Absential Materialism
Godel_Penrose_Deacon_Absential Materialism 08:16, Fri 19 Jan 2024
Godels Incompleteness Theorem is an examination of axiomatic sets that ground math equations. Without him looking for it specifically, Gödel elaborated within his theorem a representational description of absential materialism. Due to their encompass of absential materialism, a label for higher-order dynamical processes elaborated in Terrence W. Deacons Incomplete Nature, axiomatic math sets are strategically incomplete.
They are incomplete because a comprehensive description of math set theory will include a representation of absential materialism. Material incompleteness at the higher-orders of dynamical systems manifests as the uncontainability of some of the true math statements in one place; this is a representation in logic of the non-locality, both spatial and temporal, of absential materialism. The axiomatic system provides reasons to believe the statements are true, but this cannot be proven.
The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism: what is not yet but will be. This is the heart of an enduring self who lives via enactment of intentions. Selfhood wraps itself around the nullity, or absence, of about-ness, which is the set of individual intentions.
The material model for consciousness is the interaction of two gravitational fields. For clarity, think of a simple, parallel relationship: the silicon of sand and the silicon of a looking glass. A handful of sand from the beach is the raw silicon, the baseline precursor of the looking glass. A looking glass, in the elegant form of a vanity, is the deluxe model worked up from the baseline handful of sand. In a parallel relationship modeling consciousness, consider the earth and its orbiting moon. Thats a baseline model of consciousness. The deluxe model worked up (via evolution) from two orbiting celestial bodies is two humans in conversation. They too are orbiting celestial bodies interacting gravitationally. This is so because consciousness, of which conversation is an example, lies rooted in the interaction of two (or more) gravitational fields.
Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness.
When we take the notion of absential materialism, modeled representationallly by the Incompleteness Theorem, and model it physically and thus empirically, we arrive at the intersection of two gravitational fields. The critical attribute of their interaction is action-at-a-distance absentialism. This tells us the two gravitational fields are probabilistically locatable. They hold physical position in spacetime via the waveform.
The waveform as physical phenomenon is a fog of mass-energy in the mode of a mathematically determined cloud of probability describing the range of possible positions of an elementary particle. An apt physicalization of a fog of mass-energy is a gravitational field. When two gravitational fields interact, they generate meaning physically. Meaning, a narrative about a narrative, in its physical manifestation, is absential materialism. Meaning is about-ness signified in a language.
The physical generation of meaning via interacting gravitational fields suggests a bounded infinity of fate within a specified universe as bounded by interacting gravitational fields. If collapse to black hole density is possible in such a universe, then what will happen phenomenally_historically is pre-determined by said black hole density. Infinite gravity seems to mean that what can happen must happen.
This sounds like the physically grounded determinism of reductive materialism taken to its extreme. This sounds like a rigidly deterministic universe. However, collapse to black hole density may not be certain within every conceivable universe. Also, if collapse to black hole density can be controlled and thus either prevented or reversed, then hierarchical about-ness can include physically deterministic meaning thats deconstructable.
Absential materialism, the phenomenal ground of the intention-rich about-ness of the enduring self and its central, abiding concerns with not-yet-but-will-be forward-lookingness expresses as meaning which is narrative about narrative.
The non-locality of selfhood is serial aboutness: the self, as such, is a continual roadmap to somewhere else.* In its act of thinking, the self displaces itself from what it thinks about such that whatever it thinks about is not-yet-but-will-be. In this regard, thought is both manipulatable and unapproachable. Herein we get a whiff of Satres human freedom in the form of the uncontainable self as consciousness. Existentialism must therefore be about authenticity, and its impossibility. The authentic self, therefore, is rooted in a series of forward-looking fictions about the illusive_elusive self as once-was-but-no-longer-is.
*Godels logical analysis tells us that axiomatic math sets are always roadmaps to somewhere else. The seeming perplexity of this is the fact that math measures position here and now, except when it doesnt, as when, at the axiomatic level, it measures the mathematics of intentional about-ness, which is non-local.
Godels Incompleteness Theorem is an examination of axiomatic sets that ground math equations. Without him looking for it specifically, Gödel elaborated within his theorem a representational description of absential materialism. Due to their encompass of absential materialism, a label for higher-order dynamical processes elaborated in Terrence W. Deacons Incomplete Nature, axiomatic math sets are strategically incomplete.
They are incomplete because a comprehensive description of math set theory will include a representation of absential materialism. Material incompleteness at the higher-orders of dynamical systems manifests as the uncontainability of some of the true math statements in one place; this is a representation in logic of the non-locality, both spatial and temporal, of absential materialism. The axiomatic system provides reasons to believe the statements are true, but this cannot be proven.
The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism: what is not yet but will be. This is the heart of an enduring self who lives via enactment of intentions. Selfhood wraps itself around the nullity, or absence, of about-ness, which is the set of individual intentions.
The material model for consciousness is the interaction of two gravitational fields. For clarity, think of a simple, parallel relationship: the silicon of sand and the silicon of a looking glass. A handful of sand from the beach is the raw silicon, the baseline precursor of the looking glass. A looking glass, in the elegant form of a vanity, is the deluxe model worked up from the baseline handful of sand. In a parallel relationship modeling consciousness, consider the earth and its orbiting moon. Thats a baseline model of consciousness. The deluxe model worked up (via evolution) from two orbiting celestial bodies is two humans in conversation. They too are orbiting celestial bodies interacting gravitationally. This is so because consciousness, of which conversation is an example, lies rooted in the interaction of two (or more) gravitational fields.
Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness.
When we take the notion of absential materialism, modeled representationallly by the Incompleteness Theorem, and model it physically and thus empirically, we arrive at the intersection of two gravitational fields. The critical attribute of their interaction is action-at-a-distance absentialism. This tells us the two gravitational fields are probabilistically locatable. They hold physical position in spacetime via the waveform.
The waveform as physical phenomenon is a fog of mass-energy in the mode of a mathematically determined cloud of probability describing the range of possible positions of an elementary particle. An apt physicalization of a fog of mass-energy is a gravitational field. When two gravitational fields interact, they generate meaning physically. Meaning, a narrative about a narrative, in its physical manifestation, is absential materialism. Meaning is about-ness signified in a language.
The physical generation of meaning via interacting gravitational fields suggests a bounded infinity of fate within a specified universe as bounded by interacting gravitational fields. If collapse to black hole density is possible in such a universe, then what will happen phenomenally_historically is pre-determined by said black hole density. Infinite gravity seems to mean that what can happen must happen.
This sounds like the physically grounded determinism of reductive materialism taken to its extreme. This sounds like a rigidly deterministic universe. However, collapse to black hole density may not be certain within every conceivable universe. Also, if collapse to black hole density can be controlled and thus either prevented or reversed, then hierarchical about-ness can include physically deterministic meaning thats deconstructable.
Absential materialism, the phenomenal ground of the intention-rich about-ness of the enduring self and its central, abiding concerns with not-yet-but-will-be forward-lookingness expresses as meaning which is narrative about narrative.
The non-locality of selfhood is serial aboutness: the self, as such, is a continual roadmap to somewhere else.* In its act of thinking, the self displaces itself from what it thinks about such that whatever it thinks about is not-yet-but-will-be. In this regard, thought is both manipulatable and unapproachable. Herein we get a whiff of Satres human freedom in the form of the uncontainable self as consciousness. Existentialism must therefore be about authenticity, and its impossibility. The authentic self, therefore, is rooted in a series of forward-looking fictions about the illusive_elusive self as once-was-but-no-longer-is.
*Godels logical analysis tells us that axiomatic math sets are always roadmaps to somewhere else. The seeming perplexity of this is the fact that math measures position here and now, except when it doesnt, as when, at the axiomatic level, it measures the mathematics of intentional about-ness, which is non-local.
Comments (220)
I'm aware of Deacon's application of the mathematical Incompleteness Theorem to the real world in his book Incomplete Nature. However I was not familiar with Absential Materialism, so I Googled it, and found no entries. Hence, I assume the paradoxical & oxymoronic term is of your own coinage. Since this post is fairly long, and technically over my untrained head, I'd appreciate an abbreviated definition of "absential materialism" that distinguishes it from "immaterialism", and identifies why the term is needed for philosophical intercourse. I may want to use it in my own argumentation, but need to make sure I understand its meaning and relevance. :smile:
PS___ I looked for graphic images of intersecting gravitational fields, and didn't find any that looked like a model of Consciousness, or might illustrate Absential Materialism.
Paradox at the heart of mathematics :
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are connected to unsolvable calculations in quantum physics. A logical paradox at the heart of mathematics and computer science turns out to have implications for the real world, making a basic question about matter fundamentally unanswerable.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18983
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox. ___Wikipedia
Quoting Gnomon
Yes, the pairing of the adjective with the noun is my own doing. Deacons use of absential as an adjective in Incomplete Nature introduced me to the adjective form of absent. For this reason, I dont think my pairing rises to the level of a new coinage. More importantly, Im inclined away from characterizing the pairing as oxymoronic. I see the main thrust of the pairing as an expression of the bridge across the matter/immaterial divide. Mind entails a non-local materialism that should not be confused with immateriality. Paradoxicality lays too much stress upon an undecidable material status.
Quoting Gnomon
Heres how I say it in terse language:
Quoting ucarr
Thinking in abstraction from immediate sensory interaction with environment is ententional behavior towards a future and desired state of being; here I try to express as Deacon might do. The non-locality of ententional mind is not transcendence of our natural world of material_physical things. Instead, it is gravitational manipulation of spatio_temporally extended material things.
Consciousness, as I understand it, concerns itself with action-at-a-distance design of desired future states of being as mediated by gravitational fields. It confers onto organized mind an interior/exterior interface, or complex surface that multiplexes the location of conscious beings. As I say above, we humans are mostly local and locatable, but not entirely so.
When we walk about, does our consciousness travel with us? Yes and no.
OK. Let's just call Absential Materialism a "novel pairing" with seemingly paradoxical implications. It's oxymoronic only in contrast to Materialism as here & now Realism.
But my main interest is in the "bridge" of which you speak. My own personal worldview, Enformationism, is not posited as the opposite to Materialism, but as a 21st century update to that ancient worldview, expressed most simply in Atomism : nothing but atoms & void.
I suppose you could say that Deacon's absence discovers a purpose for the Void*1 : not only to serve as a passive complement to material Presence, but to make room for material Change. In a related sense, Absence/Void is the not-yet-real pool-of-Potential from which Actual material things and immaterial properties may Emerge. :smile:
Quoting ucarr
I notice that you spell "intentional" with an "e", as I do in my own thesis, following Deacon. For me, it implies Energy as in Mental Causality --- intent to cause change --- which is unexplained by Materialism. My thesis postulates a precursor to Energy, Matter and Mind in the power to transform Potential into Actual. That "power" is what J. A. Wheeler referred to in his "it from bit" analogy of matter emerging from causal information. And the most common term for the power-to-transform is "Energy"*2.
I still don't fully grasp your analogy of Absence to the interaction of two gravitational fields. Deacon uses the metaphor of a whirlpool, sucking calm water into its maw. A graphic image might help me to imagine how two gravitational fields interact. A black hole is usually portrayed as a solo, not a pas de dieux. The image below is not very enlightening*3.
asks "what is the role of matter" in this scenario. As I proposed above, Absence may play the role of causal Energy in an evolving world of Stuff (matter ; the clay) and Changes to stuff (energy ; sculpting). BTW, in my philosophical model, Gravity is a form of Absential Energy, warping the immaterial Void. :nerd:
*1. Absence :
Deacon says that Absence is a defining property of life and mind. Like the name-less Tao, its a way, not a wayfarer, its a channel, not the flowing water.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html
*2. What Is The Power of Absence?
Energy flows into The Void
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html
*3. GRAVITY WHIRLPOOL
Quoting Wayfarer
Your question is important because absential materialism has a knack for looking like immaterialism without being such. In a parallel manner, the moons gravitational field looks as if it has no presence on earth. This appearance is dispelled by understanding earths ocean tides are much affected by the moons gravitational, action-at-a-distance influence upon the ocean tides and thus upon the weather.
Quoting Janus
Yes. Deacon goes into great detail with his elaborations of the multi-step ladder of dynamical processes that progressively organize what we see in nature, including the mind and the thinking of humans. As the dynamical processes become end-directed, they create strategic constraints that compel emergent properties to organize around what is not yet but will be. In so doing, these emergent properties operate within boundaries radically different from their substrates. These radical differences in boundaries give rise to radical differences in functions. The upshot is the appearance of causal forces divorced from material things. Although functionally independent from their material substrates, they are, in fact, still rooted in them as emergent properties.
Does it have an answer?
Quoting ucarr
Googling that term produces three hits, the top two being this thread, the third being what looks like a self-published manifesto by one Adrian Johnston. From my limited reading of Deacon I don't recall ever mentioning that phrase. Nor do I think he describes his work as materialist, rather as challenging the materialist paradigm, but within a broader naturalist framework. In other words, a form of extended naturalism. Different to philosophical materialism.
Quoting ucarr
However Deacon's discussion of constraints often aligns with the concept of "top-down" causation. This idea suggests that in complex systems, the higher-level structure and organization can influence and constrain the behavior of lower-level components. In biological terms, this might be understood as how the structure of an organism (its morphology, for instance) can dictate the behavior of its cells and molecular components. This shows up even in physics. Free neutrons (outside an atomic nucleus) have a half-life of about 14 minutes and 39 seconds. This means that it will decay into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino in roughly this time frame due to a process called beta decay. But when neutrons are bound within an atomic nucleus, their stability is significantly different, depending on the particular isotope of the element, but in some cases will not decay for a very long time, potentially millions of years, illustrating the efficacy of top-down constraints even outside biology.
In terms of constraints in physics, these can ultimately be traced back to the fundamental cosmic constraints associated with the cosmological anthropic principle, without which complex matter and living organisms could not have formed. So again I believe this challenges the materialist account.
Quoting Gnomon
Good.
Quoting Gnomon
My metaphor of the bridge is meant to express the theme of unification across upwardly evolving dynamical systems essential to upwardly evolving life forms. Establishing linkage between the levels of end-directed behavior aimed at maintaining the far-from-equilibrium metabolic processes is the central goal.
This bridging over the material/immaterial duality strives to render it inconclusive.
Quoting Gnomon
If Absence/Void is active and causal, as in the case of grounding emergent material things, then its energetic_material, not absential. The absential gaps are due to constraints imposed by dynamic metabolics upon the universal, thermo-dynamical tendency towards equilibrium and inaction. Life arises from dynamic metabolics that constrain the tendency towards equilibrium on behalf of far-from-equilibrium, vital organisms.
Highly ordered material things, such as living organisms, dont arise from a void. Instead, they arise from a thermo-dynamic equilibrium constrained upwardly towards ever-more complex
and individualized states of being.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
Deacons term encompasses an array of attributes associated with cerebration within a set of end-directed processes.
Quoting Gnomon
Energy, even as a waveform, is a presence.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you saying the natural world stands some degree apart from material things?
Are you acknowledging the immaterial realm is a part of the natural world and therefore is not supernatural?
Are you aligning the immaterial world with top-down causation?
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation?
Are you saying the natural world emerged from immaterial causation?
Quoting jgill
Philosophy should meet the same standard of clarity met by math.
Quoting 180 Proof
There is no binary of material/immaterial. Instead, there are only material processes moving upwards along a continuum of higher-order, dynamical systems.
In consequence, the grammar of these materialist processes is, morphologically speaking, monist, not dualist.
I asked first: how is Deacon's 'incomplete nature' compatible with materialism? What role does 'matter' occupy?
For that matter, just what is 'materialism'? Let's see some definitions:
Brittanica: Materialism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them.
Wikipedia: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist.
New World Encyclopedia: In philosophy, materialism is a monistic (everything is composed of the same substance) ontology that holds that all that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, everything is material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions.
Quoting ucarr
I think Deacon's notion of absentials and constraints challenge those forms of reductive materialism. In "Incomplete Nature," Deacon criticises reductionism, the viewpoint that complex phenomena can be entirely explained by breaking them down to their most basic physical components, saying that approach is insufficient in explaining phenomena like consciousness and purpose. Instead, Deacon emphasizes the importance of emergent phenomena, properties or behaviors that appear at higher levels of complexity and cannot be predicted from (and, so, reduced to) the properties of individual components. This challenges a purely materialistic view by suggesting that understanding the parts does not necessarily equate to understanding the whole. In a carefully-qualified way, he supports the Aristotelian idea that 'the whole is greater than' (or, not reducible to) the sum of its parts. He's part of what I'm referring to as 'extended naturalism', an emerging paradigm that recognises the shortcomings of materialism in regards to accounting for mind and life.
Which is why I don't think you're term 'absential materialism' does justice to Deacon's work.
Let's start with Being compared with, say, Complex number. :roll:
:shade: :shade:
My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). In other words, Aristotelian Potential is unreal & immaterial & meta-physical, and not measurable in terms of thermo-dynamics. Potential is knowable only in hindsight by reasoning, or by mathematical calculation of statistical Probability for a future event.
I suppose you could say that "Potential" refers to the Absence part of Absential Materialism. It's the latent Tendency or Propensity, not the manifest Actuality. Potential is another name for my concept of EnFormAction as a precursor of Energy. Potential is Absence that causes Presence. It's not a valid concept in materialistic Physics, but is a useful concept in mathematical Physics. :nerd:
PS___ The potential-to-actual transformation could be construed as "top-down" causation. As Deacon put it : "the downward . . . causation . . . is in this sense not causation in the sense of being induced to change . . . but is rather an alteration in causal probabilities" p161. {my emphasis}
Potential :
Aristotle's concept of potentiality and actuality is a fundamental aspect of his metaphysical philosophy. Potentiality refers to the capacity or possibility for something to become actual, while actuality refers to the state of being fully realized or manifested. . . . Actuality is what 'manifests.' Potentiality is what 'could be'.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Aristotles-potentiality-and-actuality
Probability :
The philosophy of probability presents problems chiefly in matters of epistemology and the uneasy interface between mathematical concepts and ordinary language as it is used by non-mathematicians. Probability theory is an established field of study in mathematics. . . . . "physical" and "evidential" probabilities.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_interpretations
[i]Quoting ucarr
In order to "play the role of energy", Absence (void) must transform from Potential (not yet real) into Actual (matter). The mathematical waveform is not a real thing, but a pointer to the potential or possible Presence of a particle (photon). There are no material waveforms in Reality, only conceptual forms in Ideality. Do, you see what I mean? :smile:
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void?
:up:
Quoting Gnomon
Ocean waves might be considered as waveforms, although they are erratic. Radar, etc. are waveforms in reality.
Quoting ucarr
I 'm confident they would say existence (i.e. being); however, I prefer to think of "void" as the real (i.e. the ineluctable exceeding, or encompassing horizon, of both (human) effability and rationality). Another way of putting it: there are 'dynamics' in every sense, we say, only because void fundamentally affords 'changes, combinatorials, contingencies, chance' or, in contemporary terms, universal computability (re: D. Deutsch, S. Lloyd, S. Wolfram, M. Tegmark ... Spinoza ...)
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
Absential materialism is merely my wording for Deacons Ententional. Im not proposing anything different from what from he expounds in Incomplete Nature.
The nine items listed above as examples of ententional things are, in my own words, distinguished by their action-at-a-distance causality. This means they cause resultants distributed away from them across space and time. When Americas federal reserve bank raises the cost of money, they are an agent seeking to achieve something non-intrinsic to their location: reduction of inflation via reduction of spending. Intentional reduction of inflation, a cerebral-material action, nonetheless distributes across spacetime, a material medium, This cerebral-material action, although absent via distribution from the federal reserve bank, absentially constrains spending by agents unknown personally.
In the context of evolutionary biology, a phenomenon that features minds emergence from matter, lets look at two examples of absential materialism in action.
Through nested dynamical metabolic contraints on cell generation with genetic variations included, the favoring of a big brain over a strong, hairy body occurs. One of the resultants, distributed across spacetime, primes intelligent humans for reduction of hunting and gathering of food in favor of developing agriculture. Another resultant of the same dynamical metabolic constraint primes humans to cover their naked flesh, first with animal pelts and then with woven plant fibers and onward further towards development of the fashion industry.
Absential materialism utilizes the long reach of spacetime, a material cord binding together material things in accordance with planning.
Quoting Gnomon
I think your use of potential, a stored-energy, material phenomenon, connects Absence/Void to other material things. Think of a battery.
Quoting ucarr
This absent-self idea comes from Heidegger but Sartre insisted on bringing back the Cartesian subject and freely willing consciousness as the basis of the self.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting 180 Proof
How is your above definition of void ontically different from spacetime (and its virtual particles)?
Quoting Joshs
Thanks for weighing in, Joshs; Ive been missing your input.
What a knot of complexity here! The absential self, on which Cartesian freedom depends, effects its intention_design control of what-will-be, apparently in absentia, and thus the mind/body-problem puzzle of apparent duality.
Im at pains here in this conversation to argue and persuade correspondents about the innate physical materiality of in absentia design.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
Herein, I will attempt to profile Gnomon and Wayfarer philosophically: Youre trying to plot a course midway between reductive materialism at one extreme and brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. In so doing, you must affect a dalliance with materialist science without becoming infected by it. Youre both involved in the game of double-agentry. Im surmising dancing with science-nuanced-cum-philosophy presents as one of the major strategies of todays savvy immaterialists.
Quoting ucarr
[quote=Lionino;d14931]:shade: :shade:[/quote]
Consciousness is an aggregate of nested sub-routines of reflection. We start with the thing-in-itself noumenal state; next, we have reflection: Aha! Theres something out there! We dont know this; it is sensed, sub-consciously; next, we have reflection upon reflection: Now I, the self, make my appearance. I will have the future state of things be such and so, I declare! Next, we have philosophy: I think that youre thinking about your thinking is fatally flawed.
I feel, in some as yet vague way, the recursion of machine learning is the heart and soul of socializing and society. Consciousness is inherently social. Brains in vats are merely consciousness potential.
For this reason, the earth with its orbiting moon is a good example of consciousness. These orbiting, celestial bodies aptly model the entangled selves and selfhoods of conscious individuals.
As for action at a distance, after our conversation, I carry off some of you with me into the next room.
Hmmm? An ocean wave is a modulation of water, but what is the real substance of a radar waveform? Radar is a modulation of physical Energy, but it has no "real" substance, except perhaps for ethereal Aether. The waveform is described in terms of time, frequency, space, polarization, and modulation. But all of those are mental concepts, not material objects. Hence, they exist in what I call Ideality. :smile:
Note --- I was a radarman in the Navy, but never saw or touched a waveform, except as a graphic representation in a book. That's because a waveform is a mathematical idealization, not a real thing like "radar love". :joke:
PS___ I asked for a graphic representation of Interacting Gravity Fields to help me understand his analogy to Absential Materialism. He didn't respond, so do you know where I could find such an illustration of material absence? I'm serious.
Radar Love
[i]I've been drivin' all night, my hands wet on the wheel
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel
It's my baby callin', sayin', "I need you here"
And it's a half past four and I'm shiftin' gear [/i]
No. I was not talking about storage of invisible energy in tangible chemistry, but about Potential as a Principle, as Aristotle defined it. The Map is not the Terrain ; the Potential is not the Chemical. :smile:
Principle in philosophy and mathematics means a fundamental law or assumption. The word "principle" is derived from Latin "principium" (beginning)
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Principle
Actually, on this thread, "double-agent" Gnomon is trying to understand your "course" right through the middle of Materialism and Absentialism simultaneously. Your arcane language is over my head, so I was hoping you could provide a graphic representation of your overlapping field concept : a picture is worth a thousand words ___Henrik Ibsen :smile:
PS___ Your characterization of & Gnomon as "immaterialists" may provide a clue as to where your strategy is coming from.
That expression conveys an incomprehension of Platonism in my view. Not that I consider myself to possess any expertise in Greek philosophy beyond self-education.
I've always rejected philosophical materialism, even in childhood, although I wasn't able to articulate it then. I feel it's based on a false intuition of the nature of existence and a blighted vision of human potential, but I've said enough about that elsewhere. Suffice to say that philosophical idealism requires something like a perspectival shift, very like a gestalt shift, which cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms.
I started reading Incomplete Nature, and very much liked the overall tone and quality of prose. I looked up some index entries on materialism:
[quote=Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter]The purpose of my writing this book is not the tapping of computer keys, nor the deposit of ink on paper, nor even the production and distribution of a great many replicas of a physical book, but to share something that isnt embodied by any of these physical processes and objects: ideas. And curiously, it is precisely because these ideas lack these physical attributes that they can be shared with tens of thousands of readers without ever being depleted. ....
A complete theory of the world that includes us, and our experience of the world, must make sense of the way that we are shaped by and emerge from such specific absences. What is absent matters, and yet our current understanding of the physical universe suggests that it should not. A causal role for absence seems to be absent from the natural sciences. ....
In this age of hard-nosed materialism, there seems to be little official doubt that life is just chemistry and mind is just computation. But the origins of life and the explanation of conscious experience remain troublingly difficult problems, despite the availability of what should be more than adequate biochemical and neuroscientific tools to expose the details. So, although scientific theories of physical causality are expected to rigorously avoid all hints of homuncular explanations, the assumption that our current theories have fully succeeded at this task is premature....[/quote]
As I said already, I think Deacon is one of those developing an extended form of naturalism, recognising the limitations of lumpen materialism ('atoms and the void'). And he's setting out to address these 'troublingly difficult problems' in a pretty ingenious way. But I don't know if I accept his fundamental premise of what constitutes an 'absence' or 'abstential'. Sure, ideas do not exist as do the objects of physic - they are not located in time and space and are not composed of particles. But then, neither are numbers, but without mathematics, physics could not even get started.
(I found a long and difficult critique by a writer called R Scott Bakker, a philosopher and science fiction author. The gist of this criticism is that Deacon fails to account for 'observer dependency', which undermines the entire premise of his enterprise. But I'll leave that for others to decide.)
But I don't know if I will continue with it, or this thread. Life is short, and books are many.
@Gnomon
Pulsating electromagnetic energy? I consider this a real "thing", but the aether probably is not.
Quoting Gnomon
How about radar.
Yes. But, ironically, Ursula Goodenough and Terrence Deacon, in The Sacred Emergence of Nature --- referred to the topic as "religious naturalism".
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=bio_facpubs
In a marginal note of Incomplete Nature, I summarized the book as "a naturalized account for Life, Mind, Soul, Sentience, & Consciousness". But, as a practicing scientist, he seems to carefully avoid crossing the taboo line between Physics vs Metaphysics, Realism vs Idealism, and Science vs Philosophy. So, I also noted, "In order to establish the plausibility of absence-based (Metaphysical) causation, Deacon has to weed out unwarranted assumptions of Physicalism and Materialism". This straddling strategy and ontological balancing act led me to add : "The deistic inferences I'm drawing from Deacon's evidence & reasoning are precisely the one's he's trying to avoid".
I give him some slack though, because Deacon is a scientist whose specialties --- Anthropology, Biosemiotics & Neuroscience --- straddle the dividing line between Science & Philosophy and Classical & Quantum worldviews. My own Enformationism worldview also tiptoes along the same borderline. But, I assume that intends to remain firmly on the side of "secular naturalism". Which is fine with me. But, I view the Presence vs Absence dichotomy as a figure/ground concept like Ideal/Real & Physics/Metaphysics that depend on your personal subjective perspective, not on True/False facts.
An early Wiki review said, "this book speculates on how properties such as information, value, purpose, meaning and end-directed behavior emerged from physics and chemistry". Enformationism could be described the same way. And the associated philosophical attitude of BothAnd --- neither Realism nor Idealism, but Both --- places me on the same moot margin as Deacon. So, his book has added new dimensions to my own understanding of how Physical Reality and Metaphysical Ideality can co-exist in a world of embodied minds, capable of exploring the near infinite universe by means of ententional imagination. :smile:
Incomplete Nature :
The book expands upon the classical conceptions of work and information in order to give an account of ententionality that is consistent with eliminative materialism and yet does not seek to explain away or pass off as epiphenominal the non-physical properties of life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
I'm somewhat familiar with Bakker's 'blind brain theory' and his notion of metacognitive illusions. He is an eliminativist roughly along the lines of Dennett. What do you think the idea of "observer dependency' you have imputed to him consists in and explains or entails?
Energy is real in its observed effects, but immaterial in its thingness. :nerd:
Is energy real or a concept?
The reason it is so hard to define is because it's an abstract notion. In physics, the concept of energy is really just a kind of shorthand, a tool to help balance the books. It is always conserved (or converted into mass) so is incredibly useful in working out the results of any kind of physical or chemical process
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/what-is-energy/
Quoting jgill
OK. How does Radar --- a focused energy field --- illustrate how Absential Materialism works? Radar is not a pulsating machine gun shooting bullets (matter) & spaces (absence) at a target. Or is it? :wink:
PS___As a radarman, I once saw a high-powered radar antenna cook a seagull perched nearby. Definitely real effects! But the "bullets" (pulses or bad vibes) could pass right through or bounce off most matter, and worked best on transparent water; as in a microwave.
As I discern the difference, "void" is a speculative supposition of fundamental reality (analogous to Spinoza's substance (or being)) whereas "spacetime", according to various formulations of quantum gravity, mathematically describes only an emergent physical structure (again, analoguous to an infinite mode of the extension attribute of Spinoza's substance (or a being)).
He goes into it in that review I linked to but it's very long, and linked to another long piece. I think I'll steer clear of him, I don't like the vibe.
:lol: Fair enough...
So (rest) mass is "immaterial" too?
This says a lot. Even though there's the acknowledgement of the sense in which humans 'transcend previous biology' ('whole new phylum'), the aim is to 'explain' these 'emergent tendencies' in terms of 'ancient protein families' being 'deployed' (and note the implication of agency!) in 'novel patterns'. So again, the over-arching paradigm here is that of material evolution - what sequences of material interaction 'cause' or 'give rise' to these capacities or abilities?
But what if one specifically human ability that has arisen along with this provides an insight into causal factors quite other than those pre-supposed by that paradigm? One that could be allegorised as, instead of complex molecular interactions giving rise to living beings, a kind of latent intelligence taking material form?Of course sounds too much like vitalism, at least so long as that kind of intelligence is conceived of in objective terms.
I have perused the definition of 'religious' in that paper, although barely, given the time. But I wonder if that acknowledges the so-called 'sapiential dimension' that is generally associated with philosophical spirituality? Insight into the ground of being, that is associated with the great axial age religious philosophies? (My lecturer in Indian philosophy used to intone, 'what is latent becomes patent'.)
Nevertheless, I think the very existence of this kind of paper arises because of an acknowledgement of the barreness of reductive materialism, 'atoms in motion'. I mean, it's embarrasingly inadequate for all but the most shameless of materialists. So there are all these cross-cultural dialogues going on, conferences on consciousness, re-configurations of the meaning of evolution and physics. Probably it has something to do with the Age of Aquarius.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Picture the moon in earths skyline, with the ocean at high tide. This is an interaction of two celestial bodies with gravitational fields: earth holds the moon in its orbit and the moon raises the ocean tides.
Quoting Gnomon
I know that an abstract principle may have truth content and some level of application to the phenomenal world. How may it have realizable potential? Does such realizable potential evolve over an interval of time of positive value? If so, how is this time interval pertaining to an abstract principle measured?
Quoting Gnomon
Are you suggesting my language characterizing you and Wayfarer is actually a more apt description of me?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
If you do sign off from this conversation, before you do, I hope youll elaborate some details of your judgment that brain-in-a-vat Platonism conveys an incomprehension of Platonism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you mean comprehension of Platos Ideal Forms requires a systemic transformation of a persons perceptions, thoughts and beliefs?
You say philosophical idealism cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms. Are you saying it shares common ground with ineffable dimensions of spirituality?
Quoting 180 Proof
I understand you to be saying void is more fundamental than spacetime.
Since you say void is analogous to Spinozas Substance, I understand you to be implying void is physical_material and of infinite extension.
Well, as you've asked, I should respond. As I try to explain in my Mind-Created World OP, what I believe philosophical idealism is about, or should be about, is insight into the way the mind constructs or creates what we understand as the world. The mind is not the passive recipient of information from an already-existing world, but an active agent which synthesises sensory input with pre-existing intellectual elements, per Kantian idealism, which creates of constructs the consciousness we have of the world, which is how we know the world. That perspective calls into question the sense we have of an entirely mind-independent world. The reason I question the 'brain in the vat' analogy (which I believe goes back to Hilary Putnam) is because it's rather a caricature of that insight (although I should look it up and read it). It's as if we are trying to create a snapshot of that deep, constructive process that the mind is continually engaged in, and look at it from the outside, when in reality, we cannot get outside of it. I suppose it is something like a 'thought-experiment' but I don't think it conveys the profound nature of the original insight.
Anyway, I don't think Platonism thought about it like that - the way we're discussing it is a product of our own modern cultural background. But I nevertheless believe that Platonism was deeply concerned with the question of the reality of the sensible world (that is, the domain of what can be detected and measured by senses and instruments). Plato was concerned with discerning what he designated the 'ideas', by which I think he was referring to something very like 'principles' (although admittedly that is a revisionist reading). If you consider the debate over Platonism in mathematics, the essence of the debate is whether, or in what sense, numbers and other such 'intelligible objects' are real (as distinct from being products of the mind). Because if they *are* real, then it suggests an order of existence that transcends space and time. It has its proponents, notably Roger Penrose and Kurt Godel, but it does call into question one of the fundamenal axioms of naturalism, namely, that the world can be entirely understood in terms of manifest objective processes in space-time.
Quoting ucarr
Well I think it's historically defensible. It is said that at the entrance to the Platonic Academy was inscribed the slogan 'Let no-one ignorant of geometery enter here'. Those who qualified were admitted to the Academy where they were immersed in a curriculum including mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy etc- as is well-known, this was the ancient pre-cursor to the modern University system. But I think in ancient philosophy, there was still the idea of the 'philosphical ascent' - that grasp of certain kinds of truth required persons of a certain sort. (Perhaps that is still the case with mathematical physics, insofar as in order to grasp its concepts one must have an extraordinarily high degree of mathematical aptitude. But modern science typically eschews the qualitative aspects of being, hence the whole debate over qualia. Platonism was, shall we say, considerably more holistic.)
Yes. Mass is not an objective thing, it's a measure of Matter. And measurement is a mental function. In my personal philosophical thesis, Mind (e.g. Intention) is also a form of shape-shifting Energy. And physical energy is just one of many forms of Generic Information (power to change form). Matter is a tangible form of that universal Causal Potential. Causation is the process of form change, again not a material thing. :smile:
Rest Mass Energy :
One of the terms in the relativistic kinetic energy equation is the rest-mass of the particle and its given by E=mc^2. The rest-mass energy is the energy that is stored inside a stationary particle as a result of its mass. Rest-mass energy implies that mass is simply another form of energy.
https://aklectures.com/lecture/relativistic-momentum-and-rest-mass-energy/rest-mass-energy
Mind as Energy :
The mind is viewed as energies of relationships, with no beginning and no end, that give rise to consciousness in an observer processing change or information from the universe.
https://researchoutreach.org/articles/mind-as-energy/
Consciousness as Energy :
Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests that consciousness is a product of the way energetic activity is organized in the brain.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02091/full
OK. I'm imagining those interacting gravitational fields. Now, what does that mutual attraction have to do with Absential Materialism? Deacon says that "what is absent matters"; but that means it's meaningful to an observer. Is Meaning the kind of Matter your term refers to? :smile:
:clap: :lol: :sad: :rofl:
Energy is an "abstract principle" that has effects in the phenomenal world. We refer to that effect as Change. And all material transformations take time. That's why we call change-in-general : Time. So the time-interval (experience A relative to experience B) is one way to measure Change & Causation.
But the Energy itself is a Potential principle (the power to change form), not an Actual physical phenomenon. Our physical senses cannot detect Energy directly, only its effects on tangible Matter. That observation of Change is what we call "Realization" : from possible to actual (unreal to real) states of being. :smile:
Invisible Energy :
[i]What is always present but never visible? Energy. Energy is a difficult
concept to understand because it is not a concrete object that you can
see or touch. To comprehend what energy is, you need to understand
what it does. That is, although energy isnt visible, you can detect evidence
of energy. . . . . Movement, sound, heat, and light provide evidence that energy is
present and being used.[/i]
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/Documents/Activities/EvidenceofEnergy.pdf
Please look in the mirror. Can't you see that "Boo!" and "Boo-Hoo!" are childish emotional reactions to something personally unpleasant. Not a philosophical argument for a stated position.
if you can calm down long enough to think rationally, here are some formal positions that you can argue against, to support your materialistic belief system. Can you understand that Energy is a metaphysical philosophical Principle, not a material object? :cool:
Is energy a metaphysical concept?
Because it is ubiquitous, the concept of energy must be philosophical and, in particular, metaphysical (or ontological). That is, it belongs in the same league as the concepts of thing and property, event and process, space and time, causation and chance, law and trend, and many others.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4408-0_14
Rest Mass Energy :
One of the terms in the relativistic kinetic energy equation is the rest-mass of the particle and its given by E=mc^2. The rest-mass energy is the energy that is stored inside a stationary particle as a result of its mass. Rest-mass energy implies that mass is simply another form of energy.
https://aklectures.com/lecture/relativistic-momentum-and-rest-mass-energy/rest-mass-energy
Invisible Energy :
[i]What is always present but never visible? Energy. Energy is a difficult
concept to understand because it is not a concrete object that you can
see or touch. To comprehend what energy is, you need to understand
what it does. That is, although energy isnt visible, you can detect evidence
of energy. . . . . Movement, sound, heat, and light provide evidence that energy is
present and being used.[/i]
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/Documents/Activities/EvidenceofEnergy.pdf
PS___In this exchange, seems to define "immaterial" as unreal or spiritual, or imaginary or irrelevant. A secondary dictionary definition is "spiritual, rather than physical". Personally, I don't think in terms of "spiritual". So, for me "immaterial" means literally "not made of matter".
And that "immaterial" label includes invisible metaphysical Energy, as noted in the links above. Causal Energy is Real, in the sense that its actions have sensable and measurable effects on matter. But Energy is also a subjective Metaphysical process in that it is a definition, not an objective thing. Likewise, Space, Time, and Causation are philosophical ideas, not real things. None of those concepts can be observed with eyes or scopes, but only through reasoning from observations. Perhaps 180 would say that Reasons are Real. And I would agree that those mental functions are indeed included as immaterial Ideas in my Real world.
No. I was suggesting that you were portraying us --- "immaterialists" --- as opposed to your own position : "materialist". Is that an incorrect guess?
FWIW, my philosophical worldview is neither Materialism nor Immaterialism, Realism nor Idealism, but a philosophical Monistic marriage of both ontologies. My Holistic BothAnd worldview includes both visible Matter and invisible Energy, both tangible Brain and intangible Mind. That's not a denial of Reality, but an acceptance of Ideality within Reality. How would you describe your worldview? :smile:
BothAnd-ism :
An inclusive philosophical perspective that values both Subjective and Objective information ; both Feelings and Facts ; both Mysteries and Matters-of-fact ; both Animal and Human nature ; both Real things and Ideal concepts.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Ah riiiight, just like "The Force" :sparkle: :rofl:
A wave of water is a wave of water. Modulation is a transformation of a wave. Separate issues.
Quoting Gnomon
Looks like a real thing to me, and it is a wave.
A representation of an energetic wave and the wave itself are different things : one a natural function and the other an artificial mental model of that function. Do you "see" the difference between the Map and Terrain? :smile:
Mental Map vs Physical Territory :
The map is not the territory is a phrase coined by the Polish-American philosopher and engineer Alfred Korzybski. He used it to convey the fact that people often confuse models of reality with reality itself.
https://www.the-possible.com/the-map-is-not-the-territory/
Wave is propagation of energy, there is no such thing as "energetic wave".
Quoting Gnomon
None of these things are well defined. What is a natural function? Every model is artificial, and the fact I can model something means that that something exists, or that at least I perceive it.
Describe how immaterial energy connects with the material things it changes. For example, explain how, when lightning strikes a person and kills them, the lightning transforms into a material thing.
Consider the aggregates of atoms in the material things populating the daily world of human experience. Are they also aspects of void?
Quoting Corvus
Okay, this is a start. Whats your next move?
Materialism is a view that everything is made up of matter. If they say, even mind is made up of matter, then it is an incorrect view, because there are clear evidences that it is not.
But if they say, mind is not made of matter, then it is a pointless view. Because, of course it is not. In that case, they would be saying only matter is made up of matter, which is a tautology.
Therefore it is either an incorrect view or a tautology.
Quoting Corvus
Quoting ucarr
Does anyone think these dueling bookends, who end in stalemate, make a sound argument for the equal truth of each bookend? Goethe said something about the best arguments being those with both sides speaking truth.
Materialism has the easier task because its monist. It doesnt have to address the cosmic transition point: the structural handshake transitioning immaterial into material, or the reverse.
Immaterialism, being dualist, carries the burden of illuminating the handshake whereby things immaterial have causal force upon things material.
What about the inflection point when non-life quantum leaps into life, a supposed, abiogenetic, spontaneous phenomenon? Might that be, albeit irrationally, the structure of the transition?
Isnt the gist of immaterialism that spirit acts as the catalytic go-between linking the two cosmic states?
If so, then the gist of the immaterialism argument might be that non-life is immaterial as spirit until spirit transitions into material. That would be a proposition describing the structure of the inflection point.
However, conversely, spirit as non-life bespeaks noumenal materiality, not vital immateriality.
The Conflict: Immaterialism cant accept reductive materialism as the mechanical catalyst into life and materialism cant accept idealist immaterialism as the spiritual catalyst into life.
Whatre we gonna do bout this barnburner?
Hey! Somebody needs to articulate the structure of the cosmic inflection point transitioning non-life into life, for it might be a clue to resolution of the mind/body problem.
Quoting 180 Proof
In saying void is both physical and meta-physical, are you saying it has a higher-order dimension lying beyond the scope of the physical in the form of the physicality of the physical, which is to say, an abstract, generalized attribute approached only a priori?
If so, consider that any common material thing populating everyday human experience possesses, like void, a higher-order, abstract and generalized attribute as, for example in the case of a hammer, utility, also presumably only approached a priori.
How is void, in its higher-order, meta-physical dimension, categorically distinct from hammer?
That doesn't prove that materialism is correct. It is a poor logic (again :roll: ). It would be like saying eating loads of McDonald hamburgers everyday and watching TV all day for the rest of your life is easy, therefore good for your health.
Is it not time to commit the old materialism to flames? It has been around since the ancient Greek era even prior to Plato. It is has not progressed even an inch from where it was, since the time of Demorcritus.
Quoting ucarr
It would be like saying, one legged man runs faster because he has to move only one leg instead of two when running. Nonsense.
Do you think mind holds causal force over material things? Is so, can you articulate the structure of the handshake linking immaterial to material? If not, can you justify your belief mind is immaterial?
If you say mind operates in domains clearly not material, such as: abstractions, generalizations of tokens to types and computation, then materialism, via absential materialism, offers an explanation how these supposed immaterial phenomena are really higher-order, emergent properties still grounded in lower-order, dynamical processes that are physical.
Can you counter this argument with one that debunks Deacons teleodynamics of the ententional, a category that includes: sentience, meaning and purpose.
Energy works by Potential-to-Actual transformation, as in E=MC^2. For example, Invisible causal Photons (lightning) convert into mathematical Mass, which our senses experience as tangible Matter*1. For scientists, such transformations are described in terms of Phase Transition, where the intervening steps (mechanisms) are unknown. On the quantum scale, there is a transformation that is ironically labeled : Magic*2. :nerd:
*1. Energy Transfers and Transformations :
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transferred and transformed. There are a number of different ways energy can be changed, such as when potential energy becomes kinetic energy or when one object moves another object.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/energy-transfers-and-transformations/
*2. Phase transition in Magic :
Magic is a property of quantum states that enables universal fault-tolerant quantum computing using simple sets of gate operations. Understanding the mechanisms by which magic is created or destroyed is, therefore, a crucial step towards efficient and practical fault-tolerant computation.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10481
PS___ I just found a graphic illustration of intersecting & interacting gravitational fields. It's a model of the far future collision of Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Both parts are gravitationally transformed after passing through each other. But due to the vast empty space (absence) between lumps of matter (e.g. stars & planets) there is very little material contact. How does this physical model compare to your philosophical notion of Absential Materialism?
Is the following narrative something you can accept?
Higher Teleodynamics of Mind - Incomplete Mind, Terrence W. Deacon
The locus of self-perspective is a circular dynamic, where ends and means, observing and observed, are incessantly transformed from one to the other. Individuation and agency are intrinsic features of the teleodynamics that brains have evolved to generate, because of the dynamical closure, constraint generation, and self-maintenance that defines teleodynamics. However, the neurologically mediated self exhibits a higher-order form of teleodynamics than is found at any other level of life. This is because the teleodynamics of brain functions that evolved to guide animals locomotion and their capacity to physically modify their environments inevitably must model itself. The self-referential convolution of teleodynamics is the source of a special emergent form of self that not only continually creates its self-similarity and continuity, but also does so with respect to its alternative virtual forms.
Thus autonomy and agency, and their implicit teleology, and even the locus of subjectivity, can be given a concrete account. Paradoxically, however, by filling in the physical dynamics of this account, we end up with a non-material conception of organism and neurological self, and by extension, of subjective self as well: a self that is embodied by dynamical constraints. But constraints are the present signature of what is absent. So, surprisingly, this view of self shows it to be as non-material as Descartes might have imagined, and yet as physical, extended, and relevant to the causal scheme of things as is the hole at the hub of a wheel.
Quoting Gnomon
We dont experience mass by seeing matter.
We experience mass as momentum, the tendency of material objects to either remain at rest or remain in motion.
Quoting Gnomon
All of the above: energy, mass and matter are material_physical. Your job, as immaterialist, involves showing the structure of the immaterial making causal contact with the material.
What evidence is that?
Quoting ucarr
I don't know if Deacon himself would concur with your appeals to materialism or the term 'absential materialism' which as I noted, does not appear in his book, as I already pointed out in an earlier post. Deacon is proposing a way of thinking about nature that is very different from previous forms of materialism - is it still materialism?
There's also a meta-philosophical question. The emphasis on materialism always strikes me as the preoccupation of scientists and engineers, wanting to find out how things work. Well, we have terrific scientists and engineers, of that there is no doubt, and many things that work brilliantly, but philosophy in my view is existential, it is concerned with questions of meaning. Deacon says:
I don't know if your interpretation of Deacon does justice to that element of his work. It seems to me you're intent on using it to defend the very kind of reductionism that he is seeking to ameliorate. (Although I will acknowledge that this thread has made me want to source a copy of the book and read more of it, so thanks for that!)
Mind causes matter to change, move and work. A simple evidence? I am typing this text with my hands caused by my mind. If my mind didn't cause the hands to type, then this text would have not been typed at all.
Mind is immaterial substance. Although I know it is in me, and works for me in being conscious and perceive, think, feel, intuit and imagine etc, I cannot see it, touch it, or measure it. The mind has no physical or material existence, but it works for all the actions of humans as they please or want their bodies to perform or act according to their wills.
Quoting ucarr
Mind works with in abstract domains such as abstractions, generalisations of tokens to types and computation as well as with the body it is residing in for all the movements and works it tells the body to carry out as it wants. The clue is in the operations and communications between mind and body. Without mind, body becomes matter with no sign of life, sentience and consciousness. Without body, the mind evaporates. Where the mind goes to is still a mystery. But one thing clear is that, mind is not body itself, and mind is not material.
Quoting ucarr
I am not familiar with the idea you tells, but I quickly scanned the internet search of the term. It sounds like teleodynamics of the ententional sounds like a type of evolutionary theory. I am not sure if evolutionary theory has strong grounds for its claims. It seems to have some interesting points but also many vague parts in the theory too. Anyhow, my standpoint for it is that matter alone, and evolution theory alone seem to have some problems in explaining fully on the mind / body problems.
:cool:
Quoting Corvus
That does not imply that mind is not matter. On the contrary, the fact that it is able to interact with matter points towards the fact that it is also of the same substance.
I've not said this, just pushed back on your reductive implication which is contrary to the Democritean-Epicurean concept of void (or Spinoza's concept of substance): a metaphysical concept (i.e. an ontological presupposition of an empirical/observational supposition) for which there is a physical analogue or correlate (re: vacuum); I'm not "saying" the atomists' void is a "higher-order" anything (that somehow transcends the physical).
Quoting ucarr
:up: :up:
Quoting Corvus
How do you/we know this? How does the "immaterial" interact with materiality, as "mind" apparently does, without violating material-physical laws of conservation?
Interesting point. Why do you think mind is same substance as matter?
That is what they call the "hard point", which has many explanations. If mind is matter, then where is it? What shape, size and weight is your mind?
Materialism, as a theory of mind, posits that all mental phenomena can ultimately be explained in terms of physical processes in the brain.But this faces a challenge in explaining intentionality. Purely physical processes do not inherently possess meaning or reference, and so can't account for the intentional nature of mental acts.
[quote=Edward Feser]the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning thats how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.[/quote]
But you have not answered my questions, Corvus.
Quoting 180 Proof
I'll wait ... :chin:
I don't hold that position positively, I am just pointing out the interaction problem that arises with any dualistic philosophy.
This problem in fact arises with ANY non-physicalist philosophy, including matemathical platonism, or any kind of platonism.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course it can, when I program that a = 2, a always references 2, and if I command a*2 it gives me 4.
That the brain is able to invoke a meaning, a concept, from a symbol is trivial. In a deterministic universe, the symbol is the cause for the thought of the concept.
Yeah, but if you could remember, that question was only possible to be thrown at you because you claimed that mind is matter. If you claimed that mind is not matter, I could not possibly have asked that awkward question. So your claim has invited the question you see?
Quoting 180 Proof
Yeup, this can be a long topic on its own. If you can come up with a totally conclusive answers to this, then you would be nominated to the Noble prize reckon. :D
For present, I reckon the dualist theory seems to be more plausible than materialism.
Makes sense to me. But, like a Phase Transition, the intermediate physical stages between material and non-material are not apparent to me. Sounds like Magic : presto change-o! Except of course, if "Absence" is defined as a metaphysical Potentiality Principle (Form) --- inherent in all physical things --- as proposed by Aristotle to explain why things are what they are, and behave as they do. :smile:
Quoting ucarr
Yes. Physical Self-reference (structural or logical loops or "tangled hierarchy") does seem to be a necessary precursor to Self-Consciousness. But is it sufficient? Perhaps, it's a Strange Loop*1 as postulated in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach : "I am a strange loop". "And yet when I say "strange loop", I have something else in mind a less concrete, more elusive notion. What I mean by "strange loop" is here goes a first stab, anyway not a physical circuit but an abstract loop". :nerd:
*1. Strange loop :
A strange loop is a cyclic structure that goes through several levels in a hierarchical system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop
Note --- The "strangeness" of a strange loop comes from our way of perceiving ; as in quantum physics.
.
PS___ I just noticed that Roger Penrose's Orch Or hypothesis, has a role for gravitational attraction*2 (spooky action at a distance). The technical stuff is way over my head. And microtubules may be merely a metaphor for resonance chambers causing oscillation. But, does his notion fit into your Absential Materialism? The strangeness & spookiness qualities seem to be inherent in the quantum foundation of reality.
*2. Can Roger Penrose Explain Consciousness Through Physics? :
Penroses theory proposes that each gravity-induced collapse causes a little blip of proto-consciousness : micro-events that get organized by biological structures called microtubules inside our brains into full-bodied awareness. A conscious observer doesnt cause wave function collapse. A conscious observer is caused by wave function collapse
https://mindmatters.ai/2023/10/can-roger-penrose-explain-consciousness-through-physics/
Note --- Proto-consciousness is what I call EnFormAction : the causal form of Information. EFA is not a Thing, but the potential to cause change in things. Perhaps spooky Gravity is a form of meta-physical EFA.
Where the term 'cause' carries a completely different meaning to physical causation.....
That is very much connected to the thesis of the book this thread is about, Terrence Deacon's Incomplete Nature.
I am talking about neurological causation exactly. Fuzzy chemicals in the brain producing other chemicals in the brain.
The ink that shows 'elephant' reflects light to my eyes, causing nervous impulses. Due to pattern-recognition, those nervous impulses cause my brain to generate the impulses that generate the image of an elephant.
I don't see anything lacking with this chain of reactions.
Quoting ucarr
Suppose I amend my claim: ententional things, such as computation, reference to and meaning emerge from and remain grounded in lower-order, dynamical processes that are physical.
I think this claim hues closely to Deacons central thesis. His subtitle is: How Mind Emerged From Matter.
Quoting Wayfarer
My understanding of Deacon is that hes not leaving entirely the naturalist, physical_material category. Hes an evolutionary biologist.
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
Its clear to me Deacon rejects neither material absence nor material presence in his thesis about how mind emerged from matter.
Quoting Wayfarer
You seem to misunderstand the definition of emergent property, as in the case of mind emergent from matter. Emergent properties have radically different agendas from their lower-order substrates, to which they remain bound and without which that could not exist. This, by definition, is not simplistic, material reductionism. It articulates a mutually constraining symbiosis. I think the mental constraints upon physical things is what you refer to when you credit such restraints with being examples of mental causation controlling empirical phenomena. Neither causal mind nor causal, material substrate is excluded.
I think youre the one trying to bias Deacon towards immateriality. I dont think hes biased in either direction. He pays heed to immateriality, not because he prioritizes it over materiality, as you do. Instead, he pays it heed in order to bring it back into balance with materialistic science, which he eschews no more than he does immateriality.
Since, by now, it should be clear I embrace Deacons thesis, it should also be clear neither do I prioritize one over the other.
I did not "claim" this. :roll:
So you can't answer my questions .
Okay, I'll move on to someone who has some idea of what s/he is talking about.
Only agents have agendas. This is where Deacon coins the neologism 'ententionality'. It refers to the goal-directedness that characterises organic life and is absent in chemical or physical reactions: 'both life and mind have corssed a threhold to a realm whjere more than just what is materially present matters'.
Quoting Corvus
If your brain were removed from your cranium, would you be using your hands to type messages to me?
Quoting Corvus
Our conversation here is specifically concerned with the location, structure and functioning of mind in relation to body. If you think were wrong in our thesis that mind emerged from matter via upwardly evolving, dynamical processes, then you need to specifically address that claim by pointing out its flaws.
Quoting Corvus
I think you should deepen your investigation beyond the level of quick scans on the internet. Doing so might empower you to more specifically address perceived flaws in the proffered explanations of the mind/body problem.
First of all, I'm not an Immaterialist or Idealist --- in the sense of denying material reality. Second, you conflate Material with Physical, whereas I think of them as separate aspects of Reality*1. For me, Material (chemistry) is concerned with the stuff we see & touch. But Physics (energy ; force) focuses on how stuff changes : growing, developing, becoming*2. That is an important philosophical distinction.
Regarding "causal contact" between physical stuff and metaphysical power : a> It's the "action at a distance" that puzzled Newton about his theory of Gravity ; b> it's what Einstein disparagingly dismissed as "spooky action at a distance" in quantum physics. In what sense is a Force material? My answer is Aristotle's definition of "substance", not as Material but as Essential ; not as Physical but as Meta-physical ; not as Stuff, but as Power/Potential.
Are those absences made of material stuff? If so, what kind of matter is the Gap made of? Is the hole in a wagon wheel made of some invisible/intangible material? Do you think Energy/Force is a material object? Or could they be better described as causal Potentials? Note --- Star Trek writers invented the notion of a Tractor Beam to pull objects toward the Enterprise, like a grappling hook, except without ropes & hooks. Is that beam Physics or Fiction? :smile:
*1. Difference Between Physics vs Chemistry :
Both fields deal with matter, though physics focuses on how matter moves and interacts, while chemistry examines the composition of matter at the atomic level.
https://study.com/learn/lesson/physics-vs-chemistry-overview-difference-examples.html
*2. Physics is about Change :
The Greek word physis can be considered the equivalent of the Latin natura. The abstract term physis is derived from the verb phyesthai/phynai, which means to grow, to develop, to become
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physis
Quoting 180 Proof
Claiming mind is a process or activity like respiration or digestion and not a static thing sounds weird and illogical. And I never said anything about a static thing at all with mind, because my stance is mind is immaterial substance.
Those activities are the functions of the biological bodily organs. Equating them to mind seems to be a deep confusion. When I saw your post contained that statement, I didn't imagine that you would be serious to claim that. :)
Because they are, to reiterate, the basic biological functions of the bodily organs to maintain the life of the living agent. They have nothing to do with sentients, feelings, thoughts, ideas of self or cognitions which are the prime signs of having intelligence or mind. We cannot locate where the mind is situated as its own existence, because, as my claim say, it is not a matter.
We can only identify the core of our minds via those mental events and operations I have listed above, and that is all we can confirm and prove at the present. That is my belief for now.
Quoting 180 Proof
You must first know what you are asking about. :)
Your "If" statement is implying that it is not a relevant condition for the point, hence your concluding question in your statement is absurd. No one has been denying that brain is the location for the mind. It is a poor logic (again :D)
Quoting ucarr
For that info, you must contact a neurologist, and they will be able to provide the info in detail to you. I am not a neurologist, hence I do not have the detailed info off hand.
Quoting ucarr
Thank you for your advice. I will try to do that. My point was trying to clarify on materialism for its problems in the theory.
Quoting 180 Proof
Let me read carefully what youve written: a) you misunderstand me So, I get your intended meaning wrong; b) by confusing void So, I blend together physical and meta-physical in my understanding of what youre saying about void. c) that is metaphysical, not just physical So, I equalize void with being both physical and meta-physical; In this instance, I dont see any error of interpretation of what youve written because the verb to be and the adverb just directly identify void as having both attributes .
Quoting 180 Proof
You mis-read me when you ascribe to my intended communication that a physical thing i.e., void, in possessing a higher-order attribute (foundational), transcends the physical. Just as higher-order logic doesnt transcend logic, higher-order ontic status doesnt transcend the physical. Higher orders of a mode expand the range of domain within it; they dont transcend it.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think this is a simplification. Constraints that create absences that, in turn, strategically constrain forward towards emergent properties, such as minds with brains, involves a complex of nested, mutual constraints and emergent properties. There are no abstentials acting as end-directed agents without physical constraints imposed by dynamical processes.
I seems to me this complex of physical_absential satisfies quite well your claim to desire a spiritualism sypatico with modern science.
I am more in the direction of a dualist. A dualist accepts both mind and matter as different substance, like from Descartes. Hence I acknowledge matter exists as material substance, and mind exists as mental substance.
[quote=Evan Thompson; https://www.nature.com/articles/480318a]With consciousness, Deacon says that sentience the capacity to feel arises from a system being self-sustaining and goal-directed. So he sees individual cells as sentient. But, as he explains, an animal's sentience is not the sum of the sentience of its individual cells: the nervous system creates its own sentience at the level of the whole animal. Yet Deacon doesn't get to grips with the hard problem of explaining why and how we and other animals have conscious experience.
Simply pointing to the neural activity associated with sentience is not enough to answer this question. What we need to know is why this activity feels pleasant or painful to the animal, instead of being an absence of feeling. In my view, Deacon's error is not that he has no answers to such questions (no one does), but that he fails to recognize them.[/quote]
Also, I've been well aware of what he is designating 'absentials' for a long time, but I conceptualise them in an entirely different way. As I explain in my Medium essay on the nature of number, what he refers to as absent or non-existent, I think of as being real in a different mode to phenomenal existents. Numbers, logical laws, principles, even scientific laws, are not existent as are chairs, tables, mountains, etc, but they are real as constituents of the meaning-world; perhaps they can be conceptualised as noumenal realities, as distinct from phenomenal existents. I don't feel any compulsion to try and account for them in physical terms, or reduce them to something a physicist might be comfortable with.
But I'll persist with reading Deacon for the time being, I find his prose style quite approachable.
Quoting Gnomon
You know I know this. Youve told me repeatedly that youre invested in the material, the physical, the in-between and the meta-physical. Am I mistaken in believing you think metaphysical principles immaterial yet causal, as in the case to it from bit? If Im not mistaken about this, then you need to show how metaphysical principles enform matter with attributes only known in the abstract a priori.
It wont due talking about potential energy as causal potential somehow manipulating matter. Such a description is too vague to be of use to anyone but you in salesman mode promoting your Enformaction Theory.
Quoting Corvus
Im confused?
Quoting Corvus
Youve hoisted yourself on your own petard.
Quoting Wayfarer
The main issue in this conversation is whether these ententionals have reality and meaning because theyre bound together with phenomenal existents as emergents.
Do thoughts exist outside of the minds thinking them?
Do minds exist outside of the brains substrating them?
A difficult and delicate question.
The bottom-up account of such entities is that they are the product of lower-level processes, beginning at the level of physical and chemical interactions, which evolve in such a way as to give h. sapiens the ability to produce such ideas. This is the mainstream consensus.
Deacon is concerned with just this issue. How intentional acts can have physical consequences, even though intentionality itself is not accomodated by physicalist accounts. That is the explanatory gap he's wanting to bridge. His account is that all living things posses a quality of goal-directedness - ententionality - which anticipates the more elaborate intentional abilities that rational sentient beings possess. Hence his lexicon of autogens and teleodynamics and so on.
But to provide an alternative 'top-down' account and framework would be too much of a digression for this discussion. I'll just note at this point that I'm more open to the platonist perspective on this question that Deacon says he is.
Your questions and posts have been mostly based on the false assumptions and misunderstandings on the other party's stance. Therefore they give impression that either the poster is confused or not reading the posts properly before replying.
Im in your corner, but so far you have nothing to go on but sentiment. You could benefit from some more reading, starting with one of the books this thread is about, "Incomplete Nature" by Terrrence Deacon. You may not agree with it, but considering Deacons arguments is instructive. And, as I said, I'm in your corner, I don't agree with materialism in the least.
In this interview Deacon discusses the main concepts of Incomplete Nature. I can't find too much to fault.
No I don't think I was going on sentiment at all. I was just letting the OP know why he was confused when he posts an addlepated questions like "Quoting ucarr, when I have never denied the existence of brain for the precondition of mind.
He also seems to think I was an idealist, which I am not. If someone is not materialist, then it doesn't automatically place him into a position of being an idealist.
I did read the synopsis on Deacon's arguments, but it seemed a theory I don't quite agree with. It was good to know about the arguments in outline, but I don't think I would read more about it as it doesn't interest me as a serious theory. However, as I usually do, I would try to respond to all posts directed to me from the OP and all the participants in the thread even if it is not directly related to the topic.
Fair point. I don't agree much with ucarr either. I'm talking more about Deacon, which I give ucarr the credit for causing me (and no, that is not a matter of material causation!) to read more of.
Quoting Corvus
This is very much the kind of observation that Deacon starts his book with:
So he does obviously consider these kinds of arguments. I'm still at early stages - it's a 608 page book! - but I haven't yet hit the point where I think, 'this just can't be right'.
:ok:
Quoting Wayfarer
It is certainly an interesting writing in your quote. It sounds like a depiction of close link or cooperation between matter and ideas, rather than a standard materialism.
The reason I was put off by Deacon's argument in the synopsis was when I saw the word "evolution", which he seems to emphasis in the formation of sentience. I disagree with any evolution theories, hence stopped there.
I would give a good try reading the book based on your quote, but I have other books that I am reading, and trying to finish right now. Hence I would just wait for your finishing the book, and telling us about it. :)
Are photons a new concept for you?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
I think you give an excellent summary of Deacons purpose in Incomplete Mind.
I disagree somewhat with your characterization of bottom-up, physicalist causation as a process that renders the mind and its thoughts as products. Deacon provides a detailed analysis of nested, self-organizing, dynamical processes that create upwardly evolving, strategic constraints towards mind and its end-directed intentions. As an emergent property of physical substrates, mind is something quite beyond an automatic product. It has materially grounded parameters that afford it an agency distinct from the automatic mechanization of the more strictly material dynamics supporting it. Cartesian freedom, albeit limited by physical parameters, holds place among real things.
Top-Down Causation
Is top-down causation from mind to brain a process that includes an inflection point where immaterial mind makes causal contact with material things?
Were examining a question much deeper than personal preference between equivalent options. Were looking at whether or not top-down causation from immaterial mind holds place among real things.
Established top-down causation from emergent mind is exampled by Deacons triumvirate of teleodynamics_morphodynamics_thermodynamics. This chain of dynamics, being bi-directional, also includes bottom-up causation going in the opposite direction.
Likewise, emergent mind can run top-down to brain, or the reverse, brain bottom-up to emergent mind.
In WayfarersMind Created World, he argues for a mind-organized world. Since his scenario features raw data being processed, its obvious the data pre-dates this action of the mind and thus there is no mind-created world extant in this example.
Has it been established that formatting of raw data incoming through the senses is a top-down causation from mind to brain?
To the contrary, its established the brain organizes info processing autonomically, with various components and aspects of sensory data assigned to various parts of the brain. No one consciously decides which part of their brain will process which sub-component of the sensory data of the phenomenal world. Brain processing is autonomic with little or no control by conscious mind.
Moreover, the brain components, via bottom-up causation, assemble a perceptual composite that is a brain-created assemblage. As for the minds part in this process, wherein comprehension and learning, with ancillary features including interpolation, extrapolation, induction and deduction get utilized, its a case of bottom-up causation from brain to mind, not the reverse.
Likewise, machine processing of raw data is a material_physical, bottom-up dynamic of processing and assemblage into a coherent and logical composite.
A common example of bottom-up, material_physical organization of raw data into a coherent, logical whole is DOS running in the background organizing the Graphical User Interface seen and manipulated by the general public when they turn on and use their computers.
Emergent mind, as the current pinnacle of self-organizing, dynamical processing, appears to be an absentially material designer. As designer, mind holds power over the natural world.
Human mind and natural world co-exist within an ergonomical co-dependence.
Quoting Corvus
As a favor to me, can you respond to this post by talking about the operations of mind as they relate to brain as a precondition of mind? Immediately below Ive quoted Wayfarer in order to explain why Im asking this favor of you.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
*Parenthetical clarification inserted by ucarr.
Deacon makes it clear beyond doubt he endorses bottom-up causation from the material to the absentially material i.e., towards mind and its intentions.
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
Here he's expressing the idea that physics itself has undermined physicalism, insofar as this was conceived as being reliant on the existence of 'ultimate objects'. Instead, it suggests a process-oriented approach associated with "waves of probability". So again, how this can be described as materialism escapes me. He's explicitly distancing himself from that, which he identifies as the 'current paradigm'. This is why he remarks that his 'absentials' are likely to be dismissed as mysticism by a lot of hard-nosed scientists (which I'm sure they have been). Sure, he has to thread the needle of not asserting immaterial forces or objects, while at the same time showing the inherent falsehoods of mechanistic materialism and the 'machine' analogy, which he explicitly rejects. But I don't see him as favourable to any form of atomistic materialism (and if it ain't atomistic, then what is it :yikes: ? )
The other subtle point is that constraints themselves, which are central to his model, are top-down by nature. Top-down constraints impose order and coherence within a system by providing a framework or set of rules that guide the behavior of its parts. They are essential for ensuring that the system functions in a coherent and organized manner. In his model, anything that exists does so as a consequence of the adaption of bottom up processes to top-down constraints. He mentions in Chapter One the relevance of universals - 'types of things have real physical consequences' . And these can hardly be said to originate at the base level - they act as the kinds of delimitations on possibility that dictate the form of particulars. The requirement for the wing to be lightweight is a top-down constraint. It is imposed because a heavy wing would make whatever can fly less able to stay aloft. Flatness is another top-down constraint, as the shape s crucial for generating lift, which is essential for flight. If the wing were small and dense or had a different shape, it will not generate the necessary lift. And that is 'multiply realised' in birds, bats, flying mammals, and aeroplanes (hence 'the wing', or rather, 'flight', as an Idea or universal.)
As far as the hard problem of consciousness is concerned, the review I quoted from Evan Thompson points out:
Quoting Evan Thompson
(It should be mentioned that Evan Thompson's 'Mind in Life' is of a very similar genre to Deacon's. Thompson is overall positive about Deacon's book, with the above caveat.)
That criticism is also made in the long and difficult review I posted in by R Scott Bakker, who says that throughout the book, Deacon fails to comes to terms with the role of the observer in the formulation of his theory, meaning that it is in some sense 'a massive exercise in question-begging'.
None of that is the last word of course and Deacon's book has considerable depth and subtlety, but I do think there is something in those criticisms.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
You perceive kinship between spirit and probable particles neighboring about a cloud of positions? Does the nature of spirit insist it be not too hard of boundary nor too discrete in location?
Regarding how this can be materialism, you have an answer below with interacting dynamical processes that mutually constrain in the mode of a distributed waveform .
Quoting Terrence W. Deacon
Quoting Wayfarer
Does Deacon teach us that metaphysical principles are logically but not temporally prior to the natural world? Should we understand that spirit and nature are co-eternal?
Apparently you "know" what I say, but not what I mean. Our communication problem may be that you are thinking like a Scientist, while I am trying to think like a Philosopher. Consequently, when I talk about a metaphysical Causal Principle (e.g. Energy) producing changes in Matter, I place it in a philosophical category more like metaphysical Essence (identity ; meaning). That's because Potential/Energy/Essence has no material properties : mass, hardness, plasticity. Energy's primary property is Causation. So, I'm making a philosophical distinction, not a scientific classification.
Yet, you seem to lump Energy into the more general category of Physical or Natural, and interpret my meta-physical notion of Energy as Spiritual or Supernatural. From that perspective, all philosophical language would be indistinguishable from Religion. And that's how Materialists (realists ; physicalists) seem to pigeonhole theoretical Philosophy (theorist ; idealist) as in opposition to pragmatic Science. Personally, I view them as complementary, providing a more complete worldview than either alone.
While you have acknowledged that Deacon's Incomplete Nature*1 attempts to bridge that gap between Science (pragmatism & materialism) and Philosophy (theoretical & idealistic), you seem to lean toward the scientific side. Hence, if you want to pin the negative "immaterialist" label on me, what does that make you, in an either/or sense?*2. Whereas philosophically, I am a substance Dualist and Information Monist*3 : {everything is a form of causal information}, you appear to be a Matter Monist : {everything is a material thing}. We just reverse the priority of active Sculptor & passive Clay*4, as in the "it from bit" metaphor.
I could "show" how the "metaphysical principle", Energy, enforms (changes properties) of Matter with a demonstration of the photochemical reaction. But that's not what I'm talking about. As a meta-physical philosophical principle, Energy is simply the causal power to transform one conceptual Kind into another category. Causation is a philosophical concept, not a thing with material properties. Hence, it is not knowable via the physical senses, but only by means of mental reasoning.
Therefore, I could parse your term "Absential Materialism" as a mashup of different aspects of reality : metaphysical ideas and material things. Yet, Absence is not a real thing, it's the conceptual negation of material Presence : nothing, nada, emptiness. "Absence" per Deacon is a a state of things not yet realized", hence Potential, not Actual. Ironically, a Materialist/Physicalist/Naturalist thinks of a chemical battery as an example of philosophical Potential. It's that type of reification of ideas that we are dealing with here. What I'm "selling" is affirmation of the power of Absence. :smile:
*1. Terrence Deacon :
Deacon's triad levels represent the material, the ideal, and the pragmatic.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
*2. Materialism vs Metaphysics :
Basically they reject each other. Materialism states that ALL is simply matter, even thoughts. If everything is matter (and obviously energy), everything in the end falls under Physics, so there is nothing that is beyond (meta) Physics.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-relationship-between-materialism-and-metaphysics
*3. Informational Monism :
[i]Although a substantial number of papers is published on the topic of consciousness, there
is still little consensus on what its nature is and how the physical and phenomenal worlds
are connected[/i]
https://philarchive.org/archive/EVOIMA-2
*4. Naturalism vs Philosophy :
A central thought in ontological naturalism is that all spatiotemporal entities must be identical to or metaphysically constituted by physical entities. Many ontological naturalists thus adopt a physicalist attitude to mental, biological, social and other such special subject matters.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
Note --- Matter is spatio-temporal, but Mind is non-local & noumenal*5.
*5. Meta-Physics : philosophy, not-theology
[i]The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled physics - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled metaphysics - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: Ideal as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal forms (concepts) were prior-to the Real substance (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the formal cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).[/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
A wavy photon zooming through the Aether has the potential for mass, and can transform into mass, but while traveling at lightspeed (zero mass), is not massive like a bullet. Ironically, Some physicists and physicalists like to imagine it metaphorically as a little ball of matter. Radar photons are a focused field of statistical possibility. Like all sub-atomic "particles" a photon is non-local, until it interacts with matter, in which case the probability wave "collapses" into a point. At which point it is no longer a photon. :smile:
Is the photon really a particle? :
Abraham Pais [14, p. 350?1] writes that although the photon has zero mass, physicists nevertheless call a photon a particle because, just like massive particles, it obeys the laws of conservation of energy and momentum in collisions, with an electron say (Compton effect).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030402621003983
Secondly, the photon is now thought of as a particle, a wave, and an excitationkind of like a wavein a quantum field.
https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/what-is-a-photon?language_content_entity=und
It seems undeniable that the gap between actions and intentionality is meaning. Meaning is purely conceptual and logical. If I see rain coming down, then I will close the window.
The perception of rain coming down, generated meaning that it might come into the room, and make things get wet and ruined, if the window was left open. It is also a logic in inductive reasoning . Hence there are causal chain effects in the process.
Seeing the rain coming down -> Noticing the window was open -> Reasoning that the rain will get into the room if the window was left open, and make the books get wet and ruined (inductive reasoning) -> Closed the window (physical action).
Therefore the meaning combined with the reasoning caused the physical action.
However, Deacon's theory seems to be interpreting the actions via some sort of interactions between the physical objects via the physical causes and even physical meanings :roll: .
Quoting ucarr
This is a contradictory view, and I feel that this is an incorrect explanation of his Absential materialism. Your claim seems to have gone this way.
1. Material things cannot think.
2. But they interact with other material things. (the waveforms, gravities, the writings with no meanings themselves ... etc)
3. Therefore material things create physical meanings. ==> FALSE, A poor logic and contradiction. :roll:
How can non-thinking things create meanings? What on earth is physical meaning?
All meaning is mental and conceptual in nature. The material existence doesn't know anything about meaning. They just behave as according to the laws of physics. Material objects don't care about the cause and effect either. They just exist, interact and change according to the rules. Humans observe and notice the interactions, changes and operations, and make inferences, reasoning, and set up the rules and laws in conceptual manner.
Thinking that the physical objects create the physical meanings when they interact with each other creating some visible or noticeable events and changes sounds like panpsychism or superstitious totem ideas.
Please bear in mind that all meanings are mental, logical and conceptual, viz NON MATERIAL and NON PHYSICAL even if they are the product of the physical brain.
In that case, it sounds like the terminology "absential materialism" is incoherent.
Quoting Corvus
If I read you correctly, you say youre in the direction of a Cartesian substance dualist; you say matter exists as material substance and mind exists as mental substance. Moreover, as I read your implication, youre implying with your attacks upon absential materialism that, regarding material substance and mental substance, never the twain shall meet.
If Im correctly reading the core of your counter to my thesis, youre arguing that interweaving material substance with mental substance towards a non-local materialism that situates cognition and rational designs within material substance and yet with mental substance as an emergent, radically quasi-independent property is a stillborn thesis.
You have made an important declaration that establishes your stance in this conversation:
Quoting Corvus
Now I juxtapose your stance with your below declaration:
Quoting Corvus
I assert the last part of your declaration (in bold) shows your substance dualism at the point where the rubber meets the road and complexity enters the situation. I further assert that with advent of this complexity, you make a close approach to acknowledgement of the truth of Deacons core belief that mind emerged from matter.
The core issue of this conversation is articulation of the structure of connection linking mind with matter in the mode of Deacons theme: that mind emerged from matter. This clause declares the interweave connecting matter and mind.
In your stance, you declare a hard boundary between material substance and mental substance. Your job now is to articulate with maximum precision of detail the structure wherein brain, albeit being a precondition of mind, nonetheless inhabits a structure featuring a hard partitioning of brain from mind. Per your stance as a hard-boundary dualist, you must explain a structure wherein the hard-partitioning (like parallellism) of brain/mind at the same time features brain as a precondition for mind.
Quoting Gnomon
Does Deacon teach us that metaphysical principles are logically but not temporally prior to the natural world? Should we understand that spirit and nature are co-eternal?
Under Deacons influence Ive learned to speculate temporal direction in application to the mind/body problem might be significant rather than trivial. You talk of metaphysical principles being causal. Might it be more correct to say metaphysical principles describe causation?
When an elementary particle decays into two of its constituent particles, physicists dont typically characterize this event as being metaphysics in action. No, this transformation is unambiguous as a physical process. On the other hand, sound reasoning within philosophy of science may very well describe particle decay in terms of a general structure governing all forms of particle decay. That would be a description of a type of patterned particle decay. If philosophy of science thinkers, digging deeper, discover that patterned particle decay bespeaks the essential nature of science across all of its disciplines, then perhaps that would be a metaphysical description of foundational scientific truth. To say metaphysical statements, in of themselves, cause physical processes mischaracterizes metaphysics. Its a blurry confusion of language and its meaning with physical processes.
That self-organizing processes working through nested tiers of upwardly evolving dynamics lead a trail of interconnection from it to bit seems to me, per the brilliant analysis of Deacon, foundational truth.
The revelation is that physical processes and their grammar of existence I.e., metaphysics, are all of one piece temporally speaking. The metaphysical description of physical processes has no causal force whatsoever. Instead, physical processes transpire, brains and minds emerge and, eventually, grammatical descriptions of the physical processes instantiate as language.
Metaphysical understandings of physical truths are logically prior to physical processes as interpretive overviews of types of physical processes and their interrelations.
Quoting Gnomon
Can you elaborate further your insightful characterization of energy as causation?
Mass-energy changing form under conservation - definitely a physical phenomenon - expresses as a transformation dynamo. What can you tell us about the QM version of causation?
Sidebar - Perhaps a particular analysis of this characterization can empower us to use [math]e = mc^2[/math] as a guide for building instead of destroying. Visualizing blockchains of causal sequences as a waveform with probability attached and statistically analyzable reads like global economics.
I'm not aware of any specific discussion of "Metaphysics" in Incomplete Nature ; that word is not in the index. Also, the unscientific word "spirit" is not in the index. Besides, Deacon --- as a scientist --- seems to deliberately avoid making specific philosophical conjectures, such as you mentioned, beyond a space-time context. But other people have referred to the book as a "metaphysics of incompleteness".
Regarding temporal priority, he typically restricts his remarks to spatio-temporal settings. Therefore, I suppose you will have to make your own conjectures about the "co-eternal" interrelationship between "spirit" (immaterial potential?) and "nature (material actuality). What do you think? Is Potential temporally prior to Actual, or is Potential timeless and Actual time-bound? Is "spirit" an eternal changeless principle, and "nature" a temporal ever-changing system of matter & energy? On the other hand, his use of "teleology" is indeed a philosophical concept, that goes beyond the space-time constraints of Science. :smile:
Quoting ucarr
Of course Time is an important factor for perishable material bodies, and minds are dependent on bodies. So yes, Time is significant for making sense of the Mind/Body problem. However, philosophical principles are imaginary concepts, and not subject to the ravages of Time. I suppose the "metaphysical principle" you referred to is Energy, as if it was a philosophical concept. But I would say that Energy is instead a practical physical concept, while EnFormAction is a theoretical philosophical conjecture. Yet both are referring to the invisible Cause behind the obvious Effects (changes) we see in nature. The names don't "describe" causation, but merely label a phenomenon that humans infer intuitively : that physical Change is somewhat mysterious. Which is why the ancients labelled "spiritual" phenomena in terms of causal agents, rather than natural forces. :cool:
Quoting ucarr
Naturally! Physicists typically avoid any implication of Metaphysics in their descriptions of change. However, what you call "metaphysics in action" might be considered legitimate philosophical language. Since this is a Philosophy Forum, not a Physics Forum, the terminology would be expected to be different, and more focused on Ideas than Things. Deacon used the term "Absence" in lieu of more traditional philosophical appellations for immaterial (mental ; mathematical) notions. Scientists might prefer "statistical probability" to "absence" as the precursor of Actuality.
In a marginal note of Incomplete Nature, I said "Deacon missed the opportunity to summarize his "absence" and "aboutness" as metaphysical aspects of "Entention and Sentience". I suppose the absence of that philosophical term in a scientific work was intentional. :grin:
Quoting ucarr
Yes, it was that "upward evolution" that Deacon labeled "Teleology", in contravention of scientific protocol that evolution is directionless. But the increase in complexity & integration & interconnection of systems over time is undeniable. So, he also described Evolution as "downward causation", as-if the program of physical form-change was directed from above. That teleological direction was also implicit in Wheeler's "it from bit" notion, where mental Information was prior to physical instances. Is such Teleology also a "foundational truth"? :wink:
Quoting ucarr
Physical Truths are what philosophers refer to as Metaphysical Principles. Which are, by definition, logically prior to physical things and processes. So, the "causal force" of a Principle is in the before & after or if-then relationship. Traditionally, philosophers referred to Downward Causation as purposeful Teleology. But modern materialistic philosophers prefer to use the non-commital term Teleonomy. Personally, I find Teleology more descriptive, despite its implication of a Cosmic Mind as the First Cause. :nerd:
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
This claim begs the question: Do abstract concepts exist independent of minds contemplating them?
As Ive suggestd already, I think metaphysics (as existential grammar) and nature are co-eternal. When a metaphysical description of a physical phenomenon frames it within a general structure, such as your claim energy has for its chief property causation, its an articulation of a conscious mind drawing upon whats evidentially implied through the action of the phenomenon.
When science frames natural phenomena scientifically, viz. affords experimental statistics coupled with description of phenomena measurable, repeatable and public, it puts on a demonstration of abstractable principles co-temporal with the phenomena. Trying to claim abstract principles have independent existence from their grounding phenomena ignores the fact minds doing the abstracting are likewise grounded in brain phenomena.
Im not charging you with making this erroneous claim of mental independence from brain because its not yet clear to me from your language whether you think that or not. Your staunch allegiance to shape-shifting between modes physical/non-physical, with the complication of in-betweenness distanced from both polarities, makes for a difficult stew of isms.
*Do you think time separable from phenomena?
I would turn the question around, and ask if 'the law of the excluded middle' or 'the Pythagorean theorem' came into existence when humans first grasped them. It seems to me the answer is 'obviously not', that they would be discovered by rational sentient beings in other worlds, were they to have evolved. Yet they are the kinds of primitive concepts which constitute the basic furniture of reason.
Albert Einstein said
I think that is true, but that it's also true that while the theorem might exist independently of man, it can only be understood by humans. So it's mind-independent, on one hand, but only perceptible to a mind, on the other.
The next question I would ask, in what sense do such principles exist? Is the Pythagorean Theorem 'out there somewhere' - a popular expression for whatever is thought to be real. To which I'd respond in the negative - such principles are not situated in space and time, neither are arithmetical primitives or the other fundamental constituents of rational thought. But due to the influence of empiricism on philosophy, the nature of such principles must be relegated to the subjective or attributed to what you describe as 'brain phenomena'. But notice that 'phenomena' means 'what appears' but that whatever we ascribe to the neural domain can only be a matter of inference; nothing actually appears in a brain as object of neuroscientific analysis, save patterns of bio-electrical activity. But it seems to me that in support of your materialist thesis, you must insist on the connection between abstract principles and neural configuration, to maintain the connection with a material substrate, as an 'output' or 'result' of 'neural activities'.
I'll leave it at that for now, I'm up to Deacon's discussion of homuncular arguments, where I think I am beginning to detect a hint of scientism poking through the verbiage.
Although I will add that it is precisely at that point in cultural development where reason discerns unchangeable principles underpinning the flux of experience, that metaphysics proper emerged.
How do you think the Pythagorean Theorem was discovered/ confirmed if not by observation and measurement?
I didn't think of "energy as causation" as insightful. I thought it was obvious. Perhaps the dictionary definition of energy as "ability" is vague. But even the notion of "force" as a mathematical "vector quantity" is less than clear. But then, the notion of "Causality" or "Causation" is more of a general philosophical concept than a specific physical phenomenon, in that it implies both Agency (executive) and Efficacy (ability). Actually, I consider the equation of "Information" (power to inform) and "Causation" (energy) to be more philosophically insightful. That notion probably goes back to Quantum theory, but Deacon discussed not only the causal role of Absence, but notes that its not-yet-real Potential was mostly overlooked in physical Science. :smile:
Energy is defined as the ability to do work, which is the ability to exert a force causing displacement of an object. Despite this confusing definition, its meaning is very simple: energy is just the force that causes things to move.
https://ingeniumcanada.org/scitech/education/tell-me-about/physics-of-energy
Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such a basic concept, it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
Causation is the transfer of information
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-015-9229-1_18
The Logical Dynamics of Information :
In his Incomplete Nature, Deacon extends a thermodynamic concept of energy to yield a description of complex processes in which absence plays a critical role in their emergence and evolution. Starting from a quantum-mechanical picture of energy as an energy-matter duality, the critical role of potential as well as actual properties of processes is also described in the new extension of logic to real phenomena, Logic in Reality (LIR) . . . . Their conjunction constitutes a new conceptual structure for exploring the relationship of information to materiality, that is, to the matter-energy that constitutes it as its carrier and/or substrate.
https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/3/4/676
Quoting ucarr
The main contribution of Quantum Mechanics to Causation theory was its statistical nature. By that I mean quantum events are not absolute Cause >>> Effect, but mathematically subject to random interaction, hence probable. The chain of Cause & Effect has gaps or weak links or non-linear links. Philosophically, I attribute that non-linear behavior --- as defined in the Schrodinger equation --- to the Holistic effects of Entanglement. Randomness and non-linearity are the primary differences between Classical Newtonian physics and Non-classical Quantum physics. Like immaterial Absence, this random causal Probability has not been duly appreciated in pragmatic Physics. :nerd:
PS___ I'll leave it to you to elaborate on your notion of Blockchains and Economics.
That's an excellent example of the difference in how the Materialist and Metaphysical worldviews imagine Ontological Existence. Ironically, imagination of abstractions, such as Principles, is not explainable in physical/material terms, except as philosophical metaphors. How anything immaterial or inferred or imaginary can "appear" in a gelatinous lump of matter is the essence of the "hard problem".
But Materialists seem to take that "magical" manifestation for granted, because it's so "natural" to the human mind. Yet they attribute that mysterious ability, to see the invisible, to a "neural correlate" of a metaphorical homunculus in the material brain. Many, if not most, philosophical Principles (noumena) are describable only by analogies to physical phenomena.
One of those imaginary notions is Absence, imagined -- like Zero -- as-if a physical place-holder for something real, but not yet manifest. That's what we call statistical "Potential" : what could be, but is not yet. It's like a prayer : Lord, please fill-in the blank with something tangible. :pray:
Deductive truths are inferred from rational principles. That It is true of [I]any triangle[/i] doesnt need to validated by observing every particular .
But with deference to Deacon, he is certainly no lumpen materialist. He holds up Francis Cricks neural materialism as an example of same. I am suspicious of the claim of the necessity of a neural substrate, that an idea is only real if it is instantiated in a physical brain, but Im still considering Deacons book.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Wayfarer
Heres how I turn the question around and then pair it with the first form of the question:
Do minds contemplating abstract concepts exist independent of their objects of contemplation?
AND
Do abstract concepts exist independent of minds contemplating them?
Now we have a real doozy of an obverse couplet. My answer to the question observed in both configurations is no. The two are never independent of each other. Deacons central theme is the spacetimatical connection linking consciousness with its subjects and vice versa.
Imagine the race of Numerians exist a billion years before advent of humans. The Numerians become aware of the Pythagorean Theorem and then eventually go extinct. Does the Pythagorean Theorem exist before the advent of the Numerians? Depends. If another, still more antecedent race pre-dating the Numerians exists, then yes. If not, meaning no minds in existence anywhere, then no. After extinction of the Numerians, does the Pythagorean Theorem exist? Depends. If another conscious race intermediary to the Numerians and human exists, then yes. If not, meaning no minds in existence anywhere, then no. I trust you see the logical pattern Im expressing here. Its the bi-conditional, logical operator.
A <> B, with A = Mind and B = Pythagorean Theorem. A if and only if B (and vice versa).
Abstract truth as language is an emergent property of conscious minds. Its the grammar of the structure of existence for conscious minds. As a structural overview, it holds logical priority over material things, albeit a logical priority constrained by the existential fact of the existence of said material things.
Abstract truth and material things are co-eternal, temporally speaking.
Quoting Janus
:up: :smile:
This is a thread for you to understand, explicate and defend "absential materialism". It is not for "to articulate with maximum precision of detail the structure wherein brain, albeit being a precondition of mind,"
I have mentioned "dualism" only because of your misunderstandings, in order to clarify that my position is not an idealism or immaterialism.
However, if it is the Cartesian dualism you are interested in, it is rather easy to defend. Since mind is different substance from matter, you can say, you simply have no mental capacity to perceive the mind itself.
By nature, mind is invisible entity with no extension, shape and weight, hence you cannot explain the connection between mind and body either in scientific terms. For you to conceive mind, you must be in possession of the super consciousness to be able to do so, but I suspect that you are.
If you are deeply interested in the Cartesian dualism, I would advise you to open a new thread for it.
If you really asked me about this issue from my own perspectives, then mind is not something emerged from matter. You could say that, but then you will find much problem explicating further for the connection.
From my view, mind is a property of a living body. You seem to think that mind is a necessarily emerged existence from body. No that is not the case. A dead body has no mind. A chair has no mind. Waveform has no mind. A living human has mind.
Hence mind is a mental substance which is a property of a living intelligent agent with biological body. Then you might ask "Can A.I. Robot has mind?" No, they are designed to carry out certain tasks for human needs. They don't have mind as per se, but they can be intelligent because they are able to carry out the jobs humans do. Mind is a property of a living body with a totality of mental functions and events.
Can substance be a property? According to Bolzano in his Theory of Science, of course it can. A substance can be an object. An object can be a property of another object.
Quoting Gnomon
Do you think causation as a concept separable from interactions between physical and material things?
Do you make your claim of causation being primarily philosophical in application to: a) chemistry; b) elementary particle physics?
Quoting Gnomon
I understand this sentence as a reference to Wheelers It from bit. Do you think information: a) an agent of material things; b) a material aspect of material things?
No. Why do you ask? Are you trying to determine if I am a Platonic Idealist, like Kastrup? He makes some good arguments for Idealism as prior to Real, but I'm not so sure. The term "to exist" has multiple meanings.
's answer to the same question indicates the ambiguity of the Either/Or distinction between Real & Ideal. The only thing we know for sure is our own ideas (solipsism paradox). But we can infer, and collectively agree as a convention, that there is a reality out there conforming to our individual imaginary concepts. Ironically, Materialist/Physicalist thinkers seem to reverse that certainty. They take the conventional position as a hard fact. But my inclusive philosophical position is not Either/Or but BothAnd. So, it serves my purposes, for philosophical argument, to assume as an axiom that perfect Ideality is the standard against which Reality is measured. :grin:
BothAnd philosophy :
Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ? whats 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.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Quoting ucarr
No. My concept of Causation applies only to Philosophy. I don't do Chemistry or Physics. However, I do gain some philosophical insights from scientific enigmas, such as quantum paradoxes (wave/particle ; energy/mass). :nerd:
Quoting ucarr
Your questions indicate that you still don't understand what Enformationism is all about. It's a philosophical model of reality, not a scientific description of materiality. As an alternative to Materialism and Idealism, it postulates that Generic Information (First Cause) is all-of-the above : agency, matter, etc. During physical evolution, from plasma to people, the Universal Power (potential) remains the same, and only the specific Form (actual instances) changes as the world evolves. Wheeler didn't use the term "generic information", but his "bit" refers to something general instead of specific. It's not a thing, but a principle. For example, Newton's Principia Mathematica refers to ideal abstractions, not to agents or material things. Of course, he believed in an absolute Agent who knows (imagines) such ideas into reality.
However, my Enformationism uses the term "Information" in a dual sense : both mathematical computer data and personal mental meaning. And, for my own philosophical conjectures, I imagine the universe as a mathematical Program --- a la Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis --- running on a material computer with physical registers. So the hypothetical First Cause (original agent) is metaphorically designated as the Cosmic Programmer. Remember that scientists often use figurative language to indicate complex abstract systems that are otherwise hard to describe. For example, Darwin's metaphorical "tree of life". and later biologist's analogy of chemical DNA to an informative algorithmic "code". :smile:
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 its called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology its called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Good! Deacon is one a handful of practicing scientists who are not afraid to think outside the Reductionist box about Holistic concepts. Although he skirts the taboo line between empirical Science and theoretical Philosophy, he provides tasty fodder for philosophical rumination. For empirical purposes, Absence is non-nutritious. But for theoretical models, it is filling. :smile:
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Since you agree concepts do not exist independent of the minds contemplating them, I now know we agree on something important to both of us. My use of exist simply means dwell in a real state of being public, measurable and repeatable.
Quoting Gnomon
Perhaps Im mis-reading your answer to my question up top. I thought you were agreeing that out there for concepts is the mind contemplating them. If you think your own ideas get their confirmation from inference and social convention, and if you think concepts are mental constructs only credible from suppositions they have independent referents outside the mind contemplating them, then I ask you to name the extra-mental, supposed loci for your concepts.
Quoting Gnomon
Chemistry and physics are a part of life in general. How does you philosophy have value without application to life in general?
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
The above quotes show the extreme difference between your work and Newtons. Newtons mathematical abstractions notwithstanding, his corpus of work in physics has many useful applications to the everyday world of life in general. Can you say the same about your work? I ask this question because philosophy, in order to be useful, guides applied science with grammatical precepts that inform the objectives and methodologies of applied science. For example, Cartesian substance dualism by circuitous route lead to the Turing test which, in turn, guided the computational approach to both solid state computing and neuro-science mapping of brain functions.
You continue to blockade and avoid the hard work of rigorous scientific scholarship and practice by artificially partitioning philosophy from the sciences. Legitimate philosophy doesnt hold itself aloof from science.
I know you disagree with my assessment and believe your voluminous quotations from scientific ideas and concepts prove me wrong. I know you wont change your method of procedure.
Im writing these words as instruction to myself. Do my philosophical claims participate in the work of science? Do they show any promise as guides to scientific practice? Well, I know the interaction of two gravitational fields can be measured scientifically. I also know Penrose and Hammerof are exploring the collapse of the wave function within neuronal cells and surmising this collapse is the inflection point wherein subjectivity emerges. Does the graviton participate in the wave function and thus also in its collapse? Quantum gravity might have something instructive to say in response to this question. I, in distancing myself from your method of procedure, must not artificially partition my work from the work of scientists. I must not claim the status of metaphysical inquiries as cover to protect me from scientific facts that seem to contradict my claims.
This is hand-waving. I asked how it was discovered and confirmed that the sum of the squares on the two sides of a right-angle triangle are equal to the square of the hypotenuse. Once discovered, that it applies to all triangles is no different, in principle, than that 2+2=4.
So, there is no category of apriori facts? The only facts are those 'confirmable by observation'? How does that apply to mathematical theorems, and other 'truths of reason'? Even in the case of triangles, simple observation would not suffice to establish the facts.
"A priori facts" as far as I can tell are generalizations derived from experience. They cannot be discovered in the first place without concrete experience.
By your empirical definition of "exist", Abstract concepts do not exist. That's because they are in an ideal state : private, knowable, and fleeting. So, they do not come under the purview of empirical Science. Yet, in a different meaning of "exist", abstractions (metaphors) are the substance of Philosophy. :smile:
Quoting ucarr
Everything we say about ideas is metaphorical. That's because abstractions are bereft of material substance, leaving only the logical skeleton of an idea. So, we manipulate such non-things rationally, not empirically. If you can't accept that distinction, you shouldn't attempt to do philosophy, and stick to physics.
Here's a metaphorical account of "out there", with Big Bang physics as an exemplar : In the 20th century, using astronomical data gained from observation of stars (matter/energy) --- currently billions of light years in the past --- cosmologists traced their formation back to a hypothetical origin point. That point of no-yesterday faded away into abstract mathematical infinities. But the logical implication of a Before-the-Bang was so compelling that some cosmologists couldn't resist asking non-empirical philosophical questions about what was "out there" in the Big Before. Yet, the absence of empirical space-time coordinates eliminates a particular locus as the "where" of the symbolic Place-for-Ideas.
Lacking empirical evidence, there were only two logical answers to the Big Absence : a> infinite regress of familiar stuff (multiverse)*1 or b> some unknown self-existent creative power (EnFormAction?)*2. But their cosmological models indicated that the physics of the Bang was unlike anything we know today, but can only imagine : not lumps of matter, but a plasma field of imaginary (non empirical) sub-atomic elements (quarks & gluons). So, these questions remain : a> where did those invisible entities come from, or b> do they "exist" eternally? And the scientific response is that we don't know. But that absence of facts doesn't stop us philosophers from seeking an honest answer, like homeless-hobo Diogenes and his lamp of logic. :nerd:
*1. Why the Multiverse is a God-of-the-gaps theory :
the Multiverse is in no way falsifiable, and the arguments in its support are nearly identical to the arguments for God.
https://bigthink.com/13-8/multiverse-religion/
*2. Enformationism :
As a novel philosophical paradigm, the thesis of Enformationism is intended to be an update to the obsolete 19th century paradigm of Materialism. Since the recent advent of Quantum Physics, the materiality of reality has been watered down. Now we know that matter is a form of energy, and that energy is a form of Information.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Quoting ucarr
Yes, but my eccentric worldview accepts Newton's physics as applicable to the tangible stuff of the macro world. However, quantum physics undermined the determinism of his logic,and the certainty of his mathematics on the fuzzy foundations of reality. Both theories may be true in their respective realms, but there is an "extreme difference" in their philosophical interpretation. While quantum theory is "useful" for cell phones & computers*3, it is also applicable to 21st century philosophy*4. :wink:
*3. Quantum Usefulness :
Applications of quantum mechanics include explaining phenomena found in nature as well as developing technologies that rely upon quantum effects, like integrated circuits and lasers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_quantum_mechanics
*4. Quantum Philosophy :
One of the worlds leading quantum physicists, Omnès reviews the history and recent development of mathematics, logic, and the physical sciences to show that current work in quantum theory offers new answers to questions that have puzzled philosophers for centuries: Is the world ultimately intelligible? Are all events caused? Do objects have definitive locations?
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691095516/quantum-philosophy
Quoting ucarr
Why do you hold me accountable for the "hard work" of scientific scholarship? I'm not a science scholar, so why should I do that kind of "hard work"? You may be doing Science on a philosophy forum, but I'm not. Responding to your critical reviews is hard enough for me. I do however link to science sites for those who want to see the results of the professionals' hard work. And to see that some science scholars, such as Deacon, are not "hard" Newtonian materialists. Scientific paradigms come & go. Which paradigm do you subscribe to?*5
2500 years ago, there was no distinction between Physics and Metaphysics. But around the 17th century Science began to separate itself from its non-empirical roots. So, I would turn your accusation around, to say that modern Science, with its technical tools, "holds itself aloof" from Philosophy. Meanwhile, philosophers plod along with their ancient tools of Logic & Reason. But, I don't claim to be a physicist ; do you claim to be a philosopher? Which is superior to the other, and in what field of comparison? Please don't hold me accountable for outdated Classical physics. But you can expect me to take modern Quantum physics seriously. :cool:
*5. Scientific Paradigms :
A paradigm shiftor paradigm changehappens when scientific activity and experimentation begins to contradict premises that experts previously considered unshakable. As a result, a new and different paradigm replaces the dominant paradigm of its day.
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/paradigm-shift-explained
Quoting Corvus
Youre claiming the mind cannot perceive itself?
Must I conclude youve never examined your own thoughts?
If you counter by saying, Im talking about the mind thats doing the perceiving, not the thoughts it perceives. then you cant make any claims about the mind being material, immaterial, etc.
So, if the mind can perceive its thoughts but not itself, then you also cant make any claims about thoughts being material, immaterial, etc.
Alas, if you dont know the nature of a cause, then you dont know the nature of its effect.
If a mind can know neither itself nor its thoughts, how can you call it a mind?
:up:
(i.e. ideality is merely abstracted from materiality)
Quoting ucarr
:smirk:
Is Terrence Deacon's Metaphysics of Incompleteness Still Incomplete? (free but requires registration.)
I'm going to call it a day with Deacon, I have other fish to fry.
So, you are claiming that you can perceive the mind.
What is the shape and colour of your mind?
But I take it from what follows, is that he hopes and believes that physical theories will succeed, once they incorporate and understand his particular conceptual vocabulary with its absentials, teleodynamics, autogens, and so.
But what occurs to me, is the sense in which science seeks to subordinate the issues that it investigates to its methods and vocabulary. To explain something, in scientific terms, is to provide a full account of why it is the way it is. But when the subject is the nature life and mind, then we're really considering questions about the meaning of being, as such. And can such questions really be subordinated to scientific explanation? Isn't that more than a little hubristic?
(By way of contrast, for example, Buddhist philosophy seeks to provide an account of why life is the way it is, through its structure of the four truths, the eightfold path, and liberation from Sa?s?ra. But it is not seeking a scientific explanation, that is, one that is third-person in the sense that scientific explanation is.)
Yes, Deacon sees through the (to me) obvious flaws and shortcomings of mechanistic materialism, but he's still first and foremost scientific in orientation, seeking, I think, instrumental explanations rather than philosophical insight for its own sake. I can see he's obviously a very clever academic and his work has its merits, but I don't think I'm going to invest the time required to fully absorb the book.
:up: Yep.
Quoting Corvus
When I awoke this morning, looking up through my concave skylight, I saw a palette of swirling, subtle grays hovering like thought-balloons with glowing, white cracks of lightning.
As I leaned over the side of the bed and looked down I saw my black leather slippers with roasted- cashew feet slipping into them.
That sounds like your visual perception. Are you sure it is the existence of your mind itself?
Quoting Corvus
Apart from my mind, where is my perception?
So, if you are watching TV comedy show, then is the TV comedy show your mind?
If you close your eyes, then you see nothing but darkness. Is the darkness your mind?
Are you claiming, then a blind man has no mind?
Quoting Corvus
Youre driving in your car. You suddenly stop at a green lit intersection where you see a blind man in dark glasses slowly making his way through the crosswalk. Do you conclude the blind man has no mind?
I was asking you the questions, and you are supposed to give your answers.
You are not supposed to answer questions with your questions.
Quoting Corvus
If it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck it must be a duck.
Quoting Corvus
The new born pup lost its bitch getting born, but the little girl took the dying whelp to her bed and her warm stomach. Next morning the pup squealed from under the covers vivid with life and a new, two-legged mother.
Quoting Corvus
The blind flower girl touched the little tramps face carefully, telling him his day would be a good one. She knew this she explained by telling him she could see his smile. Puzzled, he asked her, How do you know Im smiling? Youve never seen a smile. Smiling, she said, Here at the flower stand I see smiles because I perceive with eyes forever closed.
It seems to be your futile tactics to revert back to some poetic nonsense, when you have no idea what you were even asking about.
Quoting ucarr
What do they have anything to do with the knowledge of your mind?
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
The boy returned to the old man. He was always sitting under the baobab tree. It was during the highest heat of the day when young Jabari would go to him, perplexed and angry with questions he couldnt answer. Why wont old man Davu give me direct answers when I ask him questions? he wondered, thoroughly vexed. Now, instead of going away puzzled and furious, he would confront him. Why dont you just tell me directly what I want to know? Davu, calm and unperturbed by Jabaris vehemence, took a long time to respond, saying finally, Its no good my talking to you directly. That is my mind. You have your own mind. When it sees the world directly, or sees the world through a story, you must learn to listen when you hear it talking to itself.
A story that you hear, or the world you see is not your mind itself. You seem to be misunderstanding the content of your perception with your mind. It is like saying the coffee in the mug is as same as the mug.
When you say "the mind", it must have a referent that "the mind" is referring to. But if you say the stories that your hear, and the world you see is "the mind itself", it just doesn't make sense. Because when you closed your eyes or bloked your ears, you lose all your mind. You don't see or hear anything. You become a mindless. Do you? Really?
Ok, let's suppose that is the case. How does it explain your mind and the body problems?
When I first posted on this thread, I assumed that we had something in common, besides accepting the dependence of mental functions on material mechanisms. Perhaps, a philosophical role for Deacon's immaterial/potential "Absence" to soften the Hard Problems of physical Science. So, I interpreted "Absential Materialism" as an attempt to reconcile the obsolete Certain physics of Newton with the Uncertain modern physics of Heisenberg. But, your criticisms seem to be defending that 300 year old mechanical/scientific paradigm against the philosophical implications of the 21st century model of random/statistical physics, where particles are only potential*1 (absent) until "observed", and the quantum state is non-local.
Materialism is the easiest metaphysical position to defend. Johnson physically responded to Berkeley's immaterialism : I refute it thus, and kicked a stone*2a. On the other hand, Idealism can only be defended with metaphors and rational arguments, but no appeals to the authority of empirical Science. That's because Ideas (per se) are materially Absent, and cannot be explained by any traditional physical mechanism. Emergent functions from material processes cannot be observed empirically, but must be inferred theoretically.
So, I assumed that the OP was postulating some emergent input/output relationship between Matter (etym. mother) and Absence (nothingness). Or perhaps, by presenting some novel philosophical insight into the relationship between Philosophy (ideas) and Science (objects). But so far the coinage seems to be simply an apparent paradox, of interest only to fans of Deacon's radical notion of Causal Absence as an explanation for "how mind emerged from matter".
For the record, my interpretation of the "power of Absence" does not imply the "non-existence of matter"*2b, but merely the potential to cause Life & Mind to emerge, via evolutionary processes, from dead mindless matter. Since Newtonian physics can't explain how mind emerged from matter, why not view Deacon's "Absence" as a clue to such mysterious instances of Emergentism*3, that Johnson found "absurd"*2c. Functionalism*4 is a philosophical inference, not a scientific observation. :smile:
*1. Quantum potential :
quantum potential is an energy term that is required for local energymomentum conservation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_potential
*2. I refute it thus! :
a> [i]The name "appeal to the stone" originates from an argument between Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell over George Berkeley's theory of subjective idealism (known previously as "immaterialism"). Subjective idealism states that reality is dependent on a person's perceptions of the world and that material objects are intertwined with one's perceptions of these material objects.
b> After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."
?James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
c> Johnson's intent, apparently, was to imply that it was absurd of Berkeley to call such a stone "immaterial," when in fact Johnson could kick it with his foot.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone
Note --- Berkeley's Immaterialism was similar to Kant's ding an sich, and did not mean that you could kick a rock without physical consequences.
*3. Emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction, while it is itself different from them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism
*4. Functionalism :
Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/
Note --- "internal constitution" = matter. "System" = Holism, another term used by Deacon, that is relevant to Absence and Potential.
I'm sorry you're not as impressed with Deacon as I am. Perhaps you need to skip forward to the Epilogue --- after the chapter on Consciousness --- where he says : "In the natural sciences there appears to be no place for right/wrong, meaningful/meaninglessness, beauty/ugliness, good/evil, love/hate, and so forth". Hence, the need for philosophy to explore those subjective territories. He also proposes : "rethinking the frame of natural sciences in a way that has the metaphysical sophistication to integrate the realm of absential phenomena as we experience them." I have been hoping that he would publish a sequel to Incomplete Nature, that would focus more on the philosophical applications than the scientific evidence. That might be more your cup o' tea. But so far, nothing has been forthcoming. :smile:
Quoting Corvus
You say the mind must have a referent it is referring to? And if it doesn't?
Quoting Corvus
You say when you are blocked off from the world you are mindless? You say when you are blocked off from the world and mindless you don't see or hear anything? When you do see and hear things, it's because you have a mind in contact with the world?
Someone light a Roman Candle! Make the black sky bright with light! Corvus is starting to get me.
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
You've already answered your question in your own words.
Quoting Gnomon
Mental functions are dependent on material things because they too are material things, albeit absentially.
Quoting Gnomon
Let me make a distinction between materially absent and materially absential. The difference is parallel to the difference between 2 - x versus 2i = 0 + 2i. In verbal grammar this is the difference between something simply distanced, as in the first example versus something
distanced-yet-complexly-connected, as in the second example.
Quoting Gnomon
This is true when the emergent functions are themselves material, albeit absentially.
I know you're not all in on Idealism, but you seem to be invested in the immaterial status of philosophical ideas, especially those considered metaphysical.
Our disagreement boils down to whether you can show how ideas, beyond occupying the thinking space of philosophers, have causal impact upon material things. There's no problem if you, like me, acknowledge ideas are, ultimately, connected to physical_material things via self-organizing dynamical systems. There's only a problem is you insist on understanding ideas in terms of:
Quoting Gnomon
If you repeat your argument about energetic, potential enformaction en route to becoming enformation with the power of Wheeler's it from bit, I'll acknowledge that's your bridge from idea to material whereas I see it as physical_material across the entire spectrum.
So, the only important difference between us is that you see ideas are materially absent whereas I see that ideas are materially absential.
You said you know the mind very well. So I asked you what is your mind? You said, what you see is your mind. I said that cannot be true, because if you closed your eyes and blocked your ears, then you don't see, and you can't hear. Does it mean that you become a mindless when you closed your eyes and blocked your ears? So, what you see and hear cannot be your mind itself. What is your mind that you claimed to know?
Quoting ucarr
What you were saying here seems to be a Circular Fallacy. The evidence used to support your statement is just a repetition of the statement itself.
Quoting Corvus
Seeds for the crop were planted on the island. Shortly thereafter, the local volcano erupted, sending great spews of lava high into the air accompanied by boulders, rocks and volcanic ash. For months the atmosphere darkened the island, blotting out the sun. Villagers took to the caves with their animal skins and last season's stocks of grain and vegetables.
Eventually, mid-season for planting, strong ocean currents carried off the volcanic ash blighting the islands growing season. Turned up soil revealed dead seeds succumbed to the lack of the sun's regulation of soil temperature. Crops already growing prior to the eruption, unsupported for weeks in their photo-synthetic production of sugar by direct sunlight, withered and paled, providing but meager food. These were the minority of stalwart growths; most had died.
The high priests were busy with offerings to the sun gods accompanied by loud chantings and throbbing drum beats. Inspired by the efforts of the holy, farmers planted pale, withered seeds into the warming soil, looking skywards with hope.
Dahlbach, the village outcast, given to rantings about the unreliable gods and their wanton inclinations, launched into daily rants about the need to banish the gods and replace them with his solution to the problem of crops: farming inside of caves, where termperature control is easier. The villagers, sympathetic to the misfortunes caused by madness, made sure he ate his meager rations along with everyone else. Dahlbach, risen to his imaginary bully pulpit of woven palm fronds, his belly full of donated grain, bellyached in loud voice: "I banish your false gods! In this cave I will bring fertile soil and plant seed. With torches I'll keep the soil warm, because a seed can't sprout without the sun, and the torch will be the sun. You say the sun is not here in the cave? No, it's not. I shall pretend it is here in the cave with my torches. You say the sun is unapproachable. You remind me of the fate of Icarus, whose wax wings melted during his flight towards the sun, sending him to his death below. I shall approach the sun in the cave. No, I shall not find the sun. Who can find the sun without finding death first? Instead, I shall chase the sun with my torches, pretending to be the sun I can never find."
It seems to be the case that at this stage, your incumbent job is to define what mind is. What does mind mean to you? Please define.
As is the case with many disagreements on this forum, some key words are used with unconventional, or abstrusely technical, meanings. So they need to be carefully defined in terms that can be understood intuitively, from personal Experience : the feeling of personal affectation. For example, I can understand the general idea of the math symbol for an imaginary number "i" in your example. That's because I too experience imagination. But, as a non mathematician, I don't experience the combination of real & unreal quantities, for the same reason that I have no experience of Infinity.
Likewise, I can read your definition : "distanced-yet-complexly-connected" as a possible-but-not-obvious-relationship. But it doesn't mean anything to me intuitively. It does however, suggest a relationship similar to "Potential vs Actual", where a Potential thing is "distanced" from reality, but is statistically "connected" to a Probability definition in the realm of Possibility. That imaginary "realm" is not Real, but Ideal, since it has no material instances, only abstract imagery. It's not a Thing, but the ideal concept of a presumably possible Thing. In your terminology, the imaginary object is literally "materially absential" : the quality of lacking a material instance. Or in Deacon's vocabulary : "Constitutive Absence".
Deacon describes his notion of "Absence" in ideal, not material, terms. It's something we know by reasoning not by observation. Hence, the idea of a particular Absent thing, such as a future state of a material object, is literally Immaterial and Ideal. So, describing something as "absent" merely means missing from its expected place. But "absential" describes a quality as-if it was a quantity ; non-existence as-if it was existence. In that case, it's a hypothetical Difference that makes no meaningful Difference. Except perhaps in the sense that Deacon described "Aboutness" or "Entention" as a "non-material property of minds" (index) :
Your distinction between "materially absent" is equivalent to the numerical quantity Zero : as in "no specified material object there". But "materially absential" is similar to the conceptual quality of Nothingness : as in "nothing of any kind there". Except that the ironic meaning of that combination of words is an oxymoron, like "deafening silence". Therefore, a more useful definition of "materially absential", for me, would be merely "Potential" : conceptually possible but not yet materially actual; or "Latent" : possessing a quality that could become a quantity.
In terms of my own Information-based worldview, your "distanced-yet-complexly-connected" could be translated into "No real or actual or material form, but having the potential to become a real thing, by means of the power of EnFormAction". :smile:
Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html
Constitutive absence : A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
Ententional : an adjective that applies to the class of objects and phenomena that refer to or are in some other way "about" something not present.
Potential : having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
Latent : existing in hidden or dormant form
EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. The term is derived from Wheeler's "it from bit" equation of matter & information. Which is similar to Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of Energy and Matter/Mass.
How is information related to energy in physics? :
Energy is the relationship between information regimes. That is, energy is manifested, at any level, between structures, processes and systems of information in all of its forms, and all entities in this universe is composed of information.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/22084/how-is-information-related-to-energy-in-physics
Quoting Corvus
The curious villager comes forward. "It's you duty to tell what you believe about mind."
"Narrative holds up a mirror to nature." -- Shakespeare
Chorus:
The speed of light is constant. Its absolute in its velocity. All other velocities refer to it.
Photons have no rest mass. Light is the animation of the universe. All other animations refer to it.
The popular question is What? The mysterious question is How?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The elder, after venturing across the lake to the far island of the mysterious, flashing lights, returns to his village. He carries a large, rectangular shape underneath a sackcloth.
After supper, the villagers gather round the elder for the unveiling of the gift from the far island, now held for hours of painful suspense underneath the sackcloth.
The elder calls on Glaucon, his favorite student, to come forth before the gathering inside the cave and remove the sackcloth.
Upon doing so, the villagers start gasping with excitement as they see images of themselves on the surface of the looking glass just unveiled.
Andrew, Glaucons friend, exclaims, I see a man who moves just as I move.
Hesperia, arriving just as the sun behind her is deepest gold, answers Andrew. You are looking upon yourself.
I am in that shiny surface?
You are, the elder explains.
Glaucon, suddenly jealous, shoves aside Andrew and now his image inhabits the shiny surface.
Before long, a gaggle of men fight amongst themselves for a place in the shiny surface.
Sebastian, clever and observant, exclaims It is the lake, the deity that gives us our fishing, made solid. Have we not seen shadows moving just as we move in the daylight water?
The elder spoke up. Not shadows, but rather reflections, just like you see in the daylight water.
Hesperia chimed in. But this lake become solid doesnt let us see through our doubles down to the lakebed below.
Listen to me, students. Our gift, from the dwellers on the island across the lake, has a name. They call it a looking glass. It has a special magic that lets you look backwards at yourself. When it looks at the sun, it makes you look backwards at the great source of life. The blinding lights from across the lake have us looking backwards at the sun.
Hesperia laughs when Glaucon, turning around and facing her, exclaims, I cant see myself by looking backwards!
When the elder beckons her to come to the front and stand beside him, she obliges him.
Hesperia, gaze into our looking glass and tell us who it favors within itself. The elder keeps his stern gaze upon her as she stands there suddenly affrighted.
The cave grows quiet as she contemplates the reflection of herself for a long time.
Andrew cant hold his peace any longer. Hesperia, most beautiful maiden of all! The looking glass favors you!
The elder next beckons Daphne, the cook still wearing her bloody apron, to come forward. She too gazes at her reflection for a long time.
Hecuba, Hesperias mother, stands up from the gathering and the elder dares not deny her the floor.
Please, grand dam, speak to us.
Its clear to me the looking glass favors no one beyond the person it happens to reflect upon in the moment.
The elder, delighted, smiles, nodding his approval. Yes, Lady Hecuba. You speak truth.
After Hecuba seats herself, the elder makes his move. Who can tell us something about the looking glass most memorable?
Glaucon rises to the occasion. The looking glass favors no one.
Anyone else care to speak?
Hesperia rises. The looking glass, if it has time enough, will favor everything in creation that might be looked upon.
The elder is now very excited. Who else can speak?
Daphnes voice suddenly starts intoning. The looking glass wants to take a journey throughout all of creation! It wants to see everything.
Hecuba rises. A journey throughout all of creation? Thats a journey without an ending.
Now the elder is ready to deliver the closer. Consider a journey without an ending. It is constant, moving at the speed of possibility, and it never rests. Its not primarily concerned with what to look at, but rather how to look at. And what does it tell us about how to look at?
Glaucon has the last word. Look at everything.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chorus:
When looking glass looks at looking glass, not only is what they see not local, its not localizable.
You seem to have been confused between your mind and the objects of your perception. What you see and hear, the content of your perception is not your mind. There must be far more than just the content of your perception in your mind.
Quoting Corvus
A visual artist walks a country road early morning one day. Through the light, blue-gray fog he sees the dark-spotted, white "blanket" at the center flank of an Appaloosa. It's running circles around the paddock in a frolic with neighing.
Come evening, the artist finishes a charcoal sketch of the morning Appaloosa just as his wife comes into his studio with news of supper being ready. She praises his work by way of commenting upon the vitality of the captured image.
He smiles at her. "I have a sticky mind for pretty pictures, my dear. Especially for horses at daybreak. Something smells good. Roast beef?" He puts his arm around her as they stroll towards the kitchen. Glancing back to the studio, she smiles, looking at her charcoal portrait next to the Appaloosa. "Now that you've got me just right, and the horse just right, maybe we should go down to that ranch and buy that horse."
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Corvus
At the dinner table, between mouthfuls of roast beef slathered with horseradish, he makes an admission to her. "You know, the grain of my charcoal pencil is too coarse. The appaloosa has a much finer coat. But there's no way to change the grain of my pencil, so I had to rough up the appaloosa." She comforts him. "Well now, that's not to worry about. Roughing up the appaloosa makes a pretty visual."
Observer Effect
Because Deacon's notion of Absence is relevant to my own information-based philosophical worldview, I'm still trying to make sense of your materialistic understanding of "Absence" (noun) & "Absential" (adjective). In the worldview of Materialism : all things we observe in nature are by definition "material". But, to be a complete philosophical concept, that definition should explain both objects observed by the senses, and changes in those objects over time (functions) due to energetic inputs & outputs, and relationships between objects that are not seen, but inferred. In what meaningful sense are Abstract Nouns*1, such as Absence, Function, and Causation, referring to material things, and not to ideas about things or processes? Of course, mental abstractions are dependent on a material Brain, but scientifically, their referents have no objective material substance, only subjective meaning. It's the material stuff that is Absent or Absential.
In psychology, Mind is a function of brains. In math, physics, and biology, a Function is a causal concept (input causes output), but not a material object. So, a more appropriate statement would say that "mental functions are dependent on the process of causation in material things". Hence, the Function is not a "material thing", but an ongoing process of change in a material object, more like Energy. For example, in biology, Life is a function of Causation in a material substrate. As noted in the Quora opinion below*2, Abstractions are "products of physical reality". But those Absential products are not made of Presential matter. So, my question is not about the walnut-shaped Vessel, but about the contents we call Mind : the "Substance" or "Essence" of subjective Ideas, as defined by Aristotle*3.
With that clarification, I can provisionally agree with the first part of your assertion above : "mental functions are dependent on material things" ; but not with the second part : "because they {mental functions} too are material things, albeit absentially". How can something "absential" be material? Isn't Presence an essential element of the definition of "material". Deacon's "absence" seems to be a commonsense reference to the philosophical concept of "potential". Aristotle, in his discussion of Motion, Causality, & Physiology, contrasted present material Actual with absent immaterial Potential. From that perspective, Absence (no-thing) or Absential (quality of nothingness) is the opposite of material Presence. So, how can you conclude that something Absential is also Material? What kind of matter is nothingness made of? In other words, what is the Substance of Absence? Instead of "material thing" do you mean "a philosophically meaningful concept"?
I'm gradually coming to realize that Materialism is an unprovable metaphysical Axiom (presumption), not an empirical scientific Theory (inference from facts). It's more of an attitude or belief than a fact. So, I guess I can't expect such beliefs to make sense in an objective manner. Regarding a scientific or philosophical explanation of Consciousness --- including awareness of abstractions like Absence --- Terrence Deacon said "Materialism, the view that there are only material things and their interactions in the world, seems impotent here" {my emphasis}. He also referred to the antimaterialist claim that like meanings & purposes, consciousness may not be something there in any typical sense of being materially or energetically embodied, and yet may still be materially causally relevant p7 .{my bold} Your concept of Absential Materialism may be related to the notion of materially relevant. :smile:
*1. Abstract nouns :
We have four categories when it comes to nouns: 1.Person 2.Place 3.Animal 4.Thing. Everything in the above list can be labelled as "things". Things that are visible to the eyes. Whereas, abstract nouns contain feelings, like happiness,sadness, which can't be seen. https://www.quora.com/What-nouns-arent-words-that-refer-to-things
*2. How can scientific materialism explain the existence of abstract non-material entities? : You need to unwind your definition of Materialism to match what materialists (or physicalists) really believe, which is "matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary, the product of matter acting upon matter." That doesn't mean that we don't believe that mind or ideas don't exist, but they are a product of our physical reality. https://www.quora.com/How-can-scientific-materialism-explain-the-existence-of-abstract-non-material-entities
Note --- My position is that Abstractions are indeed a product of physical reality, but they have no material Substance.
*3. What according to Aristotle is the essence of a thing? :
In Aristotle essence was identified with substance (ousia) or sometimes substantial form. The essence is what makes the thing be what it is. The essence of a thing or substance is able to be known and so defined accordingly. It is through the definition that we come to know essences.
https://brainly.ph/question/25605568
*3. Substance, in the history of Western philosophy, a thing whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a thing from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere. . . . Benedict de Spinoza . . . . there was only one substance, which constitutes the whole of reality.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/substance-philosophy
Note --- a better term for Spinoza's all-encompassing "substance" may be non-local Essence.
Quoting Gnomon
If end-oriented constraints compel self-organizing reciprocal processes, with constraint bottom-up and supervenience top-down, then the physical products of these nested processes of higher-order dynamics are absentially tied to these absent contraints because without them, these products wouldn't exist. Physically compelled strategic constrainsts via design constructs the bridge linking physical dynamics with physical things. This blockchain of interwoven dynamical causes examples absence, i.e., non-physicality causally linked to physicality.
This seeming break between mind and body is in reality absential materialism. Below is Deacon's blockchain of nested dynamical systems bi-directionally linked across space and time:
[i]The dynamical reflexivity and constraint closure that characterizes a teleodynamic system, whether constituting intraneuronal processes or the global-signaling dynamics developing within an
entire brain, creates an internal/external self/other distinction that is determined by this dynamical closure. Its locus is ultimately something not materially presenta self-creating system of constraints with the capacity to do work to maintain its dynamical continuityand yet it provides a precise dynamical boundedness.[/i]
The sentience at each level is implicit in the capacity to do self-preservative work, as this constitutes the systems sensitivity to non-self influences via an intrinsic tendency to generate a self-sustaining contragrade dynamics. This tendency to generate self-preserving work with respect to such influences is a spontaneous defining characteristic of such reciprocity of constraint creation. Closure and autonomy are thus the very essence of sentience. But they are also the reason that higher-order sentient teleogenic systems can be constituted of lower-order teleogenic systems, level upon level, and yet produce level-specific emergent forms of sentience that are both irreducible and unable to be entirely merged into larger conglomerates.2 It is teleogenic closure that produces sentience but also isolates it, creating the fundamental distinction between self and other, whether at a neuronal level or a mental level.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
In a functional relationship, there's an operator that transforms input into output. For sentients with minds generating abstractions, they, no less than the other orders of life, function with the operator as the nested hierarchy of self-organizing dynamical processes articulated by Deacon. Furthermore, the observing mind-brain-body is physically entangled with the object of its observation. Still furthermore, the medium propagating the object/observer relationship is material-physical spacetime. Absential materialism, possessing both properties of waves and of particles, presents itself as a knot of complexity fostering the-glass-is-half-full-half-empty debates.
Quoting Gnomon
Consider the modulated EM-field that populates your tv screen with audio-visual phenomena. Does the EM-field have presence within your den? How about when the tv set is off. Does the EM-field still have presence within your den? Now, let's take a step further from the foggy presence of a waveform energy field to the absential presence of an absence strategically constrained by the design intent of a teleodynamic process compelling the strategic absence via its physicality. We have a physical system propagating through physical spacetime towards a desired future state of being.
Quoting Gnomon
[quote=Apple Dictionary;876634"]potential | p??ten(t)SH(?)l |
adjective [attributive]
having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future: a two-pronged campaign to woo potential customers.[/quote]
If my argument above your last quote has truth content, then it applies here also.
Quoting Gnomon
So, you think materialism is objectively non-sensical.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Since we both agree on the material relevance of thought, again I say we're not far apart in our beliefs. I further think thought absentially material whereas you hold fast at thinking thought materially relevant.
I would interpret your use of "absentially tied" as referring to a Cause & Effect relationship. For example, in the Photoelectric Effect, incoming invisible inferred Photons are the cause of the observed effect (Electrons) flowing as energy in a material substrate. This is a physical transformation, but the photons, while moving at lightspeed are massless, and electrons are both non-local and massless while "flowing". Therefore, in their ghostly Cause & Effect forms they have no material attributes ; hence Absent as far as our matter-detecting senses are concerned.
Only at rest can they be legitimately called "particles of matter". But "rest" is not a normal state for a Photon*1. So, in its normal invisible & massless state, does it qualify as materially Absent"? This how I interpret Deacon's "Causal" or "Constitutive" Absence : immaterial cause produces material effects. "Causal Absence" is what I call the Potential to become Actual. One "Constraint" in an electrical system is Voltage, which is not a thing but an inherent limitation of the system as a whole. :nerd:
*1. Is it possible for a photon to be at rest? :
No, a photon in vacuum is required by its very nature to move at the speed of light c.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-a-photon-to-be-at-rest
Quoting ucarr
You seem to be saying something close to my own understanding, but using terminology that I'm not familiar with. My knowledge of "blockchain" is limited to an abstract money-market concept of a "distributed database" in which the "chain" is not a physical thing, but a software network of mental trust interrelationships. So, those "interwoven dynamical causes" seem to be Absent in the same sense as immaterial ideas (promises), that can have material effects (buying power) on the real world.
For example, we can think of New York City as a cultural machine for shared economic progress. The material infrastructure --- skyscrapers, roads, etc.--- and immaterial Constraints --- laws, contracts, etc --- are bound together by the mental ententions of millions of entrepreneurs. Is that anything like what you mean by "blockchain"? Without the immaterial "design constraints" of the blockchain system the "products" (imaginary cryptocurrency) wouldn't exist. :wink:
Non-material Culture :
Culture is the beliefs, behaviors, practices, norms, values, history, characteristics, knowledge, and artifacts of a social group. Culture includes language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music, and arts. These elements combine to create the culture of the social group and impact how members of the group think, act, and acquire possessions as a shared way of living.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-culture-material-and-nonmaterial-culture.html
Yes, but the Mind can be philosophically & categorically dis-entangled from the body-brain. That's why I prefer to avoid getting tangled-up in materialistic physics, on a forum designed for discussion of meta-physics. The object of a physical experiment is a material Object, external to the Brain, but the object of mental "observation" is a Subject, internal to the Mind. The "Hard Problem" of consciousness is only made more complicated by including the entangled neurons in the definition of Mind. Unfortunately, the philosophy of Materialism does not allow us to make such categorical distinctions. :smile:
Metaphysics might include the study of the nature of the human mind, the definition and meaning of existence, or the nature of space, time, and/or causality. The origin of philosophy, beginning with the Pre-Socratics, was metaphysical in nature.
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/metaph-body.html
Quoting Gnomon
or
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
I see online that photons are paradoxical with regard to their wave/particle status. Speaking paradoxically, photons are matter without mass. As you know, they don't exist at rest.
Electrons have mass and they're only stationary at wavelength infinity, so under natural conditions electrons are matter with mass.
Quoting Gnomon
Photons and electrons, being particles, hold place as parts of presential materialism.
The strategic constraints of upwardly evolving dynamical processes, in contrast to photons and electrons, exemplify absential materialism.
The neuronal circuitry of the brain, acting as the platform for the mind, connects with the furture states of being of end-directed design through physically caused contraints on higher-order dynamics. These constraints are contra-grade forces impelling emergence of mind, a dynamical process substrated by but independent from brain.
Quoting ucarr
The mind, like an imaginary number, has a distanced-yet-complexly-connected-with-its- base relationship: imaginary number to real number and mind to brain. In both instances, the distanced thing, because it has parameters that violate its substrate, seems therefore necessarily separate from it and thus the perplexing bifurcation of things implicitly connected. Understanding emergence as a phenomenon that imparts category transgression within the domain of inter-dependence between the transgressor and the transgressed lies at the heart of understanding absential materialism.
Quoting ucarr
I say that mind in philosophical thought exists emergent from brain-body. I think this position lies closer to the truth than the position claiming mind in philosophical thought exists independent from brain-body.
Quoting Gnomon
Your above quote expresses the crux of our disagreement about the correct approach to practicing philosophy. You say, "Do philosophy by avoiding materialistic physics." I say, "Do philosophy by embracing materialistic physics."
I think you're ensnared within a self-defeating struggle in your efforts to straddle materialistic science and metaphysical philosophy. That's your actual approach to doing philosophy: inhabit the middle position, not avoidance. I cite the following as an example of the most recent evidence of this internal conflict: Quoting Gnomon
You want to make metaphysical discoveries about abstract thought while skipping over the discoveries of neuroscience? This attitude parallels an automotive engineer saying, "Hey, man. Those mechanics with their heads stuck under a hood can't tell me anything."
A lot of your technical terminology is not in my personal word-stock, or in Deacon's glossary ; making communication difficult. Please give me a functional definition (what it does) and a real-world example (what it is) of the following terminology : a> "end oriented constraints" ; b> "absentially tied" ; c> "Physically compelled strategic constrainsts via design" ; d> "blockchain of nested dynamical systems". An explanation in terms of (what it is not) may also be acceptable, since Deacon often begins with a negative definition for some of his counterintuitive concepts.
Also, a more detailed discussion of "[i]seeming break between mind and body is . . . .[/i]" would be helpful. Descartes expressed his understanding of those distinctive categories in terms of dual substances : one material and the other experiential. But your Absential Materialism seems to imply that Matter & Mind are "[i]bi-directionally linked[/i]" by some mysterious force or power "[i]across space and time[/i]". I have my own ideas about what that interactive Link might be. But I'd like to hear your description, in terminology that I might be familiar with. But remember, I have no formal training in Philosophy, so my vocabulary is limited to a few commonly used words. :smile:
The Deactionary :
Deacon loves his neologisms and his redefinitions of existing terms.
https://axispraxis.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/the-deactionary-a-glossary-of-terms-from-terrence-deacons-incomplete-nature/
Absential : a state of things not yet realized
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html
Potential : the power to actualize a possibility ; to transform Absential into Real. (gnomon)
Do you have a scientific name for this transforming "operator", other than mundane Energy? You say that this mysterious "medium" is a space-time phenomenon. How is it detected, and is there a conventional name for the propagator of this Body/Mind or Object/Observer relationship? You say that Absential Materialism possesses the properties of both Waves and Particlesas in Wave-Particle Duality.
Therefore, AM is a Wavicle*1 --- yes? Hence, a combination*2 of a non-local (but entangled) Force or Field, and simultaneously a local (disentangled) Particle? That counter-intuitive notion does not work in classical Newtonian physics, but is accepted as as "the central mystery of quantum mechanics"*3, and described by you as "a knot of complexity" --- perhaps a Gordian's Knot, that can't be disentangled by mechanical physics, but may be resolved by a philosophical compromise?*4ab :wink:
*1. Wavicle : an entity having characteristic properties of both waves and particles.
*2. BothAnd :
The BothAnd Principle of Complementarity is a corollary to the thesis of Enformationism, in that it is a mashup of both Materialism and Idealism, of both Science and Religion, of both Empirical and Theoretical methods. The novel concept of Enformation is also a synthesis of both Energy and Information.
https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
*3. the central mystery of quantum mechanics :
I don't actually find quantum mechanics to be much more mysterious than classical mechanics is. It is counterintuitive and very surprising, yes, but it is actually a resolution of a mystery, which was: how do particles on atomic scales behave?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-central-mystery-of-quantum-mechanics
Note --- Wavicles behave like a child : sometimes proper, but sometimes mis-behaving.
*4a. EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements (forms) of matter & energy.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Note --- this hypothetical precursor of Matter & Energy & Mind could be described as a Mind/Matter "link", or "medium", or "propagator", or "knot of complexity".
*4b. Raw En-Form-Action has few, if any, definable perceivable qualities. By itself, mental Information is colorless, odorless, formless, and imaginary. Unlike colorless, odorless, and formless water though, EnFormAction gives physical form to whatever is defined by it.
https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
Quoting Gnomon
An everyday example of an end-oriented constraint comes in the example of a woman who decides she'll eliminate dairy products from her meals. By constraining her eating behavior to exclude dairy products over an extensive interval of time she drops quite a few pounds, the end her constraint was forwardly directed towards. Weight loss is what it does causally. A non-dairy diet is what it is.
Absential binding is exampled by a controlled burn in a forest. During the spring season at a national park, park staffers do a controlled burn to eliminate dead leaves, tree limbs and debris. During the summer season, park visitors enjoy enhanced safety bound to what's absent, dangerous kindling strategically removed. Hazardous materials removal is what it does. Land clearance is what it is.
A physically compelled strategic constraint via design is exampled by encrypted data communications protecting online money transfers. Transmission of currency value signifiers (bits) via open/closed gate sequences astronomical in their possible permutations proceeds to receptors with matching open/closed gate sequences extremely resistant to random duplication (due to improbability). Biasing towards far from equilibrium probability statistics is what it does. Privatized monetary data is what it is.
Blockchaining of nested dynamical systems is exampled by human metabolism. Ingested food is
broken down from starches to sugars. This thermodynamically released energy in turn is aggregated from the cellular level to a morphodynamic distribution across a network of chemical complexes regulating the major organ systems. Next, the neuronal networks of the brain's hemispheres alert the individual to the slaking of hunger in the presence of a surplus of necessary nutritional supplies. Finally, the teleodynamically empowered feedback looping of the brain's memory modules informs the individual of his happy feeling while resting before going to bed. Vertical stacking of higher-orders of Shannon Information is what it does. A successfully prepared supper is what it is.
Thanks for the "everyday" examples. But I was hoping for more general philosophical or physical principles behind each of those neologisms.
For instance, I can interpret "end oriented constraint" as functionally similar to a Natural Law : a limitation on the freedom of Causation. In a teleological sense, the as-if Lawmaker opposes positive Energy with negative Entropy, so that, working together, those freedoms & constraints will guide the as-if mechanism of Evolution toward some desired end state. Without constraints, total freedom would be chaotic & directionless. The "End State" is Aristotle's Final Cause : the as-if Purpose of the Universe.
Likewise, "absential binding" is like an unobstructed channel of emptiness --- the path of least resistance --- within a concresence of Matter (e.g. the center hole of a wagon wheel) that makes room for orderly movement of the whole arrangement of spokes & rims. The hole is not a material thing, but it has a physical function : to bind the spokes into an operational mechanical system.
Similarly, a "strategic constraint" works like a "constitutive constraint" to forge an unobstructed path toward a future state that is deemed desirable by the planner. For example, horse rounders used to build a fence with a carefully-placed opening to allow the driven horses in, but to block their exit. A strategy is a plan of action that takes into account useful options and possible setbacks.
Regarding "nested blockchains" within "dynamical systems", I imagine a decentralized-but-intertwined network of interrelations that function as rule-restricted paths of interaction within a constantly changing apparatus of disparate parts. The "chains" are not material or physical, but functional in the service of a specified overall system goal. For a cryptocurrency blockchain, the purpose is to allow exchange of metaphysical value without physical money.
All of these "constraints" & "chains" & "bonds" are metaphysical in the sense of Absence of Matter, but they play a key role in the operations of physics. :smile:
Deacon's Absent Constraints :
By "constraint" he means "the property of being restricted or being less variable than possible." By "absence" he means that constraint is a negative property qualifying a collection or ensemble of constituent parts or members: "It is a way of referring to what is not exhibited, but could have been, at least under some circumstances" . By "constitutive absence" he means what is the case "irrespective of whether this is registered by any act of observation". So constraint thus understood is metaphysically grounded in something constitutive of the way nature works. This kind of constraint is not externally imposed by some outside agency but internally by reason of "the dynamical organization of a somewhat diverse class of phenomena which share in common the tendency to become spontaneously more organized and orderly over time due to constant perturbation". Deacon cautions that these processes of internal organization have been called "self-organizing," but that in fact there is no self to do the organizing of their inanimate components
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/675195/summary
Note --- no actual Self, but the appearance of an as-if absential Self.
NESTED SYSTEMS & SUB-SYSTEMS OF PERMITTED PATHS
I gradually realized that our communication problem stems mostly from our different ways of doing philosophy. We are talking about Deacon's radical scientific & philosophical Worldview, which does not yet have an official label of its own : can we call it Absentialism? Absence is like Zero*1 in that it is a metaphysical concept with no material instances. So, a materialistic approach is like shooting at ghosts.
One thing that makes his metaphysical thesis difficult, yet admirable, is that it introduces novel terminology that often sounds paradoxical. He is both criticized & blamed for straying from conventional scientific & philosophical language*2. But then, he is a linguistic anthropologist, so what would you expect? Linguistic philosopher Wittgenstein*3 famously aphorized : "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". Ironically, he himself spoke of arcane topics, and his works have been characterized as "inscrutable" by critics. That may be due to his attempt to speak of unspeakable (metaphysical) concepts.
In the Philosophy Now magazine (159), Slavoj Zizek noted that "Wittgenstein himself said that there are things impossible to talk about, such as metaphysical speculations". And that may be why modern Materialists try to avoid speaking of such non-things. Yet, Zizek suggested an alternative to dogmatic religious or doctrinal scientific language. "Poetry is an attempt to put in words what cannot be said --- to evoke it". And that seems to be how modern philosophy treads the line between physical Reality and Metaphysical Ideality, on topics such as Consciousness. An old admonition to young writers was: "don't say, show!". Meaning, don't describe appearances in ordinary words, but illustrate essences in images. That's also why, in Poetry and Philosophy, what can't be described materially, must be evoked metaphorically. Which may require novel word associations, that are called "neologisms".
Deacon didn't include a glossary of his ad hoc new-words in the book, but a few others have posted their own Deactionaries on the net to supplement their own interpretations of his unconventional meanings*4. Although his title topic, Absence, is not an acceptable notion in Materialistic Physics, it is essential to Mathematical Physics*1. Also, the notion of Evolution as Teleological crosses the taboo line between Physics and Metaphysics. You seem to interpret his Absentialism as-if it remains safely within the orthodox metaphysics of Materialism, while I view it as supporting the novel metaphysics of Informationism*5, which is amenable to both Science and Philosophy, both Physics and Metaphysics.
The main reason I & others have had difficulty understanding your Absential Materialism worldview, is that it seems to be a vain attempt to squeeze a metaphysical philosophical concept into a physical scientific box, and to describe intangibles in materialistic language. Deacon himself skirted the line between philosophy and science, but he was often forced by his own reasoning to include unscientific concepts, such as end-directed "Teleology" of Evolution*4 to convey his metaphysical interpretations of "hidden connections" that exist right in front of us. They are hidden to our physical senses, but apparent to our metaphysical reasoning. For me, a more "correct approach" to practicing philosophy is to accept both physical and metaphysical evidence, not to reject one or the other. :smile:
PS___My approach to doing Philosophy does not "avoid materialistic physics", but it does recognize that 19th century Physics and 17th century Mechanics have little to offer for perennial philosophical questions. On the other hand, my thesis does lean heavily on the insights of semi-material (wave-particle) Quantum Physics regarding Mind & Consciousness questions.*6
*1. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea :
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
*2. Terrence Deacon's Metaphysics of Incompleteness :
Thus, as noted above, deacon is not a materialist who believes that the human mind is reducible to complex neural activity in the brain. but he also believes that human subjectivity is not based on the presupposition of a soul or immaterial principle of self-organization at work within a human being. --- Joseph Bracken
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/amerjtheophil.38.2-3.0138
*3. Ludwig Wittgenstein :
[i]By showing the application of modern logic to metaphysics, via language, he provided new insights into the relations between world, thought, and language and thereby into the nature of philosophy. . . .
Starting with a seeming metaphysics, Wittgenstein sees the world as consisting of facts (1), rather than the traditional, atomistic conception of a world made up of objects. Facts are existent states of affairs (2) and states of affairs, in turn, are combinations of objects.[/i]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
Note --- Facts & States are not material things, but mental snapshots of reality. As such, those Ideas do not exist in the same sense as Real things, and can't be adequately described in materialistic language --- although some may try. That's why your real world examples (post above) of your own neologisms seemed superficial to me, and missed the philosophical essence of the concept.
*4. Deacon's Glossary :
Teleological (Teleology): Purposive, or end-directed (the study of such relationships). Philosophically related to Aristotle's concept of a "final cause"
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/#glossary
*5. Metaphysics :
Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the formal cause of the thing designed.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
*6. Is quantum physics materialistic?
[i]Quantum mechanics, which developed in the early twentieth century, has been a serious blow to materialism. There is no way to make sense of it if immaterial entities like information, observation, or the mind are not real. Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder struggles against the effects of this fact.[i]
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/11/quantum-physics-axed-materialism-many-hope-the-world-wont-know/
This is a useful assessment of both the phyics/metaphysics dialogue and Deacon's role within it.
Quoting Gnomon
In my edition of Incomplete Nature Deacon's glossary does include his neologisms. I don't know if the list is complete, but he does define those he uses in the book.
Quoting Gnomon
What is the metaphysics of materialism?
Quoting Gnomon
Never mind my absential materialism label. Is the gist of your response to Deacon the assertion that mind DID NOT emerge from matter?
Quoting Gnomon
Please elaborate your refutation of his unscientific concepts of end-directed "Teleology" of Evolution. Also, please check out this conversation re: its pertinence to teleodynamics:
Emergency
Quoting Gnomon
Here's another notable difference between us. Whereas you see my examples of ententional properties as being superficial due to a lack of philosophical essence, I see them as being substantial due to their mundanity. Understandings of the highest value tend to seep into the lexicon of the general public because of their ready application to the familiar things of the everyday world. Most people have some notion of relativity without deep immersion into either science or philosophy.
Any generalization of principles (all things are . . . .) from less than comprehensive experience is considered a metaphysical concept, not a physical or empirical fact*1. Also, portraying some principle as universal, implies either a First Cause or Eternal Being. :smile:
*1. Metaphysics of Materialism :
Materialism, is a causal theory of scientific reality. It is the argument that when we pronounce anything in our sense-experience to be real we imply an independent cause of it. According to the principle of relativity, the inference is entirely unnecessary and to insist on it unscientific.
https://www.nature.com/articles/108400a0
Quoting ucarr
No. I have repeatedly denied that unwarranted implication. However, I do assert that Matter is not the primary cause of all phenomena in the world. My thesis goes into great detail to support the idea that Causal Information is prior to both physical Energy and malleable Matter.*2 :cool:
*2. Mind/Body Problem :
Philosophers and scientists have long debated the relationship between a physical body and its non-physical properties, such as Life & Mind. Cartesian Dualism resolved the problem temporarily by separating the religious implications of metaphysics (Soul) from the scientific study of physics (Body). But now scientists are beginning to study the mind with their precise instruments, and have found no line of demarcation. So, they see no need for the hypothesis of a spiritual Soul added to the body by God. However, Enformationism resolves the problem by a return to Monism, except that the fundamental substance is meta-physical Information instead of physical Matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page15.html
Quoting ucarr
I was not "refuting" his notion of Teleology/Teleonomy, but instead noting that most scientists would say it's a religious concept, not a scientific principle*3. For me, Teleology is a legitimate philosophical inference from the observation of direction in evolution. For those, who find the notion of Ententional Evolution*4*5 unacceptable, Deacon offered the alternative term : Teleonomy, which attempts to avoid the implication of Design in Nature. However, Darwin's phrase "Natural Selection" (for fitness criteria) implied intentional Choice, but attributed it to Nature instead of to God. :wink:
*3. Teleological Misconceptions :
Teleology, explaining the existence of a feature on the basis of what it does, is usually considered as an obstacle or misconception in evolution education. Researchers often use the adjective teleological to refer to students' misconceptions about purpose and design in nature.
https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-019-0116-z
*4. Ententional :
Jeremy Sherman writes on ententionality, "Deacon coins the term 'ententional,' to encompass the entire range of phenomena that must be explained, everything from the first evolvable function, to human social processes, everything traditionally called intentional but also everything merely functional, fitting and therefore representing its environment with normative (good or bad fit) consequences."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entention
*5. Teleology :
[i]Philosophical term derived from Greek: telos (end, goal, purpose, design, finality) and logos (reason, explanation). Philosophers, from Aristotle onward, assumed that everything in the world has a purpose and a place in the scheme of history. As a religious concept, it means that the world was designed by God for a specific reason, such as producing sentient beings to stroke His ego with worship & sacrifices.
Enformationism theory observes that Evolution shows signs of progressing from past to future in increments of Enformation. From the upward trend of increasing organization over time, we must conclude that the randomness of reality (Entropy) is offset by a constructive force (Enformy). This directional trajectory implies an ultimate goal or final state. What that end might be is unknown, but speculation abounds.[/i]
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page20.html
Quoting ucarr
Your mundane examples may be "substantial"*6 enough for scientific endeavors, but lack the essential "qualities" or general principles necessary for philosophical purposes. :smile:
*6. Substance
substance, in the history of Western philosophy, a thing whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a thing from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/substance-philosophy
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Do you accept that each discipline of study has a database governed by principles organized logically, and that that logical organization of principles is its grammar? I'm asking if you accept "grammar" as a synonym for "metaphysics."
Do you acknowledge embracing the realist doctrine abstract concepts have an objective experience inhabiting its own reality?
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Is Causal Information a label for metaphysics as a whole, or is it a subdivision of general metaphysics?
Quoting Gnomon
Are you claiming top-down causation from Enformation to matter_mass_energy?
Quoting Gnomon
You're saying you don't see connections between my examples and philosophically engaging metaphysical principles?
No.
Quoting ucarr
No.
Quoting ucarr
No. It's merely a description of the power to enform (Potential) in the physical world.
Quoting ucarr
Yes. But by means of natural laws, not divine intervention.
"The downward . . . causation (from whole to part) is in this sense not causation in the sense of being induced to change . . . but is rather an alteration in causal probabilities".
Deacon, Incomplete Nature p161
Quoting ucarr
Yes.
I have been enjoying the philosophical exercise of our on-going give & take dialog. Too many threads on this forum quickly descend into polarized name-calling : e.g. Materialism = Objective Truth vs Idealism = Subjective Fantasies, or vice-versa. You mentioned that I seem to be straddling those poles, but I view it as encompassing both "incomplete" worldviews into a single universal comprehension. My BothAnd perspective is not a controversy-ducking cop-out, but a recognition that there is philosophical value in both views : local & universal. Hence, an open-mind can make use of both sources of information : to see the world in stereo. Fortunately, we do seem to have some common ground in Deacon's seemingly paradoxical insight on the Power of Absence*1, but differ on which ancient traditional bi-polar worldview, Materialism vs Idealism, should govern our interpretation of its implications*2*3.
A typical approach to clashing worldviews is to accept one and reject the other. But I prefer to enjoy the best of both worldviews, to see both the material part (element) and the conceptual whole (system). To that end, grasping the manifold roles of broadly-conceived Information (ranging from matter to mind) provides a key to the puzzle of age-old philosophical conflicts. Claude Shannon opened the door to this new understanding with his technical definition of a mental phenomenon : ideas. But his narrow materialistic engineering approach, while effective for technical purposes, ignored a long history of philosophical scrutiny of the rational faculty. In the 21st century, Information Theory has exploded into a wide range of scientific & philosophical investigations*4, ranging from Simplicity to Complexity, and from singular Kernel to total Comprehension.
Therefore, I propose that we "do philosophy", not by avoiding the Science of Ideas*5, or by avoiding the Science of Matter, but by combining the insights of each into a more complete Science of Everything : from Big Bang Causation, to the appearance of organized Matter, to the emergence of inquiring Minds, to the retrospective of Cosmology. Thus, embracing both Mind and Matter as instances of Reality*6. :smile:
*1. The Power of Absence :
Deacon has independently arrived at an understanding of absence as causally efficacious in the emergence of life and consciousness
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/rea.12.2.y733588233q1m086
Note --- Deacon sees the "hidden connections" that are not apparent from a materialistic perspective.
*2. Materialism = Truth
To be a materialist is to acknowledge objective truth, which is revealed to us by our sense-organs. To acknowledge objective truth, i.e., truth not dependent upon man and mankind, is, in one Way or another, to recognise absolute truth.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/two5.htm
*3. Idealism = Truth :
The essential orientation of idealism can be sensed through some of its typical tenets: Truth is the whole, or the Absolute; to be is to be perceived; reality reveals its ultimate nature more faithfully in its highest qualities (mental) than in its lowest (material); the Ego is both subject and object.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/idealism
*4. Information Theory and Complex Systems :
Welcome to Santa Fe Institute ... Information theory (in particular, the maximum information entropy formalism) provides a way to deal with such complexity . . .
https://www.santafe.edu/research/results/papers/57-information-theory-a-foundation-for-complexity-
*5. Ideonomy -- The Science of Ideas :
Supposedly the word ideonomy was first coined by the French Encyclopedists, and they, too, are said to have used it to designate a science of ideas. What is unclear is whether these men made any actual contribution to the building of ideonomy, especially in the present sense. Perhaps they simply employed the word as a synonym for logic, pantology, philosophy in general, or philosophy applied to creative or social purposes.
https://ideonomy.mit.edu/intro.html
*6. Something Is Missing from the Materialist Framework :
Something is missing from the theoretical framework of natural science if it cannot explain the function and purpose that are ubiquitous in life. And yes, the answer is there in plain sight in Professor Deacons own words. The truth is that ententional properties are foundational. They are the genesis of all purpose in life.
https://evolutionnews.org/2023/07/something-is-missing-from-the-materialist-framework/
You don't seem to understand how or why I interpret Deacon's Incomplete Nature in terms of Information, and to imply that Mind was transformed from Matter via the natural process of EnFormAction. If you think of "Information" as the mechanical process defined by Shannon, my usage as the dynamic Power to Transform won't make any sense. Deacon said that "The contemporary notion of information is likewise colloquially conceived of in substance-like terms" (p373), but went on to define it in energetic & relational & immaterial terms.*1
An article on the Information Philosopher's website*2 might reveal some significant implications of Deacon's philosophy of Absence that your Materialistic worldview overlooked. His three-part outline begins at the bottom with inert non-living Matter pushed around by Thermodynamics, then progresses to the mid-level Homeodynamics --- perhaps better described as homeostasis, since the physical changes are maintaining the status quo, with little innovation. But in the third level of his triad, Teleodynamics*3, non-living Matter mysteriously transforms into Living stuff, with the potential for organic growth, instead of mere gravitational clumping. During that transition from inert matter to dynamic physics, Evolution reveals a directional character aimed at some implicit future goal : Telos.
Level One begins as Plasma : just atoms whirling randomly in the void. Next, Level Two adds the arrow of Time, progressing & complexifying, a direction that will become apparent only to reflective Minds in the Third Level. Information in level One is the form of condensed Energy we know as Matter : precipitated out of the original chaotic Plasma into 3-dimensional res extensa. Then, Energy + Matter transforms on level Two into the dynamic organic systems we call Life. And eventually, that same Potential power-to-enform evolves into the immaterial non-dimensional thinking stuff (res cogitans) that we experience as Mind*4.
If this philosophical & cosmological approach to Deacon's work, begins to make sense to you, we can discuss it further. Meanwhile, I suggest you take a look at how the Information Philosopher interprets Deacon's Absentialism*5. :smile:
*1, Deacon's Absentialism :
"Information is the archetypical absential concept" IN p373
*2. Terrence Deacon :
Deacon's 2011 work Incomplete Nature has a strong triadic structure, inspired perhaps by an important influence from semioticsthe philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce 's triad of icon, index, and symbol. Deacon's triad levels represent the material, the ideal, and the pragmatic. The first two levels reflect the ancient philosophical dualism of materialism and idealism, or body and mind, respectively.
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
*3.Teleodynamics :
"Deacon's name for the third level in his dynamics hierarchy. It is built on and incorporates the two lower levels the first level is physical and material, the second adds an informational and immaterial aspect."
"On Deacon's third level, "a difference that makes a difference" (cf.Gregory Bateson and Donald MacKay) emerges as a purposeful process we can identify as protolife."
*4. Information is Mind :
"Deacon sees clearly that information is neither matter nor energy; for example, knowledge in an organism's "mind" about the external constraints that its actions can influence."
*5. Absentialism :
He reifies this absence and says cryptically that "a causal role for absence seems to be absent from the natural sciences." He calls this a "figure/ground reversal" in which he focuses on what is absent rather than present, likening it to the concept of zero, the holes in the "(w)hole." We can agree with Deacon that ideas and information are immaterial, neither matter nor energy, but they need matter to be embodied and energy to be communicated. And when they are embodied, they are obviously present (to my mind)
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/
Quoting Gnomon
I get great value from my dialoguing with you. I look forward to its continuance.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
If this quote directly above is what you believe -- and not just your paraphrasing of Information Philosopher -- please explain how it is consistent with your answer to my opening question.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
So, from your above quotes: a) you believe there is top-down causation from enformation -- ( meta-physical Information instead of physical Matter. -- to mind and then to body; b) you think the connection natural, not supernatural; c) you believe enformation, mind and matter form one interwoven continuum. Please explain how -- given your endorsement of this seamless continuum from enformation to mind to matter -- the first two links in the chain -- both immaterial -- connect with material brain?
Quoting Gnomon
You seem to be utilizing some of Deacon's absentialist materialism in the bottom-up causal chain articulated above. However, going either way, there's no explanation how immaterial connects with material.
I understand Deacon to be articulating a thesis that explains how all dynamical processes through all of their higher-orders remain within the domain of the material systemically. This approach addresses the mind/body problem by establishing a continuum that excludes problematical dualism.
With your articulations of causation -- in both directions -- you appear to do what Deacon indicts in the early part of Incomplete Nature: sneaking into the system an unannounced homunculus who -- without explanation -- brings about a material/immaterial interface.
Maybe you are interpreting Descartes' "stuff" and "things" as referring to material objects. But both are indeterminate (non-specific) references to "substance" in the Aristotelian sense of essences (qualia) : attributes or classifications that identify, and are projected upon, the real world referent. Remember that languages are generally materialistic, in that their metaphors are pointers to material objects of the 5 senses that we all have in common. Otherwise, we could only communicate our ideas by direct mind-reading.
Your opening question describes a "realist doctrine" that sounds more like Idealism (or alt-reality) to me : postulating a mental realm of "abstract concepts" that exists in parallel to material reality, and may be considered more real than sensory reality. But, as a rule, I don't subscribe to that worldview. For all practical purposes, I am a Materialist and Realist. Yet for philosophical considerations (ideas about ideas) I must necessarily think somewhat like an Idealist.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that abstractions are not real : you can't eat an ideal cupcake, and an imaginary rose would not smell sweet. "Red" is a subjective conceptual quality, not an objective real thing. "Life" (or elan vital) is a quality of animated biological entities, not some kind of ghost that inhabits material objects. But we communicate the abstract concept of animation by means of analogies to processes or activities we observe with the eyes, and make sense of with the mind.
Likewise, "Potential" is not an objective thing out there in an ideal realm, but merely a mental projection of statistical Probability. We don't perceive Potential with our senses, but conceive it with our rational mind. And "Mind" is not a thing floating around in the aether, but simply the Function of a brain : what that ball of neurons does to allow us to navigate the real world.
Again, if you are accusing me of "embracing" the established doctrines of traditional Idealism--- or of traditional Materialism for that matter --- the answer is still "no". My personal -ism is Enformationism, which has a tentative foot in both worlds. :cool:
Quoting ucarr
Ah! That is the "Hard Question" for which materialistic science has no answer, and that idealistic philosophies merely take for granted. My thesis postulates an explanation --- not scientifically, but philosophically --- for "how" Mind & Matter interrelate. By analogy, the relationship is similar to that between fluid Water and solid Ice ; the are merely different Forms of the same Essence : The Power/Potential to cause change in Form. If that leaves you thinking, huh?, then you need to refer to the website, which begins at the beginning, and works down from a> to b> to c>. :wink:
Quoting ucarr
Yes. The metaphorical "homunculus" in my thesis is Causal EnFormAction, the hypothetical precursor of physical Energy, and of biological Matter, and of metaphysical Thought Processes. The "explanation" for how the "little man" came to live in the human mind is expounded in the website & blog & and is on-going in this forum. It's not a final Theory of Everything, but I'm working on it. :nerd:
Enformationism :
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
Thesis Abstract :
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page11.html
Note --- The Matrix movie is used as a metaphor for the role of Generic Information (raining code) in both the Machine world (abstract & Ideal) and the Zion world (concrete and real).
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting The Apple Dictionary
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
No. As you see from The Apple Dictionary, my use of realism adheres to Platonic realism.
Quoting Gnomon
No. I've seen how "substance" in a philosophical context holds a different meaning from the one known in the vernacular.
Quoting Gnomon
Now you contradict your claim to be a realist.
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting Gnomon
Quoting ucarr
Quoting Gnomon
essence | ?es(?)ns |
noun
the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character: conflict is the essence of drama.
Philosophy a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.
Now you seem to be pitching your tent on the ground of the immaterial.
Quoting Gnomon
Now you're being forthright and clear about where you really stand. I thank-you for your candor here.
In spite of your many evasions, nuanced qualifications and circumspect language affording escapes from slam-dunk opposing arguments, you acknowledge being a dualism-adjacent theoretician.
Quoting Gnomon
Praiseworthy indeed is your admission you don't really know how enformation is functionally structured into an interweave with matter. At present you can't give practical directions to researchers seeking to illuminate the passageways leading from computational neuroscience to abstract consciousness.
Deacon's realm of the ententional, populated by phenomena intrinsically incomplete yet interwoven with future states by end-directed goals, paves forward across a no-person's realm into a practical monism of matter-mind-concept.
I'm not familiar with the term "platonic realism". I have always associated him with Idealism. But a quick look at the Stanford article under "Idealism", reveals that some philosophers have switched around the perspective of the term from god's view to human view of what's real. Which is confusing to me. In any case, my thesis begins from a pragmatic meaning of Real, and stops just short of Platonic Ideality. By that I mean, I make no omniscient claims about a super-real realm ; other than to accept, like Kant, that we can speculate on such ideals, but can only deal with the reality here & now.
Plato imagined a heavenly realm of perfect Forms, existing eternally, perhaps in the Mind of God/Logos. And that may be so, but my thesis doesn't depend on such a fairy castle. It does however, stop at the Big Bang Beginning of our space-time Reality, to look beyond the dark abyss of ignorance into a time & place before our Time & Space : like Moses looking down on the promised land, but denied entry. To take that Potential (not yet real) as Actual (really real) is to miss the whole point of the thesis.
When I use the term "Form" (initial cap) it is meant only to be an idealized symbol of the source of all real "forms" that we observe in the material world. I try to avoid the implication that it refers to a heavenly realm that is more real than mundane reality. But some readers may not understand, or accept, that distinction. Enformationism uses Berkeley's metaphor that our material world is "an idea in the Mind of God". But does not assert that there is an entity out there dreaming-up our world. Remember, the map is not the terrain, and the metaphor is not the thing. :smile:
Was Plato an idealist or a realist? :
Both, these categories are not really true opposites, and these categories often have more than one meaning. Plato was a realist to the extent that he posited the reality of abstract objects, i.e., the robust existence of the Forms. These objects, however, he posited to compose the ideal world, i.e., the realm of perfect objects, which are merely instantiated (imperfectly) by the physical objects familiar to you and me.
https://www.quora.com/Was-Plato-an-idealist-or-a-realist
Note --- From a divine perspective, what's Real is also Ideal. But from a human point of view, Reality is what we know via our senses, and Ideality is what we infer must be true, logically, but not necessarily really.
Quoting ucarr
No. I'm pitching a metaphor on the ground of imaginary concepts. Abstractions, such as Qualia or Essence, are indeed immaterial, because we can imagine them, but can't see or touch them. :wink:
Quoting ucarr
Did you notice that the homunculus was labeled an imaginary metaphor, not a real material thing? Unlike materialistic Science, idealistic Philosophy can only put its subjects, ideas, under the imaginary microscope of analogy to sensable things. I try not to "stand" on mushy metaphorical ground. :nerd:
Quoting ucarr
Thanks for the faint praise, but it's not false modesty. Since I'm not a scientist, I don't pretend to be giving "practical directions" to professionals. I do however refer to practicing scientists, such as those at the Santa Fe Institute who are working on such projects from a perspective of Information theory. Do you know of any neuroscientist who has discovered the "interweave" of Mind & Matter? :chin:
Information Theory and Consciousness :
Jost explores consciousness as a process for integrating information from the recent past and near future into the present, where we experience self.
https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/juergen-jost-information-theory-and-consciousness
Hard Problem still mysterious after all these years :
Koch bet Chalmers a case of wine that within 25 yearsthat is, by 2023researchers would discover a clear neural pattern underlying consciousness. . . . That word clear doomed Koch. Its clear that things are not clear,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-25-year-old-bet-about-consciousness-has-finally-been-settled/
If it quacks like Immaterialism, and has a knack for "looking like immaterialism", why not call it "Immaterialism"? Why the evasion? Why must "Ideas" be defined in Materialist terms? Do you think "immaterial" is a code word for Spirit?
The metaphysics (belief system) of "objective" Materialism seems to be implicitly antagonistic to "subjective" Spiritualism & Superstition*1. But what if Ideas are not spiritual entities, but causal forces? Physical Energy*2 is an immaterial abstraction with no material properties, until transformed into the equally abstract quantities of Mass. Our senses interpret those abstractions as "Matter", conjectured by the ancient Greeks as the mother of all things.
I'm still intrigued by your notion of Absential Materialism, but it quacks like Ideal (or imaginary) objects (original matter)*3 waiting in the wings to be invited into the real world : i.e. ideal, not real matter. In any case, if it's absent, it's not real. Your term also seems to specifically contradict the philosophy of Idealism, which posits a similar preternatural source of perfect stuff (Forms) waiting to be transformed into real things. That's OK with me, because Enformationism differs from Idealism and Spiritualism, in that it equates Abstract Concepts with causal processes & functions (Energy), not imaginary homunculae or spooky Spirits.
Perhaps Absential Physicalism*4 would be a more appropriate term for what you have in mind, since Physics is concerned not with matter itself, but with changes in matter due to the effects of Energy. This would put the spotlight on the Active Causal Force (morph ; Form) instead of the inert lumpish lumber (hyle : wood). Newton's mysterious Gravity --- pushing stars around and pulling planets together --- is now defined in terms of Geometry, an abstract mathematical relationship*5. Are Gravity and Geometry material things? How are imaginary abstractions explained in the doctrines of Materialism?
As far as I can tell, Deacon is neither a traditional Materialist (all matter), nor a traditional Idealist (all mind). But he seems to envision a middle ground that accepts both sensory stuff and the rational faculty that makes sense of that stuff, so that philosophers can seriously debate their Ontological status. What he criticizes is Eliminative Materialism : "The assumption that all reference to ententional phenomena can and must be eliminated from our scientific theories and replaced by accounts of material mechanisms". My BothAnd position, like that of Deacon, accepts that Ideas are immaterial, but not spiritual. It's a substance Dualism that is ultimately an essence Monism. It also agrees with Deacon's notion of Teleology & Agency*6, without recourse to supernatural spirits. :smile:
PS___ Absential Materialism sounds to me like a reference to Aristotle's "Potential" : that which is statistically Possible, but not yet Actual.
*1. Materialism vs spiritualism :
Materialism is focused on the outside world, while spiritualism is focused on the inside world. Materialism is based on what we can see and touch, while spiritualism is based on our inner feelings and intuition. Materialism looks at life on the surface, while spiritualism is a deep way of looking at life. https://medium.com/@evan00moore00/materialism-vs-spiritualism-which-is-the-true-path-ad270e405785
*2. Do students conceptualize energy as a material substance? :
In physics, energy is an abstract, non- material quantity associated with the state of a system.
file:///C:/Users/johne/Downloads/PERC02_Loverude-1.pdf
*3. Original Matter :
[i]In Indian philosophy: The nature, origin, and structure of the world (prakriti)
Original Matter is uncaused, eternal, all-pervading, one, independent, self-complete, and has no distinguishable parts; the things that emerge out of this primitive matrix are, on the other hand, caused, noneternal, limited, many, dependent, wholes composed of parts, and manifested.[/i]
https://www.britannica.com/topic/matter-philosophy
Note --- How is Absential Materialism different from Original Matter?
*4. Absential Physicalism : the "Law of Attraction" that is evidenced in physical systems as-if caused by a Force, but defined by Einstein in terms of geometric relationships of mutual attraction*5. Coined by Gnomon.
Note --- What is "absent" is matter, what is Potential is logical structure.
*5. Einsteins geometric gravity :
The key idea of Einstein's theory of general relativity is that gravity is not an ordinary force, but rather a property of spacetime geometry. https://www.einstein-online.info/en/GeomGravity/
*6. Locus of Agency : (Teleodynamics)
Chapter on FreeWill IN p 479
Does Absential Materialism theory allow for FreeWill, Self-Determination, and human Agency?
I think you stand on solid ground whenever you correctly ground your conjectures in science.
You can do yourself a favor by keeping away from metaphysics for now. Metaphysics is your enemy because it lulls you into complacecey about not being your better self.
Metaphysics is little more than the logical grammar undergirding the conceptual dimensions of science. It's neither beyond nor above science. It's something akin to an emergent property of science.
Some metaphysicians might tell you it's the other way around. Shrug them off before they lead you astray. Never doubt that metaphysics cannot breathe without science.*
I hope you'll start working toward longer intervals off the drug of metaphysics while slogging the trenches of philosophy's harsh mistress: science.
You show promise as a theoretician when you make observations such as the following: "The primary attribute of energy is causation." That's thinking like a scientist. Keep doing it.
*If you think logic a science, consider that philosophical ideas are vetted by logic. What does that tell you?
:up: :up:
Thus, in the first century BCE Andronicus of Rhodes who had edited Aristotle's corpus had titled the philosophia prima The Book Following The Book On Nature aka "metà tà physikà tá" (as in following from re: categorical generalizations / essential conditions of explaining nature aka "physics"). Woo-of-the-gaps sophists like @Gnomon and other idealists / antirealist / supernaturalists naively(?) invert the Classical order ahistorically make sh*t up and incorrigibly misconstrue physics (i.e. science) as the product of following from "Meta-physics" (e.g. nous, the one, pure reason, geist, beyng ... "Enformer"). :sparkle: :roll:
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.
Quoting ucarr
For the record, I am not a scientist. So, I don't pretend to be doing science on this forum. That's why 's cartoon of Gnomon, as a New Age nut, touting Quantum Mysticism, is completely wack.
Anyway, the physical sciences study objects -- including humans -- from the outside, and reveal little about the subject inside the skin. I try to keep myself informed about Physics, to serve as a "ground" for my explorations into MetaPhysics*1. And Quantum Physics opened up a whole new field of play, by discovering that the observing mind plays a role in the results of sub-atomic experiments. Unlike some New Agers though, I don't interpret that interpretation as evidence of magical mind-over-matter effects. But I do follow prominent physicists in their interpretation that Information (energy + mind stuff) is an active Agent*3 in physical changes. That is the "ground" of my Enformationism thesis. Which is philosophical & metaphysical, not scientific & physical in character.
Apparently, it's your materialistic bias that views my focus on Metaphysics as unscientific. I agree that Deacon is not a Spiritualist, but he does criticize Eliminative Materialism, "because it presumes that all reference to ententional phenomena can and must be eliminated from our scientific theories". (IN p81) And it's the metaphysical Ententional*3 functions of the human mind that I am interested in. Deacon quotes physicist Seth Lloyd : "the fact that the universe is at bottom computing, or is processing information, was actually established in the scientific sense . . . . showed that all atoms register bits of information". (IN p74) And that is the scientific "ground" of the Enformationism thesis.
Metaphysics is the study of the Self, not the non-self Nature that is the purview of Physics. Therefore, for me Metaphysics is not "the enemy", but the only tool for understanding the mind of the Observer, who is a physical participant in the material world, but also a meta-physical spectator looking on from the outside. :smile:
*1. Metaphysics, for Aristotle, was the study of nature and ourselves. In this sense he brings metaphysics to this world of sense experiencewhere we live, learn, know, think, and speak. Metaphysics is the study of being qua being, which is, first, the study of the different ways the word be can be used
https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/__unknown__/
*2. Agent : a person or thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect.
*3. Ententional :
Jeremy Sherman writes on ententionality, "Deacon coins the term 'ententional,' to encompass the entire range of phenomena that must be explained, everything from the first evolvable function, to human social processes, everything traditionally called intentional but also everything merely functional, fitting and therefore representing its environment with normative (good or bad fit) consequences."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entention
Quoting Gnomon
:clap: :rofl: That's all folks!
[quote=Carlo Rovelli, Hegoland, pp. 159-60]It is with sadness that every so often I spend a few hours on the internet, reading or listening to the mountain of stupidities dressed up with the word 'quantum'. Quantum medicine; holistic quantum theories of every kind, mental quantum spiritualism and so on, and on, in an almost unbelievable parade of quantum nonsense.[/quote]
:fire:
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. :smile:
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-Nature-Mind-Emerged-Matter/dp/0393049914
The curiously closed mind :
Its said that all truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, then violently opposed and then, finally, its deemed self evident.
https://www.carolcassara.com/the-curiously-closed-mind/
See p.1 of this thread for my exchanges with @ucarr on discussed similarities of classical atomism and "absential materialism", namely the role of absence/void as "constraint" and thereby the primary factor in emergence/atomic recombinations. As for my "attitude" toward his book: from ucarr's reflections, wiki summary & reviews, T. Deacon's thesis seems to be 'nonreductive physicalist scientism' not philosophically interesting to me.
Quoting 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.
The slow-paced dogfight by natural materials engineering and natural fluid dynamics engineering towards the self-organizing dynamical systems that aggregate attractors that statistically mandate phase shifts from random resource elements and compounds into reciprocally reinforcing morphodyanics is the critically important continuum that bridges across simple matter to absentially material mind. The autogen is an early distillation of selfhood in the form of self-generation, self-repair and self-replication.
The end-directed aboutness functionality of telodynamics as the operating system of mind, emergent from yet rooted within material thermodyanmics is spatially distributed, time-mediated complex materialism.
Deacon closes his report on the supple interweave of the multiplex of matter that knows itself with:
[i]If quantum physicists can learn to become comfortable with the material causal consequences of the superposition of alternate, as-yet-unrealized states of matter, it shouldnt be too great a leap to begin to get comfortable with the superposition of the present and the absent in our functions, meanings,
experiences, and values.[/i]
So, from Deacon we learn that mental abstractionism is a state that oscillates between an expansion/compression cycle within nature.
Consider a modern, telecommunications satellite, such as the one making our internet dialogs possible.
Launched from earth, it hovers above in the thermosphere_exosphere. It sees whole earth in overview, a kind of metaphysical POV. In this position, it's poised to connect the dots and understand events systemically. It affords us a metaphysics of practice with concrete value to the general public. No academic flights of fancy indulged.
Clear overview of complex systems has essential importance. It generates useful constraints in the form of boundaries known as rules. This necessary role of the referee notwithstanding, we don't say the orbital satellite looking down upon us created us. No. It emerged from us and remains tied to us in a delicate superposition of the present and the absent.
Deacon's report does not example science privileged above reflection. Instead, it does the hard work of elaborating the continuum linking reflection with its material foundation.
I heve no idea what you mean, ucarr.
Deacon sounds like he's espousing what C. Rovelli aptly calls "quantum nonsense" (re: ).
Quoting ucarr
Quoting 180 Proof
The satellite is supposed to be a practical application of systemic overview, my characterization of metaphysics.
Quoting 180 Proof
I understand him to be making reference to Schrödinger's equation for a superpositionally dead & alive cat.
:roll:
Yes, it is a "game changer". But 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. :nerd:
*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/incomplete-nature-how-mind-emerged-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 Aristotleoften cast as the arch-enemy of atomismallowed 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/
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. :cool:
Carlo Rovellis Relationalism :
[i]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 Derridas 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.[/i]
https://medium.com/paul-austin-murphys-essays-on-philosophy/carlo-rovellis-relationalism-as-defended-in-his-book-helgoland-2020-b66caf122159
Quoting ucarr
Quoting 180 Proof
You hold Schrödinger's linear differential equation in contempt?
Quoting Wikipedia
What's your take on this?
My quote is unfortunately misleading without the addendum: Schrödinger developed the narrative of the dead & alive cat in order to mock the artless embrace of superposition without acknowledging its collapse under measurement.
Quoting 180 Proof
You don't see the philosophical relevance attaching to physical phenomena raising fundamental questions about the nature of reality?
Quoting 180 Proof
You see no connection between the equation and the thought experiment?
What is the thought experiment about Schrödinger's cat?
He imagined a box containing a radioactive atom, a vial of poison and a cat. Governed by quantum rules, the radioactive atom can either decay or not at any given moment. There's no telling when the moment will come, but when it does decay, it breaks the vial, releases the poison and kills the cat.
Quoting Wikipedia
The isolated physical system in the thought experiment is "the atom," whose decay the Schrödinger Equation predicts quantum mechanically. The equation demonstrates mathematically the uncertainty of the time of the decay, thus causing the cat's death. This being uncertain, the cat holds superposition as both dead and alive until the measurement effect of observation of the cat collapses the superposition.
Quoting Wikipedia
Quoting Wikipedia
You, 180 Proof -- a science-savvy commentator -- in seeking to distance TPF from science tells me I'm doing something right in my approach to the association of science and philosophy.
The paradoxical thought experiment was intended to illustrate the apparent absurdity of Quantum Superposition (wave/particle duality). Which required a paradigm shift in scientific understanding of Classical Determinism, and also implied that the intervention of a conscious mind could have causal effects on the physical world.
Schrödinger's expressed opinion --- that Consciousness, not Matter, is fundamental in the world --- is one of many instances of what calls "Quantum Mysticism". Which is why he wants to "distance TPF" from 20th century Science, in favor of 17th century Classical Physics. :smile:
"Physical phenomena" and "the nature of reality" are tangental at best, different categories of being; IMO, it is fallacious to mistake them for one another. As I discern the topic, "physical phenomena" are real (i.e. very strongly correlative) only insofar as they comprise a 'way of talking about reality' (e.g. physicalism) and as such it is reasonable to surmise that "the nature of reality" includes (among whatever else) affordances for a 'way of talking about reality that is defeasible, fallibilistic and highly mathematically precise. In other words, QM is "fundamental" physics, not fundamental ontology (i.e. metaphysics à la Spinoza ... or Q. Meillassoux).
"Not guilty!" like rasta bredren seh. :victory: :mask:
More or less as Spinoza and Freddy or Peirce-Dewey and Witty-Feyerabend do, I'm trying to remind you and other folks (myself included) not to treat philosophy as a science (i.e. not to reduce speculative suppositions (e.g. aporia) to theoretical propositions (e.g. predictions)). Almost all equation-free "quantum" talk is nonsense, that is, too imprecise to be make sense to thinking discursively and living pragmatically doing philosophy above the planck-scale.