I would rather say, Natural monism. It is only because uniquely humans have minds which construct and project code which in turn affects the body (feelings, activity) that we reify the code. Cows don't vacillate between mind and body. And nature already is neutral, as in One. It is only we, that require neutrality between our reality and make-believe. And that is because we cannot/refuse to see the fictional nature of our make-believe. — ENOAH
I suppose you are making a distinction between Nature and Culture. Nature simply is what it is, but in artificial Culture, philosophers classify & categorize & evaluate. If Nature is all there is, then it is singular & monistic. But "uniquely human" minds tend to analyze Nature into subordinate parts, that may be further distinguished as positive or negative.
Be that as it may, I like "Neutral Monism" because it emphasizes the "neutral" (harmonious) whole consisting of sometimes antagonistic parts. That's the point of my personally coined term BothAnd. The natural world is both one (cosmos) and many (things & processes).
Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized {or neutralized} by putting them into the context of a whole system.
The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to offset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. space/time, good/evil) are ultimately reconciled in monistic Enfernity (eternity & infinity).
Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
1000_F_557963071_JN1VtGhiUmIKua9bz9SXAv9oU3mNg4lS.jpg
TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
BUT RATHER: Conflicts/parts only appear to that single species who can no longer be the whole because it has emerged/evolved a mind which displaces It with the multifarious forms of this/that.
Opposites don't really exist, they necessarily exist to the species which uses its imagination uncontrollably in the construction and projections of opposites. — ENOAH
I agree that most animals don't conceptualize opposites in Nature. But they do experience the physical effects of those positive & negative and hot/cold oppositions. For example, the weather in the Southeastern US today is characterized by March winds, but caused by invisible interacting hot & cold air masses.
All sentient creatures in the affected area will experience scary stuff like lightening & tornadoes without knowing why. Humans will also experience prolonged power outages, but they have weather reporters to explain when, where, and why. The latter question also may not apply to non-humans. The physical actions may appear arbitrary to a deer, but can be conceived as the wrath of god or devil to a human.
PS___ The negative effects (tornadoes & hurricanes) of hot & cold air can be neutralized by mixing them into merely warm air . . . . in the larger context.
Opposites don't really exist, they necessarily exist to the species which uses its imagination uncontrollably in the construction and projections of opposites. — ENOAH
I agree that most animals don't conceptualize opposites in Nature. But they do experience the physical effects of those positive & negative and hot/cold oppositions. For example, the weather in the Southeastern US today is characterized by March winds, but caused by invisible interacting hot & cold air masses.
All sentient creatures in the affected area will experience scary stuff like lightening & tornadoes without knowing why. Humans will also experience prolonged power outages, but they have weather reporters to explain when, where, and why. The latter question also may not apply to non-humans. The physical actions may appear arbitrary to a deer, but can be conceived as the wrath of god or devil to a human.
PS___ The negative effects (tornadoes & hurricanes) of hot & cold air can be neutralized by mixing them into merely warm air . . . . in the larger context.
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
“On Whitehead’s account, a tree has feelings – but they are probably quite different from the feelings that human beings have. A tree may well feel assaulted, for instance; we know that trees (and other plants) release pheromones when insects start eating their leaves. These emissions both act as a chemical attack on the predator, and warn other trees (or, indeed, other parts of the same tree) to take defensive measures as well. It is not ridiculous, therefore, to claim that a tree has feelings. However, it is unlikely that a tree would ever feel insulted or humiliated – these are human feelings that have no place in the life of trees. — prothero
I agree. It's understandable that some will construe the term "feelings" in the same sense as human emotions, associated with verbal meanings. Panpsychism is often interpreted to mean that even atoms are little minds --- or tune into the cosmic Mind --- hence talk to each other and share feelings. This is hard to accept scientifically, except in the sense that atoms do exchange bits of energy that have physical effects, remotely similar to human sensations.
So, to avoid portraying atoms as sentient creatures*1, I prefer to use the term "Information"*2, in its little-known post-Shannon usage as a form of Energy*3. The "meaning" of incoming information requires a self-concept. And even plants, as living organisms, require an immune system that can distinguish Self from Other --- but in physical codes, not mental concepts.
As I understand it, plants do indeed respond to changes in their environment by "detecting" differences --- hot or cold, light or dark, useful or toxic --- {and evaluate them} as either positive or negative for life (organic) processes. They then encode DNA preprogrammed chemical agents (immune system) into their vascular productions to either make use of the new inputs or to reject them. Some of that immune response (chemicals) may filter out into the environment (communicate via air or underground) and cause nearby plants to "experience" similar effects. The important distinction is that the "immune language"*4 is primarily chemical, instead of conceptual.
Unfortunately, it's hard to describe the parallels between sentient humans, and semi-sentient plants, and insentient atoms, without using common human expressions. So, my alternative is to replace the language of Panpsychism with the language of Informationism. By analogy with Energy, generic Information consists primarily of distinctions (differences) such as Hot vs Cold in thermodynamics, and Good vs Bad in human language, or dots vs dashes in Morse code, and 1 vs 0 in computer code. . . . .
*1. Atom-smashing is murder.
*2. Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*3. Information is Energy :
Definition of a physically based concept of information
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/ ... 58-40862-6
*4. "Immune language" refers to the way immune cells communicate with each other and with the nucleus of a cell to trigger a defense response. This communication uses signaling codons, or words, that are similar to how electrical signals create words on a telephone
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 164017.htm
↪Wayfarer
I agree. It's understandable that some will construe the term "feelings" in the same sense as human emotions, associated with verbal meanings. Panpsychism is often interpreted to mean that even atoms are little minds --- or tune into the cosmic Mind --- hence talk to each other and share feelings. This is hard to accept scientifically, except in the sense that atoms do exchange bits of energy that have physical effects, remotely similar to human sensations.
So, to avoid portraying atoms as sentient creatures*1, I prefer to use the term "Information"*2, in its little-known post-Shannon usage as a form of Energy*3. The "meaning" of incoming information requires a self-concept. And even plants, as living organisms, require an immune system that can distinguish Self from Other --- but in physical codes, not mental concepts.
As I understand it, plants do indeed respond to changes in their environment by "detecting" differences --- hot or cold, light or dark, useful or toxic --- {and evaluate them} as either positive or negative for life (organic) processes. They then encode DNA preprogrammed chemical agents (immune system) into their vascular productions to either make use of the new inputs or to reject them. Some of that immune response (chemicals) may filter out into the environment (communicate via air or underground) and cause nearby plants to "experience" similar effects. The important distinction is that the "immune language"*4 is primarily chemical, instead of conceptual.
Unfortunately, it's hard to describe the parallels between sentient humans, and semi-sentient plants, and insentient atoms, without using common human expressions. So, my alternative is to replace the language of Panpsychism with the language of Informationism. By analogy with Energy, generic Information consists primarily of distinctions (differences) such as Hot vs Cold in thermodynamics, and Good vs Bad in human language, or dots vs dashes in Morse code, and 1 vs 0 in computer code. . . . .
*1. Atom-smashing is murder.
*2. Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*3. Information is Energy :
Definition of a physically based concept of information
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/ ... 58-40862-6
*4. "Immune language" refers to the way immune cells communicate with each other and with the nucleus of a cell to trigger a defense response. This communication uses signaling codons, or words, that are similar to how electrical signals create words on a telephone
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 164017.htm
↪Wayfarer
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
Suffice it to say, although Whitehead had great admiration for Hume and Kant as well as Descartes, but he felt they set Western Philosophy upon an unfortunate path.One which leads directly to the “bifurcation of nature” with the subjective/objective and mind/matter dichotomy. Whitehead implies we interact with nature in other ways and have forms of knowledge that come to us from outside of “the sense perception theory of knowledge”. — prothero
In my own monistic worldview, I resolve the philosophical splitting of Nature, into Matter (substance) vs Mind (subjectivity)*1, by tracing physical Energy and metaphysical Mind back to a single source, hence a Unification. A century ago, Physical Scientists (astronomers & cosmologists) discovered that our complex universe is expanding from a singular point of space-time eons ago. But they were not able to explain where the causal energy & material substance originated, to impart momentum to the near-infinite mass of matter, moving at a fraction of lightspeed outward from that point of beginning. Some people refer to that Cosmic Cause as "God", others as more-of-the-same-stuff-forever "Multiverse".
Since we now know that Matter is merely a form of Energy (E=MC^2), we can infer that the Singularity consisted only of a primitive form of Causation. Moreover, we have learned only recently that the Information*2 (knowledge) associated with Minds may also be directly related to the Causal Force that we also refer to as physical Energy*3. Consequently, we can legitimately conjecture that the process we call Mind may be a recently-evolved form of the First Cause, colloquially known as the "Big Bang", or religiously as "Creation".
The details of how that original distinction-between-something-and-nothing (creation) evolved into objective Brains with subjective Minds, is as yet unknown. But we now have enough information to infer that the traditional "mind/matter dichotomy" is merely a conceptual categorization of the various Forms of fundamental creative Causation. So, we are now able to get "outside" of sense perception by the use of rational conception.
*1. "The bifurcation of nature is the separation of reality into two realms: one that is scientific and objective, and one that is perceived and subjective. This separation is a fallacy that can make it difficult to answer philosophical questions"
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +of+nature
*2. "Research into the relation between Energy and Information goes back many years, but the era of precise yet general quantification of Information began only with Claude E. Shannon's 1948 paper . . . ." https://www.jstor.org/stable/24923125
Note --- Shannon defined "Information" in terms of Entropy, which is basically spent Energy. Erwin Schrödinger introduced the term "Negentropy" in his 1944 book What Is Life?. Hence, he associated positive Energy with Life. And the process of Life is a necessary precursor for the process of Mind.
*3. "A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. In other words, stored information has mass and can be converted into energy, . . . ."
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/20 ... ass-energy
In my own monistic worldview, I resolve the philosophical splitting of Nature, into Matter (substance) vs Mind (subjectivity)*1, by tracing physical Energy and metaphysical Mind back to a single source, hence a Unification. A century ago, Physical Scientists (astronomers & cosmologists) discovered that our complex universe is expanding from a singular point of space-time eons ago. But they were not able to explain where the causal energy & material substance originated, to impart momentum to the near-infinite mass of matter, moving at a fraction of lightspeed outward from that point of beginning. Some people refer to that Cosmic Cause as "God", others as more-of-the-same-stuff-forever "Multiverse".
Since we now know that Matter is merely a form of Energy (E=MC^2), we can infer that the Singularity consisted only of a primitive form of Causation. Moreover, we have learned only recently that the Information*2 (knowledge) associated with Minds may also be directly related to the Causal Force that we also refer to as physical Energy*3. Consequently, we can legitimately conjecture that the process we call Mind may be a recently-evolved form of the First Cause, colloquially known as the "Big Bang", or religiously as "Creation".
The details of how that original distinction-between-something-and-nothing (creation) evolved into objective Brains with subjective Minds, is as yet unknown. But we now have enough information to infer that the traditional "mind/matter dichotomy" is merely a conceptual categorization of the various Forms of fundamental creative Causation. So, we are now able to get "outside" of sense perception by the use of rational conception.
*1. "The bifurcation of nature is the separation of reality into two realms: one that is scientific and objective, and one that is perceived and subjective. This separation is a fallacy that can make it difficult to answer philosophical questions"
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... +of+nature
*2. "Research into the relation between Energy and Information goes back many years, but the era of precise yet general quantification of Information began only with Claude E. Shannon's 1948 paper . . . ." https://www.jstor.org/stable/24923125
Note --- Shannon defined "Information" in terms of Entropy, which is basically spent Energy. Erwin Schrödinger introduced the term "Negentropy" in his 1944 book What Is Life?. Hence, he associated positive Energy with Life. And the process of Life is a necessary precursor for the process of Mind.
*3. "A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. In other words, stored information has mass and can be converted into energy, . . . ."
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/20 ... ass-energy
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
It seems we are both monists of various persuasions and reject dualism. I think our conceptions and language for our positions may make it difficult to find common ground or terminology..
Do you entertain the notion of panpsychism?
Are you familiar with the basic elements of process philosophy?
I am not a professional philosopher and have just sketchy outlines of the fundamental tenets of some of the more well known philosophers. — prothero
Yes, my worldview is Monistic, but not Materialistic. It's based on concepts from Quantum Physics (energy) and Information Theory (mind stuff). So I have developed a peculiar vocabulary to express novel notions derived from the assumption that everything in the world is a form of Generic (begetting) Information (power to enform and transform). Hence, the essential substance of reality is a derivative of Plato's eternal Form (infinite potential) imagined in space-time as Cosmic Causation.
Like ↪Wayfarer, my more-or-less Idealistic (all mind) worldview is similar to Panpsychism (all conscious), but I do have a few nits to pick. Specifically, I reserve the term "Consciousness" for homo sapiens, who are late bloomers in evolution. In its place, I use "Information" in a sense similar to Einstein's Energy which is able to transform into a plethora of physical & metaphysical conformations, such as Matter and Mind. Rather than spend a lot of time differentiating my personal view from traditional Idealism or Panpsychism, I simply gave it a new name : Enformationism*1.
I read Process and Reality over 20 years ago, when I had no philosophical background to help me understand it. Now, after about 10 years on this forum, I have a better com-prehension of Whitehead's worldview, which was also a philosophical interpretation of Quantum {field} Physics, which has replaced Classical {materialistic & mechanical} Physics as the fundamental explanation of how reality works.
I too, am an amateur (sketchy) philosopher, with no formal training. So my informal idiosyncratic argumentation may sound odd to those with an academic background.
PS___ Any relation to Stephen R. Prothero?
PPS___ I don't categorically "reject" Dualism , because it is a useful concept in the physical sciences. However, for philosophical purposes, I do go beyond the proximate appearance of two substances (mind & matter) in search of the ultimate essence of reality : Information.
*1. 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 ancient Materialism {and Panpsychism}. 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
Do you entertain the notion of panpsychism?
Are you familiar with the basic elements of process philosophy?
I am not a professional philosopher and have just sketchy outlines of the fundamental tenets of some of the more well known philosophers. — prothero
Yes, my worldview is Monistic, but not Materialistic. It's based on concepts from Quantum Physics (energy) and Information Theory (mind stuff). So I have developed a peculiar vocabulary to express novel notions derived from the assumption that everything in the world is a form of Generic (begetting) Information (power to enform and transform). Hence, the essential substance of reality is a derivative of Plato's eternal Form (infinite potential) imagined in space-time as Cosmic Causation.
Like ↪Wayfarer, my more-or-less Idealistic (all mind) worldview is similar to Panpsychism (all conscious), but I do have a few nits to pick. Specifically, I reserve the term "Consciousness" for homo sapiens, who are late bloomers in evolution. In its place, I use "Information" in a sense similar to Einstein's Energy which is able to transform into a plethora of physical & metaphysical conformations, such as Matter and Mind. Rather than spend a lot of time differentiating my personal view from traditional Idealism or Panpsychism, I simply gave it a new name : Enformationism*1.
I read Process and Reality over 20 years ago, when I had no philosophical background to help me understand it. Now, after about 10 years on this forum, I have a better com-prehension of Whitehead's worldview, which was also a philosophical interpretation of Quantum {field} Physics, which has replaced Classical {materialistic & mechanical} Physics as the fundamental explanation of how reality works.
I too, am an amateur (sketchy) philosopher, with no formal training. So my informal idiosyncratic argumentation may sound odd to those with an academic background.
PS___ Any relation to Stephen R. Prothero?
PPS___ I don't categorically "reject" Dualism , because it is a useful concept in the physical sciences. However, for philosophical purposes, I do go beyond the proximate appearance of two substances (mind & matter) in search of the ultimate essence of reality : Information.
*1. 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 ancient Materialism {and Panpsychism}. 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
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
Whitehead implies we interact with nature in other ways and have forms of knowledge that come to us from outside of “the sense perception theory of knowledge”. — prothero
Back when I read Process and Reality, I didn't com-prehend much of the non-standard vocabulary coined to express his novel & non-standard ideas : such as "prehension"*1. 20 years later, after writing my own personal worldview thesis --- with incomprehensible coinages of my own --- I'm beginning to make some sense of his unusual understanding of Reality.
In my personal worldview, there was no comprehension of concepts in the universe until homo sapiens emerged around 300,000 years ago. As scientists have described that era, several species of homo began to walk out of Africa on two legs toting large brains on top of their spinal communication channels. Those bicameral brains with wrap-around cognitive cortex seem to be the laboratories of language, where occasional experiences are categorized into classes & concepts, and stored for later use in similar situations.
I am not aware of any divine revelations of knowledge by channels other than the physical senses. But that incoming information is a form of Energy (causation), which is transformed by brain functions into Meaning (cognition). I can't detail the cerebral mechanism for that transformation, but it seems to boil down to digital relationships & mathematical ratios : (1/0 ; +/-). Anyway, in my theory, it's all Information all the way down.
I'm not familiar with Whitehead's numinous notion of knowledge that is obtained by means "outside" of sense perception : Presentational & Conceptual Immediacy*2. Can you explain it to me? Does it involve Intuition, as mentioned in the "Bicameral Brain" discussion in this thread?
*1. Prehension :
an interaction of a subject with an event or entity which involves perception but not necessarily cognition.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note ---
Prehension= to grasp by sensory perception ; perhaps by interaction
Comprehension = to know with cognition by conception : symbolic idea creation
Whitehead :
"He suggested that human experience involves two distinct modes of direct perception of the external world: presentational immediacy and conceptual immediacy"
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... perception
Back when I read Process and Reality, I didn't com-prehend much of the non-standard vocabulary coined to express his novel & non-standard ideas : such as "prehension"*1. 20 years later, after writing my own personal worldview thesis --- with incomprehensible coinages of my own --- I'm beginning to make some sense of his unusual understanding of Reality.
In my personal worldview, there was no comprehension of concepts in the universe until homo sapiens emerged around 300,000 years ago. As scientists have described that era, several species of homo began to walk out of Africa on two legs toting large brains on top of their spinal communication channels. Those bicameral brains with wrap-around cognitive cortex seem to be the laboratories of language, where occasional experiences are categorized into classes & concepts, and stored for later use in similar situations.
I am not aware of any divine revelations of knowledge by channels other than the physical senses. But that incoming information is a form of Energy (causation), which is transformed by brain functions into Meaning (cognition). I can't detail the cerebral mechanism for that transformation, but it seems to boil down to digital relationships & mathematical ratios : (1/0 ; +/-). Anyway, in my theory, it's all Information all the way down.
I'm not familiar with Whitehead's numinous notion of knowledge that is obtained by means "outside" of sense perception : Presentational & Conceptual Immediacy*2. Can you explain it to me? Does it involve Intuition, as mentioned in the "Bicameral Brain" discussion in this thread?
*1. Prehension :
an interaction of a subject with an event or entity which involves perception but not necessarily cognition.
___Oxford Dictionary
Note ---
Prehension= to grasp by sensory perception ; perhaps by interaction
Comprehension = to know with cognition by conception : symbolic idea creation
Whitehead :
"He suggested that human experience involves two distinct modes of direct perception of the external world: presentational immediacy and conceptual immediacy"
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... perception
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
We wonder about the implementation of mind and consciousness, and, while interesting, that is only about the nature of the messenger, the implementation; however, there is the message that the messenger brings to us.
The potential for what we have now had to be there in the beginning. — PoeticUniverse
Yes. That's the point of my Enformationism ontology. It accepts Plato's conjecture of ideal eternal Form*1, which I also posit as infinite Potential (all power). One physical form of Potential in space-time is Energy, the process of Causation, by which all things, including Minds, are enformed.
Some imagine that timeless Power Source as a god-like Demiurge (artisan), but Plato seemed to deliberately describe it in functional (such as "First Cause") rather than anthro-morphic terms. Since we have no direct evidence of anything prior to the cosmic-explosion-of-all-real-forms (Big Bang), I think philosophers (non-theologians) would do well to follow Plato's lead.
Whatever the "messenger" is, the message is written in the form of Causation, and the meaning takes the form of conceptual Information. In the Information Age*2, I think it's appropriate to think of the process of Evolution as a computer program, and the "messenger" as a Programmer. That software & hardware engineer may not have a physical Brain, but it must have a Mind of some kind.
Note --- a computer program is an ideal (mathematical) form of the final output. Like all equations, the ultimate solution is potentially in the idealized program, which computes the actual output (final form ; reality) line-by-line. For example, in physical Evolution, the pre-bang Singularity contained (in mathematical form) everything (information ; data) needed to produce the cosmic process we call a universe.
*1. Form :
Plato's ontology posits a reality beyond our physical world, the "Realm of Forms," containing perfect, eternal, and unchanging concepts or ideals, which are more real than the imperfect, changing objects we perceive
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... s+ontology
*2. Information Age : the modern age regarded as a time in which information has become a commodity that is quickly and widely disseminated and easily available especially through the use of computer technology.
Merriam-Webster dictionary
The potential for what we have now had to be there in the beginning. — PoeticUniverse
Yes. That's the point of my Enformationism ontology. It accepts Plato's conjecture of ideal eternal Form*1, which I also posit as infinite Potential (all power). One physical form of Potential in space-time is Energy, the process of Causation, by which all things, including Minds, are enformed.
Some imagine that timeless Power Source as a god-like Demiurge (artisan), but Plato seemed to deliberately describe it in functional (such as "First Cause") rather than anthro-morphic terms. Since we have no direct evidence of anything prior to the cosmic-explosion-of-all-real-forms (Big Bang), I think philosophers (non-theologians) would do well to follow Plato's lead.
Whatever the "messenger" is, the message is written in the form of Causation, and the meaning takes the form of conceptual Information. In the Information Age*2, I think it's appropriate to think of the process of Evolution as a computer program, and the "messenger" as a Programmer. That software & hardware engineer may not have a physical Brain, but it must have a Mind of some kind.
Note --- a computer program is an ideal (mathematical) form of the final output. Like all equations, the ultimate solution is potentially in the idealized program, which computes the actual output (final form ; reality) line-by-line. For example, in physical Evolution, the pre-bang Singularity contained (in mathematical form) everything (information ; data) needed to produce the cosmic process we call a universe.
*1. Form :
Plato's ontology posits a reality beyond our physical world, the "Realm of Forms," containing perfect, eternal, and unchanging concepts or ideals, which are more real than the imperfect, changing objects we perceive
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... s+ontology
*2. Information Age : the modern age regarded as a time in which information has become a commodity that is quickly and widely disseminated and easily available especially through the use of computer technology.
Merriam-Webster dictionary
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
From the Pinocchio Theory
Whitehead on Causality and Perception by Steven Shaviro
Not too long maybe 15 pages, I find Shaviro to be an unusually clear and perceptive author about Whitehead and several others as well
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1274 — prothero
Human sense-perception, limited in many ways*1, is inherently incomplete. And there's always the danger of deliberate fake news. So deep thinkers have always sought to get their (perfect, ideal) information directly from the horse's (god's) mouth. I feel their pain, but how do we arrange to obtain that complete and untainted information? Does prayer help? To which god?
Or do we have to rely on hunches & intuition*2? Which merely bypass the conscious rational channels in order to access "past knowledge" obtained in the usual manner, by means of sensory organs. Did Whitehead believe in extra-sensory perception*3? Based on what evidence?
Plato's imaginary ideal-reality, hidden behind the illusions of the cave, is a nice metaphor. But how can we really release the shackles of sense perception that are obscured by ignorance and emotional coloration? I understand Plato to be recommending logical empirical Science as an antidote to religious myths & dogmas. Not extrasensory perception.
*1. Whitehead on Causality and Perception :
Western philosophy in general is so preoccupied with the question of error, because it is deeply concerned with the unreliability of immediate experience – or of the body and the senses. From Plato’s allegory of the cave, through Descartes’ radical doubt about the evidence provided by his physical organs, right on up to Thomas Metzinger’s claim that experience is nothing but an internal, virtual-reality simulation, philosophers have been haunted by the idea that sense perception is delusional – and that, as a result, our beliefs about the world might well be radically wrong.
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1274
*2. Intuition works by the brain rapidly comparing current experiences to stored patterns from past experiences, essentially acting as a pattern-matching system that generates a quick, often unconscious "gut feeling" about a situation, without needing conscious reasoning; this "knowing" is based on accumulated knowledge and past learning, allowing for instinctive decisions based on similar situations encountered before
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... ition+work
*3. Extrasensory perception (ESP) is the idea that people can perceive the world beyond their five senses. It's also known as a sixth sense or cryptaesthesia.
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... perception
Whitehead on Causality and Perception by Steven Shaviro
Not too long maybe 15 pages, I find Shaviro to be an unusually clear and perceptive author about Whitehead and several others as well
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1274 — prothero
Human sense-perception, limited in many ways*1, is inherently incomplete. And there's always the danger of deliberate fake news. So deep thinkers have always sought to get their (perfect, ideal) information directly from the horse's (god's) mouth. I feel their pain, but how do we arrange to obtain that complete and untainted information? Does prayer help? To which god?
Or do we have to rely on hunches & intuition*2? Which merely bypass the conscious rational channels in order to access "past knowledge" obtained in the usual manner, by means of sensory organs. Did Whitehead believe in extra-sensory perception*3? Based on what evidence?
Plato's imaginary ideal-reality, hidden behind the illusions of the cave, is a nice metaphor. But how can we really release the shackles of sense perception that are obscured by ignorance and emotional coloration? I understand Plato to be recommending logical empirical Science as an antidote to religious myths & dogmas. Not extrasensory perception.
*1. Whitehead on Causality and Perception :
Western philosophy in general is so preoccupied with the question of error, because it is deeply concerned with the unreliability of immediate experience – or of the body and the senses. From Plato’s allegory of the cave, through Descartes’ radical doubt about the evidence provided by his physical organs, right on up to Thomas Metzinger’s claim that experience is nothing but an internal, virtual-reality simulation, philosophers have been haunted by the idea that sense perception is delusional – and that, as a result, our beliefs about the world might well be radically wrong.
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=1274
*2. Intuition works by the brain rapidly comparing current experiences to stored patterns from past experiences, essentially acting as a pattern-matching system that generates a quick, often unconscious "gut feeling" about a situation, without needing conscious reasoning; this "knowing" is based on accumulated knowledge and past learning, allowing for instinctive decisions based on similar situations encountered before
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... ition+work
*3. Extrasensory perception (ESP) is the idea that people can perceive the world beyond their five senses. It's also known as a sixth sense or cryptaesthesia.
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... perception
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
↪prothero
Gnomon --- "Did Whitehead believe in extra-sensory perception*3? Based on what evidence?"
In an attempt to answer my own question, I have started reading ANW's The Concept of Nature
https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Whitehead ... e1_02.html
The lecture goes on for several pages, so these excerpts are only from a few early paragraphs. As I get time, I'll read further. But for now, would you agree that Whitehead's "means outside of sense perception" does not refer to ESP (telepathy ; clairvoyance)? If so, then to what "means" does it relate : rational inference?
# "Namely, there are some attributes of the matter which we do perceive. These are the primary qualities, and there are other things which we perceive, such as colours, which are not attributes of matter, but are perceived by us as if they were such attributes. These are the secondary qualities of matter."
Note --- Qualia are inferences from incoming sensory percepts. The term "as-if" implies that secondary attributes (qualia) are not in the material object, but in the observer. The term "attribute" implies that the observer imputes qualities to matter that are not actually properties of matter, but of the reasoning (inferring) mind. So, the Qualia are concepts, not percepts.
Apparently, light energy waves & frequencies are codes that the brain decodes as "secondary qualities" such as color. if so, then the "means outside of matter" are conceptual inferences not perceptual actualities. Hence, the brains of living organisms are designed by evolution to "read" the codes embedded in energy as information useful to an organic creature.
# "Berkeley's polemic against matter was based on this confusion introduced by the transmission theory of light. He advocated, rightly as I think, the abandonment of the doctrine of matter in its present form. He had however nothing to put in its place except a theory of the relation of finite minds to the divine mind.
But we are endeavouring in these lectures to limit ourselves to nature itself and not to travel beyond entities which are disclosed in sense-awareness.
Note --- No recourse to super-natural sources of knowledge
# "What then is the general character of that something of which we are aware? We do not ask about the percipient or about the process, but about the perceived."
Note --- IOW, we tend to think in terms of physical (material) not metaphysical (mind)
# "For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon. It is for natural philosophy to analyse how these various elements of nature are connected."
Note --- Matter is one “element of nature”, but Mind is also a direct descendant from the origin of space-time. Hence, both elements are "inter-connected" parts of the whole system of Nature.
# "The theory of psychic additions would treat the greenness as a psychic addition furnished by the perceiving mind, and would leave to nature merely the molecules and the radiant energy which influence the mind towards that perception. My argument is that this dragging in of the mind as making additions of its own to the thing posited for knowledge by sense-awareness is merely a way of shirking the problem of natural philosophy."
Note --- Again, no recourse to magical extrasensory perception. And yet, you could interpret Rational Inference as a sixth sense. That would make sense in my Enformationism worldview, in which all matter & energies are encoded with information conducive to Evolution.
PS___ Unfortunately, the notion of Encoded Energies may sound spooky and supernatural. It's true that some psychics & spiritualists use such terms to describe communications "outside" of normal natural channels. But that's not what I'm talking about. Instead, it's merely a way to describe how the human mind can "see" color in the wavelengths of light, by interpreting encoded frequencies into the mental qualia we "know" as color, even though the light energy itself has no inherent color. The code may be essentially mathematical ratios, such as the Fibonacci sequence that encodes for spiraling forms in plants and rocks.
Gnomon --- "Did Whitehead believe in extra-sensory perception*3? Based on what evidence?"
In an attempt to answer my own question, I have started reading ANW's The Concept of Nature
https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Whitehead ... e1_02.html
The lecture goes on for several pages, so these excerpts are only from a few early paragraphs. As I get time, I'll read further. But for now, would you agree that Whitehead's "means outside of sense perception" does not refer to ESP (telepathy ; clairvoyance)? If so, then to what "means" does it relate : rational inference?
# "Namely, there are some attributes of the matter which we do perceive. These are the primary qualities, and there are other things which we perceive, such as colours, which are not attributes of matter, but are perceived by us as if they were such attributes. These are the secondary qualities of matter."
Note --- Qualia are inferences from incoming sensory percepts. The term "as-if" implies that secondary attributes (qualia) are not in the material object, but in the observer. The term "attribute" implies that the observer imputes qualities to matter that are not actually properties of matter, but of the reasoning (inferring) mind. So, the Qualia are concepts, not percepts.
Apparently, light energy waves & frequencies are codes that the brain decodes as "secondary qualities" such as color. if so, then the "means outside of matter" are conceptual inferences not perceptual actualities. Hence, the brains of living organisms are designed by evolution to "read" the codes embedded in energy as information useful to an organic creature.
# "Berkeley's polemic against matter was based on this confusion introduced by the transmission theory of light. He advocated, rightly as I think, the abandonment of the doctrine of matter in its present form. He had however nothing to put in its place except a theory of the relation of finite minds to the divine mind.
But we are endeavouring in these lectures to limit ourselves to nature itself and not to travel beyond entities which are disclosed in sense-awareness.
Note --- No recourse to super-natural sources of knowledge
# "What then is the general character of that something of which we are aware? We do not ask about the percipient or about the process, but about the perceived."
Note --- IOW, we tend to think in terms of physical (material) not metaphysical (mind)
# "For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon. It is for natural philosophy to analyse how these various elements of nature are connected."
Note --- Matter is one “element of nature”, but Mind is also a direct descendant from the origin of space-time. Hence, both elements are "inter-connected" parts of the whole system of Nature.
# "The theory of psychic additions would treat the greenness as a psychic addition furnished by the perceiving mind, and would leave to nature merely the molecules and the radiant energy which influence the mind towards that perception. My argument is that this dragging in of the mind as making additions of its own to the thing posited for knowledge by sense-awareness is merely a way of shirking the problem of natural philosophy."
Note --- Again, no recourse to magical extrasensory perception. And yet, you could interpret Rational Inference as a sixth sense. That would make sense in my Enformationism worldview, in which all matter & energies are encoded with information conducive to Evolution.
PS___ Unfortunately, the notion of Encoded Energies may sound spooky and supernatural. It's true that some psychics & spiritualists use such terms to describe communications "outside" of normal natural channels. But that's not what I'm talking about. Instead, it's merely a way to describe how the human mind can "see" color in the wavelengths of light, by interpreting encoded frequencies into the mental qualia we "know" as color, even though the light energy itself has no inherent color. The code may be essentially mathematical ratios, such as the Fibonacci sequence that encodes for spiraling forms in plants and rocks.
Re: TPF : Process Philosophy -- a metaphysics for our time
I'm still not clear about Whitehead's distinction of "Prehension" from "Comprehension". Some definitions refer to "experiencing of past events", but that sounds like mundane Remembering (re-cognize) : secondary experience as a re-called-Idea-from-memory instead of a Real thing (original occasion).prothero;974317 wrote:So it won't be a discussion unless you put something forward other than disputes about the various uses of experience, try "prehension" for the idea instead but you will likely have to look it up.
So why coin the term "prehension" by omitting the "com", which in combination with reaching & grabbing would imply "grip together", as a whole instead of scattered pieces. Some of the definitions*1 I've seen seem to be referring to the ability to mentally grasp itemized Parts as elements of Whole*2 systems. Is that similar to your understanding?
*1. A "prehension" is basically the relation between actual entities, or the interconnectedness between all physical things, that determine their particular nature.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/ ... rehension/
*2. Holism ; Holon :
Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses novel properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts. For example, when atoms of hydrogen & oxygen gases combine in a specific ratio, the molecule has properties of water, such as wetness, that are not found in the gases. A Holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part — A system of entangled things that has a function in a hierarchy of systems.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
COM-PREHENSION = grasping together = unity, wholeness
PS___Jan Smuts was writing his book on Holism in evolution around the same time that Whitehead was writing his Process philosophy. So ANW may not have had "holism" in his vocabulary.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests