The Science of Energy

THE SCIENCE

OF ENERGY

PAYMAN SATTARI

THE LANGUAGE OF TRUTH: BOOK 1

PRAGDA PRESS

THE SCIENCE OF ENERGY

Copyright © 2023 Payman Sattari

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 979-8-9896275-0-9 (hcv)

ISBN: 979-8-9896275-1-6 (pbk)

ISBN: 979-8-9896275-2-3 (ebk)

ISBN: 979-8-9896275-3-0 (kdl)

For my younger self

Who never found the book he was looking for,

But never gave up his odyssey.

And for other youth

Whose souls yearn,

Thirsty for truth

In a world that has forgotten itself.

"The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

…It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world."

—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

CONTENTS

1 - THE NATURE OF REALITY

PART I - THE HISTORY OF TRUTH

2 - THE ORIGINS OF PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

3 - REASON AND FAITH

4 - THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

5 - THE ENLIGHTENMENT

PART II - THE SENSES AND THE INTELLECT

6 - THE SUBJECT AND THE OBJECT

7 - THE OBSERVER

8 - MIND AND MATTER

9 - FEELING AND THE SENSE OF TOUCH

PART III - THE ORGANISM AND THE MACHINE

10 - THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL

11 - THE ATOM AND THE CELL

12 - DNA AND IDENTITY

PART IV - THE EAST AND THE WEST

13 - THE WHOLE AND THE PARTS

14 - THE CONTINUOUS AND THE DISCRETE

15 - COMPLEMENTARITY

16 - THE MEASURABLE AND THE IMMEASURABLE

PART V - TRUTH

17 - CONSCIOUSNESS

18 - BIAS

19 - BELIEF

20 - TRUTH

AFTERWORD

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 1

THE NATURE OF REALITY

What is the meaning of our existence? Who are we and why are we here? These questions and others related to our consciousness and experience of the world were involved with our study of nature for almost 2,000 years. In that period, philosophy and science were bound together into one field known as natural philosophy . The subjective observer, the one at the center of reality experiencing and interacting with it, still enjoyed a central position within the order of the cosmos. We cared about and examined physical phenomena too, but we as spectators and participants were not yet cut out of it.

All of this shifted during the 15th-16th centuries when a new methodology in the study of nature emerged, placing emphasis on physical phenomena, quantitative analysis, and material objects. This materially oriented approach not only reshaped our perception of reality, but also revolutionized nearly every facet of human society. Yet, in this transformation, the observer—the living subject central to all scientific observations—was curiously cut out of the picture. This paradigm cast the universe as an immense machine, relegating us to the sidelines as mere byproducts.

Half a millennia later, this approach does not seem to have solved our most pressing problems. For all the improvements it has brought to our society and the conveniences it has afforded us, we continue to war with each other (and with nature). For all our incredible technology, we continue to be plagued by collective experiences of fear, division, and worldly chaos. Sicknesses of every kind ravage our planet: sicknesses of the mind, sicknesses of the body, and sicknesses in nature. Not only have things not improved, but our technology has created new and more sophisticated ways of harming ourselves. Our societal structures and our general scientific worldview both continue to behave with a cold indifference to human, living aspects of our existence. What has caused this?

Clearly these problems are not new. All we need do is open a history book to see the countless ways we have warred with each other since the beginnings of civilization. But why? What is causing all of this chaos? In the modern world, we’re able to create incredibly sophisticated harmonies between parts—like in our rocket ships and particle accelerators and supercomputers—but when it comes to human relationships, the simplest of harmonies eludes us. It’s not enough to simply say That’s different, That’s unknowable, or There are no answers (a sentiment you find all too often even among academic and scientific works). If we as subjective beings exist within this world of nature, then we are a part of her order. There is a cause and effect to all of this. There is a mechanism.

The question is, how do we identify and understand this mechanism? How do we understand the inner, subjective aspects of existence with the same logical and technical rigor with which we understand physics? And how can we use this understanding to bring order to our inner lives and relationships, leading to a more peaceful human society? Clearly, technology alone is not enough. The core of our problem does not live with our intellect. The core of our problem is with our inner experience. The question is, how does this inner reality really work? What are the mechanics involved?

There is a long-standing and unspoken assumption that it is impossible to discover general laws and mechanics when it comes to our experience. We have fields like psychology and psychiatry, but they are not exact sciences like physics or chemistry. In other words, they do not follow from the cause-and-effect relationships of natural laws. Because our subjectivity—our inner experiences—are different for every observer, it seems impossible to identify universal laws.

Yet if we as subjective observers exist within this physical matrix—if we exist in reality—then we are a part of nature. All things in nature follow discernible patterns—cosmological laws. There is an order. If this order applies to objects in motion, why should it not also apply to the subject and their inner experience? It does. What is required is a new way of looking at things.

ONTOLOGIES

There is a word that can help us in our process—ontology. What is an ontology? It is usually defined in one of two ways. On the one hand, it can refer to anything at the existential level, the level of being or existence. In this sense, an ontological question is nearly identical to an existential question, like, What is the origin of all things? Is reality really physical? or What is the nature of goodness? etc. These are ontological questions because they are questions about the nature of reality.

On the other hand, an ontology can refer to a system. This type of ontology is a way of classifying all of the individual elements (or we could say entities) that live within a field of knowledge, and the relationships between those entities. For example, if we’re looking at cars, we can create a category for diesel-engine cars and another for gas-powered cars. Further, we can create other buckets to separate them by drivetrain (4WD, 2WD, etc.), by make and model, weight, acceleration, or top speed. All of these categories and classifications we choose to organize the data and identify the various nuances and differences between them form a system. This is an ontology.

When it comes to the interpretation of reality itself, this process must also happen. Reality also has certain essential elements that must be identified and classified to paint a picture of the whole structure. Since the earliest periods of history, philosophers have been developing ontologies to account for the overall cosmic order. Even modern science puts forward an ontology (even if it is without intending to). These models speak to the basic entities that come together to form reality, and the relationships between them.

THE NATURAL ORDER

The problem with modern science’s ontology is that it doesn’t account for everything. While it speaks to objective, object-oriented, and quantitative phenomena, it does not account for subjective experience or qualitative data. To speak to those missing elements and create a system that accounts for the totality, we must turn to another word, also often misunderstood, that stands at the heart of our discussion. Metaphysics.

Metaphysics is sometimes associated with the occult or supernatural. There is an idea alive in society that if we are talking about something that cannot be seen with our physical eyes, that it must be spooky, unprovable, or out of reach (if real at all). But it doesn’t have to be so esoteric. There are phenomena, easily within reach, that can demonstrate the reality of the non-physical.

Consider experience itself, for example. Even if you believe experience to be caused by the brain or the body, it’s not something you can just point at with your finger or measure with a ruler. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Experience is a real and tangible phenomenon. There is nothing esoteric about being a conscious being with experiences. But because we have become so accustomed to a materially oriented way of looking at things, and this phenomenon doesn’t fit so neatly into that model, we use highly unscientific words like spooky or mysterious to refer to it. Conscious experience is not spooky or mysterious. It is part of the natural order. The study of the natural order in its entirety—including physical objects, conscious subjects, and the source and origin for both—is metaphysics.

As long as you seek a purely objective view of the cosmos, one in which you, as an observer, are not a part of it, your outlook on the real world is not likely to make a lot of sense. Cutting yourself out of reality, your own conscious being, has an effect on the way reality will seem to you. Only along this line of thought—the ontological worldview of total objectivity—would something as basic and essential as your own existence seem strange and out of place in your total assessment of reality.

Part of the problem has to do with our definition of reality itself. Because of the ideological dominance of our current scientific models and their materially oriented focus, we tend to think of reality and physical reality as the same thing. If we were aware we were doing this, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but usually, the distinction goes unnoticed. Because of this unconscious parallelism, when speaking of the cosmos, we are generally thinking of a physical place. Rarely do we consider that our own experiencing self and the experiences of all other living beings are a part of it, and just as essential to this reality as any material thing.

Though subjectivity is without form, that doesn’t mean it is without order. It is the discernment of this natural order that is the true work of metaphysics. When we see a woman sitting with her head in her hands at a park bench, it is not her physical appearance that concerns us. What is evident through empathy that is not visible to our physical eyes is this person’s inner experience. She may be experiencing heartache or grief and be in utter agony, but if we take her physical appearance to be the sum total of reality, this truth will not be visible to us. While we know that this outer, physical reality is governed by laws, what has not yet occurred to us is that the inner, subjective reality might also be.

Could there be inner laws of nature governing the experiential aspects of reality pertaining to our subjectivity? If we were to study such laws, what would we call it? Of course, delving into a space that is new to us runs into the problem of a lack of vocabulary to describe what we’re confronted with. We’re forced either to invent new words or to repurpose existing ones. I’ve elected for the latter. If physics is the study of the outer, material world (the woman’s body and physical appearance) and the causal laws governing it, metaphysics is the study of the inner, nonmaterial world (the woman’s inner experience) and the laws governing that.

In fact, based on the definition I’m putting forward, metaphysics isn’t limited to the inner reality either. That is simply the aspect it is looking at that physics isn’t. Metaphysics would be dealing with the sum total of the whole order of reality, physical and non-physical, inner and outer, conscious and material. Metaphysics studies the nature of reality, not the nature of physical reality. Therefore a metaphysical question is a question dealing with being, existence, and reality as a whole.

An ontological question and a metaphysical question are almost the same thing. They are both referring to the very essence of reality, the nature of things. The only difference is that an ontology can also refer to a system. If we combine these two words, we get a beautifully succinct way of referring to a system that defines all the basic elements of reality and the relationships between them—a metaphysical ontology.

METAPHYSICAL ONTOLOGY

Whether we realize it or not, we all have one of these. They don’t have to be created intentionally, or even come from any kind of reasoning. At least at first, the beliefs we adopt about the nature of reality usually come from our parents and the authority figures we grow up with. Ultimately, we accept some version of things: a story of how things came to be, how we got here, who we are—and more to the point, what is real. The network of connected beliefs that form this interpretation is our ontology. It is our personal system of beliefs forming our interpretation of reality. Regardless of where this system comes from—whether it be logic, personal experience, or from some authority figure—it is composed of beliefs, ideas and concepts about the nature of reality we have deemed to be true.

It is truth that is at the heart of the metaphysical question, because truth implies that something exists, that it is real. When we consider the question of truth, we tend to isolate it on one of two sides. Either we think of it from the perspective of material things (the truth about our physical reality and its mechanics, like in the sciences), or we consider it from the perspective of our subjectivity (what is true about our experiences). Nevertheless, when we consider the reality we live in, these two sides are not really separate from each other. It is only through their sum total that this whole dance of reality we find ourselves in comes to be.

Practically speaking, this is part of the issue with our current metaphysics—our collective outlook on the nature of reality. The system of logic we have for the interpretation of physical phenomena (driven largely by physics) and the system of logic we have for the interpretation of subjective phenomena (driven largely by philosophy and religion) are incompatible. Therefore, in our everyday lived experience, it is often the case that these two systems of thought come into conflict with each other. This necessitates an integrated and cohesive system of logic that can address and incorporate both—everything for which we have data and forms a part of our experience. We need a bridge to bring the logical elements of our experience into harmony with the logical elements of our physics. As long as this is missing, the psychological framework that governs our beliefs about the nature of reality will be fragmented. Life may make sense within the narrow range of certain experiences, but we will be missing an understanding of the whole. This is why it is necessary to have a system, so the elements of both sides of this equation can work together.

THE HISTORY OF TRUTH

This system of logic forms a framework at the base of our thinking. Our psychology is ultimately driven by a logic tree with certain beliefs closer to the root of the tree, and other statements and branches of logic built off of them. For example, The world is primarily material, I am a physical body, etc. If a statement close to the root of the tree is false, then all of the logic built off of it must also be called into question. Therefore, to have a strong foundation for our ontology, we must evaluate root statements close to the base—foundational statements about what is real or what is true. We must see upon what assumptions our beliefs about the nature of reality are based. When we have a clear picture of our foundational ideas and how we arrived at them, we can more easily identify what is missing, and fill in the gaps.

So let’s take a look at the evolution of our cosmology and the history of truth as we have seen and experienced it. Let’s look at the core ideas we have circulated in the human vernacular to understand the nature of things. The history of truth deals primarily in three areas: philosophy, science, and religion. These three have formed the basis of our thinking about the nature of reality for over 3,000 years. It is helpful to understand this history because it is the easiest way to understand the nature of our metaphysics today and to identify the root assumptions at the base of our thinking. Our goal is to develop a new ontology. A system that can account for the whole cosmic order, where subjective and objective elements can meet and work together. But before we get there, we must start at the beginning.

PART I

THE HISTORY

OF

TRUTH

CHAPTER 2

THE ORIGINS OF PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE

At every point throughout history humanity has had a general metaphysical outlook, an idea of the real world colored by our beliefs about what is real. In very ancient times, this was primarily attributed to deities who were in charge of keeping the order of things. Thunderstorms were caused by angry gods. Strokes of luck or misfortune were at their whims. It was not until the sixth century BC that we began to get a grip on our natural environment and realize that, through the observation of natural processes, we could discern patterns which could accurately predict the outcomes and behaviors of natural events.

On the west coast of Anatolia (what is now modern-day Turkey), there existed a Grecian state named Ionia. It was here in Ionia, in the city of Miletus, that the first three philosophers of the Western tradition were born. Thales—often attributed to being the first philosopher—followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes, put together ontologies that were altogether different than the ones that came before them. These were not ontologies built on the backs of gods and goddesses, deities that could change reality for us at their whim, but were built on reason, a sober analysis of the natural phenomena observable to us. One of the unspoken implications of their work was that the world was comprehensible. Prior to this, the comprehensibility or intelligibility of the natural world by human beings was not a given.

ORDER, NATURE, AND COSMOS

The metaphysics of those who came before Ionia was mostly defined by gods, myths, and rituals. Ideas were put forward to account for the nature of universal phenomena like the sun and the moon, the sky and the earth, fire, water, and air, etc. There were concepts of cosmological order, but this order was primarily considered to be held together by subjective entities (deities), rather than by objective processes. Therefore, nature was not considered to be the domain of man, but the domain of beings of a higher order. Then, in order to effect change in the physical world, rather than seeking to understand and put to use the mechanisms of natural processes, one looked to appease the entities believed to be in control of them.

In fact, the concept of nature itself (as we know it today) did not really exist yet. It wasn’t until this period with our initial Ionian philosophers that the term began to gain traction. Their word for nature—physis (φύσις)—was derived from the Proto-Indo-European word root bheue- meaning to be, to exist, or to grow. This is the same word root as the modern English to be, arriving by way of the Old English beon. The Greek physis was then later translated into Latin as natura, eventually leading to the English term nature.

Nature is generally considered in two contexts. On the one hand, it refers to a process—that which occurs on its own when there is no interference from the outside. Plants grow, waves crash, wind blows, fire burns, etc. Things grow and change without any outside interference, force, or artificial guidance, according to some predetermined set of laws. There is a sort of innate set of guidelines that things follow to determine which way they will grow, move, or change. There is order. The discernment of this natural order was the work of these original philosophers, and what later became the work of the institution we call science.

The second context in which we