Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:05:31 +0100
>I'm new so I don't know if you've discussed this before, but I'll just
>throw it out. The fight and balance between Dynamic Quality and static
>Quality has resulted in an evolution of values, so if we extrapolate
>this process backwards in time, what can it tell us about the beginning
>of existence? Just looking for some thoughts. What do you think?
>
>Martin
Welcome to the squad Martin!
I have some ideas on the beginning of existence which I dont think I have
shared with you all on Lila Squad before. First a very short creation myth.
"In the beginning there was nothing, and this nothing was Dynamis - it was
pure potency. For Nothing entails no limits, it is Apeiron - the limitless,
and puts no bonds on becoming. In this primeaval Dynamis anything was
possible, all sorts of possibilities pushed forward towards existence. And
amongst all this possible, one possibility sprang into existence, out of
Dynamis, and became actual. Other actualities may have arisen before this,
only to fall back into the nothing it came from, but this was the great
divide, the divide that gave rise to our world."
This touches upon a range of old philosophical questions, and I will adress
some of them here.
'Nothing' is not barren, the old saying that 'no thing can arise out of
nothing' is plain wrong, it belongs in a deterministic worldview which does
not fit our living world. Trying to grasp why this is so, one can look at
the Aristotelian terms of possibility and actuality, and ask what is the
meaning of these terms. The possible is something which is not yet actual,
but which has a potential for becoming actual. Now, where does this
potential come from? The mechanistic worldview has no answer but from
'causes', from something that was already there. And hence there is no such
thing as possibility in a strict deterministic view, there is only
necessity. It is evident that such a worldview cannot account for creation
and evolution, it cannot say anything on the becoming of new, on that which
does not owe its existence to already existing causes.
But can we give another answer? I say that the possible, the germinative
nothing, is part of that answer, because the possible is that which is not
bounded by the actual. When throwing a die, an actual die, this actual die
put limits on the possible outcomes of the throw. The possibilities are not
determined as in a causal process, the possibilities are what is left
outside of that which is determined, the possible is that which is not
prevented by the actual. Having thrown the die, and a six being the
outcome, all the other possible outcomes are lost, actualization shuts the
door on counterfactual actualities as far as that specific creation or
'quality event' (? - Bo) is concerned.
In the evolutionary perspective, speaking of the beginning of existence,
the first actualization (the one which stayed on, until now) shut the door
to a multitude of other possibilities, like when we pick a random point on
a circle. I imagine this first actualization is connected to what the
physicists call the total mass or total energy of the universe, - or
perhaps what they call c - 'the speed of light', but probably I should
leave that to physics. Because physics in some round-about way is closing
in on the same view, the physicists call the 'choices' involved in these
actualizations 'the breaking of symmetry' and it is the very same thing.
Yet there is something which most physicist overlook, - every actualization
forms the ground for new possibility as well, and this is the source for
the evolution of our complex world. This is where relation and motion
enters the picture, and where the whole story becomes easier to imagine and
understand. Whith the parting of one thing from another, as when a
homogeneous gas breaks into gravitational entities, the possibility of
relations between entities arises, first of all the relations of motion. I
a simple dyadic spacial relation of two entities moving towards or from
each other, we have not yet the complete basis for a notion of time. Only
in tryadic spacial relations can we speak of time, because time is the
measure of one relative motion with another. This is the simple view of
time, but our actual world shows to be a little more intricate, because the
possible interactions in space shows a constant speed of propagation
through space, known as the speed of light.
I think I should stop here, to ask if you find that I have answered some
parts of your question, and if not, if I have at all been able to get
across to you. As I have said I find it very difficult to speak of these
metaphysical matters.
Regards
Hugo
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