uiu04start.htm "Fire Without, Fire Within"

"Man might just do what the apes can't ... impose a reason for life ... on life."

Pretty words. An effort to distill the essence of Being into the fewest simplest clearest words possible.

But, "what" I am - whatever qualities and essences may or may not be expressed - requires that I "Be", before I can act out the characteristics of "what-ness", of "Being". And, what is "thought" and "thinking" and how much thought is necessary to qualify and admit to this thing we recognize as "am-ness"? Is one flicker of perception sufficient? Are several moments of self-consciousness necessary? Or thousands? Can one singular moment of recognition in the vast ocean of temporal oblivion be satisfactory? And even then, "am" in comparison to what else? To Think and to Be requires not just my own (or any extant's) presence, but an environment of continuous consistent interaction. An environment that sends back information, that confirms and reinforces co-existence. If all of that ceases, "I" cease. And it makes no difference if "I" disappear, or the environment does ... the result is identical; existence truly being what the theologian Martin Buber called: the "I-Thou". Each "self" is nothing without an "other"... force or sentience. Self-consciousness alone is not sufficient to confirm "existence".

Imagine a universe that was totally empty except for a self-present cognizant YOU. Floating in a light-less sound-less empty nothing. Eyes opened, eyes closed, motionless or moving, you would exist in a total, vibrationless emptiness. Nothing you did would be discernably different from anything else, because there would be no way to gauge anything. Your "lifespace" would be devoid of gravitational reference, of impulse, or of "experience".

What "usefulness" then would self-consciousness serve? Exclusive of other "presences", it would serve no purpose. But, to find a meaningful answer to this reasonable question we should be prompted to look carefully at all the situations where something responds to something-else. And, we must include all possibilities. From the "responsiveness" of a human, to that of simpler organisms, even down to the "responsiveness" of subatomic particles; from nations responding to nations, to planet Earth's response to its moon, to Gaia's response to itself. Do life forms with less developed brains have a self-referenced ability to encounter and interact? Of course. Do particles and force fields encounter and interact? Absolutely. "Self-consciousness", in its broadest interpretation, is pertinent for all extants that endure in environments where encounters involve the maintenance and reinforcement of being. Self consciousness is useful in situations where having it and embodying it makes a difference from not. And that infers all of existence. This is the first foremost fundamental characteristic quality that is extancy. It is the singular characteristic that this work focuses on and explores in detail. We will come to appreciate that we were intuitively aware of that all the time ... because we are living embodiments of it ... but we will now embrace it as part of our conscious awareness.

A person or a world or a single atom or a self-relevant electromagnetic wave fluctuation or a balanced "singularity", floating alone in a vast expanse of an otherwise empty volume, is beyond the limit of our present understanding of Existence. That situation would be an unreferencable Solitude... an "existence" in and of itself which would forever be beyond our ken, somewhere on the other side of the conditions that we truly mean and leave unspoken when we think of and share the seminal idea and cept: "existence". Here, on the near side of Creation are the only phenomena we are capable of dealing with or making reference to. The near-side conditions being: the continually occurring sweep of interactions where changes occur and processes happen. Where/when ... because of how things are made/constructed ... "event interactions" result ... exhibiting responses and alterations.

Let's take a moment to understand what this characteristic is about by looking at some example situations. A complex machine - like a satellite hurtling through space- has no independent reason to maintain itself . Its existence is pertinent only to its maker/sender, not itself, so it is of no self-relevant concern if it collides with a planet or comet or whatever, or even whether or not it senses the immanency of such calamitous encounters with its environment, supposing it had the capacity to make flight adjustments and could avoid catastrophe. It did not create itself by any spontaneous build up of internally coordinated processes. It's functional abilities did not arise out of any response to an event or situation. It's limited functions and "identity" are defined by causes "external" to itself: human intellect.

By contrast, complex holistic self consciousness arises as the naturally built up capacity of an extant to process information from its surroundings. Progressively built up from simpler components (including all prior levels of constructive ability), it requires the ongoing ability to encounter, gather, retain, process and evaluate information relative to "self" (whether in complex or rudimentary forms, such as experiencing "pain" or force gradients like a push or pull: negative imbalances that represent a distancing from some safe kinetic stasis), and an ability to respond, to re-adjust to the imbalance, and regain smooth ongoing functioning. Self-consciousness needs "environment" to evaluate the status of its own being; a convocation of others which define themselves by interactive process.

We see a bird swoop down from the clouds. It heads toward a tree...then a branch...it flares its wings just at the right instant...it's talons reach out...clutch a branch...and embrace it as it stiffens it's upper legs to absorb the impact...sweeps it's wings against the momentum...and furls them ...and begins to balance on that branch...and continues to survey where it is...where food...or it's nest...might be. All accomplished while it's heart beats and it digests it's recent meal; some of thousands of simultaneous subtle maneuvers behaviors and reactions accomplished by a very self-conscious being. The bird does not "operate" through the sky and then crash to the ground. It constantly senses itself in it's surroundings and keeps itself safe, using a panorama of information it takes in and readjusts itself to deal with. This is what life does. But these abilities, these skills, have to be grounded in some previous functioning of constituents, because those "behaviors" may only manifest themselves as life when enough components amass and relative information pathways are established to permit a higher integration of activity.

"Am-ness", on whatever level you want to imagine, requires that an extant have the ability to continue and maintain coherency of its innate qualities by successful adjustment to potentially wide ranges of interactions. Up to whatever event might be beyond the skill or structural ability of the "am" to cope with. When we think on those kinds of extreme experience it doesn't matter whether we consider an atomic nucleus being stripped of it's surrounding electrons, a vase shattered by a hammer, an animal electrocuted by a high intensity fence, a corporation dismantled by creditors, a planet de-stabilized by tidal force interactions with its moon, a spiral galaxy deformed by collision with another spiral giant, or any similar situation you can think of....if what a thing "was" prior to an encounter no longer remains essentially present after an encounter...then that "am-ness" no longer exists. It has been destroyed. It has been rendered "extinct". Possibly: evolved. Even...transformed. With a panorama of possibilities that staggers, awes and humbles. Annihilation and metamorphosis co-present as siblings in the vastness of Everything. Persistence and continuity being the hallmark of existence, no matter what techniques or processes are engaged to accomplish it.

Said in another way, "am-ness" - the continuation of being - needs qualities that fall in between the conditional extremes of "nothing to interact with" versus "too much to interact with", between "void" and "immensity", between "lack of existential support" and "overpowering destruction".

Let's put this into the realm of human experience. At sometime in a human being's life the cognitively felt question "why?" occurs to the mind. The one question which is as much a statement of immense declaration as it is a reaching out for knowledge lacking at a given moment. It is the one word~sentiment which acknowledges: "I am not alone. The world around me is more than myself and more than I can explain. There is "existence" that persists without me. Humans are privileged on our planet by being one of the first species to so completely act on this sentient cognition ... and embark on it's abstract resolution (more than figuring out "why" a prey is escaping our pursuit ... by its scurrying down a crevasse too small for us to follow). We are different from our fellow creatures, not in form or functioning but in "capacity", for extending the universal drive - to engage and suffuse the universe. We have the ability to encounter the rest of existence and appreciate the connections that go beyond our immediate and local experiences. We can extrapolate and find relevance beyond here-and-now, appreciating and holistically interpreting everyplace-everywhen-everyhow. We truly are at one with the momentous force behind existence, constructed of the same bits and pieces and relationships that make up all things "not-ourselves". We are not only "in" the universe, we are part "of" it. We are concurrent with existence and all the ramifications of existence. We are not separate outsiders examining something that is alien and foreign. We are one of the spawns of Creation which can know that we are this Creation. So when we look at Creation - the Universe - we are looking at ourselves, no matter what we explore or incorporatingly learn by intention or encounter through chance. What is of special note is that we have arrived at a point when we can ponder on the meaning of meaning, concern ourselves with the act of concern, wonder about wondering, and think on the why of why. We can look at the whole montage of creation and seek its "idea", its seminal essence.

We are born as part of a universe of experience. Our form and our consciousness are comprised of the bits and pieces and forces of the most minute components of creation, and we have existed - as those components - through the most dynamic and titanic events that ever were, are, or will be. At the very least, we have existed through those moments and in those places that temperatures and physical densities were nearly infinite. Where the plasma-soup of energy-matter was so extreme, that what we are made of at this moment, was yet to exist because everything was so collapsed that there was no room - no environment - to exist in, in the form (atomic structuring) that we discern ourselves now to be.

And yet, even there, interactions, relationships and dynamics existed. There were causes and effects. On such a coherent and consistent scale that everything that was about to be formed would do so, such that the structures being made would be the same - of the same family - throughout ALL of creation. A relative handful of types of 'things' would automatically come into being...throughout that infant universe...no matter where or when they formed. Because the rules...the relationship pre-conditions...were 'already' there...in the fabric of space/time/energy.

This, too, was experience. Every extant present at that occasion affected and responded to an environmental panorama which it was part and parcel of. A dynamic interlinked flow of energy, information, and experience.

And here and now, bringing to bear on this subject the fullest extent of our conscious awareness, we must begin by realizing that the source of our knowledge is only through this dynamic called experience - and the accretion and correlation of experiences - retained, stored and used - as information.

By way of reference, the universe must necessarily be made of forces and particles that by their very dynamics are already the precursors to life. Particles, atoms, etc, are already self-containing functioning units that do nothing else except maintain their form/functions while constantly encountering forces/objects in their environment. The power and fire of life grows from within. The universe is organized so that life is a natural extension of non-life. It flows from the least of existence and expresses itself in all the forms and levels attainable. It is the slow and steady build up of complexity and history. And it is the daily expression that each regenerating form displays in its activities from moment to moment. Individuals or species or supernovas. We are all "creation".

But "creation" shows such a bewildering array of events and transactions, some so seemingly antithetical in qualities or dynamic ranges, that it almost appears that there couldn't possibly be any "connection" between them all. In point of fact there is. There must be. If no other recognition guides our mentality, we must never lose sight of the fact that the great enormity of behaviors in the universe bespeak a fundamental "sameness" that permits the comfortable co-existence of all of these things in one location, the Universe, in the first place. An underlying "compatibility" is required. The search for it is what humanity is partially embarked on as part of "what we do" in the world. The search for it ... is the purpose of these writings.

But how do we describe these perceptive understandings in terms both at once new and meaningful? What topic affords a "better" reference, if any? Religion? Psychology? ... or physiology, or chemistry, or physics, or philosophy, or sociology, or etymology, or relativity, or language patterns, or dreams, or entropy-negentropy, or purpose, or communication, or information capacity, or systems analysis, or integrity, or security, or meaning of meaning, or empathy, or homeostasis, or praeself, or body language, or sensation, or duality, or symmetry, or singularity, or emotion, or capacity for objectivity, or evolution, or prophesy, or comedy/tragedy, or humanity, or capacity for action recumbent in construction, or resultant action reliant on viable interactions, or transformation of inanimate to animate, or collective unconscious, or enculturation, or decision processes, or phantom limbs, or ....

Do we begin with music? With visuality? With convolutions on the surface of the great conundrum? Waves upon waves, in a dance of holo-graphic moments ... extraordinarily profuse and embellished? With the fact that nothing "new" exists because experience is singular within a life-time and is experienced only in unique framework; that incorporation of information is so instantaneous that familiarity is equatable with identity; that our experiences today are different only in type but not in kind from any human being who ever lived; and that, in fact, there might be nothing historically new to experience which has not already been experienced or sensed by someone/something else?

In extensive and densely interconnected environments several relationships and processes are happening at once. Einsteinian "equivalence" expresses that above all else, existence is a flux of transitioning. Things - energy, space and time - are in a constant dance where myriad components, aspects, and factors can and do translate and transcribe myriad forms of information. Scientists of the past 200 years have focussed their efforts on analyzing and understanding the "what" that is going on in all these processes. Chemists, biologist and other large-domain explorers have concentrated on events bounded by those experiential extremes. Physicists in particular work at the boundaries per se...at the limits of energy exchange: Absolute Zero, at one extreme, and energy expressed at the speed of light...if not beyond, at the other. Temperatures without limit.

Absolute Zero we intuitively understand. A "basement", a temperature terra firma, a no-where-else-to-go primal state of atomic dynamic structure. Above that, Einstein handed us an equal and potentially firm sort of ceiling, the speed of light. A velocity which stays permanently fixed, for anyone and anything. A maximum speed for the transmission and transference of energy. Except. In its simplest form, his equation "E=mc²" indicates a velocity of quite a different sort.

If we look at the equation again, but examine it as a true "rate of process", rather than the astounding enough perception that matter equals energy ... and that the equivalence is a "quantity" expressed as an extraordinarily large, but fixed, value (c²) ... then the "rate" of that translation of energy into matter (or vice-versa) is truly at an exponential speed, c times c. Not only do the corresponding "quantity-values" transcribe into the other "exponentially", but the "speed of translation" can also be inferred to be happening at that "rate". The translation or transfer happens not in a linear uniform time scale or restricted by velocity "c", but in a measure of temporal scales multiplied time each other. According to two separate "time coordinates" measured in comparison to each other.

For the everyday world we experience, this exponential value appears as interesting but impractical information. So far. There has been some theoretical inquiry done to explore phenomena which might be faster than the relativistic speed of light. Certain Doppler wave frequency shifts (when the phase-density of waves increase or decrease in regard to the comparative positions and velocities of a source and a receiver) have been measured which indicate that some masses have been or are travelling at speeds in excess of the speed of light. Especially out at the edges of the visible Universe where we are observing things as they were billions of years ago.

At the very least, an adjustment in how we interpret these things might need to be found in order to accommodate why velocities in excess of "c" are even showing up in experimental results. Faster than light velocities run counter to contemporary understandings of the behavior limits of matter and energy, and has yet to be satisfactorily explained. Some theories propose Tachyons, particles of matter that are imagined to travel no slower than the speed of light, in an effort to form a possible explanation of this and other phenomenon. It is obvious that some accommodation needs to be made. Either specifying conditions that permit velocities higher than c to exist, or readjusting our interpretation of the Doppler Shift. Even exceptions to rules need to be accounted for.

Regarding space, matter and energy per se, there are similar theories attempting to deal with the concept of "extraordinary compression (i.e., translation)" of energy and information. In current scientific vogue is String and Super-string Theory...ideas which postulate the extraordinary compression of energy and matter into spatial regions so infinitely small that time and space are compressed also....so much so that any Einsteinian constraints are disregarded entirely for some phases of existence. Some current Cosmologists (Smoot, et al.) postulate that during the first "seconds" and "hours" and "years" (assuming there is or was some environmental frame to make these words meaningful) the physical "space" (volume) of the Universe itself expanded at rates wholly in excess of the speed of light. It is postulated that the expansion of "space" into the geometric volume that we experience it as, was not initially limited by a velocity limit.

It is presumed that energy/matter self-defined its own presence, established its own functional environment as it was expanding and decompressing from its incubating Singularity cocoon. "Space" is assumed not to exist on its own. It came into "being" as a corollary quality pertinent to energy/matter. These theorists conceptually maintain a "time normal" standard (the one we experience, and in which c is uniform), and express the expansion of the Universe within the first few "fractions of a standard "second"" as being far in excess of the usual measure of the speed of light. The occurrence was at a "time" in the process when only high energy existed, not matter. Material-form came only after the first 10^-43 "second", when energy had "cooled" sufficiently for matter to congeal and coagulate out of the heat of Creation.

First: nothing. Then: extraordinary something. Then: moderate most everything (in very simple forms)...sub-atomic particles, atomic particles...etc., in random combinations. Afterwards, as cooling continued and space provided "elbow room", the Universe became the place we know of today.

Beyond the extremes of "no interaction" and "too much interaction" there developed the middle latitude of existence, where stable dynamic continuance of forms is the hallmark of "being". Whether it is on the scale of nano-seconds for subatomic particles, or cosmic millennia for the galaxies, or minutes, hours, days, years, centuries, and eons, for biological and geological forms...there is always a duration of dynamic stability.

It is this "dynamic stability" that I have chosen to explore and evaluate. Because it is a phenomena relevant to everything that exists. It is the one pandemic concept of universal functioning that embraces all the mathematics, all the energetics, all the behavioral patternings, all the singularly distinct components, all the intricately interconnected processes, all ideas, beliefs and perceptions. All constants, regimens and gradients. All transferences and transmissions. All relevance and relativity and mechanics...both quantum and celestial.

I have chosen the name "Integrity" principle to refer to this universally applicable process of "dynamic stability". Each field of study may have it's own terminology for this activity, but they are all essentially the same function, merely considered apropos to each focus of discussion. Quantum plateaus, homeostasis, international balance of trade, econiches, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (an action produces an "equal" re-action), dynamic equilibrium, steady-states, stable social order, are some of the terms used.

Integrity can best be understood as the ability of an extant to participate in a range of interactions and still maintain a continuity of form or function or development. Integrity, as we are capable of recognizing it, must be broad enough to embrace such examples as : 1) a stable proton existing for the entire life of the universe, 2) a caterpillar which metamorphosizes into a moth or butterfly (being a singular organic life form which undergoes drastic alterations of its structure in order to deal with different environments, or bio-metabolism, or need-objectives in regards to its survival as a holistic organism), 3) structural stress limits of constructed materials, as an organism (such as ourselves) matures through several distinct states or forms of maturation while remaining essentially "individual" and uniquely the same, and even, 4) evolution (that occurs as organisms interact successfully to a wide variety of encounters on many levels...external environment, random fluctuations in bio-metabolism and genetic sequencing, and so on) where the chain of regenerating-creation can produce wholly different life forms....while relying on an unbroken lineage of reproduction-that-permits-alterations.

A very special perspective must predominate here. It is that successful survival is a result of no one singular distinct process. Relevant to how a thing or organism is made, the integral continuation of its being is the result of how that construction can behave in regard to a vast spectrum of forces, affects and relationships. An orchestration of actions and reactions dealing with not only the Integrity of the organism itself, but with the Integrity of all its sub-processing parts with itself ... and itself as a nested part of the larger populations or environments which it is a member of.

That is, we can recognize Integrity processes relative to quarks, then of neutrons protons and electrons, then of atoms, then of molecules, then of molecular process cycles, then of cells, then of cellular aggregations, then of organisms, then of biological familial groupings, then of social groups or even economic interactions. Likewise, under alternate energy circumstances, we can imagine quantities and temperature situations where the Integrity sequence extends from sub-atomic to atomic to the panorama of cosmic forms...galaxies, black holes, stars and comets et al.

We need to keep all of this in mind, and more. We must be diligently aware that "environment" cannot be limited to those things that are only external to some nebulously defined boundary called "integral entity". Behavior and Integrity and survival require a latitude of activities that relate to internal and external phenomena in order to assure continuation of being, each level having its own "internal" and its own "external". Each level having or not an immediate affect on the levels nested on either side of its Integrity bound, but always having the potential to inter-affect each other through present pathways of energy and information exchange. Always present and always active. Each working in regards to its own stability, and yet, interdependently affecting the dynamic stabilities of everything else.

Something is going on here. Something as powerful as the 4 fundamental forces which we have observed. A comparable dynamic of some sort that works in concert with them. It maybe as simple as some factor of how those forces already ffunction, a factor they already have in common, which we may already be familiar with. It may be an aspect totally new. At the very least we can start defining Integrity according to the idea of "range" which this discussion opened with: the capacity to interact poised predominantly between too little information/energy and too much information/energy. I therefore offer you a brief quote from "Discussion of the Four Plane Universe Conundrum", �1973, my first paper setting the guidelines and seminal ideas needed to cope with this most ambitious project.

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Note: This diagram "instinctively" "maximizes" Integrity in the normal visual sense. However, the final diagram form is more accurately inverted, as maximization of "potential" (to handle information) at a stability plateau "minimum".

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An important related problem, which researchers in many fields are already trying to cope with is "complexity", the grand exploration of what processes exist which drive complex systems into existence. Except for the minimal situation of quantum base state values found in atomic structure, where energy plateaus can hold constant for near infinite lengths of time, everything else should be subject to Entropy...the seemingly constant and persistent dispersion, distribution and dilution of energy. A "downhill" anti-complexity gradient that seems impossible to counter. And yet, we are here. Life is here. Complexity a in spite of the "rule" of entropy degradation.

Some real and potent process has enabled the arising of life. We have not yet pinpointed any new or different "force". So, what now? Do we continue to look for something new and different to explain it? Or is there another option? I suggest that we re-look at what we already know. It might be possible to reorganize known forces and processes into a better scenario and collage. We might be able to use what we already know to explain negentropic complexity. We can re-examine and restructure the languages and concepts we already use to arrive at an appreciation for aspects and relationships we might not have been cognizant of before, yet were always there.

The proposal that I offer is that the universe uses the entropy process only as a general rule. That is, localized entropy regions might be definable which had/have the net effect - in context to even larger domain considerations -of creating systems of negentropic organization and behavior. Complexity, life, and all the blending of known behaviors and evolved processes have arisen from simple applications and orchestrations of the primary fundamental forces...in synchrony with multiple applications of entropy ... ffunctioning in closely defined regions.

This possibility truly intrigues me, because I believe in the idea of a Unified Field Theory, a Grand Unified Theory ... spoken of using the phrase Theory of Everything. Such a Theory of Everything was originally spawned through the efforts of physicists and mathematicians to explain, unify and coordinate the four distinct forces that have been discerned which affect and produce the simple behaviors of matter and energy: Gravity, Electro-Magnetism, the Strong Nuclear Force, and the Weak Nuclear Force.

This is no small or mean task in and of itself, not entirely accomplished as of this writing. But those chosen title-phrases can be understood in a more ambitious and broader way, and be no less valid or accurately meaningful. If we look at all the knowledge we have accumulated along the way in this great adventure of Life and Creation, the simple truth makes itself more and more apparent. That there is a Uniformity to all this co-existence which goes beyond any topically parochial understandings. All our behaviors, our belief structures, our social institutions, our survival skills, our interpersonal actions, our transcendental concepts, all of this and more ... exist and are made up of all we have come to understand about the primal extants in the universe. We are what we are made of and more. Principally, whatever the quarks and strange matter are, that is what we are too. Our behaviors are necessarily derived from that level of existence. All our somatic biology and all our Spiritual cognitions.

After I give a thorough discussion of some of my basic concepts and their comparison to historically previous paradigms I will come back to "complexity" and "entropy"; I will eventually describe an expanded frame of reference that includes strange and extraordinary ranges for several different kinds of "probabilities"...probabilities that could be the source for encouraging and nurturing complexity - and life, rather than denying it. Before I do, it is important to explain a new way to understand "information"... how we experience it and how we talk about it.