`` As if - the explanation of Emergence

Glossary of Terms used in 'As If' Vision


'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' - Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There


The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication - Terry Pratchett


Index


  1. Introduction

  2. Word Salad

  3. Existence

  4. Emergent

  5. Virtual

  6. Leibniz' Law

  7. Icon

  8. Consciousness and Awareness

  9. God

  10. Sceptic

  11. True

  12. Analogue

  13. Real

  14. Illusion

  15. Paradox

  16. Infinity and Infinitesimal

  17. Enlightenment

  18. Objective - External

  19. Parts

  20. Subjective - Internal

  21. Yin Yang

  22. Relationship

  23. Subject and Object

  24. The Heart

  25. Facts

  26. Elements

  27. Fire

  28. Earth

  29. Air

  30. Water

  31. Alchemy

  32. Chakra - Dan-Tien - Hara - Planet

  33. Mandala - The Holy Grail

  34. Space

  35. Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Dave

Introduction


One of the greatest aids, and greatest hindrances, to conveying ideas is language, whether that be a language of words, or a language of numerals. Languages are composed of symbols, of tokens that stand for some ideas, and they follow certain agreed upon rules, and so enable the transfer of ideas. Spoken language is very democratic and has few rules; acedemic language is somewhat stricter; the language of scientific and mathematical formulae even stricter. But all require interpretation.


The problem with any language comes when, as is often the case, the tokens, words usually, do not have well defined meaning. This is especially a problem when translating from one culture to another, when frequently only an approximate meaning can be conveyed, but it is also a great problem when pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, when translating from nature to language.


What happens is that in the process of understanding some new sphere of knowledge, words are used before their meaning has become fully understood. This can lead to an assumption that we know what is meant, when truthfully what is meant is an empty box that is to be filled in later on, or even changed as culture evolves.


Specialised terms, just like TLAs [three letter acronyms], can be incomprehensible, even to those using them, if they have not been given a clear and full meaning. Often, the best we can do is to attempt to glean the author's meaning. So, as an aid to you the reader, I am placing a glossary of special words here, up front, so that you can be forewarned that they may not be used in a way that you anticipate or assume.


Many of these terms will need further explanation and justification, later on. But I think it important that, as the reader, you get a heads up on what I intend by using these words.


This glossary provides a précis of the full arguments relating to Virtualism, in essence, it forms the outline of the answers to the questions posed later on.


Word Salad


A salad usually consists of food that has been tossed in a haphazard manner. Following on from the introduction above, I'd like to start with a warning about word salad: All too often, many very clever people use words to describe concepts that sound great, but which cannot translate to fit any kind of actual reality. Some phrases we could form are clearly nonsense, such as 'a new antique', while others may take a little more inspection to discover their salady quality. For instance, if we were to talk of 'all the integers', as mathematicians generally have done for the past 100 years or so, then we'd also be creating word salad, because although it sounds reasonable, on the surface, there is no justification in the assumption that there is such a collection of things as 'all the integers', when the very definition of the integers tells us that there will always be more.


There is another misuse of words that, while not quite salad, is just as misleading, and that is when anyone attempts to use words for purposes that they were never intended for. This is particularly prevalent in conversations around philosophical matters related to the big questions. It is all very well to re-purpose a word, but then you'd have to carefully define what you mean by it.


Yet another time that words become salady is when their meanings change. All too often an anachronistic meaning will lead a reader to a mis-translation of something from a bygone age, just as much as if it has been from a foreign language.


Taking any of these cases, it is as if the misuse were able to be in the relationships outside of the word, between it and other words, or within the word itself, i.e. between the ideas that give the word its own character.


An example of word salad could be 'The next greater number than zero.' The problem with this phrase is that it implies something that can never actually be true. Yes there are numbers bigger than zero, but there does not exist a number that can truthfully be called the next greater, because we can always discover another number between it and zero. The phrase sounds good on the surface, but when you dig into what it really means it falls apart.


Another example of word salad is 'infinity'. The problem with this word is that although it is beloved of many, including many mathematicians and scientists, there really is no such thing as infinity. It does not exist in any sense at all, not even as an abstract concept. The word 'infinity' pretends to point to a thing that exists, a thing that is infinite; yet nothing can be, and be infinite. Infinite is an adjective that means boundless, which is a paradoxical state that can never be satisfied.


In discussing ideas, we need to be on our guard for 'word salad', both on the inside and outside of the word usage, as it is all too easy for it to creep into the translation from the ideas in someone's mind out into the written or spoken word.


Existence


Existence is universalist, in the way in which I use the word. Yes, I know many people take to 'exist' to mean to exist as a reality, as a material object even, but there are many things that exist which do not have material existence, and among these I would include rational numbers - numbers that themselves are the ratios between other numbers. Existence is both a property of anything that is, in any sense, but also, as a noun, is the totality of everything that exists. Existence is the whole of everything and anything, of any kind. Existence includes all real things, all ideal things, all imaginary things, and all rememberable things.


Wholeness is a very similar property to existence; all thigs that exist are whole, even when incomplete, and all things that are whole exist. In this, to exist and to be whole are almost synonymous with being unitary, and within Virtualism it is recognised that all such states, aka, properties, aka facts, are virtual. That is, they emerge from the paradoxical juxtaposition of some parts that being different from one another cannot be identical [in the sense used by Leibniz].


What Existence does not include are impossible things, potential things - except in the sense that an essence may potentially precede a reality - and substantial past things - these being impossible. So, I would claim that unicorns do exist, albeit not physically as real live creatures, hence real unicorns do not exist.


Substantial things are those that retain some or all their parts, unlike Sorites' Haystack [heap] which has lost its parts, and therefore is merely the ghost of the haystack. NB. to be substantial is not necessarily the same as being material, aka physical.


Emergent


There are many facets of what it means to be emergent; but broadly, emergence refers to something coming into being, and this is usually as a result of the combination of other, simpler phenomena. Examples of emergence are many; from the solvent nature of water, that is neither found in hydrogen, nor oxygen, taken separately; to the flocking behaviour of starlings.


Biology has been said to emerge from chemistry, and chemistry from physics, and the key features of these emergent levels are that the lower level is both integrated [held together] and differentiated [contains differences], these features cause some otherness to arise when the parts are joined, but another key feature is that the emergent thing, as a whole, exerts downward causation on the parts, that is, the whole is a constraint on the behaviour of the parts.


The more unpredictable/unforeseeable the properties of the whole, then the stronger the emergence is said to be.


For my purposes, I will say that something is emergent when it is any whole thing that is composed of parts. For instance, masses add together to form a larger mass, and there is nothing extra to the total that is not in the parts - except that there is; the whole has a centre of gravity that emerges from the arrangement of the individual masses, and which constrains the subsequent movement of those parts. In this, space is the whole, and masses form the parts, and crucially this leads to Space being emergent from the masses of all the real objects in the Universe - not the other way around. Space also provides a constraint on the manner in which those parts can move. Much the same thing happens with other things that emerge, such as minds.


Also, I will say that the whole thing is to be called strongly emergent when its parts are arranged paradoxically, or incompatibly with each other, and so are forced to produce something entirely new, something unpredictable from any of the parts taken individually. My argument will be that numbers, space, and time are all examples of strong emergence, as is Existence itself.


Claiming everything to be emergent is 'introducing the hardline' on emergence; this is Hard Emergence.


Virtual


Something is virtual when it exists on an 'as if' basis. Virtual things emerge from their parts, 'as if' the whole were a thing in itself, not merely a number of parts joined together.


The entire premise of Virtualism is that everything in Existence is virtual.


Virtual is most definitely not the same thing as illusory. Virtual is true, whereas illusion is a lie.


Virtual is always whole, even if it has been damaged.


An example; your car is a virtual thing, composed of body, wheels, engine, and other parts. It is undoubtedly more than the sum of its parts, but there is nothing among those parts that you could accurately [truthfully] call a car, and it is still a car, even if someone has knocked off one of the wing mirrors.


Leibniz' Law


Leibniz' Law is also known as 'The Identity of Indiscernibles', although some authorities will mean a different rule from Leibniz. The only one that really matters, the rule that is at the centre of the functioning of Everything, is the rule that says if you cannot tell the difference between two things [in principle, not necessarily in practice], then they are the same thing. It may seem a needless point to draw, but in programming we have the concept of ≡ a sign that means not only equal in value, but the same actual object. It is rather like using the definite article, saying 'Not just a Mr Smith, but the Mr Smith who lives at number 42 Acacia Avenue.' The distinction is a fine one, and not present in all languages, but it becomes important in regard to metaphysics, when we need to recognise that each and every instance of one type of ideal object include the same ideal object, because all ideals that could fit one kind of object must be identical, because they would be indiscernible. That is to say, the ideal [abstract] for any chair is the same one for each and every chair. The implication is that all such chair objects must behave like chairs. This one rule enables a great many things to be, even though no-one, nor anything, made this rule; it just is the way things are; 'as if' there is a rule.


Icon


An icon is a whole thing that is similar to some other whole thing, but is composed from a different kind of parts, usually from an entirely different class of parts.


An icon, the way I generally use the word as an explanation of consciousness, is the same as a religious icon, but not the same as a desktop icon. That is; the icon shares sufficient properties, to that which it is iconic of, to be in some way identical. A desktop icon points to a program, but has no properties in common with the program [app, if you prefer], so is not iconic in the sense that I use the word.


Icons function due to Leibniz' Law, and because of the virtual nature of whole things, i.e. there can be two whole things that despite being formed from multiple layers of difference, are in their wholeness sufficiently similar to be actually identical [with each other], to some meaningful extent. This being so, they will then behave in the same manner as one another, however only the real one will affect reality directly. Icons, being objects of mind, require that brains anticipate their properties and then act accordingly, in order to translate the iconic into something that can affect reality.


Consciousness and Awareness


I have tended to use the words Consciousness and Awareness almost interchangeably, but this is only due to historical reasons, as it used to be the case that I thought all consciousness to be conscious, in the conventional sense. However, at some point it became apparent to me that most of what we think is unconscious, operates under the surface, and that really the amplifying nature of the brain - achieved by making virtual connections - means that there is a centre to mental life that I reckon to be brighter than the general wash of barely perceived thoughts. This I now think of as Awareness, something that has the special property of creating recallable memories. Something that I actually consider to be the weaving of new spirit, part of our process of growth as partially spiritual beings.


God


There are two distinct ways in which I use the word 'god'. Usually it is as one of the mainly Graeco-Roman pantheon used in Astrology to name the planets. Note: This includes Sun, Moon, Pluto, and in my 'school' the Earth and Chiron as well. In this regard, all of these gods/planets are identical with chakras, as I understand them to be, and are no more, nor less, than the emergence of one elemental relationship type from a different relationship type. Hence it follows that there must be, and can only be, twelve such gods.


The other typical manner in which I use the word is as a purported creator deity, e.g. the biblical God. This is something that within a very strict definition I believe cannot under any circumstances exist. That definition is as an uncaused cause and creator of everything. Such a concept is, for me, impossible, and illogical. This does not preclude a 'God' with a slightly less strict, looser definition, i.e. just not the creator of everything, but itself a part of creation. For me such a character would be an equivalent of the titan Prometheus, and more on the level of a guardian angel, or spirit.


Sceptic


A sceptic is someone who has a dogmatic and overblown regard for their own opinion. Every last one of us/them falls foul of the Dunning-Kruger effect. That said, there is a slightly less militant use of the term, and that is to describe someone who uses Rene Descartes method in an attempt to build certainty from the rubble of disbelief.


True


What it means to be 'true' is elaborated upon @ Answers/Truth, where three levels of truth are described, ranging from being the same as, through to being a convenient belief. I take a 'truth' to be a fact of some thing, and that it is, by definition, in some manner the same as that thing. However, truth is often difficult to ascertain, so we may also resort to the construction of a consistent story as a workable substitute - this is the way of science and philosophy. The final, and weakest version of truth is what it is helpful to believe, but I don't hold with this if I can avoid it.


Analogue


An analogue of some thing is any other thing that shares some fact or facts in common with the first thing. So, for instance, an analogue computer may function with a variation in voltage to represent a number, so there is a proportionality between the original number and the representation on the computer. This stands in contrast to all digital computers, where a binary code represents each piece of data, even numbers, so there is never any proportion between actuality and representation. However, all Turing machines operate by processing encoded data, rather than by true analogues, and this precludes such machines from ever acheiving consciousness, much less awareness.


Analogue representation is fundamental to both Leibniz' Law and Iconism.


Real


Physicists usually consider 'real' to mean that something has definite properties, in contrast to quantum properties that are thought not to exist until measured.


Philosophically, real may mean that which exists, or it may mean that which is material, in contrast to that which is ideal, although nowadays the 'ideal' has fallen out of fashion [everywhere except Bristol, that is].


I take 'real' to mean that a thing is sufficiently different from some other thing that the relationship that emerges between both things will be subject to the phenomenon of objective time. In this sense only a relationship can be real, although all things are relationships, and all relationships are ideal, although some of these are only ideal because they have no spatial properties, and so are not moved by gravity, hence are unaffected by time.


It seems a paradoxical fact that virtual wholes are not 'real', and as a consequence are not subject to objective time, whereas their parts are. As the parts rearrange and their relationships change, demergence occurs and the parts must be recycled, because energy is conserved, and because real things form 100% of what is real, i.e. we can't suddenly have more, nor less, than we had just now.


This paradox forces the emergence of a new state, one where the virtual whole takes on a new being, and a new heart [centre of being]. Because this emergence is virtual, not real, the old state remains, as a ghost, and the new state adds virtually to what exists.


This is equivalent to saying that the truth of what was, remains eternally, immutable in itself, but increasingly distant from what is real, as what is real continues being subject to change and therefore emergent time.


It may seem odd to you, the reader, that the demergent old state remains as virtual truth, while being replaced by a new virtual truth, especially when the truth is of something as seemingly influential as a centre of gravity, however, we have to remember that the virtual whole is functioning on an 'as if' basis, and for it to be effective as an apparent real object, it has to have all its parts in place, so that they can do the heavy lifting of being 'real', thereby making the new truth 'real', while the old truth becomes no longer real, but still remains true.


Illusion


Frequently, you will encounter people refering to some phenomenon as an illusion, sometimes it is time, sometimes the entire Universe - there is a lot of this on the Internet. So what should we think about such claims? What is an illusion, as compared to reality?


An illusion is any phenomenon that is ultimately false, i.e. is not what it appears to be. This means that illusions stand in stark contrast to emergent phenomena, because anything emergent is not only what it seems to be, but is true to the numbers that underlie it at the most fundamental level. Illusions on the other hand are always, by definition, mistakes. An illusion is generally a mistake of perception, and we are prone to illusions, because our brains are always guessing at what they should be thinking about. An example of a genuine thing, that you might think was an illusion, is a rainbow; with the rainbow light is really separated into different wavelengths by water droplets, and a rainbow is what that looks like - no mistake there. But if we were in the desert and saw a mirage of an oasis, that would be a big mistake - the palm trees and water would in reality be sand and hot air, so the mirage is always an illusion. Equally, when a conjuror does a trick, they create an illusion, because although something real does happen, it is never what the audience are led to believe. Illusion then should be seen as a trick of the mind, a mistake, not as anything to do with reality. This stands in contrast to an emergent reality, that may sometimes be referred to by some as an illusion, but is actually something founded in truth. For example, time is occasionally claimed to be an illusion.


There is a similar concept to illusion, and that is hallucination, however, an hallucination is a specific kind of illusion, one that is closer to a mirage, where the illusion is unconnected to any objective truth. This step away from truth is what makes the mirage an hallucination, even though caused by external realities. The internal hallucination is not so very different, it too has causes, LSD perhaps, but although the perceptions on a 'trip' may have allegorical truth, they do not have the truth that comes from their wholeness coinciding with some wholeness out there in Reality. The colours of the rainbow may not be real, but they are objectively true, meaning that they are no illusion, and just as we can agree on the shape of a football, so we can also agree on its colour, and have every reason to feel justified that one person's experience of colour is largely the same as another's, in most cases. The colourblind are an obvious exception.


Infinity and Infinitesimal


Infinity is another one of those words that is frequently misused and abused. The thing to understand is that infinite is an adjective, one that means boundless - there is no finite boundary to that which is infinite, so you can always have some more - more numbers, more space, more time. It doesn't matter what it is, if it is truly infinite, then there will always be more. This is very different from saying that there really is a thing that is an actual fixed number we can say is infinite. Set Theory includes an axiom of infinity, which claims that there is such a thing, but saying the words does not necessarily make something truly exist. The problem is that mathematicians usually make the assumption that all the numbers actually exist, in some ideal mathematical fashion. So it becomes facile for them to talk of infinities and infinitesimals, as if such things could truly exist. A mathematician will refer to pi as transcendental, meaning that pi goes beyond the reality of infinitely many decimal places, but I'd prefer it if they talked of unbounded numbers. The problem arises with Georg Cantor's solution to a question that was, in some ways, similar to Galileo's paradox.


Georg Cantor wanted to prove that there were more real numbers than there were natural numbers - real numbers being all those partial numbers that sit between the whole numbers. But, while Georg showed that there would always be an extra real number that could be found, he omitted to allow natural numbers the same liberty.


The ultimate success of Georg Cantor's views on infinity have lead to a blurring of the lines drawn between Pure and Applied Mathematics. Applied Mathematics is largely about Newtonian calculus, the method used for Rocket Science, that allows an almost exact approximation of the behaviour of the real world to be made, and which relies on infinitesimals. The problem with this, in my opinion, is that it has led to a view that infinitely small things actually exist, even in Mathematics, and that has contributed to the Continuum Problem, and fields, but Virtualism and I say that this is looking at both numbers and reality from the wrong end of the telescope - when the gap is the number, then there is no problem because everything is gap, so there is no continuum, or if you prefer: A continuum of nothing punctuated by points of difference that define the scope of that nothing.


Infinity has also been thought to be a property of God; by those such as Baruch Spinoza, but as soon as you accept some thing to not be included in that which is said to be infinite, you have then placed a boundary on that thing, by defining what it is not. From this it is fairly easy to see that to actually be infinite would be paradoxical, because although there would be no bound, neither could the infinite thing be added to - except in admission of it not being infinite in the first place, and that in itself is a boundary. Claiming anything to be infinite is always going to be a dodgy proposition, because for the thing to be at all, it has to be wholly itself; a single entity.


Does it matter that while accepted by mathematicians, Georg Cantor was very wrong in his abuse of the term infinity? Well, from a philosophical perspective I think that maybe it does; I believe that Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is dependent on Set Theory, and as it makes claims for what is knowable, then a different belief about Infinity would lead to a different expectation about what we can know - and that would be important.


Paradox


A paradox is any scenario that has the appearance of being two, or more, incompatible situations at the same instant. There are many examples of paradox, however, I contend that all paradoxes are truly just misunderstandings about the nature of whatever thing is being discussed, that is; Nature does not abhor a vacuum so much as Nature abhors a paradox. My contention is that any would be paradoxical thing forces the emergence of some new property; a property that does not so much resolve the paradox, as hold it as a new reality.


That may sound like so much 'word salad', but the whole of Virtualism, Iconism, and Emergence, is founded on this principle. If you don't like this principle, well I'm afraid there are no others! Anyway, the whole thrust of this website is the argument for why this is the case - it can't be concisely written down here.


People of all persuasions become very confused by seeming paradoxes, for instance John Stewart Bell, who created the wonderful test of Quantum Mechanics that is Bell's Inequality, came unstuck, along with very many highly qualified physicists, with what has become known as Bell's paradox, one of many that surround Special Relativity, but which simply demonstrate how unintuitive thinking in more than three dimensions is for us. Briefly, this paradox entails two spaceships, joined by an inelastic thread, accelerating to near light speed, whereupon it is thought that the thread must both break and not break. That would be paradoxical, if it were the true scenario, which it is not. If the rockets can be made to accelerate together, and the thread with them, then the thread is subject to all the same relativity as the rockets, so it cannot be that Special Relativity , nor General Relativity is responsible for breaking the thread [that incidentally is pretty much defined as otherwise unbreakable, although that is not the issue here - which is one of intervening space being subject to SR as much as other objects, or not]. The resolution of that issue is that the space does not actually exist prior to the matter [which fundamentally is itself only numbers], and all the differences between rockets and cord are subject to the same level of boost, given that they all have the same acceleration.


Enlightenment


While I am having a go at other sacred cows; within Buddhism, it is held that the Buddha achieved enlightenment, and consequentially did not have to be reincarnated ever again. Firstly, I'd dispute that not reincarnating is a good thing; Nirvana seems to me to be the very last thing that anyone should seek. Life is a privilege, not suffering. Sometimes there may be some uncomfortable moments, but those ought to be able to be improved upon. How about Enlightenment? First, we'd have to understand what enlightenment is, apart from the prerequisite for Nirvana, that is.


Enlightenment is not one big achievement, rather many little steps. Each step is like dealing with a problem, say in therapy, and so not having that particular issue cause you tension, stress, grief, a headache, whatever you care to call it. Each such issue can be thought of as a demon, or as a god - a habit - something that influences us, and in doing so blocks our natural flow. Milarepa was a great example of this, supposedly after years spent in a cave, encountering his demons and gods, he managed to turn them all into dakini - spirits to be danced with, and so was then able to carry on with life untroubled by demons or gods. Apparently he then went back to being a farmer, because that was what suited his nature.


Of course, the gods and demons are metaphors for behavioural habits. But the idea with enlightenment is that we should be unfettered by such restrictions. Effectively, that we should be relaxed enough about all things that we have no blockages. We can grasp an indication of this truth from Marcel Duchamp's statement 'Taste is a bushel under which to hide your light.', i.e. that one's artistic expression can only be limited by the demon Taste.


How to achieve enlightenment? It looks like there are many paths up that particular mountain, but some might say by taking the first step, which could be anything you like. It's not going to happen overnight, that's for sure. Some like meditation, and all the spiritual materialism that goes with Oriental hobbies - I quite like Tai Chi, when I can be arsed to get on with it. Yoga works well for many people, and in the West there is an increasing trend towards mindfulness, which is really just another brand of meditation. You could practice psychology by seeing a counsellor, or take up a martial art, or learn to paint for real. It doesn't matter that much. What might be of interest is which processes are most efficient. I'd say, being kind goes a long way - to yourself, as well as to others. Also, an inquisitive and questioning attitude to all things helps - even to your own expertise; and above all, as Tai Chi teacher Scott Meredith writes in his book Juice, Relax.


Objective - External


That which is external, and so exists for anyone and everyone, and so is generally observable, is called objective.


Objective things are whole things.


Every objective whole thing must also be a subjective part of Existence as a whole, i.e. internal to Existence, where Existence is the subject. This applies to all compound wholes, i.e. wholes that consist of parts, and all emergent wholes [all wholes] do consist of the parts that they emerge from, hence any whole object may be considered as the product of some parts.


Parts


The property that makes some objects the parts of some greater whole object, is that the parts have differences between them, i.e. it is the differences between things that in effect hold them apart, and being held apart means that something must emerge from the gap, and that something that emerges is the whole object that consists of those parts.


Any subjective part is only subjective relative to the whole that it is a part of, and it is objective to all the other such parts within that same whole.


Subjective - Internal


That which is internal, and so only exists for the subject in question.


Subjective things are parts of things.


Any subjective part must also be a whole thing in its own right, and so may also be relatively objective.


Any subjective whole is the internal heart of the objective whole, they are one and the same. However, the internal heart is an inversion of the external whole, due to the difference in perspective.


Yin Yang


The Taijitsu, or yin yang, is the Oriental representation of all things being composed of a mixture of different kinds of parts. Nothing is absolutely one thing. Although all things are in themselves whole and so are one thing.


Relationship


A relationship is the virtual juxtaposition that arises between any two things. The nature of the relationship is dependent on the nature of the two related things, both their parts and their emergent whole.


Every relationship is a link between subject and object.


Every relationship is composed of a level of similarity which may include an amount of difference.


Relationships may be multithreaded due to [or causing, rather] the yin yang nature of things.


When relationships are paradoxical, making the parts incompatible, a space is created that causes emergence of some new thing.


Subject and Object


Subject and object form the two ends of any relationship. The subject and object are interchangeable with a reverse of the nature of the relationship.


The parts of the subject are internal to the subject. The object may be internal to the subject, or external to the subject, or indeed both. If nothing else, the wholeness of all things is common to all wholes and all parts, therefore is both internal and external.


The Heart


All things are necessarily whole, even when they are missing something. A halfpenny is a whole halfpenny.


The heart of a thing is its centre of being.


All whole things have a heart, a centre of being.


The heart [centre of being] is identical to the whole, disregarding the parts of the whole.


One kind of centre is the centre of gravity of any object with mass.


Facts


A fact is a true thing, although it may be true that something is a lie; that would still be a fact. One fact will often be shared between many objects, in which case there is a relationship of sameness between those objects, created simply because they share the same fact. However, in these cases the fact can only apply to a part of the objects in question, even though the fact may seem to apply to the whole object. For instance, an object may be a car, but that isn't the whole story, another fact may be that it is red, another that it is a Ferrari. The whole object has many such facts, and these combine to become a single fact something like 'my new red Italian Ferrari F80' [I wish]. Every whole object is such a single fact, and the single fact is never any more than the sum of the parts - as with Dave [see below], there is nothing extra there, in terms of parts.


Facts are not real, in my usage of real, i.e. subject to change. Once they emerge as truth, they remain eternally, although they may be superseded by new facts.


Facts determine reality. That is, reality cannot be other than the facts allow.


Consciousness is composed of Facts, not of reality.


Elements


We, and possibly even the ancient philosophers, have always taken some things too literally, when it is clear to me that the ancients were poetic because the structure of poetry made myth and other writings seem more truthful, and so become more truthful (and memorable).


The Platonic elements certainly predate Plato, and I don't believe that they were originally meant to be taken as literal fire, earth, air, and water, nor as the material constituents of the World.


My usage of elements is that they are the four possible kinds of virtual relationship. Together they provide a language that facilitates the discussion of emergence.


Fire


Fire is the relationship of being objectively true, i.e. of being wholly the same as something, in some way. This then is external truth, any truth that is true for any thing, e.g. the truth that 1 + 1 = 2. Or, put in a way more in tune with Virtualism, 1 divided = 2.


Earth


Earth is the relationship of being objectively real, i.e. of being externally different in some way, while still being related by some truth. Things of earth are things that have parts that imbue difference, and the relationship of difference produces a reality that makes these relationships subject to emergent time.


At one level, the earth relationship produces spatially separated particles that are composed of numbers [fire], but which emerge as physical objects. Space then emerges from the earth relationship. However, there are other relationships of objective difference, such as the difference between the Rich and the Poor, in fact, any difference of class would come under the heading of an earth relationship.


Air


Air is a relationship of subjective reality, i.e. of being internally different in some way, of having parts that are not shared with other things.


At one level of emergence, the air relationship produces photons and gluons as number objects of change, that transfer values from one real thing to another; the photons and gluons being arrangements of number that have different dimensional qualities, hence different manifestation.


As photons, the air relationship provides most of the sense data that we take in as human beings, and which form one basis of the data on which the brain forms iconic mind.


The transference of air is a mathematical rotation when it is between real objects, because photons have a square quality and are subtracted, requiring a root -1 operation, on leaving the source object, but a root +1 on arrival, when they add to the destination. This makes photon transfer a quantum phenomenon. However, when multiple photons arrive as sense data, sensory perceptions, they also bring emergent patterns that themselves are iconic, i.e. analogous to the source material. These then go on to form icons of mind, the subjective parts of the subjective whole individual.


Water


Water is a relationship of subjective truth, i.e. of being internally whole, of having one's own heart, one's own centre of being. Much that is water may also be fire, i.e. objectively true, but much may be only internal, subjective parts.


The objective truth of the self is that which is conscious, that which may be remembered, i.e. is a fire relationship.


A major cause of the water relationships that are subjective truth, is the formation of mind from the activity of the brain, but the activity of the body also informs the brain of how to behave, i.e. is a constraint on brain activity, hence is a constraint on mind. These we would usually call emotions.


Another constraint on mind is that of memory. Like numbers, memory has a basis in fire, and is the truth of earlier consciousness, and both forms of truth play a role in constraining the probabilities of how mind and brain activity evolve.


The whole that is the full set of water relationships, one's heart [centre of being], is also a necessary truth of consciousness, i.e. is fire, and like all fire is timeless, although its parts [air] are subject to change, causing emergent internal time; a personal clock that runs alongside external objective time.


The changes that occur within one's consciousness leave a fiery trail of one's internal truth, the truth that we were consciously aware of. Being fire, that truth is eternal, and it is both the source of memory, and the nature of our spirit in this life. Being eternal, it forms a continuity that is the spiritual basis of self, and being independent of the body, i.e. non-material, is a history of truth which has the potential for reincarnation, near-death experience [NDE] and past-life recall.


Alchemy


Alchemy is emergence. Traditionally it was often thought of as the transformation of lead into gold, but in Virtualism it is the transformation from one element to another. This is change that produces something fundamentally different from the causes, i.e. the transformation of two disparate things into a new kind of thing. This kind of change, unlike change within the same element, is due to the requirement that nature avoids paradox, and is when something is forced into existence by the incompatibilities of the two parts of the sunsequent relationship - the subject and object. Of course, complex things may change element in one way, but retain something of the elemental nature of the causes, so emergent things will be layers of the original element and the new element.


There being four elements, there are twelve possible ways in which one fundamental elemental relationship type can lead to the emergence of a new level of elemental relationship. At other levels this number is multiplied by powers of three because from each type of object node of the relationship may emerge a different type of new object node from only one of the three other kinds of elemental relationship. So twelve may become 36, and then 108, etc.


Chakra - Dan-Tien - Hara - Planet


A chakra is a Sanskrit concept of a wheel of activity somehow connected to a part of the body. There are a variety of ideas about what these are, and how many there are.


Virtualism borrows the concept of chakras, in much the same way as it borrows the concept of a body from biology - they both being just what is, but Virtualism specifies that each chakra is just the abstract of the individual performing one specific kind of alchemy. Therefore there are twelve chakras. I suppose we could admit to the emergence of a host of other chakras, but the point is that there is a full set, and that set is twelve.


Chakras become associated with different parts of the body because there is a similarity between our awareness of bodily function and the abstract alchemy of living.


Chakras are identical with the concept of planets as used in Astrology, and with the gods. This is true whether you see a connection between actual planets in space and human life, or not. Planets therefore make a handy way to label and speak of chakras.


In Japan they have the concept of the Hara, and the Dan Tien - the Hara being the lower of the three Dan Tien, located a little below the naval. The other two being centred on the heart and head.


The Dan Tien are chakras that are identical with the three outer planets, that is they are the transformation of fire, objective truth, into earth, air, or water. Because these are the application of truth to anything, we don't usually identify these as operating in the person, at least we don't in the West.


Each Dan Tien becomes associated with an area of the body via that area's association with other planets/chakras. The head is associated with mind because the majority of our sense organs are there, and mind is elemental air, largely the product of our senses, and amplified by our brains.


The other nine chakras can be listed as Saturn, Jupiter and Chiron, the transformation of earth to air, fire and water, respectively. Then Mars, Venus and Mercury, the transformation of water to earth, fire [wine?] Creation of love from individuals [necessary at a wedding], and air. Finally the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, the transformation of air into fire, water and earth.


Mandala - The Holy Grail


The Mandala is the pictoral representation of the full set of emergent possibilities inherent in the relationships as described by elements. One way of looking at it is as a quarternary, base 4, method of counting, another way is as a fractal image based on that simple formula, i.e. that any one element may emerge from another different element, building a code formed from a stack of elements where any one can become one of three others.


The resulting image is that of the Djeser Djeseru [the Holy of Holies], and I'd say of the Holy Grail; it is a map of everything that can possibly be, in the abstract, and a compass that can show you where you are headed. It is also directly super-imposable on the Zodiac, and so goes a long way toward [all the way, I'd claim] explaining the functioning of Astrology.


Space


When I refer to space it is often the space of the Universe, but equally at times I will be talking about the virtual space that exist whenever there is a gap, a gap that could be something that is missing from within our being. Just as physical space is defined by physical objects - matter, virtual space is defined by virtual objects, and those may be the objects that form your mind, or form your spirit, or any other thing in Existence. Space then should always be taken to mean a gap, but always a gap that is defined by something. Within the Universe, it being objective, i.e. complete, space is dependent on all matter in the Universe, but within the individual, we being subjective and very much not everything, not complete, there is space that is within us, i.e. the gaps that are defined by what we are, but also there is another region of subjective space that [together with its contents] is entirely beyond us, and which consequently we have no capacity to interact with.


Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Dave


Who are 'Alice, Bob, Charlie, and Dave'? For the sake of many of the examples used in explanations across this website, I will often refer to these characters - they each have a specific role to play in illustrating what is, in an emergent manner, by labelling a particular object.


There you have it. The fundamental concepts of Virtualism, but read on for a lot of reasoning as to why this is important, how it all works, and what it means for everything.




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