Introduction
This little series of blog postings tries to discuss the topic of
- A Common Layering of the Universe, or, in other words,
- An Order of Creation.
The following blog postings are currently available within this series:
Introduction
Please don’t be shocked. This posting will be about some philosophy.
This is not a blog posting about science of nature, nor about science of technology, it could even be interpreted as a religious posting.
Hence, this posting is a temporary contradiction (let’s say an exception according to Heisenberg) to my principle about keeping this blog an agnostic blog.
If you cannot accept this, then please ignore this posting 🙂 .
Closing Remarks
If I trace my writings back, then the topic of the layers of the universe comes up for the first time in my 10th booklet “On Life” in March 2018 (https://letztersein.com/kleine-religiose-buchlein/).
There I begin for the first time in the chapter “Spirit” to use the technique of the so-called “protocol stacks” to represent the concepts of spirit and matter in a diagram. I draw the “material” layers of a person “lower” and the “mental” layers of a person “higher”.
This is modeled after the protocol stacks we use in telecom and networking to represent the different layers of communication of computer systems.
In the 12th booklet “Mind – Senses – Body – Soul” and in the two blog postings mentioned,
https://letztersein.com/kleine-religiose-buchlein/
https://areasharpa.wordpress.com/2022/08/26/the-eight-four-layers-of-the-universe/
https://areasharpa.wordpress.com/2022/09/03/why-objects-and-interactions/
I will then explore this in greater detail.
In all of these writings I simply follow the heuristic approach that it is easily possible to identify INNER layers in all entities of the universe that are analog to each other – depending on the layer – so that all of these entities CAN INTERACT with each other within each layer.
How can we understand these “inner layers”?
Well, the concept of the “abstraction layer” as we know it from information technology leads us to the idea of these “inner layers”.
We can make this clear with a simple example:
I can get to know a person very concretely when we hug each other, this definitely affects “layer 0” (matter and physics), but can also – if feelings, emotions or other senses are involved – go up to “layer 1” of the sensual.
If you also think about it during a hug (that can also happen), then you are more of a “cerebral type”, but a hug can also penetrate into “layer 2” (for example now, when I write about it ).
On the other hand, when I listen to a person, talk to them or read their writings, then I experience this person primarily on “layer 2”, i.e. mentally, which corresponds to a higher level of abstraction or, you could also say, an additional indirection.
The lowest layer, “layer 0”, is always physics, which describes all interactions in the universe using the terms matter, energy and space-time (admittedly this is a blatant simplification of physics).
The layer of the sensual, which I put on the same level as the software on the Internet – in which we differentiate between 5 layers – I call either “layer 1” or “layer 1-5”.
Then only the spirit hovers above this, i.e. “layer 2” or “layer 6” (here it would perhaps be necessary to write an additional text again in order to differentiate more precisely: the “spirit” layer also applies to terms like ” intelligence”, “wisdom”, “mind”, and the like).
What’s the significance of it all?
Well, the amazing thing about these models is that I put the software in our computers – and on the Internet – on a par with the human senses
If I put them on the same level, then that doesn’t mean that they are the same or equivalent to our human senses, but it just means that they can interact with our senses.
When modeling any protocol stack, only one of the layers can interact and communicate with another layer if it is on the same level as this one.
The matter of a stone cannot interact directly with my mind, because the matter of the stone lies in “layer 0” and my mind lies in “layer 2”.
In order to interact with the matter of a stone, my mind requires an IMAGE OF THE STONE provided by the senses. Only with this image of the stone can the spirit interact and give commands to my senses and my body so that they then interact directly with the material of the stone.
The Internet can also offer this “proximity effect of the senses”.
It’s not uncommon for me to hear someone ask: “Are you on server XY yet?” and I answer: “Yes, I’m already on the server”.
Am I REALLY there?
Of course not.
But my senses and the Internet provide my mind with an experience that feels to my mind like it’s there “on the server.”
In my opinion, that’s reason enough to put my senses and the Internet on the same level.
Motivation
But wasn’t all of this just an attempt to simply “transfer” our perspective as network engineers and information engineers to the entire world?
Well, anyone who knows me knows that I like to think about things simply out of curiosity or just for the fun of it. That’s nothing reprehensible.
So let’s start from the beginning
In this series of publications we wanted to try to generally represent the interactions between the objects of the universe using information technology methods.
You have to remember that information science is actually one of the very youngest sciences.
If you look at it historically, Newton’s laws were the first breakthrough in mechanics and thermodynamics, which probably had its industrial peak in the invention of the steam engine.
You could also put it – a little flippantly – like this:
- The steam engine was invented in the 18th century, and the heyday of the steam railway was the 19th century
- The electric machine was invented in the 19th century and electrical engineering experienced its first major moment in the 20th century, alongside the rise of the internal combustion engine
- Actually, it was already possible to build simple calculating machines with the help of mechanics, but it was electrical engineering and its miniaturization that made the invention of the computer possible in the 20th century
Well, at the beginning of the 21st century we are experiencing the triumph of computer technology with the so-called “digitalization”, which is now finding its way into all, but really all, areas of daily life.
So is it any wonder that one is tempted to interpret the entire order of creation (or, as I say, the “layers of the universe”) from the perspective of information processing.
The transmission of information also has a long history in human use.
- Isn’t language our very own form of information transmission?
- Haven’t documents existed in various forms for a long time? Papyrus? Parchment?
- Hasn’t there always been information transfer? Report runner? Postmen? Pony Express? Carrier pigeons?
- Hasn’t there always been information transmission via radiation or waves? Bush drums? Beacon? Smoke sign?
Information technology is therefore a very old thing that is inherent to humans, but it only reached its peak with the invention of the computer and modern information sciences.
So there’s nothing wrong with putting on your “nerd glasses” and looking at the entire world, the entire order of creation.
Means
Your Christoph
P.S.: What else could be ventilated?
Well, so far I’ve only written about a “flat” universe, in which all objects in the information space are “next to each other”, even though they have protocol stacks of different heights.
Figure 1: “flat” universe
But now you could, for example, dismantle a person into its individual parts.
So instead of having “Joe (a human)” and “a stone” in our protocol stacks, we would have
“Joe (a human)”, consisting of “Joe’s parts (Joe’s limbs, Joe’s organs, Joe’s bones, Joe’s skin and hair, …….)” and “a stone”.
Each of these “sub” objects would have the “inner layers” within them, i.e. starting from matter, up to the senses and some of these parts would even have a “mental” layer (this probably only applies to the brain).
Figure 2: “Structured” universe (with “sub” objects)
But ALL interactions would be REALIZED (i.e. in a physical way) through material/energetic interactions in a space-time, although they can also be partially ABSTRACTED (interpreted) as senses or spirit.
Later more.
Area 1.0 