Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

   Post 113.  January 8, 2021 continued  . . . .

  Aristotle and Einstein

   Teleology & Emergence

 Although Aristotle would not be classified as a Theist, in the Abrahamic sense, he was not an Atheist.  He may have been a Deist though, in that his notion of god was natural, instead of super-natural. But, his Nature was an intentional (self-organ-izing ; teleological) organism, not a passive purposeless mechanism. Implicit in that animated worldview was what Ari called “immanent causation”. Which entails the input, and on-going effects, of an outside agent. So the Cosmos, envisioned as a living organism, requires a higher level of complexity than an inorganic object. However, Feser explains that “the difference between living and non-living things, has nothing to do with complexity” — as in the “irreducible complexity” of Intelligent Design arguments. Instead, the difference that makes a difference is Holism23, or Integrated Information24 — which is defined by multiplication, not just addition. But, the mechanical worldview ignores the holistic function of the world system, in favor of focusing on its parts. As Feser puts it : “the classical reductionist aim is to decompose the whole into an aggregate of these micro-level parts”. Which is OK for narrow scientific investigations, but not for broader philosophical purposes.

By “decomposing” the universe into free-floating chunks, materialists can more easily avoid dealing with indications of Teleology in evolution. “The idea would be to eliminate the more robust commonsense notion of function and replace it with a deflationist theoretical conception – to replace teleology with teleonomy25”. Teleonomy is future-oriented only in retrospect, not in prospect. However, for higher holistic organisms, teleological intention is a sign of rational, self-interested behavior. However, in altruistic humans, self-interest includes the interests of the community as a whole, and loved-ones in particular. That’s why Feser raises the “explanatory gap” in science regarding the emergence of Life, Conscious-ness, and Rationality. “The Aristotelian holds that sentient life is irreducible to merely vegetative life . . . . And the Aristotelian holds that rational life is irreducible to mere sentience”. That’s because those holistic functions are more-than the sum of their parts. The emergence of a new whole system (or sub-system; or holon) is always accompanied by novel properties and functions.

Another relevant aspect of Aristotle’s metaphysics is the notion of Essentialism.26 For him, that essence is like Plato’s ideal Forms or Qualia, which interact with the real environment to produce observable physical Properties – as in his theory of Hylemorphism. The Essence or Qualia or Form per se is invisible & intangible to the physical senses, but can be inferred by the sixth sense of a rational mind. Unfortunately, the ghostly implications of Essentialism, may have led to the Christian notion of Spiritualism. But Aristotle’s essence may have been more abstract that the ancient belief in Animism, or the later belief in Human Souls. Feser also notes that, “Aristotle resists the language of ‘emergence’”, apparently due to it’s reductionist implications. But, the Enformationism notion of Emergence27 is reductive only in the sense that everything in the world can be reduced to Generic Information, which is equivalent to what Ari called “Form”.

                     Post 113 continued . . . click Next

Emergence of new forms from old

26. Essentialism :
    The belief that things have a set of characteristics or qualities which make them what they are, and that the task of science and philosophy is their discovery and expression; the doctrine that essence is prior to existence. One form of essentialism is Spiritualism.

27. Emergence :
    Novel forms sometimes seem to emerge suddenly during evolution, but it’s not miraculous. Instead, novel properties that were only Potential became manifest, but the “missing links” are not apparent. In physics, we call that a Phase Transition. That’s why it’s hard to draw a line between non-life and Life, between non-mind and Mind.

  HOLISM & TELEOLOGY

“The general principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." Aristotle viewed the world and each being in the world as mutually interrelated and part of a teleologically organized whole.”
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/holism

23. Holism :
    the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts.
Definition from  Oxford Languages
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

24. Integrated Information
    A recent theory which attempts to explain what consciousness is and why it might be associated with certain complex physical systems functioning together as single holistic unit.

25. Teleonomy :
    Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by natural processes like natural selection. It thus avoids any implication of super-natural causation, which is implicit in Teleology.

Aristotle’s Revenge
The Metaphysical Foundations  of Physical and Biological Science

Edward Feser
Philosopher of
Metaphysics & Natural Theology

“Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science.”