The Mindlike Machine E-Book

T G Henderson

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 510

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

A complete theory of everything for a non-physical universe.

A new paradigm-shifting model of reality derived from first principles.

Science / AI:

- A new theory of information and language.
- The universe is made of information, it is a simulation.
- A unification of human and computer languages, and all types of information.

- A computational theory of mind and a new mapping of the senses.

- Improved definitions for: logic, information, infinity, and many other concepts.
- E.g. all paradox removed from the concept of infinity.

Physics:

- Everything is made of light. A unified "aether" model of physics.
- New mechanical models of matter, charge, and magnetism.
- A new theory of light and energy, entropy and order.
- A new perspective on time, and on space / time.

- A four-primary model of colour and colour vision.
- The order of colours in the spectrum can be derived from logic.

- An interference model of the prism.
- The prism has never been properly understood.

Philosophy

- A definitive theory of categories (ontology).

- A natural explanation and definition of morality.

- Logical proof of "God", and an analysis of free will.

- Rediscovery of "Alchemy" and the original "Philosopher's Stone".

Leseprobe

The Mindlike Machine

A Universal Theory of Everything

T G Henderson

Copyright © 2024 T G Henderson Lincolnshire, UK

https://timhenderson.uk

ISBN: 9781068717901

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Edition: 1.0 Epub 5th July 2024

For those who value truth and reason as the highest principles.

With gratitude to the people who made it possible. My parents Phil and Gina, my brother James, my son Zachary.

Chapter 1

Introduction

A Universal Theory of Everything

Despite considerable efforts by many great minds over the years there is no sign that a substantial "Theory of Everything" (TOE) is about to emerge from physics. Whether one will ever be found, or is even possible, remains an open question.

Some believe it is an unachievable goal due to the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Even Steven Hawking, whose life was dramatized in the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything”, eventually concluded that one was not possible for this reason.

"Some people will be very disappointed if there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles. I used to belong to that camp, but I have changed my mind."

http://yclept.ucdavis.edu/course/215c.S17/TEX/GodelAndEndOfPhysics.pdf

This book claims that a TOE is possible and describes it in detail. However, it is not primarily a theory of physics, as Prof. Hawking might have imagined, but a truly universal one capable of describing all types of phenomena including “mind”, “logic”, and “information”.

Far from being impossible, or even particularly hard to find, the basic principles are somewhat self-evident, “hidden in plain sight” within the structure of information itself. It seems to have been overlooked, not because it's too complicated for the human mind to comprehend, but rather because it's too simple and its significance was missed.

Our route to understanding the physical world is not direct, but indirect, via our senses and thoughts. To understand the outside, we must first understand the inside, the world of concepts. We “understand” things via “descriptions” which are “ideas”; all knowledge is made of ideas. (Note: I'll be using "quotes" to mean "in the most general sense".)

If we examine “ideas” we find there is an underlying natural structure from which they emerge. This structure is the foundation of information, thought, logic and mathematics, and hence all conceivable things. We find a system which is generalised but strict, capable of defining all things precisely.

It will be argued that the theory described in this book is the only conceivable TOE, the only possible logically consistent explanation of reality. It may not be the answer anyone wanted, but it is probably the right one.

Non-Physical Reality

In contrast to the assumption of materialism which underlies much of modern science, this theory is founded on the assumption of idealism, that this is a simulated universe made of information, not matter.

Idealism proposes that matter is not fundamental, and I will argue it is generally equivalent to simulation theory. Either the universe is made of matter or information. These are the only two categories of “stuff” that have structure and can be built with.

Simulation theory is widely recognised as being a plausible explanation for our existence. As computer simulations of virtual worlds become increasingly sophisticated, the proposal that we exist within a simulation seems ever more reasonable.

Most religions view the universe as a deliberate construction and as an "illusion" or "sub-reality" of some sort. Any concept of a "Heaven" or “higher plane” of existence that exists "above" this one can, in the most general sense, be considered as being “outside the simulation”.

A theory of information

This theory can be described in many ways, but the simplest might be as a “theory of information”.

If this universe is “made of data”, then the “laws of the universe” are the same thing as the “law of information”, and that is simply “logic”. Logic defines which ideas are possible and can exist, and which are paradoxes and cannot. It defines the structure of information, which is “everything”.

The proposal that information has an underlying natural structure shouldn’t be particularly controversial. Logic obviously contains structure. It is also generally equivalent to “language”, which is highly structured. A universe made of information would necessarily be constructed from some form of language, using logic.

Even if the assumption of idealism is incorrect, and universe is made of matter, we can only understand matter via information, so we need to know how it works anyway. We need to understand how we understand things, and this theory at least helps us accomplish that.

Whether the structure of reality matches the structure of information exactly is something that can only be determined by experiment, but if this is a simulation the two should be identical.

In summary, if this universe is fundamentally non-physical then we should expect that a “theory of information” would also be a theory of everything. This book proposes that this is indeed the case. It is possible to formulate a TOE via this route and it's relatively easy to do. It appears to work well, providing improved definitions for important concepts, diverse new theories, and strong testable predictions.

The Universal Plan

The system described I call the "Universal Plan" (UP), but it has clearly been discovered before, prior to current recorded history. There are "echoes" of it still existing in the modern day in various places, but the underlying structure itself was apparently lost, until now. It wasn't the intent, but this investigation also appears to have been a rediscovery from first principles of what was probably the original version of “Alchemy”.

The UP is not just a philosophical theory, it has immediate practical utility. It can be applied as a method of analysis to discover how any natural system works at the most fundamental level. The book includes several examples of how this works in practise.

The theory proposes that the universe is made of “language”, but also that the idea of “language” is generally equivalent to “relationships”, “information” and “mind”. It describes a new universal model for language with a new system of word classes which allows a unification between human and computer languages, demonstrating that they share the same basic form. The proposal is that every phenomenon in nature shares this same basic structure, and we can correlate them all via this method.

At the end of the book, I apply the theory to the "semi-physical" phenomenon of colour. The results are compelling with the system boldly predicting a new four-primary model of colour vision. It suggests the eye works via a completely different principle than is currently assumed, and its predictions match observation better than trichromatic theory, potentially explaining many unanswered questions.

Because the UP is a generalised qualitative theory, this investigation touches on many topics. It makes significant predictions, each of which deserves more detail than I'm able to go into here. These sub-theories really need a more rigorous explanation, suitable for scientific journals. Hopefully that will happen in due course.

New theories

Description

A new theory of information and language

A universal structure for all types of language.

A computational theory of mind

The "Qualia Processor".

A unified aether model of physics

A unification of light, energy and matter. A new fundamental model of physical matter. An asymmetrical model of charge. Magnetism explained.

A new theory of entropy and order

A single principle which can account for all physical structure.

New theories of colour and colour vision

A four primary colour model of the eye.

A new model of the prism

Interference is the only mechanism of colour production

A new theory of the senses

There are only four fundamental physical senses.

A new theory of categories (philosophy)

A definitive ontology of fundamental categories.

A new theory of morality

A simple, natural explanation of morality.

A new theory of free will

A full definition of the principles / archetypes of choice.

A new perspective on time

"Time” comes in two forms.

A new understanding of space / time

Time is the dual opposite of space.

Improved definition for crucial concepts

"logic", “information”, “infinity”

The "Philosopher's Stone"

The rediscovery of Alchemy from first principles.

Proof of "God"

Logical proof of an intentional universal creator.

The Universal Plan (UP) is the foundation of a TOE compatible with the view of philosophical idealism, as it proposes the universe is fundamentally made of "ideas", not "matter". (Although, strictly speaking, ideas are a form of “matter”.)

It's a "universal" theory in three senses.

- It applies universally to all things. - It's about the universe. It explains what it is and how it works. - It views reality as made of "universals", abstract-concepts, information.

universal - applicable or occurring throughout or relating to the universe. - term applied to general or abstract objects such as concepts, qualities, relations, and numbers, as opposed to particular objects.

The purpose of this book is to give a concise overview of the basic elements of the theory, to provide a starting point for discussion. It's intended to make the argument as simple, clear, and unambiguous as possible, and to provide a foundation for further work. It can't answer all possible questions, objections, or implications, it'd be too long. I've kept it as short as possible and left out a lot of discussion because that is best dealt with after the whole theory has been explained.

The concepts that emerge from the investigation offer an unusual perspective on the world. It leads to an entirely different paradigm of thought, a new way to view reality. Because of this, it may not be immediately obvious what information I'm attempting to convey, and the mode of thinking may be unfamiliar. Hopefully all will be clear by the end though.

A theory of everything will inevitably be extremely generalised. It has to reveal commonality between the most disparate things imaginable, that is its purpose. It must somehow bring everything that exists together into one by finding what all things in the universe have in common.

This theory requires conceptually "zooming-out" of reality to its most fundamental, lowest-detail level. It involves thinking about things in the most generalised way possible, about archetypes and symbols, and very broad concepts. It does so in order to remove as much vagueness and ambiguity as possible from them, but it may take a while for the picture to emerge.

We need to find ways to talk about extremely generalised ideas with a reasonable amount of precision, and it may not always be easy to find the right balance. There's a well-defined structure underlying the theory but finding the right words to explain the fundamental concepts can be tricky.

This is only the first edition, and while I believe the basics of the theory are sound, it's still a work in progress and there's plenty left to figure out. Feedback is welcome.

Note, there is no mathematics in this book. The universe is made primarily from qualities and numbers are always a “measurement” of those, they are a secondary phenomenon. Mathematics is a derivative of the UP and all quantities are derived from qualities, as will be explained.

Assumptions

To undertake this investigation, it's necessary to make two basic assumptions.

1. Reality is knowable.

We must assume the universe operates according to a logical set of rules which we can discover. This assumption is the foundation of traditional science, so shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

- All things have a cause. All causes have an effect. - The universe follows logical, consistent, knowable laws. - We can discover those laws by observation and experiment.

If any part of reality operates outside cause-and-effect, or works by any non-logical mechanism, that would put it beyond our understanding. We must assume everything occurs by logical processes because logic is the only tool we have for understanding things.

Some interpretations of quantum mechanics say things can happen without a cause, but this theory rules it out as being conceptually impossible. Some suggest that causality is not fundamental, but this also leads to paradoxes, so again is ruled out by the UP.

2. Reality is made of "ideas" / "information".

We will assume that the reality we experience isn't made of physical matter but of "information". This assumption is equivalent to assuming it is a "simulation" of some sort.

From First Principles

Other than these initial assumptions the investigation relies only on simple evidence and concepts which are as close to being "objective" as possible. The original idea was to explore only basic concepts and logic, and to see what emerged naturally. It turned out that was sufficient.

To understand this theory, it's helpful to try to start out with a blank slate. Some "out of the box" thinking is needed, but the theory relies only on information it's possible to personally know, first-hand.

To do any kind of analysis we need two fundamental abilities. - The ability to observe. - The ability to reason.

Observation and reason are the first principles of all knowledge and science. We can only truly know things by observing and thinking about them ourselves, and everything discussed here can be "observed" first hand (i.e. with the "mind's eye").

The theory is founded on observations anyone can make, and logic anyone can follow. The reader can personally verify every part of the argument, although if you want to verify the part on colour, you'll need a prism too.

The section on language and word-classes is a bit complicated, but it is still simpler than the current paradigm because it has a clearly defined structure.

The "Mind's Eye"

We can view reality as having two basic parts. There's an "outside world" of solid, tangible things made of matter, and an "inner world" made of intangible non-material things like ideas and emotions.

The "mind's eye" is an "internal sense", or set of senses, we use to observe non-material things like ideas. When we imagine things, make plans, or try to solve problems, we are using the mind's eye for that work.

One of the main aims of this book is to reframe certain key concepts, which are currently considered "mystical" and "unscientific", into a down-to-earth form which people are familiar with. This means they can be objectively described, bringing them into the realm of science.

The "third eye" is the "mind's eye".

I suggest what we call the "mind's eye" in the west is identical to the concept of the "third eye" in various religious traditions. Thus, the idea is not at all "mystical", but somewhat ordinary. The "opening of the third eye" is then equivalent to contemplation, thought, thinking for yourself. It is the stage of life where we start to think for ourselves and become “intellectually independent”.

There is no need for some extra facility that a magical third eye might offer because the mind’s eye lacks for nothing. It is perfectly capable of answering all questions on its own, no magic is required.

While physicists investigate the structure of matter to try to understand reality, idealists must study the structure of ideas and mind to achieve the same goal. Physicists look outward into the world of matter with physical eyes, idealists look inwards to the world of thought with the mind's eye.

"All Models Are Wrong"

Some believe a TOE is impossible.

"A number of scholars claim that Gödel's incompleteness theorem suggests that any attempt to construct a theory of everything is bound to fail."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

I’m not sure how Gödel's theorems might be relevant to the UP, although it may be that the UP’s improved(?) definition of “infinity” obviates any problem. It’s a complicated issue that’s outside the scope of this book.

The concept of "paradox" is something the UP handles gracefully. There is a defined (and prominent) place for paradox in the framework, which means the system can contain it while remaining logically consistent.

This theory suggests that the paradoxes presented by Gödel may be category errors, as this seems to be what all such conflicts are, although more work is obviously needed on this. Certainly, some of the examples given of it are paradoxical (i.e. correlating real numbers with integers, which is impossible).

Some would contend that there is no right answer to the question we're asking, no perfect model.

"A common aphorism in statistics is "All models are wrong, but some are useful". This acknowledges that statistical models always fall short of the complexities of reality but can still be useful nonetheless. The aphorism originally referred just to statistical models, but it is now sometimes used for scientific models in general."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong

While this may be true in statistics, it's not always the case. Many software applications model real world processes perfectly. An online shopping cart models a physical one and is arguably much easier to use. Logical / mathematical models can fully describe reality because the foundation of reality is logic.

An Apology

I apologise in advance for any errors or other failings in this book, it is self-published. So, I ask the reader for a degree of flexibility and patience.

I am not an academic. I have a degree in biology, but my career has been in software. I'm sure there are, especially from an academic perspective, many imperfections in this book. It is intended for a more general audience, and it also needed to be simple enough to finish.

I would ask the reader to forgive any lack of academic prowess as a theory like this is unlikely to have ever come from academia. It's a long way from the current paradigm which doesn’t naturally lead this way.

The UP offers a completely different perspective on reality, but that is inevitable given the topic. It is necessarily a new perspective on the universe and the framework of thought itself. It is a new paradigm, a "new mind". It is simply not possible to get to it from within the current academic framework, because it is an alternative framework.

I’d suggest that the only place this theory could have come from is outside academia.

As a non-academic, my career doesn't depend on how well these ideas are received by the world. I am free to propose them without fear of losing professional credibility, or my salary. It doesn't really matter if this book is universally condemned, ridiculed, or ignored; but I do hope it reaches those who might benefit from it, however few or many that may be.

I'm sure this book could have been written in many other ways, most of which would probably have been better, but this is the version we're stuck with for now. I hope it’s good enough.

Overview

This theory claims that there is a universal, foundational, conceptual framework which exists in nature independent of the minds of mankind (the UP). It's a hierarchical system of broad archetypes, beginning with the most generalised concept(s) and progressing to more detail over successive levels.

This framework derives directly from the fundamental principles of logic and is a necessary construct that could not have been any other way. It is the natural structure of logic, information, language, thought and everything else. It’s a “map of logic”.

Reality is constructed from this "toolkit" of foundational ideas, it's like the "operating system" of the universe. The rules of mathematics and physics originate within this framework. Its ten different parts are the most fundamental components of the reality we perceive, and this arguably must be so for any conceivable world.

Ideas contain their own intrinsic logic and facts. If we analyse the contents of the most basic concepts, we find they have a story to tell. The world of ideas has its own strict order, and we can observe natural relationships within it. Ideas explain each other. The conceptual framework is self-referential and self-documenting.

The UP only deals with concepts. It defines what is conceptually possible, i.e. what ideas are logically consistent. The question of how well it matches physical reality remains to be determined. The evidence so far suggests it matches well but it’s still early days for the theory. It makes many bold predictions which are testable, so there are plenty of routes available for validation / falsification.

Extreme Abstraction

I would ask the reader to bear in mind that the fundamental concepts described in this book are the most abstract ones that exist. They are the broadest ideas it is possible to think and are more like extremely generalised categories. They can be difficult to understand for this reason.

However, they are very simple at heart. If the reader can overcome the initial hurdle of the deeply abstract nature of the archetypes being discussed, then everything should eventually make sense.

A Universal Language

The UP framework takes the form of language. It is a "super-language", the “prototype” or “template” of information, and it can be read as a story of how to create something. It seems to be the simplest conceivable way to create a universe from ideas, and nature always prefers the simplest solutions.

The purpose of language is communication, to allow concepts to be shared with other minds. If the universe is structured like language, then it is a form of communication, and we may be the "other minds" it is trying to communicate with.

The UP seems to be designed to be understood. It's so (relatively) simple to understand, so accessible to inquiry, it's hard not to reach the conclusion that the universe is designed to be understood by us, to explain something. What is it trying to explain?

The “God” concept

The system itself provides an answer. It begins with the concept of "one", which we find correlates with "consciousness". Consciousness is "the individual", it is "to be". "One exists" is the same as "I am". "One" is a super-concept. It contains all other concepts within it; it is "everything", "the whole", and therefore "God".

The universe exists to explain “One”, to give it context, i.e. something to compare itself against.

The universe can be viewed as an ongoing explanation of (at least) the following concepts. - What is "One"? The character of the first concept, "One" / "God". - Being and consciousness. What it is to exist. - Unity and division. Being “one”, or “many”.

The concept of “God” carries an enormous amount of baggage in the modern world and is possibly the most emotive subject of all. As difficult as it might be, to truly understand the UP, it’s necessary to leave all of that behind and approach the topic with an open mind.

The benefits of the UP to the religious community are many, as the UP explains the nature of “God” with more depth and precision than any other system and it proves the concept’s necessity. However, that exhaustive description does not concur exactly with any individual modern belief system.

The UP says God must exist (at least conceptually), but also that God is not as is commonly described.

Observer / Observed

At the top level, we can view the framework as consisting of two basic ideas, observer and observed.

1. "One": The observer / creator

Consciousness. "I am".

One is the subject of discussion. The thing that needs to be described. It is the "individual", the “soul” (sole, only). It is the top-level of the hierarchy, the origin of all concepts, the "creator of everything".

2. "Many": The observed / creation

Matter originates in duality / information. This is "creation", the "tree of life", the universe.

The following table shows the three most fundamental archetypes, and top two (“Heaven”) levels of the UP. The system is somewhat like a “fractal” with lower levels being a finer description of those above. As all levels refer to the top category, there is self-similarity between them.

Level 1 "One"

One, unity, single, alone, consciousness

The original observer, "outside" the universe. Observing all that is below (inside). The container / host / creator. "To be" / "I am"

Level 2 "Many"

The observed. The universe, "Yin"

Matter, solid objects, data, information, nouns “I …”

The observer in the universe: "Yang"

Spirit, abstract objects, instructions, verbs “… am”

There are two observer / observed relationships embedded in these three concepts, two different perspectives on reality. One observes creation as a whole "from the outside", Yang observes it from the inside.

We can demystify this relationship a bit more by comparing it to the following language construct:

“The dreamer (One) dreams (Yang) the dream (Yin)”.

This archetypal pattern of three words is the underlying form for the most basic sentence. It can be rephrased more generally as “I do stuff”. The words are representations of these three most fundamental archetypes.

I (One, consciousness) do (Yang, action) stuff (Yin, matter).

One: Consciousness, The Source

All concepts originate in the quality of “one” / unity. This is the root of the tree. It is a thing, an "object", a "noun". It's a non-physical entity that can be described. The idea of "one" is correlated with the following concepts.

One: single, singularity, unitary, unified, (the) whole, everything, consciousness, sole, only, alone.

The system starts with the most generalised concept possible, "everything", then that gets "divided down" into more and more detailed concepts as it descends through the levels. The framework begins as one thing with a single perspective, which then becomes many things with many different perspectives, via the process described.

While materialism says everything is “built up” from matter, the UP says matter is “divided down” from everything. These views are a natural duality.

"One" is the root of the language-tree and is the subject of it. The tree exists to explain it because it has no descriptive power on its own. This is a crucial observation:

You can't explain anything with just the concept of "one".

To describe things, we need to be able to compare them to something else. The concept of comparison is of great importance, closely linked to the idea of “description”.

All descriptions are comparisons.

Duality: Observer and Observed

Level two of the system is the number "two", duality. Again, taken as a whole, this is an object / noun like entity.

Two: duality, many, separate, divided, difference, comparison, conflict, cooperation.

One is unified, two is divided. Duality is the opposite of unity, and it is the origin of all information and "meaning". It enables us to begin to describe things, albeit in a very generalised way. This is the one-dimensional level of the hierarchy. ("One" has no dimensions.)

Duality is a complex idea. It inherently contains the concept of logic, and it hosts two distinct opposed sub-categories which are the foundation for all types of description. They are "Yin and Yang" (I’ll explain why).

Yin and Yang are the most fundamental “properties” that exist.

These two sub-categories contain (or “divide into”) lists of properties which describe One. Yang contains a list of properties that One has, Yin contains a list of properties One does not have.

All conceivable fundamental properties are dualities, and they all contain two parts which can be categorised into “unitary or multiple”, “one or many”, Yang or Yin. E.g.

One: first, leader, single, one, direct, straight, near... (Yang +) Two: second, follower, multiple, many, indirect, curved, far... (Yin -)

There is natural correspondence between the properties in a category, they are all related. If something is Yin in a relationship, it will have all the context-suitable Yin properties. They come as a package. This provides powerful predictive abilities to the theory.

Duality gives rise to seven more archetypes, and that completes the set of ten.

Ten "Super-Concepts"

There are ten distinct entities in the system. The following table shows what the UP looks like as a whole, as applied to human language (HL) and computer language (CL). It shows the relationships between all the concepts, and how they descend through four levels. It demonstrates that all languages are analogous, and have the same fundamental parts, corresponding to this structure.

Because of the self-referential, "fractal" nature of the system, the top two levels are categorised as Yang (“Heaven” or “Sky”), and the lower two as Yin (“Earth”). Yang is simple / spirit, Yin is complex / matter.

Level 1. One, unity

HL: "To be" / "I am" CL: The executive: "run", "exec"...

Yin - Matter, solid objects

HL: Noun CL: Data

Yang + Spirit, abstract objects

HL: Verb CL: Instruction

Earth --

HL: Determiners CL: Assignments

Water -+

HL: Adjectives CL: Functions

Air +-

HL: Adverbs CL: Comparison

Fire ++

HL: Questions CL: Flow control

Sex

HL: Prepositions CL: Math operators

Heart

HL: Time-Joiners CL: Code-blocks

Voice

HL: Conjugations CL: Logic operators

Seven Principles

The table below shows the final level of the system, the set of seven principles in the lower two levels above.

These are the “Earth” archetypes. They have the same (general) form as the human body. They also neatly correspond to the question words (“interrogatives”).

Archetype

Includes concepts like...

Language

1. FireHead

One: will, desire, intent, direction, purpose, motivation.Zero dimensions. Unity.

WhyQuestions

2. Voice

NOT: logic, reflection, inversion, choice, free-will, speech. Division

WhichConjugations

3. AirLungs

Two: duality, relationship. Distance, difference, division. Information, knowledge. Law, plan, path, design, rules, judgement. One dimension. Properties. Numbers.

HowAdverbs

4. Heart

OR: measured-time, alternation, repetition, cycles, right-angles. (Addition / subtraction. Charge / discharge.)

WhenTime-Joiners

5. WaterStomach

Four, the sinewave, circles, cycles, seasons, waves. Action, motion, force, power, ability, work, people. Two dimensions. Vectors. Complex numbers.

WhoAdjectives

6. Sex

AND: creation, (re)production, combination, mixing. "Earth in motion", so location. Multiplication.

WherePreposition

7. EarthLimbs

Seven / Eight. Physical matter, product, result, reward, material wealth. Three dimensions. Solid objects.

WhatDeterminers + Pronouns

Fire: Will

Each successive level provides more detail and specificity. Fire is like one but adds detail.

Fire is "will", "desire", a form of consciousness. Fire explains that a fundamental aspect of "one" is "will". One has desires, and indeed must have to explain why the universe would be created at all.

Desire is the motivator, the driving force of all acts of creation. The tea won't get made if no one wants tea. All creation begins with "Fire". It tells us "why" things are.

Voice: Reflection

Duality is created by the "reflection of one". One is "reflected" or "inverted" into its logical opposite, "many". This super-concept of "reflection" is correlated with the principle of logic / reason, and the question “which” implying “this not that”. It is the archetype of “choosing”, the logical NOT and “division”.

This isn't an object, it's a mechanism, a "verb". It has the power to "act on" the noun "one" and "transform" it into something else.

Air: Plan

Air is like Two, but more detailed. It is the super-concept of plans, designs, rules, and laws. A plan implies there is a right and wrong way of doing things. There is one right way to follow a plan, and infinitely many wrong ways.

Air corresponds to information that can be used for comparison. It tells us "how" things should be.

Heart: Alternation

The principle of alternation is the next mechanism / verb in the algorithm. It is associated with measured time, and cycles. It can be viewed as the principle of having two alternative paths to follow or alternation between two states.

It is by “alternating” the two halves of duality that the next conceptual object, and layer of the hierarchy, is created. It contains four sub-categories (as 2 x 2=4).

Water: Work

Four is a “duality of dualities”. This level of noun-like concepts are two-dimensional, and allow the description of work / action. For example, forces in physics are represented as vectors which are two-dimensional numbers.

This is the level where "all the work gets done" (by enacting the Heart mechanism). The four sub-categories of this level match the traditional alchemical four elements, which is why their names are re-used here.

Note again that the system of categorisation is self-referential. The four elements categorise themselves as the "Water" level of the hierarchy. This identifies their role.

Sex: Mixing

Mixing, combination and sex are ways to describe this principle, the third and final mechanism. It is by mixing the four elements from above that we obtain the final three entities (Voice, Heart, Sex), and the full picture of seven principles in the final level.

Earth: The Product

This is the final level, and it contains these seven basic archetypes.

While Yin is the archetype of "matter" in general, Earth is the archetype of “the product”, “wealth” and “value”; it is “things that matter”, “that which is desired”.

It is also the archetype of things that can be built on or used as a “foundation”.

This archetype explains that the “foundation” of reality is not specifically physical matter, but “things that matter” in the most general sense.

“Earth” also contains ideas such as “fully formed”, or “finished”. It includes physical matter and also “data”, which is “fully formed information” or “facts”. It's a more specific version of Yin, and it explains that Yin is the “object of desire”. “Yang desires Yin“. As a rule:

“The creator desires the creation”.

This list of seven super-concepts describes the "universal plan of creation", and we will explore how various natural phenomena correspond to it and can be better explained by it. It describes "what things look like on the outside", it's the basic blueprint for shape/form/matter. How things are made "on the inside" is a bit more involved, but this conveys the basic story.

These foundational archetypes are very generalised and broad. They are currently unrecognised by science as distinct entities, so we have no proper names for them. The labels used here are just suggestions.

Note that they correspond, in order, to the human body, as shown in the image below.

This ordered series of concepts is like a "template for everything", it's a single tool that can do every job, a language that can describe any conceivable thing.

This diagram shows the ten basic archetypes and their relationships.

This section summarised the system; the rest of the book explains how it can be derived from basic observation and reason, with some discussion of the implications.

Some Definitions

The whole purpose of this book and the theory it describes is to define concepts. It’s all about definitions, and there will be quite a lot of them. The book must attempt to describe the fundamental archetypes via as clear and unambiguous a path as possible.

How we define words is crucial to our understanding, misunderstandings are usually due to people having different interpretations of the same word. I’ll use plain language as much as possible and avoid jargon and unnecessary technicality.

Some definitions in this book are from online dictionaries and search engines, some are my own.

I'll use quotes around words to indicate I'm referring to the word in its most general sense. E.g. when talking about "distance", the quotes emphasise the abstract nature of the concept of distance. Also, I’ll use them to try to disambiguate where I feel it might be necessary. I apologise if it's annoying.

Although this theory argues that matter isn't the primary substance, I'll use the words "physical" and "material" to describe things which appear to be physical to us. While matter may not be the primary component of reality, it can still be considered "real", as real / illusion are relative concepts.

I will use the terms "reality" and "the universe" interchangeably.

universe - the totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos

reality - the totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence - that which exists objectively and in fact

This book argues from the idealist perspective: that the universe is made of ideas / information. Its opposite is materialism.

idealism - the (philosophical) theory that the universe is made of ideas

materialism - the theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena

The words “idealism” and “idealist” can be taken to mean “to idealise things” or “the belief that your ideals can be achieved”, but these are not the definitions used here. This book only uses the word to refer to the philosophical theory.

The word "idea" just means anything that exists within a mind, so "idealism" could be defined as "the theory that reality exists within a universal mind".

idea - something, such as a thought or conception, that is the product of mental activity - any content of the mind, esp the conscious mind

Mentalism is essentially a synonym of idealism, and physicalism of materialism.

mentalism - the doctrine that mind is the fundamental reality and that objects of knowledge exist only as aspects of the subject's consciousness

physicalism - the doctrine that all that exists is ultimately physical

This theory aims to dispel “mysticism”, so it needs a definition.

mystical - "spiritually allegorical, pertaining to mysteries of faith," from Old French mistique "mysterious, full of mystery"

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mystical

Mystical implies “mystery”, but that is “not-knowing”. The problem with mysticism is it tends to correlate “not knowing” to “spiritual”, which is a fallacy. It implies “mystery” is something “spiritual”, and therefore does not need to be rectified. It effectively elevates “not knowing” to the status of “God”, which is a paradox.

“Mysticism” in this sense conflicts with science. The only room in science for mysteries is as problems to be solved.

The etymological dictionary doesn’t link “mystery” to “mist”, but it seems possible these words are linked. A mystery is something that’s “hidden in the mist”.

Concepts

concept - an idea, thought, notion

What a "concept" is may perhaps not immediately obvious. We use them all the time, we take them for granted, but what are they?

Concepts are something like "packets of information". They contain facts, logic, and references to other concepts. They are "thought forms", immaterial entities made of information.

Perhaps the best way to visualise a "concept" is as an online encyclopedia page. A concept is just like webpage containing a list of facts, opinions, images, videos, and references to other related concepts.

I suggest that the world-wide-web architecture (that was enabled by the invention of HTML by Tim Berners-Lee) is a fairly accurate external representation of how thoughts are stored inside our minds. The internet has been so successful because it mimics the structure of the human mind so well.

(Note: the word "concept" is pronounced "con-sept", which would break down into con- {with} and sept {seven}. This isn't believed to be the etymology of the word, but it is interesting to note.)

Abstract Concepts

To describe anything, we must use abstract concepts (or "abstract objects"). All matter has properties like size, mass, shape, location, and may have others like colour, smell, texture etc. All properties are abstract concepts.

The idea of "size" is a feature of nature. It's not a material object, it’s a "quality" material objects have. It's an idea necessary to describe matter. Abstract concepts like this are the building blocks of our thought processes.

abstract - relating to or involving general ideas or qualities rather than specific people, objects, or actions - to make a summary of - literally to "bring out", as in to separate or extract the essence of something

Just as an abstract of a scientific paper is a summary of it, it's also an "extract”. It is a “distillation” of the “spirit” of the observed phenomenon.

abstract concept - a principle, or set of principles, abstracted from observation of matter / nature, or from other abstract concepts - a distillation of principles from a greater body of information

principle - essential quality; law, or rule

We refer to (some/all?) abstract-concepts as "abstract nouns".

"Abstract nouns represent intangible ideas things you can’t perceive with the five main senses. Words like love, time, beauty, and science are all abstract nouns because you can’t touch them or see them."

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/abstract-nouns/

The word 'abstract' can be taken to mean "difficult to understand" or "insufficiently factual", but this is not the meaning implied here.

The "Conceptual Framework"

The position of materialism is that abstract concepts only exist in the brains of people and not "out there" in the universe. In the idealist view there is a "world of concepts / archetypes", a "spirit-world", a non-material universe populated by the rules and principles that the material world is contingent upon. These are sometimes called “platonic objects”.

Numbers are "spirits". The number "one" is "just an idea". You can have examples of it in matter, but abstract concepts aren't made of matter they're made of "spirit".

In idealism such non-material objects are the building blocks of reality. Idealism generally implies that things must exist as concepts before they can be manifest into physical reality. The idea / thought must come before the act. (Just as a virtual reality must be programmed before it can be run.)

There are quite a few terms we could use to describe the system under discussion including: the world of concepts / conceptual space / conceptual framework / the UP. I'll mainly use the terms "conceptual framework" and “UP”, but I'll use others too for variety.

conceptual framework (my definition) - the hierarchy of fundamental ideas which exists in the "universal mind"

This theory also describes an ontology of abstract concepts / universals.

ontology - a rigorous and exhaustive organization of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations

The framework is not just a passive list of categories, it contains instructions as well. It's an "algorithm", a "program", a "story", a "template", and a "recipe".

algorithm - a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps

story - an account or recital of an event or a series of events

template - anything that determines or serves as a pattern; a model

recipe - a set of instructions for making something

Words Are Labels

word - a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning

A word is an arbitrary* label, used for communication, which represents something else. The word "dog" is not the same as the idea of dog, which is not the same as an actual dog. Words are labels which represent or refer to ideas or material things, they are not the idea itself.

actual dogs > idea of dog > word “dog”

The “idea of dog" can be represented by any words / combination of sounds, as long as everyone (local) agrees on it. A person who speaks Spanish has the same basic idea of dog as one who speaks English, but they use different words to describe that idea. The fact that the “idea of dog" is held in common by people, no matter what language they speak, is what allows us to translate between languages.

The extent to which different concepts are universal is a complex issue. There are some which do seem to be truly universal among all cultures and languages, and others that are less so.

Note, natural semantic metalanguage theory has attempted to identify the most elementary linguistic concepts that have the same translation in every language. "The natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) is a linguistic theory that reduces lexicons down to a set of semantic primitives."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_semantic_metalanguage

* It's generally assumed that languages are arbitrary because there are so many of them, and they differ so much, but the UP indicates there might be a "right answer" to the question of language.

Universals

"Universal" is a generalised term for all types of abstract concepts / objects, so called because they exist universally, at all times and locations, in the same (non-physical) form. There's currently no standardised list of categories of universals, this theory attempts to provide that.

universals - term applied to general or abstract objects such as concepts, qualities, relations, and numbers, as opposed to particular objects.

Materialism views universals as existing only in the human mind, idealism views them as having independent existence.

"The exact nature of a universal deeply concerned thinkers in the Middle Ages. The extreme realists, following Plato, maintained that universals exist independently of both the human mind and particular things. In nominalism universals are considered arbitrary constructions of the human mind. In conceptualism universals exist only in the mind, as concepts, but they are not arbitrary, as they reflect similarities among particular things. "

https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/universals

The UP describes an essentially “realist” philosophy, that fundamental universals exist independently of human minds, but it also says there’s a spectrum of “reality”. The duality of real / illusion is a sliding scale, not an on/off switch.

The foundation of reality is universal / general, but it tends towards being local / specific as it descends through the levels and grows in complexity. The UP is the most real set of universals, everything derived from them is less real / more illusory.

The UP says it is possible for human minds to discover new things and invent novel ideas. We can create new lower order / mixture universals which did not previously exist in the universal mind, and that is our purpose. The idea of “cheese sandwich”, for example, is a “relatively universal” archetype, invented by humans.

Life exists to discover and describe the fundamental archetypes from an independent perspective, and to invent new mixtures of them.

Information

A universe can, in theory, be made of information.

information - facts, data, or instructions in any medium or form

Information creates a kind of form or shape within a mind / memory. It in-forms, it "makes a form inside".

inform (etymology) - from in- "into" (from PIE root *en "in") + formare "to form, shape," from forma "form"

https://www.etymonline.com/word/information

Simplistically, when you see a new thing, you remember what it looks like; you form an image of it in your memory. The next time you see an object, you can compare it to your collection of stored images to see if it's similar.

Computers are the same, information is stored as physical shapes / forms on some kind of medium, usually as magnetic or electric fields. While information is an intangible thing it has a kind of form, or at least it can be represented by forms.

Information is always represented via "shapes", but the shapes themselves are not the information, they just convey it. For information to have "meaning", it must be "interpreted" by a consciousness.

Knowledge

I’d like to draw the following distinction between knowledge and belief.

knowledge - information we can demonstrate to be true (at least to ourselves)

belief - information we consider to be true but lack evidence for

Theory of knowledge, how we know things, is “epistemology”.

epistemology … is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

It’s a complex subject, but the basic approach taken here is that we can only have “knowledge” of things we have experienced directly. The strictest application of the rule would be: - I know I exist, and that ideas exist. - I believe the physical world exists, but I can’t prove it.

We experience concepts directly, by seeing them with the “mind’s eye, so they are the most “knowable” things. We experience the universe indirectly, via our senses, and they might not be telling us the truth. We might be in “the matrix”.

Strictly, I can only “believe” the physical universe exists as I perceive it. However, it’s reasonable to extend “knowledge” to things we experience via the physical senses, within the context of this reality. Our minds and physical experiences are the most “real” things. So, we’ll define knowledge as including the physical world.

knowledge - personal experience, both of mental and physical phenomena.

If we have personally experienced (or understood) something, only then can we say we “know” it. Anything else is a “belief”. This may seem an overly strict definition, but it has the virtue of being relatively unambiguous if we need to make decisions based on it. It is the same standard as we would find in a court of law where only witness testimony is considered evidence.

However, outside of a decision-making context, this is a sliding scale. Generally, we start out with beliefs and work our way toward knowledge. Science requires multiple evidences to support a theory. As a general principle though, it is “observation” that allows belief to become knowledge.

Only (personal) observation can provide knowledge.

Meaning

We need a working definition of "meaning".

meaning - the end, purpose, or significance of something.

If we know the meaning of something, we understand it.

understand - To become aware of the nature and significance of; know or comprehend

The word "signify" is a synonym of "symbolise", so we could say that meaning is determined by what a thing symbolises.

signify - to denote, to mean - to be a sign or indication of; suggest or imply indicate, show, mean, imply, convey, symbolise, denote, portend from Latin significare, from signum a sign, mark + facere to make

To symbolise is to "represent", which means to act on behalf of another. It's a relationship with another concept. A thing's significance is determined by what other ideas it links to. A full discussion on the concept of meaning could be a long one, but our working definition will be that it is a measure of the relationships between ideas, i.e. "meaning" comes from the connections (comparisons) between concepts.

This links to the observation we made earlier that all descriptions are comparisons.

Things only have a describable meaning via contrast with other things. To describe a thing, it must be compared to something else. Ultimately all ideas share some relationship with each other, just as all physical things do. Everything is related to everything else to some degree or other, and "meaning" is found in those relationships.

A dictionary is a book which describes the meaning of words by linking them to other words which have different meanings. It's not possible to define a word with a synonym.

Categorisation and Sets

The system this theory describes is a hierarchy of (something like) categories or sets.

category - a specifically defined division in a system of classification; a class

Some principles of set-theory could be applied here, but set theory is a bit over-powered for what we need. It's worth a mention though. The principles of set theory are used a lot in databases.

Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

Sets are collections, lists, categories, groups. These are all just different names for a one-to-many relationship. The underlying principle we're interested in is the one-to-many relationship.

The basic idea of set theory is quite simple, and we use them intuitively in everyday life. A shopping list is a "set of things I need to buy". A one-to-many relationship is like a "container"; it's the idea that one thing can "contain" a number of other things.

Sets are containers; they describe things by containing them. We can define a set called "all dogs" as including all dogs in the world. The "set of all dogs" is just an idea, it can't physically contain anything, but it can contain ideas / labels. The "set of all dogs" is a lot like the word "dog".

The Universal Set

In the system of classification being described, we need some kind of top-level category; a single container to hold all the other ideas. In set theory this is the "universal set", but things can get muddled because sets may be defined as "containing themselves", depending on which version of the theory is being used.

In set theory, a universal set is a set which contains all objects, including itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_set

In the system being described no set or category can contain itself. It's a strict hierarchy of categories, so this paradox doesn't apply. I'd argue that nothing can "contain itself” as that confuses container and contents, which is a category error.

A Theory of Categories

One of the most profound questions that has exercised the minds of philosophers throughout history is the question of categorisation. How should we categorise phenomena?

What are the most fundamental categories of things?

If we could categorise everything into a minimum number of "types" of thing, what would those categories be?

In ontology, the theory of categories concerns itself with the categories of being: the highest genera or kinds of entities. Various systems of categories have been proposed, they often include categories for substances, properties, relations, states of affairs or events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Categories

It's hard to overstate the importance of this endeavour. Categorisation is equivalent to understanding. If our system of categories is faulty in some way, then it will be impossible for us to understand things properly.

We understand things by grouping them into categories to which properties are assigned. If we miscategorise things that means we have assigned the wrong properties to them. If we do not have an objective system of categorisation then we will inevitably miscategorise things, thus fail to understand them.

In the absence of an absolute, objective, correct system of categorisation, we can have no idea just how wrong our understanding might be. There is no way to measure accurately if all rulers are faulty. We might think we're close to the truth but be a million miles away.

Categorisation is the foundation of understanding. If we can't categorise things, we don't understand them. A philosophical "theory of categories" is like a conceptual "theory of everything".

There have been many (wildly different) schemes proposed by famous thinkers from Aristotle onwards that attempt to answer this question, but there has been no theory proposed that seems to be truly universal. The UP, if found to be correct, would be the definitive answer to this question.

A Theory of Everything

What is a theory of everything (TOE)?

The predominant theory of reality in the world today is materialism, and this is reflected in Wikipedia's definition where it's defined as a theory concerned with matter only.

"Theory Of Everything is a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything

When physicists talk of a TOE, they mean a way to unite the systems of general relativity which deals with gravity, with the standard model which deals with the other three forces. In this book the term will be used in a more general way, this theory isn't limited to only explaining physical phenomena.

theory of everything (my definition) - a system of knowledge from which all natural phenomena can (conceivably) be derived.

The theory we're looking for isn't a unification of the two branches of physics but of all concepts and phenomena.

Both material science and the UP aim to explain how the universe is constructed and what it’s made from, so it’s reasonable to use the term in both contexts. However, physics takes mathematics for granted. A theory that can’t account for the existence and structure of logic and mathematics can’t be a complete TOE.

Chapter 2

Duality

The Origin of Information

If we're looking for structure in our conceptual framework there's one obvious place to start. All information is founded on the principle of duality, just as information-technology is founded on binary. The existence of duality (within the world of ideas) is an objective fact.

There is no doubt duality exists as a rule / principle of thought. Most other concepts depend on it, including logic and maths. It's a small piece of solid ground we can start to build on. Duality is the foundation of all conceivable thought or computation. All fundamental properties (like "distance") are conceptual dualities. In this section I want to highlight the foundational nature of this principle.

Before I began this investigation, I was quite sure I understood the number two. It seemed to be such a simple idea. It didn't seem like there was that much to know about it. I couldn't have been more wrong. The concept of duality is a bit like a doorway: on the outside it doesn't seem very large or interesting, but if you look closely it opens up, and there's a lot more to see inside than you might think.

Understanding the nature of duality is the key that unlocks all the answers we're looking for. It’s like a “gateway to knowledge”.

Oppose / complement

Dualities are fundamental abstract concepts / universals containing two opposing or complementary possibilities.

duality - the state or quality of being two or in two parts; dichotomy

dichotomy - division into two parts or classifications, esp when they are sharply distinguished or opposed

polarity - the possession or manifestation of two opposing attributes, tendencies, or principles

How many distinct components is the universe made of?

monism - the view that there is only one basic substance or principle as the ground of reality or that reality consists of a single element

dualism - the view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter

pluralism - the doctrine that reality is composed of many ultimate substances

This theory suggests all the above views have some validity depending on perspective, but level two is where things start to be explained. It's the beginning of knowledge because we can only know things by comparison with other things.

Duality As Relationship

Duality is closely related to the concept of "relationship". All fundamental properties are dualities and describe relationships (high/low, big/small, hot/cold, etc.)

relationship - the condition or fact of being related; connection or association

Everything that exists has some relation to everything else and can only be described by its relation to other things. It's impossible to define any idea without relationships. This means there can be no information without duality. Duality comes before information. It must exist before any other ideas can be defined, so it must be at or near the top of the hierarchy of ideas.

If information is "made of duality" which is "relationship", and the universe is made of information, then:

The universe is made of relationship(s).

The principle of duality is probably the Alchemical "prima materia". The "first and finest form of matter".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_materia

Duality In Language

The importance of the principle of duality in all forms of language, logic, and cognition can't be overstated. It underlies and enables all other concepts and even knowledge itself. Duality is like a "parent" concept from which other ideas can come.

From the article "Duality in Logic and Language" on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Duality phenomena occur in nearly all mathematically formalized disciplines, such as algebra, geometry, logic, and natural language semantics.

https://iep.utm.edu/duality-in-logic-and-language/

The article continues.

Duality phenomena of this kind are highly important. First of all, since they occur in formal as well as natural languages, they provide an interesting perspective on the interface between logic and linguistics. Furthermore, because of their ubiquity across natural languages, it has been suggested that duality is a semantic universal, which can be of great heuristic value.

A "semantic universal", is a concept which has meaning in all cultures.

semantic - of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language

Duality underlies everything that is conceptually meaningful. It's impossible to imagine any form of existence that doesn't rely on duality. The most basic form of reality must include the "observer" and the "observed", which is a complementary duality. We should consider the concept as more fundamental than any other.