reasoning, the use of past events to presuppose the probabilities of future events, is by nature imperfect and incapable of attaining certainty, logic can never be defied. One can say that induction relies on the use of induction to be proven, and hence relies on unfounded circular reasoning, but one cannot declare that logic requires itself to be proven and is then equally unfounded. If one were to state that the only truth in the universe is the infinitely reflexive acknowledgement that there is no truth (similar to Descartes’ statement that it is possible to have a triangle that does not have three sides), then by sheer reason, I can declare that such a statement can only be made through the use of logic, which contradicts the very essence of an infinitely recursive nihilistic conjecture. Accordingly, logic is the only thing that can be proven true through circular logic, as it is in itself logical. Triangles will always have three sides and 1+1 will always equal 2.
By logic, one can deduce that CONSCIOUSNESS is the second constant in existence. There would be no universe if there were no consciousnesses to observe it, since quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle state that objects must be observed in order for them to be real. Thus, all physical entities would not be if there were no living beings to see, hear, taste, smell or feel them. That is not to say, of course, that awareness is confined to carbon-based organisms, for there is no way to disprove that inanimate objects do not have their own form of sentience. Rocks, wood, air, and even computers may even be able to experience the cosmos, thereby acting as observers and creating reality by feeling it. We as humans may not be used to visualizing the potential mindfulness of a chess piece, but perhaps we could view inanimate objects as having their own forms of genetic codes (the physical laws that govern the atoms that compose such objects) and better place into perspective the idea that the double helix does not necessarily have to be the only conduit to livelihood. There is also no way to controvert the possibility that ideas and abstract, immaterial things might be in some way alive, with their own genetic codes that are built solely of thought. In fact, since everything, including DNA, nebulae, atoms, molecules, etc., emerged from the Big Bang, it would make perfect sense that if we are aware, so must everything else be. So, the universe would not need DNA-based organisms to exist, as everything else in the cosmos was spawned from the same conscious beginning. Nonetheless, even if all things besides humans were not conscious, it would still not contradict the simple actuality that sentience is an inherent attribute of existence.
The next two imperative certainties are the beginnings. CAUSALITY implies that every event has a cause, and thusly, everything that happens is bound to a chain reaction that spans the entire universe. Like logic, causality operates on premises and conclusions (which are analogous to causes and effects), except that causality is based on time, and logic is based on mathematics and deduction. One might argue, ala Neils Bohr, that there are an infinite amount of causes in the universe, thereby rendering causality ridiculous. However, it is ridiculous in itself to assume that every event has an innumerable sum of antecedents, for paradoxes of infinities (ie. Zeno’s paradox) can be resolved by applying limits that everyone learned about in high school. Ergo, even though all entities are essentially built of an endless number of points, it is reasonable to view them as wholes (essences) that cannot truly be given exact measurement, yet can be understood like billiard balls on a cosmic pool table. Each one acts with determinable effects that can be noticed, but not quantified in absolute mathematical precision. Albeit choice is a factor amongst conscious things in the celestial sea, it too is trapped within this inescapable network of domino events that has already been preordained at the origin of the cosmos, when the very first events of the universe set off all future events. Therefore, there must be a meaning to life, and a start to time’s flow. A steady state universe would be impossible because it violates the laws of causality that operate similarly to and are as necessitous as logic.
One might then ask the age-old question of what happened before the Big Bang. If there was nothing before it, then it too must violate causality, right?
WRONG.
The Big Bang was a temporal origin that sparked the initiation of time. However, it is not to say that time was a requisite unto itself. The only other possible way for the universe to have emerged was through a non-temporal cause, an event that held an ultimate purpose and thereby manifested the meaning of life. This TIMELESS GENESIS would be an idea, thus linking logic (the un-timelike brother of causality) to its sibling, causality, and starting the universal timeline. Consequently, there were two dawns to existence Ð the Big Bang, which restricted all beings to DESTINY, and the timeless beginning that contains the sought-after purpose that every intelligent human seeks.
The certainty of TIME can be shown by the fact that causality is an innate part of the cause-effect consistency that makes the universal machine operate. Since causality is a definite element of being, and time is required for causality to turn, time is a constant. Events that obey causality also have to have SPACE in which to occur. Although a mind does not require a body, matter does need volumetric substance to establish shape, size and locality. Since the “physical” (as far as one can define the terminology) universe cannot exist without space, space must be real. Even entities in one’s imagination have spatial parameters, except that those parameters are also imagined to an extent.
Furthermore, space and time are linked in that an observer’s state in existence changes the fabric of what is. Relativity generally relies on induction or experimentation to be true, but even without empirical evidence, it is still correct to say that one’s mental conception changes the way the temporal and spatial dimensions flow. For example, most adolescents conceive five years to be a very long while, yet as people grow older, years seem to be perceived as shorter. This happens because the apprehension of time’s motion is determined according to the countless factors that constitute the beliefs of every human. In this case, the most prevalent constituent that causes older humans to perceive time in a more contracted way is the fact that they have lived longer, and thus, every passing year seems less significant. Likewise, if one were to move at the speed of light, light years would not seem so distant, whereas to an ordinary man, a hundred miles may sound far. This clearly proves that there is a link between volumetric and temporal parameters, as a man who can think and move at light speed would find spatial stretches to be more retrenched than a man who ponders at the velocity of a dolt. Therefore, it is absolute that SPACETIME is relative to one’s internal mental and physical states and is malleable according to RELATIVITY. Note that relativity in this sense does not infer the laws of conventional special and general relativity, which assume quite blindly that traveling at the speed of light would cause time to dilate (conventional relativity is littered with unfounded physical constants obtained through induction).
Relativity only applies to one side of the universe Ð the MACROCOSM that is the large-scale world a conscious observer perceives. To us as humans, this would refer to buildings, houses, snakes, chessboards, etc. The other side of the universe, the MICROCOSM, is also in our perception, but it is the small-scale world that lies at the heart of every modicum of spacetime and matter. For instance, imagine a granite stone and all its surface imperfections. Imagine trying to catalog each and every one of those grooves and specks to total, flawless accuracy. The task, obviously, would be impossible, as there is an infinite amount of detail to everything that is real. Further, no matter how far we peer into something, there is no way we can determine whether or not fundamental particles like atoms, quarks and photons really do compose the entities we experience in our world. Who is to say that even the smallest of the known subatomic elements is foundational to matter? Perhaps the reason why physicists in the past few years have been finding swarms of new elementary particles is that there are an endless number of levels to which one can descend in size. Therefore, the only true and ultimately simple fragment of matter and space would be a zero-dimensional point (Also note that size would be relative, and that a macrocosm would still exist even if you were as large as a galaxy. The new macrocosm would just be on a larger scale).
These immeasurable points would be impossible to observe through a microscope, as they are literally infinite in smallness. However, what is apparent in all objects of the macrocosm is a level at which detail begins to get blurred and uncertain. One cannot determine, no matter how long he or she stares, how many bumps and grooves adorn a slab of granite, because even the best human eyes (or any eyes for that matter) still bear a degree of incertitude in their field of view. No one can access the infinite amount of detail inherent in all things, since the detail is not needed when it suffices just to gather overall impressions of objects. Besides, it would take a limitless amount of memory to encapsulate every bit of data the universe potentially has. So, this incertitude within our vision would represent the microcosm, which happens to obey the laws of QUANTUM MECHANICS that scientists have derived from experimentation and mathematical calculation. In quantum mechanics, everything is chaotic and ephemeral, things come out of nowhere, and particles can be in many places at once. Since one can never be certain of anything in the microcosmic realm, it is logical to state that the nature of quantum mechanics applies to reality.
UNCERTAINTY is in itself a certainty because anything we are not looking at may as well be embodied as a chaotic, wavelike mass. As the Uncertainty Principle states, it is possible to occupy multiple states of being when not observed by a conscious organism. Therefore, anything our senses cannot touch is intrinsically uncertain, including what is behind this paper/computer screen at the moment.
In addition, quantum mechanics appends another aspect to logic, space, time, and consciousness. These four elements of reality have their own quantum levels where infinity causes them to take on different, microcosmic forms. Logic’s uncertain angle would be the countless values that lie between any two integers (0 and 1, for example have limitless fractions between them). Time, if reduced to its quantum phase, would be similar to the 0 th Dimension, except that it would embrace all potential timelines that can be lived out, much like a record of all possible chess games that can be played. Patently, though, the number of possible realities is endless and the number of chess games is astronomical, but finite. The final microcosm would be the UNCONSCIOUS, the uncertain condition ingrained in the very depths of the conscious. The unconscious, even though it can never be overtly observed by the conscious, is by nature enshrouded in total mystery. There are ways, however, of deducing what its ultimate purpose is.
By the laws of causality, everything in life has a meaning. In fact, even the first law of thermodynamics demands that energy in a system cannot be destroyed or created, only converted. Similarly, events in the universe or multiverse should be kept in balance by laws of conservation that prevent any occurrence without a purpose from existing. After all, if something does not affect the universe, then why should it be classified as extant? It is okay to have “dark matter”, but “doesn’t matter” is just unacceptable because it simply cannot be real if it has no affect on the real world. Accordingly, there is a balance or a SYMMETRY to the universe that maintains an equilibrium for all things, material and immaterial. Events and choices are like energy and matter, so it makes sense to view the harmony of causal proportion to that of thermodynamic proportion.
Symmetry in this sense is not exactly defined as the property of an equation to remain unchanged when its components are shifted. Regardless, it is still related to this quest to find a balanced equation. Having a causal function to everything in a line of unbreakable destiny is akin to having a perfectly beautiful equation, a goal that physicists strive for. It eliminates the need for nihilism and can give everyone the ease that the purpose of life is out there to be solved. Furthermore, symmetry is accepted by most physicists as an imperative requisite to a final comprehension of the cosmos and is even an explanation for why the anomalies (zeroes and infinities) of superstring theory cancel out so impeccably.
Thence, the meaning of the unconscious can be understood in that everything in the universe is connected and that the unconscious is the dominant controlling factor in the cosmos. The interconnectedness of all things is evident when one considers that everything emerged from a singular point in time and out of time (the non-temporal beginning). If we as individuals are cognizant, then it stands to reason that everything from which we evolved Ð apes, eukaryotes, DNA, primordial soup, stars, and even the Big Bang itself should also be sentient. Therefore, the sentience of the beginnings implies that there is a supreme force guiding everything in existence and that inevitable destiny is wrought by the choices of that “supreme being’s” mental quantum level. Our own mindfulness is logically attached to this godlike entity and therefore, the unconscious is the directing rudiment that commands fate. The only reason why the conscious is separated from the unconscious is because sentience requires choice in order to exist (Without choice, we would not be able to think, therefore we would not be). That is why humans generally cannot see through time and view the inevitable destiny that will be later described in this tome.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that the universe is symmetrical in its causal side and maybe in its thermodynamic side, it is still asymmetrical in the fact that there is differentiation amongst things. Although water and mercury are both made of an infinite number of points, they are disparate by their essence. If space and time were wholly symmetrical, there would be no matter and no forward movement of the temporal dimension. Trees, rivers, landscapes and stones would not exist. Consequently, in order for change to occur, there must be an unbalanced face to the cosmos, one that allows for things to be different. This is not to say that I am contradicting myself, as the unevenness can be equipoised in a symmetrical arrangement. Therefore, there can be balance in unbalanced things. Symmetry and ASYMMETRY coexist. Even a balanced equation may have dissimilar variables within itself, and the coveted solution to relativistic quantum physics, if it exists, might have irregularities to it.
Thereupon, there are certainties to existence that can be proven through reason alone. The truths of logic, consciousness, causality, a timeless genesis, a temporal genesis, destiny, time, space, spacetime, relativity, macrocosm, microcosm, quantum mechanics, uncertainty, unconsciousness, symmetry and asymmetry are invincible and cannot be disproved, as they operate entirely on irrefutable premises. However, this is not the end what can be known, for knowledge without meaning is pointless. One must make extrapolations from these certainties, for only then can the true meaning of Ultimate Reality be elicited.
