LINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS OF EXISTENT PHYSICAL PROCESSES
IN PHYSICAL THEORY
Raphael Neelamkavil
Ph.D. (Quantum Causality), Dr. phil. (Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology)
Minimal Linguistic Implications of Words: I start this discussion with a generally acceptable kernel of what in the very least is meant when we say that something exists. My use of the word ‘electron’ need not mean that any of the models of electron as an existent must as such be the case out-there. This is because the word ‘electron’ is a denotative word constructed linguistically. It denotes a denotable, which exists as whatever it is, without our having to take it to be exactly this way or that way. But there can be at least some physical-ontological guidelines as to how an electron cannot be. For example, it is not a pure vacuum. Let alone the discourse that only quantum vacua exist. This is exactly what I mean, too: a pure vacuum does not contain any existent, not even one quantum of energy. A quantum of energy should be carried by something existent, and not by something vacuous. This quality that it is not a pure vacuum is what I call Extension. Every existent must be in Extension. If extended, it has parts, which are in some Change, too. In short, it is impossible to say that anything termed electron can exist without internal Change, which may be caused externally and/or internally.
Extension and Change are the ways without which nothing can exist. If anything is in Extension-Change-wise existence, this is causal existence: some finite amount of causation happens there. An antecedent changes within itself due to the impact that its parts make and are made to take. It is continuous in the sense that it is continuously the manner of existence of anything, but this is not infinite causation. If anything existent should be such, this shows that all existents are in Causality. This is the pre-scientific Universal Law of Causality. Now clearly, quantum wavicles too should be in causation, if we are speaking of existents, and not of pure vacua.
Historical Problem of Existence: “Being-Becoming” in Discourse and Its Linguistic Elements: Historically, the terms ‘existence’ and ‘being’ have been very confusing. The meanings assigned to them have been varied. I denote by existence the verbal To Be of all that exist in whatever manner they exist. All existents in the cosmos cannot be in intense holographic relation, if (1) the cosmos is of infinite content and (2) any highest limit velocity in any part of the cosmos is finite. Even in this case, there is no problem is speaking of To Be. More than two and a half millennia of Western discourse on existents has been primarily in terms of notions of particular existents and their ways of being, and references to becoming and non-being within the processes of existents. This has been conducted by safeguarding the notion of becoming of otherwise unchangeable substantial beings, from within the way in which language and discourse are the constituting factors although they too evolve. Not that such thought patterns shaped language in its basic evolution. Instead, primarily it was the already existing feeling-, perceiving-, and thinking-contours of language that shaped the thought that bases To Be on particular existents and their ways of being and reference to becoming and non-being. I believe that it is time to permit the contrary manner of basing To Be on Reality-in-total and its ways of being to happen at least in scientific and philosophical language. Later I shall show that the ways of being of Reality-in-total are Extension and Change.
Being / Existence and Permanent Becoming in Parmenides and Heraklitus: Historically, for the evolution of the proper understanding and linguistic formulation of To Be, becoming, activity, stability / permanence, etc. together, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Whitehead have contributed much in the Western tradition: Heraclitus has a way of thinking of becoming, being, firelike continuity of becoming, etc. [Burnet 1924: 61ff] and Parmenides has an unclear manner of combining being, becoming, their self-revealing, self-concealing, etc., [---------] as if being were possible only as an unchanging substance and becoming meant the annihilation of the total identity of the substance. This notion of continuity of identity of everything as substance was for him being / continuity in existence. These notions in Heraclitus and Parmenides have been discussed without end, but without scientifically and philosophically settling (1) the foundations of the questions and without first deciding whether anything exists, (2) what the implications of the notion of existence (the To Be of all that exist) are, (3) how to differentiate between the various tenses of ‘to be’ used in the case of existence, attribution to existents, equality of existents, and equality of attributes, etc.
The Many Genuine and Non-Genuine Senses of ‘To Be’ in Linguistic Use: It is common to read metaphysicians, linguistic philosophers, and linguists speaking of the many contextual meanings of To Be in use in language. They tend then to accept all these senses as genuine, saying that these are given in language. But the foundational senses in which it had to be found in use are not much being discussed, nor is it often recognized that these alone can justify the contextual usages. The contextual is a sort of phenomenology of the use of meanings in language. The foundational is a fundamental philosophical consideration in linguistics, sciences, and philosophy alike.
I enumerate more than a score of the said contextual meanings of ‘to be’, without too much attention to arranging them in their derivative importance, since it is extremely difficult to reason into: (1) exist as a thing out-there and/or within ourselves, (2) exist as a process out-there and/or within ourselves, (3) come into existence as a thing, (4) come into existence as a process, (5) be such and such a thing, (6) become such and such a thing (without attention to its changes), (7) be of such and such a quality or property, (8) become of such and such a quality or property, (9) become such and such a processual thing (acquire the nature of a different form of existence), (10) be the same as, (11) be similar to, (12) become similar to, (13) be true, (14) become true, (15) be taken as true, (16) be possible as existent, (17) become a possible thing, (18) become a possible process, (19) become something possible, (20) be necessary as something existent, (21) be necessary as of such and such a nature (quality, property), (22) be necessary as such and such a thing, (23) be necessary as such and such a processual thing, (24) apply (as a quality or property) to, (25) happen (in a manner), (26) happen as this or that thing (from an already-existent), etc., and (27) a host of the same meanings in the past, present, and future tenses and various modal incarnations.
The Only Fundamental, Guiding, Physical-Ontological Senses of ‘To Be’: The above are some of the linguistic usages of To Be. What about their most fundamental senses, without which language cannot facilitate its own use in philosophy and science? I show that, in its implications, To Be works out to be taken as, but is not the same as, ‘cause to be’ or ‘cause to become’, because Extension and Change, the implications of To Be, together imply Universal Causality. But these implications are the only concepts that language can find as the most fundamental significances of the To Be of Reality-in-total. As I said at the beginning, the only two highest exhaustive implications of To Be are Extension and Change; Extension-Change-wise existence is itself causation; and all existents are causal: hence the pre-scientific Universal Law of Causality.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/HEIDEGGER_How_a_Philosopher_Destroys_His_Own_Thoughts_Coherence_and_Adequacy
It would be interesting to clarify when we use in that physical contexts natural-language words to denote directly some alleged "real" objects (via Fregean sense, intentionality, Sprachspiele or whatever) and explain when we use that as an ordinary everyday sociological scientific practice to denote technical developments over mathematical formalizations which we identify with those objects. That could be non-trivial approach to the question. Existential predicates will permeate from logic to mathematical apparatus and then, to the formalism employed in physics.
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Ontological Universals, Virtual Worlds, and Linguistics: I create detailed concepts of universals as the inner constitution of what many thinkers and scientists have termed in a mutually confusing manner as universal, quality, and property. I define quality and property in terms of universals of three types. The basic type is ontological universals, but these are not meant in its traditional use of classifying the substance of entities with or devoid of accidents.
Ontological universals are the pure ways of being of beings, which (the ways) conglomerate and give rise to properties. Qualities, when meant in their ontological purity too are taken here as ontological universals. Hence, concepts like ‘tiger’, ‘man’, etc. are not ontological universals.
First of all, they are denotative terms with their conceptually pure connotative part in presupposedly pure consciousness. Denotative universals have their conceptual ingredients, i.e., the pure connotative universals, which are pure mental reflections of ontological universals. Denotative universals are either actual concepts (connotatives plus brain elements) in minds or linguistic terms or words (connotatives plus linguistic elements) in language. Actual tiger, man, etc. are token entities within the natural kinds termed tigers, humans, etc., classified under certain properties, not under universals.
These properties are what many analytic and scientific thinkers today term qualia. Some mean the perceptual or conceptual occurrences, some the linguistic terms, some their instantiations in existent processes, and some a mixture of some or all of them! This is a highly confused state in philosophy – in my opinion, causing much wastage of journal and monograph pages, as will be shown in Chapter --.
Thus, to achieve clarity briefly, a star consists of many indivisible ontological universals and the matter-energy proper to it. The latter in its totality alone does not make it a token in the natural kind. Each ontological universal in a star’s common property is present as a common pure quality in all the members of the star as a type. By reason of the property (not the ontological universal) in all tokens, the natural kind may be characterized to be a natural set under the pertinent set (property) of pure ways of being termed ontological universals.
Thus, a star as a token in a natural kind has many universals plus the finite matter-energy process involved. Anything denoted other than existents and their directly pertinent ontological universals may be termed perceptions, imaginations, emotions, thoughts, truths, quasi-truths, falsities, theories, etc. In this capacity as denotable but non-existent, these realities have existent counterparts that are not identifiable with the imaginations, emotions, etc.
These may variously be termed virtual worlds of various kinds in that they, in their concatenative nature, represent most of the time the states of affairs within the world or its parts. These are not the same as existent worlds or their directly pertinent pure “ontological universals”.
It is the work of science in general and of the science of verbs, nouns, and attributes to define and describe the primary nature of and connection with Reality-in-total, of what are termed perceptions, imaginations, emotions, thoughts, truths, quasi-truths, falsities, theories, etc.
Since these are not existent like things, but represent existent worlds in a theoretical manner, they may in general be termed virtual worlds – some of them with more conceptual representation capacity with respect to their objects outside the minds, and others with least representation capacity that reduces them to mere virtuals.
As regards the Causality in them, their matter-energy-type processual counterparts alone are causal. Language is a way of making least virtual and highly virtual worlds; although the occurrences of language and the virtual worlds in concepts are causal and are not themselves virtual worlds. In the present work I attempt to base universal-causally these virtual worlds in existent worlds.
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