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Simplified Philosophy

An essential role in culture is played by the interaction between life and nature. Any philosophy related to culture should be consistent not only within the humanities but also with the natural sciences. At first glance, these seem to be very complicated, especially when we look at the extreme spaces of the universe or at the other end the spectrum of tiny elementary particles.

Jean-Michel_Basquiat - 1984

It may be useful, however, to maintain the conviction - one may call it feeling or belief - that the principles of nature are essentially simple.

The key to access could be to combine logical description and holistic understanding. If we take the two most significant results of physics a century or so ago and now use them as the basis of such a philosophy, we could potentially achieve a much simpler form of presentation. Energy and mass can be converted into each other according to the Einstein formula (1905). However, waves and particles have a dual nature, as shown by de Broglie (1925). Energy and waves and also mass and particles mean practically the same thing. By accepting the initial dual existence of energy and mass as the axiomatic basis of natural philosophy and even of the natural sciences, we avoid the theme of creation and need not immediately refer to time and space that can not be defined without energy and mass. It can be assumed that mass is secondary to energy in accordance with the likewise axiomatic Pauli principle, which assigns the quantum number 0 to the energy and the number 1 to the mass, which is justified by the fact that the energy penetrates everything and the mass has an additional quality through compactness.

A single imaginary dimension can be formally attributed to energy. Three real spatial dimensions are reserved for the mass. From these axiomatic assumptions, an important question arises as to whether each new dimension is described by a new quantum number, which thus contains a new property. This could have many very interesting new consequences not only for the limited type of description, but also for understanding, understanding and interpretation. The assignment of three numbers to mass could mean that there are three forms of mass, the first of which would presumably be dark matter, which emerged as the primary counterpart of energy, and subsequently split into what is usually matter and anti-matter is called . More numbers could describe the particle zoo.

Nothing is said in the context of these predominantly philosophical considerations for the moment about the theory of relativity and gravitation. But one could mention the belief that these highly complicated issues could be greatly simplified if they were based on the Einstein formula and did not receive it as a result. Taking the formula as a description of a phase transition allows the speed of light to be referenced to a refractive index.

For very small energies that are below the thresholds, the assignment of quantum numbers can find a continuation in the genetic code that produces those dimensions known to us as properties of life.

Properties can thus be represented by integer numbers, i.e. digitally. Effects correspond to impulses (linear terms of velocity) and transformations to energy transformations (quadratic terms of velocity). It is suggested that phenomena not included thereby, i.e. singularities (particle pairing, superfluidity, big bangs, super- and kilonovae) could be grasped by cubic terms. The "constants" (more precisely, eigenvalues) of those terms define, in principle, occurring masses.

Natural laws (constants), properties (integer numbers), effects (impulses) and transformations (conversions) are referred to linguistically in humanistic philosophy as axioms, being, effect and development. Reality is not primarily present, but is formed by effects of properties, effects and transformations, which we selectively perceive with very different filters.

© Hans J. Unsoeld, Berlin 2017. All rights reserved.

Updated March 28, 2018    

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