[Benedict Broere]

Within the WEBSITE INTRODUCTION criteria are given for any presented TOE to be a real TOE. Within LINKS and also within THEORY CHARACTERISTICS I have presented my proposal for a TOE, but I expected more response and critique it gained thusfar. There for I will take on the challenge myself in looking at how far my proposal – aos – can meet up with the criteria given in the website introduction.

First criterium:
A TOE Quest is a quest for the discovery and understanding of the Theory of Everything -- The deepest possible theory of all of reality; a theory that underlies all others and does not require or even allow for a deeper explanatory base. This website is dedicated to that quest and views the Theory of Everything in its largest context. In addition to the unification of the fundamental forces of the universe, additional areas of reality and understanding must be unified to bring about a complete explanatory framework capable of encompassing all forces, all matter, and all realms of existance.

And criterium 2:
The Theory of Everything requires that the four fundamental forces of the universe be unified. These forces include gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. The fundamental forces must be unified to explain, in principle, all physical phenomenon in the universe, from the birth of the universe to its demise, and ranges from the smallest subatomic particle to the vastness of the cosmos.

My defense:

With aos I try to make plausible that it is possible to generate out of it, via variation, all information that is necessary for this universe to be, beginning with it’s composing idea’s analysis, synthesis and omega, determining respectively wholes becoming parts, parts becoming wholes, and their cooperation generating entities/omega, growing in complexity and quality, thus giving this universe it’s general structure of parts and wholes and direction, starting with the Big Bang, growing into increasingly more omega, to the ultimate omega, for then ending in the Big Silence, the thermodynamic death.

Subsequently I think it is possible to use these composing idea’s of aos to invent the basic geometrical forms and mathematical operations, thus generating mathematics in general, and thus making it able to determine the laws and constants that apply for this universe.

With this I have taken in a very basic standpoint.

I also introduce a fundamental creativity that to me is necesarry to do all the inventing and realising of universe, and that is I think a fundamental and all the main forces encompassing force, that is able to think and learn and express itself in quarks, atoms, molecules, etcetera, and that probably is fascinated by expressing this universe.

If someone feels irritated by me speaking of a ‘fundamental creativity’ , then of course feel free to not belief in it, but understand you then have to belief all this universe realised and organised itself, which to me represents a higher improbability then the former.

Is everything explained with this? The ascent of stars and starsystems? The rise of the cell? The rise of Homo Sapiens? The future of mankind? Etcetera. No. But it’s a start I think. Taking on this reality at it’s deepest and most general level. Concerning the birth of information. And the appearence of universe.

Criterium 3:
The explanations generated by the Theory of Everything will be deep and wide enough to answer the questions pondered by philosophers throughout the ages. To scientifically predict outcomes of experiments is not sufficient. The Theory of Everything must provide deep explanations of reality, mind, consciousness, and offer answers to the philosophical questions of our day.

What are the main questions of philosophy? This is already a question on which ten philosophers will give you ten answers. Still, it might all come down to this: What is going on? And why?

Remaining within the aos-perspective I would say we are dealing with a process of growth, of increasing diversity and complexity, with entities gaining new emergent properties when reaching higher levels of complexity, and with us humans popping up somewhere in this universe, being enforced to at least try to understand the basic workings of this universe, in order to at least maintain ourselves in this universe.

And ‘the why’, the meaning, the purpose ? It seems this universe is some kind of creative enterprise we can participate in. ‘We can’, we are not obliged, it’s a door, an open door, a possibility.

Criterium 4:
Our biological limitations of perception and judgement of our physical world need to be understood so we can know the noumena beyond our senses and the fallacies in our judgement. Our biology determines how we accept or block new ideas, thoughts, and the very paradigms needed to understand reality at its deepest levels. We must overcome our physical and psychological limitations to successfully pursue the Theory of Everything. The Theory of Everything will explain the biological basis for human cognition, consciousness, perception, emergent behavior and much more.

Criterium 5:
No aspect of reality should be excluded from the domain of the Theory of Everything. The reality (or lack of) behind religious foundations, the paranormal, and various anomalies must be explained. Other dimensions, realities, and non-corporeal existence require scientific explanations if they exist. If the universe was created through intelligent design, the Theory of Everything will explain how this came to be. All religious and spiritual based discussions at ToeQuest must be backed up by rational thought, reasoned conjecture with a willingness to follow the truth wherever that may lead.

When explaining aos I also very much lean on the research Roger Sperry did on the human brain and consciousness, concerning analytical cognitive functions and synthetic cognitive functions. He won the Nobelprize for it and his work these days is present in every book on psychology.

His work makes it possible to determine a pattern of psychological evolution within the human history, starting with the hunter-gatherer, all the way up to the contemporary cultures, most interestingly all the way up to the modern mind of western culture, a pattern of increasing analytical powers and of creativity in general.

On a very basic level it all has to do with the increasing complexity of culture. And this within the synergetical working together of geographical, social, psychological, technological and paradigmatical factors. It seems the hunter-gatherer had not such strong analytical cognitive powers as for instance students these days develop when attending a university study. The difference is the huge increase of complexity in cultural expression in the past ten thousand years.

The hunter-gatherer had a animistic worldview, lived in small groups, understood himself as being part of that group, and part of nature itself, a living nature – thus showing strong synthetic cognitive powers. While modern man, western modern man, understands himself as being an individual, and tends to explain nature in terms of ‘use’, ‘matter’ , ‘mechanism’, etcetara, thus showing stronger analytical powers. The former is synthetically thinking/experiencing things together, seeing them as a whole, while the latter is setting things apart, isolating them, fragmenting them, thus feeling himself an individual, thus feeling himself distinct to the environment, groups, traditions, nature, and turning nature into for instance an object of use.

I’m putting al this in a bit of extreme for the sake of explaining and getting things clear. The concrete reality is more complicated.

Inbetween this leap of synthetic-dominant hunter-gatherer to analytical-dominant modern western man, we see also an increase of creative powers. The study of creativity suggests creativity has to do with the cooperation of analytical cognitive powers and synthetic cognitive powers. For instance a composer needs to analytically be able to be aware of all the details of the music he’s composing, but he also needs to synthetically be able to fit all this into the larger patterns and the pattern as a whole that makes out his composition. There for, the increase of complexity in cultural expression not only stimulates and is possible by increasing analytical powers, but it enhances also an increase of the cooperation of these analytical powers with the already present synthetic powers, thus enhancing an increase in creativity. Which shows itself in an increasing ability to generate for instance architecture, advanced means of agriculture, communication, fishing, hunting, sailing, etcetera. While it also enhances inventing more complex and abstract forms of worldview, for instance concerning a God (Abraham), a Logos (Heraclit), Yin-Yang (China), Brahman (India), Idea’s (Plato), and concerning the organisation of nature (Aristotle).

With this of course the suggestion rises that this aos I introduced as principle of information standing at the basis of this universe, is also determent for the workings of our brain and mind. We analytically can distinguish the parts of this world, synthetically understand the connecting patterns and wholes they appear in, for creatively be able to generate our concepts, our art, our cultures and worldviews (omega). Therefor it seems only thus we are able to be in this organisation of parts and wholes that makes out this universe, as it is based on this ultimate principle aos.

Of course lot’s of questions remain to be answered. And I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers. With this aos I only try to propose a general structure that seems to be determent for the way this universe is, and for us in it.