Alternative universes
Reality -- at least our reality -- takes different shapes with the different conceptions we entertain of it. Entirely divergent conceptions of reality are possible, and many of them have achieved explicit formulation in the history of thought. For purposes of this analysis we group the major kinds of systematic realities under the heading of "alternative universes". There are four of them:
the mystical (mu)-universe
the teleological (tau)-universe
the random-change (phi)-universe
the self-forming (psi)-universe.
The origins of the (mu)-universe go back to the dawn of human intellectual history, with roots in both Eastern and Western thought. It was Plato who introduced it into systematic philosophy. Plato embraced the mystical tenet that the ultimate realities subsist unchanged, on a separate plane of existence. In the Platonic universe the things encountered in the material world arrange themselves according to their perfect and eternal archetypes.
Plato's thesis is cogent, but requires the acceptance of two separate planes of reality. Aristotle objected to this postulate and proceeded to outline the historically powerful variant of the (tau)-universe. In Aristotle's conception matter is inert and formless. To account for the world's known properties we must assume the action of four distinct "causes", including the final cause which makes the universe basically teleological. The essential forms or designs imprint themselves on perceived realities as their "entelechies". These kept cropping up time and again -- in Driesch, in Bergson, and in the "vitalist" school in philosophy and biology.
The (phi)-universe has an especially rich history, first within philosophy and then in science. Its origins can be traced to the atomism of Democritus and Leucippus. In De Rerum Natura the Roman poet Lucretius produced a representative and eloquent statement of it. "Multitudinous atoms, swept along in multitudinous courses through infinite time by mutual clashes and their own weight, came together in every possible way and realized everything that could be formed by their combinations".
Return to the content of this issue
Return to the Cybernetics and Human Knowing Homepage