Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Matters that move us
Post 77.April 04, 2019 continued . . .
What Matters to Me?
Our Objectives are Subjective
Deacon doesn’t back down from tackling the “hard” problem of Consciousness, but he avoids the spiritualistic implications of metaphysics by noting that “immaterial” does not imply “transcendent”. Indeed, the invisible quantum field, posited by theoretical physicists to explain empirical findings, is defined in terms of intangible abstract information. Yet it is somehow responsible for creating images of concrete reality in our conscious minds. So how does a software foundation support the hardware superstructure of reality? What is it about the human mind that interprets continuous fields as particular things? My attempt to explain that conundrum proposes that the universal field of information is both Real and Ideal. The field is all around us, but like the raining code of the Matrix movie, what we perceive is only the skin on the statistical structure. The numerical quantum code is like Plato’s Forms, in that it is the essence of a thing that must be transformed into a mental simulation of the original idea. That transition from Ideal to Real is what I call Enformation : the process of enforming.
We all know what consciousness does, because it is funda-mental to our being as humans, but what is it really? We can’t conceive of anything apart from that innate lens looking out onto the world. Clearly, our know–thing is not a homunculus3 in the head, but merely the concept of conceptual behavior. So, it’s hard to understand how a first-person perspective can do anything in reality. In-here is only Qualia, while out-there is measurable Quanta. That’s why our thought processes are dominated by analogies to the phenomenal world we experi-ence. Consequently, our language is inadequate for describing the inner world of subjective feelings4. Which is why we discuss such sentiments in terms of metaphors based on our concepts of objective reality. That’s also the reason we get so confused trying to decide which is real and which only feels real5.
Anyway, our emotions and feelings are the only things personally meaningful to us. So, it’s ironic that, “Our scientific theories have failed to explain what matters most to us : the place of meaning, purpose, and value in the physical world.” Meaning is the relation between Me and my desire (my want, my need). That’s why we are motivated to fill-in that absence with the object of desire. The degree of relevance to me can be quantified only in terms of incompleteness or fulfillment. Love is a feeling of want, only partly satisfied. To “matter” is to have an emotional effect, as if the subject was a material object. Most would say that Love “matters”, knowing full well that such a concept – a generalization of feelings & relationships – is not about material things, but merely indicates potential for the manifested effects of a loving relationship.
But what about spiritual matters? Gods & ghosts are pre-scientific theories of causation. Science has discovered how causation works in terms of matter and physical things. But it has ignored ultimate causes in terms of mind and metaphysical forces. Those were left to religion – until now. Modern scientists can remain materialists only as long as they don't try to explain such Absential phenomena as gravity, dark matter, conscious-ness, psychology, sociology, origins of life, origins of mind, and time. All of those soft science topics are beyond the reach of reductive methods and materialist assumptions.
End of Post 77
3. Homunculus : Latin for “little person”, referring to the mental functions of awareness and consciousness that can’t be explained in material terms.
4. Poetic Language : Our prosaic communi-cation is necessarily materialistic because we must exchange ideas in concrete objective terms, in order to convey abstract subjective meanings. Our symbols must be physical (like idols) to illustrate our metaphysical ideas & feelings (reverence for gods).
5. The Essence of a Thing Philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the objects of our perception (phenomena) are mere “appearances”, not the true things (noumena) as they exist apart from our interpretations of abstract sensory inputs. His notion of the “thing in itself” is similar to Plato’s theory of eternal Forms. Ultimately, reality is ideal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing-in-itself
There is no spoon : Click here for popup
Mathematical Mesh Physical Skin
Matrix Raining Code
There is no spoon : In the Matrix movie, a bald boy bent a spoon with his mind. When asked to explain his method, he replied “I remind myself that there is no spoon”. In other words, the spoon is a figment of his imagination; it’s an object created by his mental perception. Since the Matrix was also an imaginary creation, adepts like Neo could manipulate its objects with his own imagination. Similarly, physicist David Bohm explained his view of the quirky quantum realm : “The student suddenly says to himself, “I under-stand quantum mechanics,” or rather he says, “I understand now that there isn’t anything to be understood.” The difficulties which seemed so formidable have mysteriously vanished. What has happened is that he has learned to think directly and unconsciously in quantum-mechanical language. He is no longer trying to explain everything in terms of prequantum conceptions.”
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