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There is the Pattern, and there is Awareness.
These form a unity, and neither is the creation of the other.
This is the basis of this worldview - the universe has two aspects, which I call Pattern and Awareness. The former includes what we normally regard as matter, energy etc. , while the latter is undifferentiated consciousness. This corresponds to the Prakriti-Purusha or Shakti-Shiva distinction of yoga and tantra respectively (but not to Yang and Yin, which are both aspects of Pattern). Saying that these "form a unity" is a bit of a leap in the dark, although it is a principle of many Eastern philosophies, and is represented iconically as Shiva and Shakti in sexual union. "Neither is the creation of the other" negates both the materialist view that consciousness is an epiphenomenon and the classical theistic view of a conscious being (God) who created matter - if there is a deity in this system it is an immanent one.
A part of the Pattern is also a pattern.
Obviously - to get a sense of this, have a look at some of those pretty fractal graphics, or a detail from a Turkish or Persian carpet.
Recurring characteristics of the Pattern are also patterns.
We may call these patterns qualities.
The categorisation here is arbitrary - we may slice up the Pattern in any way we choose, but some types of categorisation are obviously more useful than others. "Qualities" are actually the most common form of category, and include adjectives (e.g. "blue") concrete nouns ("cat", though not "that cat", which is an object) and abstract nouns ("freedom"). It is important to realise that these abstract qualities are just as "real" as specific physical objects. I can only say "that cat" because I possess the category "cat" i.e. I recognise certain recurring characteristics of the Pattern (or rather my own representation of it, which is also a pattern) and call these "cat". Language is essentially based on categorisation, not reference; that is, there are no "simples" or "semantic atoms" which refer to "real objects", only different ways of identifying qualities.
Universal consistencies in the Pattern may be called laws.
This is the basis of science - observing when the Pattern behaves consistently, and ideally putting some maths to it.
The interaction of patterns form patterns.
Thus if "cat" is a pattern and "mat" is a pattern, then "cat on mat" is also a pattern.
There is no limit to the number of patterns.
Obviously! This is inherent in some Eastern symbolism, for example in tantra, where Shakti (energy, power) divides and subdivides into an infinite number of shaktis. It is also implicit in the neo-Platonism of Ibn al-Arabi, where the universal body (wujud, or God) is refracted like light through the 99 "names of God" to the "particular names", or existing entities. see also the Tao Te Ching, where one begets two, two begets three, and three begets "the ten thousand things". This process, however, is not linear in time (i.e. first there was one, then two and so on) but exists at each point in time (i.e. you can identify as many patterns as you want).
There is no limit to Awareness.
Not so obvious. I am taking Awareness at this point to be undifferentiated and infinite - essentially an Eastern view rather than a Western one. I must admit that I have no evidence for this, save that it does help answer questions about trees falling in woods and so on!
Awareness of a part of the Pattern is perception.
Awareness of qualities is thought.
Awareness of perception and thought is mind.
What is important here is that mind is not simply awareness, but recursive awareness , i.e. being aware of what you are aware of. See also the comment on Part 7.
Perception, thought and mind arise from the focussing of awareness in complex patterns.
These patterns can be called sentient.
Again, I'm jumping off at the deep end here. What I propose is that this universal, undifferentiated Awareness becomes focussed in certain patterns (up to our knowledge only in organic ones, but there is nothing in theory to rule out silicon awareness etc.). What "I" am, then, is the focussing of awareness in a particular complex pattern i.e. my brain.
Limitation exists within the Pattern.
An essential feature of the Pattern is that it imposes limitations on its constituent patterns; while information may be non-local, in practice its accessibility has to be limited. Information which is not discrete is meaningless, and therefore not information at all.
Limitations may define patterns. Definitions may involve space, time or quality.
This is categorisation again. The limitation here is purely formal; in order to say what is "cat", for example, you need to exclude everything that is "not cat". Similarly, objects are defined by their physical limits.
A pattern may also limit another pattern. This may be called restriction.
All patterns exist in and form a complex ecology; for example one species restricts the numbers of another. This does not apply only to biology, though.
Restriction creates tension within the Pattern.
Tension is a necessary, if sometimes unpleasant, feature of the Pattern, resulting from different patterns having different intrinsic tendencies (a point which will be dealt with later).
Limitation of awareness is a function of mind. Perception and thought are limited by the patterns which they are aware of, and by each other. Mind is limited by perception and thought.
While awareness as such may be unlimited, in practice we are only aware of a limited number of things; if not we would not be able to function. In practice, however, mind is far more limited than it needs to be.
The unlimited nature of awareness and the limited nature of mind create tension. Increasing awareness of perception and thought reduces the limitations of mind. Dissolving the limitations of mind resolves this tension.
Again we have tension, but a psychological one here. Limitation of mind creates a sense of self or ego, which is necessary but sometimes uncomfortable. This can create a mystical longing for the original, unlimited awareness, which may persist as some kind of unconscious nostalgia and be expressed in terms of "unity with God", "nirvana" or whatever. One way to resolve the problem is through increasing awareness - Buddhist "mindfulness" techniques are one example of this. Note that I am not claiming that human beings "ought" to adopt this strategy, simply that it is an option.
All parts of the Pattern interact with all other parts.
These interactions may be strong, weak or subtle.
In other words, everything is interconnected. One image for this is "Indra's net", where the universe is seen as a net with a diamond at each knot, so that a point of light will ultimately be reflected by every other diamond. However, this does not mean that every diamond will reflect it to the same degree or in the same way. As for the "holographic universe" theory, the jury is still out; it may be the case that our universe is a kind of projection analogous to a hologram (in which case any part of the universe should contain enough information to reproduce the whole, though at a lower degree of resolution). Whether this is a revolutionary paradigm or just the usual tendency to construct fanciful metaphors from new technology is a matter for physicists to decide.
Strong interactions have high information exchange. They are local in space and time.
This is the stuff of Newtonian physics. I am using the term "information" very broadly here, to include such things as kinetic or electromagnetic energy, gravity, heat etc.
Weak interactions have low information exchange. Combinations of weak interactions may produce strong interactions.
Here we get into phenomena such as the famous "butterfly effect" (the idea in Chaos mathematics that in theory a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world could trigger a hurricane in another). We should not get carried away by this, however - it would be extremely unlikely for the butterfly in question to know how to flap its wings in the right way and at the right time to cause a hurricane. Weak interactions tend to cancel each other out, so they could perhaps be better described as "noise" rather than "information".
Subtle interactions are non-local. They may result from the essential interconnectedness of the Pattern or the underlying unity of Awareness.
This is fairly speculative. According to some positions in quantum physics, information exchange can be non-local i.e. any two particles that have once been in contact (and if the Big Bang is true, this means all particles) continue to influence each other no matter how far apart they may be (the Quantum Inseparability Principle). As for "the underlying unity of Awareness", if we accept the hypothesis that awareness is an all-embracing unity which manifests in particular patterns, then there are no hard and fast boundaries between minds (though the principle of limitation mentioned earlier does prevent one mind from having universal awareness - at least most of the time). This might allow for some kind of Jungian collective unconscious, though I would be very wary of advancing this as a definite proposal; we simply do not know enough yet.
Strong interactions are perceived as cause and effect.
Weak interactions are perceived as co-incidence.
Subtle interactions are perceived as synchronicity.
The important phrase here is "perceived as". The distinction here between strong, weak and subtle is one of convenience, and so are the terms "cause and effect", "co-incidence" and "synchronicity". The idea that there are "causes" which produce "effects" is more a reflection of our language than of the universe, as a number of linguists (e.g. Benjamin Lee Whorf) have pointed out. Similarly with "co-incidence": a relationship is described as "co-incidental" to mean that the interactions involved are so weak as to be insignificant, but "insignificance" is a fairly subjective judgement. "Synchronicity" is an even more dubious concept, but it is a convenient way to describe relationships between events which have no strong interactions but are nevertheless regarded as significant in some way. Attributing these to "subtle interactions" is merely one possibility; the sentence may be better read as "If subtle interactions exist, they might well correspond to what we mean by 'synchronicity'."
(This was written in 2003, much later than the rest. Readers may notice some creeping teleology here!)
Awareness of the intrinsic tendency of a pattern is will.
Awareness of the Process is probably ineffable.
To be honest, this is hopelessly unclear. The following extract from a draft paper puts it rather better.
Given that the Pattern is in a constant state of change, and that at least some of these changes are to some extent predictable, we may speak of certain patterns having an intrinsic tendency, that is, a way they will tend to develop if unconstrained by other patterns. To use the classic example, an acorn has an intrinsic tendency to become an oak tree. This is thus similar to Aristotle's telos, but I prefer not to use this term, in order to avoid taking on some of the other features attributed to telos in Aristotelean philosophy.
The important question here is whether this kind of intrinsic tendency amounts to a purpose or function. John Searle, in one of his numerous arguments against the possibility of artificial intelligence, claims that purpose is unique to minds, which in turn are dependent on (carbon-based) brains; a computer appears to carry out algorithms, but in fact these algorithms only exist in the eye of an observer, since a computer can have no purpose in mind. In an answer to this paper, John Bolender argues that there are indeed "real algorithms" outside the brain, turning Searle's example of the heart on its head (so to speak). According to Searle, it is meaningless to say that the function of the heart is to pump blood; all this sentence implies is "The heart pumps blood, and I think this is good" (which is why we do not say that the function of the heart is to become clogged by cholesterol, for example). Bolender's reply is that we can---cautiously---make this claim, because the heart evolved for this reason: no blood, no heart.
This can, of course, lead us into the usual chicken-and-egg problems. Do acorns exist in order to grow into oak trees, or do oak trees exist to produce acorns? However, I see no reason here why the acorn/oak process cannot be united in a kind of mutual algorithm, in a way that acorns and pigs are not. Pigs may have an intrinsic tendency to eat acorns, but acorns do not have an intrinsic tendency, in this rather narrower sense, to be eaten by pigs. If all kinds of organism were granted conscious thought, we could imagine a heart saying to itself "Gotta pump that blood, boy," and acorns thinking "Oh to be a mighty oak," but we would not imagine a sentient acorn thrilling at the thought of being eaten by a pig.
One purpose of this whimsical example is to illustrate the relationship of intrinsic tendency to desire. For an intrinsic tendency to become a desire, there must be some kind of awareness, however rudimentary. A good example of this is breathing. We do not, under normal circumstances, have a desire to breath because we are unaware of our breathing. However, if we fall in the sea and are prevented from breathing, the discomfort and fear this causes gives us a strong desire to breath, over and above our intrinsic tendency to breath; the lungs will attempt to breath even if a person is unconscious, but awareness seems to carry with it the advantage of bringing in other forms of action, such as climbing out of the water. Awareness, whatever it may be, seems to carry the advantage of uniting what would normally be separate cognitive and physical processes (e.g. the contraction and expansion of the lungs with swimming motions). We may therefore regard desire as the combination of awareness and intrinsic tendency.
Robin Turner, 1997 - 2003