The Universe Is Not an Object in the System
1. Position in the System
The Universe Is Not an Object is an ontological synthesis text of Field I - Origin of the Universe. While previous texts in this Field explore specific aspects of cosmogenesis (time before time, duration without reference, form that is not essence), this text articulates the global ontological consequence: the impossibility of treating the totality as a thing.
Structural Function
Este texto estabelece a cardinal distinction between local object and total field, which will cross all OCE Fields. By demonstrating that objectuality is an emergent phenomenon of local functional couplings, she sets the stage for understanding how galaxies, organisms, symbolic systems, and technical artifacts are transient effects of relations - not fixed substances.
The decision to deny objectivity to the universe is not a negative thesis. It's a operative opening: thinking about reality as a changing fabric, without a container or external frame. This openness is the condition of possibility of the very notion of emergence that structures the entire OCE.
2. Contribution to Originality
This text inaugurates three distinctive movements of OCE:
- Refusal of Hypostasiation: Against the ancient tendency of Western thought to convert reality into a "thing" endowed with properties, OCE proposes that the universe is an open relational field, not an object to be contemplated or circumscribed.
- Ontologia Relacional Materialista: There is no principle prior to relationships; the real is constituted by the ongoing relationships themselves. The universe does not emanate from a transcendent source; it is the immanent network of interactions without an external soil.
- Articulation with Contemporary Physics: The philosophical thesis is rigorously articulated with scientific cosmology - relative horizons, cosmic inflation, accelerated expansion, dark energy - showing that the dissolution of objectification is not metaphysical speculation, but a material consequence.
Tese Central
"Matter does not rest in a container - it is the very fabric of reality without an external frame. Thinking of the universe as an object constitutes a categorical error: it projects onto the total relational condition categories valid only for local configurations."
3. Connections to Following Fields
From this framework, the distinction local object/total field radiates to all OCE Fields:
- Field II - Organisation of Matter: Particles, atoms and molecules are local objects emerging from functional couplings. Its stability is relative and provisional, not substantial.
- Field III - Emergence of Life: Organisms are patterns of relational stability that acquire autonomy and persistence - the same ontological structure that defines the local object, now applied to self-replicating systems.
- Field IV - Or Human As a Gesture: The human subject is not a thinking substance (res cogitans), but an emergent effect of symbolic inscriptions and material relations. Consciousness is a local object, not a foundation.
- Field V - Technique and Rewriting: Technical artifacts and AI systems are local configurations that acquire relative autonomy. Their "objectivity" follows the same emergent logic - they are effects, not substances.
The refusal to objectify the universe is, therefore, the condition of possibility to understand the emergence at all its levels. Without this fundamental distinction, OCE would collapse into a traditional substantialist ontology.