Non-Dualism, Inseparability, and Entanglement

Reading Time: 24 minutes

Revolutionary vs. Incremental History

In the previous article, I made a pithy remark in passing—Progressive history doesn’t have revolutions and paradigm changes. I will use this article to explain how this is a consequence of the modern scientific assumptions about the separation of locations, times, and things. Separation allows us to count things, and describe them using mathematical equations. But it takes away the ability to explain phenomena resulting from the entanglement of things.

Revolutions in history are the result of such entanglements between past, present, and future. That doesn’t happen always. Hence, revolutions are rare. But they are also inexplicable in a worldview of separation, which mandates that changes must be linear and incremental, never disruptive, drastic, or revolutionary. Thereby, we can never construct a scientific theory of history, if by science we mean separation of things and it involves revolutions.

There are literally infinite inexplicable phenomena outside the reach of current science because they necessitate entanglement which modern science rejects. The situations in which separation can be applied to a reasonable degree of approximation are very small. Thereby, we can reap high returns on investment in the early stages—when science is used to model those phenomena where separability is valid to a reasonable degree of approximation. But as science progresses, it runs out of such things to model. Instead, it runs into things that are not truly separable. This is the phase of diminishing and negative returns in science.

I will begin with the natural science consequences of separation and then discuss the cultural context and history of these ideas toward the end. Due to the presence of the same cultural context in all subjects, the problem is not limited to one or two subjects. It is present in every modern subject. If you haven’t read the previous article, I will suggest reading it now.

Brief Summary of the Previous Article

Thomas Kuhn assumed that cyclical history can be progressive, but that is not necessary—cycles can also be regressive and/or repetitive. These cycles become progressive or regressive based on a criterion that I described as non-duality vs. duality.

However, an illusion of progress can sometimes be created as we shift from one kind of dualism to another. For example, if the duality of bourgeoisie vs. proletariat is replaced by the duality of freedom vs. regulation, then, for a while, we see a discrete change called a revolution. But after some time, the regulators become bourgeoisie (and vice versa) and the regulated become the proletariat (and vice versa), because the duality wasn’t solved by replacing one dualism with another. The solution to the original dualism is unifying society by everyone performing their duty with the common purpose of uplifting society as a whole. If instead, we give each person equal rights to uplift themselves through competition with others, then there will be many more tyrants than before. It is easier to revolt against a common tyrant, and harder to revolt against many tyrants. This normalizes tyranny more than before.

The substitution of one duality by another (through a revolution) creates a short jump within a cycle of diminishing returns. By the time the new cycle completes, the situation can be worse than before. Therefore, historical revolutions that merely substitute dualisms cannot be considered progress.

Kuhn was motivated by socio-political revolutions in history—Russian, French, and American revolutions. He imagined that such revolutions can also occur in science. But he was also cynical about these revolutions leading to perfect outcomes; future revolutions were imminent in his view. But Kuhn assumed that these revolutions were progressive when they can also be regressive.

Ideas of progressive time have been lingering in Western thinking for over two millennia. Under this view, the present is necessarily better than the past, and the future will be even better. It is a lazy solution to the problem of motivating people into action—don’t worry, the future is bright! We should examine it.

Kuhn realized that progress cannot occur routinely if we are stuck in the rut of repeating past mistakes. It must happen due to occasional revolutions. However, revolutions (discontinuous and non-smooth changes) are contrary to the basic paradigm of modern science. Due to this, discontinuous and non-smooth changes cannot occur within current scientific assumptions.

The Need for Continuity in Calculus

Anyone who has studied high-school calculus knows that calculus mandates smooth and continuous curves. Continuity means that a curve cannot have breaks. Smoothness means there cannot be sudden shifts in the direction of motion. A saw-toothed wave or a square wave are easy counterexamples.

At the occurrences of discontinuity in any line or surface, dx/dy is undefined. And at the occurrences of non-smoothness, dx/dy is infinite. If we permit these in calculus, then all current causal and explanatory models collapse.

At the occurrences of discontinuity, a particle must go from A to B without going through anything in between. That can happen if the space between A and B doesn’t exist. At the point of non-smoothness, something is moving in one direction at A and in another direction at B, and there is nothing in between them. That can happen only if the time between A and B ceases to exist.

If we don’t postulate space and time disappearing and appearing, then we can postulate that matter or force appears and disappears. At the discontinuity, matter disappears at A and appears at B. Likewise, at the occurrence of non-smoothness, infinite force appears for a moment and then disappears after that to change the direction of motion of an object. All these infinities violate conservation laws (although for the briefest durations and distances).

The Problem of Historical Revolutions

To explain historical revolutions, we have to contend with the same problems that forced us to abandon discontinuity and non-smoothness in calculus. After all, a revolution is either a discontinuous change (i.e., that we are A and then we are B without going through anything in between) or a non-smooth change (i.e., that we were moving in direction A and then in direction B due to an infinite force for a moment in time). If our notions of space, time, or causality break down in calculus as a result of discontinuous and non-smooth changes in mechanics, then how can we explain or predict their occurrence in history?

If the cause of revolution always exists, then why doesn’t it always act? What causes long periods of stability or incremental change? If instead, the cause of revolution doesn’t exist for long periods, then how can it suddenly appear? Since revolutions have occurred and can occur, therefore, the assumptions of continuity and smoothness in calculus cannot explain their occurrence. Likewise, we have to discard the assumptions underlying calculus and reimagine causality, to explain discontinuous and unsmooth changes.

What Historical Revolutions Require

Discontinuities in history occur due to the memory of the past. A discontinuous change doesn’t happen at the first instance of a problem. Rather, we try to solve that problem using existing methods, within the pre-established framework (perhaps established by a previous revolution). It is only when many such attempts have been made and found to fail, that a discontinuous change occurs. Now imagine for the moment that we did not remember the past, including the failed attempts to solve a problem. Every new attempt would be the first such attempt, and it would never lead to a revolutionary change.

A discontinuous change occurs because history accumulates in our memory, and reaches a tipping point. A massive force of change appears suddenly because the memory of failures overwhelms the current idea of reality. This is not a violation of conservation laws in the classical sense of energy conservation because the past existed in the present before it caused a revolution. This is a violation of the idea that the future is entirely determined by the observable present. History is not an observable present. It lies dormant and is activated occasionally. To explain disruptive revolutions, we have to postulate a new kind of existence—memory—as the past existing and acting in the present.

Likewise, discontinuities in history occur due to a different vision of the future. We can predict the future state if we stay on the same trajectory, and we may not want that state. We change the vision of the future, and that in turn leads to a revolution, which then alters the future. If we did not have a vision of the future, or if we did not mind the future state given by the present trajectory, then there would be no discontinuity in the trajectory. The future will be just the next state of the present state, and each successive state would be determined by the previous rather than the future state.

Alternative visions of the future, however, do not automatically lead to a revolution. Rather, we try to attain the said vision within the pre-established framework. It is only when many of those attempts have failed, and the memory of the previous failures reaches a tipping point, that the revolution is triggered.

Hence, a revolution will not occur if we don’t have a vision of the future—if we don’t know where we want to go, there is no need to change the current trajectory. And it will not occur if we don’t have a memory of the past—we don’t want to break what is working at the first instance of a problem.

Discontinuous and unsmooth changes occur if and only if the past and the future exist in the present as an idea. That idea must interact with the world, and produce a discontinuity and/or non-smoothness. The postulates of continuity and smoothness in calculus are thus conceptually equivalent to two other formulations: (a) there are no ideas interacting with matter in the present, and (b) the past and the future do not exist in the present. By eliminating ideas from our scientific vocabulary, we also remove the past and the future from scientific causality, because these exist in the present as ideas. By these two kinds of removals from the model of causation, we construct calculus in which discontinuities and non-smooth changes are forbidden.

Science Makes Revolutions Impossible

When the mind is removed from science, then ideas lose causal efficacy. These include ideas about the past, the present, and the future. The past is called memory, the present is called knowledge, and the future is called a goal. An idea can refer to and represent something other than itself. It is a symbol of some reality. The physical idea of nature replaces symbols with things in themselves. Once we remove ideas, then we remove goals, memories, and knowledge. The result is not just the negation of the mind. It is also the inability to predict or explain discontinuous and unsmooth changes. Now, history can only be smooth and continuous curves. Revolutions in history are impossible.

When Thomas Kuhn employed the notion of revolutions in scientific models, he was bringing the idea of disruptive changes from American, French, and Russian revolutions into science to construct a historical trajectory in which long-term stability was occasionally punctuated by disruptive changes. However, he assumed that humans have ideas—memories, goals, and knowledge—which are valid assumptions in cultural, social, political, and economic revolutions but untenable hypotheses in current science.

Kuhn’s extensions of cultural-social-political-economic revolutions into those of scientific models contradict the foundational assumptions of science since Newton’s time. We can either have revolutions and reject calculus, or keep calculus and reject revolutions. The problem of reconciling historical revolutions (caused by knowledge, goals, and memories) with the fundamental assumptions of science involves an irreconcilable dualism.

For mechanical problems, we can use calculus and reject ideas. For human problems, we can use ideas and reject calculus. But for understanding the historical evolution of science, we need both. In fact, the scientific revolution can now be predicated upon a model crisis—that many observable facts do not fit the current scientific paradigm without breaking it in fundamental ways.

The paradigm shift must now entail (a) the existence of ideas, (b) the existence of the past and the future as ideas, and (c) the interaction of those ideas with the world, causing different outcomes. Science must study such interactions.

The knowledge of the world interacts with the present state of the world to create what Kuhn would call “normal science”—i.e., solving problems within pre-established frameworks. The knowledge of the world interacts with a changing world to create what Kuhn would call “model drift”—i.e., incremental tweaking of existing models. But the interaction of the memories of the past and the goals about the future cause what Kuhn would call “model crisis”, “model revolution”, and “paradigm shift”. We are able to conveniently ignore the role of ideas in science if things seem to move continuously and smoothly. We cannot ignore those roles in the case of discontinuous and non-smooth changes.

Solving the Mind-Body Problem

The answer to the mind-body problem—essential to explaining how the future and the past interact with the present—is treating the body also as an idea. That idea is not private. It is also public. The mistake of Cartesian dualism is to make ideas private. They are not private. Our memories and goals are separate from the conscious observer because we are not always conscious of them. Descartes collapsed the distinction between thought and consciousness when he said—I think therefore I exist. He equated the self with thought, making all thought private. He dissociated this self and thought from the body, and made matter public. Thus, ideas are private and matter is public. Science is about the public stuff, and religion is about the private stuff. Ideas must be excluded from science because they are private. Science must be restricted to the public stuff.

Once thoughts are private, they cannot interact with something public—i.e., matter—creating the mind-body dualism, because wherever the interaction occurs, the mind becomes the body or the body becomes the mind. So, a science of material substance is formulated keeping the thinking substance out of science. Within the material substance, the past and the future cannot causally influence the present, making many phenomena inexplicable.

The entire succession of ideas that begins by equating the self with thought is false. However, it produces useful results in the beginning, becomes useless after some time, and eventually becomes harmful. This is the progression within a mind-body dualism that leads to diminishing and negative outcomes.

If both mind and body are ideas, then there is no mind-body problem, because mind-body interaction is the interaction between two sets of ideas. They are just different kinds of ideas—some more abstract than others. The ideas are not private, and not inside consciousness. They are public realities. In that public reality, past, present, and future exist in the present as ideas—memory, knowledge, and goal. Causality pertains to their interactions.

Once we remove the mind-body problem, then there is a different problem of how consciousness interacts with ideas which I will not discuss here because: (a) it changes our focus, and (b) it is not relevant to the problem of revolutions, discontinuous, non-smooth changes, past, present, and future interactions. The mind-body problem is a fictional construct and the cause of numerous other issues. If we drop that by suitable revisions to reality, then all those dualisms disappear at once. The problem of consciousness is whether we are presently aware of our memory, knowledge, and goals. These are not the same issue.

Summarizing the Problem and the Solution

This long discussion was necessary to explain the statement: Progressive history doesn’t have revolutions and paradigm changes. This is because (1) progressive history is also continuous and smooth trajectories, (2) such trajectories are based on the current state, rather than the past or future states, and (3) without a causal role for the past and the future, there can be no discontinuous or discrete changes, i.e., revolutions and paradigm changes.

When Kuhn talks about revolutionary progress through cycles, he employs ideas from socio-cultural-political revolutions, which permit the existence of memories and goals causally influencing the present. Those assumptions are incompatible with modern science. By using ideas incompatible with science to depict the progress of science, a double standard about the mind is created in science. The mind exists to permit knowledge, memory, and goals, and to aid in the progress of science—including revolutions in science. However, the mind doesn’t exist in the causal scientific picture of causality. There, we will use calculus, eliminate the role of past and future, and the influence of the mind on the present reality. These double standards are a typical part of mainstream scientific rhetoric. They mislead the innocent. But they also result in a system of diminishing and negative returns unless we change our rhetoric.

When history involves revolutions and paradigm changes, then it is also helical, and hence history rhymes with itself. Thereby we can assert two things— (1) progressive history under modern materialism is devoid of revolutions, and (2) revolutions that lead to progress are also helical due to idea-like reality.

The cause of disruptive change is memories and goals. We try to solve problems within the current paradigm, but if the attempted solutions fail, we remember those failures. As that memory of failure accumulates, at some point it contradicts our goals more than before. That triggers a revolution. This change is helical—it is cyclical but it can be progressive or regressive.

Envisioning an Alternative Science

This solution to the general problem of history is incomplete without translating it into a scientific paradigm. That is what I will turn toward now. It involves reconceiving quantum entanglement. Under this conception, there are three fundamental kinds of ideas—memories of the past, goals about the future, and consequences of history. The memories of the past limit what we can imagine or conceive at present. The goals about the future limit what we want to imagine or conceive in the future. And consequences of history limit the interactions with the world which will limit the attainment of the goals at present. We can call these could, would, and should. We can also call these the conceptual representations of past, future, and present—if we understand that they are an individual’s ideas about the past, future, and present.

These three kinds of ideas are also potentialities—i.e., they are not always active—and structured hierarchically because ideas must always be structured from abstract to contingent. We can also say that these hierarchies constitute three kinds of spaces. They lie dormant and inactive as potentials.

Change pertains to the mixing of these three kinds of ideas—every change is the mixture of some parts of three kinds of space to construct a perceived space that has no fundamental reality (because it is constructed from an unperceived reality). That mixing is caused by time. The perceived space can be called an appearance and the underlying space and time can be called reality.

Whatever we call quantum entanglement pertains to (1) the hierarchical structure of ideas in which ideas are mutually entangled, (2) the mixing of these three kinds of ideas by time to create an experience, and (3) the effect of experience back on the sources that were mixed to alter our memories, goals, and consequences. These must be considered entangled because (1) hierarchies necessitate similarities, (2) their mixing requires compatibility, and (3) the same experience doesn’t have the same effects on everyone; the effect depends on their present goals, memories, and consequences.

Implications of the Alternative Science

The result of this model is that whatever we call a planet is also a person, and planetary phenomena are also the result of the mixing of their memories, goals, and consequences. We are parts of the planet in the sense that our memories, goals, and consequences are the subsets of the planetary memories, goals, and consequences. Likewise, whatever we call a universe is also a person, comprising the planets. Planetary and cosmic phenomena are hence the experiences of different kinds of persons. Some experiences are more detailed or “microscopic” while others are more abstract or “macroscopic”.

The perception of a table at present depends on (a) whether we have access to a table, (b) whether we know what a table is, and (c) whether we want to see it as a table. If we don’t have access to a table, then we will not perceive it. If we don’t know what a table is from the past, then we cannot construct knowledge of the table in the present; we will perceive it as a curious structure of wood parts. If we don’t want something to be a table, then despite the fact that it could be a table based on past memories, it will be something other than a table, although based on what we want it to be. Therefore, experience has three causes.

The present picture of reality—or what we call experience—itself depends on the access to some reality and its classification into categories and concepts based on our memories and goals. Observation cannot be described without invoking a causal role for past and future ideas onto the present observable. And observation cannot be described without the observer having access to the reality being observed. Experience depends on memory, goal, and reality.

This is the personalization of nature. The Earth has a duty to give resources. And we have a duty to use those resources frugally. We can take the minimum required, and be grateful for what we get. This is because Earth is a person. Just as society is bound together by duties, likewise, Earth and humans are bound by the mutual performance of duties toward each other. If those duties are disregarded, then there will be punishment. Likewise, if the Earth is exploited, there will be punishment—people will be deprived of resources. The relationship between Earth and humans is based on the mutual performance of duties, in contrast to the idea that man has dominion over nature.

Through such personalization of nature and duties, we can describe a planet and the universe in the same way that we describe our experiences. There is no dualism of man vs. nature. And we describe our experiences not just based on external objective reality but also based on concepts and categories acquired in our past and present. The interaction between concepts and reality creates no problem because that reality is also an idea. It is not a material substance. It is rather the memories, goals, and consequences of some person.

Solving the Entanglement Problem

Quantum theory presents issues of entanglement because we are accustomed to the classical mechanical separation of objects. The past, present, and future must be separable; a change to the future cannot change the past, although the immediate past can determine the present. Components of an ensemble must be strictly separable particles; they cannot be mutually entangled to form an irreducible whole. If separability is false, then everything else fails.

Separation also means that the observer sees the world from outside the world. The observed can affect the observer, but not vice versa; if the observer affects the observed, then it would not be objective knowledge. It would be an observer’s viewpoint interfering with reality. If the observer grouped things into ensembles of his choosing, then that grouping has no implications on reality, because that grouping only exists in the observer’s mind.

If we drop separability, then particles in an ensemble are structured into a whole via a hierarchy. Two interacting things are not separable—they select parts for interaction such that multiple perspective measurements are needed to fully understand anything. The past, present, and future are not separable because what we experience at present is influenced by the memories acquired in the past and goals pertaining to the future. Hierarchies in the larger ensembles entangle some things but not the other things. Some time in the past has a greater influence on the present and the future as compared to other times. By changing our goals about the future, we can alter the memory of the past, and vice versa, because goals are entangled with our memory of our past. Changes to goals and memories are not factual changes to the future and past, and yet, those changes have an effect in the present and can alter the future.

When winners write history, they select and modify facts to suit their victorious agenda. That history exists in the present, but it need not be factual. Changes to historical records are not factual changes to the past. They are changes to our memory of the past. By reading altered histories, people create goals of grandeur in the future. Those goals are not the factual future. They are realities that exist in the present and they can change the future. However, those goals may not be realized exactly in the future. However, memory and goal become past and future, when we refuse to include ideas in science.

Problems Rooted in Physical Conceptions

Entanglement is a problem in physics if we equate the idea of the past and the future to the past and the future. This happens in a physical conception of reality. Entanglement is a problem in physics if interactions between two particles are unique to a pair of particles, and the principles of interaction cannot be universalized. Universalization happens in a physical conception of reality. Entanglement is a problem in physics if things at one location have far greater effects on some locations vs. others as a result of hierarchies. Uniformity of locations and their effects is the cornerstone of all physical laws.

The problem in current scientific thinking is that the past and the future cannot entangle without violating the conditions of separability. Hence, time quantization creates problems. Two things in different locations cannot entangle without violating the conditions of separability. Hence, matter quantization creates problems. One location cannot have greater or lesser effects on other locations without breaking separability. Hence space quantization creates problems. All classical physical assumptions about separability create problems. Since these assumptions utilize calculus, which depends on the uniformity of space, time, and matter, therefore, trying to fit reality into equations of calculus is also equally problematic.

Since scientists are attached to physical conceptions, separability, numbers, and calculus, a change is unlikely. They have walked down a path for more than three centuries. They cannot reject it, even if it entails diminishing and negative returns. This is a problem of preconceived ideas, attachment to those ideas, and reluctance to change them. Any meaningful change requires us to go back to the drawing slate and discuss problematic ideas like mind-body dualism and notions of knowledge that separate the knower from the known.

Alternative Sources of Intuition

All scientific knowledge is the generalization of some human experience. However, there is infinite freedom in picking which human experiences to generalize from. Modern science chose billiard balls and vibrating strings to generalize from. But we can also pick a different experience.

If we keep our life compartmentalized into many separate domains, such that work and home are separate disentangled realities, then problems at work don’t create problems at home. But since work and home can be entangled into a single ensemble, hence, work can impact home and vice versa. Since work and home can be disentangled, therefore, separability is a subset of entanglement. There is no need to reduce an entangled reality to a separable reality. It is sufficient to say that at some times, some places, some things are not entangled with other things at other times and other places. And yet, you will see physicists hell-bent on trying to reduce an entangled reality to a separable reality. Why? It is because they want to see the world as separable things. They don’t want entangled things. A predetermined agenda drives their research.

They also want to separate the observer from the observed, never mind how false it is. For example, if we meet a person and we don’t know that they hold a prestigious position in society, we treat them like ordinary people. But if we know about their social status, then we treat them with respect. So, how can we say that the observer’s knowledge of reality has no effect on the observed outcomes? Isn’t the demonstration of respect based on our knowledge of their social status? Similarly, it is well known that people hear concert musicians when they perform in a concert hall, but ignore them when they perform in the railway station. Doesn’t this mean that our knowledge of reality changes reality? But you will see scientists hell-bent on separating reality from our knowledge of reality. Reality can change knowledge, but knowledge cannot change reality. That is because they want to keep ideas and minds out of science.

All problems of modern science are rooted in trying to universalize billiard balls and vibrating strings as the cardinal examples of causality while designating the far more common lived experience as epiphenomena of billiard balls and vibrating strings. That is a choice that Western thinking made. It is not the only choice. We can reverse that choice by making lived experience the cardinal examples of causality and then explain vibrating strings and billiard balls based on it. One is not more fundamental than another a priori. One is not simpler than the other a priori. One is not better than the other a priori. Those have to be judged by how much unity they bring in our knowledge.

If we begin with the idea of separation while reality is inseparable, then we will be compelled to create thousands of models to capture inseparability through a different model of separability. None of those models will ever be perfect. The problems with those models will compel us to increase the number of models, and the process leads to diminishing and negative returns.

Ideological Roots of Modern Science

Why are billiard balls sources of intuition about reality? The answer is that separability applies to them to a fairly reasonable level of approximation. Why are vibrating strings sources of intuition about reality? It is because we can reduce a vibrating string to a set of connected particles—pushing and pulling each other—rather easily, and we already want to view the world in terms of separable things even if that is only an approximation. Reducing the whole to its parts, treating them as independent entities, and describing changes to them using push and pull forces is the foundation of modern science.

But it is harder to grasp these ideas in modern science without the larger context of Western civilization. Western civilization is a story of increasing individualism. It reached a tipping point during the Renaissance when the focus of art on the divine was rejected, and artists could choose whatever mundane subjects they desired to depict; portraits of people and landscapes of nature became possible due to this change. It reached another tipping point during Reformation in Europe when the special rights of the priests to determine religious beliefs were abolished giving each person the right to choose their religious beliefs. It reached another tipping point during Enlightenment when nature was divided into independent particles in Newton’s mechanics. And it reached yet another tipping point during the French Revolution when the special rights of kings were rejected giving equal rights to everyone, bringing the government under ordinary people’s control, rather than an authority over them. At each step, individualism grew in strength and popularity.

Historians use grandiloquent names like Renaissance, Reformation, Englightenment, and Revolution to demarcate various phases in this longer trajectory. But they are different stages of growing individualism that span art, religion, nature, and society over time. They are superficially different, but in a deeper sense either quite similar or completely identical. After a few of these, new names for the stages that follow are unnecessary, because each of these trends affirms, solidifies, and emboldens the other trends.

The trajectory toward greater individualism in personal life is closely related to the atomization of matter. We always see the world in the same way we see ourselves. The liar thinks that everyone is a liar. The hard worker thinks that everyone is hardworking. The world is modeled after the same principles as the self. If the self is individualistic and considers itself separate from others, then the world is modeled as separable things. Science now tries to reduce all complexity to simplicity—simplicity being defined as the separation of things. If we cannot separate things from each other, then complexity cannot be simplified. The irreducible unit of reality is the thing in itself.

Everything has to be atomized because that is how the ideology of separation models reality. If things are modeled, then they can be controlled. If reality is entangled, then it cannot be modeled and controlled. If a society is collectivist, then its internal interactions cannot be demystified and described. Societal structures like family and community must be broken down into atomized individuals working for their self-interest in order for rational principles to be applied to them. The shared culture or history that binds people must be replaced by individualism to gain control over them. Once they are divided and separated, then they can be aggregated using a “rules-based order”. A religion that encourages individualism becomes the handmaiden of atomization.

Divide and conquer are two mutually reinforcing sides of a coin. As you divide more, you create more models, control more using those models, and use that control to divide more. Separation leads to scientific models, which then leads to control, which leads to more separation, and so on. The same principles can therefore be repeatedly utilized to divide and rule nations, people, and things.

Obedience to the rules-based order creates outward cleanliness or systematization and everything looks well-organized. But this is temporary because the rule-maker is individualistic. He is not interested in the collective good, as the rulers should be. He is solely interested in his personal good. He keeps changing the rules to gain more wealth and power. When others realize that the rules are meant to benefit the rule-makers rather than everyone, they stop following the rules. The enforcement of rules leads to conflict and destroys order. The situation after the destruction of this rules-based order is worse than what it was before the rules-based order appeared on the scene.

Since the end of the rules-based order is worse than what immediately preceded it, therefore, the end is delayed by elongating the phase of diminishing and negative returns. It is considered the lesser of two evils. People cannot see why this end was predetermined from the start, and how it creates the possibility of a new start, which can be never-ending progress if we solve the prior dualisms that had made the collapse imminent. Instead, they will always say: Look, the destruction of the rules-based order is much worse.

Sustainable Ideologies for Science

Individualism, and its offshoots, are useful in the beginning, useless after a while, and harmful in the end. Even their opposites—i.e., dissolving everything into oneness, or destroying everything to end with nothingness—are also useful in the beginning, useless after some time, and harmful in the end. This is why we must reject individualism, impersonalism, and voidism equally.

The correct ideology is inseparability, or what we can call unity in diversity and diversity in unity. It is not individualism because there is unity. It is not impersonalism because there is diversity. And it is not voidism because there is both unity and diversity. It is pervasively true and it is sustainable.

Sustainability comes from the fact that this ideology reconciles all dualisms. For example, the individual is inside a collection, and the collection is inside the individual. The collection is not physically inside the individual; rather, the collection is intentionally inside the individual—the individual works for the collective good. Likewise, the mind is in the body, and the body is in the mind. The body is in the mind because the body is an idea, but it is only those ideas that we can perceive as sensations; those, however, are not the only ideas; there are other ideas too that are only in the mind. The mind is in the body because those ideas that we cannot perceive shape the body; our bodies are the results of mixing our memories, goals, and consequences. All the parts of a chair are within the chair, and chairness is present in all the parts. People are living inside a culture, and culture is living inside people. Everything is in God, and God is in everything. The parts are in the whole, and the whole is in the parts.

This is not a difficult philosophy. But it is difficult for the individualists, impersonalists, and voidists. It is not unscientific gibberish. It applies to a rational and empirical study of every subject. In fact, we reach these conclusions after analyzing the problems with all the alternatives. It solves all problems of these subjects created by myriad and never-ending dualisms.

The world is presently ruled by individualists, impersonalists, and voidists. The individualists want to divide the world into independent parts to model and control them. The impersonalists want to unite the world by dissolving all diversity and differences. And the voidists want to destroy both unity and diversity to end up with nothing—essentially ending all conscious experience.

Under the predominance of individualism, impersonalism, and voidism, the most sustainable philosophy finds few friends. It mostly has enemies, critics, competitors, detractors, hecklers, opponents, and rivals. The enemies want to destroy it. The critics say that it is not scientific. The competitors want to win by louder propaganda. The detractors say it seems logically contradictory. The hecklers demand evidence of its truth and question why it is not more popular. The opponents want to peddle individualism, impersonalism, and voidism. And rivals envy its intrinsic beauty and irrefutability. The fact is that this philosophy exists only for the most sincere people. Those are rare. Even though it is the best philosophy ever, it will be accepted only by the thoroughly honest.