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.
Post 141.February 5, 2025
Evolutionary Process and Cosmic Reality
Process Metaphysics vs Substance Physics
In the early days of my amateur retirement venture into the academic discipline of Philosophy ─ study of knowledge, reality, and existence ─ I got in way over my head trying to read A. N. Whitehead's abstruse & enigmatic explication of Process and Reality. Nevertheless, the general gist seemed to be agreeable to my own emerging Holistic & Information-based amateur worldview. More recently, I was prompted to do a Google search on : "process philosophy compared to what?" Here's the response from Google A.I. Overview : "Process philosophy is often compared to substance metaphysics, which is the dominant paradigm in Western philosophy. Process philosophy differs from substance metaphysics in its focus on becoming and change, rather than the static nature of being." What it does, versus what it is?
I suppose "substance metaphysics" is a reference to the modern scientific worldview : reductive and materialistic. But Whitehead's dynamic "process" view of the universe may be more like a living evolving Organism than a soulless cycling Mechanism. I was still not sure what "transient occasions of change" might be in a more vernacular expression. It could refer to all exchanges of Energy, or to the perplexing Phase Changes¹ of Physics, or to the un-measurable exchanges of energy & information (Entanglement²) on the quantum level of reality. Both of these paradoxes are characteristic of philo-sophical Holism³. Even the quantum pioneers, who inspired Whitehead, didn't fully understand what was going-on in the basement of the world. Heisenberg called that fundamental mystery & unpredictability "The Uncertainty Principle".
Alfred North Whitehead’s book, Process and Reality, is a philosophical thesis, not a scientific essay. But it challenges the philosophical implications of Darwin’s mechanistic theory of Evolution. Instead of a simple series of energy exchanges, the Cosmos functions as a holistic organism. Hence, the eventual emergence of subordinate living creatures should not be surprising. He also noted that the advent of sentience implies that evolution involves some fundamental element of Experience. In my own thesis I call that atom of sentience : Information⁴ or EnFormAction⁵. Yet, neither Process & Reality, nor my own thesis of Enformationism are accepted scientific theories. They are simply novel ways to think about our evolving Reality, and its progression from a Big Bang outburst to the emergence of sentient creatures that ask questions about their provenance. Besides, Whitehead’s own notion of “evolution” is a teleological⁶ progression of Becoming that is similar to Schopenhauer’s Will (causation), except ANW por-trayed it as the end-directed willpower of a pantheistic law-making God, that he defines as a “Principle of Limitation”. And of course, all Natural Laws are limits on the path of evolution.
1. Phase Change Paradox Most thermodynamic physical changes in matter are gradual enough for scientists to predict and track the steps between one state (liquid) and another (frozen). In theory, phase transitions should only occur in the thermo-dynamic limit of finite quantum systems. Yet, in some materials phase transitions occur quickly & unexpectedly, as if due to magic.
2. Quantum Entanglement Seemingly isolated sub-atomic particles act para-doxically as-if they are in direct contact. Despite the distance between them, they react to observation as-if they are components of a single whole integrated system. This counter-intuitive behavior is the primary quality that makes quantum systems seem counter-intuitive and contra-dictory to classical mechanics.
3. Holism : The theory that parts of a complex system are in intimate, but nonphysical, interconnection, such that they cannot function inde-pendently of the whole.
The Process of Creating Reality
Blog Post 141 continued . . . click Next
4. Information : The power to enform, to create, to cause change, the essence of awareness and sentient experience. This is a philosophical definition that goes beyond Shannon’s engineering concept. https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
5. EnFormAction : A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces & particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. A combination of Energy + Form + Action. It’s like aimless energy except combined with a program of information, like a guided missile. It’s Causation viewed as a computer program. https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
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