Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Enformaxion as both demon & deity
Post 100.September 22, 2019 continued . . .
Body, Soul, and Information
The Neural Correlates of Ghostiness
The 16th century philosopher/scientist Descartes, tempo-rarily resolved the age-old conundrum of the relationship of mind to body, by asserting that the Soul was immaterial and thus not accessible by the methods of Science. His pragmatic dualism allowed scientists to ignore metaphysical Conscious-ness as they dissected physical bodies. But another philo-sopher, Gilbert Ryle, later scoffed at this evasive solution to an important problem, calling Descartes’ Soul in a Shell : “the ghost in the machine”. Around the same time, quantum theorist Erwin Schrödinger returned to the quest for a scientific answer to the persistent desire to understand the core essence of humanity. He asked, “what kind of material process is directly associated with consciousness?” In the 21st century, we now search for the “neural correlates of consciousness”. But that focus on matter still misses the essence, seeing only the mechanics of the machine that either generates Conscious-ness, or is operated by the Ghost.
In contrast to those who believe that the Mind is generated by the brain like the output of a computer, there are others who postulate that the mind is in outer space, and the brain simply tunes in like a radio. Davies doesn’t take the latter theory seriously, asking skeptically, “could the brain be merely a receiver of consciousness signals created somewhere else?” If so, then scientists haven’t been able to detect those signals “putting thoughts in our heads” like remote-controlled robots. But he also labels as ‘mystical’ the notion of “a Platonic realm of mathematical forms and relationships that not only lies beyond the brain, but beyond space and time altogether.” Yet that is exactly the assumption of the Enformationism world-view. It’s not based on empirical evidence, but taken as a necessary axiom to explain the origin of all non-mystical information in the space-time universe. Ironically, Davies’ books on the role of Information in physics were a primary source of ideas that informed the Enformationism thesis.
In the Epilogue to the book, Davies reasserts his conviction that “information forms a powerful bridge between physics and biology.” And I would also add that Information forms a bridge between physics and meta-physics, the science of the mind. Then he makes a surprising statement : “while it is the case that biological information is instantiated in matter, it is not inherent in matter.” I could quibble with that assertion, because I think Information is Matter, for the same reason that Energy is Matter (technically Mass)5. No energy, no mass, no mass no matter; likewise, no Information, no energy, no matter. As a serious scientist, he is careful not to invoke any supernatural influences responsible for the emergence of biology & psych-ology from physics. Saying, “there is no evidence whatever that the known laws of physics are rigged in favour of life.” Yet, since Life & Mind are not explained by Physics, he gives an oblique nod to some extra-physical Enformer : “These specu-lative notions are very far from a miracle -working deity who conjures life into being from dust. But, if the emergence of life, and perhaps mind, are etched into the underlying lawfulness nature, it would bestow upon our existence as living, thinking beings a type of cosmic-level meaning.” Which is precisely the conclusion of the Enformationism thesis.6
End of Post 100
Phase Change due to Contextual Laws of Physics
In the Epilogue, Davies discusses some theories of how Nature could transform ordinary matter into living organisms, without recourse to miraculous intervention. Although he says that the known laws of physics are not biased in favor of Life, he questions whether there might be other laws that apply only to certain states of matter. These hypo-thetical “state-dependent laws” may be responsible for the ordinary Phase Changes observed when Liquid water, for example transforms into solid Ice. Or gaseous Vapor. He goes on to discuss how those phase trans-formations are not simply cause & effect chains, but something like “quantum Leaps in holistic systems”. [my terms]. He notes that presumed fixed laws of physics are interpreted in reality according to context : “rules often depend on the state of the system concerned.”. Davies refers to such rules as “Informational Laws”, and points to experimental evi-dence that the “laws of chemistry somehow favored life, as if they knew about it in advance”. Which suggests that “systems self-organize in ways to amplify their information-processing abilities.” So, if Biology resulted from contextual rules inherent in Physics, you could say that Life was anticipated in the original source code of the Big Bang. Which implies, not “a one-off miracle” of ensoulment, but the creation of a cosmic system of Evolution, Enformy, and EnForm-Action.
6. Enformationism Thesis : The Aristotelian First Cause (Enformer) is imagined, not as a theistic humanoid God-King, but as a deistic abstract principle of Being and Causation. http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
The Demon In The Machine How the hidden webs of information are solving the mystery of life
Paul Davies Physicist & Cosmologist ”What gives living things that enigmatic oomph . . .?”
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