Volume 17: Pages 505-517, 2004

Wholeness as a Conceptual Foundation of Physical Theories

Barbara Piechocinska

Uppsala University, Box 534, Uppsala, 751 21 Sweden

A description of physical reality in which wholeness is the foundation is discussed along with the motivation for such an attempt. As a possible mathematical framework within which a physical theory based on wholeness may be expressed, elementary embeddings along with the wholeness axiom are suggested. It is shown how features of wholeness such as being indescribable; more than the sum of its parts; locally accessible; and giving rise to a self‐similar, or holographic, type of order are reflected in the mathematics. It is also shown how all the sets in the mathematical universe may be expressed as emerging from the dynamics of wholeness. Moreover, it is indicated how the mathematics may be further developed so as to connect up with a physical interpretation.

Keywords: wholeness, wholeness axiom, Laver sequence, implicate order, braids, left‐distributivity

Received: November 19, 2003; Published Online: December 15, 2008