Beyond Einstein 1 1
Preamble
Beyond Einstein
At the end of the nineteenth century, most physicists thought that they knew just about all there was to learn about their subject. Newton's Mechanics and Maxwell's Electro-dynamics were two sure pillars on which the future edifice of Physical Science could be built. Further investigation and experiment would only be able to make their past work more exact and their physical constants more accurate. There were a few clouds on the horizon of an otherwise perfect panorama, but doubtless as in the past these clouds would be blown away and the established scientific ideas would be as true and as absolute as ever.
They did not blow away. Instead, new phenomena like cavity or black-body radiation and the photo-electric effect required for their explanation the restructuring of Physics to include Quantum Mechanics, whilst Einstein's Special and General Relativity Theory necessitated, in certain very high velocity situations of both the stellar and the subatomic realms, the abandonment or modification of classical Newtonian concepts of absolute space and absolute time. All motion was relative and space and time became terms in a
relational unity observed with respect to frames of self-and-other reference.
Einstein's Relativity Theory was pertinent to the study of motion and fields of force in Physics. His reasoning about space and time, about energy and matter, took him beyond Physics to Metaphysics and to seek a comprehensive understanding and expression of the unity embracing the laws of physical movement and all field-interactions in the Cosmos. Special and General Relativity in the physical world are projections of the self↔other Existential Relativity underlying all activity, both physical and psychical in the Cosmos.
There is a branch of Philosophy known as Epistemology, and its concern is with the study of knowledge as knowledge, with the act of knowing in itself, in its self. All knowledge involves self-reference relations which can be self-self reflexively or self-other transitively. I can reflect on what is happening inside my own self-consciousness. I can be consciously aware of my own breathing. My knowing self becomes both the subject and object of a self-self relation. Through my senses I can also become aware of persons and things outside my self. My subject self now is involved with an object distinct from and other to myself in a transitive self-other relation.
Many scientists, in an introspective mood, are curious about the actand art of Science itself. Any knowledge, without knowing its How? and Why?, its Whither? and Whence? lacks ultimate meaning. The childlike enquiring mind of a natural philosopher can neither wander nor wonder in a philosophical void. No Unified FieldTheory, no Theory of Everything, be it sacred or profane, can be complete without a rational and comprehensive solution to the age-old questions concerning the nature of that which has neither beginning nor end, yet in whose continuum there is infinite provision for both retrogressive change and progressive evolutionary growth. In this quest for the Holy Grail of Science, a modern restructured and consistent Set Theory of Unity and Infinity can provide a simple, non-technical and yet most meaningful revelation of this basic human intuition of an infinite beginningless past and an endless future in the field unity of the Cosmos.
Some scientists conceive Nature as self-organizing or as self-evolving and self-determining. Increasing numbers of holistic minds are attracted to the Gaian Hypothesis of Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock, with its concern and emphasis on global self-functioning-feedback-systems.Some cosmologists contemplate the Universe as self-energizing, as a self-other-sustaining whole. They are intuit- tively perceiving some of the most profound aspects of unity and infinity. Few, if any, undertake any linguistic analysis of what is implied in these self-reference terms. Though most academics do not try to investigate metaphysical matters, and consider themselves neither competent nor qualified to divine the inner mystery of the Self of the Cosmos, there is now being heard the new voices of an increasing number of scientists who view growth systems as a whole, as patterned and structured interconnected networks.
The immanent reference term of reflexive knowledge is the conscious self which can also become transitively aware of both the notself and the other. From this arises the whole range of phenomena, observed and classified from the duality of distinction and union. The new simple consistent Set Theory of Self-Other Existential Relativity developed within this book is based on the analysisof self-other distinction and union as revealed experiential- ly in the reflexive and-or transitive relations of all conscious human knowledge.
In the human self, all knowledge results from such self's conscious willed unity of both reflexive self-being and transitive other-self becoming. Toknowistobecome. The self as theknower becomes an intentional or psychical unity with its now-known other.
A Set may be postulated as a well-defined Unity of distinct Units in intentional Union, and such union is represented by confining the units in special bracket-like braces, { }. Sets only exist in the mind of a self who identifies its one self with some other or all others in the one act of knowing. While all language takes place in the continuum of a self's consciousness, it is relativistic and quantized, being made up of discrete particles, namely word-signs. A set, as a oneness of distinct ones in a one-continuum, epitomizes the wave-particle duality.
A relation is a set of ordered pairs. Knowledge is a self-self and-or self-other existential relation. The unity of knowledge in self-other existential relativity may be expressed as {Reflexive self-being, Transitive other-self-becoming}. Every set or unity, every conscious percept, every concept either contains its own self reflexively, or is contained by a self transitively as its otherself.
The new simple Natural Philosophy of Existential Self-Other Relativity elaborated in this book serves to illumine the path for the contemplation of the extraordinary unity underlying all knowledge. As a consistent Theory of Everything, it elucidates the ultimate rational unity of Philosophy, Mathematics, Science and Religion. Many ideas in the writings of popular apologists of scientific knowledge, are now rendered untenable and much current academic thinking is controverted.
Drawing near to the end of last century, it might well have seemed that there was nothing comparable to Einstein's revolution- ary revelations in Physics in store for Mathematics simply by resolving the self-reference storm in Set Theory's not self-containing teacup.
Self-Other Existential Relativity not only adds new insights to TheNewMathematics, but its conclusions challenge conventional Science and Modern Philosophy by rationalizing and harmonizing new resonances and fugal structures in all aspects of cultural evolution. Unity and Infinity share the self-and-other-containing-vessel of a simplified and resurrected Set of All Sets, a Unity of All Unities, The Holy Grail of existential self-other relational life.
Closely related to Cybernetics and Chaos Theory is the new discipline of autopoiesis or self-making, not self-making in the sense of self-creation from nothing, but in the general context of self-organizing interdependent feedback systems. Although this author's metaphysics of Self-other Existential Relativity is not yet general knowledge, there is a convergence of other studies, like bootstrap models, which echo implicitly this author's postulated first basic Law of Cosmology. All growth and subsequent sustainability in any evolved or still evolving system of the Cosmos is simultaneously reflexively self-functioning and transitively other-dependent.
Having expounded his basic revolutionary concepts of Special and General Relativity, Albert Einstein then spent most of his subsequent research exploring the topic of an enigmatic and elusive Unified Field. There are other approaches to this ultimate goal of understanding the Mathematics of the Universe. The themes in this book are developed with reference to the Self of the Cosmos as a maternal selfexistent selflife essence having life and existence from itself, from its very own self, ase, and hence called a-se-ity. Aseity’s being and becomingness can be expressed comprehensively in terms of a Unified Field of Self-Other Existential Relativity.
ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLEdares to controvert and pass judgment on much current academic thinking. It claims to be that consistent Theory of Everything anticipated by such respected writers of popular physical science as Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and Paul Davies.Their acclaimed best-selling books propose, but leave unanswered, questions and problems about the Whence? the Whither? the Why? and the How? of the world we live in. The answers they seek are to be found in this book.Using the very simplest non-technical language, the foundations of the Set Theory of Unity and Infinity are so restructured as to not only remove all teasing paradoxes, but also to provide a basis for a consistent mathematical expression and understanding of the self-other Existential Relativity which governs the Cosmos.
In expounding a definitive rational unity of Philosophy, Science, and Mathematics this book challenges and declares invalid and untenable any agnostic attitude of unknowableness towards the evolutionary self-other-revelation of the Self of the Cosmos. At the same time, it challenges and renders obsolete much past formal theological reasoning and teaching The author would like to think that it will help initiate a much-needed Scientific Reformation.
The motherless patriarchal same-sex sire-son expressions of monotheism are at a crossroads in cultural evolution. They must choose between either a retrogressive and childish fundamentalist worship of theirsupposedly inerrant Sacred Scriptures and Traditions, or by cutting their links with the past, be reborn in the womb of Aseity, the Mother Self of the Cosmos.