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

New coin for
novel context

   Post 70. January 22, 2019

  Why Coin Tech Terms?

   Neologisms Shmeologisms

 In the Enformationism thesis, and in the BothAnd Blog, I have coined a lot of new words (neologisms) as short-cuts to complex or unfamiliar concepts. The practice of using words that can't be found in a dictionary makes reading more of a challenge, and may seem pretentious. But, such coining is common  for scientific and philosophical writings that explore uncharted territory off the current maps. One reason for using novel words is to avoid old biases. Well-known words usually have collected a lot of baggage over the years. And some-times, the meaning of common words has evolved into a sense far from the original context & connotation. But the primary reason for using a special label for a technical definition is so the writer can control its meaning precisely.

For example "Soul" refers to the essence of a person. But it has come to imply a cartesian duality of body as vessel or container, and soul as captain & content. Since that is not how I understand the relationship of body and mind/soul, I prefer another common, but less compromised, word for a person. So I use “Self”1, which simply refers to the whole being, without any implication of division into parts. Soul is typically treated as a sacred spiritual substance (ghost; ectoplasm), while Self is merely a reference to the person in all aspects, mental & physical. In the glossary, I explicitly exclude the reductive dualistic connotations, and focus on the holistic unitary meaning. Moreover, I can define "Self" in technical terms of Information theory, and with reference to the usage of other writers, such as Terrence Deacon. This is not really a new word, but a more scientific alternative for an old word with mystical baggage.

I have also made-up some customized terminology to distinguish Enformationism from Materialism. That unconven-tional label is intended to encapsulate the key concept of my thesis : that meta-physical Information is more fundamental to reality than material substance. The distinction is continued in contrasting Entropy with Enformy, Energy to Enformation, and Causation to EnFormAction. I intended for the meaning & implication of those coinages to be intimated in the spelling of the words themselves. But a little more background may help to elicit the “aha!” of insight into the implicit significance.

That’s why I have constructed an extensive online glossary, with hyperlinks and cross-references to related concepts. It’s a work in progress, because the thesis is still open-ended, still searching for a final resolution to the basic philosophical questions of Ontology:“what’s real?”, and of Epistemology: “what can I know? With all the confusing and conflicting belief systems in the world, how can I know what to believe? Seekers after wisdom have been advised since Socrates : first define your terms, thereby reveal your assumptions.  

End of Post 70

1. Self versus Soul :
   For reasons similar to my own, Terrence Deacon, in his Incomplete Nature, used the common self-referential term for a person, “Self”, to distinguish his concept of the defining property of Life & Mind from ancient notions of Soul/Body duality, and from modern Neural=Mind theories. His Selves have metaphysical “aims” and “ententions”, but are super-venient on, or dependent upon, physical bodies and “absential” forces.
   Jeremy Sherman’s sequel was entitled, Neither Ghost Nor Machine, But I interpret Deacon’s definition to imply that the Self/Soul is both Ghost and Machine, both Spirit and Matter. It’s the combination of an attractive force and physical substance that causes Life and Mind to emerge from dead matter.
   By “absential”, Deacon means “aboutness”, a reference or relationship to something external to the point of perspective. Ironically, the “about” relation between Self & Other functions like a causal force, similar to the gravitational pull of two bodies in space.
http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page20.html

Note to Self :
“Self” is a compact metaphor for all the complexity that is me. “Soul” is a supernatural metaphor for “Self”, which includes sacred and spiritual connotations. So, Self is more appropriate for use in non-religious contexts.

Enformation & EnFormAction :
Two sides of the same coinage.
   Enformation is simply “Information” spelled with an “E” to indicate the active form of passive data. It’s equivalent to physical energy, in addition to meta-physical ideas.
   EnFormAction is the same basic idea, but intended to be more general in its application. EFA is the force that propels the Cosmos on its journey of evolution from Alpha to Omega, nothing to every-thing. It’s equivalent to the Will of G*D.
   Why two words for the same concept? Not to be prolix, but to be specific. In fact, Enformy is another variation on the same idea, but coined to avoid the ungainly conventional term, Negentropy, which misses the point of my thesis.

Personal Note :
   In Philosophy Now magazine [Feb/Mar2019], Martin Jenkins began his Ayn Rand article with : “It takes a bigger than average ego to consciously create a philosophy and give it a name of one’s own choosing.”
   Although my IQ & ego are minuscule compared with Taleb and Rand, I have created a personal philosophy and labeled it with a neologism : Enformationism. But to avoid unflattering com-parisons with those giants, I hide my enlightenment “under a bushel” in this blog.

Click here for
LINK TO GLOSSARY