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

Post 4. November 20, 2017  

Alternative Theory of Reality & Deity

 Pragmatic Idealism

The Enformationism worldview1 is consonant with an old philosophical theory, Panpsychism, that could bridge the rift between the pervasive & timeless belief in a spirit-dominated natural world (gods & ghosts) and the modern scientific belief in a soulless material world built upon a squishy quantum foundation (forces & fields) inaccessible to the five senses. Prior to the discovery of spooky & paradoxical “Quantum Reality”, Atheists were justifiably skeptical of the invisible (spiritual) entities postulated by pre-scientific sages to explain why the world behaves as-if quirky tricksters were tampering with the otherwise predictable processes of Fate. Now we see that unpredictability is necessary for the creativity of the evolutionary system, which produced living & thinking creatures from the raw material of pure unformed energy in the original Singularity. Nothing in this hybrid Alt-Reality of Enformationism is intended to be construed as a violation of natural laws. Yet, like the queerness of the Quantum Theory, it may stretch the settled belief system of those with pre-quantum materialistic worldviews, such as Atomism. In QT, there are no tangible atoms, there are only intangible fields of predictable possibility, that are, in practice, just as ghostly & eccentric as the sprites, demons, & deities of the old days.    

  In this new/old conception of the world, material Reality is merely a conventional mental model derived from limited information about ultimate Ideality2. However, unlike the Buddhist disparagement of reality as something to escape, Enformationism accepts that our brief existence takes place entirely in mundane materialistic space-time, so you can't get out of this world alive. In this new view, Reality & Ideality are inherently entangled, as in Yin & Yang. Hence, the kind of Pragmatic Idealism I'm envisioning does not replace scientific Realism --- and doesn't endorse fantasies of magic, miracles & monsters --- because every thing or fact in the “real” parts of the world is subject to logical validation or empirical testing prior to belief. Only the unreal (ideal) Deity is, by necessity, taken for granted as an axiom.

In the early 20th century, no-nonsense physicists were reluctantly forced to believe in the existence of  massless photons & ghostly neutrinos, not because they know them directly via the six senses, but because these theoretical entities have practical effects on the macro scale, which gives them a logical role in reality, and a reason for being. For the same reason, we are allowed to believe in the reality of our personal mental models, because our trust in those constructs allows us to interact with elements of the world while expecting predictable results, i.e. to impose our wills upon the world. So Reality can be described as that which responds reliably to our physical probing, while Ideality is responsive only to metaphysical rationalizing. Pragmatic Idealism is a holistic worldview, grounded upon our sensory experience with, and knowledge of, how the mundane world works, and how Reality & Ideality work together to make a single whole. Moreover, the First Cause argument leads us back to the question of what existed before the beginning of Reality as we know it.
/See End Note 4./                                   

Post 4 continued . . . Click Next

1.This is a Both/And theory instead of the usual Either/Or assumption.

Pragmatic : dealing with things sensibly and real-istically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations.

2. Some of that information comes directly from the five senses, but the ideas that bind them into a whole picture come mostly from social sources.    

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer . . .  His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity

Image :
Quantum vs Classical Laws

Pragmatic Idealism :

Practical Idealism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_idealism

Business & Leadership
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/how-millennials-make-pragmatic-idealism-work-for-them/article26663877/

Computer Science
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187705091632467X

Personal Philosophy
https://medium.com/pragmatic-idealism/my-philosophy-of-life-pragmatic-idealism-589e44731c57

Philosophical System
https://brill.com/view/title/30507?qt-qt_product_details=0