OntologyRules.com

searching for “the theory of everything” via the route of ontology

What is ontology?

Ontology means different things to different people but for the purpose of this webpage, ontology is in reference to the nature of reality in the sense that there is one defined reality, fixed, measurable, and observable. So then, I define it here as “as a branch of philosophy, the science of what is, of the kinds and structures, and nature, of objects.” In simple terms, ontology seeks the classification and explanation of entities.

What is the intention of this webpage?

The intention here is to explain, in everyday words, the nature of the being of the universe and the rules of its being. Proposers of scientific theories regarding the universe must not contradict these rules (or properties) of beingness. For example: You can’t build a time machine that will go back in time and kill your mother before you were born because that would violate causality laws. (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry)

During this discussion it will become apparent that there can be no creator-gods, nor time travel. I will restate this as proof that there can be no creator-gods, nor time travel. Although this may seem like a key point, it is only a minor anomaly of this work.

I am hoping that this discussion will stimulate the minds of theoretical physicists some of which seem off track by violating ontological principles in their search for “the theory of everything.” The discussion will involve using imagination exercises of which Einstein has shown are a wonderfully useful tool for learning and reasoning.

Yes, “ontology rules” is a play on words. “Rules” has two meanings, 1) to rule as a ruler of a nation, and 2) a rule that must be adhered to. So then, ontological rules are the foundation of rules for logically going forward with proposals describing reality.

I also wish to inspire an army of thinkers to seek and promote a truer understanding of reality−certainly one that will have people live their lives closer to reality than what current faiths provide.

Warning:

Your religious leader, if you have one, may not want you to read the contents of this website. The presentation of challenging ideas may upset you because they conflict with your current knowledge or conception of the world. You may not be able to find answers to these ideas within your holy book. In fact, the ideas presented will be difficult to respond to for seasoned Christian apologists.

Can we start before the beginning of time?

Yes, but only in our imagination. We can start before there was anything in existence, but first we need to describe this state and we need to qualify words that may bring ambiguity.

We are going to take a journey of creation, and we are going to go back to a universe of complete emptiness. However, there are two meanings of creation. There is creation where somebody uses existing materials to make something and then there is virgin creation or initial creation which is creation from no materials at all. We need to distinguish between the two so we will call creation from no given materials to start with, “pop-creation,” and creation from assembling, merging, or building, “make-creation.”

Imagination is the mother of invention and creation. Ideas may pop into your head. You can pop an image of sugar cube into your head using your mind’s eye but can’t think pop an actual sugar cube into your brain. Imagining is pop-creation, creation by handling things that are already in existence is make-creation. Artists and inventors do both all the time.

There are other words that we will have to define clearly, and we will do that as we go. So here we go. Using our imagination, we have equipped a special observation capsule with supernatural instruments. Imagine a glass bubble with a floor and a desk of dials, control knobs, and levers. As we position ourselves and observe, the material outside our observation bubble cannot detect our presence and our presence does not affect the material outside. We can move around freely—much like using something far better than a noiseless, invisible camera-drone in warfare where the enemy doesn’t know it’s been spotted. However, our observation capsule has far more capabilities as you see later.

But so far, our universe has nothing to observe. There is nothing but empty space in every direction we look. At this point we need to define what we mean by “empty space.” We don’t mean the space between stars or galaxies; we mean completely empty Euclidean three-dimensional space—i.e., a 100% vacuum. As we look, in straight lines, east, west, north, and south and every degree in between, we see that there is nothing. Let us refer to this as Euclidean completely empty space or “EuclideanCES” going forward. You could argue that, in a sense, it is a substance unto itself. Thus, we have our first substance.

Note that time has no meaning in a universe that is completely empty—there is nothing to relate as before and after. We cannot experience, witness, or prove the passing of time in our universe so far. Remember, we are non-existing ghost-like observers.

Before we play with our empty universe let’s take a magic carpet ride with our imaginary observation capsule in our current universe as it is now. First, we need to brief every one of the supernatural capabilities of our capsule. We can shrink it so small that we can go inside of a neutrino, and we can enlarge it so much that the entire universe looks the size of a neutrino. We can speed through space faster than the speed of light and view things in super slow motion, so slow that we can observe the motion of a neutrino as it travels. We can also travel in synchronization with particles such as a photon. However, our observation instruments do not allow us to go back, nor forward, in time. We can only observe the state of things in the present moment.

As we lift off from Earth, we see Earth slowly rotating counterclockwise with oceans and continents going by. We see the sun and we decide to take a trip into it. So, we speed to the sun’s surface faster than the speed of light and watch the mind-blowing explosions for a while. Someone in our party wants to go inside an explosion so we shrink our capsule smaller and smaller until we can observe what’s actually going on. We see particles flying around like crazy. Remember, we are undetectable and ghost-like, so we do not feel the heat—it’s like we are not even there. We turn on our slow-motion capability gradually and notice all kinds of collisions of particles and atoms, etc. I think by now you get the jest of our amazing observation capsule. Now we can go back and start building a universe from nothing.

So, let us go back to, and start with, complete emptiness where our universe is now, and in fact a completely empty universe everywhere we look. Let’s put a single drop of pure water into it. Let’s shrink our observation capsule so we go inside of the drop of water. An actual drop of water contains 3 sextillion atoms, that’s 3 followed by 21 zeros (3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

To put this number into perspective, if you were to print a page of dots using Microsoft Notepad, where each dot represents an atom of water, you would need half of all the trees in the world to make the paper, and you could wallpaper half of a hollowed-out Saturn. (And you would need a powerful telescope to see the dots when you stand in its center.) This is only one example of how orders of magnitude are mind-blowing. Another is the fact that a hundred billion neutrinos from the Sun pass through each square inch of your body every second, night and day, and without a trace of interaction with your body’s atoms. (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry)

We shrink ourselves until a neutrino is as large as us. What are we looking at? Are we looking at a single object? What shape does it have? Does it have holes in it? Is it made up of a single material? Is it mainly EuclideanCES with many seemingly unconnected particles in some kind of coordinated motion?

Which question should we answer first?

Stay tuned, more content is coming. If you would like to discourage or encourage me to continue, please email me at darwin@atheists.net.