After leaving his Palace, Prince Sidhartha spent six years, trying to understand reality, himself, others, suffering, mind, morality and all. He tried many teachers and methods of ascetic mystical practices, but none could provide the answer to the most important question, “why is there suffering?”

After six years Sidhartha’s mystical quest culminated in a realisation, deep in his longest medication, sitting in Lotus under the Bhodi Tree.  He discovered the answer to the mystical quest.  It shattered his ground. The answer to the mystical question was that there were no mystical questions.  Everything is impermanent and empty, there is nothing beyond this life in time or space or possibility.

“There is no soul!” he realised.

The very notion of rebirth that had underpinned his life of thirty five years and his culture for millennia was a root of the problem: it was a delusion. He saw that so long as he still believed that there was more than this moment, he could never find true peace or joy in any moment. This was the start of Prince Sidhartha’s enlightenment, to escape the constantly negative delusion that there is more to life than this. He had escaped the very idea of rebirth.

“All is empty,” he thought.

“There is nothingness. What should I do?”

From a single point of nothingness the prince started to ascend. He saw how all contingent things from the single point upwards must be impermanent. If there was change, it could be no other way. He saw how from the single point to every point there was connectedness. He saw from the most complex down there was emptiness, there were only points, no things in themselves. He saw how all things, out of a finite space of things, inevitably would tend towards less or nothingness.

“There is no more,” Sidhartha saw.

These three truths he apprehended, and he knew that they must be all true in all possible realms, where all connected things change.  And he knew why this was true.  These three truths were his foundation.  He had shattered the illusionary ground before him and he was deep down at the immutable bedrock.

From this Prince Sidhartha saw how the three foundational truths, that he would call Dharma, underpinned and linked reality together. He knew they connected in all ways and at all levels of perspective and focus, across all domains: the physical, the conceptual, the mental, the moral. All is impermanent. Everything is impermanent. All is connected. Together all must end.

He saw causation was embedded in foundation. All causes have many effects. All effects have many causes. All causes are effects, he knew. This vast, intractable many-to-many network of causes spanned all domains.  All paths joined at that single point, the experience of the moment. The now.

“Karma,” he thought. Sidhartha saw how Karma was not magic, as the ancients thought, but the complex moral causal paths that weave and pleach through all experiences. Karma was the blood of life and choice.

“But what is it that chooses?”  Sidhartha thought. The Prince asked himself, if there are no objects then how can there be a thing that chooses and wants and likes?

He looked inside his mind and saw how the same truths that entailed that there could be no soul, must also entail that there could be no ego, no self, no object of mind in itself.

“I am nothing,” he knew. Yet something was there, thinking these thoughts, being this now. When he looked he saw what there was. He saw what was, unknowingly, the seed for the illusion of ego.

“There is no thinker, only thoughts!” he realised.

Ego, like soul, he knew was an illusion. All of the me and them, and  the now and then, this was all illusion.  We hammer our egos like banners into the illusionary ground and then grip them so tightly, desperate not to let go. But Sidharta saw that these are not flagpoles we cling to, they are skewers. The ego skewers us to delusion, it can only use us and pain us and could only ever hold us down.

Ego was the key to understanding suffering. It wasn’t just that impermanence made things negative, it was the craving ego illusion that kept creating more negativity as it twists the skewer it thinks is a banner for its existence.  “This is me, that is you.” This is a root of suffering that Sidhartha saw.  The illusionary ego won’t let go. The deluded ego wants more. More becomes less. Less becomes nothing.  The me still wants more.

There can be no release. This was the cycle of negative feedback that could never be slowed or stopped. The only solution was that found by The Buddha: to destroy the foundation of the cycle, the illusions of ego and permanence and more than this. When there was no ignorance there was no illusion. He saw the cause of suffering and he saw the cause of the absence of peace and truth and joy.

“I must float, not drown,” he thought, as he sought the methods to end the inevitable cycle.

The Budhha found that the ego illusion could be extinguished by understanding the nature of the systems he was contained by and composed of. The Tagatha found that the illusion of “more than this” can be eroded by understanding impermanence, knowing why it is that all things must change.  The Enlightened One saw how negativity was causally inevitable and to expect otherwise was delusion. The grasping thirst for more than this, more things, more time, more self, more experiences began to vanish alongside the illusions The Buddha was eroding. In their place was the selfless, soulless, egoless moment of experience that contained no real distinction with the experiences of others. There was no object distinction. Compassion, love, peace and truth could only bring the negative closer to the positive.

The Buddha had found the way from the single impermanent empty point to greater peace, truth and happiness. This un-mysterious path, the moral, mental and conceptual path arose together as one spiritual path.

When The Buddha emerged from his meditation he knew and saw for the first time, The Noble Eightfold Path.

And then he walked the middle path from the beneath the Bhodi tree.

In the one and two point game universes from the last chapters we saw how restricted the number of necessarily  true statements we could make were, and moreover, we saw that there were no contingent true statements we could make. All truth possible truth lists were the same.

I think the most profound change in the development of these single point game universes comes when we move from two to three points.

Imagine a universe made of three single points, ABC. We know from Transitivity that it will contain the Truths of the Two and One point universe combined. So we can state:

• True (ABC):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with A.
  • B exists.
  • B is identical with B.
  • C exists
  • C is identical with C
  • A and B and C are Different.
  • A and B and C are Connected.
  • And so on...

We will find that we cant add more contingent truths to the Universe unless we start stipulating not just what exists but how that which exists is structured. We did this automatically when we made a Glove Universe but with these maximally idealised points we need to be more specific.

Structure

Structure is the arrangement in which the points are connected.

When we just have a two points there is no difference between AB and BA in term's of stating truths. You cannot say, A is to the left of B. One might argue that AB is the opposite structure of BA but I can’t really make sense of that. I'm not sure I need to because as soon as we add that Third point, C, then structure emerges.

ABC is not the same structure as CAB. The points are connected differently. In one, B is connected with A and C and in the other, it is not, there is a point in between. In that one we can say “B is interconnected with C and connected with A”.

But although ABC is not the same structure as CAB, it is the same structure as CBA. That is, ABC=CBA because there is no way the True(ABC) and True(CBA) can contain different truths.  In exactly the same way as you cant distinguish between Left and Right in the Glove Universe or AB and BA in the two point universe,  you cant distinguish between ABC and CBA.

The Three Point Universe is the first game Universe that has structure. It must necessarily have Structure.  For example there are these possible structures for the three point universe:

ABC (or CBA)
CAB (or BAC)
BCA (or ACB)

When you Stipulate three or more points you stipulate Structure. If you stipulate ACB and me ABC then we are stipulating different universes, in the same way as my glove may have had two holes in the button and yours' four.

Structure is one possible arrangement from a set of possible arrangements where the possible arrangements are determined by the parts and the rules. Out of all the possible Three Point Universes, those possibilities are just possible structures and only one of them can be actual, that which is Stipulated.

Structural Properties are properties about the actual arrangement of the Game Universes. Structure is the first Contingent property.

It is the first property that is emergent.

The Only Magic: Emergence

In the Universe Game the property of Emergence is perhaps the most important Property to understand. Once you see how it arises in the Game you can keep your eye open for it in real life, it there,  and it is everywhere, from social and moral systems to the realm of the subatomic. It has a substantial metaphysical payload you may need to grapple with, but as a demonstrable phenomenon in theory and reality, its the closest thing we have to an extant creator. Emergence gives us, literally, something for nothing.

If a structure contains a property P and P is not a property of any of its parts then P is an emergent property.

In terms of the Game Universes at least, all we have is nothing but existence, these single points, yet we are making something like meaningful statements about new kinds of things. We get new kinds of meanings out but there are no new kinds of things in. This is emergence; It may well be the only free lunch in Reality.

Betweeness, Connectivity and Interconnectivity

In the three point universe we have a property that is not in any of its parts,  this is “Betweenness”

The law of non-contradiction is not contingent, but ABC or CAB are contingent. They are contingent truths about the universe. For example:

• Truth:(CAB)
  • A is between C and B
  • Truth(ABC)
    • A is not between C and B

These are the Same Universes, fundamentally, but differently structured. We know that in a two point universe Connectivity is trivial, in the Three point universe it becomes Contingent and nontrivial. All points in the Three Point universe are either connected directly or interconnected via the other point. For example:

• Truth(CAB)
  • A is between C and B
  • A is connected with C
  • A is connected with B
  • C is interconnected with A

These emergent properties arise at three points and yet, if you think forward to ABCDEFG kind of Game universes you will see that there don’t appear to be any  new emergent properties. The reason for this is because something is missing, and that something, is dimsensionality.

Dimensionality

So far we have been answering this question by relying on the linear convention of writing them in a line. But I can also imagine and stipulate a three Point Universe arranged so that ABC are not in a line but are all touching.

There is no reason why we can’t imagine this if we can imagine ABC. What is handy about using the Truth List is that we can actually see the difference in connections between the points even if those connections cannot be represented in two or three dimensions. For example, "All points are connected and no points are interconnected" describes a Universe with a different dimensionality to the universe described by "two points are connected and point is interconnected."

The different way the points can be connected, the different possibilities entailed logically make a space of possibilities and this possibility space is what we can term the “Dimensionality”.

I don't know what scientists mean when they talk about ten dimensional space. Or what people who believe in "extra dimensional beings" could possibly know about. But when I look at this most minimal of ABC structures I can see how it is limited not just by the pure logic but by the possibilities that have to exist for it to exists. It is limited by the possible structure.  This is Dimensionality.

The Single Point Universe has no Dimensions. Nothing is possible within it. The two point universes might e said to have dimensionality, but this is necessary not contingent upon the structure.

The Three Point universe has Dimensionality. It has structure. It has different possible structures.

Question: How many Dimensions are in the Three Point Universe?

The answer two this question comes from Stipulation. Suppose we stipulate that its a 3PU but that the points must be arranged in a line. In this stipulation we have limited the Dimensionality to 1 Dimension. But if we stipulate the three point universe  can be arranged in any logically possible way then we can have two dimensions. As the ABC all connected structure shows. These are not spatial dimensions but structural dimensions

Conclusion to Thought Experiment Four

The logical properties of our Game Universe are set in stone very early on. Even when we move from two to three points we see the logically necessary become replaced by the possible. The stipulated entail the emerged. If we were to make a four point universe or a forty trillion point universe we would find that we wouldn't be able to make that many more non trivial truths about that universe. This may sound surprising but to see what I mean, lets take a quick look at a Four Point universe:

This does have some more contingent truths and emergent properties. For example

• True(ABCD)
  • B and C are between A and D.
  • A is not contained by C and D

We have these new emergent properties but they are not that remarkable. It becomes more apparent with the five point universe. For example:

• True (ABCDE)
  • C is between exactly four points.

We have a new property of "being between exactly four points" and we can imagine that when we have a two billion and one point universe we can have a new property of "being between exactly a billion points." but these are , pun intended, Pointless truths.

Its just more of the same variants on betweens, interconnectivity and dimensionality. Now, as the points increase in number so will the dimensionality, but it two seems like it will be diminishing rapidly.  Still something is missing from these Game universes, we will start to see what this is in the next Chapter.

Questions to Ponder

• What new properties could you get from a universe of six points that cannot emerge in a universe of five points?
• Do you see that all of the connections in a There point universe are able to be modelled in this world using Marbles whereas this is not possible with a five point universe?
• Are the  Properties of Impermanence and Interconnectivity necessary properties of  all parts of all possible Game Universes?

Have Fun!

Sure, in most ways it was very boring as games go, but I hope it has given us at least some tools to get into the meat of the matter.

Imagine a Single Point Universe; we know from the last experiment that it will be identical to all other single point universes we can imagine, just like all other perfect circle universes.[1] Let’s now do something that we do lots and often been done for us, and that is to label something. When you label something  you are in some sense pointing to that thing, referring to it with the aim to distinguishing it. Let’s call the actual point in the Single Point universe, "Point A" or "A" for short.

A

When we label something like that we are just stipulating a short hand. There is no magic in labelling something and, in terms of Game Universes, there is no special connection between words and the Universe

From the last experiment we know that A’s Truth list will look like this:

• True(A):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with itself.

AB

Imagine a Universe that consists just of Two Points, A and B. We know that these are the same kind of points, they are just single points. There is no internal difference between A and B, we have, as it were, more of the same. It absolutely crucial to see in this case and in all future cases  that we are just Stipulating more points, not new kinds of things.

When we had the Glove Universe the parts of the glove were arranged in a glovelike way. When we have a Two Glove universe we instantly know that they must in some sense be touching. If they were not, then we would be smuggling  space into the Game Universe, and that, is against the rules of the game.



The structure of the gloves determines the possibilities of how they can be arranged.[2]

Thinking about the Two glove universe there are countless ways the two gloves can be structured together[3]. With the Two point universe this isn’t the case, there is only one way they can be structured, and that is AB which is identical to the structuring BA. In the same was as without a reference point and containment space we can’t say if a glove is left or right handed, we cannot say any difference between AB and BA. We can say that AB=BA, which means that the truth lists for AB and BA will be the same.

Possibility Space

With the Glove Universe we could imagine what it would be like, it would be like an ordinary ladies glove, but this could be many things.  Some things would need to be the case, like athumb next to a finger, a button at one end, at one side of a slit... and so on.  But others are completely open within the Stipulation of the Game Universe. It could have two holes in the button or four, seams inside or out, and so on.

This huge space of things that must be the case and things that could be or could not be the case is called the “Possibility Space” of the game universe.  The Two Glove universes and the One Glove Universe both have immense possibility spaces whereas the Two and Single point universes do not.

Unlike the glove universe, the A and AB Universes, leave nothing to the imagination.

The AB  Truth List

Let us now look at the Truth list for AB. This is the first composite Truth List in that it is made up of the truth lists of other things, in this case single points.

• True(AB):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with A.
  • B exists.
  • B is identical with B.

What right have we to simply combine the Truth lists? Might it not be that some truths from one list make other truths in another list false when they are combined?  No its not possible because then there would either be a contradiction or a stipulating hadn’t been followed[4]

There are more some more Truths we can add, though not many, but first let's discuss the four Truths we have of the Two point Universe.

New Property: Transitivity

That starter list of four True statements seems to comes for free, we don't have to think about it because we know its true of the parts, of The Single Point Universes. If B had the property of being "Awesome!" all on its own in a Single Point Universe then it would have that property of "Aweseomness!" in any other Universes, of however many points it . This logical property we can call “Transitivity”, you might prefer to call it "containment" or "dependence" but I feel they miss out the long and linear paths of transitivity that exist in our reality. Transitivity is true of all lines, whether they are on railways tracks, graphs, upwards through evolution or through the thought processes in your neurons. Transitivity holds, because if it didn't, there would be contradictions.

Transitivity is hard to understand, not because it is complex, but  because it is so very simple. It cannot be any other way, it seems necessitated as soon as there is more than one thing by the law of Noncontradiction.  You should note that the Two Point Universe doesn't itself contain any Transitivity, the Transitivity is in the relationship between the universe and its more minimal parts.

When we had one point we had no Transitivity. Now we have two, we do. But, the Transitivity isn’t in the Game Universe in the sense the points are, rather its in our simple representation of  the logic of the Game Universe.

Transitivity is an Abstract Property of the Game Universe. We saw in Experiment One and Two how there are Structural Properties and logical properties, now we have a property type that is Abstact. Abstract properties are about the universe without being inside the Universe.

New Property: Difference

We know that A=A and B=B. And we know there are two points in the universe, because if there were not, we wouldn't be playing the Two Point Universe Game. So it follows that Point A cannot be the same point as Point B, because if it was, there would only be one point. So now we have a new Truth for the Truth List:

• True(AB):

• A exists.
• A is identical with A.
• B exists.
• B is identical with B.
• A and B are Different.

What is Difference? It is a property that is entailed, at the minimum, by transitivity and non contradiction. We know that A and B together mean that A and B must be different and we can have some blurry understating of why. In the same way as existence and identity are metaphysically hard to grasp, so is difference. Often when something is hard to grasp some clarity can be gained by expressing it in other ways that still preserve the truth. Let's call this list type  "Equivalents"

• Equivalents (A and B are Different)
  • There are Truths about A that are not True about B
  • There is a change of existence between A and B.
  • A=A but B does not equal A.

All of the above statements mean, at least relative to the Game Universe, the same thing.

We cannot say anything about the single points other than that they exist and are identical with themselves. But when we have two we know that those two points are not the same existence, they are distinct existences.

The One Point universes had no change. The two point universe has change, it has difference. It might be hard to see because we experience change as a very time, space and causation based phenomenon, but if you think in terms of the True statements of the Two Point Universe you can get at least some grasp on the necessitation of change.

Difference is Change

When we have AB instead of just A, we have something new, even though both Points are Truth list identical with the point from a Single Point Universe. Its crucial that you see this to understand the experiment.  In the Single Point universe we had no Change of any kind. It was static in every sense. We couldn't talk about its creation or structural differences, it had none, it was, at best, a bit of existence and identity. So very close to meaningless.

With the Two Point Universe the very act of stipulating two point's rather than one point necessitates the stipulation of Change. As soon as you stipulate an "ordinary glove" you stipulate "five fingers and a thumb" and in the same way, I think, as soon as you stipulate two points you stipulate change.

But, what is change, other than difference?

Imagine a single point again, and now imagine this point can be in one of two sates, A or B. So you imagine a single point that changes state. Don't get distracted by the metaphysics here, we will focus on state changes in a later experiment.  So now we have two separate game universes,  the Two State Single Point Universe and Two Point One State Universe.  I think that  if the game Universes can be totally described by the Truth lists then there is no meaningful difference between the two, they have identical truth lists:

• True (Single Point Two State Universe AB):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with A.
  • B exists.
  • B is identical with B.
  • A and B are Different.

• True (Two Point Single State Universe AB):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with A.
  • B exists.
  • B is identical with B.
  • A and B are Different.

Although one involves change in the "change of thing" sense and one in the "change between things" sense we can see that there seems no other Truths that can differentiate the two.

One objection to the two lists above might be to say "In the Two State Universe, B doesn't exist when it's in state A."  I think that this isn't a meaningful objection because it relies on Time. It uses  the term "when" which is a temporal term and this is a timeless universe, by Stipulation.

There is another problem with this objection in that it implies it implied an understanding of "Existence" as a simple property. But we have seen above that there appears no way to get any understanding of existence as being a property shared by all things in a universe, stipulated or real.  There seems to me to be no statement that can pick up on this though hence I don’t consider it a valid objection.

What I think this part of the Though Experiment suggest is that Change is a logical property of the Game Universe rather than a property of the structure (or systems) of that Game Universe. It is added necessarily by the Stipulations. Therefore, like Transitivity and Consistency, it's existence can't be denied nor fully understood within the Game Universe. We can, if you will, see the necessary evidence of its existence in the Truth Lists.

New Property: Impermanence

If you believe in the necessity of transitivity and identity and therefore change,  then it follows that you must believe that State  all possible Game Universes will possess these properties at every point. The act of stipulating the Game Universe entails that every point will be in relationships of transitivity and change. Can you think of a possible universe, of any kind, that would lack these necessities? I cannot because I always end up at inconsistency.

Most of us can see how everything changes in the world, and thus all is impermanent, but can we also see that in the two Point Static Universe?

I think we can. We can see from the Truth lists that there is Difference between A and B. There is this change in their existence . It seems that the existence of one must be impermanent because it is prevented by its nonidenity with the existence of the other point.  A was all that existed in the Single Point Universe A, but in AB this is not the case.[5]

If we go back to the Circle universe from Experiment two, is it analogous to say "All halves of the universe are impermanent because they are ended buy their opposite halves?" I am not at all sure about that, but it seems to kind of make sense. I think it is analogous  to the case of the impermanence of A and B.

This implies that all things are impermanent without the need for things like change in the “tick-Tock” or “Tickle causes giggle" sense. We will see shortly how impermanence is maintained all the way up, but  think about how it starts in a very simple sense with just Two Points.

New Property: Connectivity

Imagine how you visualised the Glove Universe in the first experiment. You could imagine and speak of the relationships between the parts. "Two fingers are between two other fingers," for example.

Can we do this in any sense with the Two Point Universe? Can we pick out structural properties? I think we can, and reason is that if AB  contains nothing but A and B, ie, no space or time or other parts ,then it follows that there can be nothing between A and B.  Thus, AB must be in a structural sense rather than physical sense , touching.  The term we can use for this structural touching with nothing in between is “Connectivity” . We now have a new Truth for the AB Truth list, Connectivity.

Connectivity is entailed by creation of more than one, as is difference.  It just can’t be any other way, if it was you would have been stipulating a Game Universe  of more than two points.

Conclusion to the Third Experiment

We imagined different glove universes but in the case of the Two point, as the One Point, our stipulations will logically be identical. Maybe I have missed True statements about the Two Point universe that you add to your list, that statement I have overlooked will also be true of my universe.

All possible truths Lists about AB (and thus,  BA) will necessarily be the same, they will necessarily be at least:

• True (AB):
  • A exists.
  • A is identical with A.
  • B exists.
  • B is identical with B.
  • A and B are Different.
  • A and B are Connected.

We have Properties in the two Point Universe that we don't have in the one point, like Difference or Change and Connectivity but these are necessary, they must be true of all such universes. In the next Thought experiment we will see how with three points we have contingency, and that's when things really start to get possible.

Also in the next thought experiment we will see about Emergence. Difference and Connectivity are emergent properties in the TWO point universe, but in this Game Universe they are Necessarily Emergent. In the next experiment we will  look more to the almost magical Abstract Property of Emergence. Ta Da!

(By the way if you would like a PDF of the whole Game Universes essays then please contact me above, no problemmo)

[2] Its really easy to get confused by the possibility of space in these kinds of two glove universes, and that’s because the structure of the glove contains space as it is. As we saw in Experiment one, you cannot really imagine a single red ladies glove universe but that is fine for the Universe Game.

[3] In these photos of the gloves there is the perspective of the photo, this wouldn’t be in any Game Universe that was a universe of just two gloves.

[4] It seems reasonable to think that “A is the biggest point in the universe” and “B is the biggets point in the universe” are inconsistent truths, this is because they. If they were combined from simpler truth lists then one of them would be falsified at the point of stipulation.

[5] It is easier to imagine an eternal, changeless single point than an eternal changeless two point, because of difference.

In the last experiment area of the Circle in the Perfect Circle Universe contained no difference. It was all the same. There was no truth we couldn’t say about any point inside the circle that we couldn’t say about infinitely many other points in the same circle. If it was True of any point it was True of infinitely many points. Many truths are Trivial about the Perfect Circle Universe.

Think about the circumference of the Perfect Circle. It doesn’t have any width or texture or any property other than something like “being different to the possible points that are not on the circumference.” Just like the innards, the Statements about the edge are equally Meaningless or Trivial.

If you try to question about what’s outside the Perfect Circle in the Perfect Circle Universe, then you know your Question will be meaningless.... but interestingly there seems no difference to the inside as the outside, apart from in that fact alone.

All of these kinds of musings suggest that there is no nontrivial difference between a Perfect Circle Universe and a universe that is no shape or structure or inside or outside, that is, a Perfect Point.

Imagine a Universe that is a Single Point

Stipulate it has no time, space, change, structure... nothing, just a point.

We don’t know what that means in any deep or metaphysical sense. I can’t imagine a Single Point Universe like I think I can a Glove Universe or a Cosmic Universe and I certainly can’t imagine it like I can imagine yesterday’s lunch.  But, just like with gloves and circles and anything else, we can think about and add to the the Truth, False and Meaningless Lists for the Single Point Universe.

Now let’s play... you can go first.  But you have to start with a True Statement or False statement, as Meaningless ones with the Single Point Universe are very abundant.  Most people find it hard to come up with even one, for a while, until they say, with some ephiany, “It just is!”

This is the first truth of the Single Point Universe, “It is.” Which can be expressed in many synonymous ways: “It is” or “The point  exists” or “The point has being”[1]

So that’s One truth and its False:

• True(Single Point universe):
  • The point exists
  • False (Single Point Universe):
    • The point does not exist.

Metaphysically, this notion is a bit of a mindtwister, I find. The idea that something can be nothing but being and that this is distinct from not being. Where does it come from? This is also a Metaphysically mindtwisting question but one we can get something like an answer to, at least for Game Universes.

We know there is the First Rule of noncontradiction. The instant we Stipulate a Single Point universe this rule comes into play. We know the Point  must exist in the Universe because we stipulated A universe that is just one point, nothing else.  If it didn’t exist then it would contradict the Stipulation of its own creation.

Existence is the first property. It is what distinguishes things from nothings. It arises out of Noncontradiction and the Stipulation. There are some questions to ponder on this at the end of the Section, but for now lets find the next Truth about the Single Point Universe.

We know the point exists .It has to exist else rules of the game wouldn’t be being followed, just as 8 fingered ordinary gloves. But it seems that everything else we can say about it is Meaningless.

• Meaningless (Single Point Universe)
  • It is wide
  • It has symmetry
  • It has asymmetry
  • It has parts[2]

It seems. At first, that  all  statements are meaningless but that it exists. Howver there is one more I can think of which you can find by not thinking aboput the point itself but about the Truth and False list defining it.  To recap:

• True(Single Point universe):
  • The point exists
  • False (Single Point Universe):
    • The point does not exist.

All other statements go on the Meaningless  list but one, and this is one that describes the connection between True and False lists. They are not identical, they can never be the same. So now we have two Statements in the True and their negations in the False:

• True(Single Point universe):
  • The point exists
  • The Point is Identical with itself
  • False (Single Point Universe):
    • The point does not exist.
    • The point is not different from itself.

Existence was the first Property, the second Property is Identity. Everything is identical with itself. Nothing is different from itself. It is a Trivial Truth, for sure, but, like the First Rule, like the necessity of Existence, this second Property of all things is that they are self-identical, is Foundational.

What are Properties?

A Property is True of something. There are many kinds of properties[3] and what they all share is that they can be true or false of some possible thing.

All things either have a certain Property in the Game Universe or they do not,  or that Property does not exist in the Game Universe (in which case statements and questions it contains would be Meaningless)

It is important to see, that from the Beginning, from this most simple of “things” Properties arise, they are not introduced.

It is equally important to see that it is very easy to “accidentally” introduce Properties into the Game Universes. The moment we do that we are committing one of the biggest faux pas in Philosophy

Conclusion: The Single Point Philosopher

The Single point universe is logically the most Simple Universe anything could consistently imagine or represent. All we can say are four Trivial statements about it.  It is the most minimal part, or point, we can conceive of and speak logically about.

Before you go onto the next experiment you should think about the Single Point Universe in every way you can and whatever way you feel. Maybe you can meditate, maybe you can contemplate, maybe you can try to visualise, or otherwise represent it somehow to yourself. Maybe you just think about the Truth Lists that describe it.

You will find there are countless questions you cannot answer or make sense of, but you should never find contradiction.  Try to disprove its possibility or doubt the Points existence.  Try to show the Game has a flaw in its very rules that leads to inconsistency.

And then you might like to try to use whatever you have acquired from these philosophisings  to help you think through these kinds of questions about the Single Point Universe:

• Is there any mystery about what Existence is in the Single Point Universe other than Stipulation and No contradiction?
• Is an analogous Question relative to our Universe:  “What Stipulations lead to the Big Bang?”
• Can you make sense of the Single Point not existing in the Single Point Universe?
• What is the difference between it existing and not existing?
• Does it contain Pi?
• Does the Single Point Universe contain the anything like time or space?
• Is it true that 4+6=10 in the Single Point Universe?
• If it exists can it then not exist?
• Are the Truth Lists of the Single Point Universe contained within the reality we are now in, This Universe?
• Are all things identical with themselves in this universe, like they are in the Single Point Universe?

Most of these Game Universes are going to be constructed using just Single Points, exactly like above. And this is why I think it is important that you have a logical and metaphysical understanding of the limits of the Single Point Universe. To be able to say why statements are true, false or meaningless.

[2] I’m not sure about this. Maybe its False.

[3] Existing, being identical with, containing, loving, being before....

Introduction

Dharma is the set of foundational truths that the Buddha discovered two and a half millennia ago. They are not creations but foundations.

The Dharmic Truths are simple, profound and are realised at all levels of reality from the atoms at the big bang to the moral and mental realities of human experience. They can be succinctly stated in the doctrine that:

All things are consistent, impermanent, empty and negative.

This short essay is about these truths and how they affect reality and human experience. It will be philosophical not esoteric and, I hope, it will be accessible for all wish to contemplate these truths and their effects.

The ultimate genius of the Buddha wasn’t to discover the Dharmic Truths[1] but to see how they conditioned human experience and how human effort could reduce or remove this conditioning. It is this endeavour that most of Buddhism and most Buddhists focus on, it’s a noble effort, where the real work of maximising peace, truth and happiness take place.

This essay focuses more on the ontology[2] of Dharma and the metaphysical truths that the Dharmic truths entail at higher levels of reality such as causation, mind and morality. In a sense it is an attempt to show not just that Dharma is truth but why Dharma is truth.

The Systems View

When I first started studying Dharma I soon saw that when you move from the empirical down into the underlying foundations of the Dharma the view point that worked best for me was the Systems Viewpoint, seeing things as systems not objects.  For nearly a decade this is how I have seen Dharma and reality and – though many Buddhists may disagree – I find it is the way to see Dharma clearly.

The systems view sees the world not as containing independent objects with properties, but rather as a hierocracy of interconnected systems.  As systems become more complex new properties emerge. As they become simpler, emergent properties vanish. But at every point there is a continuum of consistency between systems.

For example, The molecules of water in your eyes are systems; they have structure and causation and relationships with other molecules.  Your eyes themselves are systems with structure and causation and relation.  Your vision of this bold word is, for a moment, a system.  As is your memory of this sentence as it is held in your brain or the way you may speak with others about this essay.  Though you contain countless systems from molecules to memories you are also a part of countless systems. From your relationships and tax history to your infinite insignificance in this universe of ours. This view sees all contingent[3] things as systems not objects.

The Systems View, since the last century, has been the predominant view in science. It is backed up by reason and evidence from the largest to the smallest, the moist simple to the most complex and emergent. We can never know from the Sutras if the Buddha was a systems theorist but, by applying the Systems View to Dharma, we can see how perfectly they compliment.

Let us now look into Dharma with the view of reality as being composed of systems in relation rather than independent objects with properties.

The Dharmic Truths

There are many Dharmic truths at all levels of Abstraction, for example,  the  egolessness of mind or the idea that kind actions are more likely to have positive effects than negative. These more abstract truths are dependent upon the Four Dharmic Truths below.  It is so essential to understand Dharma to understand these foundational truths.

Dharmic Truth One: All systems are consistent

Consistency is the foundational truth of all systems. There can be no contradictions within any possible universe [4].

This Dharmic Truth, that in the Western philosophy has been called The Law of Noncontradiction since the time of the Buddha  isn’t explicitly stated in the  Buddhist texts. In fact  some of the later scriptures seem to actively endorse the possibility of contradiction[5].

I believe, simply and absolutely, that the consistency of all things is the prerequisite to any account of reality.  You can see this with Dharma because as soon as you allow the possibility of contradiction, as with  Western Logic, the whole structure collapses into nonsense.

Without this grounding Law of consistency there cannot be reason or foundation. There could not be Dharma.

Dharmic Truth Two:  All systems are impermanent

In a universe that has change it follows all things must change. That is, there cannot be the immutable with the mutable.  As with consistency, the Ancient Greek philosophers had apprehended this law, though not all believed in it and certainly its impact on human experience wasn’t apprehended.

The Buddha’s understanding of impermanence expanded on the mere logical/ontological into every corner of reality and possibility. On its own the idea that all systems change is almost trite such is its obviousness, but in the context of the other Dharmic truths and their emergent effects on our experiences, it is the most important truth we can know.

Dharmic Truth Three:  All systems are empty

In a universe composed of  interconnected and impermanent systems there is no sense in which anything can be said to exist independently of anything else. There are no edges, no objects.

From anywhere in reality, if you look upwards and outwards this interconnectedness of systems can be seen clearly. But... when you look downwards, into the subsystem, this interconnectedness is apprehended differently; it’s apprehended as emptiness.

To see this, consider any object, physical or conceptual. Maybe it’s the pen in your pocket or the unicorn that isn’t behind you. All objects will be part of a containing and interconnected reality. The pen in your pocket is connected to the big bang and, in abstract senses, to my love of avocadoes. If it was true at the big bang that I would love avocadoes at the same time as your having a pen in your pocket, then it is true at all times and points of the universe. This is not the only connection but it is the necessary connection of all things, that of consistency.

When we look outside of the pen in your pocket we see this connection, but when we look inside it, the very same truths become realised as emptiness. Every point of your pen is contingent to the pen, it could be negated and the pen would still be the pen. Also, every point of your pen, contains points in the same relationship as to the pen. The nib contains points and those points contain points, right down to whatever it is we cannot speak about [6].

Emptiness and Interconnectedness are the same Dharmic truth applied in different directions of the hierarchy of reality.  The Buddha was the first to see this profound truth and how it conditions reality and experience.

Dharmic Truth Four:  All systems are inevitably negative.

This Dharmic Truth is, at higher levels of abstraction, the most renowned concept of Buddhism, Dukka[7]. What the Buddha saw was why this truth is true.  Consider these three points:

1) Systems are immeasurably rare.

If you think about the cosmic chances of you reading this essay they are immeasurably small. To be here on this planet, as evolved life, with evolved emergent mental states and the internet etc... That’s rare enough, but that kind of probabilistic scarcity is dwarfed by the chances that this universe could exist out of the countless possible universes in which the laws and initial conditions would never allow such things as essay and readers.

Out of the logically possible alternatives, a system such this awesomely improbable, yet here we are.  Existence is the rarest state, it has a raw ontological value. Existence is the only real value. All other values are emergent, this is perhaps an awkward point to grasp, but it is much harder to refute.

2) All systems will end.

We know this from the Dharmic Truth of Impermanence.

3) All systems have no inherent value.

We know from emptiness that there are no things with properties. Nothing can have an inherent property and thus nothing can have an inherent value except for the raw ontological value of existence.

These three points, together, verify or entail[8] the truth that all systems will inevitably tend towards nonexistence and thus tend from the positive to the negative.

I think it is important not to get tied up too much in the application of a value term like “negativity” to prime ontological elements. The point is that the Truth of negativity, when applied to more complex and abstracted mental/moral/social systems, will be realised in terms of negativity as we more commonly understand it. For example, there was no suffering at the Big bang, but the Dharmic reality was in place at that and all points that when there were sufficiently complex emerged systems there would be suffering;  when life evolves enough to be sentient, self-aware, emotive, evaluative etc then this inevitable negative  will emerge as negative experience.

These Four Dharmic Truths are true of all possible systems. All possible systems are consistent, impermanent, empty and negative. This is the foundation of Dharma, the rest of this essay looks at the Dharma the Buddha build upon this foundation.

Dharmic Causation: Dependent Origination

The Dharmic causal framework is simple and sophisticated and perfectly in tune with current understandings of science and philosophy. It is a many to many framework that I think it can be clearly summarised as:

All causes have many effects. All effects have many causes. All causes are effects.

We saw in the discussion of the Dharmic Truth of Emptiness how all points in any reality are connected by consistency. This moment is connected by consistency to the other side of the universe, even if it could never be connected in any physical or cause/effect sense.[9]

All of these logical connections form the totality of reality. The Dharmic Causal framework operates within this totality in that it is a reduced (though still immense) set of the logical connections that are the possible causal connections.

As an illustration, consider the consistent connections of reality making a vast grid of countless points of possibility and the casual connections making countless branching paths through this grid of possibility.  All causal connections will be logical connections but not all logical connections will be causal. Every event within this grid will be root, trunk and branch, connected in all possible directions with countless other events, that are likewise, root, trunk and branch themselves.

When we look at reality and see the various domains[10] of things in the world, the physical, mental, aesthetic, moral and metaphysical, this many to many causation must, because there are only systems, cross over these domains. Mental events have moral and physical effects. Physical events have qualitative effects in experience. For any domains you care to consider, there will be the possibility of causal connections between them.

The Buddha saw this clearly and, importantly he saw that relevant to human experience there will inevitably be a cycle feedback between the domains of experience. Its this cycle, as we shall see, that it is the task of the practice of Dharma to halt. But for now what is crucial to see is how the many to many nature of causation means that we cannot know for any cause where in time, space, possibility and domain its effects will be found.

Dharmic Moral Causation: Karma

Whereas the Dharmic causal framework was a subset of the consistency connections between all possibilities, the Karmic Framework is a subset of this causal framework that applies to the mental, moral, social domains.

I think it makes sense to use probability when thinking about Karma. This way we can say statements like, “Moral causes will have moral effects” or “Mental effects will have mental causes”. But because of the interconnectedness of all systems as with “normal” causation with Karmic causation there is also going to be crossover, so mental events may have moral effects or moral causes may have aesthetic effects and so on.

The reality of Karma is that this many to many causation between domains will also follow truth that the moral or mental value of actions will be passed on into these causal connections.  Negative Moral actions will have negative moral, mental, physical... effects.

Positive moral actions will have positive moral, mental, physical effects. I don’t see these connections as necessary but rather probabilistic, as in compassion is probably more likely to have positive effects than negative effects.[11]

This is Karma, it is not magic or esoteric, its about the moral causation and the emergent values of experience.

Dharmic Theory of Mind

The Dharmic Theory of mind is simple and compelling and becoming ever more backed up by science. I think the essence is clearly summed up by the statement:

There is no thinker, only thoughts.

This is Egolessness. It is the Dharmic Truth of Emptiness as it conditions the mind and experience. This does not mean that there is not the illusion of some Cartesian ego within my mind, in fact much of the Path of  Dharma is understanding and eradicating this illusion. But what The Buddha does in addition to seeing egolessness proceed to determine what our minds are outside of this illusion of ego.

Clearly, there is something to mind, he saw, and then went to state what it is. What is the mind if not ego and self?

The answer that the Buddha gives to this is that the mind is empty, it is nothing but the causal interconnectivity between types of mental and physical events. There are events in the physical world external to the mind. There are the effects these events have in terms of sensation, perception, recollection. There are the reaction to these events in terms of choices, thoughts, intentions and emotions[12]

These loose domains of mentality are the stuff that makes up the mind but something is missing, that is the experience of these changing events. This experience is simply the flowing realisation of all of the above aggregate events at any given moment. This is consciousness[13], the aggregate of mental effects and causes as they come consistently into and out of existence.

An understanding of the Dharmic Mind, the thoughts without thinker, is absolutely crucial to understanding egloessness (The emptiness of mind).  And without an understanding of egolessness, according to Dharma, one cannot fruitfully practice Dharma.

Dharmic Morality

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Confucianism, Shinto, Sikhism and  Sufism have as Moral Cornerstones The Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31). Buddhism likewise has its version of The Golden Rule. As do Humanists and probably anyone who isn’t morally impoverished or “evil.”

Dharma, however, seems to offer an explanation as to why The Golden Rule is seems so self evident without recourse to divine decree or assumed natural moral law. In purely individual terms the reason why we should act in accordance to The Golden Rule is because of the Karmic effects of our actions. Its not so much that the rule must be followed as if it is not followed there will inevitably be negative Karmic effects.  But there is something missing in this view, which reduces to altruism for selfish reasons, and this is where Buddhism profoundly diverges from other moralities.

Dharmic Morality is not based a conflict between self and other that must be resolved by what is essentially a moral trade off.  Rather, by showing the illusionary nature of self and other, and the possible interconnectedness of all moral/mental systems, the reason that actions “should be good” is to maximise the positivity of the whole system, not these illusionary egos of ours.

When seen in this way Dharmic moral choices become less about reactions and effects and more about the choices themselves and the Karmic effects that can never be seen before the choice is made. It is a morality based not just on doing but on being, on the intention rather than the action.

This morality permeates throughout the whole of Dharma. There is a moral value to the contemplation of reality in the same way as there is a moral value to not driving selfishly. When there are no edges, the effects of our actions can be immense even if they go unnoticed unseen.

Dharma Practice

The Dharmic Truths are true of all possible consistent universes. They form a consistent, self-supporting philosophical doctrine that reaches from the most simple to the most complex.  For me, and I think all Buddhist’s, where these Truths really shine their enlightening light is how they condition our experience. The most profound realisation of The Buddha wasn’t metaphysical, it was how the metaphysical conditions our lives and how our lives can be changed to condition themselves.

The Buddha showed that the negativity we experience in our lives is not accidental. It’s not merely that “life is unfair” but rather it is an inevitable negativity. It’s root causes are the very foundations of Dharma; consistency, impermanence and emptiness/interconnectedness. These truths that are true of all systems will, when apprehended by our human minds have negative effects across all of our experiences.

Problem

The higher we get in abstraction the more acute the negativity becomes. We are here because we want to survive but we know can’t survive for long. We want to be special because we know we are special -  we feel so special - but that is just the illusionary ego begging to be real. We want things but when we have them their value instantly diminishes... and diminishes.  We want more things and different things... gulping for the real and the important in a torrent diminishing returns. Onwards and onwards this cycle of desire for “more than this” can never be satisfied because, foundationally, there never can be “more than this”.

Cause of Problem

We are constantly drowning in this cycle of desires and delusion.

The Buddha saw this clearly in his interactions, contemplations and mediations, but moreover he saw there was a real and workable solution to this cycle of negativity. The solution was not to try to satisfy the negative cycles but to extinguish them. The solution was not to pander to the desires and delusions of ego but to dive in and pull the plug on the entire maelstrom of inevitable negativity.

Solution to Problem

The action that must be taken, The Buddha saw,  is to confront head on the illusions of ego, persistence,  object and “more than this” , to understand and end them. When the ignorance of the illusions and delusions is eradicated the self-arising cycle of negativity cannot continue. The cravings for “more than this” become pointless and unable to grasp or be grasped.  All that remains is the wonderful, rare and transient present moment of experience. This “Now” we all share but seem conditioned by ignorance to see as trivial, when the Now is all there is.

But knowing the solution is not enough, The Buddha saw. That will not diminish the causes, rather, effort and action needs to be taken to confront the realisation of what is known.

Practicing  The Solution

The Buddha saw that the cycle of negativity was inevitable but not necessary. He saw its causes and  he realised that without the causes the self-arising cycle could be halted. These are the first three of the Four Noble Truths.  The final cornerstone of Dharma is the actual method that The Buddha proposed to extinguish the causes of the cycle of Negativity. This method requires an assault against the illusions and ignorance on all fronts.

The ignorance can be ended by understanding the Dharmic truths and seeing how they could not make our experience different to the inevitable. The illusion of ego can be extinguished by understanding the nature of our thoughts and their relation to the world and its causation and necessities.  The negativity of experience can be negated by the positivity of the moral and mental efforts we can make within ourselves and with others.

The ultimate insight of the Buddha, The Forth Noble Truth, was to clearly see and signpost the path that leads from ignorance right through the reality and causes of negativity all the way to positivity of the egoless now. This path the Buddha divided into eight strands that together comprise the philosophical, moral, social and personal journey one can make away from the inevitable negative.

This Noble Eightfold Path[14] is gradual and even small seemingly insignificant steps on it can have positive effects on our lives and the lives of others. Driving through the traffic jam with compassion, patience and mindfulness can be as much a step on the Path of Dharma as sitting meditating on a mountaintop. This is a point that modern Buddhism seems to all too often ignore. The illusive detestation of  “enlightenment” is set up as a goal that must be strived for whereas, it seems to me, that the profound and accessible enlightenment is the very path itself.

[2] “Ontology” is the study of existence and being and the attempt to understand which statements are true of existing things as opposed to nonexisting things.

[3] By “contingent” here  I mean all things that are not the laws of reality or the underlying “stuff” that exists, whether it is fluctuations in quantum foam or the wishes of a god or something else.

[4] There may be contradictions between this universe and other possible universes, that’s fine, because they are not this universe.  In a sense an individual possible Universe is the totality of consistent truths.

[5] Later schools of Buddhism, especially Zen, actively support and utilise the statement of contradictions. It seems to me that this is either another (of the many) distortions of original Buddhism or a tool, as with Zen Koan’s, to assist in the understand in of Dharma.

[6] The Buddha is often supposed to be against the Metaphysical questioning of reality but I think this is mistaken view, rather he is specifically talking about what underlay existence (foam, god etc) rather than the structure of the things that exist.

[7] Dukka is the experience of the inevitable negativity of reality manifested as inner/outer conflict, suffering, stress, strain, diminishing returns and impossible satisfactions.

[8] I am not sure which.

[9] This moment is said to be outside the light cone of any moment on the other side of the universe.

[10] By “Domain” here I mean a conceptual domain that cannot be seen in terms of the system but only when in from the perspective of experience.  Emotions might be one domain and knowledge or sensation others.

[11] I think this is something that can be shown to emerge from the consistency of all things but i am not there yet.

[12] These above form the first four of the five aggregates of Mind.

[13] Consciousness is the Fifth of the Five Aggregates.