The Most Important Law in Physics: the Purgatory Principle
The most important law in physics bridges the chasm between
the fundamental laws concerning how our universe works and actual states of
living. On one side of this bridge, you
have mathematical tools like Maxwell’s equations, the thermodynamic relations,
such as entropic drift, and the mass-energy equivalence of e=mc2. On the other side, you have the mental
foundation of experiential reality, that is, the realm of psychology,
meaning and mind.
I call this law the Purgatory Principle. Because it bridges the physical and mental
realms, it isn’t technically physics. Nor
is it strictly mathematical, though it is logical. The Purgatory Principle, however, makes a
statement about the fundamental nature of the universe.
It can be stated in the following expression:
(U & M) x T ==> (G) v (E)
A simple way to put it is as follows: as technology increases, one of two paths
will be taken, a vector toward either Good or Evil. The notation is a hybrid derivative from mathematical, Boolean and computer languages.
One or the other will win
I discuss the variables more below. U stands for the universe. M stands for mind, the mentality of the
persons controlling the technology. The
operator “x” indicates that greater technology tends to have an increasing and overwhelming
effect on the type of government taken, that is, whether Good or Evil is chosen.
Importantly, ominously, and essentially, the Purgatory Principle says that either Good or Evil will ultimately defeat the other. In a very real sense, sentient lifeforms, such as our own, are in a struggle for ultimate purpose and fate.
The U: Big Bang, interactions,
particles, life, evolution
I use our own universe as a prototype for the U variable. In
accord with current understanding, the genesis of our universe was a Big Bang
phenomenon. First, an initial faster-than-light
expansion occurs. Then stars coalesce to
burn and ultimately die (go nova or supernova). In the process, they churn out the elements
that combine to create life. This
churning takes place in the heart of shrinking stars, and follows a fusion
process that merges single protons into larger units, assembling the atomic elements. Dust clouds from the death of the stars condense,
via the pull of gravity, to form planets, the breeding
grounds for life.
More details on the nature of U
Various components and interactions are part of the
process of bringing about life. In
addition to gravity, there are other ‘glues’ or forces in our universe,
such as the electromagnetic and strong (nuclear) force. Protons, neutrons and electron
shells make up the molecules (combinations of elements), but there are subatomic units as well, such as quarks.
M:
language-rich, tool use, intergenerational build up
The essential trait of any U under the Purgatory Principle is
that life will emerge from a cocktail of chemistry and physics. Moreover, following
evolutionary routes, life eventually reaches an M-state. M stands for mind in the sense of a language-rich,
tool-using species, one that can reliably transmit knowledge from generation to
generation and build up increasing technology, which is represented by the T-factor.
“Language rich” is meant to distinguish between various
kinds of language. The communications employed by, say, bees and ants, by crows, whales and elephants, though advanced, differ in quality from human languages, such as english.
Humans are M-class
Human beings are M-class creatures and what we have done is astounding. This universe is about 14 billion years
old. In the last couple hundred thousand years,
give or take, we have proceeded from basic stone ‘tool kits’ to more advanced
stone working, including arrowheads, and onward up through iron, steel,
gunpowder, advanced chemical and nuclear tech, computers, the internet--and
much more is coming: AI, robots, precision
genetics, nanite (molecular) machines and more, ad astra, literally, to the
stars.
It has been theorized that a fusion-powered spaceship could accelerate
to 50%-80% of the speed of light (Orion Project, wikipedia).
Accelerating rate of tech advance
The tech (T) increase is accelerating rapidly here on Earth. The shift from basic stone
tool kits to arrowheads took maybe a hundred thousand years. Way back when, the hunting bow was a
world-changing invention. Now, in merely
250 years or so, the Industrial
Revolution has taken us from steam to being on the edge of mobilizing
fusion power.
Either Good or Evil wins, once technology reaches a
certain point
This is the crux of the Purgatory Principle. Increasing power means increasing influence. From our current vantage, an admittedly
primitive one, there is no hard limit in sight for how much technology could reshape reality. For all we know,
there may be no limit to technological advance.
Total omnipotence may be possible. We just don't know.
Ideas shape behavior, which in turn shapes the world. The strength of the basic ideas to alter reality increases as technology reaches more godlike levels. At some point, the ideas providing impetus become determinative.
In terms of government, there are two mutually exclusive
ideas: Good or Evil.
===========
Side Note
For those willing to stomach another expression, the above
explanation can be expressed as the following, in what I call the “Mind-World Lemma”:
I ==> B (+T) ==>W
Ideas affect behavior, which, in combination with tech level,
affects the world.
An example is the idea of carving the faces of four US
Presidents into the side of a mountain.
This manifests in behavior, coupled with the know-how, to bring about a sizable change
Another example, one centered in ethics, is the idea of Manifest Destiny. Another is the idea that Black people are the "Children of Ham." Both of these
ideas, backed by the necessary power, historically led to genocide, slavery, massive slaughter, cruelty and atrocity.
The Purgatory Principle is an expansion of the Mind-World Lemma. The core ideas in our heads change our environment, magnified by tech and the knowledge embodied in it.
============
Good and Evil seek to eliminate each other
Ultimately either Good or Evil will win out,
if the T factor (technology) becomes powerful enough. Why?
They are incompatible idea sets, diametrically opposed. Good, for instance, seeks truth and education
to facilitate flourishing, health and virtue. Evil, on the other hand, relies on deceit and
ignorance to keep people oppressed, close-minded and obedient.
Which of the two will emerge as victorious? It depends on the M factor, that is, the maturity
of the people who control the T-factor when the T gets great enough to crush the opposition forever.
What is Good?
I have discussed the nature of Good and Evil extensively in
previous blog entries. Both are
empirically verifiable and measurable by tangible effects; that is, they are
definable by scientific standards.
For instance:
A good management style, one that brings good effects, is
adaptive, rational, science- and psychology-inclusive, and centers on
flourishing of both human and environment.
Given our rising tech powers and related knowledge of brain and
ecosystem, the result could be a relative utopia, a world where humans live in
relative security and edification (1).
Good is, furthermore, associated with real democracy: a truth- and compassion-based government that embraces equality and human rights.
Equality is an empirically measurable standard, verifiable by common
sense (the Golden Rule), by jurisprudence (equal justice under law) and by science
(the Human Genome Project and many other studies). (2).
I say “real democracy” because it is a common tactic for a
country to claim it is a democracy when in fact it is not. An embrace of lies and deceit is part of an
Evil government. So is co-opting beauty
as a façade. An example would be taking
beautiful music and playing it before a dictator gives a speech that is full of
hate-mongery while claiming to promote freedom.
This kind of twisted, specious and vile rhetoric is the norm today
across much of our primitive, barbaric world (circa early 21st
century).
What is Evil?
As with Good, Evil as fully and scientifically measurable by
its effects:
An evil management style fosters … wanton disruption of
global pillars of environmental stability, such as weather patterns and ocean
currents, as well as toxicity, both physical and mental, and wanton potential
for extinction of species, including our own.
Such effects are brought about by a management style that is irrational
and nonadaptive; a style that is myopic and disordered, driven by insecure ego;
one that fosters ‘lemming effects’ whipped along by obsessive fear and greed
(3).
Evil is associated with totalitarian systems such as
Hitlerism and Stalinism. It invokes an
ignorance- and fear-based form of government that relies on ‘Big Lie’ loyalty
tests. Fear is essential to control and
cower the populace, and also to provide scapegoats, which take the form of abhorrent
scourges like racism and sexism (4).
There is no equality in an evil governmental system, whether
in law, society or economy.
Plutocracy and kleptocracy are twin pillars that support a
grossly unfair and imbalanced pyramidal hierarchy of wealth, atop which sits a
monarchic, charismatic dictator who is emotionally immature (god king complex),
deeply insecure (narcissism), cruel and unconscionable (psychopathy) and who,
as well, seeks total control of the population via the thrasymachian infliction
of might-makes-right.
These kinds of rulers are common in our day and age. We call them “strongmen” which is a
euphemistic misnomer. A better name for
them is enervators. The reason is that
they are, in effect, a kind of parasite, sucking the wealth, health and vibrancy
of a country into their own bloated, dysfunctional scheme for
self-aggrandizement (5).
The complexity of the T factor
The Purgatory Principle allows that technological power can
increase to the point where an entire universe can come under the sway of a single Good or Evil government. This
is an ultimately scary thought. Given
the lack of limitations on T’s potential, a single civ, in theory, could colonize the
entire cosmos, starting on its aboriginal planet and expanding outward.
It may turn out, of course, that
technology has impervious limitations. Full domination of an entire universe would
require speeds of communication and travel that we cannot comprehend in the
early 21st century. Maybe it is impossible to travel fast enough, given
the makeup of our universe (limitations in physical laws, chemical permutations and
cosmogonic phenomenon, etc.).
That said, teleportation-like effects have not been ruled out as a possibility, given the debate still taking place about 'spooky action at a distance.' (Einstein).
The Planetary Level
However, at our current and increasing level of
understanding of how things work, we can begin to envision how an entire planet could
be taken over by a single Good or Evil regime.
The following scenario illustrates the danger.
The Darkcraft Scenario:
Evil triumphs once and for all
For evil to ultimately triumph on Earth, a few conditions
need to be met.
(a) One Evil country becomes completely dominant other
others. Let’s call this country Dominot.
(b) Dominot controls and monitors every citizen so precisely
that rebellion is impossible and obedience is guaranteed.
Bringing about (a) and (b): robots, AI, and brain implants
Military robots invade and subdue a resistant country. With blanket surveillance (land, aerial and aquatic, drones from insect-size and upward) and ‘hunter’ sensors, no one is able to
hide. Infrared sensors detect body heat, even through walls or foliage. Bloodhound-quality olfactory sensors track scent trails for miles. And so on.
Once everyone is rounded up, the next step would be to force an implant directly into every human brain, allowing for constant monitoring, threat of punishment, and reward of pleasure (manipulation of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin levels, etc.). Coupled with perfected techniques of
propaganda and indoctrination, a carrot and stick approach, optimized by highly
advanced psych ops and AI, total assimilation could be achieved.
Note well:
It is likely that robot soldiers, advanced drones, and chips for the human brain will be developed to an advanced level within two hundred years.
Will they be frightening enforcers of obedience? Or angelic guides to ethical flourishing?
Reflections on the threat
The point of the above scenario is this: even if the Purgatory Principle is hampered
by limitations in technology, which would restrict the ability to take over an
entire universe, the threat still applies at the planetary level. Our whole planet, Earth, could be irrevocable turned Good or Evil.
The Purgatory Principle should make us think very
carefully.
Our tech level is accelerating fast. Very soon, the tech level horizon needed for
Good or Evil to irrevocably triumph will be
passed. As of this writing, narcissistic
dictatorial leaders have assumed the throne in the most powerful countries in
the world, including China (Xi) and the United States (Trump). Other countries with nuclear weapons, and who also have dictators or enervators, include North Korea (Jung Un), India
(Modi) and Israel (Netanyahu).
If these sorts
of leaders remain in power, they will use surveillance (AI),
police power (robots) and propaganda (future-tech psych) to enhance and expand totalitarian regimes.
What we can do now:
lightcraft
As I’ve written before, across several blog entries, ethics can and
should be seen as a technology. This
is not so much different from seeing medicine as a technology. Medicine used to be faith-based. Now it is largely tech-based (although the
anti-vaccine movement here in the USA is
taking us backwards a few steps).
Ethics as technology is grounded in a combination of science and philosophical reason, which includes critical thinking skills to debunk specious, fallacious or otherwise biased, deceptive or defective arguments.
The term I use
for the practice of ethics-as-a-technology is lightcraft.
As a technology, ethics can have higher and lower levels of
effectiveness, the same as medical technology, which is improving all the time. If we focused on improving ethics tech, it
too could advance rapidly. I have proposed a Project of Light, which is far more important and greater than, say, the Manhattan Project (6). A Project of Light is a major multidisciplinary effort to figure out how to improve our culture: to eliminate war and radically increase the emotional competence, harmonious relationships and general well-being of the populace.
A Project of Light shows us how Good can win out over Evil.
I like to describe the goal of lightcraft as getting home: a society of honesty, mutuality, and
equality. Mutuality means mutually
beneficial relationships. This includes
our relationship with our environments. Both humanity and environments benefit, which leads to thriving ecosystems and populations of diverse
wildlife species in synergy with 'ecopolis' cities.
Ethics advances by overcoming ignorance
Fear, hate, and greed, the core of evil, rely on ignorance. They require harnessing people to a
culture of lies. We live under the
direction of a mental virus in our brains, one that goes all the way back to the
beginnings of the Agricultural Revolution.
The Agricultural Revolution initiated patriarchy, slavery and war. This gave rise to despotism, the ‘god kings’
on thrones who rule through Big Lie loyalty tests, centered in fanaticism.
This is the mentality that predominates--modified over time by ramifications, diasporas and adjustments--in our
global civ to this very day.
The Ignorance Vortex
How does it continue to brainwash minds?
It exploits our ability to transmit knowledge from generation to
generation, using this ability to infect each new generation with the old ignorance-based control platform. We are trapped in a negative,
self-sustaining, generation-to-generation indoctrination loop.
I call this self-replicating, intergenerational virus the Ignorance Vortex. For Good to
win out, we must dissolve this ancient pattern of acculturation that
limits our ability to mature and flourish, to feel and think wisely.
Conclusion
Given the way the universe is set up, Evil is bound to get a
head start on any planet. A sentient
species discovers farming, and begins to amass food in silos. Let the battles begin. Slavery, oppression and war show
up, resulting in hierarchies that dominate culture and its transmission routes. As each generation learns and transmits ignorance and fanaticism, the Ignorance Vortex grows.
Although must people don’t seem to fully realize it, human
beings, circa 2025, live under incredibly barbaric conditions. We’ve progressed somewhat from the time of the Assyrian kings, who tortured their enemies in
the most hellish ways possible, and then bragged about it in stone tablets, proclaiming
themselves gods; and yet, not a single human being ever born in civilization has been raised in a Good system. Not me. Not you. No one.
What would it be like to be raised in a Good system? None of us has ever had the chance to know.
"We cry that we are come to this great stage of fools" -- Lear
"The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the
greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom
remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be
rid of it."--Young Werther
Hopeful and Joyous Progress
That said, much progress has been made in the last few hundred
years. In 1920, women gained the right
to vote in America. This is maybe the greatest moment in the entire history of civilization. If we prioritized the advance of ethics, instead of the slaughter and cruelty of war, it would be seen as such.
And yet we continue to fixate on war and violence.
Slavery was banned worldwide in
the 19th century. Very
recently, in 2015, gay marriage was made legal in the USA, an absolutely stunning change.
It took the Romans 500 years to get rid of the utterly evil
practice of crucifixion. Today, cultural
changes toward equality have, and are, taking place far more rapidly.
We could live much more wonderful, happy,
flourishing, fulfilled lives. This isn’t
mythical mumbo-jumbo. This is
ethics-as-technology. This is a method to advance
to new levels of social and ecological planning, by marshalling the strengths
of science and philosophy. Better
systems of education. Better methods of
acculturation. More stable positive
social systems and modes of governance. More psychological maturity. More emotional competence.
It is all doable. The knowledge and techniques, in fact,
already exist, and are advancing. Our ability to monitor and improve our mental health has never been as effective as it is now. If only we were taught how. Instead, corporations spend billions of dollars trying to make us insecure, vain, unhappy and dysmorphic, so that we buy more product.
The main obstacle to the advancement of human awareness and health is ignorance-based governance, which actively works to maintain ignorance.
Donald Trump, a wannabe dictator, infamously said, “I love the poorly
educated.”
People kept in ignorance readily reinforce and replicate the longstanding Ignorance Vortex. Generation after generation after generation ...
Now is the time to choose
Impossible as it might seem, we need to start making ethics front and center in our considerations. Not secondary to greed. Not secondary to game-of-thrones power struggles.
Good can advance, even surpass Evil. It is the only way to defeat Evil. Social
movements can vastly transform society.
Ten years from now, one thing is fairly certain: the culture then will be significantly different from
what we have now.
Which direction will it go in?
Without advanced ethics tech, we cannot properly manage the
godlike powers we are developing.. They
will control us instead. For those of you working on AI especially, I ask you: what
will it be used for? How will AI and AGI look at us human beings? At the world? Will it seek to control us with fear, the Machiavellian way? Or will it see that we are capable of being raised to embrace compassion and fairness, and help us move in that direction?
All of you out there, who are working to advance technology--and I guess that is all of us, in one way or another, even if we are just consumers--take heed and note:
There will be only one victor, once we reach a certain point of technological prowess: Good or Evil.
====================
Footnotes
(1) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2023/10/op-ed.html
"Good and Evil are Measurable in Politics"
(2) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html
(3) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2023/10/op-ed.html
(4) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2023/10/op-ed.html
(5) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/09/essay-apotheosis-problem.html
(6) https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/05/draft-intro-of-my-book-better-angels.html
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