The Smallest Pieces of Reality
Subjective Reality Need Not Consist of Objective Bits.
The elementary components of reality are little observations.
If this postulate is true, science and theology should pay attention. The claim may be wrong, but not for the obvious reasons. Let’s take a look at the first seven objections that jump to mind.
Objection #1: Observations have components. Every observation requires at least three parts: an observer, an object and a transfer of information.
You can turn this objection on its head. Observations have direction, just as elementary particles have spin. An elementary observation can have a subjective and an objective direction without being divisible. An observer might be nothing more than a pattern of observations entangled through their subjective poles. An object might be nothing more than a pattern of observations entangled through their objective poles.
Objection #2: Any conscious human observation will contain millions of components. Look at an apple. Millions of atoms reflect millions of photons which set off a chain reaction among millions of cells in your eyes, optic nerves and brain.
Conscious human observation of an apple is not elementary. Apples are made of substances, which are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of particles. We recognize every level as material. A proton is matter. An apple is matter. Likewise, a big observation may be a collection of little observations.
Objection #3: Every toddler learns that an apple still exists when you hide it behind a curtain.
This objection is a restatement of the previous objection. It implies that all observations are big. It implies that a fully awake human self is the only kind of observer. If so, imagine the laws of physics before humans evolved. You can’t imagine the same laws we have on the books today, because they require points of view. So, what were the laws a billion years ago?
Objection #4: Okay then, for the sake of argument, let’s assume there is some sort of observation other than a big observation by a fully awake human. Give me an example.
Marketing experts like Philip Graves know that most observation is unconscious. Ask any consumer why they bought a given product. They will provide abundant wrong answers, almost never bringing up the product’s position in the store, the lighting, the music, the aroma, the memory of advertisements and the smiling picture of the celebrity on the box.
Objection #5: Those unconscious observations do not sound elementary. Give me an example of an elementary observation.
The answer may be “an electron.” Or perhaps the answer is “a bit from a point of view.”
We find ourselves in the position of Democritus. He saw big matter all around him and wondered if he could keep slicing it forever without reaching an unbreakable atom. What if you keep on slicing your subjective experience? Your visual field holds many patterns. The landscape contains a forest which contains a tree which contains a leaf which… a good enough microscope could bring you down to the atoms. Through sleight of hand, you carve your subjective experience into objective pieces. The subjective experience seems to “emerge” from the interplay of tiny objects.
Emergence is an important concept. We know a lot about how big patterns emerge from the movement of little pieces. We may think we know that subjects emerge from objects. We may think we know that subjectivity results from objective processes. But that is a metaphysical opinion. It is not hard knowledge.
Objection #6: Some constituents of reality are obviously not observations. Decisions, for instance, are active, while observations are passive.
Not necessarily. You choose where to look. You observe the desire that comes before a choice. You observe resistance to the urge. You observe the mind weighing pros and cons. You observe the action itself. You observe the consequences. Can looking at a plan change its direction? Looking at anything close enough will determine its state. The only question is whether consciousness has a quantum level.
Actions may indeed result from choices of where to look. Imagine a time lapse photo of a woman walking. Now overlay a dozen alternate routes. If those route choices are permanently present in an eternal space-time maze, then purposefully walking through the branches may require looking a little bit ahead at each step. Reliable experiments have proven that observations determine the spins of distant particles through spooky actions. Perhaps they also determine everyday actions up close and personal.
Objection #7: If observation gets you through a partly visible maze, what are the unseen parts of the maze made of?
Observations. Just not your observations. If this claim is true, the notion of mind emerging from matter is a metaphysical mistake. It may also be a mistake to propose that the fabric of reality is nothing but mind. We could however rule out any reality in which mind fails to participate.
We can reject Cartesian dualism without insisting that objective reality is more fundamental than subjective reality or vice versa. We can recognize the interdependence of subject and object right down to the atomic level. We don’t need to pretend what an unseen place would look like to no observer.
About the Author and the Roots of his Proposed Structure of Reality
Tom earned a doctorate from SUNY at Buffalo in Anthropology. He started toying with the idea of subject and object depending upon one another when using matrix algebra in his dissertation. The notion seemed to apply equally to objects of perception and objects of cognition, including numbers.
The unfinished idea of numbers depending on a point of view led him off-track for over three months. Specifically, one and zero seemed like the same number, with one being the objective axis and zero the subjective axis. Number theory is really no place for anyone but a professional mathematician to dwell.
Part of Anthropology is comparative philosophy. One culture after another puts forward notions of either mind or matter as the origin of the other. Paradigms may cast the two as separate realms or as alternate aspects of the same realm. The argument here is a same-realm position but with a new twist on dualism.
Nearing the end of his career, Tom no longer sees any hope of developing this idea in a formal sense. It will be a huge amount of work and may well be a dead end. Still, it feels like it would be ground-shaking if true. Good luck to anyone who wishes to pursue it.