First principles

SPLectrum was conceived about a year ago. It started as an engineering project around domain specific languages (DSL) and collaborative AI. SPLectrum as a foundational philosophy was born only two months ago, when the seed principles materialised. Since then I spent my time researching how the SPLectrum and the seed principles fit within the philosophical and scientific realm. This culminated last week with my post on relational quantum mechanics (RQM). I was feeling my way, not always high in confidence: who are you that you dare to push the principles of the seed, those 6 lines, to us as the entirety of your foundation to build on?

The fact that my focus suddenly organised itself around a set of simple principles has been an odd event and a game changer. The SPLectrum name comes from a collaborative AI software engineering project. Its philosophical contents come from years of interest in all things evolution — in the physical and mental realm. Both sides slowly drifted more and more into the language realm, the medium of expression. Then, suddenly, the seed fell into place. It was with relief that I noticed that this ‘turn’ fits well. It sits nicely with the evolution of thinking in philosophy, but also in science, that happened over the last few hundred years. I don’t know if I succeeded but the posts of the last two months attempted to lift the curtain on this.

Now the fun can start. The game changer: let’s get building on those principles. How strong is the foundation, does it give us a consistent view of what we do in science, philosophy, religion, everyday life? If language really is the medium through which the world discloses itself then we should be able to apply the principles of the seed across all of our personal and shared realities.

Before we do the short walk past the principles I would like to add a disclaimer here. It is actually built into the principles themselves, as we’ll see, but I want to state it upfront to avoid any misunderstanding. When I speak from within SPLectrum there isn’t the slightest intent to impose anything onto others. On the contrary. Over time I have come to deeply respect all thought systems, beliefs, ways of life including those that are very alien to the person I am. Diversity is a necessity and respect an important core value.

P0 - Being implies language.
There is an intrinsic link between being and language — they come into existence together, neither prior. Being as in something that is different from the context it resides in. The dualism of being and the other. Language is what holds that difference and gives it meaning — the carrier of the relational interplay between being and the other. The joint presence of being and language across all that is, humans, other forms of life and also the non-living.

Interesting to note is the gradient. At one end static things — like a stone, shaped by what acts on it. At the other, dynamic things, what we call life. Between is a continuum: chemistry under feedback, ecosystems organising themselves, cultures constituting meanings. Life isn’t a category cleanly separated from non-life; it is a region on the gradient of self-sustaining language. And within any region, living and non-living are nested recursively. A lot to unpack here, and a lot to substantiate — looking forward to it.

P1 - Language is relational.
Language is a medium that binds things together — like glue, it tells a story of togetherness. How being and the other interrelate, recursively. It creates shape and character, an expression of belonging. Like words in a sentence, it binds encapsulated items together. We normally approach this from a human observer position. However, this constraint does not exist — anyone, anything can be an observer. And any type of relational interaction qualifies as language.

P2 - Language is the medium through which a subject experiences reality. Expect a battleground here. No reality without subject, no outside view seen from nowhere. What you experience is what you get, what is. The funny part is that in everyday life we acknowledge this: ‘He lives in a different world, a different reality’. But within science and philosophy there is a lot of pushback, tacit persistence of an outside view. What is often overlooked is that the lived experience of reality provides richness, where representation — the imperfect description of an outside reality — is in essence dead.

This post is part of the seed series. Continued in First Principles — the Social Core. See also the Seed section of the site.

Photo: Funen99 / Unsplash