Ion Soteropoulos

Thinking the Float Tank – Saturday, August 26, 2023 (Day 3)

The Infinite Whole: The Inductive Construction of the Universe qua infinite whole. How to give form and limit, that is, a body to the unlimited Universe without destroying its unlimitedness

Speaker Bio:

Ion Soteropoulos is an independent research philosopher and scientific metaphysician who was born in Greece and studied social sciences and philosophy at the University of Paris, where she founded the Apeiron Centre (2002) (www.apeironcentre.org), the first philosophical organization in the world that studies the idea of infinity in dynamic connection with the finite as presented in our physical universe, society and mind. She is also the author of the titles i) Metaphysics of Infinity: The Problem of Motion and the Infinite Brain (2013) and ii) The Infinite in Act (2007) and has written the scenario of the prize-winning short film Mind and Galaxy (2016), which she co-directed with Shiho Minami. Her most recent article is Apeiron Civilization: The Irruption of Infinity in Science and the Universe (2021). The research work of Ion Soteropoulos is a deep meditation on the nature and organizing principles of the physical universe, human perception, and accelerating growth in the light of Greek Ionian philosophy. 

Abstract:

For the Universe to exist, it must have a body, that is, a limiting boundary. Every existing body has a limiting boundary, even the infinite universe. The question is to reconcile the limited with the unlimited. In this work, we will show how it is possible to reconcile the perennial opposition between the finite and the infinite with respect to size and hence how an infinite whole, an infinite body, is logically possible under the condition that we replace the analytic ontology of observational cosmology by a synthetic ontology. 

Observational cosmology surreptitiously assumes that the universe is a simple individual governed by analytic principles of existence. Following this primitive assumption and using the analytic principle of contradiction, we assert that no infinite universe has a limiting boundary assigning form and body to the formless and bodiless universe and limit to the universe’s infinite radius. A universe, which is uniquely or univocally boundless, formless and bodiless is a non-existing universe. If the container of everything does not exist, then its contained content, i.e., everything equally does not exist. It is clear that employing an analytic ontology of being for comprehending the ultimate nature of the universe inexorably leads to ontological nihilism according to which nothing exists. 

To save Being, i.e., the Universe (everything) from ontological extinction, we must show within the framework of synthetic ontology how it is possible to have an infinite universe with a limiting boundary assigning a finite magnitude to the infinite universe without annihilating its infinite radius.

Keywords: infinite universe, infinite body, analytic ontology, synthetic ontology, nihilism, finite-infinite.