Article 5 in the series: In Search of the Foundations of Reality
Disclaimer
The ideas presented in these articles are speculative and have not been experimentally confirmed. They constitute a philosophical-ontological exploration of possible underlying structures of physical reality, and are not intended as a replacement for experimentally verified physics. As far as can presently be established, the hypotheses described here are not in conflict with the experimentally confirmed results of theories such as quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. The central question is not how these theories might be replaced, but whether their descriptions could conceptually arise from a more fundamental underlying structure.
1. From Dynamics to a Ground Layer
In the previous article, the Nulcyclus was proposed as the simplest conceivable dynamic ground state: a permanent complementary dynamics without any net preference, presupposing neither space, nor time, nor matter. This provides a starting point, but not yet a reality. A dynamics that cannot lead anywhere ultimately explains no more than a completely inert ‘nothing’. The question addressed in this article is therefore no longer what nulcyclic dynamics is, but how it should be understood as a universal ground state—and how waves and matter might, in principle, emerge from it.
This step is the most difficult in the entire series, and I must therefore develop it with great care. It requires that something which is local, multiple and structured should nevertheless arise from a state without space, without separate parts, and without tempo. This article lays only the conceptual foundations for such a possibility. How such organisation could actually arise must be demonstrated by the further mathematical development.
At the end of the previous article, anticipating the further development, I referred to the possible coupling between nulcyclic units. This was a provisional way of describing how organisation might become conceivable. Upon closer examination, however, it appears that any pre-existing plurality of separate units already presupposes distinction and therefore, implicitly, spatial ordering. In this article a more fundamental formulation is therefore adopted: the ground layer is not formed by a collection of Nulcycli, but by a single internally differentiated Nulveld, from which plurality and organisation may subsequently emerge.
2. No Collection — Yet Not the Absence of Relation
The Nulveld is therefore not conceived as a collection of elementary units or parts. Any pre-existing plurality would already presuppose separate elements and, with them, implicit notions such as ‘here’ and ‘there’, distance, and spatial ordering. These are precisely the concepts that we wish to allow to emerge, and therefore they cannot serve as our starting point.
This does not mean, however, that all distinction is absent at this level. What is excluded is not distinction or relation as such, but a pre-existing spatial ordering. This distinction is crucial, because relational difference is the only material from which a ground state can be constructed. In Article 3, a fluctuation was defined as a relational difference between adjacent configurations, while the Nulcyclus itself is nothing other than a relational difference that continuously transforms into its opposite. If relation itself were also prohibited, literally nothing would remain from which anything could emerge.
The correct formulation is therefore more subtle than simply saying ‘no plurality’. There is no pre-existing plurality of objects, and there is no space, yet there is internal differentiation: distinction without distance. By internal differentiation I mean that the Nulveld, as I shall define it below, does indeed contain relational differences, but not yet any spatial separation between distinct objects. From these differences—and not from an already existing space—concepts such as beside, near and far should eventually emerge.
3. The Nulveld: One Reality, Internally Differentiated
What therefore remains as the initial situation is not a collection of things, but a single universal dynamic ground state. It is this universal dynamic principle, understood as the ground state, that I call the Nulveld.
From an ontological perspective, the Nulveld is the physical elaboration of the postulate of the Nulcyclus. It describes how permanent nulcyclic complementary dynamics should not be understood as a collection of separate units, but as one universal dynamic ground layer. In doing so, the Nulveld inherits the design requirements of the Nulcyclus: it introduces no preferred frame of reference, must remain compatible with Lorentz invariance, and is situated conceptually prior to—or beyond—the Planck scale, the boundary at which spatial descriptions first acquire physical meaning.
The Nulveld is not a medium within which dynamics takes place. It is that dynamics itself. At this level there is therefore no emptiness beside or between the Nulveld. ‘Emptiness’ and ‘location’ acquire meaning only once spatial organisation has emerged.
The ground layer of reality does not consist of something that moves; the permanent complementary dynamics itself constitutes the ground layer. It is reality at its most fundamental level, while everything else is a manner in which that one reality organises itself from within.
The following design requirements therefore continue to apply:
- no pre-existing space or metric time is introduced;
- no fundamental particles with permanent identity are assumed;
- no fundamental state of rest or preferred frame of reference is designated;
- the concrete relational dynamics still has to be determined mathematically;
- any Lorentz invariance must be derived later as an effective property.
The concepts of ‘one’ and ‘internally differentiated’ should not be interpreted here as an already established physical description. They define the ontological candidate structure that will be investigated further mathematically.
4. The Nulveld, Quantum Fields and the Planck Scale
The Nulveld should not be identified with a quantum field in the usual sense of quantum field theory. Quantum fields are described mathematically on a space-time structure and already possess physically interpretable quantities and dynamical laws. Within the present ontological description, the Nulveld possesses neither spatial coordinates, metric time, local field values, particle content, nor the known laws of interaction.
The Nulveld is therefore not presented as an alternative to quantum field theory. It is a candidate for a deeper relational level of description from which space-time, quantum fields and material organisation might emerge as effective structures. Whether this is indeed possible remains to be demonstrated. Nor is the Planck scale a property or dimension of the Nulveld. As explained earlier, it is used solely as a heuristic boundary. At present, the theory contains no derivation showing that the first spatial organisation appears precisely at the Planck scale.
5. What Carries Coherence?
At this point an objection arises that goes to the heart of the proposal, and one which I can neither avoid nor wish to avoid, just as in the case of the Nulcyclus. If there are no separate units and no space, what connects one part of the dynamics with another? Organisation can exist only if what occurs ‘here’ is coherent with what occurs ‘there’. Without such coherence, the dynamics would dissolve into disconnected, isolated fluctuations from which nothing stable could ever develop. But coherence between what, if there are not yet any separate parts?
Coherence is not carried by connections between pre-existing things, but by relational correspondence. In the further development, three closely related concepts play a central role: lossless pattern transfer, relational composition, and mutual correspondence.
These three concepts are also immediately recognisable from the perspective of computer science. In both cases, it is ultimately not the material carrier that is fundamental, but the pattern that is preserved, combined and carried forward.
In lossless pattern transfer, a relational pattern is transferred in such a way that the pattern itself remains unchanged during the transfer. This does not involve the transfer of matter or energy, but solely the transfer of relational state patterns within the same continuing nulcyclic dynamics. From the perspective of computer science, this resembles information transfer: it is not the physical carrier that is fundamental, but the pattern that is preserved. In the present theory, however, information is not yet introduced as a fundamental concept. On the contrary, the question is whether what we later call information may itself ultimately emerge from this relational dynamics.
In relational composition, several received patterns are combined into a single current organisation. Such an organisation continues to exist only when the relational differences involved continue to correspond to one another mutually. When this mutual correspondence proves capable of sustaining itself over time, I refer to it as retention. Coherence is therefore not a force acting between objects, but the enduring preservation of relational patterns. It is not objects that form the foundation of reality here, but relational organisation.
Adjacency thus acquires a precise, non-spatial meaning: two configurations are neighbours when their differences determine one another directly. Nearness is therefore not a property of space, but a consequence of the coupling structure. Space, if and when it emerges, is the ordered manifestation of that structure—not its precondition.
6. From Homogeneity to Organisation
The Nulveld contains relational differentiation, but this does not yet constitute enduring organisation. At this level there are no objects, directions or distances, nor any already-formed patterns. Nulcyclic dynamics continuously generates distinctions, but as long as these differences do not form a coherent organisation that is preserved, no recognisable organisation can arise. The Nulveld is therefore not a collection of possible organisations. It is the continuing dynamics from which organisations may emerge.
Homogeneity therefore does not mean the absence of difference, but the absence of enduring organised differences. The next question is how organisation can nevertheless arise within such a ground layer. The working hypothesis is that lossless pattern transfer, relational composition, and mutual correspondence—or retention—can, under certain conditions, form a jointly closed structure. Wherever such closure occurs, a relational organisation may remain recognisable under continuing nulcyclic evolution; where it does not occur, no enduring organisation arises. Exactly which conditions are required for this remains to be established by the mathematical development.
The nulcyclic dynamics itself does not disappear in the process. Even when organisation emerges, the same permanent complementary dynamics remains the underlying foundation. No new substance replaces the Nulcyclus; an organisation is simply a way in which that same ground layer orders itself relationally.
Natuurlijk. Hier volgt het laatste deel, wederom zo letterlijk mogelijk in verzorgd Brits-Engels.
7. What Makes an Organisation Endure?
The distinction between organisations or patterns that fade away and organisations that endure is the pivot upon which the remainder of the theory turns, for a particle is, above all, something that persists. This article does not yet resolve that question, but it is more honest to formulate it explicitly now than to leave it unaddressed.
An organisation cannot endure because it is maintained from the outside—there is no outside. It can remain only when its relational coherence is continually re-established within the ongoing nulcyclic dynamics. Stability therefore does not mean immobility, but recurrent or harmonically closed organisation: the organisation remains recognisable while the underlying dynamics continues.
Whether such recurrently closed organisations indeed possess a conserved, non-continuously deformable character—and thereby explain both their stability and their discrete, countable occurrence—is one of the challenging questions that the mathematical development will have to answer. I do not anticipate that answer here, but merely indicate where it should be sought. The Nulveld does not ‘create’ matter as something added to the ground layer. If this approach proves successful, matter would itself be a recurrently closed organisational form of that same nulcyclic dynamics. Light and matter would therefore not be things within the Nulveld, but enduring organisational forms of the Nulveld itself.
Perhaps the most challenging question for the Nulcyclus concept is how the ground layer—the Nulveld—can give rise to only a limited number of stable organisational forms, which we know as the electron and positron, together with the familiar nucleons, the proton and neutron, capable of persisting for long periods within appropriate organisations. How such stable organisational forms may, through successive stages of emergence, ultimately provide the foundation of the everyday reality we observe is precisely the question that the further mathematical development must answer. The Nulveld is therefore not the answer to the origin of matter; it is the minimal ground layer on which that question first acquires mathematical meaning.
8. The Greatest Challenge: Lorentz Invariance at the Collective Level
One design requirement deserves particular attention because its character changes at the level of the Nulveld. For the Nulcyclus, compatibility with Lorentz invariance could be justified quite straightforwardly: since the Nulcyclus is ordinal and possesses no tempo, no frequency—and therefore no preferred frame of reference—can be inferred from it. Once many relational differences become coupled and organise themselves into patterns, however, the danger reappears that classical physics once associated with the ether. A ground layer possessing internal correlations can all too easily introduce a preferred frame of reference. And that is precisely what Einstein excluded for the fundamental ground layer.
It cannot be concealed that this is perhaps the most demanding boundary condition for the entire emergence scenario. Indeed, this very requirement constitutes one of the most difficult open problems in other approaches that likewise regard space-time as emergent. The task of the forthcoming articles is therefore to demonstrate that the coupling and organisational structure of the Nulveld introduces no preferred frame of reference—that the emergent space and time arising from it naturally possess the symmetry required by the theory of relativity. If this cannot be achieved, the Nulveld would amount to nothing more than a disguised ether and would fail according to its own starting point. If it can be achieved, it would provide a strong indication that the chosen ground layer possesses precisely the right kind of simplicity. It is the most stringent test that the model sets itself.
9. Why Mathematics Becomes Essential from This Point Onwards
Up to this point, the central question has been ontological: what minimal ground layer is required to make a reality possible? From here onwards, however, the nature of the theory changes. The ground state itself is no longer the principal focus; instead, the question becomes which organisational forms are possible within that ground state—and this is a question that can only be answered mathematically.
The Nulcyclus was introduced as a postulate and therefore requires no derivation in itself. Once we begin to investigate which patterns, wave forms and stable configurations the Nulveld permits, however, a mathematical formulation becomes both inevitable and necessary. The role of mathematics is not merely to test the theory but also to construct it: it must derive the possible emergent structures from the coupling properties of the Nulveld while simultaneously demonstrating that neither space, nor time, nor any preferred frame of reference has been introduced implicitly. The emphasis of the series therefore gradually shifts from philosophical analysis to mathematical development. In these articles, however, the mathematics will only be outlined rather than discussed in depth. A separate document is being prepared for readers with a particular mathematical interest.
10. Looking Ahead: From Organisation to Waves and Matter
The next question is whether relational organisation can preserve its form while propagating through the Nulveld, and whether other organisational forms can become recurrently closed. Only afterwards can it be investigated whether such different modes of organisation may be interpreted physically as waves, light or matter.
The Nulveld prescribes no predetermined forms. Mathematics must determine which relational organisations can become recurrently closed through lossless pattern transfer, relational composition and mutual correspondence (which, when closure becomes self-sustaining, leads to retention). Only within a later physical projection can it then be investigated whether such closed organisational modes may be interpreted as waves, spatial structures or matter.
These are emphatically not yet results, but rather the bridges that the forthcoming articles will attempt to build. Only if the mathematical analysis genuinely produces stable, countable patterns that can be recognised as light, matter, space and time—and that respect Lorentz symmetry—can the Nulveld develop into a serious candidate for the foundation of physical reality. From this point onwards, the central question of the series therefore changes. No longer is the existence of the ground layer itself the principal issue, but rather which harmonious organisational forms the Nulveld permits mathematically. The mathematical development must subsequently demonstrate how such recurrently closed organisations may manifest themselves, through a physical projection, as spatial structure, waves and ultimately matter.
If this approach succeeds, the central question of physics may shift from “What is reality made of?” to “How does reality organise itself?” Reality would then no longer be understood primarily as a collection of elementary building blocks, but as the physical manifestation of an underlying relational organisation. Such a result would not only open a new perspective on physics, but potentially also on the relationship between information, space, time, light and matter.
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