This page in one paragraph
Here we ask: when Dost does not describe the part apart from the whole, is there anything like it in physics? We met this form in 208 places in the Futuhat; because it appears so often, it is easy to say "everything is connected," and we meant to say "stand close" only if we found a place that is truly distinctive. The closest row we found is "Pure whole, mixed part," but by the page's own label even that one only "greets from a distance": in Kaufman's experiment the whole of six atoms is definite while its small parts look random, whereas in Dost the same bond is spoken of between al-Haqq and creation. The "Identical particles" row also greets from a distance; moreover its physics side is a philosophical review and the conclusion is not settled. The farthest is the holographic boundary: since it is only a resemblance of words and there is no experiment, we said "tempting, but we did not do this." What stays open is this: are the place where Dost says "a part cannot be described apart from the whole" and the place where physics says "the whole is pure while the part is mixed" two languages of the same bewilderment, or a general sentence that could be said of any whole–part relation?
What is this form?
Our everyday mind begins with the part. As an aid to explanation: there is a brick, and there is a wall. We take the brick out of the wall, hold it in our palm, and look: the brick is still a brick. The whole is the sum of its parts; the part can be described on its own. This habit is so settled that even thinking otherwise feels hard.
In Dost's pages, however, we often meet this way of speaking: when you pull the part away from the whole, neither the part nor the whole remains. The part is within the whole, and the whole is within the part. Nothing stands as "a separate thing"; multiplicity appears, but separateness is not quite so real. As we read, the mind asks: how can a brick, inside a wall, bear the wall?
What we call Wholeness on this page is not the content of these sentences but their form: the part cannot be defined apart from the whole. Reading the Futuhat from beginning to end, we met this form in 208 places. Because it appears so often, care is needed: "everything is connected" is easy to say, and every statement that says it seems akin to every other. We will say "stand close" only if we find a truly distinctive place. If we do not find one, we will write that too.
What does Dost say?
«While al-Haqq gives everything its creation, creation gives everything its due. In this matter creation has entered into al-Haqq, and al-Haqq into creation.» (c12k146, p. 217)
The text here does not set the two sides side by side; it says "has entered into." One gives creation, the other gives the due. We do not read this as a merging or a union: the difference between al-Haqq and creation stands in the text and on the page; only the relation is spoken of in both directions. What to notice: the relation does not stand like a bridge built between two separate things; the sides are described as bound to one another.
«Just as a body is nothing other than points, points are nothing other than the body. Yet at the same time the body is not points, and points are not the body.» (c12k147, pp. 311-312)
The whole (the body) consists of parts (the points); but at the same moment the whole is not the parts, and the parts are not the whole. What to notice: part and whole are spoken of as both the same and different. The word "sum" does not fully capture this sentence, because in a sum the part could also be described outside the whole.
«The whole world is the detailed exposition of Adam. And Adam is the comprehensive book. So Adam stands to the world as a spirit stands to a body. The human being is the spirit of the world, and the world is his body.» (c6k83, p. 291)
Here the human being is described not as a part of the world but as its essence; and the world is the human being unfolded. What to notice: the small carries the whole of the great, and the great is counted as the body of the small. Which is the part and which is the whole becomes uncertain for a moment.
«While the human being is a concise summary, the world is (the human being) extended and spread out.» (c8k110, pp. 73-74)
The same idea is now spoken in the language of "summary and expansion": the human being is written short, the world is written long. What to notice: they are not two separate texts but two lengths of the same text.
«The human being is a totality of the world. He is the small human being, while the world is the great human being.» (c10k133, p. 357)
Dost calls the human being "the small human being" and the world "the great human being." What to notice: both names are "human being," so the scale changes but the kind does not; the small carries the description of the great within itself.
«Just as nothing remains outside al-Haqq, nothing is outside the circumference either.» (c13k151, pp. 390-391)
Think of the circumference as a circle: nothing remains outside. In the same sentence Dost also says that there is nothing outside al-Haqq. What to notice: the very notion of "outside" disappears; it becomes impossible to call the part "that which is outside the whole."
What is there in physics?
SEP 2024 — Entanglement and information
This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry presents entanglement: a situation in which two quantum systems can be so bound that we cannot describe them separately, only as a whole. This relation has no counterpart in classical physics. According to the entry, entanglement can be measured, converted from one state into another, and "distilled," that is, worked like a resource. Entangled pairs are used in certain computation and cryptography tasks that cannot be done with the systems we know. The entry also treats entanglement's relation to information theory and the debates over what it points to. The text presents experimental results, theory, and interpretations separately. What stops us is that two things that can be far apart share a common wholeness; as to how this should be read, there is no firm consensus. [SEP: Quantum Entanglement and Information]
Kaufman 2016 — Pure whole, mixed part
We know that a hot cup of tea comes in time to the temperature of its surroundings. But can a quantum system that begins in an exactly definite (pure) state, completely isolated from the outside world, also behave as if it had "warmed up"? Kaufman and colleagues tried this: they placed six rubidium atoms in the sites of a lattice made of light and looked at them with a quantum microscope. They suddenly switched on tunneling between the atoms. The whole of six atoms remained in a pure state; but when one looked at small parts of two or three atoms, these parts behaved in accordance with a thermal distribution, that is, they looked random. The source of the effect is entanglement: the parts are so bound to one another that, although the whole is exactly definite, a part on its own remains indefinite. This is an experimental result, not a matter of interpretation. What stops us is that the parts of a fully known whole look random when taken alone. How this connects to the foundations of statistical physics is discussed separately. [Kaufman 2016]
SEP 2024 — Identity and individuality
This entry asks: does quantum physics allow us to think of particles as separate individuals of which we can say "this one" or "that one"? According to the view that became widespread in the period when the theory was built, elementary particles cannot be counted as individuals in this sense. Following this, special logical systems were developed that do not count individuals and that construct the notion of "identity" differently. On the other hand, it has also been argued that quantum physics can still be compatible with a metaphysics that speaks of individuals. But in that case these individuals are so indistinguishable from each other that Leibniz's principle of "the identity of indiscernibles" is violated; this claim too has been objected to. The entry does not describe an experiment; it is a philosophical review; the results are not settled, they are disputed. What stops us is that looking at two electrons, saying "which is which" can lose its meaning. [SEP: Identity and Individuality in Quantum Theory]
't Hooft 1993 — Surface instead of volume
How much information can be stored inside a room? Calculations on black holes suggest that the maximum information that can be stored in a region is proportional not to the volume but to the area of the surface surrounding the region. From this observation 't Hooft argues that in quantum gravity physics may be written on a surface that is "one dimension short": three-dimensional content can be described completely by the information on the surface. This is a theoretical proposal; it has not been tested by experiment. It was later developed under the name of the "holographic principle." The black hole entropy calculations are firm, but the idea that "physics is written on the surface" is interpretation and expectation. ['t Hooft 1993]
Susskind 1995 — The world as a hologram
Susskind begins with the same question: if we think quantum theory and gravity together, how much information can be stored in a region? According to 't Hooft's proposal, the three-dimensional world can be fully described by information written on a boundary surface, that is, on a two-dimensional projection; each very small piece of the surface carries only one discrete degree of freedom. Susskind summarizes this idea and sketches a first, informal picture of how it might be applied. One consequence of this picture is that particles must grow in size as their energy rises very high. The author discusses string theory as a possible candidate for the realization of this idea. This is a theory paper; there is no experiment, and the idea was later developed in different forms. What stops us is the thought that the information contained in what we call "volume" cannot exceed that of the surface. How this holds in the real universe is still open. [Susskind 1995]
Bousso 2002 — The holographic principle
This is a review article that presents the subject in an orderly way. The question is: how much information fits in a given region of space? Physicists studying black holes arrived at something surprising: the information a region can carry is limited not by its volume but by the area of the surface surrounding it. According to the paper this limit is about 1.4 times 10 to the power 69 bits per square meter. The author explains how the limit was found, the role of the quantum properties of black holes here, and, with a construction called "light sheets," which regions it can be applied to. He says the limit has been tested in many examples. This is a theory review, not a direct measurement. The side the author states openly: the reason for the relation between geometry and information has not yet been explained. The "holographic principle" proposes that its root lies in the degrees of freedom of a unified theory of spacetime and matter; but this is a proposal. [Bousso 2002]
Looking side by side
Pure whole, mixed part: greets from a distance
What is shared: knowing the whole does not mean knowing the part. In Kaufman's experiment the whole of six atoms is exactly definite; but when you look at a part of two or three atoms inside it, that part on its own is indefinite, as if random. In Dost's words such as "creation has entered into al-Haqq, and al-Haqq into creation" and "the human being is the summary of the world, the world is the expansion of the human being," too, the part cannot be described independently of the whole. This is the place where they fall side by side. The part–whole relation is an old subject treated in other traditions of thought as well; we did not look at those traditions, so we are not saying that this commonality is specific to Dost. In Dost the subject is less part–whole logic than the relation of al-Haqq and creation. [Kaufman 2016; SEP: Quantum Entanglement and Information]
Where they part: in physics this is a criterion: the state of the whole is definite, that of the part indefinite; it can be shown with numbers and with experiment. In Dost the same bond concerns being itself: whole and part are ontologically bound to each other, and there is nothing to measure. In physics the subject is information and entropy, in Dost al-Haqq and creation. This difference is not small.
How someone who sees might notice: by looking at the pattern "the whole is known but the part is not." In physics this pattern is a known consequence of entanglement (the whole can be definite while the parts are indefinite on their own). Whether in Dost's sentences there is a place corresponding to this, where the part remains "indefinite on its own," we did not look; perhaps someone who sees would look for it in the idioms "as good as nonexistent" or "relation."
Open question: are the place where Dost says "a part cannot be described apart from the whole" and the place where physics says "the whole is pure while the part is mixed" two different languages of the same bewilderment, or a general sentence that could be said of any whole–part relation?
Identical particles: greets from a distance
What is shared: the weakening of the "individual." In physics, looking at two electrons, saying "which is which" can lose its meaning. In Dost multiplicity is described as the one truth appearing within relations and forms; separate "things" are not the real reality. On both sides the idea of a "separate individual" is shaken. [SEP: Identity and Individuality in Quantum Theory]
Where they part: in physics the subject is the absence of labelable individuals: particles that can be counted but of which it cannot be said which is which. In Dost, on the other hand, what is described is the appearing-many of a single truth. The two are claims of different kinds. Moreover the philosophy entry says openly that no firm conclusion exists on this matter.
How someone who sees might notice: by the difference between "counting" and "distinguishing." We did not look separately at how multiplicity is counted in Dost.
Open question: can "cannot be labeled" and "the appearing of the one truth" be compared by keeping their standpoints apart, or are they similar only at the level of words?
Holographic boundary: tempting, but we did not do this
This is what came to our minds first: Dost's words "the human being is the summary of the world" and "the small human being, the great human being," and the holographic principle, that is, the idea that the information of a region is written on its boundary. Both seem to be saying "the great is within the small." But this is a resemblance of words. The holographic principle is a proposal; there is no experiment, and, as 't Hooft himself notes, it is a theoretical inference. The statement in Dost, on the other hand, is about the degrees of being. We deliberately avoided writing this resemblance as a closeness. On other pages of ours there are two more similar pairings that we left aside for the same reason. ['t Hooft 1993; Susskind 1995; Bousso 2002]
Other doors
In Dost the Wholeness form is not limited to the above: there are 26 items on the circle, the point, and the circumference, and 24 items on number, letter, and breath. We did not look at these; for geometry and letter numbers we found no suitable counterpart in physics. The type of 34 items, in which the touching and the touched between the servant and al-Haqq, the seer and the seen meet in a single way of speaking, belongs less to this page than to the Identity and Relation headings; we left them to the relevant form pages.
Questions we are left with
- Is the mixedness of the part while the whole is pure the most specific physics counterpart of Dost's "a part cannot be described apart from the whole," or is it a general sentence that could be said of any whole–part relation?
- Given that this form appears in 208 places in Dost while only one theme could be set side by side with physics, what does this show: that Wholeness is a way of speaking specific to Dost, or that it is too general for physics to serve as a comparison?
- Do "countable but indistinguishable" and "multiplicity is in relation" point in the same direction, or do they merely sound alike?
- The places where Dost says "there is no outside": within what limit can they be spoken of in physics?
What did we not do?
This page is not a reading summary; it is our own reading framework. We read Dost from the Turkish section summaries; we did not compare with the Arabic original. We did the merging of topics with agents; we checked every quotation against the source text, but the thematic decisions are ours.
We did not, and will not, write any closeness as "the same as this thing." We do not present Dost as having gone ahead of a physical theory, or physics as a witness to Dost. Wholeness is a form that appears very often, and the place where it stands firm against physics is small: this too is a result, and we did not hide it. We do not understand Dost, but we do not give up trying to understand.