What is the proper way to define "universe"

Metaphysics and Epistemology
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Leonard Piekoff claims that the universe is “the total of that which exists—not merely the earth or the stars or the galaxies, but everything. Obviously then there can be no such thing as the “cause” of the universe”.

What is the proper way to define the universe? Is Piekoff’s definition question-begging, or is his definition already the proper one?

I’ve gotten into arguments with many people, and they’ve objected that the universe only pretains to what is within the space-time continuum. I responded, using the etymology of the Universe, which means “Rolled into one” (Unus = One, Versum = Rolled into). I argued that he was the one who was begging the question, based on the etymology of the word, as there is no reason to conclude that “universe” is strictly limited to space and time as domains.

I acknowledge that, despite the lack of overall conention, that I was rather inexperienced. I didn’t put my argument into syllogism form. He didn’t really argue any further than that, but what is the proper way to define “universe”?

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Leonard Piekoff claims that the universe is “the total of that which exists—not merely the earth or the stars or the galaxies, but everything. Obviously then there can be no such thing as the “cause” of the universe”.

What is the proper way to define the universe? Is Piekoff’s definition question-begging, or is his definition already the proper one?

Right at the beginning of OPAR, LP makes it very clear what is his definition of the Objectivist concept “existence”. Page 5 (one of the key pages in the book, nutshell-wise), paragraph 1, of OPAR:

“The concept of “existence” is the widest of all concepts. It subsumes everything – every entity, action, attribute, relationship (including every state of consciousness) – everything which is, was, or will be. As the first concept at the base of knowledge, it covers only what is known, implicitly if not explicitly, by the gamut of the human race, from the newborn baby or the lowest savage on through the greatest scientist and the most erudite sage. All of these know equally the fundamental fact that there IS something, something as against nothing.”

A few points:

a. By “widest”, LP means “of greatest scope”, i.e., “containing everything”. In other words, nothing is out of this world, everything that is, is part of, is within, existence.

b. Note that “human race” is the set of cognitive individuals considered in the definition; this might need generalization someday, if another species of conceptual volitional beings is discovered/invented.

c. My favorite definition of Universe (my etymological translation: “towards unity”) is was given by R. Buckminster Fuller, but as you can see, it is in concert with LP’s statement: http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s03/p0000.html

d. Universe is less than or equal to all of existence, because Universe is based on human GRASP of existence, via experiences; whereas Existence is not based on anything, and subsumes humans, their experiences, and the entities of their experience, too – plus all relationships among all those ideas. On the one hand, operationally, it makes no difference if one takes Existence to have meaning beyond our experience of it or not. If there is no operational distinction, then in fact Universe as defined, and Existence as defined, are synonymous. If one chooses to accord the existential substrate independent existence a priori to consciousness, no problem; in that case, Existence is strictly larger than Universe, conceptually on paper, but in practice the difference cannot make a difference.

In a nutshell, using Fuller’s most succinct statement: “Universe is the aggregate of all humanity’s consciously apprehended and communicated non-simultaneous and only partially overlapping experiences.”

And, before you knee-jerk that this is a primacy of consciousness perspective, revisit LP’s definitions/statements in OPAR, and think about it: all we have to work with are interleaved sequences of experiences across multiple perceptual modes conjoined with our current conceptual frame. Experience is an integral of existence and consciousness, and cannot exist without both me, and “not me” for me to relate to.

  • ico
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I’m not asking about his definition of existence, though - it’s pretty straightforward, and it’s hard to argue against it. I’m talking about his definition of universe.

..You’re on long island too? Awesome.

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Leonard Piekoff claims that the universe is “the total of that which exists—not merely the earth or the stars or the galaxies, but everything. Obviously then there can be no such thing as the “cause” of the universe”.

What is the proper way to define the universe? Is Piekoff’s definition question-begging, or is his definition already the proper one?

I’ve gotten into arguments with many people, and they’ve objected that the universe only pretains to what is within the space-time continuum. I responded, using the etymology of the Universe, which means “Rolled into one” (Unus = One, Versum = Rolled into). I argued that he was the one who was begging the question, based on the etymology of the word, as there is no reason to conclude that “universe” is strictly limited to space and time as domains.

I acknowledge that, despite the lack of overall conention, that I was rather inexperienced. I didn’t put my argument into syllogism form. He didn’t really argue any further than that, but what is the proper way to define “universe”?

Definitions are contextual. Here, “universe” can be defined in the context of science or in the context of philosophy. It is a good opportunity to throw light upon the distinction between physics and metaphysics.

The subject matter of metaphysics is everything that exists prior to consciousness and not created by it. “The everything” regarded as rolled into to one and made into a concept is philosophical sense of “universe”. Physics studies the same subject matter, but informed by additional methods of knowledge gained from epistemology and mathematics and many specific observations. According to Dr. Peikoff “space” and “time” are concepts specific enough to depend upon physics and its methods, not metaphysics.

If it is discovered to be the case that there are different domains of existence where the physical constants differ, then there would be a word needed to refer to a domain where the constants are all the same. The first impulse in naming conventions is to just equate “observable universe” with “universe” and then make a new word for the whole thing regarded as an object of study in physics. See the Wikipedia article Multiverse and particularly Tegmark’s article that appeared in Scientific American (leave aside the Hinduism and quantum mysticism in the Wiki article). But metaphysically there is already the word “universe” for the whole thing regardless of how elaborated it is discovered to be. The alternate solution to physics’ need for a new word would be to keep “universe” the same and create a new word for separate domains, and “bubble” looks to be a candidate to fill the need.

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I’m not asking about his definition of existence, though - it’s pretty straightforward, and it’s hard to argue against it. I’m talking about his definition of universe.

..You’re on long island too? Awesome.

I’m not certain one can rationally distinguish between “Universe” and “Existence”. Universe is certainly contained within Existence, by definition; so, what portion of Existence is NOT within the scope of Universe?

I think they are conceptual synonyms for all intents and purposes.

And, if you are on LI, then we ought to get together in person.

Cheers.

  • ico