Ontology And The Soul
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Summary—A successful business executive is a forecaster first—purchasing, production, marketing, pricing and organizing all follow. —Peter Bernstein
Quotation—I dislike arguments of any kind. They are often vulgar and convincing. —Oscar Wilde Ontology. Philosophy is the study of the nature of knowledge, reality and existence. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that addresses the first principles of things. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that addresses the nature of being. According to EF Schumacher, the four levels of being in the universe are—matter, life, consciousness and self-awareness. Matter is physical while the other three dimensions are metaphysical. Man is a cocktail of the first three ontological levels and may even grasp self-awareness. God is pure self-awareness.
Monads. The concept of monads was originally developed by Pythagoras (570-495 BC) and refers to indivisible entities or atoms that compose reality. Gottfried Leibniz’s (1646-1716) mature philosophy of monadology is a system of great simplicity and beauty. He referred to monads as windowless, indivisible, elementary particles that follow a pre-established harmony. Leibniz argued that humans and animals have one overriding monad which orchestrates the lower monads in the body. This highest monad is the soul—if one has a soul. Leibniz used monadology as the basis for his version of calculus—the mathematics of motion.
Electrons. Leibniz said monads are the real atoms of nature. I believe electrons are also the real atoms of nature and are in fact monads. They cross back and forth across the boundary of Planck’s constant/light speed in creating reality. The photon travels along the boundary. Electrons sew the fabric of reality in conjunction with the photon. The experience of consciousness is the inertial effects experienced by the electrons as they weave in and out of spacetime. Freeman Dyson claimed that electrons are active agents making conscious choices.
Being and Energy. There are four ontological levels of being and there are four types of energy—gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear-weak and nuclear-strong. I contend that being and energy are the same thing. Matter aligns with gravity, life aligns with electromagnetism, consciousness aligns with nuclear-weak, and self-awareness aligns with nuclear-strong. Both Freud and Jung insisted the energy which operates our minds is no different than the energy that operates the universe. Nuclear-strong energy or souls exist eternally outside spacetime so that we are then able to survive our physical death.
God and Souls. Einstein said God is the sum total of the laws of nature. The laws of nature are fully-integrated and self-consistent. They are true for every point in the universe and are therefore eternal. If our actions are integrated and consistent then we are self-aware and have a soul. If one blocks out ideas like the theory of one and existentialism because they do not fit with their existing paradigm, then they are not self-aware and do not have a soul. To have a soul means being open to new ideas that may not always jive with our prevailing beliefs.
Behaviorism and Existentialism. Behaviorism only recognizes matter while existentialism sees all four ontological dimensions. Behaviorism only asks that we behave ourselves. It denies any human reality beyond material appearances and denies us salvation. Alternatively, existentialism is focused on the workings of consciousness and becoming self-aware. It concerns itself with freedom, responsibility, subjective choice and human emotions. I contend that existentialism should be a core subject taught in high school. This goal is easily arrived at by simply giving copies of my book Existentialism Now to students.
Conclusion. The four ontological levels of being are—matter, life, consciousness and self-awareness. God and people with souls are self-aware. Monads or electrons or atoms are indivisible entities that contain our beings. The four levels of being are coincident with the four types of energy. Behaviorism only sees physical matter while existentialism knows physical matter and the three metaphysical dimensions of ontology. Doctors are trying to force mankind to fit into their materialistic view of the world. They covertly enforce behaviorism in order to make us sick and then they methodically harvest the rewards of this inflicted illness. Quotations Man has the power of life like the plants, the power of consciousness like the animals, and something more—the power of consciousness recoiling upon itself—which is the power of self-awareness. Man is not merely a conscious being, but a being capable of consciousness of his own consciousness—not merely a thinker, but a thinker able to watch and study his own thinking. This power of self-awareness opens up unlimited possibilities for purposeful learning, investigating, exploring and of formulating and accumulating knowledge. People for whom the power of self-awareness is poorly developed cannot grasp it as a separate power and tend to think of it as nothing more than a slight extension of consciousness. —EF Schumacher
The maps produced by modern materialistic science leave all the questions that really matter unanswered; more than that—they deny the validity of the questions. The situation was desperate enough in my youth half a century ago; it is even worse now because the ever more rigorous application of the scientific method to all subjects and disciplines has destroyed even the last remnants of ancient wisdom—at least in the Western world. It is being loudly proclaimed in the name of scientific objectivity that values and meanings are nothing but defense mechanisms and reaction formations; that man is nothing but a complex biochemical mechanism powered by a combustion system which energizes computers with prodigious storage facilities for retaining encoded information. —EF Schumacher
Gradually philosophers and scientists have arrived at the startling conclusion that since every object is simply the sum of its qualities, and since qualities exist only in the mind, the whole objective universe of matter and energy, atoms and stars, does not exist except as a construction of the consciousness—an edifice of conventional symbols shaped by the senses of man. —Lincoln Barnett
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