After all, our exploration of the concept of abstraction simply shed some light from a different angle on exactly that what we previously called “act of knowing”. All knowledge is, in some ways, abstraction. Or, more generally, representation. It is always about some extraction of what is deemed essential, and its projection onto another plane, into another space, into another dimension. What, as previously shown, can be illustrated as a pyramid.
Another way of achieving knowledge is called “perception”. And this too can perfectly be described with almost the same words, so that the same pattern becomes recognizable — the principal figure of knowledge, so to speak.
This X-Logic cannot be the ultimate system comprising everything — not even in principle; quite simply because such a thing does not exist. Every image, every model, every system are partial or one-sided.
When we apply a certain model, we try to realize it under the actual conditions. So the outcome should be always the same; we multiply it.
Still, this is what happens only if seen from outside, so to speak. From inside, while using it, the model itself cannot be recognized. There is effectively no way to become aware of it, because it is everywhere, stamping everything. What can be observed — through the model — is instead a diversity of things and their interrelations.
There are always different points of view. Seen from another one a certain thing may appear completely different. So much that it can no longer be called the same thing (or an instance or a copy of it). There do not even have to be something like an integral thing or anything else regularly corresponding. Maybe there is apparently nothing.
Even the smallest point still allows to be spread open, unfolds into a whole world.
And, the other way round, from the proper perspective the whole wide space with all the trimmings shrink to a single point — if anything of that is still to be seen at all.
Space is all-embracing and contains all things. It also comprises all potential views of itself, from all possible perspectives. So each view realizes merely part of space.
The current view itself, however, cannot see its own partiality. It therefore must perceive itself as complete, comprehending the whole — although, for sure, it eventually turns out to be partial.
A logical consequence to be drawn here is that there exists no principal distinction between any partial space and the whole one. Uncompleteness cannot be seen but from the outside, so to speak, from another perspective — which again can offer nothing but a particular view of reality.
The all comprising infinite space becomes finite if observed from outside, so to speak. Hence it solidifies into a thing with cognizable properties distinguishing it from other things. With these it shares the common all-embracing unique space.
Since this process repeats again and again, the idea of nested spaces may arise, each one bigger than its predecessor. So that a successive, though probably never perfect, approximation to the one and only true space might take place. The conception of a hierarchy of spaces (or things), which is widely used, in one way or another, may be due to this.
However, this idea tacitly implies the existence of an order relation applying to all possible spaces — here denoted by “bigger than its predecessor”. But in being recognized, which means, as said above, observed from the “outside”, such a relation looses its absolute questionless universality, because in that moment spaces become thinkable that do not possess this property. The spaces with such an order thus become part of a still more universal space which does not possess it in the same manner. And which therefore does not necessarily have to be called “bigger”.
In being recognized, the characteristics of space crystallize into a thing. This process is definitely invertible: a thing may widen into infinite space. Its inner structure becomes the stucture of space — so completely that it cannot be perceived anymore. How huge an impact it has on perception and consciousness becomes clear not until the glasses are taken off. But each time this happens, in truth just one pair of glasses is replaced by another.
Every thing can serve as eyeglasses through which the world is perceived and in a certain way filtered. And every perception passes through such glasses, through a thing; perception is reflection at a thing, projection upon a thing. Only through this process anything can be perceived and known. Through transmission onto and into another medium.
Physics deals with real things. It is based and focussed on experience. Which means that physics has to measure itself again and again with reality. Even the most coherent conclusions from the most beautiful theories still do not matter if not verified by real experiences.
On the other hand, physics is of course about theories. It is about information about reality; or about images of it. About mathematical equations describing nature in their own way. Thus there is always some kind of transformation: into the realm of theory, of mental things.
Or, more concrete, into the actual medium of representation.
A space known to have a particular structure becomes a particular and thus somehow distinct space — and therefore some thing in space. That way there may be defined and segregated almost any number of sub-spaces, which, viewed from the other side, unite all together in the one space of knowledge. Thereby they penetrate one another, loosing any sharp distinction between them.
Every thing in space can be regarded as an objectified (sub)space. And every (sub)space is an illimited thing. Space and thing are different aspects of one and the same. Every thing corresponds to a specific space, and vice versa.
So every interaction between things can be considered a penetration or superposition of their spaces. And every appearance of a thing is due to such an interaction. The thing mirrors itself in another thing and so comes into appearance. Which can also be understood as penetration and inducement of its space by another one.
From another angle the same process may be viewed quite the other way round, as an appearance of the other thing. Instead of different “angles of view” we may alternatively speak of different “knowledge spaces” where the respective things appear. Then a thing marks the passage from one space to the other, so to speak, precisely because it can be seen like this and like that. Every thing is a crystallization of several interpenetrating spaces.
Physics is a fairly complex system. Single physical statements cannot be understood but with a certain acquaintance, with prior knowledge. So we may say that physics constitutes its own knowledge space.
Sometimes, however, it is possible (and necessary) to distinguish different subareas, relatively self-contained disciplines or approaches defining their own spaces of knowledge. These may penetrate and superpose one another; different theories and models may mesh and complement each other.
Still, in the end, physics makes sense only because there also overlap quite another kind of spaces that are no integral parts of science as such, but of the “real” world, so to speak. Only this enables physics to take effect upon material things, as well as to be affected by them and thus to reflect physical reality.
Physics looks at the world through the eyeglasses of physics. It cannot do more — although sometimes it seems to want more. Which, no doubt, is its right, even its duty. For ultimately it does not matter what theory says, but only what really happens. Nevertheless, to reason from this that there were something like the one objective reality beyond any such visual aid would mean to overshoot the mark. And, above all, sometime precisely this idea may mislead to give up — if not to forbid — the struggle for objectivity and reality or truth.
After all there is nothing to be said against the assumption that every reality is a certain view of reality. Reality is always a reflected, a known. Something else cannot be ascertained, not with the best will in the world — so then, why should it be there? And, actually — what should it be?