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Summary—This essay identifies ten building blocks of truth that can be used as fodder for constructing bulletproof arguments. Quotation—Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain. If her waters flow not in perpetual progression then they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man becomes a heretic in the truth if he believes things without knowing their reason but instead relies on his pastor’s say so or because the assembly so determines. Though his belief may be true, the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. —John Milton I began consulting to the executives at Canadian Pacific Limited (CPL) in 1998 practicing risk management. On January 1st, 2001, I first published Philosophymagazine.com. At the same time, CPL was breaking up into its five subsidiaries and the executives were very busy. I presented them my theory of one and expected them to care about it, which was horribly unfair of me. I possess a dauntless search for truth and expect the same from others. Saint Augustine (354-430) said, “The first step forward is to see that our attention is firmly fastened on the truth.” I discovered that I am the only one whose attention is fastened on the truth. If someone else’s attention were fastened on the truth then they would have discovered my theory of one. One—Descartes’ Cogito. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) said, “There can be no other truth to take off from this—I think, therefore I exist—ie. Descartes’ cogito. There we have the absolute truth of consciousness becoming aware of itself. Every theory which takes man out of the moment in which he becomes aware of himself is, at its very beginning, a theory which confounds the truth, for outside Descartes’ cogito, all views are only probable, and a doctrine of probability which is not bound to a truth dissolves into thin air. In order to describe the probable, you must have a firm hold on the true. Therefore, before there can be any truth whatsoever, there must be an absolute truth; and this one is easily arrived at; it is on everyone’s doorstep; it is a matter of grasping it directly.” Descartes’ cogito proves the existence of the self and is the starting point of existential philosophy. Two—Einstein’s Moon. Relativity theory is the natural law of spacetime and reveals that spacetime shrinks as a function of velocity relative to light speed. According to relativity theory, if the velocity of an object reaches light speed then its height would shrink to zero—thereby indicating a boundary of spacetime at light speed. This means the universe is bounded, not at some distant star, but right in front of our eyes—which in turn means that reality is an illusion. Consider the thought problem where Albert Einstein (1879-1955) asked whether the moon really exists when no one is looking at it? As we turn to look at the moon, the computer of our minds accesses the hard disk that describes the moon and then projects the calculated image onto the screen. So the moon does not even exist even when someone is looking—as it is only an illusion. The thought problem thus proves that consciousness determines perceived reality. Three—Schrödinger’s Cat. In 1925 Erwin Schrödinger constructed an atomic model based on waves of matter while Werner Heisenberg constructed a model based on matrices of infinite dimension. Paul Dirac then nailed down quantum theory once and for all by proving that the two models are equivalent. In 1935 Schrödinger set forth his classic cat-in-a-box thought problem with the intention of demonstrating the absurdity of the probabilistic interpretation of his wave model. A quantum-cat is placed in a box such that no one can know what is happening inside. A device releases either food or poison with equal probability, and the cat meets its fate—or does it? Schrödinger absurdly argued that the cat must be both alive and dead until the observer opens the box. The thought problem thus leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that the observer’s consciousness is what actually determines perceived reality. Four—Leibniz’s Fractals. A fractal is a natural phenomenon exhibiting self-similar patterns at every scale. They stem from chaos theory and are fractions of dimensions that include everything from clouds to oil prices to galaxy clusters. Consider a coastline viewed from both space and a person walking along it. The coastline is neither one nor two-dimensional but is a fractal dimension somewhere in between. Fractals tell us that the fractal dimension is the same for both the astronaut and the pedestrian. Metaphorically speaking, there is no difference between looking through a microscope and looking through a telescope. Fractals link the macrocosmos of relativity theory (Einstein’s moon) with the microcosmos of quantum theory (Schrödinger’s cat) which tells us consciousness determines perceived reality in both cases. If one compares minute-to-minute oil prices to month-to-month prices, fractals tell us that the probability of big jumps stays relatively the same (ie. micro equals macro). Five—Pascal’s Sphere. Blaise Pascal (1623-62) said, “The universe is a sphere in which the centre is everywhere and the boundary is nowhere.” Consider for a moment two hypothetical spheres existing in metaphysical space where the normal rules of physics do not apply. With the first sphere the center is everywhere and the boundary is nowhere, while with the second sphere the boundary is everywhere and the center is nowhere. The question is—how are the spheres different? The thought problem leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that the terms center and boundary are interchangeable in this case—and thus both spheres paradoxically describe the very same continuum. With my theory of one, I replaced the terms boundary and centre with the terms light speed and Planck’s constant—thereby uniting relativity theory (based on light speed) and quantum theory (based on Planck’s constant). While relativity theory speaks to the macrocosmos, quantum theory concerns itself with matter at the microcosmic level. My theory of one then brings relativity theory and quantum theory together. Six—Anselm’s God. The ontological argument is an a priori proof for the existence of God that was put forth by Saint Anselm (1033-1109). The argument says that because we can conceive of a perfect being in our minds, that being must necessarily exist—for otherwise the being would lack an essential component of perfection—namely existence. My theory of one adds to the ontological argument by contending that Anselm not only proves the existence of God, but that his argument actually brings God into existence. God’s existence at the moment of the big bang and Anselm’s lucid thought are eternal, synchronous events. They each caused the other simultaneously. Seven—Ockham’s Razor. The English monk William of Ockham (1285-1349) was known for his keen sense of logic and his enduring theological ideologies. Going entirely against the philosophy of his time, Ockham put forth his now famous principle of economy—which states that if all things are equal, the simplest theory tends to be the right one. Ockham employed his principle so frequently and with such purpose that it became known as Ockham’s razor. And even today, Ockham’s razor still remains the very foundation of all truly authentic scientific reasoning. As such, I work very hard at taking things that are complicated and ugly and making them simple and beautiful. Eight—Dirac’s Beauty. Dirac was just twenty-six years old when he discovered antimatter as the anti-electron or positron. The aesthetically-deduced relativistic wave equation became a cornerstone of quantum theory in that it accounts for the behavior of electrons and positrons traveling near light speed. In putting his own enlightened spin on Ockham’s razor, Dirac claimed it is more important to have beautiful theories and equations than to have them fit the data. While empiricism and positivism have attempted to deploy Ockham’s razor as the basis for totally objective philosophies—Dirac found the missing link in subjectivity that enabled scientific reasoning to make the next quantum leap forward. I would argue that genuine art is always economical, yet its true value can only be arrived at subjectively. I would further argue that if an argument is simple, beautiful and reasonable, then it is mathematically true by definition. Nine—Plato’s Cave. Plato (427-347 BC) used his famous allegory of the cave to identify genuineness. Imagine prisoners chained inside a cave such that they could only see the shadows of the eternal objects of God, Souls and Forms projected onto a wall from a fire behind them. The Pythagorean Form proves we can calculate the length of the third side of a right-angle triangle if we know the length of the other two sides. Its proof is a landmark in many civilizations. On the wall we only see examples of the Form’s truthfulness like—32 + 42 = 52. But for us to use knowledge as building blocks of truth, we must have mathematical proofs and not just heuristic likelihoods. Ten—Camus’ Sisyphus. The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. In it Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd search for meaning, unity and clarity in an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternal truths. Sisyphus is one of the most profound philosophical statements of the 20th Century. Sisyphus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology who was condemned to spend his remaining life pushing a boulder up a mountain only to see it roll down again. Camus had suicidal thoughts and addressed them directly with his essay. The essay concludes by saying that, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Against Camus, I would argue the ontological argument proves the existence of God and the laws of nature are eternal truths. Conclusion. We may now use these ten metaphysical building blocks to create arguments of eternal truth. Our attention here must be firmly fastened on the truth. Then applying these building blocks of truth would be just child’s play for constructing towers of truth like my theory of one.
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