On Ontology of Reality, the UBT and the evolution of reality

[Ted Hoffman]

I am starting this thread on three forums because in my opinion, it spans them and I am afraid to post in only one because I could elude the attention of some brains that would otherwise be very helpful in gaining an understanding concerning my area of interest.

My topic spans science, Philosophy and Existence of Gods - so its multidisciplinary. Those are the forums the thread is present and I hope the mods forgive me if they dont agree with my reasons for posting the same thread accross forums.

Now, some of you might have heard of the CTMU (Cognitive Theoretic Model of The Universe). Its whats called a reality theory and it claims to explain the nature of reality.
Its in part mathematical, in part scientific, in part philosophical/ metaphysical, in part religious.

People like William Dembski, who is a prominent ID advocate endorse it as a model that can help overcome the problems of science like the problem of induction, the tower of turtles and infinite regress (dont worry about the validity of those claims yet). It purports to explain causality and claims to provide the correct framework under which biological origins should be studied.

In short, "the CTMU describes reality as a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language or SCSPL, a reflexive intrinsic language characterized not only by self-reference and recursive self-definition, but full self-configuration and selfexecution (reflexive read-write functionality). SCSPL reality embodies a dual-aspect monism consisting of infocognition, self-transducing information residing in self-recognizing SCSPL elements called syntactic operators. The CTMU identifies itself with the structure of these operators and thus with the distributive syntax of its self-modeling SCSPL universe, including the reflexive grammar by which the universe refines itself from unbound telesis or UBT, a primordial realm of infocognitive potential free of informational onstraint. Under the guidance of a limiting (intrinsic) form of anthropic principle called the Telic Principle, CSPL evolves by telic recursion, jointly configuring syntax and state while maximizing a generalized selfselection parameter and adjusting on the fly to freely-changing internal coconditions. SCSPL relates space, time and object by means of conspansive duality and conspansion, an SCSPL-grammatical process featuring an alternation between dual phases of existence associated with design and actualization and related to the familiar wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics."

Now, lets not waste time trying to understand CTMU (http://www.iscid.org/papers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdfl), anyone interested can do that later, our main concern is the UBT. The Unbound Telesis.

He first describes it as "a primordial realm of infocognitive potential free of informational constraint."

In other places, he states: "In CTMU cosmogony, “nothingness” is informationally defined as zero constraint or pure freedom (unbound telesis or UBT), and the apparent construction of the universe is explained as a self-restriction of this potential. "

He also states:

"the most fundamental imperative of reality is such as to force on it a supertautological, conspansive structure. Thus, the universe “selects itself” from unbound telesis or UBT, a realm of zero information and unlimited ontological potential, by means of telic recursion, whereby infocognitive syntax and its informational content are cross-refined through telic (syntax-state) feedback over the entire range of potential syntax-state relationships, up to and including all of spacetime and reality in general."

He also states :
"The ultimate “boundary of the boundary” of the universe is UBT, a realm of zero constraint and infinite possibility where neither boundary nor content exists."

My personal opinion is that this is neoplatonism in disguise because this UBT is reminescent of Platonic aeon.
But of more importance are questions regarding the ontology and teleology of this UBT. It also brings to question the idea of existence.

Langan has been known to state that the UBT is the mind ofGod and Telesis being "what God wants". Just FYI.

My questions are:

1. (a) From the above selected quotations. Can you see any difference between the UBT and nothing?
(b) Does nothing exist?
(c) Is nothing the potential of everything - the way the known is just a facet of what was hitherto unknown? Can we say the unknown represents everything that can be known? And is that a vacuous truth or a meaningful/utile truth - at least in cosmogony/cosmology?

2. Can there be potential where nothing exists - in a closed place (eg "closed" in the thermodynamic sense)?

3. Is it correct to state that potential is contingent on existence (I believe this is an existentialist question - whoever takes a stab at it, please dont confuse me with "existence precedes essence")? The idea being that the UBT, from which reality emerges, cannot have any potential or pure freedom unless it already exists. If it already exists, questions regarding its ontology and origin will arise and this will bring us to the "tower of turtles" problem which Langan claims, the CTMU is not guilty of - as opposed to big bang cosmology.

4. Is it valid to equate the UBT (based on the idea that the UBT is equal to ontological ground state) with the casimir effect, ground state (from Quantum Mechanics) or quantum vacuum?

5. Is it correct to state that reality must come from unreality? If so, shouldnt cosmological models incorporate unreality as an origin? (My guess is, UBT is a euphemism for the big bang - to escape questions of determinacy/indeterminacy or tower of turtles).

6. Is it possible that there are levels of existence? Because the UBT's existence is supposed to be dissimilar in some respects to ours. Those that love geometry and transformations state that the UBT is at right angles to our perceptual universe - what we call orthogonality.

7. For scientists, is the problem of induction real? ie is it a serious problem?
Did Karl Popper demolish it according to you (I believe Hume formulated it and Duhem Quine made it stronger with the Two Dogmas of Empiricism)

8. Since the universe is expanding, can we say its expanding to its potential (ity) or does its potentiality evolve from its existence? Is it based on any latent perceptible potential or the changes that take place are not based on anything we'd describe as potential?

All responses shall be appreciated.

[John Page]

Originally posted by Jacob Aliet
He also states:

"the most fundamental imperative of reality is such as to force on it a supertautological, conspansive structure.
:eek: Truer than true!! Lots of fun.

In answer to your questions (all IMHO):

1. (a) Yes, UBT is a concept of something, nothing is the concept of the absence of something.
1. (b) "Nothing", an absence of something, exists as a concept only.
1. (c) I think there is a touch of Cartesian theater in the question - truth and knowledge are facets of individual minds interpreting the world they live in, truth does not exist outside the mind. The potential, therefore comes from future mind states. I agree the "unknown" represents our concept of the things that are not known to us. Vacuous? Well, it can be demonstrated that we learn and what we learn was previously unknown so I'm not sure what the issue is.
2. I thing the definition of nothing excludes it having any potential of having the presence of something.
3. Is potential contingent on existence? I don't think so, one can have potential that is never realized.
4. UBT and quantum mechanics. I have no idea.
5. Reality from unreality!! I think its the other way around - reality deined as containing or representing everything including the concept of unreality.
6. Levels of existence. I think levels of existence appear as part of our perception of reality, our sense organs providing information that is analyzed - the form of analysis belies the structure/levels within out minds. Reality is just stuff, noumena.
7. Induction problem? What induction problem? ;) Using results obtained from induction to project the future is not always certain.
8. Universe is expanding in relation to what? The universe?

Here is a link to my ontology and startings of language for describing reality Ontologic (http://www.reconciliationism.org/ontologic.htm) .

Cheers, John

[The Helmetmaker]

So you've got a neologizing, intelligent design, teleologist on your hands, huh? Syndiffeonesis? I gave that up after I discovered girls. Not to worry. He's a lost cause, but his arguments, for all their sophisticated airs, will still have the same basic error(s) as all the rest. I'll take a poke at answering your questions in my own simple way. My apologies if they are too simplistic.

1a. Well, I can. But apparently Langan and Dembski think otherwise. They have redefined nothing(ness), which is nothing more than equivocation. So the ultimate boundary of the universe is unbounded potential? The universe is something, and I can see where its ultimate boundary (not in the physical sense, of course) would then be nothingness, but potential is not nothing - even potential can be measured. So you might say the UBT *is* bounded, in some sense, by the state of really absolute nothingness. I could buy it if they had said the ultimate boundary was absolute nothingness, because absolute nothingness is a self-defeating concept and so something must exist. But that wouldn't be very IDish, would it? It leaves the universe unbounded, without room for a god on the outside of it.

1b. I think I got ahead of myself and answered that above. No, Nothing(ness), in the absolute sense, cannot exist. Little nothings do exist, however, which is where we get the bigger idea from. It's quite possible for little nothings to exist in comparison to surrounding somethings, but I think the idea of a universal nothingness is self-contradictory. In order for a thing to exist, it must be differentiated from other things. An absolute nothingness has nothing to be differentiated from. Thus, it can't exist, and therefore the universe must exist. That's what I think they're basing their argument on; but they're giving nothingness qualities in order to make the ID argument. So if they give it qualities, it's not really nothing, is it?

1c. No. Saying nothing is the potential of something (or everything) is wrong. It makes a something out of nothing. It is a misunderstanding of nothing. Nothing, by definition, could do nothing, portend nothing, create nothing. I'm sorry this doesn't sound very cosmological, but I don't have time to get fancier. Still, without redefining the idea, it prevails. Similarly, the unknown doesn't represent everything that can be known. To say that it does is to say that something is known of the unknown, and then it wouldn't really be unknown, would it? Knowledge is based upon knowledge, not on ignorance. The unknown is not a collection of facts we are ignorant of: it is the ignorance itself. Nothing is not a collection of potential somethings: it is the absence of everything. This is part of their confused IDeas.

2. Nope. Potential is measurable. If it's measurable, it's not nothing.

3. So what is existence? Is it an emergent, like the wetness of water? Do we come to a point where some things exist and other things only potentially exist? Do we define it as being only in the four familiar dimensions? That's certainly a prejudice of consciousness if I ever saw one. Either way leads to the tower. If potential is contingent, then something exists. If potential is non-contingent, then it has independent existence. It's a nice cosmogony, but it doesn't work. In either case, there's an existence to be accounted for. To say it determines its own existence conspansively is as problematic as other teleologies. Nothing "determines" existence: it is, in a manner of speaking, indeterminate. In chaos theory there is the butterfly theory. I would submit that the butterfly exists, and flutters his wings, out of a *reverse* butterfly theory, in which everything else for practical purposes provides the impetus for the butterfly to exist. Knowledge comes from knowledge, not ignorance; being comes from being, not nothingness.

4. I don't think that's what they're getting at.

5. No.

6. Yes. But perhaps I mean this differently than they do. I wouldn't be referring to anything "supernatural." I doubt that the four familiar dimensions is all there is. It takes more than that to describe some things. Even in these four dimensions, we are ignorant of a vast number of things. In BB theory the proto-universe rang like a bell at one point. If we had ears to hear at such a profoundly subsonic level, we could probably still hear echoes of this. Or -- what does the solar system smell like? With a large enough nose we might tell. Virtual particles exist, but they don't exist like you and me. And some say that it may be possible to do the two slit experiment with matter. Drawing an analogy, in evolutionary theory if a trait doesn't have negative survival or reproductive value it could persist with little or no selective pressure. I see no reason why there can't be a vast number of other dimensions in the universe we aren't aware of, so long as their existence doesn't present unresolvable problems. But since the universe is all that is, proposing the UBT as being "at right angles" to our existence leaves them with a problem. They are saying at one time that the UBT is part of the universe, and at another that it is outside of and prior to the universe because the universe "selects" itself from the UBT. How could the universe exist in order to contain the UBT from which it gains its existence? I don't know, but I don't think even multi-dimensional math could solve that one.

7. At first, I thought I'd not step in this river, but I'll step in it, just not in the way you might want. The problem of induction is a problem for theorists, but I don't think it's much of a problem for practical scientists. Since these IDers are theorists, then it becomes a problem for them. And it's not just the inductive problem, but also a problem with deduction. Cosmogonies, and cosmologies to an extent, make the error of assuming the universe is like the things in it. But the universe is not like the things in it: the universe is not *like* anything else. It is a singular concept, and a human one at that. What can be known about the universe by knowing about the things in it? I submit nothing at all, no more than I can construct a theory of aquariums by studying fish. Am I making a distinction without a difference? Is the universe no more than the sum of the things in it? Perhaps. But I don't think so. These IDers start from the premise that the UBT is the ultimate boundary state of the universe. That is, they are trying to consider the universe as a whole, as the aquarium. But they attribute to the UBT attributes that don't have anything to do with the universe, but with the things in it -- the fish in the aquarium. Does the UBT determine the universe, or only the things in it? In either case, how would it not be part of the universe. So it can't precede the universe, only some of the things in it. I don't think it's clear at all what the universe is. If we argue by analogy that we know what the Earth is by knowing the things in it, so we know the universe by the things in it, then we are trapped by the fallacy and the universe must assume other qualities of the Earth or the analogy fails. Some of those qualities may be entirely un-universe-like; for example, finiteness and roundness. What they have done is assume the finiteness (in some sense) of a universe bounded (again, in some sense) by a non-nothing UBT. No matter where we look, we always find more, and we drop it into the aquarium. The universe, as a human idea, is not expanding: it simply means all there is. Our ideas about things *in* the universe are expanding, though. Finding out how things work is a major task of science, but multiplying entities without necessity (like the UBT) is not scientific. As a theory, it may be romantic, but big words and undisprovability don't mask its religious and non-scientific face.

8. I, for one, don't think it's clear the universe is expanding. Some of the things in it are apparently getting farther apart, and the BB is the currently accepted model to explain all this. But the BB is underlaid, if not purposely, with the idea that there was a beginning. But if we grant that it is expanding, then how could it be expanding to its potential? If there is a potential for it to expand to (or into), then how is that not a part of the universe already, seeing as how the universe is considered the sum of all there is? If it can and does expand, then that potential must exist in (or within) the universe itself.


The Helmetmaker