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A Recipe for Universe
Wherein are thoughts that will almost certainly classify their author as a full-fledged Space Cadet
c. 1998 Callisto Radiant (T. Roberti)
1900 words
I. Introduction.
The separateness of "things" in Universe is an illusion. "Things" exist by virtue of folds in the "stuff" of Universe. Since we perceive only a cross-section of Universe, many of the connections between "things" are not immediately apparent. However, these connections can be deduced by following the lines of "fold" which we can perceive, and extrapolating beyond our perception into the realm of the abstract. This is the quest not only of math and science, but of myth and magick as well.
I have been writing in the abstract, placing words in quotes to indicate a generality of meaning. (Don't worry, these words will be defined.) By dwelling in the general, we risk groundless abstraction; however, we gain the advantage of being able to apply our results to a plethora of situations. The essay/fiction that follows describes an attempt to define a "recipe" for "folds" which create the illusion of separate "things."
A warning for positivists:
This is a myth, because it deals with the limits of human comprehension and what lies beyond. As such it contains several logical errors. I know they are there. They are intentional. I do not believe they detract from the usefulness of this "recipe." Logic is a path that leads not to the ineffable, only into itself.
II. The Nature of "Things"
Where to begin? The story that follows is random-access; there is no proper place to begin. However, my conception of "thing" seems a likely place.
A "thing" in my usage is anything that can be discerned apart from that which surrounds it. This means not just physical objects, but ideas, words, emotions, images, concepts, or symbols, as well as systems of physical objects that act as a coherent, synergetic whole. A "thing," at least in our cross-section of Universe, is made up of information, matter, and/or energy.
"Things" come into existence by virtue of what precedes them. Most "things" are created by other "things," as will be described below. When we cannot perceive what comes before, creation looks to us like paradoxical self-creation. The Big Bang is an example of self-creation. Another example, less spectacular, is the constant spontaneous creation-destruction of particle-antiparticle pairs throughout Universe. From formless energy comes movement, form, substance, and information. While there has been no "creation" in the ex nihilo sense, there has been creation of "thing" from "no-thing." An image that came to mind when I first examined this idea was that of a non-existent Uroboros coming into existence by regurgitating its own tail. The Qabalists describe this with a sacred formula:
Ain --> Ain Soph --> Ain Soph Aur
Nothing Without Limit Infinite Light
What is really happening, of course, is the entrance into our cross-section of Universe of a "thing" not previously perceived. Often the movement of a "thing" into our slice of Universe means the transmission of information describing how to "fold" the "stuff" of our slice of Universe into that "thing." "Stuff" "folds" immediately upon being shown how, because this is the mechanism of existence. Not only does nature abhor a vacuum; nature is frugal and opportunistic in the extreme.
If the "stuff" of our slice will not "fold" in certain ways, then information describing "things" requiring any such "fold" will be meaningless, in our slice of Universe. Such information will appear contradictory or paradoxical. Thus it would seem that the types of "things" that can exist within our slice of Universe must adhere to certain criteria.
III. The Template.
The criteria that are necessary for existence in our slice of Universe give us, in effect, a Template. This Template, once defined, can be used as a Name for our slice of Universe, because it identifies our slice and all the "things" within it. The description of the Template is also a definition of "thing," at least within our slice of Universe.
The Template is as follows:
1. Every "thing" has a beginning and an end. Before its beginning and after its end, a "thing" is not manifest, though its information may still be present. We can view these as Source and Destination.
2. Every "thing" has at its heart a "cooperative struggle." If that "thing" leaves a set of changes in its environment, a "path," if you will, through this slice of Universe leading from its beginning to its end, such a path can be analyzed as the product of that "cooperative struggle."
How can these two criteria be justified?
1. Every mythical/conceptual schema of our slice of Universe gives it a beginning and an end (with the possible exception of the "steady-state theory," which no longer enjoys much favor). We simply cannot comprehend our cross-section of Universe NOT having a beginning or an end. This may be anthropomorphosis, extending the fact that humans have limited existence to all "things" in Universe. In any case, it is a conceptual limitation we must work within, unless it is one we have learned to transcend. If our slice of Universe has a beginning and an end, there can be no "thing" within it that is beginningless or endless.
2. This is the tricky one, and will comprise the remainder of this essay.
How can we know these are the only ones? I can't prove that these are the only two. So far every other possible criterion that I have considered has reduced to a corollary of the first two. There is nothing magical about these two. Should a third criterion appear, it will naturally be added to the Template.
The "cooperative struggle" has been identified as a holy idea in many belief systems: the interplay of yin and yang, of good and evil, of life and death, of order and chaos, even the "material dialectic" of Marxist philosophy. The fact that these "currents" are struggling is obvious; the fact that their struggle is "cooperative" (in that it leads to creation and destruction of new "things" that fall in the path of a given "thing") is in most belief systems an esoteric heresy that lies hidden below the surface.
For example, in the dialectic of good and evil as manifest in Christianity, the story given to most is that the two are utterly opposed. The heretical idea that Jesus and Satan both work in the service of God, however, lies hidden and is not immediately obvious. If Satan is not serving some purpose to God, who is omnipotent, Satan would cease to exist. God is the Source of both Jesus and Satan, and the Eschaton is their Destination.
In the life of a mundane "thing," we can identify two opposing currents that balance each other during its lifespan. Some examples:
1. A star is powered by hydrogen fusion at its core, a force pushing every molecule in the star outward from its center. However, every molecule in the star is also subject to gravity, a force pushing every molecule inward towards the center of the star. When these forces cease to balance, the star either novas or collapses in on itself... leading to the end of star-as-one-thing and the beginning of dust cloud or dwarf as another.
2. Wherever the ambient temperature is lower than the dewpoint, water vapor will condense into liquid form, usually small droplets. If these droplets form above the ground, as very commonly happens, they will fall, unless there is a draught of air strong enough to keep them airborne. This is how clouds are formed. Clouds will exist so long as up-draughts are enough to counter the force of gravity acting on the water droplets.
3. Sex, as the reproductive mode of life, provides the interplay of masculinity and femininity, resulting in the culmination of birth.
4. Physical objects organize into atoms, molecules, stars, planets, galaxies, etc., by virtue of physical forces. Some of the energy that goes into the creation of a "conglomerate" object is information. Information equals complexity. While the presence of a given complex physical object leads locally to more complexity, all physical objects are constantly subjected to the anti-information process of entropy. The interplay between complexity and entropy gives us the multiplicity of physical objects we encounter.
5. Our biogenic field exists by virtue of the interplay between life and death. "Life" is a complex process that involves metabolism and reproduction. Death keeps the set of living things from imbalance - it allows for evolution, it allows for the continued life of other organisms as well as the life of newborn organisms, it provides a counterbalancing force when an ecosystem wanders too far from equilibrium.
Cooperative struggles allow for more complexity - more information. The arrival of new information in our slice of Universe is the same as the creation of new "things." This is the "path" referred to above: a wake of "things" created as a result of the cooperative struggle. The creative force of one "thing" is the cooperative struggle of another.
All of the examples given have been dualities. Is there anything magical about duality? Can there not be a three-way cooperative struggle? Absolutely. They are just somewhat more difficult to describe. The most obvious example comes from Buckminster Fuller, who describes the triangle as the most stable form of nature. Also, in a more abstract realm, there is the government of the United States, made up of Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. Add the de facto Bureaucratic branch, and you actually have a four-way cooperative struggle.
Can we find a thing that cannot be described as the interplay of opposing forces? The Tao, perhaps. However, the Tao, by definition, is ineffable, and therefore exists outside our conceptual limitations (and therefore outside our slice of Universe). (I will restrict my comments on Tao, however, lest someone think I know little of it!)
IV. "Layers" of "things."
Just as written words rest on a page, every "thing" exists in some sort of environment from which it has been differentiated. This is not a third criterion, since the interplay of "thing" versus "environment" is a cooperative struggle. Carrying the metaphor further, the words on a page interact with the other words that page - they cannot occupy the same space, for example (even if a form of writing existed which allowed two words to be superimposed, what would result would be a new, separate, single, word). These words combine to form sentences and paragraphs. However, these words do not interact with, say, the air molecules hitting the page. These molecules exist on a different "layer," in a different "medium," as it were.
We can think of it this way: nature is frugal and efficient, so we find "folds" upon "folds." We might even assume that "stuff" "folds" infinitely, so there are potentially at each spot in Universe an infinite number of "things" overlapping on different (but not the same!) levels.
V. The "Folding" of "Stuff"
So what is the "stuff" that makes up "things" in our cross-section of Universe? In a word, energy. Einstein proved that matter is energy, this is the heart of his Special Relativity. Movement is energy. Information is energy. The "folding" of "stuff" is really the transformation of energy from one form into another. The "stuff" of our slice of Universe "folds" into a new shape when a particle-antiparticle pair pops into existence.
VI. The Template Model and the Qabalah
Already I've compared the Template to the T'ai Chi, the figure illustrating the eternal interplay between yin and yang. However, other parallels can be drawn between the Template and well-known schools of mysticism.
One well-known schema is the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The Tree of Life can be illustrated as a more elaborate version of the Template, with several "sub-Templates" within. A synopsis (or, indeed, any written description) cannot do the Tree of Life proper justice. The reader unfamiliar with the Tree of Life is referred to my links, where a Tree of Life link can be found. The Tree of Life can be thought of as a collection of "vibrations" or emanations from God that inform Universe. These vibrations, 10 in all, are displayed as "Spheres" on a figure which looks vaguely like a tree (even though the "root" is at the top).
One way of understanding the meanings of the Spheres is to take the Tree as a process, a flow of creation from the "top" to the "bottom." Kether, the primary source of All, is the first Sphere, and represents the creative source of Universe. Below it are nine Spheres arranged in three "couplets" and three "singles." Much has been written on the counterbalancing of those vibrations shown as couplets. The three on the right are often collectively called the Column of Mercy while the other three have been collectively called the Column of Severity. Two of the "singles," Tiphareth and Yesod, can be thought of as "culminations" of the couplets immediately preceding them. At the same time, Tiphareth is thought of as a mini creative source adding to the creation of the Spheres that follow it. The last Sphere, Malkuth, which represents our physical realm (and the "elemental" forces surrounding it) is in this sense the culmination of the Tree's work.
VI. Afterthoughts.
None of the ideas I've expressed here are new. In fact they are among the oldest known to humankind. This formulation took eight years to develop to this point. It is a work in continual progress. It is my hope that it will prove helpful to some in their search for understanding. This brief synopsis has been placed here to allow input from others; should any reader have a criticism, however big or small, please tell me.
Bibliography and suggested reading.
Davies, Paul. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. New York: Touchstone Books, 1988. Introduction to chaos theory and self-organization, highly recommended.
Denning, Melita, and Osborne Phillips. The Apparel of High Magick. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1975. Contains a description of the Qabalistic Tree of Life and is an excellent introduction to magickal symbolism.
Fuller, R. Buckminster. Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking. New York: Collier Books, 1975.
Sheldrake, Rupert. The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. Sheldrake is a proponent of the controvercial idea that once nature "learns" how to solve a problem, these solutions are stored "collectively" in fields of morphic resonance, allowing lifeforms unrelated genetically to draw from this collective memory.
Copyright notice.
This is an original work by Callisto Radiant (T. Roberti) that has been placed on the Web for public use. Callisto Radiant may be reached at Sabrin1315@aol.com. You may share it, copy it, print it, etc., so long as this copyright notice is shared, copied, printed, etc., along with it.