This is the latest response to correspondence with David Wolf, on topics related to his Enformation concept and my EnFormAction terminology. Both notions assume some kind of Ideal realm of immaterial Forms, but is that parallel world simply an imaginary metaphor, or is it "real" in some meaningful sense? Do abstract ideas have any influence in the real world?
Yes, Plato implied that his metaphysical "ideals" were more real, or super-real, than physical things. And several philosophers since, such as Kant, agreed that what we experience via our senses is interpretations of coded patterns out-there as images & impressions in the brain. But Materialists tend to deny any sense of reality to such ideas as metaphors & symbols, and Spiritualists sometimes deny any reality to those out-there things that supposedly impinge on our sensory organs. So the BothAnd principle was added as a corollary to the Enformationism thesis. Since quantum theorists have come to terms with the notion of a dualistic world made of both particles and waves, I have concluded that our perceived reality is truly dualistic, both material and mathematical*. The particles that their scopes detect are physical, but the waves that their calculations imply are metaphysical** (i.e. mathematical). Plato's theory of Forms was indeed pre-scientific, and speculative, but it now seems profoundly prescient.
Unfortunately, most biologists and chemists continue to treat the world as monistic, and the particle/wave , local/nonlocal distinctions of physics as fact/metaphor. Apparently you still think Plato's Forms were myth/metaphor, intended only as abstract models for abstruse arguments by the idle minds of philosophers with too much time on their metaphorical hands. But modern science has provided evidence of the most objective kind, mathematical, that Plato's myth was more realistic than he was given credit for, in his metaphor about the light source out-there and the perceived shadows in-here. Modern physicists & mathematicians have provided empirical and calculated evidence to support that duality of Noumenon & Phenomenon -- of Qualia and Quanta.
Unfortunately, it's easy to interpret such facts as supporting a variety of ancient Spiritualistic notions, such as haunting spirits, and crystal power. But I remain unimpressed by the ghost-whisperers and spoon-benders. The only true mystery for me is the source of that enforming power. In the Enformationism thesis, everything in this world is normal & natural and subject to empirical investigation. Only the axiomatic Enformer remains beyond the scope of science, in the theoretical supernatural realm where only rational philosophers and religious nuts dare to tread. ___John
* To us it seems dualistic, but to G*D it's all ideal, all mathematical.
**I use the term "metaphysics" in a slightly different way from its traditional application in philosophy. I spell it "meta-physics" with a hyphen when it refers to Enformationism and Idealism concepts. I have a glossary definition, if you want to know more.
PS___"Sleeping Wolf" You aroused the dozing dog from his dogmatic slumbers with your pointed question "what is an EnFormAction?". I have added a new post to the blog as an attempt to explain that abstract concept with lots of more-or-less concrete examples. I'd be interested to know if it makes any sense as a technical philosophical term. Or am I just blowing smoke? http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
PPS__Do you think Memes are merely metaphors, or do they actually possess real world causative power? Is "The Power of Ideas" just an impotent figure of speech? Of course mental ideas must be transformed into physical actions, but the idea is the cause of the action. "Guns don't kill people; murderous ideas & emotions kill people".
Meme : A hypothetical unit of cultural information, analogous to the Gene as a unit of biological information. Mental packages of information, similar to bits, and bytes, and words, and symbols. Information in the form of “Memes” follows basically the same logical rules of syntax as information in the form of genes.
Enformation & EnFormAction
Re: Enformation & EnFormAction
This is an unsolicited comment on an issue raised in David Wolf's Philosophy That Works.
An article in Philosophy Now magazine reminded me of your call to action for philosophers, in the Philosophy Unchained chapter of Philosophy That Works. The article is about Hannah Arendt's "active philosophy". It began by noting that Arendt insisted on being called a "political theorist" instead of a "philosopher". Apparently, her activism began after the Nazi's came to prominence in Germany. Like many other Jewish intellectuals, she was originally a cosmopolitan thinker. But the anti-semitic climate in her home country forced her to choose sides. The article described "her shift from the intellectual, apolitical thinker, into a fully engaged political and historical stance", and "withdrawing from the European cultural community to Jewishness".
After WWII, she covered the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, where she was surprised to find that he wasn't an evil monster, but merely a mundane bureaucrat in a "will to power" system. She described his shoulder-shrugging defense as the "banality of evil", which "summarized the nature of the human capacity to do wrong after depriving oneself of the act of thinking". She was belittling Eichmann as a zombie robot. But to me, it seems that Eichmann was a "fully engaged political" thinker, who happened to be working against the interests of Arendt's people. Eichmann was doing active thinking -- promoting the future of his "folk" -- just as Arendt was forced to do on behalf of Jews. Eichmann's "just doing my job" argument was an excuse for a man caught on the losing side of a political divide. Before and during the war, he was certain that his actions were on the moral high ground. The Nazi's were aggressively folkish, and forced assimilated Jews to respond in kind. That's the problem with such political activism : it requires prosecutorial US-versus-THEM thinking. By contrast, apolitical philosophy requires judicial BothAnd thinking.
Arendt seemed to confuse the disinterested attitude of philosophers with the lazy thinking of the masses. "We undergo the mental strain of reflective thought only when we don't have a choice." "Therefore the brain's default position is that an easy answer is also a true answer, and that a quick judgment is a right judgment." But philosophical cogitation is just the opposite of quick & easy Intuition; it's the slow & arduous process of Reason. It's true that we think consciously & critically only when we are forced to make difficult decisions. Otherwise, intuition provides subconscious & foregone answers to most problems. When push comes to shove though, who are you going to support, your own people, or those aliens? Dispassionate Reason might cause a German to conclude that the Nazi program was politically popular, but morally wrong.
The Either/Or thinking of "engaged" thinkers is a prime cause of strife in the world. So we need a few dis-engaged philosophers, standing on the sidelines, to look for unbiased win-win solutions to contentious conflicts. It would be nice if we could also have a few philosopher-kings to make reasoned political decisions for the masses. But in practice, that seldom works out. Fortunately, in democratic societies, the Us's and the Them's tend to offset each other, resulting in middle-of-the-road policies that are not ideal, but pragmatic. Meanwhile, I agree with you, that modern societies need more engaged thinkers in business, technology, and politics, who are also capable of dis-engaged thinking more characteristic of Science & Philosophy, than of win-lose Business, or competitive Technology, or polarized Politics.
An article in Philosophy Now magazine reminded me of your call to action for philosophers, in the Philosophy Unchained chapter of Philosophy That Works. The article is about Hannah Arendt's "active philosophy". It began by noting that Arendt insisted on being called a "political theorist" instead of a "philosopher". Apparently, her activism began after the Nazi's came to prominence in Germany. Like many other Jewish intellectuals, she was originally a cosmopolitan thinker. But the anti-semitic climate in her home country forced her to choose sides. The article described "her shift from the intellectual, apolitical thinker, into a fully engaged political and historical stance", and "withdrawing from the European cultural community to Jewishness".
After WWII, she covered the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, where she was surprised to find that he wasn't an evil monster, but merely a mundane bureaucrat in a "will to power" system. She described his shoulder-shrugging defense as the "banality of evil", which "summarized the nature of the human capacity to do wrong after depriving oneself of the act of thinking". She was belittling Eichmann as a zombie robot. But to me, it seems that Eichmann was a "fully engaged political" thinker, who happened to be working against the interests of Arendt's people. Eichmann was doing active thinking -- promoting the future of his "folk" -- just as Arendt was forced to do on behalf of Jews. Eichmann's "just doing my job" argument was an excuse for a man caught on the losing side of a political divide. Before and during the war, he was certain that his actions were on the moral high ground. The Nazi's were aggressively folkish, and forced assimilated Jews to respond in kind. That's the problem with such political activism : it requires prosecutorial US-versus-THEM thinking. By contrast, apolitical philosophy requires judicial BothAnd thinking.
Arendt seemed to confuse the disinterested attitude of philosophers with the lazy thinking of the masses. "We undergo the mental strain of reflective thought only when we don't have a choice." "Therefore the brain's default position is that an easy answer is also a true answer, and that a quick judgment is a right judgment." But philosophical cogitation is just the opposite of quick & easy Intuition; it's the slow & arduous process of Reason. It's true that we think consciously & critically only when we are forced to make difficult decisions. Otherwise, intuition provides subconscious & foregone answers to most problems. When push comes to shove though, who are you going to support, your own people, or those aliens? Dispassionate Reason might cause a German to conclude that the Nazi program was politically popular, but morally wrong.
The Either/Or thinking of "engaged" thinkers is a prime cause of strife in the world. So we need a few dis-engaged philosophers, standing on the sidelines, to look for unbiased win-win solutions to contentious conflicts. It would be nice if we could also have a few philosopher-kings to make reasoned political decisions for the masses. But in practice, that seldom works out. Fortunately, in democratic societies, the Us's and the Them's tend to offset each other, resulting in middle-of-the-road policies that are not ideal, but pragmatic. Meanwhile, I agree with you, that modern societies need more engaged thinkers in business, technology, and politics, who are also capable of dis-engaged thinking more characteristic of Science & Philosophy, than of win-lose Business, or competitive Technology, or polarized Politics.
Re: Enformation & EnFormAction
This is an excerpt from an email to David Wolf, asking for comments on the "G*D Concept" post in the blog :
It's cool that my modern god-model is equivalent to the ancient "god of the Philosophers". But my intent in the Enformationism thesis was to present a theory that also fits into the empirical worldview of the Physicists. Since they deal mostly with mathematics and intangible abstractions, I think they should be more likely, than Chemists or Biologists, to appreciate the notion of shape-shifting Information as the common denominator between G*D and Nature. Of course my G*D is no more empirically verifiable than the cosmologist's hypothetical Multiverse. But I can trace a continuous path of EnFormAction from Psychology, to Biology, to Chemistry, to Physics, to Quantum Fields, to the Big Bang, and thence to the Final Cause that enformed the Singularity*. I won't be content with creating my own personal god-model, unless it is rational and realistic. That's why I put it out there in the blog, and in emails to philosophical thinkers : to see how it stands up to criticism.
<< I’m saying everybody should be free to find his or her own view of God or G*D. By the way when you write G*D that way it reminds me of the Jewish scholars who wouldn’t write the entire name of Yaweh. I think they used dashes for the vowels (?).>>
I didn't spell G*D with a missing vowel for the same reason as superstitious Jewish scholars. At first I avoided using any traditional name of god, in order to eliminate the accumulated mythical baggage. But, as you well know, coining your own private words, tends to make your reasoning opaque to casual readers. Since my theory is inherently based on a supernatural axiom though, I decided that some kind of god-name is unavoidable.
For example, in place of the traditional term "Soul", I use "Self" to designate the immaterial information (database) that defines and constitutes the physical & mental whole of a person. Consciousness has been such a hard problem mostly because it is intertwined with the spiritual soul concept. But positing a spooky Soul to explain Consciousness merely replaces a mystery with an enigma. However, using the modern understanding of ubiquitous Information as the substance of matter, life & awareness converts a philosophical puzzle into a scientific hypothesis that can be explored. Information and Enformation are amenable to Reason -- no faith required.
* The main thing my theory is lacking is the mathematical language that Chris Langan uses in his CTMU hypothesis, which he claims proves the existence of God. It is also based in part on Information theory. Ironically, he is criticized for coining a lot of abstruse terminology to describe his unconventional worldview. That's hard to avoid when you're trying to merge "non-overlapping magisteria" into a single magisterium.
It's cool that my modern god-model is equivalent to the ancient "god of the Philosophers". But my intent in the Enformationism thesis was to present a theory that also fits into the empirical worldview of the Physicists. Since they deal mostly with mathematics and intangible abstractions, I think they should be more likely, than Chemists or Biologists, to appreciate the notion of shape-shifting Information as the common denominator between G*D and Nature. Of course my G*D is no more empirically verifiable than the cosmologist's hypothetical Multiverse. But I can trace a continuous path of EnFormAction from Psychology, to Biology, to Chemistry, to Physics, to Quantum Fields, to the Big Bang, and thence to the Final Cause that enformed the Singularity*. I won't be content with creating my own personal god-model, unless it is rational and realistic. That's why I put it out there in the blog, and in emails to philosophical thinkers : to see how it stands up to criticism.
<< I’m saying everybody should be free to find his or her own view of God or G*D. By the way when you write G*D that way it reminds me of the Jewish scholars who wouldn’t write the entire name of Yaweh. I think they used dashes for the vowels (?).>>
I didn't spell G*D with a missing vowel for the same reason as superstitious Jewish scholars. At first I avoided using any traditional name of god, in order to eliminate the accumulated mythical baggage. But, as you well know, coining your own private words, tends to make your reasoning opaque to casual readers. Since my theory is inherently based on a supernatural axiom though, I decided that some kind of god-name is unavoidable.
For example, in place of the traditional term "Soul", I use "Self" to designate the immaterial information (database) that defines and constitutes the physical & mental whole of a person. Consciousness has been such a hard problem mostly because it is intertwined with the spiritual soul concept. But positing a spooky Soul to explain Consciousness merely replaces a mystery with an enigma. However, using the modern understanding of ubiquitous Information as the substance of matter, life & awareness converts a philosophical puzzle into a scientific hypothesis that can be explored. Information and Enformation are amenable to Reason -- no faith required.
* The main thing my theory is lacking is the mathematical language that Chris Langan uses in his CTMU hypothesis, which he claims proves the existence of God. It is also based in part on Information theory. Ironically, he is criticized for coining a lot of abstruse terminology to describe his unconventional worldview. That's hard to avoid when you're trying to merge "non-overlapping magisteria" into a single magisterium.
Re: Enformation & EnFormAction
This is another excerpt from an email to David Wolf in response to comments on the Enformationism concept of deity :
First thing : I have been following various attempts to reconcile science & religion for many years. For example, the Intelligent Design movement attempted to make their Christian beliefs fit into the modern model of Physics and Evolution. Meanwhile, Chris Langan's CTMU theory attempted to prove the existence of a deistic God from the axioms of Logic and Mathematics. So my feeble endeavor to create a reasonable worldview from Information Theory is just one more in a long series that extends back to Plato and beyond. All of those theories have some things in common, and some aspects that are in conflict. One thing ID and CTMU have in common is that they were not accepted by experts in the opposite magisteria. In my case, Enformationism is merely a personal worldview, and is not intended to become The Truth upon which to build a new religion to save humanity from itself.
Second thing : For several years I have been posting on Deist forums, since I found them to be more amenable to my peculiar perspective than Freethinker forums. I identified myself as an Agnostic Deist, since I have no direct knowledge of my hypothetical deity. But most Deists seem to retain a lot of the Christian concept of how God relates to the world. So, I recently adopted the label Neo-Deism for my non-religious philosophical worldview. You might think of it as a combination of Deism (world creator) and Humanism (homo sapiens as stewards of the world). Unfortunately, most Deists still hold out hope for some kind of divine intervention, and most Humanists reject any form of interventionist Theism. So, Neo-Deism would function more like pragmatic Stoicism, or Confucianism.
Thirdly : My understanding of the information foundation of the world has some similarities with religious notions of purposeful Soul, Spirit, or Chi. But it also has some concepts in common with aimless Energy and Evolution. The spooky aspects of Soul & Chi are due to the fact that various theories about how & why they work, are not compatible with scientific skepticism. They all require a commitment of faith or hope, in order to interpret the ambiguous "signs" to suit their particular preconceptions. I have found the proposed evidence for Afterlife & Psychic phenomena & Synchronicity to be unconvincing, without that will to believe. "Non-causal but meaningful" sounds like reading personal wishes into random patterns, as in tea leaves and Taro cards. I can understand the appeal of such cosmic-communication notions, but I've learned to protect my vulnerable belief system with a filter of faithless skepticism.
First thing : I have been following various attempts to reconcile science & religion for many years. For example, the Intelligent Design movement attempted to make their Christian beliefs fit into the modern model of Physics and Evolution. Meanwhile, Chris Langan's CTMU theory attempted to prove the existence of a deistic God from the axioms of Logic and Mathematics. So my feeble endeavor to create a reasonable worldview from Information Theory is just one more in a long series that extends back to Plato and beyond. All of those theories have some things in common, and some aspects that are in conflict. One thing ID and CTMU have in common is that they were not accepted by experts in the opposite magisteria. In my case, Enformationism is merely a personal worldview, and is not intended to become The Truth upon which to build a new religion to save humanity from itself.
Second thing : For several years I have been posting on Deist forums, since I found them to be more amenable to my peculiar perspective than Freethinker forums. I identified myself as an Agnostic Deist, since I have no direct knowledge of my hypothetical deity. But most Deists seem to retain a lot of the Christian concept of how God relates to the world. So, I recently adopted the label Neo-Deism for my non-religious philosophical worldview. You might think of it as a combination of Deism (world creator) and Humanism (homo sapiens as stewards of the world). Unfortunately, most Deists still hold out hope for some kind of divine intervention, and most Humanists reject any form of interventionist Theism. So, Neo-Deism would function more like pragmatic Stoicism, or Confucianism.
Thirdly : My understanding of the information foundation of the world has some similarities with religious notions of purposeful Soul, Spirit, or Chi. But it also has some concepts in common with aimless Energy and Evolution. The spooky aspects of Soul & Chi are due to the fact that various theories about how & why they work, are not compatible with scientific skepticism. They all require a commitment of faith or hope, in order to interpret the ambiguous "signs" to suit their particular preconceptions. I have found the proposed evidence for Afterlife & Psychic phenomena & Synchronicity to be unconvincing, without that will to believe. "Non-causal but meaningful" sounds like reading personal wishes into random patterns, as in tea leaves and Taro cards. I can understand the appeal of such cosmic-communication notions, but I've learned to protect my vulnerable belief system with a filter of faithless skepticism.
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