REDUCTION TO BASE
COMPLEXITY —> SIMPLICITY
(Each level is dependent on and
comes from the levels below it.)
Consciousness
Brain
Cells
Molecules
The Atomic Elements
Stars
Gravity
Fundamentals Moving through Space
(Something like 48 “particles” and 4 forces.)
So, this is far from one thing.
(Note that consciousness cannot exist without a brain, and is apparently not some magic simple creative one thing but the ultimate complexity of all—and that fundamentals are very simple and tiny and almost uninteresting and become amazing only in their composite forms, for complexity rules although it uses the fundamentals that underlie all.)
Suppose we anticipate some unification and classify all particles as one thing that jiggles in different ways—I’ll call it matter: well, then there are still the 4 fundamental forces, movement, and space: 7 things.
Suppose further that we unify the electric force and the magnetic force into the electromagnetic force; then we have 3 forces, matter, movement, and space: 6 things.
Since the weak force disperses matter and the strong force stabilizes it, they are opposites and so it doesn’t seem that they can be reduced. However, let’s give out another break and suppose that the electromagnetic force facilitates movement and so not count movement twice. In addition, the electromagnetic probably defines space, so it’s good to leave it out. This leaves the strong and weak forces and matter in motion in space: 5 things.
And we won’t even count Time since movement gives rise to past and future, nor will I count “nothing” since it probably doesn’t exist. I’ll even not count the 11 dimensions of places (spaces) that some conjecture. Nor will I count gravity as a force since it may be a blend of the other forces. It’s hard to reduce any further because matter is the “what” that needs the “where” of space to place itself and move through, so they, too, are opposites, but I’ll even assume that matter is a clumpiness of space and get rid of space. 4 things: matter, motion, strong and weak.
However, just to be silly, but on the safe side, I’ll combine weak and strong since that’s what the TOE wishes to do, and furthermore I’ll get rid of that one force since it only acts on basic matter to build complexity like the atomic nucleus. So—2 things: matter in motion, although there’s really likely more than 2 things since I generously left out a lot of them.
So, matter and motion are the what-is in the motion of where-from-to that leads to past and future as a secondary effect—the then and the when. The who, namely us, is again just a complexity of matter in motion through the higher composites of it, but what a composite it is, for from then-when, what and where we get history (what-then), remembrance (where-then), wishes (where-when), and progress (what-when) and all the other higher combinations that can be seen in my TOE of Being and Reality thread:
It is tempting to proclaim the One as something magical, but it can’t be, for it would just sit around not moving and not mingling. And it couldn’t be a complex mind thing since that wouldn’t be fundamental, but made of parts.
So, now, even though I’ve cheated and left much out, the most things we can get down to is 2, so now we can say it takes two to tango and that the great Two is the basis of everything!
(Consciousness may seem like some ultimate ground of existence, but it isn’t, although it serves as the ground of our human being: It is a subject (only) that is the observer of experience—which in turn is an object of thought or feeling that is currently on the “mind”, having surfaced there, pretty much unwilled, from the brain (also called the subconscious), which contains memories, associations, and what we have learned, as well as what we sense, all being known as the “self” that we have come to be.
Consciousness is a ground to the figures (objects) in our “stream” of consciousness,
that is, it is the “water” and experience is “merely” the brain’s perception of itself on a global basis so that all our “little brains” that vie for attention can have access to it for reconsideration and also so it can be fed back into the brain for future reference.
Consciousness is needed for attention and learning. Afterwards the subconscious, the brain, takes over on automatic pilot.
Thoughts come mostly unwilled and sometimes unwanted as they collapse from all the superposed scenarios of consequences that the brain goes through before presenting the result to consciousness a half a second later. The more we’ve learned, the better it works.
Yes, consciousness is needed, but it’s like the movie screen on which the main event—life—is played, so, experiencing life is primary to consciousness.)
OK, we’re still not done, for where could the 2 (really more) things have come from? They could have always been around, but that’s unlikely, although passable. They couldn’t have come from other things since that would make them composite. They couldn’t make themselves, for they have no parts. Could there be a reality generator that spits out particles and forces at random, some of which worked and some of which flopped? Sounds complex, not fundamental, but what about a time when there were no constraints, all options open, everything-at-once, like possibility?. What was to stop existence from forming?
Could it be that since “nothing” can’t exist (for even if it could be there, it can’t be there) and since something does indeed exist, since we “are”, that something had to exist, since there was no other choice, and that something is two or more things that had to be and were made out of the possibility and the probability of their being?