About Entities

By Romana Annette  10/14/2010

Concepts about entities had been gestating in my mind for some time.  Entities were introduced to me in my studies of process philosophy.  I will not elaborate much on process philosophy here, except to say that, when a universe comes into existence, processes are set in motion that construct entities.  I shall not even attempt to explain why this happens, and there is no guarantee that we will ever be advanced enough to figure out why, especially if the entities themselves create feedback that might dramatically change reality.

There are at least two possible types of entities: real and virtual.  Real entities can be given a name, such as quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules, planets, stars, galaxies, animals, people, and so forth.  Entities are emergent objects of creation.  Emergence is the creation of new entities from component entities, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts.  For instance, a living cell is an entity, but its component atoms and molecules are not alive, because they cannot subjectively move or reproduce independent of the cell.

I have been discussing objectively real entities.  Intelligent living entities, especially technologically intelligent entities, can go on to create real entities with a subjective connotation, such as, spears, pottery, books, cars, televisions, airplanes, and so forth.  Subjectively real entities are just a real as any natural entity, since they will always be made up of natural components and obey all physical laws; however, they will only have special meaning for intelligent entities.  The tendency of intelligent entities to create subjective entities on a large scale might profoundly change reality, especially if such entities were based on new principles of self-organization.

Entities help establish a 1:1 correspondence with symbolic logic.  For instance, it is far easier to refer to the Sun as a star, rather than dense plasma, consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium, which derives energy from nuclear fusion.

Virtual entities may be things that our intuition sense, but are currently beyond our ability to identify.  Virtual entities cannot be given a name.  Virtual entities can arise from principles of equivalence; by which there can be more than one way to describe what is happening.  Often, virtual entities tend to have a top-down structure, while real entities have a bottom-up structure.  Top-down cannot explain where entities come from, while bottom-up is a feature of evolution.

Virtual entities can be used to describe processes such as the development of a fetus, wherein the virtual entity vanishes after a fetus is born.  The lines between real and virtual may not be clear in all cases.  I am sure that no living being wants to be labeled as virtual, instead of real.  Despite any dislike about virtual entities, some philosophers think everything is virtual, in the sense of being computer-generated.

I am not going to pursue concepts of fictional entities, such as werewolves and vampires.  Our fertile minds can easily imagine more entities than are physically possible.

Entities come in micro- and macro-entities.  Micro-entities are too small for us to easily observe, if at all.  Micro-entities are best described by quantum mechanics and particle physics.  The rules of quantum mechanics can appear to violate sensible concepts of cause and effect, and the mere act of observing can change outcomes.

Entities such as quarks, protons (composed of quarks,) and electrons are virtually eternal when compared to the projected lifetime of our Universe.  While there are theories that predict that even these particles will eventually decay, all efforts to document such decay have thus far failed.  This is fortunate, since a stable set of physical particles is essential to our very existence.

Some micro-entities, such as muons, do decay.  Theories often predict far more micro-entities than have ever been observed, which can lead to the conclusion that some micro-entities are virtual.  Currently, there is much fuss about the search for a micro-entity called the Higgs boson, which is an elusive particle that creates a field that gives matter mass.  The jury is still out, whether the Higgs boson is real or virtual.

Macro-entities help define what we refer to as reality.  While many micro-entities seem to be virtually eternal, macro-entities have distinct lifetimes.  All macro-entities involve some form of self-organization, whereby energy states are maintained that are not in ultimate thermal equilibrium.  In ultimate thermal equilibrium, all energy has run down to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

That macro-entities self-organize to create structures not in ultimate thermal equilibrium is a profound feature of our Universe.  I will treat self-organization as a given based on physical laws, since the origin of order and the evolution of universes is beyond the scope of this essay.

Macro-entities maintain temporary states of equilibrium.  Self-organization creates bottom-up evolving landscapes, that expand outward and meet other self-organizing entities to form valleys and mountains of creation. Transitions can involve phase changes, such as when the young hot Universe was transformed into the much cooler current version.  The self-organization of energy strictly follows the second law of thermodynamics, which states that energy levels will decrease over time.  Self-organized entities buy time for themselves, by using some of the available energy to maintain their structure.  Utilized energy is referred to as being negative, while the unutilized energy is positive.  The total energy is always positive, which means that all entities dump more energy than they use.

For micro-entities, the effective forces are the weak force, the strong force, and the electromagnetic force.  For macro-entities, gravity is the driving force.  The first stars were enormous, so they exploded to create black holes, which in turn became the seeds for galaxies, which are structures within which stellar evolution can occur.  Stars are continually exploding, which creates higher elements and areas of pressure within a galaxy.  This leads to star formation and areas that possess long-lived stability until their resident stars explode.  Thus, a rotating galaxy becomes a mixing pot of violent and stable regions.  This type of self-organization can go on for a long time, but eventually even galaxies will run down, unless they collide with other galaxies, which can restoke the fires of creation.

Stellar creation in galaxies also leads to the formation of planets.  There are so many stars, which have so many planets, that the formation of habitable planets will occur somewhere.  Life is a special case of self-organization, but it is not magic.  At some point, organic molecules become self-replicating.  Just as self-organizing matter seems to develop as if it had a purpose, so do living things seem to order themselves and evolve as if they had a purpose.  Our Universe may have a built-in template that is the origin of all purpose.  Such templates may be nothing more than information about what works, as a result of natural selection. 

Organic molecules can form indigenously, or be spread throughout the galaxy by exploding stars.  All sorts of complex organic molecules can occur naturally.  When certain organic pastes reach critical mass, autocatalytic reactions can take place.  Once self-organization has done its work, evolution can occur as a co-process.

The play between self-organization and evolution is reflexive.  Cells become organisms, and organisms become separate species.  In turn, species become dependent on one another and co-evolve.  This seems to follow a pattern.  Is there is an actual a pattern, or is the apparent pattern is just virtual entity?  All real entities are created and evolve locally.

I think of virtual entities as figures in carpets.  Our intuition says that there is a lot more than we can see, so we want to fill in the gaps.  Thus, virtual entities can exist far more in the eye of the beholder than in any actuality.  Virtual entities can evolve because our conceptual view of them is always evolving.  Some might think of God as the greatest of all virtual entities.  I have studied many potential models of God, and I think they are all wanting.  The coercive top-down model of God does not match the observed principles of self-organization.  The persuasive bottom-up model cannot distinguish between being an entity or just being information.  We don’t even know if information can be an entity.

I have noted in previous essays that the evolution of technological gods is inevitable.  Process philosophy adds an additional twist that what we think of as God is yet to come.  Our Universe is only about 13.5 billion years old, so with an estimated 100 to 200 billion year lifetime, the best may be yet to come.

This raises the question whether praying to any God is worthwhile.  Returning to my Buddhist roots, I remember that all prayer, all meditation, and all chanting are the effectively same in the end.  I think praying to a virtual God in useful, if one remembers that only living things can answer prayer, and that prayer is not likely to influence any natural processes.