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

6. Power of Absence :
Zero = nothing
Greek “zephyr”; English “cypher”; literally - wind or breath; figuratively - spirit
Cypher = secret code; mathematics; computation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature

   Post 74. March 10, 2019

  Materialism versus Spiritualism

   BothAnd balances Dualism & Monism

 The point of the Enformationism thesis, is not that mythical gods and magical forces are real, but merely that materialism does not present a complete picture of the world. The thesis does not assume that Consciousness is a natural Force that humans can tap into for magic & miracles. There may or may not be a celestial realm of deities & superpowers, but the existence of an immaterial underworld of ghostly particles & forces has been empirically proven. So, perhaps we should acknowledge that the ancient Seers were not necessarily deceiving or deceived, but simply perceiving shadows in Plato’s Cave that they could only describe in mundane metaphors of humanlike agents with the psychic abilities that come with freedom from physical constraints.
   I give them credit for being intelligent and perceptive, And I understand why the abstract realities that wise men crudely explained in myths & metaphors, were interpreted concretely by the common people. When sages said that the Soul of a man is like invisible but life-giving breath, their literal-minded hearers envisioned the translucent cloud-like substance , Ectoplasm. Weather gods, like Zeus & Yaweh, were imagined literally blowing clouds and stars around with puffs of super-breath6. When priests asserted that “life is in the blood”, they meant some vital fluid  – Spirit, Chi, Prana – because they knew nothing of the invisible life-sustaining gas, oxygen. The stark Quantum realm of mathematical abstractions is a far cry from fabulous portrayals of the spirit world. Yet, because of their either-or stance, spiritualists feel vindicated by the under-mining of the materialist foundation of solid atoms, replaced by mental objects. But disproving Atomism does not prove Spiritualism. Instead, we need a modern metaphor that explains both Matter/Energy and Life/Mind : Information/Enformation7.

The universal quantum field is not heaven, nor a parallel world, separate from our human scale reality, but merely the intangible ocean-of-being within which we live & breathe. It’s the mathe-matical/logical structure of the classical world known by the five senses. We can only “see” that invisible realm via our sixth sense of Reason. Which some people take as license to rationalize an ideal reality to suit their romantic desires. Hence, the fictional religious realm is usually a simplistic adolescent video game of good versus evil, angels versus demons. By contrast, the parallel worlds of materialists tend to be replicas of of the familiar world we know via our senses. The cartesian compromise of a gulf between Body & Soul was based on the assumption of a Matter & Spirit duality. But now we know that they are merely two sides of the same coin : Physics and Metaphysics. 

End of Post 74

Varieties of Belief
click here for enlargement

Fallacy of Duality :

Materialism is the worldview of Physics, which is the study of Matter & Energy.
Spiritualism is the worldview of Metaphysics, the domain of Mind & Consciousness.
Enformationism is the worldview of BothAnd, which is the study of both Physics and Metaphysics.

   Materialism and Spiritualism tend to focus on one face of a two-sided coin. Our existence consists of both material processes, and mental processes. But the substance of both is Information.
   Claude Shannon was a materialist, who focused his attention on the physical aspects of Information. But before the term was applied to mechanical computer processes, it was only used in reference to mental mind functions, such as con-sciousness, memory, and so forth.
   Since the advent of Quantum mechanics and Shannon Information theories, we have learned that the matter & energy of physics ultimately consist of mathe-matical ratios in the form of statistical probabilities. Those fractional numbers relate to degrees of being, ranging between Virtual reality (metaphysics) and Actual reality (physics).
   Numbers themselves have no physical existence, since they are simply names for abstract values : “one” is the name for a single thing as compared to many possible things.
   Mathematics is the most abstract and unreal aspect of human experience. But it is the essence of everything we know. Knowing is evaluating : the experience of relating self to other, me to my environ-ment. So the mind that knows, is calculating values.

 7.  Depolarization of       Worldviews :
  In order for Enformationism to unify the polarized world-views of Materialism and Spiritualism, both need to let go of some pet presumptions.
   Scientists have grudgingly given up on the ancient theory of Atomism – that reality consists of atoms & void, period. Quantum theory has shown that the fundamental element of reality is mathematical statistical information (the Field). All energy & matter & mind evolve from that universal intangible pool of potential. Hence, the essence of reality is more like Mind than Matter.
   Spiritualists have reluctantly accepted that scientific methods are more productive than magic for manipulating matter. But they still hold that Minds and hearts are beyond the reach of mundane man-agement. Nevertheless, modern medicine can control moods & consciousness with drugs, and mechanical brain stimulation can cause images and feeling to arise. So it seems that the physical brain and the metaphysical mind are inherently integrated on a basic level.
   Enformationism postulates that Mind & Matter are ultimately the same thing : Information in the Mind of G*D.