[not2too]

A Koan:
If nobody ever asked, "What is the TOE?" would there be a TOE?

The ToeQuest is an infinite game, a never ending story which unfolds in our narrative universe, our dream-state, our bubble of reality. A mad tango with the One and Only…flirtation…seduction…seeming conquest…abandonment…just to begin again. An vast game of hide and seek with the Source.

A whirling undulation to the mad gypsy violins (and their vibrating strings!) of The Carnival…The Masked Ball, at which we are all unmasked at midnight!

Since "we" are really God playing a multitude of characters and we are the ones trying to figure out the TOE, this Theater Of Everything is actually God playing…feigning ignorance of what's happening...forgetting the game as part of the game. Physical Theories Of Everything will change, evolve with our instruments and devices. It has been said that if we look for a new subatomic particle, for instance, the universe will accommodate us and serve one up. It has been said that science is like fashion, changing from season to season. Science is a mytho-poetic story which will change as belief systems change. The Crack In The Cosmic Egg… as Robert Anton Wilson said, "Reality is what you can get away with…"

“Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.”
Alan Watts

We are Don Quixote-like in our pursuit of the TOE. Tilting at TOEs instead of windmills. Our quest is like a quest for the Grail into the slippery sliding quicksand swamps of our "rock solid" physical reality… like trying to tie down a greased pig…it constantly gets away from you.

In The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age, John Horgan discusses not only the supposed demise of belief in the scientific project, but also the end of the effectiveness of scientific method for accounting for the nature of things and producing a Final Theory. Most practicing scientists think this is hogwash and still believe that, indeed, a Final Theory is possible.

"Final" theories will be approached, scientists will continue to probe with ever more powerful tools and, invariably, the universe will oblige, serving up ever smaller, further away and more bizarre discoveries which will, invariably, result in either re-thinking the "Final" Theory or throwing it out altogether in favor of something new.

As Albert Camus said in The Myth Of Sisyphus in 1942:
"You describe this world to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multi-colored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. I have the time to become indignant? You have already changed theories. So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art."

"When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry."
Neils Bohr

Maybe we need an aesthetics of the TOE instead of an equation.

So, is a TOE possible? Yes…but not via the sciences. The universe is ultimately unfathomable and known only to God, who has also created the game in which scientists are unwitting characters actually being "played" by God. So what kind of TOE can we know? A paradoxical one…"fleshed out" and agreed upon in our consensus reality, but presented from the non-dual perspective. One in which consciousness is primary.

I know that many ToeQuest members want equations, but if our "physical reality" - dreamstate - samsara, etc. is an illusion, a fiction, then any TOE based on physics will also be a fiction…will it not?

Further...
not2too

[N0B0DY]

Perhaps there IS no TOE, only the quest of discovering why there can't be.

[dleviwing]

not2too;
Your hypotheses have no value!

[quanta07]

Originally Posted by not2too I know that many ToeQuest members want equations, but if our "physical reality" - dreamstate - samsara, etc. is an illusion, a fiction, then any TOE based on physics will also be a fiction…will it not?

Simply put............NO
consciousness is the illusion.......Our enviroment is real........no illusions
Noted environmental behavior stems from confirmed and reconfirmed observation accepted as law.
The behavior is real and can be mapped to an equation. modeled, reproduced at will.

The quest is for knowledge and understanding. To raise ones self up from ignorance is a driving force in some. Knowing the unknown, not to be God's.

In this quest, there must be a separation of what is mankind(mind)
and what is enviroment(light,mass,energy, etc.)
While the understanding of mankind is an interior quest, the understanding of nature is an exterior quest.
If you mix 'interior' quest with 'exterior' quest, you have biased and distorted your current and future understanding of BOTH.
one more observation.......

The universe is ultimately unfathomable and known only to God,...

This statement is false............Q7

[N0B0DY]

Observation is based on consciousness, though, Q.

[quanta07]

Originally Posted by N0B0DY Observation is based on consciousness, though, Q.

Observations are based on reasoning and thought.....
Again, mixing 'consiousness' into the quest for understanding environmental behavior is a mistake.
Consciousness provides us with the tools of reasoning and thought.

Consciousness, ah yes, and what a beautiful illusion it is.........Q7

[not2too]

Originally Posted by N0B0DY Perhaps there IS no TOE, only the quest of discovering why there can't be.

I think that there is a TOE, but that the assumptions, frames of reference and methodologies that have been used so far to attempt to grasp it are the wrong ones. An entirely new approach is called for.

Best,
not2too

[not2too]

Originally Posted by dleviwing not2too; Your hypotheses have no value!

My "hypothesis" is not yet a hypothesis but rather some suggestive observations and fragments. Please wait for the hypothesis before you dismiss it out of hand.

All the Best,
not2too

[not2too]

"While the understanding of mankind is an interior quest, the understanding of nature is an exterior quest.
If you mix 'interior' quest with 'exterior' quest, you have biased and distorted your current and future understanding of BOTH.
one more observation......." Q7

"Interior" and "exterior" are not two...its an illusion. There is no way to separate them.

Best,
not2too

[N0B0DY]

Originally Posted by quanta07 Observations are based on reasoning and thought..... Again, mixing 'consiousness' into the quest for understanding environmental behavior is a mistake. Consciousness provides us with the tools of reasoning and thought. Consciousness, ah yes, and what a beautiful illusion it is.........Q7

If illusory consciousness provides the tools, then consciousness is prime...the tools are thence illusory, and so must be the reasoning and thought.

The point would then be that the assessed reality, based on the above reasoning and thought, would either have to be illusory or otherwise unprovably objective imo because the only way to prove it is through a conscious means.