TFNR - About this work

Origin

It is difficult to describe the origin of this work. Everything comes from a great interest in knowledge, science, philosophy, humanism, and a thousand other things. A curiosity for Reality as a whole, a passion especially for physics and cosmology, amazed by the infinite complexities that Nature has built around us and which fill us with wonder.

Lots of observation, reading, studying, thinking, thought experiments, a great interest in knowledge management and organization, in traditional knowledge systems, philosophies, religions, esoteric schools, and so on.

A tendency towards syncretism and cultural contamination, the desire to extract the knowledge necessary to explain the world and its laws, to distill useful information to describe and explain the functioning and evolution of reality. Reality! The whole, the Universe in evolution.

Aims and intentions

The main purpose of this work is the construction of a new System of Knowledge, a reference framework that can accommodate traditional and modern knowledge, philosophical and scientific contributions, a unified vision that can lead us towards a wider and deeper understanding of Reality.

I hope that this work can help and contribute to:

• give a broader and deeper vision of Reality and how it functions
• formulate new hypotheses on the fundamental aspects of Reality
• activate new lines of research, both theoretical and experimental
• refocus science research on the fundamental questions with a more productive approach: less math, more ideas! Nothing against math... But now it's too much... Ideas first!

Scope of work

The scope of this research is Reality as a unity, in both of its domains that we can ideally identify, the physical and the cognitive.

In this paper I have focused on Physical Reality, from the infinitely small, the object of study of physics, to the infinitely large, the perspective of cosmology, the Universe in evolution.

In a future work I will focus on the cognitive side of Reality (perceptions, sensations, emotions, thoughts, logic, cognitive models and systems, etc., the objects of the cognitive activity of living beings and automata (software artificial agents, AI, etc.), the domain of representations of Reality), and on the relationship with its physical substrate / counterpart.

Development

This research, driven by curiosity to know and by dissatisfaction with most of the common explanations provided by academic science, has developed over a long period of time starting from some particular ideas:

• the need to shift attention away from particles (discrete structures) to something more fundamental (a universal continuous field in which discreteness emerges due to physical evolution),
• the need to overcome the consolidated atomic models, such as that assumed in quantum mechanics,
• the need to find a different, a deeper meaning for terms like space, time, mass, motion, charge and spin and the related phenomena in term of something more fundamental,
• the will to redefine concepts like nothingness, emptiness, vacuum, and to explore a world in which the speed of light (the velocity of propagation of causality) in the most elementary field, while representing the limiting speed, is not a constant, but depends on the organization, on the structure of the field itself and of the fluctuations that represent its dynamics at the most fundamental level.

Not yet another attempt to create a TOE, a Theory of Everything, but an effort to build a broad framework that can accommodate, hold and integrate:

• new ideas alongside consolidated theories, perhaps suitably revised and expanded,
• a new definition of Reality (beyond both quantum and classical/relativistic realism) and of what can be considered real: real is everything has existed, exists, can exist or exists as a possibility. Physically real is that which had, has, or can have a physical existence, as a less or more complex organization of / in the Elementary Field and all derived physical fields under the Action of the Fundamental Force and all related derived physical forces. Cognitively real is everything else (the perceived and the perceivable, thought / thinkable, imagined / imaginable, past, present and future, factually and/or logically true or false, what is real according to the general definition above, net of what the is real in the physical sense)
• a decisive revision of the language and terminology used to describe Reality, of key terms such as Source, Force, Field, Creation, Existence, Event, Action, Evolution, Essence / Form, Relation, Information, Energy, Structures, Waves, Particles, Interactions, Forms, Universe
• a coherent Ontology, Phenomenology and Dynamics of Reality, with coherent and logically consistent definitions of the respective objects of study, Entities (Sources / Forces and Fields couples), Events and Relations, Processes
• fundamental principles, which, while expressing themselves in infinite different ways at different Levels of Reality, represent its fundamental functional unit
• a formative (creative and evolutionary) Source (the Fundamental Force / Elementary Field couple), which manifests itself in a cascade of Derived Sources that operate by creating Events and Relations to form all the physical and cognitive Processes that incessantly form (give form) to the infinite complexity of Reality
• a causal and variational (space-time) structure, expression of the two aspects of the Source, the Force (Cause) and the Field (Variation), central pillar of the Process of Formation of Reality
• a multilayered structure of Reality, from the fundamental, the elementary, the Primary Source, up to the Forms, the entire Universe in evolution, through the Action (the layer of Events, of the distributions of the fluctuations of the Elementary Field up to the fluctuations of the complex fields and of the related forces that we observe at work in Nature), the Information / Energy (the level of Relations between Events, from correlations between the distributions of the fluctuations of / in the Elementary Field up to the correlations of the distributions of complex field fluctuations and related forces), and the layer of the related Structures of Information (the layer of Processes of Events organized by Relations representing the structures of ordinary matter and energy (waves, particles and their interactions), and again the structures of dark matter and energy (gravitational waves , halos of dark matter / dark energy that make up the cosmic web)

Precisely the multilayered structure of Reality, with functional levels characterized by greater causal and variational complexity, which evolutionarily emerge from more elementary levels, in an incessant and infinite Process of Formation, together with the coexistence of continuity and discreteness (discrete structures, such as waves and particles, which emerge from, act, propagate, interact in continuous fields), and the evolutionary coexistence and nuanced superposition of different forms of causality (from quantum uncertainty to the deterministic certainty of the classical physical world, up to the emergent finality in the cognitive functions of living beings) represent great difficulties in the search for a unitary and integrated description of natural phenomena, for a final, all-encompassing equation capable of describing all the interactions that describe all the phenomenological Reality.

The very search for such a "global / universal" equation denotes a partial and reductionist vision of Reality, a lack of a vision of synthesis able of embracing the infinite complexity of Nature, which includes not only quantum fields, and what we call fundamental forces of Nature, but also the turbulent life of the fields at Planck scale, commonly seen almost as a nuisance which complicates the already complex calculations of the equations of the QFT - the Quantum Theory of Fields, and then the countless complexities produced by the cosmic evolution and from the biological one, the latter so influenced by the first, and finally by the cognitive explosion, so little reducible to the dynamics of physical interactions, theater of a mysterious interweaving between quantum uncertainty, classical determinism and finality oriented towards the causal permanence of the living.

Reality is so multilayered and complex, even at what we think are its most basic levels. It is difficult to get unity in multiplicity, to arrive at a synthesis in a world dominated by analysis.

This requires the adoption of a systemic method, well-structured, not at all simple, able of balancing synthesis and analysis, holism and reductionism, humanism and scientism. A complex and delicate research, at the same time attentive to details as to the overall vision. Aware of the need for the rigor of the scientific method and the falsifiability of theories, and at the same time of the need to open up spaces of ideation and creative imagination capable of embracing immensely distant dimensions and complexities, an imagination that cannot be without limits, but must constantly deal with observations and results of experiments.

Ideas / Hypotheses / Proposals

Let's here summarize some of the most important ideas, hypotheses, proposals presented in this paper, aspects that play a central role in this System of Knowledge, unconventional concepts, which together with the general structure of this theoretical framework, in my opinion, can stimulate research towards directions capable of taking physics and cosmology beyond the current crisis / impasse, towards a wider and deeper Knowledge of Reality:

• Reality as a whole, a unitarian process, the one, a unity: a process that from the Source leads to the Universe in evolution, through Action, Information, Form

• Reality as the result of that same process, the Process of Formation: a unitarian process that manifests itself in two complementary sub-processes, Creation (the production of Events, Action, the Existence) and Evolution (the production of Relations, Information, the Essence / Form)

• Reality is incessantly created and re-created in a continuous "flow of time", or better flow of Events (not in the sense of an absolute time that marks the events, but a relative time, a sort of universal causal interaction of all the proper times of all the point-events in / of the Elementary Field, which we represent as the infinite and eternal unlimited space-time, with its relative dynamical metric)

• Everything is "Entities that produced Events organized by Relations in Processes: in other words, Sources (Forces / Fields couples) that produce Action that takes form as Information, which gives form to the Structures of Information and the incessantly evolving Forms that make up the Universe, the whole Reality

• Everything is relative: everything that exists is relative, no absolute dimensions, no absolute space or time

• Everything evolves: everything evolves, even the Source, the absolute, the unitarian primary entity, which manifests itself as a couple of complementary sub-entities, the Fundamental Force and the Elementary Field, from whose inner interaction everything is created and evolves

• Reality has/is a multilayered existential and evolutive structure: identification of a fundamental / elementary level of Reality (direct emanation of the Source and its fundamental dynamics, produced by the Action of the Force on the Field)

• The same structure of Reality evolves: from "Nothingness", to "Emptiness", to "Somethingness", always in its "Wholeness"

• Central role of Relation, or better "correlation" in the organization of Reality: Relation is the foundation of Information, as the correlations between the distributions of the fluctuations of / in the Elementary Field at Planck scale represent the most elementary form of Energy (the most elementary form of Physical Information)

• Everything is Information, or its elementary physical form, Energy: In-Form-Action, the Action with a Form, the Form of Action... the time derivative of Action... at the most elementary level of Reality, the scheme of organization (Process) of the correlations (Relation) between the distributions of the elementary fluctuations (Events) of the Elementary Field at the Planck scale produced by the Action of the Fundamental Force (Force and Field, the two aspects of the Source of Reality (Entity)

• Speed of Light: a limit, not a constant: no absolute velocity of propagation of causality, mirror of the peculiar dynamics of the Elementary Field which generates the fundamental processes which incessantly form Reality

• Space-time metric curvature in facts is "Time curvature": in a context of a non constant speed of light, space-time curvature must be intended as time curvature, or better, Time contraction / dilation. Space curvature is only apparent, due to Time curvature and non constant speed of light

• Space-time metric curvature and Mass are the same thing / phenomenon: the main aspect of the Principle of General Equivalence (the both are different views of the same fundamental component of Elementary Action: Perturbation, the correlation of the distributions of the intensities of the fluctuations in / of the Elementary Field, which can be represented as the temperature of the Elementary Field, the speed limit of the propagation of causality / information in the Field, the mass density and / or the curvature of the metric of space-time

• Metric / Mass, Motion, Charge and Spin: the fundamental physical quantities, as fundamental manifestations of the correlations in the dynamics of the Elementary Field and the Elementary Action and its Modes / Components, Perturbation, Translation and Rotation (Chirality and Axix Orientation)

• Gravitational attraction and Acceleration have the same nature: another aspect of the Principle of General Equivalence (the both are different views of the same fundamental component of Elementary Action: Translation, the correlation of the distributions of the orientation of the fluctuations in / of the Elementary Field

• Weak and strong nuclear forces / fields and related phenomena as derived / complex (not elementary) phenomena, combination of the more fundamental physical quantities (sources, the forces / fields couples): metric / mass, motion, charge, spin. They are forces / fields of the Structures of Information in the Elementary Field, not of the Elementary Field itself

• The conservation of both linear and angular, extrinsic or intrinsic (spin) momentum is an absolute and ubiquitous principle: in other terms, conservation of Elementary Action in its modes / components (Perturbation, Translation and Rotation: Chirality / Axix Orientation) is a fundamental property of Reality and the Dynamics of the Elementary Action

• The conservation principle / property (conservation of inhomogeneities) is always in competition with a dynamic principle / property that tends to recover homogeneity - The conservation principle / property (conservation of homogeneity) is always in competition with a dynamic principle / property that to produce inhomogeneities

• Energy and Matter, both dark and visible/ordinary, are different forms of Information, temporal derivative of Action (Action is a more fundamental / complete physical quantity than Information / Energy)

• From continuity (Fields) to discreetness (Structures of Information, organized parts in / of the Fields): patterns of correlations (Elementary Relations) between the point distributions of the tiny fluctuations (Elementary Events,) in / of the Elementary Field at Planck Scale (a resonance)

• Current models/representations of elementary particles are too confusing: sometimes they are seen as points with no spatial extent, sometimes as clouds of energy, sometimes as waves, etc. We need a clear and stable representation of the elementary particles in terms of the dynamics of the Elementary Action and its Modes / Components or, the same thing, of the organization of the correlations (Information) between the distributions (Elementary Action) of the infinitesimal fluctuations (Elementary Events) of / in the Elementary Field

• Current models / representations of atoms are incorrect and misleading: electron orbitals are not wavefunctions describing the probability of finding an electron in a given region of the volume of space hosting the atom, they are just the electrons (electrons have a changing spatial extent, volume and shape depending on movement and interactions with the physical environment - the local structure of the Elementary Field and other surrounding structures, particles and waves); orbitals are functions that describe what part of the spatial extent of the electron is included in a given volume of space in the atom

• A new hypothesis about the wave - particle duality: the key is the nature and form of what we call wave and what we call particle ("Structures of Information" in this system of knowledge: Waves, Vortices and their interactions) in the terms of something more fundamental, the dynamics of the Elementary Action and its Modes / Components, fundamental nature that both the two types of Structures of Information share

• No particle - low density - diffuse Dark Matter: DM as anonther kind of stuff. A sort of middle ground between "Particle Dark Matter" and "MOND - Modified Newtonian Dynamics". Middle ground in the sense of explanatory power of the combined apparently contradictory aspects of a "substance" on one side and of "a strange seemingly anomalous behavior of the space-time itself". Not in the sense of the nature of the entities and phenomena involved. In facts, in this System of Knowledge Dark Matter is hypothesized as a completely different stuff than those proposed in the scientific field: diffuse, low density, no particle, vortex / bubble Structures of Information that organize (the organization of) the Elementary Field

• No big-bang and inflation: we need another cosmological model able to explain what we see in the Universe, objects, structure and dynamics of the cosmos; the evidence supporting the Concordance Cosmological Model (ΛCDM Model) is too weak to withstand the pressure of emerging discrepancies in new astronomical observations and the measurements of the fundamental quantities that parameterize the models

• Many other ideas, hypotheses, proposals that help shape a different physics and cosmology

Many of these ideas can be profitably and clearly represented by schemes, such as the Process of Reality Formation, and related schemes of the Formation of Physical and Cognitive Reality. And again, the outline of Evolutionary Dynamics, etc.

If even just one of the hypotheses and proposals illustrated in this work can be helpful in advancing scientific research, I will be immensely happy and sure that it will have been worth it.

Sources

This work is not all mine. It is the result of a long elaboration, years of reading (books, papers, articles, etc.), thoughts, conception, reworking of a lot of material which I am not even aware of.

Besides some original concepts, schemes and visions, most of the material I used to try to construct this new system of knowledge uses many reworkings of ideas, concepts, schemes from traditional knowledge and modern science.

Some examples:

• the conceptual scheme that I call the Process of Formation of Reality is a derivation / reworking of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, a diagram, abstract and symbolic, made up of ten Sephiroth, ten archetypal attributes, or characteristics of God (the operational Agents, or Operators of Reality in the Evolutionary Knowledge System object of this paper, emanation, characterization of the Fundamental Force, the active aspect of the Source of Reality).

The other main concept of the kabbala is "Ein Sof", the energy of the Universe (the Elementary Action produced by the Primary Source, the Source of Reality, the Fundamental Force / Elementary Field couple, fundamental / elementary entity that transcends the concepts of space and time, energy, mass, motion, charge, spin and all the fundamental physical quantities). The Elementary Action and the Source, comparable to the concept of Ein Sof, are unknowable and not directly contactable by the human reason / mind, as they are expressed at a more fundamental level of Reality than that of Information, Structures of Information and Forms, which we are made of and which represent the tools and vectors that allow our interaction with the physical environment in which we are immersed and of which we are a part.

We are Information (and in its most basic form, Energy), and it is Information / Energy we can perceive, observe, measure. The level of the Source, the Force / Field couple that, with their interaction, produce the Elementary Events, and the level of the Elementary Action in its Modes / Components, are precluded to us. Perception, observation, measurement are forms of interactions entirely based on the "relation", on Relations. Everything that, from the causal point of view, lies beyond the expression of the Operator of Reality that we call Relation is precluded to us, is and will remain directly unknowable. Only indirectly we will be able to construct an approximate representation of it, observing its effects on the levels of Reality closest to us. Said in more "physical" terms, we will not be able to observe the event points at the space-time dimensions that resonate on the Planck scale, with their probability distributions, and their dynamics / interaction to form increasingly extensive and complex structures of correlation, up to the waves and particles (vortices) that make up the (visible / ordinary) matter we are made of and the dark one that forms the immense impalpable structures in which we are immersed and of which we are part.

Contraction and expansion of God's energy in Kabbalah, contraction and expansion of the infinitesimal volumes in / of the Elementary Field, what in the Evolutionary Knowledge System we call Elementary Events, the elementary fluctuations of / in the Field at the Planck scale, slight variations in the mean and variance of their stochastic distributions, of their power spectrums, which produce the Perturbations, the inhomogeneities from which everything originates, and which in an incessant Evolution lead to the entire Universe.

That same idea of contraction and expansion has permeated Western culture for centuries and inspired the Big Bang theory. A theory that unfortunately has transposed this very important cultural influence incorrectly. In fact it is not a one-off expansion / contraction, or repeated over time at each cyclical expansion / contraction phase of the entire Universe or of its parts, or of several separate Universes, as in the various theories derived from the initial idea of Big Bang. Rather, it is infinite (in space and time) incessant expansions / contractions of / in each point event in / of the Elementary field, at the Planck scale, under the continuous pressure of the Fundamental Force, to create what is now called "Quantum fluctuation of the vacuum", the quantum vacuum, etc., primary manifestation of the Principle of Uncertainty.

From the Kabbalah, one of the main and most powerful traditional Systems of Knowledge of the West, and from the very important cultural religious / philosophical sources that have fueled its development, many other important ideas have arisen that have translated into interesting hypotheses concerning the general structure of Reality, the aspects and the operators (functional forces), the relationships that are established between them and that strongly determine the Formation of Reality in the mechanics of Creation "and" Evolution, the general properties of Reality and the particular ones at the various levels of existence.

The work done can be seen as a translation from the Kabbalistic mystique of Formation to what, in this System of Knowledge under construction, I have called "Evolutionary Dynamics" and the "Process of Formation of Reality".

• the idea / hypothesis of the Source, a unity with two complementary aspects, the Fundamental Force and the Elemental Field, from whose internal interaction all in Evolution is Created, arises from my interest in Taoism, in my opinion the most wonderful representation of how Reality is made and works, certainly one of the deepest knowledge of the East

• the idea that the Source is both transcendent (Agent / Acting, the subjects of Creation, the causal and the variational principle respectively) and immanent (Action and all that arises from its evolution, the complete Manifestation) comes from Kashmir Shaivism.

The ancient texts that have come down to us (created in the languages in use in those remote times, with often poetic, strange and fantastic expressions so far from our current way of reasoning and expressing ourselves, the result of successive oral traditions and infinite transcriptions and translations, even by people who did not know the true meaning of those texts, expressions, images, terms used) often seem incomprehensible or unclear, and the meaning appears distorted and misleading, as if the authors had wanted to hide the most authentic and profound meaning. Despite all this, on careful reading, with the guidance of a good understanding of the structure of Reality, it is possible to recognize the depth and lucidity that inspired these texts, and to reconstruct their logic and authentic meaning.

Process that would surely horrify the most intransigent exegetes, philologists and palaeographers, but which for a "knowledge hunter" like me, always in search of information on the fundamental nature of Reality, is of fundamental importance, and has allowed me to discover true pearls hidden under poetic images, mythological figures, religious doctrines, mystical traditions, bad translations, mangled terms, etc.

• the hypothesis of the inconstancy of the Speed of Light (or rather of its variability in space and/or in time, depending on various factors and dynamic aspects), an idea of some scientists who have expressed themselves in this sense at various times or have mentioned it in their works, and a recent movement/interest of some researchers in this direction

• the idea of the coexistence of Creation and Evolution as two aspects of the unitary Formation of Reality comes from Hinduism and Buddhism. Evolution can be seen as a complex form of Creation, just as Creation can be seen as an elementary form of Evolution

• the idea of the incessant action of a universal Force that gives power to Reality and makes it evolve comes from Taoism and Hinduism. Such a different and opposite idea compared to today's theory of the Big Bang and Inflation (basically a one shot creation and a long evolution produced by the expression of that first energetic event, a more evolved form, but not enough, of the old deterministic idea of a clock wound up at the beginning of time, which keeps running until it stops completely at the end of time, the heat death of the Universe, for example)

• the idea that, on a universal level, what is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics, although a fundamental principle, does not represent the prevailing process that acts the formation of Reality comes from the Theory of Evolution and from many ancient philosophies and religions, which propose cosmogonic models of evolution from a more elementary level, from chaos, towards more complex, organized levels (chaos/order processes), from the undifferentiated unity to the differentiated multitude, from the formless to the forms.

The second law (a law relating to heat and energy, implying an increase in the combined entropy of the system and the environment, the irreversibility of natural processes and the existence of an arrow of time) represents a "destructive" principle (destruction of information, of complexity, from order to chaos). In the Universe as a whole we see a ceaseless evolution towards greater complexity, from chaos towards a greater level of organization, chaos and order being the two opposites in the scale of complexity, in the level of organization of Information and its most basic form, the Physical Energy. The destructive / transformative processes (second law) are (more than) balanced by the constructive / organizational processes.

In this Knowledge System the principle that incorporates the Second law is identified by the Operational Agent "Transformation", one of the three Operators of Reality that make up the Cycle of Information, the true "evolutionary engine" of Reality). If so, if the second law of thermodynamics (a "destructive principle", in the sense of destruction of complexity, a functional operator which, at all levels of Reality, disrupts Relations, from more complex Information to more basic Information, from order, organization, it produces chaos) were the dominating process of Reality, nothing would exist in the Universe, no Information, no complexity would form and conserve. Nothing would have been created and evolved, or even if a deity had magically created the present Universe, everything would quickly dissolve into an absolutely homogeneous perturbated field. An opposite principle / force is at work in the Universe, a force, one or more processes antagonistic to the second principle, a "constructing principle" which in my system is identified by the Operator of Reality called "Organization", another operator of the Cycle of Information

• the idea that the universe is infinite in space (limitless) and time (eternal, without beginning and without end) comes from Hinduism and many other traditional knowledge systems. A Reality without a beginning and without an end. "Without beginning" not in the sense proposed by the Big Bang theory: a time born with the beginning of the Universe, eternal in the future, but with a finite age. But a Reality really without beginning and without end.

Other purposes

This study also intends to be a manifesto against reductionism, or better, against an absolute reductionism, which has led science to extremely brilliant results, but, over time, has condemned it to take a series of dead ends and to enter a crisis increasingly acute and difficult to overcome. And at the same time a manifesto against a certain imaginative "science", which loses itself in flights of fancy into the absurd, improbable untestable theories, lost in mathematics, always hunting for new particles, multiverses, unicorns, and who knows what else...

The reductionist approach, an exasperated manifestation of the marvelous analytical power of the human mind, is by itself like a drill capable of reaching unheard-of depths, but always at the risk of getting lost in these same depths. It needs a guide, an overall vision, capable of providing the direction, the purpose, the way. A "systemic" approach (I can't think of another more suitable and commonly used term), a global vision, a manifestation of the wonderful synthetic power of the human mind, which, by itself, cannot lead us to a true, broad and deep understanding of the Fundamental Nature of Reality. Analysis and synthesis, the two fundamental pillars of the search for knowledge, without extremes, must interact constantly, to avoid getting lost in dead ends or in useless superficial visions.

Another motivation / purpose that prompted me to carry out this work is the sense of dissatisfaction that I have often felt when reading books, papers, scientific or popular articles, or watching videos, especially on physics and cosmology. Passionate about these topics, I have read a lot since my youth and the internet has allowed me to access an immense literature.

I have encountered a lot of interesting, passionate material, but I have always had this feeling of being faced with narrow, partial, fragmentary visions, unable to provide a general picture, not to mention bizarre, imaginative theories, sterile disputes on apparently very important issues, but really marginal or irrelevant, to hide a very deep ignorance (yes, we have to admit it, science has made great strides, but to date it's more what we don't know than the few certainties we have). Or again, theories and models highly accredited in the academic community, but clearly "unrealistic" to a global, general observation of Reality.

I have often felt "presumptuous" to think differently, even to have my own idea, a different vision of things, of the world, not being a scientist, not having a real academic background. But, in the end, the desire to read something that really made sense to me, to read what I wished I could find in the materials I read/watched, prevailed. So I decided to write this paper, which I hope will be useful and that will satisfy at least a little those who, like me, are dissatisfied with what emerges from the scientific literature. Writing it, for me, was an exciting adventure, as well as a great commitment.

Links to the tables of contents of TFNR Paper

• Go to the contents list of the paper "The Fundamental Nature of Reality"

• Go to Chapter 2 "A first look"