Pillars of Belief
The Cosmological Question:
How did our physical universe first come into being, and what are the physical laws that govern its past, present, and future functioning?
Adherents to the Second Paradigm, Right-Marginalist Worldview believe that the physical universe suddenly burst into being at the time of the Big Bang (as do adherents to the First Paradigm Worldview). They also believe, like the adherents to the First Paradigm Worldview, that every confluence of ultimatelyirreducible integers of matter in the physical universe is disintegrating into its constituent component parts, moving outandaway from one another.
However, adherents of the Second Paradigm Worldview differentiate themselves in a fundamental, indeed categorical, way from adherents of the First Paradigm Worldview. Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that the sum total of the finite number of ultimatelyirreducible integers of matter is adequately large enough for the sum total of the force of attraction that exists between this finite number of integers of matter to be great enough to hold these integers in union, thus, not allowing this finite number of ultimatelyirreducible integers of matter to continue outandaway from one another and the locus of the Big Bang into nothingness.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview adhere to a cosmological belief in which there exists a large enough number of ultimately-irreducible integers of matter in the physical universe to generate an adequate degree of attraction between these integers of matter to come to a full stop in their previous journey out-and-away from one another so as to cause these integers of matter and to remain in a state of perfect stasis for a brief moment. The universe will then begin contracting due to gravity, and eventually come back to singularity—a reverse Big Bang.
At that moment at which every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in the physical universe is in immediate direct physical contact with every other ultimately-irreducible integer of matter, the polarity (direction of the attraction) possessed by each ultimately-irreducible integer of matter will switch from negative (attracting) to positive (repelling). Then, each and every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in the physical universe will immediately repel each and every other ultimately–irreducible integer of matter. In that moment, the Big Bang will repeat itself.
As a result of this process, adherents to this Second Paradigm Worldview believe that the physical universe oscillates between a state of absolute mass and a state of absolute energy (repeatedly entering into an entirely inchoate state immediately after reaching each state of total energy) eternally, generating two generations of stars, galaxies, planets, atoms, and people during every two-stroke cycle of the universe. This is the oscillating cosmos cosmology, distinct from the entropic (dissipating) cosmology of the First Paradigm Worldview.
The Teleological Question:
Is there a specific direction in which our physical universe is unfolding? If there is, what is the role of our human species, if any, in this unfolding?
While the adherents of the First Paradigm Worldview believe that the human species is basically barbaric, territorial, predatory, carnivorous, and selfish (as long as each individual being remains entirely unguided by any referent at all within his or her direct physical experience), adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that a specific teleology manifests itself within each generation of mass and energy generated within each cycle of our universe. This teleology is the directional disintegration of mass into energy and the directional integration of energy into mass (depending upon which specific direction one finds oneself in: either an expanding or collapsing teleology within a given cycle of the universe).
Thus, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the belief that an individual human being is able to detect a specific teleology operating on the grand scale of the universe, moving from a contracted state to an expanded state (i.e. toward energy, during an expansive generation of the universe), or from an expanded (energy) state to a contracted (massive) state, depending upon which of the two alternative directions of the universe one is in the midst of within one given cycle of the universe.
However, the teleological belief of adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview is complete determinism. That is, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that every action in the entire history of any given cycle (every action that takes place during the period of time demarked by one full expansion, starting with a Big Bang, passing through one full expansion and then collapsing back into one full contraction up to the moment preceding the switching of the polarity within that contracted universe) of the physical universe is totally and completely determined by the physical laws of matter.[2]
The Ontological Question:
How did sentient consciousness come into being (especially human consciousness)?
Pursuant to this worldview, the manifestation of consciousness occurs as an entirely predictable and naturally-occurring function of the physical universe twice during every two-phase cycle of the oscillation of the universe. Thus, according to the ontological belief of adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview, the manifestation of consciousness is not a random event. It is, indeed, an entirely predictable organic event within each cycle of the universe.
To adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview, there needs to be no question of why, as in, “Why is this repeated event of consciousness is occurring?” It simply does, but it does so predictably and in accordance with a specific pattern. Indeed, it is this discerned pattern of the occurrence and recurrence of consciousness—of human consciousness within the cycles of the physical universe (like the cycle of the seasons on Earth)—which provides meaning in the universe.
Thereby, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview differ in their most profound beliefs from adherents to the First Paradigm Worldview, not only as to their cosmological belief, but also as to their ontological belief.
Thus, the arising of consciousness within the repeated cycling of the physical universe is right in the sense that it is correct or meaningful given the pattern which is supposed to unfold during each phase of the physical universe.
The Epistemological Question:
What are the means by which we as human beings are capable of discerning the facts that constitute the answer to ultimate cosmic questions such as these?
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that a human being is capable of discerning (beneath and behind the otherwise inherently chaotic and entirely random cosmology, which adherents to the First Paradigm Worldview actually perceive) a dialectical order to the physical universe—an oscillation between opposites, which lends meaning to human life.[3]
While adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview experience no single unitive phenomenon which functions within our physical universe to bond every ultimatelyirreducible integer of matter into a one single harmonious whole[4], adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview do hold a belief that each human being, through the function of the mind (i.e., the exercise of our human intellect[5]), can come to know that the physical universe oscillates between these two alternative physical states.
This is, indeed, an intellectual extrapolation of the most basic of all human experiences: The experience of the separateness of each individuated human psyche from the rest of the physical universe.[5] This experience of alienation from the ultimate otherness of the rest of the physical universe is, indeed, the opposite of the experience of self-consciousness. Intrinsic to the experience of one’s self, as separate and apart from the rest of the physical universe, is the experience of the otherness of the physical universe from one’s self. The evolution of our faculty of the intellect (i.e., the ability to distinguish) is the very source of our self- consciousness.
If we project this most-deeply and most-intimately experience of all human experiences, which is at the very core of our being, out onto the physical universe, we can experience—at the very core of our intellect—the fact that our physical universe oscillates in this exact manner—from a state of absolute energy to a state of absolute mass and back again. Working intellectually from this core insight, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview (led by Hegel) have come to the epistemological conclusion that there is an additional faculty by means of which each human being is able to experience the physical universe so as to derive this essential additional data about the universe, which differentiates adherents of the Second Paradigm Worldview from adherents of the First Paradigm Worldview as to their epistemological belief, as well as their cosmological and their ontological beliefs.
Mode of Ethical Reasoning
As a result of this specific epistemological belief on the part of adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview, adherents believe that, while every person is capable of articulating his or her own thesis as to what is real and true and is, therefore, capable of asserting his or her thesis as to what the facts are pertaining to any given matter, this thesis will then take its place in the market place of ideas and, since this thesis is only relative, other persons (having a different perspective based upon their different life experiences and different location in relationship to the facts) will generate an antithesis, asserting that the facts are different than those asserted by the proponent of the thesis.
As a result of the dynamic generated by the bipolar expansion and contraction of the physical universe, this thesis and antithesis will struggle in contention with one another and, being only relatively or partially true, each will burn away that portion of the other’s thesis which is not true, generating a synthesis made up of the more truthful portion of each thesis. This synthesis will then become the new operative thesis, which will take the field in the market place of ideas, asserting its contention as to what the facts are pertaining to the matter at hand.
It must be understood that truth will never be known to any degree of absolute certainty by simple human beings. However, through this dialectical process of struggle between sequential theses and antitheses, converting into synthesis and a new thesis and antithesis, our human family will struggle toward the truth concerning facts.
The above-described dialectical process, characterized by the struggle between a relative thesis and an opposing antithesis, is the mode of ethical reasoning through which human beings will progress toward that which is right. Right is not to be obtained through the mere imposition of an arbitrary assertion of fact by the most powerful—as occurs pursuant to the First Paradigm Worldview—but rather, through legitimate struggle, pursuant to which the relatively superior thesis will prevail, leading our human family toward relative truth. This mode of ethical reasoning is the utilization of the dialectical method
Thus, given the perpetually oscillating cosmology and the predetermined teleology of the physical universe, the only realistic mode of ethical reasoning that could logically be adopted by one who adheres to the dialectical Second Paradigm Worldview would be to yield to the physical tropism of joining one side or the other of whatever dialectic one is physically cast into by the physical universe or which is physically presented to one by the physical universe.
Thus, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview are intensely fatalistic. That is, they accept, indeed, they actively and enthusiastically embrace, whatever the local dialectic happens to be at their time of birth. Indeed, they internalize the bona fides of their local community’s dialectic and become champions of the specific opinion they were born into.
This is, indeed, the very mechanism of their mode of ethical reasoning. Thus, any and all choices are governed by the simple principle: Which action best serves my side in the dialectical struggle in which my family, my community, or my tribe is engaged with the ultimate other?
Located one full step to the left of the right-systemist position along Professor Parsons’ Sociological Bar Graph, one encounters the right-marginalist position. Persons who occupy the right-marginalist position on Professor Parsons’ Sociological Bar Graph uniformly espouse right-marginalist positions on all public policy issues.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the cosmological belief that our universe has always existed, but that it undertakes a new cycle of its perpetually-oscillating existence as the result of the manifestation, within a previously homogeneous void of two singularities (i.e., two distinctive points of voltage differential), one positive and the other negative.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that, immediately following the manifestation of these two distinct points of voltage differential within the otherwise homogeneous void, a wave function of energy, in the amount of one electron volt unit, flows between these two distinct points.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that this wave function of energy generates a field of discontinuity surrounding its linear pathway through the void. This field then collapses into the first particle of mass. This first mass generates an even greater field of discontinuity that surrounds it within the otherwise perfectly homogeneous void. This greater field of discontinuity then collapses into a second particle of mass. Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that this event replicates itself in an exponentially accelerating fashion. These first electrons then interact with the first protons to generate a field of discontinuity around the two particles. These two particles then bond together to form the first atom, an atom of hydrogen, with one proton and one electron. This process repeats itself until there are a large number of hydrogen atoms in the void. A smaller amount of helium and trace amounts of lithium are also created in the initial cosmic furnace.
Adherents to the First and Second Paradigm Worldviews believe that every single more complex combination of matter (more complex than the smallest, ultimately-indivisible unit of matter), are ultimately disintegrating into their smaller constituent, ultimately-indivisible units of matter.
Further, adherents to the First and Second Paradigm Worldviews believe that each and every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in our physical universe is, at the same time, repelling itself out and away from every other ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in our physical universe.
While adherents to the First Paradigm Worldview believe that this expansion and disintegration of all matter in the physical universe will continue to go on forever, causing it to ultimately disintegrate into nothingness. Crucially, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that the expansion of the physical universe will come to a stop. It will cease to expand, stopping our physical universe from ultimately disintegrating into nothingness for the rest of eternity. Instead, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that, after it stops expanding, the physical universe will stand in a state of equipoise for one brief moment before it begins to collapse upon itself, reintegrating itself back into particles of mass (electrons, protons, neutrons, compounds, mixtures, all the way back into planets, stars, solar systems, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae, etc.).
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that the physical universe’s stopping and collapsing back into physical matter will occur because they believe that there exists enough physical matter so that the phenomenon of the direct physical attraction of every single ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in our universe to every other such integer of matter will be strong enough to hold our physical universe together. Because of this specific belief, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that our physical universe is irretrievably destined to go through a perpetual physical expansion and contraction.
Importantly, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that this inevitable contraction of our physical universe will again, inevitably, result in a unique moment in the timeline of our physical universe at which every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter will be in direct physical contact with each and every other ultimately-irreducible integer of matter, thus constituting a single, super-dense singularity in the otherwise entirely homogeneous void. At this precise point in time, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview believe that this entire process will begin again, starting with a singularity and carrying itself on through another cycle of expansion and collapse.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the cosmological belief that the expansion and contraction of the physical universe has been going on eternally and will continue to go on eternally. Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview have the ontological belief that human consciousness is an absolutely inevitable, natural, and essential function of the dialectical interplay between the expansive and contractive forces in our physical universe—between mass and energy. Pursuant to this ontological belief, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the belief that consciousness and human life manifest within each cycle of the physical universe.
The epistemology and theory of human psychology generated by the Second Paradigm Worldview is sensory and instinctive. That is, adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the belief that we, as human beings, have access to a greater truth than that which we can experientially obtain from the total composite of data that we physically experience through our five senses because we have the added ability, through an exercise of our instinct, to discern the existence of a basic dialectical pattern within the data and we can project this dialectical pattern beyond the confines of our five physical senses to ascertain the fact that a basic dialectical dynamic underlies all physical reality.
Adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview hold the belief that the functioning of our instincts is a material activity, but it is capable of discerning the existence of more than a mere random function of the random interplay of purely physical forces in a random universe. Instead, they believe that we are able, through the exercise of our instinct, to ascertain the existence of this dialectical pattern that underlies and supersedes the otherwise merely apparent chaos of an otherwise entirely random universe. This instinctive discernment enables adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview to know that there exists a dialectical choice between two available options at each and every juncture of human decision, thereby providing to us with a psychology of choice—a much more satisfactory psychological state of mind than being mere flotsam of random consciousness in an otherwise entirely chaotic physical universe.
In its lower manifestation, the Second Paradigm Worldview generates the mode of ethical reasoning of rigid dialectical competition between equal and opposite forces. This generates Hegelian dialectical reasoning. In its higher manifestation, the Second Paradigm Worldview generates the mode of ethical reasoning of Lao Tzu, the author of the Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Virtue). This is the way of the Tao, the binary dance between only apparent opposites that are, in fact, simply two aspects of a single, intimately interrelated reality.
Because of these combined cosmological, teleological, ontological, and ethical beliefs on the part of adherents to the Second Paradigm Worldview, the lower manifestation of the Second Paradigm Worldview generates the philosophy of Hegelian dialectics of simple head-to-head confrontation, competition, winning and losing in direct interpersonal competition between equal and opposite forces. This philosophy was championed in the Greek city-state of Sparta and, in modern times, by both capitalism and communism.
In its higher manifestation, the Second Paradigm Worldview generates the mode of ethical reasoning of Taoism—the constructive binary dialogue advocated by Lao Tzu. This is the philosophy that underlies the mythical mountain community of Shangri-La.
The mode of spiritual expression of adherents to the Second Paradigm in its lower manifestation is fundamentalist and antagonistic. This worldview is manifested in Manichaeism and other religions that emphasize the absolute centrality of the struggle of the flesh of the material world against the spirit of the transcendent world, the struggle of one’s own good god against the evil god of one’s neighbor, the struggle of righteousness against sinfulness, the struggle of light against dark. In its higher manifestation, the mode of spiritual expression of the Second Paradigm Worldview is Taoism.
In its social form, the Second Paradigm Worldview manifests itself in the form of the Spartan warrior society, such as that of the Ancient societies of Sparta, the Vikings, and in the 20th century, it was reflected in Nazi Germany in its lower manifestation. In its higher manifestation, the Second Paradigm Worldview has expressed itself in the social form of Shangri-La, the mythical, high-mountain, reclusive, idyllic village community in the Himalayan Mountains governed by a Taoist Monk and immortalized in the first paperback book printed in the English language, The Lost Horizon.
[1] Though this process needs to progress through the phases of generating first, nutrinos, meuons, leptons, quarks, etc.
[2] Thus, so long as one knew the precise amount and angle of force which was physically directed upon each specific ultimately-irreducible quantum field in the entire physical universe at any given milli-microsecond, one could predict to an absolute degree of certainty what action was going to take place in the very next milli-microsecond because this next action would be totally and completely predetermined by the purely physical forces of the universe. Indeed, every single action from the beginning of time (within that specific cycle of the physical universe) could be predicted if one knew all of the physical forces imposed upon every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in the physical universe at the milli-microsecond of the Big Bang which started that cycle of the universe.
[3] This specific meaning will be discussed below under the topic of a mode of ethical reasoning.
[4] An issue, which shall be discussed below as a tenant of other worldviews
[5] The Latin root of origin of which is Intellectus: the ability to distinguish the difference between
[6] This is, of course, the most very basic issue with which philosophers from Aristotle to Watts discuss in their work.