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

ENFORMATIONISM

A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory – of – Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.

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  Post 132.  March 10, 2024

  How Does the Brain Create Mind?

     The Essence of Experience

A parallel question is ‘how does matter produce the effect we call Gravity?’ Einstein equated invisible amorphous weightless Energy with tangible sensible matter in his famous E=MC² formula. The equation implies that aethereal  Energy can be transformed into mathematical Mass, which we experience as Matter & Gravity. Similarly, a Brain processes incoming sensory Information ─ representing ideas & objects ─ into the sentient experience we call Mind. Kastrup notes that “there are many entities in science whose only assessible reality is conceptual”. He mentions ‘imaginary numbers’ and ‘quantum fields’. Even though these are not palpable material things, he says “the world behaves as though these conceptual entities existed”. Since scientists accept the reality of such immaterial notions, Kastrup suggests that they should be able to view Conscious-ness, as “this undeniable thing immediately accessible to us prior to all conceptual reasoning”. However, Frankish does not acknowledge a Soul-like entity, but proposes that “conscious-ness is this complex of informational and reactive processes”. A rose by any other name . . . .

Since he brought “Information” into the picture, I can follow that line of reasoning toward my own thesis of Enformation-ism⁸. The metaphysics of Materialism assumes that Matter is the fundamental substance of the world, while Idealism & Pan-psychism take Consciousness (experience ; ideas ; feelings) to be the essence of reality. Yet matter alone, without energy, is merely inert clay. And isolated ideas, apart from matter, have no real substance. So, my thesis postulates that EnFormAction⁹ is the original source of all things and ideas in the world. Ironic-ally,  even though he assumes that Mind-power is the universal essence, Kastrup specifically argues against both Materialism and Panpsychism¹⁰ as theories to explain everything in the world. The latter worldview imagines that a mind-like power permeates the world, bestowing consciousness upon even the lowliest atom. Hence, for some thinkers¹¹, Panpsychism is a sciency alternative to both Materialism and Theism.

Kastrup says that “reductionist neuroscientist Christof Koch” has come to believe in a form of Panpsychism : that ”our complex conscious inner life is constituted by an unfathomable combination of the experiential states of myriad particles forming our brain”. Some panpsychists even point to the hypo-thetical Quantum Field ─ made of uncountable particles ─ as a physical source of psychic power. Yet Kastrup notes that “there is nothing to the particle, but the underlying quantum field”. And a quantum particle is simply an energetic vibration or disturbance in that ocean-like field. Energy alone, though, has no mind-like properties. So, the ultimate source of both causal power and conscious experience must combine Causing with Knowing. And that is the definition of EnFormAction. The philo-sophical term Form refers to the recognizable relationship patterns (ratios) that Plato called Logos.¹² And it’s the root of the modern technical term : Information.

         Blog Post 132 continued . . . click Next  

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8. Enformationism :
   A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century suc-cessor to ancient Material ism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory of Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

9. EnFormAction :
   A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. That made-up name combines Energy + Form + Actual into a single stream of Causation, beginning with the First Cause of all aspects of the world. It’s a Theory of Everything.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

10. Panpsychism :
   Literally, “all mind”. The belief that everything material, however small, has an element of Mind. Higher, more complex, forms of Mind are called “awareness” or “conscious-ness”. Lower & simpler forms are called “energy” or “information”. Enformation-ism does not presume that atoms are conscious.

11. Christof Koch :        
   “What Koch proposes is a scientifically refined version of an ancient philosophical doctrine called panpsychism”
https://www.wired.com/2013/11/christof-koch-panpsychism-consciousness/

12. Logos :
   By the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, logos was the term established to describe the faculty of human reason and the knowledge men had of the known world and of other humans. Plato allowed his characters to engage in the conceit of describing logos as a living being in some of his dialogues.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Logos