Building the Perceived Reality (Part II Extension): The Attitude Toward Science

This post extends Part II: Finding the One, Order. There, I discussed order as a way of aligning subjective moral sense with universal law. Here, I want to discuss what finding the one implies in science.

Science as Separation

Modern science often involves the scientist as an observer who stands outside nature. When I patch-clamp a neuron and record its spikes, those measurements are thought to be a readout of a constant: a world that yields the same signal under careful measurement. In other words, reproducibility is the backbone of science. The separation of human beings and nature grounds objective knowledge. Yet the scientist is lonely, placed in an anthropocentric stance that separates the scientist from nature, even though the experiences the scientist has, and the instruments the scientist uses, are also parts of nature.

I feel this split when I tend my garden of thought. Weaving a new school of thought into my garden involves the mind, a process made intelligible by modern cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Therefore, the way I tend my garden is itself a plant in my garden. When the subject is mind, it becomes more obvious that the model of cognition is also the result of cognition.

I introduced order as a way to find the one in Part II: Finding the One, Order. I will discuss some questions raised when defining the one at the end of this post. In brief, finding the one is aligning human-understandable universal law with the objective-in-itself. Order, as knowing what is prior and what is posterior, roots before branches, and beginnings before endings, is a way to find the one.

Order and Cycle

Returning to its own state, or a cycle, better describes the observation that “the model of cognition is also the result of cognition.” Now it is time to tend the garden, as order and cycle are competing for space in the garden of thoughts. I start by understanding why we need the concept of cycle (轮回 is such an interesting concept that I may dedicate a chapter to it). We commonly see cycles: leaves fall to the ground and turn into soil that fertilizes the leaves; being awake and being asleep alternate. Next, I find a thought to refine the definition of order so that it can be transformed into cycle, and vice versa. If I am lucky, the redefinition does not affect its previous explanatory power; for example, juridical procedure is the root and a just outcome is the branch. In this case, order does not have to be linear, and it does not permanently fix root and branch. Order does not end. It allows us to know what comes first and last, while not precluding the conclusion of one act from becoming the premise of another. At this point, we have mostly placed order and cycle where they can grow together. The last tending for me is to decide whether order is a snapshot inside a cycle. Things cycle, or move along a cycle, because of order. The same is true for cycle: if a cycle has no order, then the cycle is immobile, and therefore not a cycle. More precisely, for a cycle to be a cycle of something, it must have an internal structure of order. The most exciting finding is to have one principle seen from two angles. In this case, cycle and direction are two angles of movement (with direction, I have not yet incorporated random movement or stochasticity).

The ideal scenario, what I hope to have eventually, is that when the one is seen from every angle, we get a co-extensive philosophy. The previous example for finding a one is tracing schools of thought back until an encompassing principle reveals itself.

人道 and 天道

A few words about unity of nature and humanity. This framework does separate human philosophy and nature. Misalignment between nature and human practice exists, and is thought to be forgetfulness, or a cloud that needs to be cleared away so the underlying unity shines through. Societal value (人道) is the way specific to human beings: relationship, cultivation, moral responsibility, and the capacity to make mistakes, such as having conflicting beliefs. This idea has utility: it prevents us from thinking that human behavior is part of nature and therefore deterministic, with no moral value. The unity of nature and humanity proposes aligning societal value and nature.

I dare to envision that separating human practice and nature is part of the universal law, which I note is not the ONE that humans live to find. I propose an axiom: the universal law is all-rational. All existence has reasoning, just to find the one.

I dare to envision the possibility that cultivation, human mistakes, and human intervention in nature are analogous to the selection of mutated genes in evolutionary theory: a way that the universe finds the one by aligning its dynamics from the stance of the universe. In this vision, the cosmos grows a self-reflective organ, one that can wonder about its own place, examine its dimensions, and, through species including humans and their activity, become curious about itself. Modern science, which separates human beings and nature, preserves agency and accountability. I see the existence of this separation as serving to keep humans as a non-destructive species, therefore in harmony with the universe.

Questions on Finding the One

Full disclosure: this writing is an effort to find the one, but it is not there yet. Here are my answers to questions regarding finding the one.

1. What is the one? Is there anything beyond the one?

The one is not an entity. Because the one is not a thing among things, it has no boundaries. Language limits the percentage of the one that I can communicate. One direction I should consider is expressing through channels beyond natural language. Within human language, I would frame the one as a state of integration, a quality of relationship among the parts of experience. The one is something we find.

2. Why do we find the one?

To be fragmented is to suffer: conflicting beliefs pull in different directions; emotion and reason war with each other; experience becomes a series of disconnected events. Finding the one is seeing unity from fragmentation, the condition for finding happiness, meaning, and purpose.

3. Are there many ones?

My current answer is yes. A naive infant is very close to the one, as is an all-knowing sage, or any person who has aligned emotions and self-contained beliefs.

If a person is indifferent to experience, for example, with no memory and no prediction, then that person is close to the one. If a person chooses to defend a philosophy that is in constant conflict with experience, choosing to believe does not ease the internal conflict until the person finds the one.

4. Does the Russell paradox apply to the one?

If nothing is beyond the one, then the one does not contain things that are not the one, so there are things beyond the one.

This is illusory, because the one is not a set. A well-defined set is an angle of the one. When logic does not lead to the one, we could elect to define a better logic.

What is “beyond” the one is not an entity but a misalignment. Just as darkness is not a substance beyond light but the absence of light, the one is co-extensive with all that is, but not everything that exists is one. A fragmented mind is fully real, but it is real as a departure from its own potential integrity.

My working definition is that the one is the living process of integration.

5. Can a person move away from the one?

Yes, but only in the sense that they lose the alignment that makes the one manifest in them. As an analogue, when music falls out of tune, the noise is still sound, but it lacks the order that makes it music.