1 - What Is Hysteresis?

Summary

Why is there being rather than nothing? What did God do before creation? All such questions find their answer in the possibility of retaining. In the beginning was hysteresis, or rather what makes hysteresis possible: a force that held together a mass (which was both matter and spirit, or at least what we call by these names) that exploded, and which has been expanding ever since. If it did not vanish at once, it was because of hysteresis, which also allows for the principle of identity (A = A).

1.1 Questions

Why does something remain? The big metaphysical question according to Leibniz is ‘why is there something rather than nothing, since nothing is simpler and easier?’ The weakness of this question is that it comes ex post: there is a philosopher, there is a world, and then one wonders why there is something. The temptation to answer ‘just because it is so’ is really very strong. The fundamental metaphysical question, which seems to be authorised by conjectures about the origin of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Big Bounce, seems to be rather: Why is there memory rather than oblivion? Why does a very concentrated memory, at a certain point, explode (interrupt, break down), giving life to space, time and everything else?

The fundamental force behind the universe is the fact that a system keeps track of previous events so that every single event presupposes those that preceded it. In simple terms, the final straw (both literally and metaphorically) presupposes all the other straws. Usually, one interprets this circumstance in terms of causality, but talking about causes is no different from talking about ends: it is an anthropologism, useful and legitimate, sure, but an anthropologism nonetheless. A neutral view of the process supposes instead that we refer to this ‘powerful force’ underlying the universe, which manifests itself to us as a recording and from which causality and finality derive.

So it all began with a recording. But on what does the power of the recording depend? The answer, as mentioned, is anything but a mystery; or, more exactly, it is a letter purloined in front of everyone's eyes. Recording has the metaphysical property of transforming passivity into activity, event into object, case into law.