Paul C. Mocombe*,
Introduction
This article highlights how we humans know about what Mocombe calls the absolute vacuum and the worlds that it produces in his theories of phenomenological structuralism and consciousness field theory. The absolute vacuum is the Mocombeian ontological name for the fifth-dimensional probability wavefunction that gives rise to the material worlds, their facts, relations of ideas, and mathematical principles, we as a species experience. The work explores the epistemologies, which are divided between materialism and post-materialism, involved in knowing about consciousness, the absolute vacuum, and its material worlds. The facts, relations, and things of the world, ontologically, emanate from what Mocombe calls the absolute vacuum, a nonlocal and nonspatial (extra-dimensional) material substance (subatomic particles) where all of the information, including consciousness, of the multiverse is one, existing as a probability wavefunction, and recycled to reproduce entangled and superimposed material worlds (Mocombe, 2021a, 2021b). We know about the latter (the material worlds) and the former (absolute vacuum) via the senses and extrasensory perceptions, materialism, and post-materialism, respectively. Hence, Mocombe’s theory offers both a materialist as well as a post-materialist epistemology to knowing.
Background of the Problem
Mocombe’s (2009, 2016, 2019, 2021a, 2021b) physic, metaphysic, and philosophy (phenomenological structuralism) posit that we humans experience the material world via consciousness, the awareness of internal and external phenomena, and qualia. For Mocombe, consciousness is an emergent fifth force of nature that arises from beings experiencing superimposed and entangled worlds, which gives rise to consciousness fields (consciousness field theory) the phenomenal properties, and qualia, of which emerge as psychics, the subatomic particle of consciousness (along with the elementary particles of the other forces of nature) that is integrated in the absolute vacuum following matter disaggregation across the multiverse. In Mocombe’s theory of phenomenological structuralism, in other words, consciousness is an emergent fifth force of the universe, composed of elementary particles, psychics (psychon once embodied), with phenomenal properties, qualia, that are received by the brain as resonance, from the absolute vacuum and local consciousness fields, and integrated by its (the Brain’s) electromagnetic field to constitute mind, practical consciousness, and the self in material worlds of the multiverse. The phenomenal properties, qualia, of the psychics of a consciousness field, following matter disaggregation throughout the multiverse, either collapse upon other superimposed and entangled versions (resonances) of themselves throughout the multiverse, or are integrated, along with the subatomic particles of the other four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces), in the absolute vacuum of a (fifth-dimensional) superverse to create (via quantum fluctuation and tunneling) future beings and worlds with consciousness and phenomenal properties. As such, the psychions of the consciousness field, once assimilated in the absolute vacuum, is an interconnected, endless, and nonlocal fifth force of nature, which, initially, emerges following matter aggregation and disaggregation in the multiverse. It is an endless assimilation of all past, present, and future information (practical activities and memories), Platonic forms, of beings of the multiverse recycled via the absolute vacuum (empty space in which elementary particles, quarks, and constituents of matter and forces of nature have become one), which fluctuates as a probability wave function, to give rise to entangled and superimposed worlds, each with their own consciousness fields, which produce future things and beings with consciousness. In other words, for Mocombe “the absolute vacuum,” exists independently of the (local) reality/realities we experience, which is a particular manifestation of the probability wavefunction of it (absolute vacuum) (Mocombe, 2019, 2021a, 2021b). Hence, for Mocombe the multiverse and its worlds are a material by-product of the absolute vacuum, i.e., nonlocal spacetime, and local consciousness fields, which bear the facts, relations and states of affairs, and things (including consciousness) emanating from the probability wavefunction of the former (absolute vacuum). It (the absolute vacuum), as defined by Mocombe, is whole (containing all of the phenomenal properties of the multiverse as a probability wavefunction), emergent (phenomenal properties, qualia, of embodied subatomic particles experiencing local consciousness fields), uncreated, and limited (the latter two a result of, and constrained by, the former two, i.e., the absolute vacuum emerges from, and is the experience of, the elementary forces of nature and the multiworlds they have created). Epistemologically, we know about the absolute vacuum, in consciousness, via paranormal and parapsychological extrasensory perceptions and experiences; and we know about the material worlds it produces via logical relations of things and states of affairs and the five senses.
Theory and Method
Consciousness here refers to the subjective awareness of phenomenal experiences, qualia, (ideology, language, self, feelings, choice, control of voluntary behavior, thoughts, etc.) of internal and external worlds (Chalmers, 1996; Hameroff & Penrose, 2014; Mocombe, 2021, 2021a). The academic (scientific) literature “describes three possibilities regarding the origin and place of consciousness in the universe: (A) as an emergent property of complex brain neuronal computation, (B) as spiritual quality of the universe, distinct from purely physical actions, and (C) as composed of discrete ‘proto-conscious’ events acting in accordance with physical laws not yet fully understood” (Hameroff & Penrose, 2014, p. 70). These three possibilities are divided into two epistemological approaches, materialism and post-materialism, to understanding the ontological origins and nature of consciousness in the world. The former, (A), a materialist approach, emphasize the laws of classical physics to posit consciousness as the by-product of the neural correlates of the physical substrates of the material brain (Chalmers, 1996). The latter two (B and C) are post-materialist approaches to understanding consciousness, which emphasizes the emergence of consciousness as an external phenomenon that exists outside of the physical substrates of the brain either in the form of panpsychism or cosmo psychism/pan spiritism. Both post-materialist perspectives use the concepts and theories of quantum mechanics to either complete the materialism of the (A) camp, i.e., the (C) camp or to ground fourteen paranormal and parapsychological (near-death experiences, telepathy, telekinesis, out-of-body experiences, physic mediumship, etc.) empirical data as proof for the external nature of consciousness, i.e., the (B) camp, which is received by the brain (Chalmers, 1996; van Lommel, 2010; Mocombe, 2021, 2021a).
Discussion
Mocombe’s ontology is both a materialist and post-materialist account of consciousness and how we know about it and its world epistemologically. In Mocombe’s ontology, the human mind or consciousness, which is a material thing (fifth force of nature), is presented with the brute facts, relations of ideas, states of affairs, and things (it’s phenomenal properties, qualia, which exists as a probability wave-function, in a fifth-dimensional nonlocal and non-spatial ether) of the multiverse, emanating from the probability wavefunction of the absolute vacuum, which it (consciousness, once embodied) attempts to identify, reify, and universalize through concepts of language, social structure, and mathematics in local consciousness fields of material worlds of the multiverse. So, the facts, relations of ideas, states of affairs, and things of the world exist as a probability wave function, via what Mocombe calls the absolute vacuum, irrespective of the human mind, which simply identifies and categorizes them in order to experience being in the world with others and things they encounter. In other words, for Mocombe the constitutive human mind, emerging from consciousness, is presented with the brute facts, relations of things, and states of affairs of the multiverse radiating and resonating from the absolute vacuum and its consciousness fields, which it attempts to localize, reify, and universalize through concepts of language, mathematics, and social structure in material worlds. So, the facts, relations of ideas, states of affairs, and things of the world have emergent essences that come to exist in the absolute vacuum as universal essences (Platonic forms) of experience, irrespective of the human mind, which simply highlights and categorizes them to experience being-in-the-world with others and things they encounter through their particularity (particular manifestations) in the local consciousness fields of entangled and superimposed worlds of the multiverse.
The Mocombeian understanding in phenomenological structuralism is that (universal) brute facts, relations of ideas, states of affairs, and objects presuppose (as phenomenal properties of subatomic particles) our local experiencing of them, following our initial experiences of them, which get encoded permanently (thereby creating these universals) in the multiverse via the probability wavefunction of the absolute vacuum, the fifth-dimensional nonlocal space where all the elementary particles of the multiverse and their phenomenal properties, qualia, are one. The constitutive human mind, which emerges from consciousness (a resonance from the absolute vacuum received and facilitated by the brain), is presented with the experiences and sensations of brute facts, states of affairs, and things of the emerging and organizing multiverse and consciousness fields, which it attempts to localize, reify, and universalize through concepts of language, mathematics, and social structure. So, the facts, states of affairs, and things of the world have emergent essences that exist irrespective of the human mind, which simply identifies, highlights, and categorizes them to experience being in the world with others and things they encounter through their particularity (particular manifestations) in local consciousness fields of the multiverse. The universality of these emergent essences lies in the understanding that they are particular manifestations of things, states of affairs, and ideas, which share a common (entangled and superimposed) essence across the multiverse that is encoded as probability wavefunctions of phenomenal properties in the absolute vacuum, which is tantamount to Plato’s notion of forms. The human mind, itself an emergent essence, encounters the particular manifestations of these emergent essences, which they identify and reify via the concepts of language, mathematics, and social structure (which attempts to capture the essence and universality of these emergent essences through their particular manifestations), in particular (local) consciousness fields of the multiverse produced by the absolute vacuum.
Conclusion
This distinction between the probability wavefunction of the absolute vacuum and the superimposed and entangled local spacetimes (and their consciousness fields) it produces, for Mocombe, is the scientific equivalent to what Plato is, epistemologically, attempting to capture with his theory of forms. Unlike Plato’s idealism, given the underdevelopment of physics in his time, Mocombe’s ontology is a strict logico-metaphysical materialism, which accounts for the material world we experience (via our senses) as well as its relations of ideas and states of affairs—which the human mind captures via universals and abstract entities, which become universal essences in the absolute vacuum—via the probability wavefunction of the absolute vacuum. Whereas epistemological proof of the former, local consciousness fields of material worlds, is ascertained via the senses and the logical relations of ideas and states of affairs of our experiences in material realities; proof for the latter, the absolute vacuum, is demonstrated via what post-materialists call paranormal and parapsychological extrasensory perceptions and experiences, i.e., near-death experiences, psychic revelations, dreams, etc., which reveal to us its emergent existence, oneness, wholeness, and determinism. Human beings receive the emergent universal essences from the absolute vacuum via the resonance of psychions (the subatomic particle of consciousness, which is psychon once embodied) in particular (localize) universes and their consciousness fields where they name the particular manifestations of the emergent universal essences, which the absolute vacuum creates from the experiences of subjects of experience in entangled and superimposed local consciousness fields.
Future research must 1) continue to search for evidence of multiverses and other forms of existence tied to our present world, which will be similarly constituted as our own universe, and 2) proofs for the existence of the field of consciousness or consciousness field and its force, psychic, in order to falsify or verify Mocombe’s overall theories of phenomenological structuralism and consciousness fields.
