Phil Forum : Metaphysics

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/327679

Information' and 'meaning' differ in significant ways. People nowadays will refer to 'information' as if it is a fundamental category in its own right, like 'mind' or 'matter'. But the problem is, the word itself is polysemic, meaning different things in different contexts. It's not like a metaphysical simple. — Wayfarer

Yes. Those words, like most language, can be ambiguous. But as a "metaphysical simple" I'd use the term "information" in the sense of the basic bit of understanding or meaning : 1 or 0; is or ain't; existing or non-existing; being or non-being. Every other bit or byte of knowledge is built upon that fundamental categorical distinction. It's the "difference that makes a difference".

Claude Shannon separated the traditional definition of "information" from meaning-in-a-mind (knowledge) because -- as an engineer, not a philosopher -- he was focused on the carrier-of-information, instead of the content : meaning.

human mental capacities have clearly evolved, but when they have evolved to the point of reason, language and abstraction, then they in some sense transcend the biological. Which is something that most modern philosophy has trouble recognising. — Wayfarer

In my concept of evolution -- not Intelligent Design, but Intelligent Evolution -- the advent of human mind signaled a transition from Nature to Culture. Human culture advances at a much more rapid pace than biological evolution. But I refer to it as just another "Phase Change" instead of a special miracle.

Mainstream philosophers still seem to have physics envy. But quite a few philosophers and scientists are returning to the roots of Natural Philosophy, by investigating some ancient notions rejected by materialist science : Panpsychism, Idealism, Elan Vital, etc. I have reviewed several of those in my blog. The problem is that acknowledging the growing power of the collective mind can be twisted into a justification for ancient notions of mind-over-matter magic. By emphasizing mundane Information rather than exotic concepts of Consciousness (souls; ghosts), I try to avoid such unwarranted implications.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/327679

But in any case, the model you're suggesting is still basically physicalist, i.e., it equates meaning and intelligence with information that can be digitally encoded. — Wayfarer

The Star Trek analogy was indeed a "physicalist" model of the mind and the soul. That's where all sci-fi stories of uploading minds into computers go wrong. They assume the information is recorded in the brain like data on a hard drive. Yet data is just meaningless abstractions until interpreted by a mind.

But my concept of Information is Idealist. It's true that mental information can be encoded as symbols into a computer, but the meaning of those symbols is not transmitted. Instead, the recipient is assumed to already know their meaning. Any new knowledge they receive is by inference in the mind of the recipient. Unlike physical things, metaphysical Information is something I can give away, and still have it. The medium is not the message.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/327679

But don't you recognize that infinite potential could not contain any actuality, and therefore could not be a cause of anything? — Metaphysician Undercover

You are missing the power of potential. If a potential is not capable of causing anything, it's not potential, it's impotent. By definition, the cause of our world possessed the creative power to cause a world to exist. Whether the First Cause was a god or an infinite regression of universes, it necessarily possessed the power to actualize something new that didn't exist before. In my thesis, infinite BEING is omnipotential, but the existence of our universe was conditional. A choice was required. An intention was enforced. I know nothing about infinity, except what Logic mandates.

In the battery example. Voltage (potential) doesn't do any work. It's Amperage that causes change. But without the voltage, there would be no amperage. Without BEING, there would be no beings.

You cannot really say that the potential of the battery has no properties because you have already defined it as 1.5 volts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Voltage is not a property, it's a prediction.

Because any 'real' potential is limited in this way, it doesn't make any sense to speak of unlimited, or infinite potential. — Metaphysician Undercover

The Potential I'm talking about is not Real, it's Ideal. Nothing in reality is infinite. Infinity and Eternity are unlimited, by definition. BEING is not real. G*D is not real. Metaphysics is not real. FORMS are not real. They are all Ideal. Hence, not restricted by the laws of physics.

Do you know anyone who's actually tried to explain the natural world without recourse to metaphysics? — Metaphysician Undercover

I rest my case.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/327679

But then you say that EnFormAction is the power to transform potential to actual. Therefore it must be something actual, and also separate from infinite potential, which you call BEING. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. BEING (G*D) is infinite potential, and is not real. But EnFormAction is the power of G*D in the world, and is real in the same sense that Energy is real. As a historical analogy, EFA is similar to the Holy Spirit in the Bible. Jehovah doesn't have to come down to Earth to enforce his Will. Instead, he sends his Spirit to do the job. It's just a metaphor. Don't take it too literally.

I think the ancients were smart people trying to understand how and why the world works as it does. In the pre-scientific ages, supernatural gods were plausible concepts to explain the mysterious causes of natural events. Today, we call those causes by the name of Energy and Forces. They obviously have effects in the real world, but we know them only by their works, not as ding an sich.

I'm still grasping for the hows & whys, but I don't have a divine revelation to set me straight. So, I use the tools of fallible human philosophy and science.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/328037

along the lines that 'information is information, it is not matter or energy'. — Wayfarer

Generic Information is multi-faceted and hard to pin down to one thing. In Macro Physics, energy and information are not usually equated. But in Quantum Physics the relationship is a necessary conclusion. En-Form-Action is potential for a change in form. Energy is also the potential for change. But EFA is a metaphysical concept, while Energy is a physical concept. A Quantum Field (potential or virtual particles) is a metaphysical concept that exists only in a mathematical sense. But when a real particle appears from empty space, a unit of (vacuum) energy is assumed to have been expended. Quantum language is so metaphorical and vacuous that it seems paradoxical.
Information = Energy : https://physicsworld.com/a/information- ... to-energy/

All of which is true but it's still unclear what information means in a general sense. To me it seems that information is only structured to any significant degree in living beings and in minds, and I find that significant. — Wayfarer

There are two meanings for the word "structure". For most folks it's the physical posts & beams that a building is made of. But, for an engineer, the structure is a diagram of forces and reactions (vectors). Information is both concrete structure (things) and abstract structure (relationships between things).
Generic Information : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

I distinguish what is real from what (merely) exists. The phenomenal domain comprises existing things, but 'existence' itself is always a combination of the real and the unreal. Whereas forms, numbers etc are real but not existent - they don't have to exist, things do the hard work of existing. — Wayfarer

In my list of examples -- "BEING is not real. G*D is not real. Metaphysics is not real. FORMS are not real. They are all Ideal" -- the distinction between Real & Ideal is Concrete vs Abstract and Actual vs Potential. So G*D is not a real being (thing), but the ideal state of BEING. Ideal objects "exist" only in minds, not in matter.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/328037

Gnomon
read these two paragraphs. Substitute 'to exist' for 'to be'. — Wayfarer

"God as creator is then a kind of transcendent non-being above the being of creation."

He says "God is" (exists in some sense), but is also "non-being". That's why I use the neologism of BEING to refer to that which exists in a transcendent sense as the potential for creation of something from nothing, real from ideal.

No. The ancients meant something different to what we mean by 'cause' - they meant in a broader 'the reason why things exist'. — Wayfarer

Yes, Laymen and philosophers mean something different by "cause". Most people think in terms of proximate causes (energy), while others look for ultimate causes (EnFormAction).

[Gnomon]

How can you say that a potential can cause something if you uphold the distinction between potential and actual and see that an act is required as a cause? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's a fine philosophical distinction. Of course, in the real world Potential & Actual occur in pairs : Voltage & Amperage. But, the voltage in a battery can exist unrealized for years, until a circuit is completed by the user (plug it into a device and close the on-off switch). So, in Eternity & Infinity, transcendent Potential could theoretically exist independently, until triggered by a choice, an intention, which completes a circuit from Ideal to Real and back to Ideal again. In this analogy, G*D is both battery and user, both potential and actualizer. The device is our universe.

Sure, but do you see that possessing the power to cause a world to exist is different from actually causing the world to exist? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. See the reply above. If G*D is only potential, nothing would ever happen. That's why I assume that G*D must also have Intention, Will, Telos. Of course I don't know how these things would work outside of space-time-matter-energy. It's a mystery.

No, voltage is a description, not a prediction. According to Wikipedia it is the difference in electric potential between two points. — Metaphysician Undercover

Voltage is a description of what will happen in the future when a path between those two points is completed. Voltage is also Information in the sense of a "difference that makes a difference" : it causes change.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/328704


So, it is in a sense the 'relations between things' but I feel as though you're not really cutting through to the profound sense in which such relations and laws represent an underlying logos which guides and directs all things: not as a 'god' through acts of will but because they constitute the 'fabric of the cosmos. — Wayfarer

The "profound sense" of logical structure and causal power in the world, is what I call EnFormAction. EFA is also equivalent to Greek Logos. But both EFA and Logos are messengers (so to speak) not the source of creative power. The Telos is in the "mind of G*D".

At first, I was reluctant to attribute conscious teleological choices to the Source (G*D) of the power and intent that creates Cosmos from Chaos (unformed potential). But after exploring how and why the cosmos works as it does, I was forced to view the creation (via evolution) as an intentional act of will*. I don't know how Choice and Will might work in an immaterial infinite & eternal setting. But it seems to be analogous to human design or programming, using the basic mathematical language of 1s & 0s (something or nothing, on or off, being or non-being).

Therefore, Information (power to enform or create) is indeed the "fabric of the cosmos". By that I mean, mathematical relationships (ratios) are the threads that bind the material of the universe together. Here's an image showing nodes (nouns, stuff) and links (verbs, actions) in a dynamic system : https://previews.123rf.com/images/ramcr ... esign-.jpg


* "There is purpose, then, in what is, and in what happens, in Nature" ---Aristotle, Metaphysics

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/328704

Do you see the "choice", as an actuality which is distinct from both the voltage and amperage? If the voltage is potential, it could sit there forever without an actuality (choice in this case) to actualize it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Divine Choice or Will is an actuality in the sense of a "live option". As I said before, years ago, I began as an Agnostic, and was trying to avoid attributing Purpose, Will, Choice, to the First Cause. That original position would now be something like a Multiverse, blindly and randomly changing the bits & pieces of reality without any plan or purpose. But I have been forced by the evidence to admit that the creation of our world in a Big Bang was intentional. Yet I doubt that the Grand Goal is to create a race of sycophantic worshipers. So I don't know for sure what the ultimate Telos of evolution might be. All I know is that the universe is moving toward some Omega Point.

So, yes, Infinite Potential would be impotent without the power to Choose the final form of Temporal Actuality (Reality). But, since evolution seems to be inherently random, it requires Natural Selection (circumstantial choice by context) to guide it to some non-random outcome. That allows for some freedom within destiny, as exemplified by the emergence of Cultural Selection to nudge evolution toward human ends.

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
You might find Ervin Lazlo's idea interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ervin_L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3 — Janus

Yes, his theory of an Akashic Field is similar to my notion of the universal Quantum Field as a web or fabric of Information interrelationships. Since his theory was inspired by Hindu philosophy, I might mention that my notion of G*D is similar to the philosophical concept of Brahman (ultimate reality or Ideality). But I try to avoid mixing-in some of the spicy religious flavor of Hindu Religion, in which Brahman is just another humanoid god. Deepak Chopra also seems to include some outdated Hindu science (e.g. Prana) in his writings on related subjects.