Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Ghost of the Gaps
The power of Absence
The Potential of Incompleteness
The Necessity of Statistics
The Attraction of Gravity
The Selection of Negation
The Possibility of Change
Post 59.December 7, 2018 continued . . .
The Ghost in the Organism Spooky Statistical Suction from the Future
Sherman’s contribution is to elucidate the origin of life that eluded Darwin. He tries to avoid any unwarranted assumptions that might lead us astray. One such notion is that “all changes are produced positively by the addition of things or forces”. So his primary contribution is to note that “changes can result negatively, through processes of elimination, not of things but of possible dynamic paths”. Those paths-not-taken are what he calls “Constraints”, like the banks of a river that channel the flow while not being of the flow. These absent constraints are the invisible influencers that have been missed by most materialist scientists until now. Which is why Deacon titled his book, Incomplete Nature.
Most scientific accounts of cause & effect processes begin implicitly with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Entropy. It’s an observed fact that all physical change flows from a state of high potential (hot) toward a state of low potential (cold). So Sherman simply follows the path of energy flow to the mysterious transition point where inorganic matter inexplicably became organic, then suggests some possible intermediate steps that might have happened. But my own theory begins with the Third Law of Thermo, Enformy, which defines how novel forms of organization emerge via feedback loops, in a process similar to the physical metamorphosis known as "phase change". Like Deacon’s hypo-thetical Autogen, my law of anti-entropy is just an educated guess. But it fits-in nicely with other theories of negative influences3 like the non-force of Gravity, and invisible Strange Attractors, and statistical Constraints on possibility. Enformy may be the “relaxation of selection” that allows, not just rote replication, but progression in evolution.
Even in Sherman’s gap-filling scenario of life from non-life, any “accidental” emergence of order implies that the Potential for organization was inherent, but latent, in the system. For example, conflict within the flow of water, releases the innate geometric order of a spiraling whirlpool. Yet scientists have typically assumed that non-random order spontaneously emerges from random accidents. Which is reminiscent of the Spontaneous Generation of Life theories of pre-scientific thinkers. But a law of Enformy would make such counter-intuitive emergent behavior more reasonable, as a sign of Entention4. Like Gravity, Enformy is not a positive force, but a “relaxation” of rigid cause & effect order, to allow new forms to arise from old in feedback loops. It’s an internal tendency, not an outside force. Entropy follows the path of least resistance, while Enformy follows a path of higher restraint. Those intangible law-like constraints can be likened to Natural Selection, a kind of locally forced Choice by elimination of alternative paths, allowing novelty to emerge as-if by necessity.
Although Deacon’s and Sherman’s theory, of how Life & Mind emerged from a lifeless and mindless universe, avoids espousing Creationism, it still implies that the laws and substance of this expanding world were somehow prepared for that eventuality. It’s as-if someone planned for humans to appear at the appropriate place and point in time by pre-setting initial conditions & laws that allow, if not predestine, the emergence of Selves and Aims, or in old-fashioned terms, Souls and Wills. It’s as-if some compelling force from the future was pulling the world toward some final consummation5. Their notion of Lawlike Constraints and Attractive Forces makes it look like we were expected, so somebody left the light on for us. I don’t know for sure who sent the invitation, but based on these novel theories, and my own personal worldview of Enformationism, I would say that Selves (souls) are both Ghosts (metaphysical), and Machines (physical).
End of Blog Post 59
4. Entention : Refers to natural pheno-mena that are not just isolated inert objects, but show signs of reference to other things or events that link back to some point of origin. The kind of inter-related patterns we normally attribute to design. Carried to its logical implication, such pointers refer back to an ultimate Entender or Cause or MInd. Related terms are Aboutness and Function. Entention is inherently teleo-logical, thus impermissible for scientific theories, but not for philosophical conjectures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entention
5. Omega Point : Catholic priest and scientist Teilhard deChardin concluded from paleontological evidence (fossil records), of overall tendencies toward increasing physical complexity and mental prowess,“that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of divine unification”. Sherman probably wouldn’t agree with TdC’s Christian interpretation of the evidence. But he should acknowledge the similarities of Negative Influencers and Constraints in both theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point
Negative Constraints :
Sherman’s Constraints – like the weird physics notions of Strange Attractors (destination points in future space & time) and Warped Space (gradients of possible locations in space) – are directly related to statistical mathematics, which allows us to project what we now know into the unknown future. We can see into that not-yet-real state only dimly though, in terms of gambling odds. We can’t predict the next roll of the dice, but can be pretty sure of the next hundred rolls. This strange mathematical interconnection-of-past-to-future feature of the universe makes mystical prophesy seem almost plausible. As in Einstein’s Block Time, it seems that even future physical forms are in some sense pre-set. Sherman avoids the implication that, in some manner, the destiny of the universe is pre-determined. However, that statistical predestination cannot be absolute, as in some religious doctrines, because it can only be determined within a range of error. It’s as-if G*D was allowing frivolous Chance to determine the path from Alpha to Omega.
What are the odds? Babe Ruth predicts the path of his next home run. Did he know something about the future, or about the past? Did his history of hitting homers make the odds (probability) of hitting another more likely? Or did all those past events delete some future paths as viable options?
Ghost in the Machine Soul in the Body Homunculus in the Head Mind within Matter
Deacon uses the ancient Greek term Homunculus (little man) to stand in for the knowing Soul in a mech-anical body. It’s a place-holder for something in-explicable in materialistic terms.
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3. Negative Influencers : Gravity is colloquially called a Force, but Einstein referred to it with the counter-intuitive metaphor of “warped space”. Since space is by definition nothing, how can you change the shape of nothing? By eliminating alternative shapes. What’s left is statistically and logically compelling. Strange Attractors are places in logical space toward which certain physical processes appear to be pulled, as-if by a tractor beam. There is no such positive physical force, so maybe it’s a negative metaphysical law of absence. Sherman’s Constraints are defined as statistically less likely (strait & narrow) paths that leave more likely (broad) paths as the only viable options. The Rough is a constraint for golfers to keep them on the Green. Statistics is the math of what’s possible or what’s impossible. Sort of like a law of Nature.
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What are the odds? Babe Ruth predicts the path of his next home run. Did he know something about the future, or about the past? Did his history of hitting homers make the odds (probability) of hitting another more likely? Or did all those past events delete some future paths as viable options?
