The Idea

THE PREMISE:

 We know of four forces in the universe, all of which are associated with the physical universe and all are able to be, at least to a point, mathematically defined and calculated.  It may well be that there are other forces related to the non-physical side of the universe, and if so it would seem that if we want to understand our universe and our reality then we must understand all the forces of our universe and the many ways those forces define and govern our reality.  Those unexplored forces could be any number of forces, some perhaps not even imagined yet, they could include biologic or morphic forces, even that new realm of questionable reality – cyber space, but it is the laws of morality that seems to have a need to be understood by humanity and that need seems to be increasingly urgent.  Morality and the natural laws that govern it, as discussed throughout history by many from Aristotle to Cicero is one of the most powerful and influential forces in the universe, indeed morality of the lack of it, the lack of following its laws has brought down more men and empires than the sword.  Like the physical forces there is a profound and fundamental relationship between morality and reality and there is no reason why the moral force and its laws along with a given reality cannot be expressed, defined and calculated the way the electromagnetic force can.  Below are, I believe, three pieces of the structure that would allow mathematicians and scientists to do this.

PART 1:  THE NATURE OF REALITY

Reality is of two, perhaps more, aspects: 1) a basic or fundamental reality that encompasses everything that could possibly be in or out of this universe and in and out of time and 2) a given reality that exists only as the circumstance or frame of reference exists.  It is this reality, the given reality that would be able to be calculated along with the moral laws within that given reality.  The following story is one that may demonstrate a given reality:

My wife and I were making a grocery list and I mentioned I needed some wine, even though my wife and I don’t drink I go through a bottle of wine every month or so in the kitchen.  I do most of the cooking and usually use a little wine to deglaze the pan just as I am finished, adding flavor and a moist glaze.  This led us to a conversation about how much wine to use and when – which is something that varies each time according to the pan - what’s in it, how much, how moist, how much glaze is on the pan, how hot it is and etc., etc.  The correct answer is of course, just use a squish or a plop or whatever according to the pan, according to what the conditions, the circumstances are in the pan at that time – that’s the frame of reference you use to judge how much wine to put in and that is the reality of the moment, a given reality that has just popped into existence and will pop out of existence when the action is taken and the circumstance no longer exists.

The circumstance in question (the pan) defines the frame of reference by becoming the frame of reference.  By assigning mathematical values to the different aspects of the circumstance in question (the pan) we can create a frame of reference that can be expressed and calculated, along with constant and variable moral values within that given reality.

This reality, of course is nestled in a whole set of realities, the dinner that the dish is cooked for, the evening that the dinner is eaten and so on, but since the given reality in question is in a sense a closed system one only needs to consider one given reality at a time.  A larger given reality that would include not just the deglazing of the pan but the completion of the dinner preparation is a combination made by compounding the different given realities into a larger one.  Fundamental reality itself seems to be, at least in part, a collection of the given realities winking in and out of existence as bubbles in a foam.

PART 2:  FRAME OF REFERENCE

 A frame of reference is like deglazing the pan, a circumstance of the moment and can be anything or anyone from a sub-atomic particle to a person or a planet, it is however limited to the circumstance of interest like looking out of a window or through a viewfinder – you only see what is in the frame and so it is when establishing a frame of reference to examine a certain circumstance or given reality, only a look at the reality gives us our perception through a “Cone of Perception” if you will, that gives us our reality.  I like to think of this as a large house with a central patio or courtyard, and around the perimeter of this courtyard on the inside runs a large hallway.  The outside wall of the house separating the inside hallway from the courtyard is made of glass panes a foot or so square from waist high to the ceiling.   In the center of the courtyard is a large fountain with paths through the gardens and its different plants.  As you walk down the hallway and look out through a pane of glass at the fountain, you see it from one frame of reference giving you one perspective, as you walk farther down the hallway you see the fountain through a separate pane of glass giving you a different frame of reference giving a different perspective and perception of the fountain and therefore a different reality as in Fig. 1. 

Each of us, each object, each event no matter how close it may be to others of its own set is it’s own self because of this difference it has a different frame of reference giving it that different perspective and different reality like planes flying slightly different directions to different destinations.  As the circumstance for everything is constantly in flux, changing our frame of reference and our lives without pause we find our given reality, the reality that we live in is also in a constant state of flux with some changes major having a significant impact on our lives.  Major changes in our species frame of reference also give us major changes in our species reality as well.  During the last two hundred years or so our species has seen major changes in the dynamics of reality, in part because of the technology of the industrial revolution, as talked about by Buckminster Fuller in “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, along with space travel, which as we are no longer planet bound, changed our species relationship to the universe and therefore our reality as well, much as a ship changes course in mid voyage.  The idea of applying mathematics to define a given frame of reference and the given reality that that frame of reference gives us would allow a mathematical look at our reality, a reality that is dynamic, always changing.

PART 3:  CONSTANT AND VARIABLE VALUES

Moral values are manifestations of moral laws.  Those laws allow some values to be variable depending on the frame of reference or circumstance of the situation and other values to be constant in all frames of reference.  The phrase “taken out of context” means that what was true in one given reality created by one frame of reference is not true in another and so it can be said of moral values, what is valid and moral in one context may not be in another, one of the reasons the law allows discretion in sentencing.   There are, however, moral values or aspects of moral values that are valid in all frames of reference, in all contexts.  An illustration of this can be found within that most basic and far reaching value – that of honesty.  This can be as varied as someone, trying to avoid hurt feelings saying “No honey, I really do like the tuna casserole” to robbing someone of their purse, liberty of life.  Is it really as immoral to try to spare someone hurt feeling as it is to enslave a people or massacre a family?  Of course not, the degrees of (im)morality are so different that a comparison cannot be made, because the frame of reference of each situation is different giving a different reality.  Another classic example of a variable moral value is the old story about a boy in a pond – if you came across a little boy drowning in a pond with a sign that said DO NOT GO IN THE WATER what would you do, obey the sign and let the boy drown or disobey the sign and save the boys life?   There is at least one aspect of honesty that is a constant, valid in all frames of reference, in all relationships with the universe and that is honesty to yourself or as has been said much better before – “to thy own self be true”.   There are other values of course that are also constant values such as responsibility for your own actions, as well as when you accept a right you are accepting a corresponding responsibility if only to defend that right.  Rights equal Responsibility.  The admonishment “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is not only the basis of many religions and philosophies but is another example of a constant value, a value valid in all frames of reference.

Emotions are the carriers of the moral force much as the electron is the carrier of the Electro-Magnetic force.  Emotions, the hearts language of morality, tell many things including what is and is not moral – without emotions, without being able to feel how would you know if something is right or wrong?  Emotions have a Rosetta stone in light and sound, both color, even down to one quanta and sound, especially music, affects and even creates emotions.  It may be possible to determine what frequencies or combinations of frequencies in what order and timing could create not just a particular emotion but a particular nuance of that emotion, for example, some sad songs make you lonely while other sad songs make you melancholy and those frequencies of sound are expressed by a set of numbers that can be calculated.  Understanding mathematically the relationship sound and color have to emotions will give us insight to the mathematical relationships morality has to our lives.

Our moral values brought about by the moral laws valid throughout the universe are different for each of us individually as well as each group of us because of our frame of reference with the universe is different from any other living thing.  When you watch other species without looking through the jaundiced eye of humanity it becomes self-evident that all living sentient beings have their own system of morality brought about by their own unique frame of reference or relationship to the universe, their own reality. Truly it is many different worlds on one planet.  One wonders on how many planets.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

With these new insights into our universe and our relationship within it we may begin to assemble a clearer view of reality.  Once we are able to define the mathematical values of a frame of reference of a particular circumstance that would that would allow us to establish a given reality in which we are able to calculate the moral values within that given reality according to moral laws.  Understanding the interaction of moral values will give us insight into the moral laws that govern them.  Trying to define moral values without the context of a given reality would be like trying to rope the wind, there would be nothing to get your rope around.

Ingrained throughout our society and culture are words, phrases and ideas that are born in the concept of a defined or given reality and sense of balance like a mathematical equation.  Our species out of all others seems to have a propensity for technology and the mathematically based thinking that goes with it and because of this we may better understand our moral laws and our reality from a technological perspective.  Phrases like “what’s one man’s treasure is another man’s trash”, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, the line out of the Beatles song “the love you take is equal to the love you make”, ideas like that in Eugene Burgess’ book “The Ninth Wave” where he shows how the equation Hate plus Fear equals Power, something I suspect many dictators understood, are but a few examples of those ingrained ideas of balance.  In the physical universe the speed of light is a constant, the same to all observers in different frames of reference and in the realm of morality and the non-physical universe there is one of the most powerful of all forces that also appears to be a constant in all frames of reference and that force is love.  Putting this new way of looking at reality together may seem at first a daunting task, but like most things it will get easier as it goes along.  Just think of the progress that man has made in spite of himself in just the last fifty years, computers, space travel, new discoveries in mathematics as well as every other filed of science just to name a few.  The next fifty years will open up new fields of knowledge and vision of the universe that we cannot even dream of.

We must also not confuse our self about what is what in that realm of the universe as things often associated with one thing may be another, such as justice, often thought of as a moral value but in reality nothing more, and nothing less, than a mathematical outcome.  One must also consider the origin of these forces and the natural laws that control them if, like the four physical forces are believed to be they originate with the big bang then surly they must be intertwined with the physical forces with subtleties we cannot even imagine.  I believe there will not be just one type of mathematics, not one field of study that will be needed for understanding the underlying mathematics of our reality and our universe, but this can be done, and I believe it must be done.

POSSIBILITIES

These ideas may seem disconcerting or even frightening at first as new ideas often do, but understanding the laws and mathematics behind the forces that govern our reality will not change our reality.  When our civilization became capable of knowing and understanding the laws that govern electricity it did not bring to life any of the fears that we were violating nature, quite the contrary, by understanding the laws of nature we were able to open up the gifts God gave us with the understanding of that force, electric lights, electric motors, computers and mp3 players along with life saving medical technologies were possible because of our understanding of the laws that govern electricity.  The same would hold true with understanding the other forces that govern our lives.  Imagine, before a legislature passes a law they could run that piece of legislation through a set of calculations and determine if it was just or not, under what circumstances it would be just and under what circumstance it would not.  Think also what this would mean for our courts, not only in determining guilt, in also in the type and degree of punishment. This should also be of interest to the field of robotics, as it might also allow scientist in that field to program a set of mathematical definitions to the laws that govern emotions and moral values in the software of a robots brain, perhaps triggering self awareness.  Imagine what this might do for Artificial Intelligence.

This new look at science and reality could become a fountainhead not only for new technologies, but more importantly for new ways of looking at things and ultimately new ideas.  This would have far reaching effects in every aspects of our lives touching us in ways we cannot even begin to think of, and like all new ideas and technologies, there can be a potential that this could be used for ill as well as good.  It is up to us. As always, to determine the uses we put this to as we determine the course of our future.  To rule ourselves and live our lives to the fullest the way God intended we must fully understand the natural laws, to understand the natural laws to their fullest we must understand the mathematics behind them.

  

Drew John Tankersley

2015 (c)  rev2017