TPF : Absential Causation

[Gnomon]

Hello, 180 Proof. I've been learning from you, and I very much appreciate your patient instruction. I'm very gratified to have some of your attention. — ucarr

It might be instructive to ask 180 about his attitude toward Deacon's "radical" Incomplete Nature, and Absential theories. In view of his scathing remarks above regarding "quantum nonsense", ask him if Deacon's discussion of "Downward Causation" ; "Quantum Entanglement" ; "Emergence of Ententional Organization" (IN p161--164), and "Teleology" (IN chap4) is a case of "quantum mysticism", or just plain literal "nonsense". You might find that his conventional Materialism is more exclusive and closed-minded than your own.

PS___ His attention in this thread is primarily directed at mocking Gnomon, not instructing ucarr in the finer points of Materialist doctrine.


Incomplete Nature :
A radical new explanation of how life and consciousness emerge from physics and chemistry.
https://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Natur ... 0393049914

The curiously closed mind :
It’s said that all truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, then violently opposed and then, finally, it’s deemed self evident.
https://www.carolcassara.com/the-curiously-closed-

[Gnomon]

...T. Deacon's thesis seems to be 'nonreductive physicalist scientism'... — 180 Proof
No. The long slog through the statistical bias towards equilibrium, i.e., entropy towards the far-from-equilibrium states required of life is illuminated in detail by the scientific work of Deacon in Incomplete Nature, a game-changer in the mind/body inquiry. — ucarr

Yes, it is a "game changer". But ↪180 Proof is not interested in changing the traditional Materialistic rules of the game*1. He seems to like it just the way it has been since the 5th century BC : rigid Atoms & inert Void, with no agent of Change, or role for a POV. A sentient perspective introduces disruptive opinionated Subjectivity into orderly factual Objective science.

Reductive Science is good at dissecting Atoms, but is unable to separate Mind from Brain. And it was baffled by the indeterminacy of Quantum Physics. Deacon's innovation is to focus on the Void --- the Absence --- that allows Atoms to change position & function --- to introduce novelty into a robotic mechanism. Without that Constitutive Absence, progressive evolution would be impossible. As the Atomism*2 entry below suggests, the Inventive Void that permits & causes re-arrangement of matter does not feature in 180's physical worldview, in which human experience is Absurd.


*1. Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter :
Incomplete Nature begins by accepting what other theories try to deny: that, although mental contents do indeed lack these material-energetic properties, they are still entirely products of physical processes and have an unprecedented kind of causal power that is unlike anything that physics and chemistry alone have so far explained. . . . We need a “theory of everything” which does not leave it absurd that we exist.
https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/incom ... ged-matter

*2. Ancient Atomism :
The interactions of particles too small to observe is a compelling way to account for perceptible changes in the natural world. Even Aristotle—often cast as the arch-enemy of atomism—allowed that there might be a lower limit to the quantity of matter that could instantiate certain properties. But not all atomist theories were based on an appearance/reality distinction: Buddhist philosophers posited phenomenal instants with minimum extension in time as well as space, to mirror the ephemerality of moments of human experience. Void spaces between atoms sometimes, but not always, feature in atomist theories.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-ancient

[Gnomon]

Deacon sounds like he's espousing what C. Rovelli aptly calls "quantum nonsense"... — 180 Proof
I understand him to be making reference to Schrödinger's equation for a superpositionally dead & alive cat. — ucarr

There's a lot of "quantum non-sense" out there, because --- as Einstein objected --- some of it's key features are literally non-sensical, and contrary to common sense. But, sorry Einstein, "God does play dice" on the floor of reality.

Ironically, Rovelli's Relationalism is compatible with my own Enformationism. Inter-relationships are the essence of Information. Superposition is an unsustainable relationship, which "collapses" upon experimental questioning.


Carlo Rovelli’s Relationalism :
At first, Rovelli primarily applied his relationalism to quantum mechanics. However, Rovelli has gone on to apply this metaphysical position to just about every… thing.
Although the following piece is partly sympathetic to relationalism, the primary criticism which remains is that Rovelli appears to be simply inverting the (to use Derrida’s words) “violent hierarchy” that has (according to Rovelli) been set up between objects (or things) and relations in both Western philosophy and in modern physics. In other words, Rovelli has now placed relations — rather than objects — at the top of the pile.
https://medium.com/paul-austin-murphys- ... 6caf122159