This page lists some alternatives to the regular theoretical paradigm that I think are valuable to consider.

Physics:

1. Entropic Gravity, Erik P. Verlinde, 2010

2. Scale Relativity, Laurent Nottale, 1992

3. Constructal Theory, Adrian Bejan, 2012

4. Nonduality and Paradigm Shifts in Theoretical Physics, Mac’s theory that the “stage” paradigm of developmental psychology can be applied to the study of the history and evolution of theoretical physics. Theoretical physics is humanity’s totality symbol (a Jungian concept referring to a man’s symbolic representation of the world). Ego death, the dissolution of the mind vs. reality or self vs. environment duality, is suspiciously similar to what all theoretical physicists are working to help achieve: perfect unity of theory with experiment (mind with reality). We know that a child from birth to self-actualization goes through certain identifiable stages of intellectual development.  These stages can be meaningfully mapped onto specific breakthrough advances during the history of theoretical physics, and can predict future paradigm shifts. We can use this to inform our understanding of the history of physics, philosophy of physics, and even predict the direction of future physical theories.

5. The Unruh effect is the fact that an accelerating observer will observe black-body radiation where an inertial observer would observe none. This means if an observer is accelerating, light will spontaneously erupt from vacuum. The equation which predicts this elegantly synthesizes black hole thermodynamics with information theory, general relativity, and quantum mechanics.

Biology:

1. “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life”, Erik Andrulis, 2011.

• Erik’s blog: Anacephalaeosis

2. Robert Rosen’s category theory definition of biological organism as closed to efficient causes.

• “Organizational invariance and metabolic closure: Analysis in terms of (M,R) systems” from the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2006.
• Why are Organisms Different Than Machines?

Brains:

1. Dennis Mckenna’s theory of fruit expanding human brain size and beneficial phytochemical mutagens increasing the rate of neuroevolution.

2. Holographic brain theory (also caused holotropic or holonomic… perhaps hologic will be a better word when our technologies and understanding come to pass), Karl Pribram and Paul Pietsch.

• Scholarpedia: Holonomic Brain Theory, written by Karl Pribram
• Wikipedia: Gabor Filter
• Better Explained: An interactive guide to the Fourier transform
• Intro to the Fourier Series (YouTube video)

Art:

1. Leonard Shlain’s Art & Physics suggests that artists and physicists work in tandem as humanity’s consciousness unfolds, and that new movements in art often lead new movements in physics.

2. “Postpomo” is a synthetic, semiotic analysis of art, events, and articles which are expressly written with awareness of, and movement beyond post-modernism.

Society:

1. Wilhelm Reich’s theory that the death of Christ in Western society ultimately occured (and continues to occurs) because of humanity—Christ was murdered and it is the culmination of a sort of disease of the spirit (that of shame and sexual repression)… this same disease is at the root of the psychology of fascism and totalitarian monocultural dictatorship and global imprisonment.

Books:

• The Murder of Christ
• The Function of Orgasm
• Listen, Little Man!
• The Mass Psychology of Fascism

2. The theory that the myths and events which occurred during the first human civilization cycle (paleolithic farmers to the fall of Sumeria and Babylon) are the same events that occur every civilization cycle, and are the same stories which humans still today perpetuate. I can’t trace this idea to any one author, although it seems apparent.

Links:

• Panbabylonianism

Pamphlet/essay:

• God, gods, and goddesses: A missing narrative, a garden conquered, and a garden reborn

3. Terence Mckenna’s theory of psilocybin mushrooms being instrumental in the evolution of human language and culture at its most sensitive points. Notable is Albert Hoffman’s statement that,

“The cultural-historical meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries, their influence on European intellectual history, can scarcely be overestimated. Here suffering humankind found a cure for its rational, objective, cleft intellect, in a mystical totality experience, that let it believe in immortality, in an everlasting existence.”

4. My theory that the State

Philosophy:

1. Post-metaphysics: why people have different senses of metaphysics and how to change your own

2. The theory of the limitations of science:

• Paul Feyerabend did a lot in his book Against Method.
• Christopher Langan did a lot to make things understandable in his article, “The Theory of Theories” which discusses the problem of induction, and draws parallels between the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem and the Duhem-Quine thesis, which are associated with model theory and the philosophy of science respectively.

3. I really like The Logical Leap, a book by the Objectivist, David Harriman. It describes how the human mind creates concepts based on sense data (percepts, more accurately) and other concepts. Much in the history of logic has been devoted to deduction, but little on induction.

4. The concept of distributed solipsism.

Reality:

1. Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, Christopher Langan, 2001

This includes the concepts of:

• Conspansion
• Syndiffeonesis (a logical and syntactic analogue to the Tao, a unity of sameness and differentness)
• Infocognition: a unity of information and it being processed
• Super-tautology
• Telic recursion
• Self-determinacy as an alternative to traditional dichotomies or trichotomies of determinacy, randomness. Intrinsic self-determinacy is free will, and is reminscient of Robert Rosen’s category theoretic tricks in mathematical biology (remember: an organism is a closed system to efficient causes).