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.
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 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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Knowledge comprehends relations between things. For this, these things have to be, in a sense, synchronously present, side by side, closely arranged. This holds even if the things are in reality separated by large distances, yes, even for events taking place at different times. All this cannot stop knowledge. It overcomes times as well as distances, it compacts, omits superfluous details and gets to the point.
This process, often called “abstraction”, appears to lead into areas lying beyond any physical reality. However, this idea itself is merely an abstraction, a picture that may depict a certain process by highlighting and strikingly illustrating one particular feature held to be essential. So here, in this case, the idea of absolute immateriality is derived from the freedom that inheres in every knowledge because of being not the hard and heavy matter itself, but its image, so to speak.
Yet, finally, every image, every representation, every form of knowledge is itself again subject to restrictions that are not less real than those of the represented thing, simply different — and therefore many of the original ones disappear.
Something, however, has to remain, a certain identicalness must exist. Image and original must allow to treat them as one and the same. The picture of a house must have enough in common with the depicted object to be itself called “house” (as in phrases like “This is our house”). Insofar it must be house.
A pyramid may quite generally symbolize unification: the set of points forming the base pass into the single point at the top, the apex. This kind of transformation is fundamentally important for knowledge.
It is part of what we have called the “act of knowing”. A certain pattern crystallizes into one thing that multiplies as a whole — and so constitutes a new plane or space of knowledge.
This move into a new dimension is nicely depicted by the pyramid shape, too.
Knowledge, activity, thing, and space form the basis of our system, a square. All the four corners are interconnected, so it arises from the crossing of the diagonals the shape of an X. This is a really graphic reason to call the system “X-Logic”.
The intersection of the diagonals, the centre of the quadrilateral, could be regarded as a symbol for unification, thus for the whole that gives the parts their ultimate meaning. It is connected to all the cornerpoints. However, it itself is not a corner, it has no contact to the outer world — and interrupts, in a sense, the direct relationship between diagonally facing vertices.
So, for expressing the whole, the oneness, it makes more sense to move out of the plane and to raise a pyramid. The original planar figure then can be seen as a two-dimensional projection. Which comes into usage mainly if there is only a flat surface available for presentation.
But the more expressive symbol is the pyramid. It is an illustrative model of the x-logic system described here.
Knowledge and activity are essential parts or features of a greater whole, namely the logical system described here. Therefore they cannot be viewed in isolation. They get their meaning from the whole and from their relationship with each other and with other similarly fundamental terms.
Above all thing and space. These are, in a way, as diametrically facing one another as knowledge and activity. In the extreme, so to speak, space is the opposite of the thing, that what resides between the things, what separates them. But of course each thing occupies some space; and space may be treated as a thing — representing knowledge — arising through activity.
These concepts belong together, for they are four corners of one and the same figure.
Although each of us has to learn the laws of nature before knowing them — and maybe forgetting them again — these themselves are wholly timeless. They exist, in a manner of speaking, irrespective of whether we know and see them or not. They may come into focus — and disappear from it again. Still this does not alter them in any way.
And so are all those things existing only in our mind or psyche or so, that means all notions, conceptions and so on. They are not bound to any restrictions of time or the like, which are so typical for physically real things. This freedom makes them remain everlasting and untouchable, on one hand, but as well, on the other hand, pure fiction without any substance. What they are lacking is definitely the interaction with the real material world; which leaves them unverifiable.
At least, that is how they are frequently viewed.
But here we say that this world, seemingly independently existing (and therefore seemingly not really existing), this world of knowledge is in fact permanently connected with acivity — and thus to all the other things, through mutual influence. For even knowledge can never be without activity. And this is true not in spite of its immovability, but rather because of it. Activity is the complement of knowledge, a logical necessity. We cannot have one without the other.
The preceding definition of knowledge is in accordance with the common tacit assumption that the laws of nature, for example, hold timelessly universally. And not only the laws, but also the involved terms or rather the notions or ideas these refer to. A proposition accepted as true may proove false, but the concept of truth as such always remains unaffected. The value of a certain quantity may change, but not the respective number itself, such as the three, or that what it stands for, its meaning, the idea of three.
And so we may realize a constancy we always rely on, the constancy of certain elements of our theories and sciences, mental entities that serve as foundations of all our systems, even those of mathematics and logic. Viewed is this light our definition first of all just features clearly that constancy, giving it a name. We now call it “knowledge” — which is certainly not all-too farfetched.
Where there is knowledge, there is activity, too. Only so it can come into being. It manifests itself in activity. In doing so it gives form to activity.
On this basis the probably most general definition of knowledge may be given, as counterpart of activity, so to speak. Thus, while activity stands for change, knowledge means sameness and steadiness.