Introduction
Existence of the Universe: An Inescapable Tautology?
To the question of the existence of the universe, the answer is obvious since, as a part of this universe, if it did not exist, we would not be here to ask it.
The question of the existence, for us (from our point of view) of the universe, presupposes our existence, which as a part of the universe, implies its existence.
That is the observation we have used, and it is indisputable.
We shall see in the next paragraph that existentialism generalizes this notion of existence.
Of course, if we didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to see our own non-existence or that of the universe.
So the answer is a tautology. But isn’t that the only coherent answer we can give to this type of question, at least with our usual way of thinking?
Indeed, even if we think that the probability of the appearance of life in the universe is very low, in a place where it appeared and gave rise to evolved beings, they should not be surprised that they exist and precisely where they are and that the universe has the properties necessary for their existence (weak anthropic argument)!
This document will therefore not give an answer to this question, but will set out the state of the reflections with its limitations. From the outset, it can already be seen that explaining and justifying one’s own existence is generally considered to be a more philosophical problem of science. But the scientific approach has led us to drastically reconsider our way of thinking, a process that is not yet complete, so the current limits, like the theories, are far from being reached.
Drawing a parallel with the problem of the « proofs » of the existence of God that believers have long sought, it appeared to theologians that this search was in vain, because if man could, by his reason, find a proof he would rise to the level of the divine, which is to say that we would be equal to God. which is an unacceptable proposition for a believer. It will be seen that the condition of a believer is to believe without hope of being convinced.
Are we in exactly the same situation? If this is the case, our quest will always be in vain. Otherwise, which we are not sure about, in case in the document we give some clues that undoubtedly involve an even greater conceptual break than those we have already experienced in history, so let us be optimistic and continue to search.
Essentialism and Existentialism
Essentialism
This question of existence, in particular of our existence within other existences, has always been a favourite subject of philosophers.
The Platonic interpretation stipulating a world of ideas and its phenomenological realization in our sensible world (the physical world in which we live) justifies the existence as an imperfect realization in the physical world, of the perfect entities of the world of ideas.
This world of ideas (essence), which is not accessible to us, therefore has a « divine » character in this approach.
Existentialism
Existentialism as an acknowledgment of our existence (« operational » existentialism)
Existentialism breaks with this precedence of essence over existence to affirm, on the contrary, that it is existence that takes precedence. Existence cannot be deduced, it is ascertained by a consciousness: The existence of something is a concept that applies to someone.
This exists for me.
This someone, endowed with a consciousness, must exist: He also necessarily exists for himself. Aconsciousness must exist in order to ascertain its existence and the existence of other elements, especially those which seem necessary for its existence, such as the universe.
Existence does not have a « universal » character, this concept is relational: one thing exists for itself (relation to oneself: consciousness) and another thing (not necessarily endowed with consciousness) can also exist for our consciousness (relation to others).
Untying this Gordian knot
It is a non-linear, self-reactive property, where the existence of an entity with consciousness validates its own existence!
It should be noted that, on the other hand, we can ask ourselves whether it makes sense to imagine the « existence » of an entity without consciousness, internal or external, in order to observe it. A priori no, because since one can only exist for someone, one needs an entity endowed with a consciousness to see it. As such, it is easier to understand why the universe in which we live includes consciousness, because without consciousness, a universe does not exist for anyone.
It could be objected that before our appearance, only a non-conscious mineral, vegetable, and animal world existed, but this is an observation we make, we should ask at what stage of development of the animal (vegetable) world? This kind of consciousness of existence has emerged.
Can this Gordian knot be untied in any other way than by Alexander’s method?
Paradoxically, general relativity and quantum mechanics will offer us a rather instructive paradigm to shed light on this situation. We’ll come back to that.
Let us keep in mind that, by definition of existence, existence requires a « consciousness » (necessarily a thinking being: I think therefore I am!) in order to ascertain it: one observes existence!
Existentialism therefore implies a « consciousness » in the universe in order for it to exist and consequently and, in the materialist approach, that there is a necessity for the universe to produce a consciousness in order to « exist » (strong anthropic argument: the universe has a purpose). Otherwise, at best, it could only « be ».
In this materialist approach, the universe is the « whole », the consciousness we have of it is internal (part of the universe), it is not a consciousness external to the universe. .
It should be noted that in this approach, which could be described as « operational » existentialism, the essence of things is not explicitly denied, it is simply ignored, because it is not accessible to our knowledge, and is considered useless.
If the existentialist approach can leave the mind unsatisfied, because it can appear as a renunciation (we do not know how to answer the question of the source of our existence, we evade it and we stick to the observation), its foundation is well supported.
Does existence have to be justified?
Isn’t this putative dissatisfaction based on an implicit conception of a Platonic world? The existence of all things must be justified! The question then becomes: is this justification really necessary?
After all, this world of ideas seems very fictitious, so it is not limiting oneself to noting existence first, because that is how reality is exposed!
This is the point of view of operational existentialism that we have previously expounded, which, in a pithy way, can be summarized as: « note the existence, for its source or its cause, move along, there is nothing to see! » This attitude, which may seem like a pirouette to escape a problem (a loophole), is, in spite of everything, supported by some arguments.
When our concepts of time and space mislead our mind
For example, the notion of precedence (the existence of a predecessor) implicitly invokes time (at least one chronology, one is before the other), which is problematic for the universe since the universe is a space-time that does not require a predecessor.
Indeed, a space-time is something that is more than time and space, which are only shadows of it. This chronology criterion is therefore not an attribute external to the universe but at best an internal parameter, which exists because it is an element of something that already exists.
All this shows that we should not let ourselves be aberrled by unspoken words implicit in our habits of thought, at the risk of getting lost on a false trail.
« Transcendental » Existentialism:
Transcendental existentialism opens a path to a coherent proposition of the existence of existence
Indeed, if our mind, very much impregnated with Platonism, supposes an external cause to our existence, divine for example, which has been said about the nature of the universe as presented by general relativity, a space-time is not in time and space, it exists. It was not created somewhere, at a particular moment (cf. J. Peebles).
So this notion of « creation » in time is space, which is prevalent in our minds, can , in fact, only be relative to entities internal to our universe in space-time where spatial and temporal coordinates can be locally defined to specify it
When the chronological model misleads our mind
Thus, since the chronological model of modern cosmology describes a universe with a beginning (big Bang?) and an evolution, where our appearance (as thinking beings with consciousness) is very late, one might think that, since an important phase of its evolution took place in our absence, the universe did indeed exist without us, even if it is we who currently think so. Its existence and description are in our minds.
Of course, there were, there are, and perhaps there will be other thinking beings elsewhere, with a consciousness and perhaps more or something else that we do not imagine, who can ask themselves the same questions and no doubt others. Let us consider only our case.
Since the universe is space-time, in Newtonian terms one could say that it is the entire cosmos in its maximum spatial and temporal extension. We are part of this cosmos. The existence of the universe contains our existence which is part of « everything », among other things, but like everything else, chronology results from an internal parameter of the universe. We don’t know if talking about the emergence of this space-time makes sense (probably not) but, to give an image, if it did, we would be part of the whole, at its emergence, of what emerged
Our mistake is then to attribute to the universe (space-time) the same constraints that govern our phenomena within the universe. It is a conceptual mistake to impose this!
It is therefore necessary to adopt another paradigm: The existence of an entity does not require its creation in the common sense of the term: to emerge from nothingness in a given place at a given time, which presupposes the prior existence of a structure of time and space.
These spatio-temporal structures, which our mind considers as immediate data of its consciousness, of a universal character, exist only within the universe and within ourselves, which makes it difficult for us to detach ourselves from them. They don’t apply to the universe, they are the fabric of it.
The Transcendental Character of this Paradigm
It is astonishing that our mind, an internal element of this universe, can elaborate concepts that are external to it. Our mind is not a « fixed » structure but very flexible, which is its main quality and not the least!
This transcendental character of knowledge is illustrated by Bachelard in connection with the transition from Newtonian mechanics to relativity. He points out that nothing in Newtonian mechanics prefigured relativity.
Indeed, if, as Bachelard points out, knowledge is of an inductive nature, the law is induced by example, the passage from Newtonian mechanics to relativistic mechanics does not result from an amplificative type of induction (which extends the field of knowledge to existing paradigms) but from a transcendental induction through an epistemological break towards another paradigm.
This implies, for example, that the compatibility between these weak-field theories does not occur naturally, but at the cost of mutilations of relativity: « unnatural » assimilations are made between (scalar) potentials and curvatures that are not of the same nature.
Can the mind transcend its physical support?
We are part of the universe, our material constituents (protons, neutrons, electrons, with their rules of composition) are those of the universe. [1]
Can our mind, whose functioning implements a high combinatorics of the possibilities offered by our constitution, free itself from its material shell?
Our material constitution, apparently in a 3-dimensional space and its evolution (dynamics) according to a 1-dimensional dynamic parameter that we call time, implies that we live in a spatio-temporal structure of type 3D x 1D, where the multiplication sign indicates a combination of a 3-dimensional parameter with a one-dimensional parameter, parameters that are independent.
But the study of nature and these laws, theorized for example by general relativity, shows us that this is not the structure of this nature. The universe is a 4-dimensional continuum (space-time) where the spatial and temporal aspects are only « arbitrary sections » (the shadows of Plato’s allegory of the cave) of the « monolithic » space-time entity that should be called the « universe » instead, a term without a restrictive connotation of space and time.
Note how misleading the term « space-time » is because it suggests a concatenation of space and time, which is not the case, but which our mind uses because it refers to these concepts inherent in our materiality.
To illustrate the difference in phenomenology between a 4-dimensional universe and our perception of it in 3 + 1 dimensions, although 3+1 = 4, let’s take the example of binocular vision where each eye receives a 2-dimensional image (on the retinal surface).
The result, which our brain sends back to us, is not the sum of the images or a combination of images that would be 2 dimensions, but a 3 dimensional image that is the « monolithic and synthetic » object, the reference, of which the 2 images he used for this 3d creation are then only shadows in a 2d subspace.
This 3D image created by the brain, is much more than a combination of 2 2d images.
It’s the same with space-time, it’s much more than a combination of space and time that are just shadows of it.
To further understand how difficult it is for our minds to conceptualize space-time, let’s now take the example of a 4-dimensional space. A prisoner in his well-closed cell (walls around), bars on windows and doors cannot escape into a 3-dimensional space. But if there is a 4th dimension and if there is access to it, it escapes through that dimension. Is that conceivable?
But where is this extra dimension? We don’t conceive of it! How to design it. Mathematically, I know it’s possible, I know how to describe it very precisely and predict the results, but I don’t see it. My mind is blind to this 4thspatial dimension.
But if, in a 3-dimensional universe, we consider a (2-dimensional) plane, for example a (horizontal) square bounded by 4 sides of which we cannot cross one side (line) on the surface (mined for example), we know that we can ‘jump’ over this line (without touching it), in the third dimension (vertical), without triggering the mine. Here we understand, because our mind is familiar with this 3-dimensional space and its puff pastries.
It should be noted that this case is illustrated in a military way by land defence lines (trenches, mines, etc.) where air means can be used to breach these defences.
All of this is symptomatic of a strange situation that seems contradictory. The mind can describe very precisely the phenomenology associated with the phenomenon but does not know how to synthesize the phenomenon (object) that generates this phenomenology. On the other hand, he knows very well how to represent it by means of « equations » that make it possible to make reliable predictions of results.
In the end, this is not a major obstacle, because what matters about the existence of these phenomena is their actions and interactions with the physical world, not their intimate nature (noumenon). Leibnitz described this well when he declared that what does not act does not exist: One exists by one’s actions on the world!
All these considerations justify asking the question: can our mind overcome all its material contingencies?
Modern science open a new way
The mere fact of asking the question opens a door to this hypothesis. But where to go? In this article, we have looked at possibilities that show that we need to break free from our usual concepts that lead to a failure in our knowledge of the universe and our existence.
It is not a question of breaking and violating the laws that govern our minds, quite effectively, by making assumptions that we would consider « incongruous », at least in the current context.
Of course, they will necessarily be, since what we call today the « possible » does not allow us to break the vicious circle of our existence, but in a context where new, more synthetic paradigms will have to produce the laws that we know imperfectly today, by a reduction, or rather by a mutilation (as « Bachelard » says).
This process is reminiscent of the transition from the classical science of the 19th century to the modern science of the 20th century, which took place at the cost of a brutal conceptual break that no one expected (and that took a long time to assimilate)!
If we have managed to establish effective theories, such as general relativity, which annihilates our concepts of time and space, inherent in our thinking and that of quantum mechanics, while we do not understand anything about it, which has allowed us to explore an aspect of the mysterious world that remains misunderstood, then there is still hope.
Indeed, these theories, which in fact we do not understand, should not destabilize us but rather rejoice us because they show us the way and open the way to new paradigms that go beyond our contingencies.
This shows that our mind is capable of going beyond its material constitution, because it is not the material support that counts but the incredible combinatorics that it allows!
Do we have to integrate the human mind into the universe to understand it?
If our physical action on the dynamics of the universe is insignificant, our minds carry a gigantic amount of information. In terms of information, the universe with all these atoms and their possible arrangements contains a considerable amount of information, but a human brain is a structure that alone contains information that could be even greater than it. And what about a society, a combination of human minds.
Shouldn’t this be taken into account in order to better understand the universe?
Some ideas to go further
A few reminders
In this paper, we have attempted to skip (or circumvent) the obstacles that have arisen in our analysis. The fact remains, however, that we are an assemblage of atoms as well as the material support of our minds.
If cosmology describes the composition and evolution of our universe, as allowing our existence, which reveals a structure that amazes us, but is obviously compatible with our existence, (it is not, no doubt, the only possible one) that the evolution of species describes to us the evolution of life up to us, which also depends on the history of the Earth, There remains the mystery of the existence of this universe, its composition and the laws that govern it.
It should also be noted that our vision of things can be « biased » by our subjectivity, which means that we unconsciously only care about the types of phenomena that concern us (that have an effect on our existence). Other phenomena, which may be important, may then escape us.
Brain Capability and limits
Moreover, if our brain is capable of reacting, better than randomly, to a situation that it has never been confronted with, an admirable property that artificial intelligence tries to imitate, unlike a « deterministic » program, it still needs to have knowledge of situations that have similarities to the one it faces.
Indeed, it is his ability to extract correlations between this new phenomenon and those he has already apprehended that gives him this admirable ability. But if the situation he fears has no connection with his achievements, he can only respond at random.
Thus, before discovering that the visible covered only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum, it is difficult to see how our minds could have given a better-than-random explanation for a phenomenon such as X-rays of the body, which would seem magical to it.
Existence vs. Creation
We posit the existence of the whole as a principle, in fact as the only plausible argument. We have argued that creation, which implicitly refers to concepts of time and space that have no physical character, should be excluded because it is a red herring that can only lead us astray.
As such, general relativity, which proposes a universe with the structure of a space-time as a solution, offers us a model, which on the one hand needs nothing but itself to exist and on the other hand includes the concepts of time and space as appearances (which would be contained in a subuniverse) of the space-time universe.
As we are sensitive to these appearances, this suggests, in turn, that we too are (at least in our physical extent) appearances, (belonging to the same sub-universe) in this context of space-time. We then understand the difficulty we have in conceptualizing space-time of which we are only a product of one of its subspaces.
This is probably why our mind is left wanting more, because it conceives that it is something that escapes it (like a 4th spatial dimension for example that would allow a prisoner to escape without fracturing his prison) that it cannot conceive.
Mind‘s paradox
While our mind cannot conceive of the 4th spatial dimension, mathematics, which is a human activity practiced by our brain, offers us a perfect analytical description (among other things?).
This is a glaring paradox, unless we consider that an analytic description that describes in detail all the properties of such a space is not totally equivalent to the synthetic description that describes the same thing, with the addition of synthesis.
Here, we take the example of the 4th spatial dimension because it « speaks » to us, but this reasoning also applies to space-time.
Moreover, from the beginning of relativity, we have sought to preserve the Newtonian concepts of time and space (synchronization of a reference frame that is then called a reference frame in special relativity and leafing through space-time in time and space in cosmology in Robertson-Walker metrics, for example)
Moreover, since we can ask ourselves this type of question, we see that the mind can (apparently?) free itself from its material condition « confined » in a sub-universe to try to apprehend the universe. This implies that this mind is of a nature that escapes the physical constraints that support them.
Faced with these capacities of our mind, which, in spite of its physical support, confined in a subspace, can investigate the possibility of a more synthetic structure, we can ask ourselves whether the fact that we cannot conceptualize space-time does not result from the fact that we have no reference to phenomena incorporating, even partially, the entirety of the properties of space-time.
This can evolve and therefore the hope for a better understanding of our existence and that of the universe is not necessarily in vain.
It is around this that we must reflect and perhaps admit that these principles are not only plausible but necessary and build our knowledge by incorporating it!
Notes
[1] It should be noted that life itself, in particular that of the animal world of which we are a part, the seat of our being, involves processes of unprecedented complexity. It can only develop, at least as we know it, in a very constrained context, which seems to restrict its appearance. It takes an energy source (star), a planet within a narrow window of temperature, and great stability because it takes time, and very specific events, for an evolution into a complex being to occur.
Obviously, all this that has been made available to us, as if by magic, seems to us to be the result of a plan (divine for believers), with no doubt a purpose, for life and spirit to appear.
But what is the purpose? Does the universe need us? How could we influence its state and evolution? The answer seems negative: The universe has done without us and can continue to do so. Are we, then, only an incidental effect of its diversity?