Introspective Cosmology II
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Instead of diligently observing the "external" world of sounds and colored shapes, suppose one were to concentrate on the "internal" world of the mind and its purely mental activity. Is it possible one could thereby uncover a principle leading to the basic laws governing the structure of the universe and its contents? These days, it's popular to refer to such an undertaking as a "fool's errand." For all of that, the author dares to claim this: By focusing his power of attention inward upon the necessary structure of every act of consciousness, he has found therein a principle which soon leads to the conclusion that something best called "potential being" admits of six different kinds which can be actualized in two very different ways. With that conclusion, the mathematical flood gates are thrown wide open to ontology (a/k/a general metaphysics), and a radically new kind of ontology is born; one capable of a deluge of algebraic and/or geometrical inferences very similar to what science says of our universe. The implications for philosophy and science are monumental to say the least. For one thing, the wall between general metaphysics (a/k/a ontology) and special metaphysics (i.e.: in so far as it is cosmology) comes tumbling down and necessarily brings with it the wall between physics and metaphysics (i.e.: in so far as the latter is ontology and cosmology). To be sure, the author nowhere claims his theory is 100% successful. There are large gaps which he hopes others will help him fill. Still, his theory is successful enough to make your hair stand on end and to leave no doubt that philosophy has here raised a formidable challenge to science's claim to be the superior guide to cosmological enlightenment. For the principles of physics are here joined to those of metaphysics in the most amazing and extensive synthesis ever seen in writing. Without any question, this is the kind of ontology and metaphysics of which earlier philosophers dared only to dream and then only in the wildest of their dreams. What is presented in these pages is the theory as it stands after approximately forty-two years of strenuous effort on the part of a single author working utterly alone. You might think that would necessarily mean pages filled with the kind of math only a few specialists could even begin to follow. You will be pleasantly surprised to find that much of the math is simple arithmetic, and the remainder hardly ever rises above simple high school algebra and geometry. Most readers with no more than a high school education and an average IQ will find the math easy to follow. The quantity of the math may be a bit daunting; but, the kind of it is not even remotely close to the complexity of calculus (a kind of math of which this author has not the slightest knowledge.) The simplicity of the math stems from the fact that this book's theory contains none of the "mathematical antinomies" (as they are commonly called) which haunt most cosmologies. In turn, that absence arises from the fact that, in this book's theory, motion in so far as it is change of spatial or temporal location is discontinuous. Here, such changes occur instantaneously in well defined quantities and at well defined frequencies. As a result, there is no need for any talk about infinitely small or infinitely large this, that, or the other. Understandably, once that kind of talk is eliminated, you're left with a purely logical universe whose every aspect can be described by very simple forms of mathematics. Plunge into the book, and see if you agree.
About the Author
Born April 13, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the author graduated from Jesuit high school, in New Orleans, in 1953. A single fruitless semester studying music at Loyola University of the South in New Orleans was followed by almost two years of floundering in a sea of confusion, and the author then joined the U. S. Air Force on Dec. 7, 1959. Honorably discharged in April of 1960, the author underwent another two and a half years of floundering so severe, he came extremely close to a mental breakdown. In desperation, he gave away everything he owned and, for thirteen years, took to the life of a wandering hermit. In search of as much time and energy as possible for inner reflection upon self, God, and the nature and purpose of reality, he criss-crossed the United States on foot four times. At first, he lived off of whatever food and clothing he could beg; but, after learning how to live on a dollar a day or less, he turned to working at various monasteries in the winter time in exchange for the two to three hundred dollars required to feed and to clothe himself during the next spring, summer, and fall of walking. The monasteries also provided access to libraries in which he could read and extract notes from the great writings of the Catholic Church. In the course of that thirteen-year odyssey, there was a four year period during which he refused to speak to anyone (except on very rare occasions) and communicated only by means of written notes. In August of 1975, the author's father lost his mind, and the author's siblings insisted he was the only one in the family with the time and ability to tend to their father in his hour of need. Thus, after thirteen years, the author's preferred lifestyle came to an end. Dire poverty then gave way to economic independence, and total seclusion gave way to what little privacy can be enjoyed by bachelors who prefer to avoid partying, to stay home, and, as much as possible, to bury themselves in as much reading and writing as the world around them will allow. After his father's death in 1981, the author took care of his mother until her death in 1996. In this book, the self-educated author of dozens of mostly unpublished books and pamphlets seeks to share with others the avenues of thought down which his mind was lead by thirteen years of heroically intense inner concentration followed by twenty-two years of moderately intense inner concentration.