THE BASIC LAW OF BEING

Abstract. The term "law" is used very often today and it is interpreted extremely broadly. Humanity has discovered and constituted an incredibly large number of different "laws", the laws of physics, laws of nature, social laws. But how justified is such a widespread use of the term "law" and how correctly is it used? This article is devoted to the analysis of this circumstance, according to the results of which the author gives a correct, from his point of view, definition of the concept "law" and formulates the law of the highest level of generalization, which he calls the main one.

Keywords: being, law, regularity, connection, attitude, category, correspondence.

Before proceeding with the formulation of the basic law of being, it is necessary to find out what the concepts of “law” and “being” are, whether existence has laws, what they are, and choose the most important of them, which lies at the basis of all the others.

From ancient times to the present the concept of "being" is considered one of the main categories of philosophy [1]. At the same time, the term "being" is understood by some as "reality that exists objectively, outside and independently of human consciousness", that is, a set of objects; others — as "existence", that is, a process; others — as "the presence of phenomena and objects,” that is, quality. Quite often the author interprets the term "being" both as existence and as essence. Moreover, almost simultaneously.

From our point of view, it is irrational to use the term "being" to denote an objectively existing reality or the presence of phenomena and objects. In Russian, "to be" is a verb, so it is advisable to use the word "being" to denote a process.

In the opinion of the author the main category of philosophy is "being", that is, what exists. Then "being" is the existence of beings, and "the law of being" is the law of existence of beings (of what exists).

As for the concept of "law", then it is said for example in [2] that in the philosophical systems of the Ancient East and Greece, law was understood as an objective order, the natural way of development of things immanent to the World. For Thomas Aquinas, the concept of law is identical with the concept of dictate, prescription, command of divine reason. Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Kepler and other scientists reported in [2] preferred the term "law" to such expressions as "axiom", "rule", "reasonable basis”. And in the Renaissance, Bruno uses the concept of "law of nature” to express the idea of universal natural necessity. In the science and philosophy of modern times, the concept of "law of nature" appears, by which they begin to understand the general, stable and repetitive, as well as internally necessary connections and relations of things and natural phenomena themselves. The widespread use of the concept "law of nature" in the philosophy and science of modern times was begun by Descartes, who believed that the most important attributes of the law are immutability and eternity. Hobbes makes the concept "law" an essential element of his sociological concept, according to which man is a subject to the universal law of nature, the desire for self-preservation. There are various obstacles on the way of implementing this law in society, that are overcome only thanks to the human mind, which reveals certain rules of community, which Hobbes calls natural laws. Spinoza believed that the laws of nature are such "decisions" and "decrees" of God, in accordance with which his own existence is determined, and that absolute necessity is expressed in them. In the teachings of the French enlighteners and philosophers of the 17-18 centuries it is argued that laws are the result of necessary relations arising from the nature of things (Holbach). For Kant, the concept of law is a means of expressing the necessary relationships between the elements of the cognitive activity of the subject. According to Kant, the laws of science are the highest form of rational knowledge. Hegel, on the other hand, links the law with stable, necessary essential features of the development of the absolute idea, formulating the so-called laws of dialectics. The definition presented in [2] — "a law is an essential, necessary, stable, repeated connection (relationship) between phenomena” - can be considered the most commonly used definition of the concept "law" today.

Even a superficial analysis of the above information leads to a disappointing conclusion: there is no unambiguous and clear scientific interpretation of the concept of "law" today! Under the term “law’, thinkers of different eras and countries understand different things: connections, relationships, order, orders of divine reason, rules of community, and relations of subordination of the general and the individual, etc. Moreover, quite often in a single text the law is interpreted both as a connection/relationship, and as an expression of these connections / relations, which, in fact, is a violation of the basic law of logic - the law of identity, according to which the subject of judgment should remain identical to itself in this judgment. Here it is appropriate to ask the question, can a law be a connection or a relation, and, even more so, a connection and a relation at the same time? Intuitively, we all understand that the concepts of “law’, “connection” and “relation” are not identical, and their contents, according to logic, should not form intersecting sets. For clarification, we again turn to philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias, where we find, for example, the following definition of the term "attitude": attitude is a philosophical category or a scientific term denoting any concept, the real correlate of which is a certain correlation (connection) of two or more objects [3]. If we take into account that "correlate" (from Latin correlation) is "ratio", we get "... the real ratio of which is a certain correlation (connection) of two or more objects". That is, there is an elementary tautology here, disguised by the use of a foreign term.

A.G. Spirkin defines the concept of "relation" as a philosophical category that expresses the nature of the arrangement of the elements of a certain system and their interdependence; emotional-volitional attitude of the person, expression of its position; mental comparison of various objects or sides of a given object [4]. Whereas the second part of this definition can somehow be accepted,  the first and the third parts do not withstand criticism. The first is, most likely, the definition of the concept of "structure", the third is the concept of "comparison". As a whole, in our opinion, this definition of the concept of "attitude" is not scientific.

Something similar is observed with the concept of "connection". In dictionaries we find: connection, in philosophy, is the interdependence of the existence of phenomena separated in space and time [5]. It is surprising that, firstly, the definition deals only with phenomena and there is no mention of objects, and, secondly, why is there a clarification about the obligatory separation of phenomena in space and time? If there is no separation, then there is no connection? Based on the above definition, if phenomena are not separated in space and occur simultaneously, then they are not connected with each other !? And there is also such a definition of the concept of "connection": connection is a philosophical category denoting relations between objects, manifested in the fact that the states or properties of any of them change when the state and properties of others change [6]. Reducing this definition, we get: connection is a category denoting relations ?! That is, the concept of "connection" is identified by the concept of "relationship". And who, other than philosophers, should know that everything in nature is connected with everything? But at the same time, changes in one object do not always induce changes in another! And such a definition was given not just anywhere, not in the ordinary Wikipedia, but in the New Philosophical Encyclopedia, compiled by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences! It turns out that there are no definitions of the concepts of both "connection" and "attitude" today that meet the strict requirements of scientific type. Therefore, the author decided to take an attempt to give his own definition of the concept of "law". For this purpose we start with the thesis: ontologically, in nature, there are no laws and cannot be! The law is only in the mind of a person, and even far not of everyone.

lf you ask the aborigines of South America or Australia what is the law of gravity or Ohm's law, they are unlikely to answer this question. At the same time, the natives know for sure that a spear or boomerang thrown at a bird will surely fall to the ground. They do not know what the law of universal gravitation is, but they know exactly what will be the result of their actions in such a situation. They have rules of behavior and building social relations, which they most likely do not call laws.

Whatever the law of nature articulated today, it has exceptions, therefore it is not universal and according to the definition of the concept of "law" is not a law. The situation is similar with repeatability and invariance. It turns out that if we proceed from the dictionary definition of the concept of "law", then none of the laws existing today satisfies this definition. In other words, what are called laws today, in fact, are not!

This happens for many reasons. The main one seems to be the low level of methodological training of scientific personnel. It was they who had to give a logically correct and therefore unambiguous definition of the concept "law". Instead, they made it extremely vague and ambiguous (polysemic) and did not even define its status, that is, they did not find out at what level of being it appears and, accordingly, which section of philosophy it belongs to: ontology, epistemology or axiology.

As noted above, a law is neither a connection, nor a relation, or even an expression of these connections and relationships, and that there are no laws in nature (at the ontos level). At the level of ontos (existence) there is only moving and interacting matter. The law appears at the level of gnosis (our knowledge of reality) and it expresses the dependence of the result of the interaction of material bodies on certain conditions. So, for example, the law of universal gravitation does not tell us anything about the character or nature of the connections between interacting objects. We still do not know exactly what gravity is and how force is transferred from one object to another. The law only says that “the force of gravitational attraction between two material points of mass m₁, and m₂, separated by the distance R, is proportional to both masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them" [7]. In this law there is not a word about the type, cause or nature of the connections of interacting objects (material points), but it describes the nature of the interaction (objects are attracted) and allows you to calculate the force of mutual influence (attraction). The situation is similar, for example, with the laws of classical mechanics (Newton's laws):

1. There are such frames of reference, called inertial, relative to which a material point, in the absence of external influences, retains the magnitude and direction of its speed for an unlimited time.

2. In the inertial reference frame, the acceleration that a material point receives is directly proportional to the resultant of all forces applied to it and inversely proportional to its mass.

3. Material points interact with each other by forces of the same nature, directed along the straight line connecting these points, equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

In these laws, there is also no indication of the presence and nature of connections and relations between material objects, but there is an indication of the dependence of the result of their interaction (impact) on the direction and speed of movement of material points (bodies), the direction of application of forces and the mass of interacting material points (bodies).

And here are examples from other areas of science:

Ohm's law: the current in a conductor is directly proportional to the voltage between the ends of the conductor, if the properties of the conductor do not change with the passage of current;

Coulomb's law: the modulus of the force of interaction of two point charges in a vacuum is directly proportional to the product of these charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them;

The 1st law of thermodynamics: energy in the system does not disappear, but only transforms from one form to another and passes from one form to another;

The 2nd law of thermodynamics: the internal distribution of energy in a closed system changes chaotically in such a way that the useful energy decreases, as a result of which the entropy increases;

The 3rd law of thermodynamics: entropy is zero in the case when any chaotic movement of molecules is completely stopped [8].

And there is not a single word in these laws about connections and relationships, but there is an indication of the dependence of the result of the interaction of material objects on their parameters (mass, charge, energy) and the conditions in which the interaction takes place (distance between objects, vacuum, closedness of the system, etc.).

Based on what is said above, it is possible to draw a completely logical conclusion that "law" is an epistemological category, and to give this concept the following definition:

law is knowledge expressed in language about the dependence of the result of the interaction of material objects on the parameters of these objects, the parameters of their motion and the properties of the environment in which the interaction takes place.

Here it should be emphasized once again that the law does not disclose, describe and even mention neither connections, nor relationships, between objects or phenomena. Neither essential, nor necessary, nor stable, and, moreover, nor repetitive.

Millions of people say that "the law is an essential, necessary, stable, repeating connection (relationship) between phenomena", apparently without even thinking about the content of this formulation and without delving into its essence. Why, for example, does this formulation only refer to essential connections (relationships)? Are insignificant connections (relations) no longer the laws? Which connections (relationships) are essential and which are not? Which connections are necessary and which are not? Is the force of gravity so necessary for us when we want to escape into space? And in general, the force of attraction is neither necessary nor unnecessary. She just is! And what does "repeating links" mean? There is a connection or there is not. And not connections are repeated, but phenomena that indicate the presence of connections. At the same time, connections can be insignificant and unstable. The connection can weaken, it can strengthen, or it can be completely interrupted.

If we can say that the law reveals some connections, then this is the connection between the results of interaction of material objects and the conditions of interaction, namely: the parameters of interacting objects, the parameters of their movement, the parameters of the environment in which the interaction takes place. But, as it seems, in this case it is more expedient to talk not about connection, but about correspondence - about the correspondence of the result of interaction of material objects and the parameters of these objects, the parameters of their motion and the properties of the environment in which the interaction takes place.

So, we know that in order to achieve the desired result, it is necessary to take the appropriate starting materials, the appropriate tools, apply the appropriate efforts appropriately. We also know that the form must correspond to the content / subject - object / knowledge - reality / activity - norms / norms - common sense / desires - possibilities and so on. At the same time, we know for sure that in cases where there is no correspondence between the oppositions listed above, a conflict situation arises and the goal will either not be achieved, or the wrong one will be achieved.

Let us explain this with examples:

- an M8 bolt and even an M6 bolt with a different thread pitch cannot be screwed into a hole with an M6 internal thread;

- a team of 3 people is not able to lift and carry a pipe weighing 1000 kg;

- the moon cannot be reached by a bullet.

The result of overcoming such inconsistencies is obvious. Of course, a bolt (not each, but of the corresponding diameter) can be hammered with a sledgehammer; the pipe can be rolled, but, again, if there are corresponding conditions for this; an attempt to fly to the Moon on a bullet is doomed to failure in advance, because there is no corresponding means capable of imparting the corresponding energy to a bullet, besides the method of movement does not correspond to the conditions of the environment in which this movement is supposed to be carried out. In the same way, if the cognizing subject does not correspond to the cognized object, then it either does not cognize it, or its knowledge about the object will be incorrect; to study objects it is necessary to use the corresponding instruments: it is impossible to explore deep space with glasses or a microscope, and with binoculars it is impossible to study an atom ...

This law can be formulated as follows:

The result of the interaction of material objects always corresponds to the properties of the interacting objects, the parameters of their motion and the properties of the environment in which the interaction takes place.

There are no exceptions to this law! And there seems to be no other law that has no exceptions. That is why the author proposes to consider the law of conformity as the basic law of being (that is, the basic law of the existence of beings).

The author also assumes that all the laws already discovered today are interpretations and refinements of the law of correspondence and it would be more correct to call them not laws, but regularities, since they allow measuring and expressing the results of the interaction of material objects in certain conventional units, units of measurement. The use of the term "law" to designate a normative act, in our opinion, is completely counterproductive. This is anything you like: provisions, decretals, decrees, bills, codes, etc., but not laws. The use of the term "law" to designate a certain set of rules and norms of behavior with fatal inevitability gives rise to polysemy - one of the main enemies of scientific approach.

Conclusions:

1. If we strictly follow the logic, then none of the currently discovered laws of nature or constitutional social laws fall under any existing definition of the concept of "law" and, therefore, either they should not be called laws, or the definitions of the concept "law" should be reformulated. Ideally, there should have been a single, scientific definition of this concept.

2. The author's proposed definition: a law is knowledge expressed in language about the dependence of the result of the interaction of material objects on the parameters of these objects, the parameters of their motion and the properties of the environment in which the interaction takes place, — seems logical and meets the scientific requirements.

3. The law, called the "law of conformity" by the author, which states that the result of the interaction of material objects always corresponds to the properties of the interacting objects, the parameters of their motion and the properties of the environment in which the interaction takes place — is the only law that has no exceptions. This is the law of the highest level of generalization. All the laws that exist today are special cases of the law of conformity, its concretizations and clarifications, or rather, patterns.

References

1. Dictionaries and encyclopedias on Academica [Electronic resource]. — Access: http://dic.academic.ru/, public (appeal date: 07.08.2017).

2. The latest philosophical dictionary /Comp.A.A. Gritsanov, 1998 —Electronic analogue: http://terme.ru/?word=924&wn=%C7%CO%*CA*CE%CD (appeal date: 17.08.2017).

3. Dictionaries and encyclopedias on Academica [Electronic resource]. —Access: https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/31880, public (appeal date: 20.03.2018).

4. Great Soviet Encyclopedia [Electronic resource]. — Access: https:// slovar.cc/enc/bse/2026355.html, public (appeal date: 17.08.2017).

5. Great Encyclopedic Dictionary [Electronic resource]. — Access: https://dic.academic.ru/, public (appeal date: 21.03.2018).

6. New Philosophical Encyclopedia: in 4 V. / Institute of Philosophy, RAS; National Social Science Foundation; Chairman of the Scientific and Editorial Council V.S. Stepin. — M.: Thought, 2000—2001. — ISBN 5-244- 00961-3. 2nd ed., rev. and add. — M.: Thought, 2010. — Cit. by: https:// ru.wikipedia.org/ (appeal date: 24.03.2018).

7. Wikipedia. Newton's classical theory of gravitation [Electronic resource]. — Access: https://ru.wikipedia.org/ (appeal date: 24.03.2018).

8.The laws of thermodynamics [Electronic resource]. — Access: http://fb.ru/article/45956/zakonyi-termodinamiki, public (appeal date: 28.03.2018).

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Библиографическая ссылка:  Atamanov G.A. The basic law of being / Process Management and Scientific Developments (DOI 10.34660/INF.2021.57.86.016) October 16, 2021