Substantial Substrata vs. Insubstantial Substrata
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To myself, the distinction between substantial and insubstantial substrata is as clear as a bell. Disgustingly, decades of trying to communicate that difference to others has proven to me, over and over again, that it is virtually impossible for anyone else to understand what I’m talking about. As I begin this latest and perhaps futile effort to communicate that difference, a desperate thought occurs to me: Maybe at least some readers would find the going easier, if I were first to familiarize them with the most basic of the concepts comprising the cosmological theory which I have founded upon the distinction between substantial and insubstantial substrata. Well, I’m so desperate to find a way to ease the burden of following my way of philosophizing, I might as well try it. So then, the remainder of this preface shall present the reader with a synopsis of a cosmological theory which, in its original presentation in my book Introspective Cosmology II, took 570 pages and 238,000 words. Since what follows takes less than 6,000 words, it’s quite an achievement in the art of synopsizing. The Haasian concept of a form can first be depicted as a larger, transparent cube with a smaller opaque cube centered inside the larger cube. As for why that is so, let’s leave that till later. For now, be content to imagine that the two cubes are concentric. The larger, transparent cube represents the potentiality of the form, and the smaller, opaque cube represents the actuality of the form. Imagine that the dimensions of the smaller cube are 50% those of the larger cube. That’s a way of saying that, in its current act, the form is actualizing one-eighth of the potency available to it. Next, imagine that what we’ve depicted thus far remains that way as we examine it for a while and call it: "stage one of a two stage cycle". After we have examined the picture to our heart’s content, we snap our fingers, and, in an instant, the dimensions of the inner, opaque cube are suddenly the same as those of the larger, outer cube. In other words, we are now looking at a single, opaque cube. That’s a way of saying that, in its current act, the form is actualizing all of the potency available to it. As we examine this new state of the form for a while, we call it: "stage two of a two stage cycle". After examining it for a while, we snap our fingers, and, in an instant, the dimensions of the inner, opaque cube are once again one-half those of the outer, transparent cube, and we have returned to stage one of the two stage cycle. It’s just that now we have commenced the second of those cycles. So far, that’s a way of saying that this particular form is capable of only two distinct acts, and, as we’ve seen, the difference between those 2 acts is this: In one act, the form actualizes 100% of the potency available to it, and, in the other, actualizes 12.5%. In Haasian cosmology, that particular form is called: "the form of the universe", "the form whose native ontological distance is 2256 (i.e.: roughly 1.15792 x 1077)", and "Omega F1". Only one such form has been created native to that ontological distance (i.e.: OD for short), and "native OD" means the ontological distance at which a form was created. It also means something about how the form always rotates on two of its three axes. Well get to that later. C. FORMS AND ONTOLOGICAL DISTANCE: What, though, is "ontological distance"? For one thing, OD determines the description of every form’s two basic acts while still at its native OD. From their native OD, forms can change to a current OD and, thereby, increase the number of different acts they can perform. To illustrate that, let’s examine the form at the opposite end of the scale, namely: the form native to OD one. It’s called "Alpha F1". Here again, there is an outer cube which is larger and transparent, and an inner cube which is opaque and much smaller. As before, their centers are one. As before, the outer cube of Alpha F1 is as large as the outer cube of Omega F1. For all forms, the dimensions of the larger, outer cube equal those of the form of the universe. That’s a way to say all forms have the same potentiality. What, now, shall we say of the dimensions of Alpha F1’s smaller cube? As some may have guessed already, those dimensions are 2-256 (Notice the minus sign.) times those of its larger, outer cube. Here again, as long as the form is at its native OD, it can perform only 2 distinct acts. In one, it actualizes (2-256)3 of the potentiality available to it, and, in the other, it actualizes an eighth of that. Should a form native to OD 1 move to a current OD of 2128, it would then be capable of 2128 different acts. The dimensions of those acts would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . 2128 times the dimensions of the smallest act. In this 9th epoch of the universe (due to last 18 trillion Earth years), 6256 (i.e.: 1.61 x 10199) forms have been created native to the ontological distance of 1, and, in Haasian cosmology, their primary function is to produce the electrons. The number of forms created native to OD 2 & 3 is 6255; the number created at OD 4 thru 7 is 6254; the number created at OD 8 thru 15 is 6253, and so forth, until we have 6 created native to the distances of 2255 thru (2256)-1 and 1 created native to 2256. What shall we say of the forms created native to the ontological distances of 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.? What’s the inner cube’s size relative to the outer cube? If you’ve followed the above, it is easy to calculate it. Simply divide the OD of the form by 2256 to obtain the dimensions of the largest act, that by 2 to obtain the dimensions of the smallest act, OD3 by (2256)3 for the percent of potency actualized in the former, and OD3 by (2257)3 for the percent actualized in the latter. D. 3 KINDS OF ONTOLOGICAL DISTANCE: Ontological distances are of three kinds: categorical, generic, and specific. The 10 categorical OD’s are: 20 (i.e.: 1), 21, 22, 24, 28, 216, 232, 264, 2128, and 2256 (i.e.: successive squares of the powers of 2). The 246 generic OD’s are: 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, etc.. In other words, every OD describable as a power of 2 is a generic OD, unless it is already a categorical one. All OD’s which are neither generic nor categorical are specific. The significance of the 3 kinds will be explained later. As long as all forms are still at their native OD, every form at and below the 9th categorical form (i.e.: the form at 2128 which is to say the square root of 2256) is in what we would call the microscopic world, and every form above 2129 is in what we would
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About the Book
Imagine a smooth, solid glass sphere four inches in diameter in your right hand. It’s mostly transparent but tinted blue. Imagine another tinted red in your left hand. From of old, many have said each of those spheres is a bundle of the substratum "matter", and each is a separate thing because it is not stuck either to the other globe or to your hand or to any other bundle of matter. They then contrasted each globe’s internal characteristics with its substratum. The latter, they said, can avoid annihilation without being stuck to something else. The former cannot. For example, the blue globe does not have to cohere to the red globe or to your hand in order for its matter to avoid disappearing. Shatter either globe, and, instantly, its spherical shape vanishes. Say some substratum can avoid annihilation without being bonded to some other substratum, and you call it substantial. Say it can’t, and you call it insubstantial. Say all substrata are substantial, and there’s only one way to explain the relationship between the glass globes you see and their ultimate sub-atomic particles. You must say each globe’s ultimate particles are its only matter, since only they fit the definition of "substantial". That makes it impossible to account for the internal characteristics we sense in the globes. For, those characteristics are wholly unlike the ones found in what you have proclaimed the only pieces of matter in the globes. But, if the internal characteristics sensed are not the internal characteristics of the only matter you acknowledge, then of what are they the internal characteristics? Nothing?! So many have despairingly concluded. Say some substrata are insubstantial, and you’ll describe that relationship very differently. You’ll say each globe’s matter is something, repeatedly produced by, cohering to, and filling the gaps between, those ultimate particles. It’s then easy to explain the globe’s sensible characteristics. For, you’ve introduced a new kind of matter which may well have internal characteristics identical to those you sense. Are all substrata substantial or some insubstantial? What are the consequences of saying all are substantial? This book answers those questions as it seeks two goals: (1) to show how universal skepticism results from saying all substrata are substantial, and (2) to lay the foundations for history’s most novel cosmological theory – a theory which some have called "a thing of beauty like no other I’ve ever witnessed."
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, 1955. 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 and 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 thirteen self-published books 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.