ESSENTIAL LOGIC, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND SCIENCES OF ALL DESCRIPTIONS

Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph.D., Dr. phil.

1. The Logic behind Physics

Physics students begin with meso-world experiments and theories. Naturally, at the young age, they get convinced that the logic thinking and research as applied to the meso-world level of physical phenomena that they follow is identical with the ideal of scientific method and hence there is nothing more general and advanced. Common social convictions on scientific temper may further confirm them in this belief. It then becomes a faith for them.

This has far-reaching consequences in the formation of the concept of science and of the logic of science, because the majority such students do not advance far forward, they fail to get the meaning of the foundations of the sciences, and thus remain spreading the elementary concept of science belonging to the meso-world logical applications. And as they get surprised at the quantum revolution, they tend to think or write books on topics like: “the whole universe is within the quanta in an atom”, because they think that the foundations of science are all questioned and set topsy-turvy by quantum physics!

But unquestionably, it is not very difficult to realize that even the quantum-physically upset sense of the logic behind the application of the scientific method is almost the same old manner of realizing (1) the ideal of scientific method and (2) the more general ideal of reason, namely, observe, hypothesize, verify, theorize, attempt to falsify for experimental and theoretical advancements, etc. upon meso-world realities, phenomena, data, etc.

Do teachers and professors of physics or of other sciences (1) instruct their students early enough on the advantages of thinking and experimenting in accordance with the above-mentioned fundamental fact of all scientific practice being founded on ever-better definable foundations of physics that are clearly based on the existence of physical objects as processes, or (2) make them capable of realizing the significance of this in the course of time? I think that they do not.

This shows that physicists (and for that matter other scientists) fail to a great extent at empowering themselves and their students in favour of the growth of science, thought, and life. The logic being followed in the above-said elementary mode of practice of scientific method at earlier stages of instruction, naturally, becomes for the students the genuine form of logic, instead of being an instantiation of the ideal of logic as reason.

This seems to be the case in most of the practices and instruction of all sciences till today. A change of the origin, justification, and significance of the use of logic in physics from the very start of instruction in the sciences is the solution for this problem. The change must be in the foundations and in the instructions on the foundations. Even at elementary stages of instruction this can be done, just like the SI units are being taught effectively very early in the school.

All humans equate (1) the physical-ontologically grounded and non-grounded forms of logic of each science, and even logic as such, with (2) reason as such. Reason as such, in fact, is more generic of all kinds of logic, and must be taken as that which must be realized in logic. But this attitude is not being followed in any science as of now. This has been my observation so far.

Practically none of the professors (of physics as well as of other sciences) terms the version of logic of their science as an instantiation of reason, which may be accessed ever better as the science eventually grows into something more elaborate and complex. Hence, a foretaste of the same given in form of the simple foundations of all sciences at the very start may go a long way to enhance the growth of science and human life. Physicist gets more and more skilled at reasoning only as and when she/he wants to grow continuously into a genuine physicist. The number of such persons is small. Increasing this number is one of the aims of the above-said kind of instruction in the sciences.

As the same students enter the study of recent developments in physics like quantum physics, relativity, nano-physics (Greek nanos, “dwarf”; in physics, @ 10-9), atto-physics (@ 10-18), cosmology, etc., they forget to make place for the strong mathematical effects that are due by reason of the conceptual and processual paradoxes which in turn are due to epistemological and physical-ontological differences between the object-sizes and the sizes of ourselves / our instruments. Some of the best examples of physicists forgetting the foundations of physics in existence are the Uncertainty Principle, the statistical interpretation of QM, cosmic singularity, quantum-cosmological multiverse from quantum vacua, counterfactual multiverse, etc.

They tend to believe that some of these and similar physics may defy our (meso-physical) manner of using logic and its source, namely, reason – but by this they mistakenly intend that all or many forms of logic and reason would have to fail if such instances of advanced physics are accepted in all of physics. As a result, again, their logic tends to continue to be that of the same meso-world level as has been taken while they did elementary levels of physics.

Does this not mean that the ad hoc make-believe interpretations of the logic of the foundations of QM, quantum cosmology, etc. are the culprits that naturally make the logic of traditional physics inadequate as the best representative of the logic of nature? In short, in order to find a common platform, the logic of traditional and recent branches of physics must improve so to adequate itself to nature’s logic. Nature’s logic is more than logic and its source, reason. Nature’s logic is the source of reason and thus of logic.

Why do I not suggest that the hitherto logic of physics be substituted by quantum logic, relativity logic, thermodynamic logic, nano-logic, atto-logic, or whatever other logic of any recent branch of physics that may be imagined? One would substitute logic in this manner only if one is overwhelmed by what purportedly is the logic of the new branches of physics.

But, in the first place, I wonder why logic should be equated directly with reason. The attempt should always be to bring the logic of physics in as much correspondence with the logic of nature as possible, so that reason in general can get closer to the latter. This must be the case not merely with physicists, but also with scientists from other disciplines and even from philosophy, mathematics, and logic itself.

Therefore, my questions are: What is the foundational reason that physicists should follow and should not lose at any occasion? Does this, how does this, and should this get transformed into forms of logic founded on a more general sort of physical reason? Wherein does such reason consist, and where does such reason exist? Can there be a form of logic in which the logical laws depend not merely on the micro- or mega- or meso-size of objects or the epistemological level available at the given object sizes, but instead, on the universal characteristics of all that exist? Or, should various logics be used at various occasions, like in the case of the suggested quantum logic, counterfactual logic, etc.?

Just like logic is not to be taken as a bad guide by citing the examples of the many logicians, scientists, and “logical” human beings doing logic non-ideally, I believe that there is a kernel of reason behind physics, justified solely on the most basic and universal characteristics of physical existents. These universals cannot belong solely to physics, but instead, to all the sciences, because they belong to all existents.

This kernel of reason in physics is to be insisted upon at every act of physics, even if many physicists (and other scientists and philosophers) may naturally not ensure that kernel in their work. I suggest that ensuring this involves not merely the constant attempt to formulation of nature’s logic in our reason and its instantiations in logic. It involves what can lead to the said results – and that is to formulate the very foundational logic of physics based on the generalities of all that exist and on the generalities of knowing all that exist.

I shall discuss these possibly highest universals and connect them to logic meant as reason, when I elaborate on: 3. The Ontology behind Physics (ALSO a discussion in RG).

The matter on which physicists do logical work is existent matter-energy in its fundamental implications and the derivative implications from the fundamental ones. It cannot be the all sorts of posited unobservables which cannot at all exist as physical processes but only as ad hoc necessities of some theoretical procedures in physics that are considered as theoretical existents.

This fact is to be kept in mind while doing any logically acceptable work physics, because existent matter-energy corpora in processuality delineate all possible forms of use of logic in physics, which logic is properly to be termed nature’s reason. Physics (and other sciences) needs to create a mode of presentation of logic where impossible theoretical entities can naturally be ostracized from the scenario of physics. This is possible only if the necessary, most general, Categorial demands of physical existence are inducted in all forms of logic of physics.

Moreover, theoretical and experimental conclusions are not drawn merely by one subject (person) in physics for use by the same subject alone. Hence, we have the following two basic requirements to note in the use of logic in physics and the sciences: (1) the intersubjectively awaited necessity of human reason in its delineation in logical methods should be upheld at least by a well-informed community, and (2) the need for such reason behind approved physics should then be spread universally with an open mind that permits and requires further scientific advancements.

These will make future generations and generations to further question the genuineness of the logic of specific realization of reason, and constantly encourage attempts to falsify theories or their parts, so that physics can bring up more genuine instantiations of human reason. But is such human reason based on the reason active in nature? How to make it base itself on the reason in nature?

Although the above arguments and the following definition of the logic being followed in mainstream and traditional physics might look queer or at least new and unclear for many physicists, for many other scientists, for many mathematicians, and even for many logicians, I attempt here to define logic for use in physics as the fundamental aspect of reason that physics should uphold constantly in every argument and conclusion due from it:

The logic behind physics is (1) the methodological science (2) of approaching the best intersubjectively rational and structural consequences (3) in what may be termed thought (not in emotions) (4) in clear terms of ever higher truth-probability achievable in statements and conclusions (5) in languages of all kinds (ordinary language, mathematics, computer algorithms, etc.) (6) based on the probabilistically methodological use, (7) namely, of the rules of all sensible logics that exemplify the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction, and Excluded Middle, (8) which in turn must pertain to the direct and exhaustive physical implications of “to exist”.

Here I have not defined logic in physics very simply as “the discipline of the laws and rules of thought”, “the methodic discipline of attaining truths”, etc., for obvious reasons clarified by the history of the various definitions of logic during the past centuries.

But here comes up another set of questions: Is the reason pertaining to physical nature the same as the most ideal form of human reason? From within the business of physics, how to connect the reason of physical nature with that of humans? I may suggest some answers from the epistemological and ontological aspects. But, before that, I would appreciate your responses in this regard too.

2. The Epistemology behind Physics

The whole of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. are not the exclusive property of physics, or of any other particular science, or of all the sciences together. Each of them may apply the various general logical, epistemological, and ontological principles in ways suitable to their disciplines, but cannot claim that theirs is the genuine or the possibly best logic, epistemology, ontology, etc.

There is yet another manner, beyond the sciences, wherein (1) the object range and viewpoint range become the broadest possible in epistemology, and (2) the epistemological manner in which the two are connected becomes satisfactory enough to explain both the aspects and the procedures involved between them. This is a philosophical version of epistemology. Even this manner is not complete without including the various logics, epistemologies, and ontologies of the particular sciences.

Before pointing out the special manner in which physics could use the more general aspects of epistemology in itself, let me mention a general trend in science, especially physics. I have seen many students of physics and mathematics mistaking the logical ways in which they do experiments and theories as the same as the conceptual foundations of physics and mathematics.

They do not even think of the epistemology of physics. The clear reason for this is that their epistemology is a crude correspondence theory of truth, and this is outdated. Take any of the best physicists, and we can see in their works the underlying undefined epistemology being closer to the correspondence theory of truth than anything else. I would like to suggest in the following a clear spine of epistemological rudiments for physics.

The pragmatism and scientism at the foundations of practical physics does not accept anything other than the correspondence theory as prescriptive of all the truths of science. Of course, the amount of finality achieved in truths will be the measure of tenability of their truth-probability. But this is to be reserved to the most general truths derivable from any science or philosophy. Low-level truths are much beyond the purview of correspondence between the objectual and the theoretical. Unaware of these facts, most physicists take the difference lightly.

It is a pity that the students of the sciences and also philosophy students with scientistic orientations even think of their ways of permitting truth correspondence to all their truths as the sole possession of scientists, which they suppose are being usurped from philosophy in the course of the past centuries in such a way that philosophy will have ever less reason to exist, or no more reason to exist. Imaginably, in this pride they are encouraged by their presumption of possession of the scientific temper in an exceptional manner.

More evidently, there were and there are physicists holding that their use of logic, epistemology, ontology, etc. is final and that all other details being done by other sciences, especially by philosophy, are a mere waste of time. If you want me to give an example, I suggest that you watch some of the YouTube interviews with Stephen Hawking, where he declares philosophy as a waste of time, or as an unscientific affair. The same sort of claim is to be seen being made by many mathematicians: that logic is a by-product of mathematics, and that philosophers are falsely proud of having logic as their methodology.

The reason why the whole of logic does not belong to the sciences is that the viewpoint from which sensation, thought, and feeling may be exercised in the broadest possible manner is not exhausted even by totaling all the object ranges of all the sciences. Each of them does logic in a manner limited by its object range. How then can their logic be the best possible? There is one and only one general science of which the viewpoint is the broadest. It is that science in which the viewpoint is that of the direct implications of the To Be of Reality-in-total.

Against this backdrop, although the following definition might seem queer for many physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists, there are reasons why I define here epistemology for use in physics. The following definition itself will clarify the reasons:

The epistemology behind physics is (1) the science of justifications (2) for the systemic fact, the systemic manner of achieving, the enhancement of the systemic manner of achieving, and the foundations of systems (3) of rationally derivable and explicable theoretical consequences of human efforts (4) to grasp the connection between physically existent reality and their pertinent realities of all sorts (5) in an asymptotic approach of truth-correspondence from the procedures of knowing (in terms of the pertinent realities of existent realities) onto the physically existent processes of reality, (6) in a spirally broadening and deepening manner of truth probability, (7) which serves to achieve ever better approximations of the epistemological ideal of knowing, namely, Reality-in-general, (8) starting from reality-in-particular, and (9) by use of the highest theoretical generalities pertaining to Reality-in-total and its parts, namely, reality-in-particular.

The epistemology of physics does not take the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. But it must obey the primary implications of To Be and the viewpoint of the To Be of Reality-in-total. What these implications are, will be treated below, under “3. The Ontology of Physics”. Epistemology in philosophy may be slightly more general than the epistemology of physics, in the sense that philosophy takes the viewpoint of all physical processes that exist and attempt to view every reality from that viewpoint alone. If not, philosophy has no justification for existence.

Naturally, the epistemology of the sciences will not be so general as that of philosophy. But obedience to it is better for the epistemology of physics; and the advantages of such obedience will be seen in the results of such physics and such sciences.

The epistemology of physics, therefore, will attempt to theorize, know, and predict all that exist, but from the viewpoint exclusively of experimentally / empirically verifiable methods based on what is directly or indirectly before us, namely, the physical processes at our reach. The epistemology of systematically and systemically (i.e., systematically of systems of systems … ad libitum) moving in the use of logic from the given existent physical processes to the details of the not immediately given but ever more minute or ever more distant physical existents is the epistemology of physics. The above definition would, in my opinion, be sufficient to cover as broad and minute procedures as possible in physics. Time has come to appropriate it in physics, lest much advantage be lost for too long.

Not that philosophy does not trust this approach of physics. But philosophy looks for the Categorial presuppositions of existence behind all that is verifiable or verified empirically and empirical-theoretically. These presuppositions are the starting points and guiding principles of philosophy. There is a stark difference between a methodology of this kind and the methodology of basing everything on the truths derived from empirical and empirical-theoretical research. Now from this viewpoint you may judge the following suggestions and determine whether the epistemology of doing physical science is as broad as that of philosophizing.

Every moment, our body-brain nexus is continuously but finitely in contact with itself and with a finite extent of the environment, more or less simultaneously, but in differing intensities, no matter however elementary. The primary mode of this is through sensation, using all available and necessary aspects of it as the case may be. Thought and feeling are possible only in continuity with sensation, and never without it.

But one special characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, feeling, and thought can very consciously induct into, and consequently deduce from the presuppositions of, all that exist – no matter whether they are a finite environment or infinite – and all these solely from the finite experience from the finite environment at hand. This seems to be absent in less human living beings.

Moreover, the second, but more forgotten, characteristic of the human brain differentiating it from others is that sensation, thought, and feeling are affective, tending to itself and to others, in the broadest sense of the term ‘affective’. It is the manner in which every human being tends in his/her sensation, feeling, and thought. Hence, all processes of knowing will be coloured by affection.

The manner and then the so-constructed broader background in which sensation, feeling, and thought take place is affection, which we term also love in a very general sense. Sensation, feeling, and thought are the three interconnected modes of tending of the body-brain to itself and to the environment, tend always to connect itself with the environment.

But here too the important differentiating characteristic in human body-brains is their capacity to tend to the environment beyond the immediate environments, and further beyond them, etc. ad libitum. There is nothing wrong in theoretically considering that there is the tendency in humans to converting this sort of ad libitum to ad infinitum, irrespective of whether these environments can really go ever broader at infinity in the content of matter-energy within Reality-in-total. Infinity is another term here for generalizing.

Reality consists of existent reality and realities that pertain to existent realities in their groups. Existent realities are clear enough to understand. Realities pertinent to existent realities are never to be taken as belonging to just one existent reality. They are always those generalities that belong to many existent realities in their respective natural kind. These generalities are what I call ontological universals.

All generalizations tend beyond onto the infinite perfection of the essential aspects of the concepts pertaining to the object-range. Not that the object-range must be infinite. Instead, the tending presumes an infinitization due to the idealization involved in generalizations. This is a kind of infinitization that does not need an infinite Reality-in-total in existence. All the concepts that a human being can use are based in the infinitization of the essential aspects of the concepts in their ideality. But behind these mental ideals there are the ideals, namely, the ontological universals pertaining to the groups (natural kinds) of processual entities in the environment. These are the ideals in the things and are not in us. These too are idealizations at the realm of the natural kinds that form part of Reality-in-total.

Without loving in the sense of tending to, as human do, to the inner and outer environments in their generalities there is no sensation, feeling, and thought. The tending to need not be due to the love of the objects but due to the love of something that pertains to them or to the ontologically universal ideals pertaining to the objects. From this it is clear that the relation between the processual objects and the sensing-feeling-knowing mind is set by the ontological universals in the natural kinds of existent physical processes.

At the part of the mind there should be idealized universals of conceptual quality, because the ontological universals in natural kinds cannot directly enter and form concepts. This shows that the conceptual universals (called connotative universals) are the mental reflections of ontological universals that are in the natural kinds. In short, behind the epistemology of sensation, feeling, and thought there are the ontology and epistemology of loving in the sense of tending to, due to the otherness implied between oneself and the environment.

There may be philosophers and scientists who do not like the idea of love. I say, this is due to the many psychology-related prejudices prevalent in their minds. We need to ask ourselves what the major mode of exercitation of any activity in human beings, and none can doubt the role of love in epistemology. The physical foundations of love too are commonly to be shared with the foundations of other aspects of physical existence.

Such tending by the person is mediated within the person by the connotative universals. Their expression is always in terms of symbols in various languages. These are called denotative universals. Connotative universals get concatenated in the mind in relation to their respective brain elements and form thoughts and feelings. Their expression in language is by the concatenation of denotative universals and get formulated in languages as theories and their parts.

To put in gist the latter part of “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I suggest that the ontological, connotative, and denotative universals and the love of human agents to these and the very existent processual entities are what facilitate knowledge. The psychological question as to what happens when one has no love does not have any consequence here, because psychology differentiates between love and non-love in terms of certain presumed expressions of love and non-love.

In the case of the natural course of life of humans, the choice is not between love and non-love, but instead, between increasing or decreasing love. We do not speak here of loving other human beings as a matter of ethical action. Instead, the point is that of the natural love that humans have for everything including for sensing, feeling, knowing, etc.

One might wonder here why I did not discuss mathematics as an epistemologically valid tool of physics and other sciences. I have already dealt with this aspect in many other discussion texts in ResearchGate, and hence do not expatiate on it here.

3. The Ontology behind Physics

3.1. Traditional Physical Categories

There have arisen various schools of theories, mainly from within the physics community, theorizing elaborately concerning the ontological foundations of physics. Not till the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century have these notions been clear enough. Two major and common ways of approaching the foundations have been the following:

(1) Physical experiments and theories based on the notions of space, time, matter-energy, and causality. (2) Physical experiments and theories based on the four laws of conservation, namely, those of matter, energy, momentum, and charge. There may be other variations of the foundations, e.g., some include mass in the list. I believe that all such variations are based mostly on the two sets above.

The first set does not seem to be based on anything else from the viewpoints available in the long tradition of classification and the epistemic categories of space and time. The question of deriving one from the others or a few from the others within the list has not occurred. This is the foremost disadvantage of these categories.

But the second list integrates within each category the measuremental aspect of physical (scientific) activity. Interestingly, hence, the second set used to be reduced to symmetries (Hermann Weyl and others). But note that symmetries are measuremental and hence epistemic in nature. A symmetry is not a physical-ontological affair but instead the result of some epistemic operations upon already existent natural processes.

But here the existence of processes is taken for granted, and not included in the categories. That is, the nature of physical processes is not sufficiently taken notice of. This does not mean that the nature of physical processes is left aside from physics. Instead, it is not included in the categories.

Measurements are based on the epistemic concepts of space and time. A symmetry is never the result of merely one epistemic operation. A few measurements together constitute and result in any one sort of symmetry. Hence, the compositional nature of concepts assigned the categorial character in the four conservational categories renders conservational categories into less essential and less grounded for physics.

Moreover, in the above systems, causality is considered (1) either as an addition to the categories behind physical processes and the study of physical processes, (2) or as a notion being brought up in terms of the measuremental concepts of space and time, because until today a universally acceptable manner of defining causality in terms of any other primitive notions has not existed.

Hence, causality as an additional category not based on any other categories and symmetries based merely on composed measurements and not on any other fundamental categories cannot be the foundation for the study of the physical nature of existent processes. The latter needs physical-ontological Categories and these Categories should give rise to the basic notions of physics without reference to ad hoc positing of various basic notions as the foundations of physics.

Moreover, measurement systems like MKS, CGS, and SI are ipso facto mere epistemic systems. They are conventions of measurements, on which the nature of physical processes is based; and conventions of measurements are not based on the most general nature of existence of physical processes. This necessitates finding what underlies both measuremental systems and the resultant symmetries.

In the case of physics and the natural sciences as the general case, the epistemically oriented operations are for the most part measuremental. In the case of many other sciences – say, (1) some applied sciences like medicine, engineering, architecture, etc., (2) some of the human sciences, and (3) especially the fine arts, music, literature, etc. – the status of measurements is different. Exact measurements increasingly take a back seat in these three general types of sciences, although measurements exist in all of them in a more or less evident fashion.

But in the fine arts, music, literature, etc. we have sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. taking prominence over measurements. These procedures too are epistemically oriented procedures in such sciences, which scientists (and of course, all of us) often look down upon as sciences that obtain values calculated as less than those that the humanities obtain. Despite this fact, they too are sciences in some sense, since measurement is ubiquitously present in them at least as a minor procedure in comparison with the physical sciences and mathematics. I would hold even that the applied sciences, although active more often with procedural measurements, indulge also a lot of sensation, experiential quality, feelings, etc. in the manner of epistemic qualities.

3.2. Critique of Traditional Physical Categories

Some important details to be noticed in the above-mentioned two major traditional school systems of physical categories are the following:

(1) Firstly, space and time are not existents or ontological attributes of existents. As is clear from above, they are the measurementally epistemic and cognitive aspects of physical existents.

(2) Secondly, matter-energy can be taken as existents provided one does not tend to take the abstract Aristotelian-Thomistic meaning of matter (as the abstract raw material which, when exemplified, is always a material object, although such a raw material is never to be found anywhere) and energy (as an abstract action-at-a-distance with no material counterpart) in order to explain material objects.

(3) Thirdly, it is a false procedure in physics, cosmology and derived physical sciences to accept the measuremental notion of energy and material objects as just the number respectively of the energy emissions and material chunks measured based on measurement conventions (e.g., quanta). Instead, the notion of energy as existent propagation from existent matter, measurable in various conventional ways, is much more tenable.

(4) On the other hand, fourthly, the laws of conservation are not simple attributes of any existent. A detailed meaning-analysis of physicists’ claims may show that many of them have taken the conservation laws as the most fundamental attributes / qualities of theories. But they are principles formulated sententially out of a few notions and verbs, and hence rendered as principles composed of many other simple attributes which then are concatenated using verbal connective notions. I call as universals the simple attributes constituting the sentential principles of symmetries.

Even the verbal notions may be set in the qualitative language and rendered universal attributes. This is because both names and verbs belong to the processes that existents are and define existents as ongoing processes. Universals are the basic contents of all basic principles, definitions, etc. But what we need as most basic sources of physics are physical-ontological Categories that work as the fundamental notions of all universals.

Merely any one or some universals cannot suffice at the foundations of physics. They need to be the direct implications of the most fundamental of all notions, namely, To Be / To Exist. But why should physics follow this manner of thinking? None insists upon this on the physical praxis of a physicist. But the suggestion is that the physicist too deals with existing physical processes, and also the philosopher of physics deals with existent stuff, and not non-existent stuff. Why then should physicists follow those Categories that physical-ontologically justify their work? For the above reasons, I follow the way of searching for the universals of all existents in their equally nominal and verbal aspect, namely, the To Be of Reality-in-total.

Physics cannot be done in a well-justified manner without possibly best-grounded universals that go beyond the above-mentioned two groups of physical-ontologically insufficiently grounded, arbitrarily introduced, and haphazardly variegated categories which are not derivable from the most fundamental ones.

The most basic grounding should always be from the To Be of Reality-in-total, and such Categories are absolutely lacking in physics even today – a fact that I have become more and more aware of while discussing matters physical and cosmological on ResearchGate as I attempted to suggest what I found to be the possibly most basic Categories of all science and philosophy.

Some may suggest that the surest possible physical (not physical-ontological) grounding that has been provided by some in the past in terms of defining time, space, mass, and energy measurementally are sufficient for physics, and perhaps it is good to add causality, but we are not sure whether everything is fully causal – and that none needs to intrude into the foundations of physics from other disciplines.

I argue that all such grounds are insufficient due to their classificational and measuremental nature, as mentioned above. Secondly, they are insufficient for physics because they are exclusively and merely from within the ambit of physics. This does not ground physics. Moreover, I shall show that Universal Causality is ubiquitous if a physical existent should exist at all, i.e., from the concept of existence is Universal Causality to be derived in a pre-scientifically ontological manner, and that the instruments of such derivation are themselves the primary Categories of physics.

The two sets of physical categories mentioned above, due to their classificational and measuremental nature, are not derivable from the To Be of all existents. To put the argument in gist, the definitions of all the said merely physical categories use simple universals as ingredients; these ingredients are not final enough; there are two most final ontological universals; and hence, the highest ontological universals should also be at the foundations of physics along with existent matter-energy, so that the classifications and measurements of existent matter-energy within physics be conceptually possible; and further, these two Categories are the very essence of Universal Causality too.

3.3. Grounded Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics

Grounding can be of various levels and grades. I speak of grounding all sorts of concepts, procedure principles, procedure methods, and theories in any system of thought and science. It is unnecessary in this context to discuss the grounding of highly derivative concepts that occur much later in theories than those that appear while founding them with best-grounded foundations. I go directly to the case of what should be called the most Categorial concepts behind physics, on which physics is grounded.

These Categorial concepts cannot be merely from within physics but should be directly related to and facilitating physics in as many of its aspects as possible. The success of foundational Categories consists in that they serve to ground as many aspects as possible of the particular science or system. Concepts strictly and exclusively physical or generally scientific cannot be as useful as notions from beyond in order to serve as Categories. Evidently, this is because no scientific discipline or system can be grounded on itself and hence on its own concepts. This is clearly also part of the epistemological and ontological implications of the work of Godel.

Grounded ontological Categories are such that they are inevitably and exhaustively grounded in the To Be of Reality-in-total as the only exhaustive implications of To Be. All other Categories, as far as possible, must be derivative of the most primary Categories. The more the number of Categories within the Categorial system that do not derive from the primary Categories the worse for the self-evidence of the science or system within it.

Grounding is exhaustive in the sense that the Categories that ground all physics need nothing else to be a concept than the To Be of Reality-in-total. To Be is the source of the Categories. It happens to be that there are two such Categories that are inevitably and exhaustively grounded. I call them Extension and Change. Clarifications of their meaning, ontological significance, and epistemological and physical implications and follow.

As I said, preferably grounding must be on the surest notion of all, which is existence. I prefer to term it To Be. As far as thought, feeling, and sensation are concerned, To Be is a notion in al of them. But principally To Be must belong to the whole of Reality, and not to a few things. If anything and/or all processes of Reality are existent, then what exist are the parts of existent Reality. The first minimum guarantee hereof should be that existence should be non-vacuous. Non-vacuous signifies that each possesses or contains whatever is possible within its existence in the given measurementally spatio-temporal context (which, as shall soon be clear, belong ontologically to the Extension-Change-wise existence of things).

3.4. Definitions of Universals, Extension-Change, Causality, and Unit Process

Even the minimum realism in thought, feeling, and sensation has for its principal conditions (1) the ontological primacy of universal qualities / natures that belong to groups of entities (processes), where the groups are also called natural kinds in the analytic tradition, and then (2) the ultimate simplicity and indivisibility of the universal characteristics that pertain to all existents. Contrary to the infinite divisibility of existent matter-energy, universals as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations (of togethernesses of unit Processes) are ontologically ideal universals, and hence indivisible. These universals are ideal not because of our idealisation of the characteristics, but instead because they are the general characteristics of the natural kinds to which each existent belongs. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that ontological universals are not our idealizations.

The properties of things are built out of these simple ontological universals in the natural kinds. The vague reflections of simple ontological universals within our minds are conceptually connotative universals, which are conceptual ideals. And their linguistic reflections in minds and all kinds of symbolic instruments are denotative universals.

Connotative and denotative universals are epistemological universals, formed epistemically from the little contact that minds have with the phenomena (“showings-themselves”) from some layers of processual objects from out there. The properties of existent processual things (matter-energy particulars) are vaguely reflected in minds and languages through the connotative and denotative instrumentalization of concepts in order to reflect the things via phenomena in terms of the data created by minds out of them. Any theory that permits ontological primacy to epistemological universals is one of a range of theories yielding primacy to the perceiving mind over the perceived objects. This is anathema in any scientific or philosophical science, because things are not vacua.

Non-vacuous existence implies that existents are extended. This is one of the most important characteristics of existents. Extension implies having parts, compositionality. Any extended existent’s parts impart impact to some others. This is Change. Only extended existents can exert impacts on any other. As a result, the object that exerts impact gets in itself some impact within, which is nothing but the proof that an impact by one extended part implies movements and impact formation by its parts too, as a result of the overall impact formation in question which contains the inner parts’ impact formation within. The latter need not always have its effects merely within the parts but instead also outwards.

Extension and Change are the highest, deepest, and most general characteristics of all existents. Interestingly, existence in Extension-Change is itself the process that we have so far named causation. Hence, anything non-vacuously existent has Extension and Change not separately but together. This is the meaning of Universal Causality. Physics cannot dispense with this pre-scientific universal Law. No more shall quantum physicists or scientists from other disciplines tell us that quantum physics has some sort of non-causality within! Any causal unit of existents in which the causal part and the effect part may be termed a process. Processuality is yet another important characteristic of existents, but we formulate it as Process, which represents the matter-energy units that there can be.

By this have clearly been set up three physical-ontological Categories of physics: Extension, Change, Causality, and Process. Space and time are merely epistemic categories. They cannot characterize existent processes. Ontological universals, as the characteristics of existent matter-energy conglomerations, are of togethernesses of unit Processes. Ontological universals are therefore ontologically ideal universals belonging (pertaining) to some natural kinds. The Categories as ontological universals belong to Reality-in-total, and not merely some natural kinds.

3.5. Definition of the Ontology behind Physics

In the definition of the ontology of physics, therefore, I shall posit the necessity of the highest possible grounds that I find as fundamental for physics and philosophy alike. The reason for these Categories’ being meant more or less also for philosophy is that both philosophy and physics have physical existents in common as their object range; and philosophy additionally has the pure universals of physics within the ambit of study. Hence, well-grounded physical foundations cannot do without the most suitable among these universals as its fundamental Categories, selected from among the universals forming part of the objects of philosophy.

Although many physicists and mathematicians may find the following definition queer due to their pragmatic and near-sighted concept of physics (where physical objects, and not their universals / qualities, are part of their object range) in a non-grounded manner, I define here ontology for use in physics with the purpose of elaboration of the various aspects brought forward in the definition.

The Ontology behind physics is (1) the rationally consequent science of the totality of physical existents, their parts, and their sine qua nons, namely, the pure universals as pertinents of existents and their parts, (2) prioritized as objects in terms of the To Be (Greek, Einai) of Reality-in-total and only thereafter in terms of the to be (einai) of its parts (reality-in-particular), (3) serving to achieve ever better measuremental approximations of the cosmos and its part-systems (4) in terms of the epistemological ideal of Reality-in-total, namely, the theoretically highest possible notion of Reality-in-general, (5) grounded in the unique and exhaustive implications of To Be, namely, Extension and Change, (6) in properly physical activities that let Reality and realities be measured in term of measuremental and classificational categories that facilitate both experiments and theories equally well.

I have introduced here the highest Ideals of philosophical and scientific thinking, namely, To Be, Reality-in-total, and Reality-in-general. These are not explained here well enough. I have treated them with detailed justifications in my books: Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, Frankfurt, 2015, and Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 2018, Berlin.

3.6. The Curse of Mathematical / Theoretical Physics

The Background: The ultimate physical and cosmological significance of the Categories of Extension (“being extended / having parts” while in existence) and Change (“extended existents causing impacts on others and also on themselves”) must be seen in the context of warding off quantum-physical, cosmological, statistical, and other sorts of inexplicable and bizarre existence-related aberrations resulting from theories like those of (1) parallel universes, (2) extra dimensions, (3) vacuous universes, (4) total mutual disconnection of universes, (5) infinite number of positive-content physical universes taking origin like extra-fitted balloons from “technically / mathematically zero-valued” quantum vacua or quantum-vacuum universes without any iota of causal agency (because quantum vacua are merely of near-zero zero statistical expectations), (6) the presumed existence of space, time, and spacetime like physical things in mathematical fields, (7) the theoretical writing-off of time alone as unreal and unnecessary, etc.

This sort of aberrations renders some theories and their related concepts into theories about absolutely non-existent objects (in some analytic-logical philosophies, called also as “counterfactual possible worlds”) and into substitute theoretical entities that serve only to explain procedures and not to explain existent processes. These serve for physicists and cosmologists to temporarily save their face by use of irrational adherence to methods of maintenance of mere uncertainties in mathematical physics.

The Curse of Theoretical Physics: I mentioned these above in order to speak of the curse of advanced mathematical physics. This curse is the confusion between (1) physical existents, (2) non-existent theoretical constructs, (3) theories representing small or large theoretical processes required only for theory, and (4) the lack of criteria of creating theories for describing existent processes with recourse to vacuous, non-existent, virtual objects and processes, but without turning these objects and processes into existent objects lacking the criteria of existence.

Positing ad hoc explanatory theories to clarify certain theoretical inaptitudes of notions or deviations in arguments is assuredly necessary for the progress of science. But these are sooner to be overwhelmed (not to be substituted) by more adequate and existentially non-aberrational unobservables and/or theoretical terms. As of now, physics, astrophysics, and cosmology are full of theoretical entities that cannot ever be proved to be existent unobservables. This is the curse of physics today – a graver problem today than previously.

3.7. Implications of Pragmatism and Idealism in Physics

For argument’s sake, if an observer is in absolute inertia / standstill with respect to everything else in the universe, he could possess high truth-probability concerning truths about spatiotemporally closest processes. But the fact is that ourselves, our senses, our instruments, and our environments are in motion, which is one of the ingredients of instances of actualization of Change. Hence, our experimental and consequently our theoretical visualization of physical processes in our environment is comparable to our direct vision from a running train.

What should be most closely real to us is our own motion as such and not the motions and changes within or outside. Nearby objects will then be most difficult to observe because their direction of motion will always be directly comparable to our own merely as different from ours. In fact, their immediacy to us and our motion as such would only be momentary. This is a fact that pragmatism, scientism, empiricism, experimentalism, etc. forget.

Distant objects will be relatively clearer due to the part played by the low proportionality between the distances and our own motion as such. This state of affairs may be conceived as follows. If the generalities of the objects at theoretical and empirical vision are clearly in view in terms of their general foundations, our vision will be more truth-probable than when (as in the case of close vision) the comparative differences of motions is high due to (1) the momentariness of exposure obtained between ourselves and the nearest objects, and (2) the lack of general vision between the two, that should normally have been facilitated by the general Categories that apply in cases of both near vision and distant vision.

To render the Categories applicable to processes both distant and near in spacetime, the only direct feasible manner of approach is to first discover the Categories that apply to near and distant visions and objects equally well, and then put them to use at least both epistemologically and ontologically and of course in other ways.

3.8. General Theories of the Evolutionary Stuff of Reality-in-total

In order to make possible a clear discussion of the necessity of physical-ontological Categories in physical and other sciences, I name some general forms of theories of the evolutionary stuff of Reality-in-total.

(1) There is a range of theories assigning existence only to minds or to the Divine as mind, the latter categorized as the fully mental being and the former partaking in the mentality of the latter.

(2) Yet another group of theories permits existence only to concepts / the conceptual, in contradistinction from minds and the Divine. This group, I believe, is a direction that existed all through the millennia and tried again and again to present themselves in various forms, at times very much mixed up with the first group so that the distinctions have become extremely difficult to understand.

(3) The third type permits in existence only physical entities as we normally conceptualize. Theories of this group are various, including physicalism, scientism, reductionism, etc. couched in their various theoretical shades.

The confusion between the first two types attests to the false identification of consciousness / mind with the conceptual / mental and the misidentification of all or any of existents with the Divine. This sort of ontological identification of the physical with the mental / spiritual and this with the divine is called pantheism. The identification may even be evolutionary. But in this case it becomes a system that accepts also the material world, but as an initial phase.

Theories which, however, find that at least a good portion of what are sensed is the physical world, permit the existence of matter-energy as part of Reality-in-total. Those that take only matter-energy as existent hold either the one or the other of the following:

(1) They reduce consciousness into matter-energy, do not grant any divine nature to consciousness, and do not find these two as originating from the Divine.

(2) They find matter-energy as the physical existent, take consciousness as emergent out of matter-energy without losing their basic physical status, and permit the origin of matter-energy and/or consciousness as unique in themselves but as created or emergent products originating from the agency of the Divine. These are mentioned here with the purpose only of a clear differentiation serving not to dismiss the existence of matter-energy.

Without entering upon a theoretical discernment over the above theoretical varieties of ontology, I attempt to concentrate on the existence conditions necessitated by ordinary science and advanced mathematical physics and cosmology, which deal primarily with physical existents. I shall show in the rudiments of a physical ontology here below the relevance of (1) the most universal Categories for all existents – i.e., physical processes, consciousnesses of all grades, and, if there is, also the Divine, which then should be an infinitely active and infinitely extended bodiliness – and (2) the reflections, of the pertinent ontological universals of existents within minds and through symbolic languages. (Please note here that I did not insist on the existence of the Divine, but only suggested how it would be if it existed.)

It is also possible to show certain cases of the ontology of Reality-in-total if minds and the Divine are absolutely distinct cases. See my discussions:

(1)https://www.researchgate.net/post/Infinite-Eternal_Multiverse_Implications_to_Physics_and_Cosmology

(2)https://www.researchgate.net/post/Gravitational_Coalescence_Paradox_GCP_Introduction_to_Gravitational_Coalescence_Cosmology_GCC

3.9. The Mode of Action of Existence and of Knowledge

Under the section “2. The Epistemology of Physics”, I have brought into discussion the natural tendency of humans to love not merely what is present in the immediate vicinity but also the distant natural kinds (groups of gross processual entities that are not directly available for experiments due to their distances), the less evident natural kinds (existing unobservables and unobservables that are not yet proved to exist), and the abstract / pertinent kinds (universals) of all that exist. Among these objects of love are to be found also the totality of all existents and the most general pertinents of Reality-in-total.

It is unacceptable that someone here tells me that none loves such objects. I agree that all sorts of psychologically direct perception of love are almost absent herein. But the tending to them intellectually, through feelings, and through sensations, wherever whichever is possible, is already present in all of us. It IS love, too.

Any existent can tend to existents, their pertinents, and to some extent also to the mental and linguistic reflections of both these. The tending and love for the reflections of both the first two can only transpire through the tending to and love for the first two. The tending in physical processes is not love. But at least in human beings it takes the shape of love. I think this aspect must gain momentum in epistemology. In other philosophical disciplines it should be acceptable in a slightly different manner.

This is due to the primacy of the ontological (in respect of existence, existents, and their pertinents in existent systems) as against the epistemic (which is a vague and veiled conscious reflection of the former in their existent systems). The epistemic is merely the description of how knowledge takes place and should take place with the help of finite amounts of data input derived from a few layers of the phenomena issuing from a few layers of the reality in question.

Epistemology is the study of truth-occurrences, and not directly of truth derivation methods nor directly of their existence. But it presupposes these. This is also why I hold that physical ontology is the existential foundation of epistemology. But physical ontology must itself be grounded upon the very notion of the To Be of Reality-in-total.

If primacy of existence can be accorded to the ontological, then whatever exists in this world may primarily be termed physical in existence (not physical in the sense of being the object of the science of physics, because primacy is to existence, not to any discipline.