PROCESS COSMOLOGY --- a worldview for our time

Quoting Gnomon

But, why do we need a God-concept anyway? Typically it's supposed to provide a basis for Morality, explain the Existence of the universe, and ground the search for Meaning and Purpose in human life.

Here I've conclusively proven the only thing we can conclude about the existence of the universe. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15722/the-logic-of-a-universal-origin-and-meaning/p1 Anything could have happened, and there is no innate meaning or morality behind it.

If you want to consider an objective morality, go here. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1 I conclude that all of existence essentially must be good in any objective morality, then build it up to evaluation existences and determine which ones are better than others.

Its much better to do philosophy then do philosophy about process.

Quoting Gnomon

theological

The notion of 'God' fails right off the bat, for it stems from the idea-template that something Greater is necessary to be for something lesser to be made of it; yet …

1) We see rather that the lesser simplex leads to the greater complex made of it;

2) The Greater would have to then come from the GREATER, etc. for the template to have any value, but it's a regress of begging the question.

All mentions of 'God' fail in this way.

Quoting Philosophim

Its much better to do philosophy then do philosophy about process.

Apparently, what Whitehead was doing in his Process Philosophy is what philosophers have been doing since Plato*1 : discover universal principles in the world and build a worldview upon that foundation. But if the world seems to be nothing but agitated atoms, then whatever happens "has no innate meaning or morality behind it". Although you might ask, whence the agitation? Plato found a First Cause to be logically necessary. For example, to explain any process evolving from simplicity toward complexity.

Moreover, the quantum physics (entanglement) and Systems Science (complexity) of Whitehead's era portrayed an evolving world more like an organism than a mechanism*2. Besides, Darwinian evolution is a progressive process, not just a random meandering*3. Hence, his postulation --- not an observation --- of a God as the "Soul" of the Cosmos. Since his eternal deity is an inference, instead of a space-time empirical fact, you are free to agree or disagree; depending on your personal inclination.

As a professional mathematician, Whitehead may be more percipient than most of us about the rational order of the universe. Even modern Chaos Theory*4 is based on the inherent order within apparent disorder. Some philosophers may focus mainly on the irrational aspects of Nature, but as a mathematician, Whitehead built his thesis upon the logical patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization of natural processes. From such evidence, he concluded that some kind of rational intelligence must be "behind" it. But AFAIK he did not infer that abstract Reason (Logos) would require ego-propping worship. :smile:


*1a. Reformed Platonism :
[i]In this sense, Whitehead’s reformed Platonism is similar to Schelling’s, who built on the description of the World-Soul and its role in the realization of Ideas given by Plato in the Timeaus (I unpack these ideas in this essay on Schelling). . . . .
One of Whitehead’s colleagues at Harvard, Ernest Hocking, reports that (Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on his Philosophy, 1963, p. 16), in regards to the concept of God, Whitehead once told him: “I should never have included it, if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness. You must set all your essentials into the foundation. It is no use putting up a set of terms, and then remarking, ‘Oh, by the way, I believe there’s a God.”[/i]
https://footnotes2plato.com/2011/07/16/1263/
*1b. In the Timaeus Plato presents an elaborately wrought account of the formation of the universe and an explanation of its impressive order and beauty. The universe, he proposes, is the product of rational, purposive, and beneficent agency. It is the handiwork of a divine Craftsman (“Demiurge,” dêmiourgos, 28a6) who, imitating an unchanging and eternal model, imposes mathematical order on a preexistent chaos to generate the ordered universe (kosmos). The governing explanatory principle of the account is teleological: the universe as a whole as well as its various parts are so arranged as to produce a vast array of good effects. For Plato this arrangement is not fortuitous, but the outcome of the deliberate intent of Intellect (nous), anthropomorphically represented by the figure of the Craftsman who plans and constructs a world that is as excellent as its nature permits it to be.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/

*2. Holistic Systems Thinking :
The idea of the world evolving as a complex, interconnected organism rather than a simple mechanism, while a compelling and increasingly relevant metaphor, is rooted in the concept of systems thinking and the interconnectedness of ecological and social-economic processes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=+evolving+world+more+like+an+organism+than+a+mechanism

*3. Evolution as a Process, Not Just a Mechanism:
[i]Evolution is the change in the genetic makeup of populations over time, driven by various factors, including natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow.
While Darwin's theory of natural selection is foundational, the understanding of evolution continues to evolve, with insights from fields like ecology, genetics, and systems science.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=+evolving+world+more+like+an+organism+than+a+mechanism
Note --- Directional determining Selection is the opposite of Indeterminate Random Chance

*4. Chaos theory explores the idea that within seemingly random, chaotic systems, there can be underlying patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization, leading to order emerging from disorder
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chaos+theory+order+in+disorder

Quoting Gnomon

From such evidence, he concluded that some kind of rational intelligence must be "behind" it.

Well I logically prove that wrong in the linked post. Feel free to point out if its wrong and if Whitehead would be able to counter it.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The notion of 'God' fails right off the bat, for it stems from the idea-template that something Greater is necessary to be for something lesser to be made of it; yet …

I haven't seen any references in Whitehead's cosmology of the old "something greater" scholastic reasoning. His thinking was based on contemporary quantum and systems science, along with mathematical logic. Which necessarily pointed to "something a priori", in the sense of a First Cause.

But if you are referring to space-time "transcendence", the Big Bang theory "fails right off the bat" to explain the Source of the Energy (causation) and Laws (organization) necessary to produce a cosmic explosion that is still expanding after 14B years. All postulated explanations refer to something antecedent or transcendent to the Bang itself. Are Multiverses and Many Worlds "greater" than our uni-world? :smile:


"in regards to the concept of God, Whitehead once told him: “I should never have included it, if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness."
https://footnotes2plato.com/2011/07/16/1263/

Quoting Gnomon

Are Multiverses and Many Worlds "greater" than our uni-world?

All are simplex at first; complexity comes later on, via evolution and emergence.

So, to derive the multiverse, we figure that since one universe formed, our own, then so could another, and more, but only a few may be workable enough to continue on.

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks.

Our universe is generic, as mediocre, even, somewhere within the range of universes that can achieve life. We cannot be in a universe which didn’t get to life, so here we have to be.

Our universe took an extremely long time to evolve cosmically, as well as for life to develop biologically; it wasn’t the quickest or the slowest to do so. It kind of limped along. It needs no big explanation, but we will look into it anyway.

That our universe is somewhere in between perfect and none at all shows that there has to be a multiverse or a metaverse. Again, if there can be one universe then there can be more.

There are but three main stable particles in free space that show a curious symmetry: two matter particles oppositely charged, the proton(+) and the electron(-), and one energy particle, the photon(neutral charge). It had to be that there were only those ways to make a stable particle in free space (and their antiparticles).

Our universe's history wasn't of a smooth Sunday walk in the park on a sunny day… (see next time)

Reply to PoeticUniverse :up:
Quoting Gnomon

All postulated explanations refer to something antecedent or transcendent to the Bang itself.

Not so. There is far more physical evidence of, for example, cyclical cosmogenesis than for (your) "fiat lux" ... i.e. Aristotle's teleological physics is as philosophically useless as Ptolemy's geocentric epicycles or (e.g. Whitehead's) pseudoscientific 'intelligent design'.

(specifically)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

(generally)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model

NB: For the umpteenth time (see my member profile), the only answer to the ultimate why question that does not precipitate an infinite regress – beg the question – is that there necessarily is no ultimate answer to why. (vide Democritus ... Spinoza ... Meillassoux ... (also: Fr. G. Lemaître, Hartle-Hawking, R. Penrose, D. Deutsch, C. Rovelli, S. Carroll, et al)) :fire:

@Gnomon @180 Proof @Philosophim

The baby Universe stumbles along, going nowhere fast …

The elementaries have to form protons, neutrons, and whatnot, these combining into the first few atomic elements, mostly hydrogen, all these having to collect into stars eventually, due to gravity. Universes without gravity don’t go anywhere.

How come all the atomic elements couldn’t have been formed right away?

Remember, our universe is just among the average ones that work for life. It just couldn’t form all the elements right away.

Deuterium is a very fragile nucleus, and in the the great heat of the Big Bang it is soon ripped apart. Without forming deuterium, the heavier elements are unable to be forged, a barrier known as the deuterium bottleneck.

The electrons were moving too fast to join an atomic nucleus to create all the atoms. Instead, the universe was full of plasma, with free electrons jostling with light rays, making it opaque.

@punos

Perhaps often in the omniscape a universe is stillborn when everything annihilates away… but Punos has an idea in Gnomon's previous thread about how the annihilations don't quite catch-up.

I'm pointing out here and elsewhere that there be quite a lot of variation when a Bang blows up or a cyclical universe whams up again and its symmetry breaks.


Quoting Gnomon

Multiverses

Perhaps in some other ‘wheres’,
Junkyard universes litter the omniscape,
For they flunked, failed, and miscarried—
A quadrillion trillion universes broken down
For every one that worked to any extent at all.

In some of these forlorn universes,
Perhaps the material was inert
And so it just sat there, doing nothing, forever.

In others, maybe gravity was insufficient
Or had no natural place to collect particles
And so they thinned out endlessly,
Spreading coldly toward infinity.

In yet others again,
Even those in the same ballpark as ours,
Perhaps the portions weren’t quite right.
Although they may have formed a few elements,
They went no further than that for a zillion years.


Onward…

Inflation seems to be a necessity in the so that the micro could become the macro and so that the universe could be flat and rather smooth. When inflation ended, its energy was dumped back into the universe, into the particles and radiation that provide the basic building blocks.

But the temperatures were so hot that the normal, everyday matter couldn’t exist yet. Only the fundamental building blocks existed: the quarks, the electrons, and the superhot photons. This soup was supposedly an equal mixture of matter and antimatter. Electrons were accompanied by their positively charged antimatter siblings, the positrons.

So, when the universe was about 10–11 seconds old, the end of inflation had flooded the universe with energy, a mix of matter and antimatter in a soup of high-energy radiation. But by this point, the photons in this superhot soup no longer had enough energy to create particles when they collided, so the universe became unbalanced.

No more electron-positron pairs were created, and no more quark-antiquark pairs were produced. There were still particles in the mix, both matter and antimatter, and these could still collide, be annihilated, and create photons. Very rapidly, all the electrons met up with positrons, and in an instant, they transformed into photons.

The same is true of the quark-antiquark pairs, rapidly being annihilated and turning into more photons. So once the universe passed this critical cooling point, all the matter had turned into radiation, and there should have been no particles left in the universe. The universe should have had no more matter. Yet it did. Where can we look to show the excess?

The cosmic microwave background is the leftover radiation from the early times in the universe. This radiation must have come from the particles and antiparticles being annihilated. If we count the number of photons in the cosmic microwave background, there are about ten billion for every one of the pieces of matter, the protons and neutrons found in the nuclei of all atoms.

This suggests that the universe was already unbalanced before the final annihilations took place—it was not, in fact, a perfectly even mix of matter and antimatter to cancel itself out. For every ten billion positrons in the universe, there must have been ten billion plus one electrons, so that after the final annihilations and creations, we were left with only electrons and photons in the universe. The same must have been true for the quarks and the antiquarks, with unbalanced annihilations and creations leaving only quarks and more photons behind.

Without this cosmic imperfection, we would not be here to wonder at all. It seems that everything has to leak, that there cannot be infinite precision to infinite decimal places, and perhaps not even to a billion decimal places. This, by the way, rules out the block universe of eternalism, and so I conclude that there is presentism as the mode of time. Neutrinos, too, may provide for a big leak for parity violation as an asymmetry, per some findings that I am not up to date with.

(more another time on the precarious start of our universe)

Quoting Philosophim

Well I logically prove that wrong in the linked post. Feel free to point out if its wrong and if Whitehead would be able to counter it.

Quoting Philosophim

Yes, it is logically possible that a God could exist, but we would need evidence of its existence.

I see you made an extensive argument against God, but I wouldn't call it a Proof in the mathematical sense. The conclusion is inherent in the assumptions. Different assumption, different conclusion.

Whitehead's evidence for God was logical, not empirical. Yet the evidence of causation is the empirical world itself, which begs the question of caused by what agent or action?. If you can prove that the universe is self existent, then there will be no need for a transcendent Creator. :smile:


An assumption is an unexamined belief: what we think without realizing we think it. Our inferences (also called conclusions) are often based on assumptions that we haven't thought about critically. A critical thinker, however, is attentive to these assumptions because they are sometimes incorrect or misguided.
https://library.louisville.edu/ekstrom/criticalthinking/assumptions

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Remember, our universe is just among the average ones that work for life. It just couldn’t form all the elements right away.

Perhaps, but your hypothetical "average" universes (multiverses?) --- in alternative space-time bubbles? --- are just as questionable & non-empirical as Whitehead's eternal deity. I simply prefer the parsimonious functional (causal) explanation, without multiplying entities beyond necessity. :smile:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks.

What "perfect" or "elegant" universe are you comparing our mediocre world to? From a human perspective, with a 100year lifetime, this natural & artificial habitat may not be as perfect as the Garden of Eden. Which, as you know, was spoiled by the introduction of Reason and FreeWill. What if the point of the creation was not to provide a habitat for plants & animals & hominids, but to program a world capable of evolving little gods, empowered by Reason & FreeWill? That would imply a different kind of Creator from the one described in the Bible*1.

Whitehead's deity is not the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob*2. His postulated (not revealed) God was not modeled on the tyrannical kings of antiquity, but on philosophical necessity, to explain how & why our still-evolving world came to be as it appears to our modern Science. His necessary Being is what Blaise Pascal disparagingly called the do-nothing "god of the philosophers", perhaps in reference to Spinoza's Nature God. Pascal's "perfect" & "elegant" God was the triune Catholic savior of a world defiled by human Reason & errant Will. For Whitehead, those attributes may be a feature, not a bug in the system.

Even though he wrote prior to the cosmological evidence for a Big Bang beginning, Whitehead intuited that our space-time world was not self-existent. Hence, some pre-bang Cause was necessary to explain the process of evolution from a mathematical Singularity to the material complexity we see today*3. He doesn't describe that Cause in personal or material terms, but in functional language. Although, his General Functional Cause could be hypothetically materialized as Multiverses, or Many Worlds, or Cyclic Cosmology, if you are into that kind of far-out speculative conjecture. :wink:


*1. Alfred North Whitehead's conception of God, central to his process philosophy, rejects divine omnipotence, viewing God as a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+concept+of+god

*2. For Whitehead, God is not necessarily tied to religion. Rather than springing primarily from religious faith, Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system. His system required that an order exist among possibilities, an order that allowed for novelty in the world and provided an aim to all entities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

*3. Whitehead's Cosmic Epochs :
Whitehead's philosophy included the notion of "cosmic epochs," which are finite, self-contained universes that process, become, and perish, potentially resembling the Big Bang to Big Crunch cycles in some multiverse models.
Dynamic Universe :
Whitehead's ideas about a dynamic, ever-changing universe align with the Big Bang theory, which posits that the universe began from a hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.
No Direct Connection :
It's important to note that Whitehead's work predates the development of modern cosmology and the Big Bang theory, so he wasn't directly aware of these scientific concepts.
Multiverse Theories :
Some interpretations of Whitehead's philosophy, particularly his concept of "cosmic epochs," find a rough correspondence with certain multiverse theories, such as the oscillationist model (a series of Big Bang to Big Crunch epochs).
Whitehead's Influence :
Despite the lack of a direct connection, Whitehead's philosophical framework, with its emphasis on process and becoming, has influenced discussions about the nature of reality and the universe, including its relationship to the Big Bang.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+big+bang

Quoting Gnomon

this natural & artificial habitat may not be as perfect as the Garden of Eden. Which, as you know, was spoiled by the introduction of Reason and FreeWill.

Far-out!

In the meanwhile, when the temperature dropped low enough in the first minute after the Big Bang, deuterium started to form. The temperature was low enough that the deuteron bond could not be broken. Right away, the most stable element, helium-4, started to be built up, and the race was on.

But it was over before it even started. The larger nuclei required more energy, and the temperature was dropping. What’s more, the number of neutrons available for further reactions was too low. In fact, after only a few minutes, all the neutrons created in the Big Bang ended up as helium-4 (with a few in the next heaviest element, lithium). The extra protons that were left over? Well, they were just hydrogen nuclei.

So, the universe had cooled enough for deuterium to survive the collisions and thus be used as the building blocks for the larger nuclei. Two deuterium nuclei could bind together to form the nucleus of a helium-4 atom. If a deuterium nucleus could snare a single proton, a helium-3 nucleus was formed. With that, we appeared to be on our way to building all the chemical elements. However, with the universe continuing to cool, the further hurdle became apparent.

Deuterium nuclei are positively charged and therefore repel one another. With the universe cooled, the motions of the deuterium nuclei slowed. They became sluggish. As they approached one another, the electromagnetic force built and forced them apart. They simply couldn’t get close enough for the strong force to reach out and bind them. Free protons were also forced away. After a few minutes in which some helium and lithium nuclei were formed, this nucleosynthesis appeared to be over. The pathway to forging heavier elements in the Big Bang was completely cut off. Cripes!

That seemed to be the end. Following the first few minutes after the Big Bang, the cosmological nuclear furnace dimmed as the universe continued to expand and cool. Leftover radiation also cooled, with the universe eventually fading into the blackness of a dark age.

The great slowness of the universe's creation so far here and ever plodding more in the tale, up to taking billions of years for life to come about seems to indicate no Divine involvement, leaving it up to my Great Poet ancestor, I guess.

I guide thee; I must carry thee;
I'm illumination beside thee.
Fear not the proof—
It’s the beauty of the truth.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The great slowness of the universe's creation so far here and ever plodding more in the tale, up to taking billions of years for life to come about seems to indicate no Divine involvement, leaving it up to my Great Poet ancestor, I guess.

To those trained in abstract & abstruse mathematics, instantaneous Inflation Theory may sound like a viable alternative to Creation myths. But for those not so trained, to go from an atom of matter to a proto-universe in a fraction of a millisecond sounds like faster-than-light Magic, shrouded in gobbledygook : "let there be stuff". Who wrote the love-story between nuclei, and where did the sexual energy come from? :joke:

For non-mathematical philosophers, IT seems to be a solution to a non-problem*1. Flatness & homogeneity are to be expected in a Whitehead universe, created with intention rather than accident. I agree that the slowness & gradualness of physical evolution seem to weigh against the Genesis account of light-speed Creation. But Whitehead's progressive Process has all the time in the world to reach its functional goal. What is Life, if not matter with time on its hands? Perhaps, his "Great Poet" deity had a sense of humor to allow for hominids who could spin fantastic stories about inflating deuterium balloons, who fall in love and live happily ever after. :wink:


*1. [i]Criticism of the inflation theory in cosmology centers on its lack of empirical testability, the vast number of possible models, and the potential for a multiverse, making it difficult to falsify or verify.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of the criticisms:

Lack of Testability and Falsifiability:
One major concern is that the theory relies on a hypothetical "inflaton field" with a potential energy curve that seems to be adjusted to fit available data, making it difficult to test or falsify.

The theory's proponents argue that inflation is a necessary explanation for the universe's flatness and homogeneity, but critics argue that these problems can be addressed by other models.
The concept of a multiverse, where inflation creates countless universes with varying properties, further complicates the issue of testability, as any outcome could be predicted.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=inflation+theory+criticism

Quoting Gnomon

Perhaps, his "Great Poet" deity had a sense of humor to allow for hominids who could spin fantastic stories about inflating deuterium balloons, who fall in love and live happily ever after.

The Great Poet demiurge was getting nervous. It had been dark for near 400,000 cosmic years now and he didn't have a candle to use to work on solving the 2x10**75 particle body problem to foresee all that could happen.

So, he decided to start small and work on the three-body problem; however, that was unsolvable.

Quoting Gnomon

I see you made an extensive argument against God,

Then you have not read or did not understand the post. God if one of infinite possibilities and my argument makes God plausible.

Quoting Gnomon

If you can prove that the universe is self existent, then there will be no need for a transcendent Creator. :smile:

I did, and you're correct. But it doesn't eliminate its plausibility of being. Feel free to go over and try poking holes in it, I've been looking forward to someone doing so. Otherwise what else can I conclude except that its right?

Quoting Gnomon

I agree that the slowness & gradualness of physical evolution seem to weigh against the Genesis account of light-speed Creation.

After about 380,000 years of cosmic time, the universe was cool enough and the electrons slow enough for them to stick to the atomic nuclei, although it wasn’t easy, which is why the universe would evolve only very slowly. In a moment, the universe became transparent.

Gravity had dominated, pulling matter together into lumps and clumps. Mass, in the form of the dark matter, the dominant mass in the universe that lurked in the background of the Big Bang, formed the seeds of the first galaxies. Some normal matter, as the first few atoms, came along for the ride, thank goodness. The gas cooled and collapsed, crushing down hard and driving temperatures at their cores to extreme values. The first stars were born, and the universe lit up and entered its modern age. At center stage, the world of the quantum was found to play a leading role, for without it, the stars would not shine.

The weak nuclear force can can change protons into neutrons! But the chances of this are very small. So if we can use tunneling to form a diproton, there is then a small chance that one of the protons will convert into a neutron, forming a stable deuteron before it can fall apart. The chances are very, very small, with only about one in every 10**28 (10 octillion) collisions between protons in the Sun producing deuterium. It’s a highly inefficient process, but it is the first step to creating heavier elements. The universe can only evolve slowly.

…

The reactions that create heavier elements allow us to live comfortably on Earth, but they took a lot of time since they are difficult to create. If it were too easy for these reactions to occur, the Sun would burn up its hydrogen fuel much more quickly, and we would not have the stable energy it has provided our planet for hundreds of millions of years.

The remainder of the atomic elements had to arrive, but they needed more energy, and the stars had to make them. The atomic elements through iron are made directly and the remainder become from supernovae or neutron star collisions or by some minor processes. There are more atomic elements but they are only made in our laboratories.

From atoms, molecules became, and from molecules cells became, and from cells life became, and from life brains became, and from brains consciousness became. This was all done on Earth, so there is no mystery about where and how it happened. Nature accomplished it. There was once no life or consciousness on Earth and now there is.

Quoting Gnomon

If you can [s]prove[/s][demonstrate] that the universe is self existent ...

How do we know that the universe (multiverse) is not "self existent"? :smirk:

Suppose the universe (multiverse) itself is, in fact, 'Spinoza-Einstein's God' ... :fire:
.
non-origin ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/972157

Möbius loop-like (eternal) process ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/955151

Quoting Gnomon

a Whitehead universe, created with intention rather than accident

Whitehead’s ageless deity had been floating around in the dark for a very long time after the Big Bang, but, no big deal, for before the Bang he’d been doing about the same for a past Eternity.

He didn’t have a universe of his own nor even a place to stay because there wasn’t anything yet, which was why he was making a universe, duh. He’d used up a lot of his own energy to make the Bang and was tired and so he had a good rest for 380,000 years.

He was happy to just have some particles, but now there was light, as a great milestone, so he lit up a smoke and looked around, but it was much too bright, so he made a pair of sunglasses from some quarks.

In the deity’s universe, the dark chest of wonders
Of Possibility and Probability opened up
In just the just right way:

Naked quarks spewed forth,
Among other things,
And boiled and brewed
In one of the steamiest broths
Ever cooked up.

They somehow simmered and combined
Into the ordinary matter
Of protons and neutrons.

Then quite independently,
By some unknown means,
Dark matter-energy arose as well,
In just the right mix, and, luckily, too,
Some very long filaments,
Called cosmic strings,
Formed and survived long enough
To be useful as collection agents,
Which were merely imperfections,
As in an unevenly freezing pond—
A kind of a cooling flaw.

None of these happenings were connected,
Except by Potential’s destiny,
So, ‘fortunately’,
The cosmic strings attracted,
By their gravity,
Both dark and ordinary matter,
Which in turn
Attracted even more of the same.

These pearls of embryonic galaxies arose
And were strung along these cosmic necklaces,
As can still be noted today.

So it was
That some almost incidental irregularities,
Frozen out as cosmic anchors,
Were latched onto by matter, both light and dark,
The proportionate portions of which were favorable,
The dark matter dwarfing our ordinary matter
For some reason of a happy ‘circumstance’.

‘Fortuitously’, as well,
Anti-matter, if there ever was any,
Did not fully cancel out the uncle-matter.

The universe-maker could not foresee any of this
In and of itself’s fundamental substance(s),
For if it could have
Then we’d only have the larger problem
Of how the foreseer could have been foreseen,
Ad infinitum…

Or it could have been like the ‘trying out’
Of all possibilities in superposition…
A brute force happening
Of every path gone down.

Whitehead's deity had to wait three billion more years for a third generation metal-rich sun-star to form along with its planets, another great milestone, granting him great relief. His zillions of previous Bang attempts hadn’t worked out, but he had finally put the right amount of energy into the latest Bang.

It was his goof that Earth had no oxygen at first….

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Whitehead's deity had to wait three billion more years for a third generation metal-rich sun-star to form along with its planets, another great milestone, granting him great relief. His zillions of previous Bang attempts hadn’t worked out, but he had finally put the right amount of energy into the latest Bang.

Compared to the instant Paradise of Genesis, the gradual evolution of Darwin seems to be fecklessly going nowhere slowly. But my evaluation of Evolutionary Creation is that the point is the Process (becoming), not any predestined Product (paradise). Consequently, I imagine the process more like a computer program that runs as an Application instead of a Solution. Hence, your personal sentient experience is just one thread of many, on the forum of Life. :wink:

PS___Time is not a thing, but a process, that is meaningless until a mind emerges to mark its increments.

Birthing a Cosmos :
Whitehead described our enforming? cosmos as a living organism. From our human perspective, the process of pro-creating a universe is what we call Evolution. Based on the notion of gestation, we can imagine the Big Bang Singularity as a seed, egg, or sperm. And the event itself as a quickening (first signs of life). So, our universe is portrayed as an embryonic fetus that must develop in the womb before being born into whatever comes next. Yet the inseminator at the inception of our world should not be portrayed as literally anthro-morphic, and it would be a mistake to attribute human psychological & emotional characteristics to a timeless, dis-embodied Intellect. However, if you think of the evolutionary Process as a computer Program, an appropriate metaphor might represent the system designer as a Programmer.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page44.html

Quoting Gnomon

Whitehead described our enforming? cosmos as a living organism.

More milestones:

Whitehead’s deity was still overjoyed, for his cosmic egg was going well enough, although that made him to come First as the Chicken, which answered an age-old important question.

The Earth’s atmosphere took two billion years to form, first from bacteria that exuded oxygen as a sort of unwanted poison, and then from plants that made oxygen. No creatures were around asking for an atmosphere rich in oxygen to be able to become, but an adaptation happened, another great kilometer-stone; however, life kept on getting wiped out, another goof.

Before mammals were plentiful on Earth, five near extinctions occurred, the last and worst one being the Permian extinction from asteroids or volcanic eruptions that wiped out the dinosaurs and 95% of all existing species, this making the opening for mammals to evolve much further from merely a shrew-like creature. Extinctions are not indicative of intelligent design, but it made for mammals to be able to come out of the forest and not get stepped on by the dinosaurs, who had been Kings of the Earth for 700,000 years.

As the third chimp, we potential humans were lucky to evolve our separate way when two of our chromosomes fused, making us incapable of producing offspring by mating with the regular chimps. We have 23 chromosomes and the chimps have 24.

So, good fortune was needed, as always, in this and many more instances, such as the Earth having to have the right conditions in the first place, out there among the huge waste elsewhere which wasn’t really such a waste after all, it providing so many chances for there to be a workable planet for life such as Earth.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

So, good fortune was needed, as always, in this and many more instances, such as the Earth having to have the right conditions in the first place, out there among the huge waste elsewhere which wasn’t really such a waste after all, it providing so many chances for there to be a workable planet for life such as Earth.

Yes. Who's to say that billions of solar cycles without Life (to process matter into viable entities) or Mind (to notice the passage of time) was a waste? Since randomness (chance ; fortune) seems necessary for evolution to work as Darwin observed, perhaps the de-selected options were useful as examples of un-fitness. And Quantum Randomess*1 seems to be intrinsic to the fundamental processes of Nature. Again, a feature (fitness function*2), not a bug.

As far as I know, nothing in Whitehead's Cosmology is contrary to established facts of science. What may be antithetical are some of his metaphysical interpretations, that contradict the philosophical assumptions of Materialism*3. Ancient Atomism/Materialism beliefs were undermined by Quantum Physics, which found not hard little balls of stuff, but bits of Energy and Fields where something happens : statistical processes (fortune). :smile:


*1. Quantum Randomness :
Unlike classical randomness, which can often be attributed to a lack of information or complexity, quantum randomness is an intrinsic property of the quantum world
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=quantum+randomness+meaning

*2. Evolutionary Programming :
The fitness function evaluates the quality of the potential solutions, assigning scores that direct the algorithm toward an optimal path. As the algorithm evolves through multiple generations, the fitness function influences which solutions survive, reproduce, and contribute to the next iterations.
https://medium.com/@sowmy3010/fitness-functions-in-genetic-algorithms-evaluating-solutions-1b998f38d6b9
Note --- Natural Selection is a fitness function.

*3. Process vs Objects :
Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

Quoting Gnomon

Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another.

And we thought that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer. (Babbage's machine was never built!)

The giant rocks and large mile stones that the deity had thrown at the Earth had worked out just fine, on the fifth try.

He then programmed RNA and DNA in the Fortran computer language.

Molecules, had ‘auspiciously’
Become able to replicate themselves, as DNA.

DNA remembers every step of our evolution—
And you can see this in ‘fast’ motion
When embryos form simply in the liquid womb,
Replicate, and then grow cells
That diversify into a human being
After going through some nonhuman stages.

The human embryo actually forms
Three different types of kidneys,
One after the other,
The first two discarded,
Resembling those of jawless fish
And reptiles, respectively,
Before our final kidney appears.

There is also a fetal coat of hair
That then greatly diminishes.

Thus four billion years compresses into
The nine months of pregnancy.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

And we thought that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer. (Babbage's machine was never built!)

Babbage (or was it the lovely lady Lovelace?) called his cranky (mechanical) computer a "difference engine" (a differential is a sign of change in a variable). But, long before that long-forgotten nomenclature, the original Programmer created a world that evolves by calculating differentials (where "1" = something, and "0" = nothing). By subconsciously imitating the creator, automobile makers devised a strange kind of gear (the differential) that allows wheels to rotate at different rates as the car goes around a curve. Today, we have Artificial Intelligence that computes evolutionary systems via either floating point differentials (vectors) or genetic algorithms (a search heuristic inspired by natural selection). So, human programmers continue to emulate the First Programmer. :nerd:


Religion and Science : by Alfred North Whitehead
[i]Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. . . . .
My second reason for the modern fading of interest involves the ultimate question of what we mean by religion. Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God. The presentation of God as an all-powerful arbitrary tyrant behind the unknown forces of nature awakens every modern instinct of critical reaction.[/i]
https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/theology-philosophy/alfred-north-whitehead/


DO THE NEW QUANTUM COMPUTERS REMIND YOU OF THE OLD DIFFERENCE ENGINE?

Quoting Gnomon

Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead was bald, thus his surname. About 'God', who he said he should. have left out, he says "Blah, blah, blah."

The Block Universe is a quantum computer, doing everything all at once; then it plays out like a movie.

Is Whitehead’s deity’s Earth doomed?

There was a mistake in human nature: it contained a beast, but at least that gave it a zest for life.

Enrico Fermi had placed tin foil over his instruments in 1938 and so he did not discover nuclear fission, which would have put Germany ahead of the game in WW II. During the war, Germany put Heisenberg in charge of the nuclear effort to produce an atomic bomb. One of the early labs mysteriously caught fire and burned down.

Heisenberg later travelled to see his old friend and mentor, Neils Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and gave Bohr a drawing the German effort. England eventually got Bohr out of Denmark and soon flew him to Los Alamos. Upon showing the drawing to Oppenheimer and others, they concluded that the Germans were on the completely wrong track, which was a great relief.
…

Currently… droughts, fires, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, nuclear threats, and exponential global warming…

So, here we are, facing obliteration. We will have to colonize space in this century. If not, well, if there can be one Earth then there can be another.


IN THE MEADOWS OF HEAVEN

We of the highest consciousness ever known
And the most versatile form that’s been grown
Reside as consequent beings in this Earthly realm,
Possibly the most fortuitous creatures
That the universe has ever wrought.

Indeed,
We are this universe come to life—
Necessarily from a long line
Of ‘fortunate accidents’.

Looking back,
We already know ahead of time
That we will discover
The many ‘rare happenings’
That made us possible.

Our higher consciousness
Was the crowning glory;
We had won the human race—
The be all and end all; the grand prize
Of the universal lottery.

So there is nothing more,
Aside from our own progress
To be and learn.

So then hail and good fortune,
Fine fellows and ladies,
And welcome all of you
To the Meadows of Heaven—
The highest point of all being,
Although we are surely
Still in our infancy.

The further design
And the role of mankind
Is now in our hands.

We were borne here upon the shoulders
Of so many who have long since come and gone,
All of them advancing the cause,
Over eons of wiles—so here we are.

Fare thee always well, fine friends,
For we are some of
The luckiest sons and daughters of being
In a rare universe well done.

Celebrate; live; be,
For everyone dies,
But not everyone lives.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

So, here we are, facing obliteration. We will have to colonize space in this century. If not, well, if there can be one Earth then there can be another. . . . .
We are this universe come to life—
Necessarily from a long line
Of ‘fortunate accidents’

Earth may be facing obliteration because its upstart little gods have been progressively successful in taking control over paternal Nature, who sired them. As flourishing families grow, despite setbacks, they have to add-on to the cabin, until it becomes a mansion.

So, the local success of artificial Culture could be exported to other worlds, such as Mars, via TerraForming. Our ambitious little-god-minds have historically expanded their range to inhabit undeveloped regions of the boundless universe. Mars-bound Musk is nothing if not aspiring, and successful, despite stumbling blocks and exploding rockets, and dismantled federal departments.

The poetry of the world is a record of ups & downs, ascensions & declinations, as experienced by its sentient creatures. And the immanent end of the world has been foretold many times in the last 2500 years. Yet, we humans no longer wait for fortunate accidents to evolve the world. We take the bit in mouth, and go our own way ; getting back up when we stumble. As Kurzweil arrogantly announced : "the singularity is near, when humans transcend biology!". If we don't annihilate our organic selves first. :wink:


Alfred North Whitehead's conception of God, central to his process philosophy, rejects divine omnipotence, viewing God as a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+concept+of+god

Throughout history, various individuals and groups have made predictions about the end of the world, often based on religious or cultural interpretations, including the Mayans, and others who predicted the end of the world in 2012.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=end+of+world+predictions

Quoting Gnomon

a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it.

Musicals celebrating the world of the Great Poet Artist:



For some without subtitles:

The Trio of Understanding

Like orchestras that weave their music bright,
From strings of past and present and delight,
In future notes that hover just ahead—
Our minds compose their symphonies of sight.

The senses drink the moment’s flowing wine,
While memory’s cellars store each vintage fine,
And fancy spreads its wings to catch the breeze
Of possibilities that might combine.

[hide="Reveal"]What echoes linger in the chambers deep,
Where yesterday’s sweet songs still softly sleep?
What present bells ring clear in morning air?
What future chimes does hope in waiting keep?

The now flows swift between what was and might,
Like rivers fed by streams of past delight,
While dreams cast forward like the morning sun
To paint tomorrow’s canvas burning bright.

Three sisters weave the tapestry of mind:
One reads the patterns time has left behind,
One threads the needle of the present hour,
One spins the gold of what we hope to find.

In wisdom’s garden, three flowers grow:
The pressed rose of the past we used to know,
The blooming lily of the present day,
The budding promise of tomorrow's show.

Without the past to give the present weight,
Without the now to make tomorrow great,
Without the dream of what is yet to be—
Each faculty alone stands incomplete.

So let them dance, these powers of the soul,
Let memory and sense make fancy whole,
For in their triple-braided harmony
Lives wisdom that transcends each single role.

The sweetest music needs all strings to play,
The brightest rainbow needs each colored ray,
And consciousness requires its triple light
To illuminate our brief and wondrous way.

My Thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore…

Now Summer’s heat burns fierce upon the plain,
And wisdoms lost return to me again;
The Cup that once I vowed to cast aside
Beckons with ruby depths of sweet disdain.

The Autumn winds may whisper of regret,
And Winter’s frost may cause the eyes to wet,
But when the Vine blooms fresh in Spring once more,
What sage remembers promises to forget?

The Tavern calls with sweeter voice than Prayer,
The Wine-cup glimmers like a jewel rare;
What use are all these vows of yesterday
When today’s sun reveals the world so fair?

The Sages warn of morning’s bitter rue,
But evening’s pleasures paint the sky anew;
Let those who will count beads and mumble psalms—
Tonight the stars are dancing, and the dew.

The rose’s sweet scent a thorn-prick’s worth…

For pleasure’s price in pain we gladly pay,
As night must follow even brightest day;
The sweetest fruit grows highest on the branch—
What worth the feast that costs us no dismay?

The desert sun burns fierce, yet pilgrims still
Press on to Mecca with unshaken will;
So too the lover bears love’s burning drought,
For one cool draught his thirsting heart to fill.

Each precious thing exacts its proper toll—
The pearl its dive, the flame its blinded moth;
What treasure gained without some pain to pay?
What wisdom earned that did not pierce the soul?

The nightingale who sings of love’s sweet pain
Would scorn a garden free of thorny vine;
For in this world of mingled joy and grief,
The price we pay makes sweet our hard-won gain.[/hide]

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Is Whitehead’s deity’s Earth doomed?

Whitehead's deity is not limited to Earth. On this forum, we are concerned about the fate of Earth because that is where the philosophical observers live. His "deity" is a cosmic principle, like Plato's Form & First Cause and Aristotle's Prime Mover. As such, they are not directly affected by our little local problems. But, since we humans are the representatives of deity on Earth, if our little corner of Paradise is "doomed" it reflects badly on the Cosmic Cause. Sadly, we can't expect a second coming of a savior to whisk us away to Heaven or Mars, whichever is properly terraformed.

Whitehead referred to his God as a "principle of concretion", coalescence, coming together. So, I'm wondering if it could be the same cohesive principle that Jan Smuts called "Holism", as the organizing progressive principle of Evolution, and may also be the cause of quantum Entanglement. Perhaps also what physicist David Bohm called "Wholeness and the Implicate Order". They all viewed the Earth as one component of a cosmic system, in which, as Benjamin Franklin noted after the English army invaded the colonies : "we either hang together or we hang separately". :worry:


In Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, the deity is a "principle of concretion," a force that transforms potential into actuality {CAUSATION}, offering guidance through persuasive power, and is both independent of and dependent on the world
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+deity
Note --- my bracket

Wholeness and Holism :
This post is my attempt to reconcile David Bohm’s quantum physics explanation of Wholeness (entanglement) with Jan Smuts’ notion of Holism (organisms) in Evolution. I’m much more familiar with the latter than the former. But they seem to be talking about the same kinds of mysterious forces & processes in Nature. In Biology, something seems to be missing in Darwin’s theory, to explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention. In sub-atomic Physics, the missing “force” is whatever binds isolated particles into entangled pairs that have correlated properties, and mutually respond to changes without any apparent exchanges of information or energy. The pairs seem to act as a single whole object, and are interdependent. For Evolution, the missing “force” is whatever combines bits of inert matter into living and thinking organisms. In both cases, the material substrate is physically observable (explicit), but the immaterial system is only rationally inferable (implicit).
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page37.html

Quoting Gnomon

explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention

Isn't it then a larger question of how the Divine Life & Mind could be so without a regress to HIGHER and GREATER, etc? We only see the polar opposite of the smaller and smaller as a basis.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention — Gnomon
Isn't it then a larger question of how the Divine Life & Mind could be so without a regress to HIGHER and GREATER, etc? We only see the polar opposite of the smaller and smaller as a basis.

I don't understand the question. Could you re-word?

Regarding divine intervention, I suppose you are thinking of Miracles that bypass Natural Laws. But Whitehead's Process does not require miracles . . . . unless you think transforming Atoms into Ideas over billions of years is a miracle. The evolutionary Process is a result of combining causal Energy with limiting Laws and statistical randomizing to produce novel results.

My amateur thesis*1 explains the ancient Cartesian duality of spiritual Mind vs material Body in modern natural scientific terms. My explanation is that both manifestations (mental & material) are different forms of the same essential substance*2 : the power to enform. Today, we call the Mind stuff "Information". But scientists have discovered that abstract Information (e.g. 1s & 0s) can be transformed into Energy (change) and Matter (molecules). { links upon request }

Plato's Eternal Form is formless Potential, which can be actualized into the things we know in the space-time Real world via our senses, tuned by evolution to detect energy in various forms. No "divine intervention" required, except in the form of gradually-transforming natural Evolution over billions of years. The Enformationism thesis is an introduction to that notion, which is expanded in subsequent blog posts. :smile:

*1. Evolution of the Enformationism concept :
From Form to Energy to Matter to Mind to Self.
One thing that all of these examples of leading-edge science have in common is a prominent role for Information. Not the mundane stuff you get on Google, but the essential stuff as defined by Claude Shannon. In his analysis of communication, he saw that data flows in a manner similar to electricity in wires. Meaningful information is equivalent to potent Energy as opposed to depleted Entropy. Yet in a larger context, Information also has the ability to give meaningful or useful or valuable form or shape to some raw, unformed material. Information is full of potential as opposed to the emptiness of Entropy. Inspired by that potent metaphor, along with some insights from Quantum Theory, I have concluded that Energy actually consists of Elemental Information. On the most basic levels, such as laws of physics, that invisible “in-formation” is equivalent to the numerical relationships we call mathematics. According to my developing thesis of Enformationism [see Note 1], as we zoom our perspective from micro (smallest) to macro (human scale) to cosmic (largest), the information we find becomes more and more condensed, compressed, and solid, and then it begins to fade away back into the same ethereal stuff it began from. This is an essential part of the cycle of evolution: the Ourobouros (snake biting tail) information cycle---what goes around, comes around. In other words, evolution begins and ends as information. In the process, this proto-energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only changes form–-like Proteus, the shape-shifting sea-god of the ancient Greeks.
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page5.html

*2. In Aristotle's philosophy, substance refers to the fundamental, independent entities that exist, while essence is what makes a substance what it is, its defining characteristics or "nature"
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+essence+and+substance

Quoting Gnomon

Could you re-word?

How is it that a Great Programmer is sitting around? Wouldn't he need a zillion times more explaining than humans getting explained through him?

Quoting PoeticUniverse

explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention — Gnomon
Isn't it then a larger question of how the Divine Life & Mind could be so without a regress to HIGHER and GREATER, etc? We only see the polar opposite of the smaller and smaller as a basis.

Coincidentally, after writing the post above, I went back to reading a novel on Kindle : The Magic Mountain. There's no supernatural magic in the story, but the author writes in a rambling & erudite style that I call "poetic prose". It's set at a TB sanitarium in the Swiss alps in the 1920s, just prior to WWI. {around the time Whitehead was writing his Process. } This was before DNA (genetic information) was discovered. So, the emergence of life from non-life was a mystery. . . . and it still is.

The young patient, inspired by a conversation with the head doctor, begins to read a book about Anatomy and Genetics. The passage below is a sort of inner dialog as he reads. Today, we still haven't found the "element" that fills the gap between Life & Non-life. Yet, my thesis postulates that the gap-filler is not a physical particle, but the mathematical, meaningful & causal relationships we call Information and Energy. The "units" are 1s and 0s, something & nothing, that together add-up to everything (all possible forms). It's not magic, but an evolutionary continuum, combining concepts of Science and Philosophy (abiogenesis). :nerd:


"As long as one spoke of living units, one could not correctly speak of elementary units, for the concept of unity carried with it in perpetuity the concept of subordinated, upbuilding unity; and there was no such thing as elementary life, in the sense of something that was already life, and yet elementary. And still, though without logical existence, something of the kind must be eventually the case; for it was not possible to brush aside like that the idea of the original procreation, the rise of life out of what was not life. That gap which in exterior nature we vainly sought to close, that between living and dead matter, had its counterpart in nature’s organic existence, and must somehow either be closed up or bridged over. Soon or late, division must yield “units” which, even though in composition, were not organized, and which mediated between life and absence of life; molecular groups, which represented the transition between vitalized organization and mere chemistry. But then, arrived at the molecule, one stood on the brink of another abyss, which yawned yet more mysteriously than that between organic and inorganic nature: the gulf between the material and the immaterial."
The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, 1924

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Could you re-word? — Gnomon
How is it that a Great Programmer is sitting around? Wouldn't he need a zillion times more explaining than humans getting explained through him?

You think the Programmer is "sitting around" doing nothing? You may be thinking of Jehovah, who created paradise in six days, and then on Sunday went out to play golf. Whitehead's God never takes a day off; creating is what S/he does 24/7/365.

The Programmer doesn't explain, S/he creates, and It's up to us thinking beings to interpret the meaning of the doing. Metaphorically, the world itself is the Bible, and Science writes the book, chapter & verse of the Revelation. You want an explanation? Do it yourself. You won't be saved by faith in an invisible deity, or by kow-towing, or by sacrificing animals ; but you might get some philosophical satisfaction : you have a (minor) role in the evolution of a cosmos.

But, Whitehead's "God", and my "Programmer", are not just "sitting around" on golden thrones watching the game of Life. They get their hands dirty by continually creating a cosmos via the incremental process of Evolution. The God of the Process is both Immanent (what you see) and Transcendent (what you infer), as is my Programmer.

The program is a set of ideas, from the mind of the programmer, that govern the process of Evolution from a Singularity, to a quark-gluon Plasma, then to atoms & molecules & elements of matter, then on to vast systems of stars, and eventually to living & thinking lumps of matter on a single Blue Planet. And the beat goes on. . . . . But this story puts the Paradise at the end of the Process : its output. I don't know what The End might be. Perhaps the Process is the reason for doing the program.

If you are still imagining Whitehead's God as an old guy with a long white beard, your puzzled question might make sense, to you. But to me, it misses the point of a perpetual Process, instead of a space-time Thing. Try thinking of Lao Tse's Tao instead. Then re-phrase your question. :wink:


Alfred North Whitehead's "process and reality" philosophy views the universe as a dynamic, evolving web of interconnected processes, emphasizing the importance of becoming and change over static existence, with each event, or "actual occasion," contributing to the ongoing creative process of the universe.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+process+evolution

Quoting Gnomon

Lao Tse's Tao

On the Eternal Tao and Its Manifestations

The Foundation

Let us realize that what is Eternal
Stands as the bedrock of all that appears,
The permanent presence beneath every change,
Unchanging through all of time’s gathering years.

What truly exists cannot fade or dissolve,
Cannot be created or suffer decay;
The Eternal simply and perfectly Is,
While temporary forms drift like clouds away.

The Manifestation

Through endless transmutation’s flowing dance,
The Eternal dons ten thousand changing forms,
Like one great ocean lifting countless waves,
Or single sky spawning infinite storms.

Each temporal thing that rises from its depths
Bears witness to that which forever stays,
A momentary expression of the whole,
A fleeting actor in eternal plays.

The Paradox

How strange that what seems most solid and real—
The mountains, the stars, our own flesh and bone—
Are but the ripples on timeless seas,
While the unchanging source remains unknown.

Yet in each mote of cosmic dust there dwells
The fullness of that which can never die,
As every drop contains the entire sea,
And each moment holds eternity’s sky.

The Understanding

The wise ones tell us: look beneath the flux
Of birth and death, of pleasure and of pain,
To find that which has never come or gone,
The deathless presence that does e’er remain.

For though all forms must shift and change and flow,
Their essence rests in that which cannot move,
The changeless witness to all changing things,
The ground of being that all forms must prove.

The Perspective

From highest heaven to the deepest seas,
From quantum foam to galactic expanse,
All manifestation’s endless pageantry
Emerges from the Eternal’s timeless dance.

What seems to perish never truly dies,
What seems to birth was never truly born;
Forms merely shift like waves upon the deep,
While that which Is continues without morn.

The Recognition

To know this truth is not to turn away
From life’s rich play of shadow and of light,
But to perceive within each passing show
The presence of the Infinite’s delight.

For in the dance of atom and of star,
Of thought and feeling, birth and final breath,
We glimpse the face of that which always Is,
Beyond all bounds of life and time and death.

The Living

Thus may we walk through time’s swift-flowing stream,
Aware of both the wave and water’s truth:
The forms that pass, the presence that remains,
The aged wisdom and eternal youth.

Each moment precious in its swift-winged flight,
Yet held within that which can never fade;
Each change a window to unchanging light,
Each temporal thing of timeless essence made.

The Synthesis

Let us then cherish every passing day,
While resting in the truth that cannot pass;
Dance with the waves while knowing we are sea,
Be both the changing leaves and changeless mass.

For this is wisdom’s deepest, sweetest song:
That in the heart of all that seems to flee,
There dwells that which has never left its place—
The one still point of all eternity.

The Resolution

The Eternal remains forever what it is,
Though dressed in time’s kaleidoscopic show;
The permanent wears impermanence like robes,
Through which its timeless radiance may flow.

And we who walk in bodies made of time
Carry within the spark of timeless fire,
Both wave and ocean, both the dance and still,
Both changing form and changeless heart’s desire.

Quoting Gnomon

The program is a set of ideas, from the mind of the programmer, that govern the process of Evolution from a Singularity, to a quark-gluon Plasma, then to atoms & molecules & elements of matter, then on to vast systems of stars, and eventually to living & thinking lumps of matter on a single Blue Planet.

Theistic Evolution?

Actually, Poseidon causes plate tectonics, and Ra initiates nuclear fusion in the sun.

Just joking, for yet no one today, except Pat Robertson types, appeals to these Gods to explain earthquakes or solar fusion; yet, it is proposed that a higher realm called God directs these things, as well as all nature and especially the mind of the brain (via a soul). These thoughts are from the mythic ages, and are somewhat still here today.

Some would go to the extremes of throwing all of science out the window as ‘dogma’; yet, their computers, devices, and appliances run pretty well on this ‘dogma’.

Let us, then, deal with the case that evolution indeed happens and that God directs it, for that must become the fallback ID position. For starters, evolution is not goal-oriented, so we can discard the (biological teleological) argument for the existence of God, which claims that postulating God is necessary to account for purposiveness in nature. Evolution is a blind watchmaker.

To review and elaborate more, though, theistic evolution is the theological view that God creates new species through evolution. The advocates like to reserve a special place for humans, separate from the animals, but this is not a scientifically justifiable stance, given the many evolutionary predecessors of human beings. So, animals are ‘brutalized’ and humans humanized to make the alleged gap as big as possible: humans are characterized as the only creatures with reason, empathy, a rich emotional life, altruism, culture, identity, and language. Yet all these characteristics have been observed to a greater or lesser extent in the animals, especially in other primates. The history of the universe has thus been an unfolding of purely naturalistic processes.

The ‘God hypothesis’ provides no additional explanatory value. It is but a refuge of ignorance. One who feels the need to postulate a divine cause is left with the question of what caused God to exist!

[hide="Reveal"]Perhaps God does not need a cause, they say; but then why think that the universe/stuff needs one? So, it adds nothing.

Evolution is an immensely slow, wasteful, pitiless, and cruel process, hardly the most elegant process of creation open to a goal-oriented, omnipotent, intelligent, and benevolent God. If humanity is the final goal of creation, whence the 3,500,000,000! years since the origin of life, or the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang? What is the point of this immense amount of time if human beings and their world are the pinnacle of the Almighty’s creation?

Does God cause mutations to direct evolution? Well, they sure seem all over the place, plus a lot are bad and many are neutral.

The vast majority of mutations are selectively neutral or negative with regard to the evolution and survival of homo sapiens, and, thus, their evolution is wasteful if measured against the goal of producing human beings. Such a wasteful process is hardly consonant with a goal-oriented, omnipotent, and omniscient God.

The case against theistic evolution continues…

The honorable Graybeard presiding, Austin P. Torney continuing as lawyer for the prosecution (since his name contains the letters “attorney”)…

I call the recent family tree to the witness stand; but, wait, oh my God, there are some others, too, many of them extinct!

The testimony: There is no progressive trend in evolution toward the development of human beings; evolution can be seen as a huge tree with many branching points, not a direct line to humans; we are just a not-yet-extinct part of one of the very many branches of the enormous tree of life.

I now call upon the extinct.

Testimony: What was the point of all these extinct animals, if the goal of creation is man and his surrounding nature? To what purpose were the dinosaurs? What was the point of the trilobites? These groups of animals did not even contribute to the origin of humans.

The development of life has been interrupted by innumerable extinctions, some with so many different plant and animal species dying out in the same time period that they have been called mass extinctions.

Judge Graybeard, having worked for ten minutes straight now, calls a recess for a long lunch…

The trial resumes.

We see evolution differently then, Austin, as the process of evolution seems most intent on the continuation of ‘life forms’, though I will agree that it does not seem to have a vested interest in which forms are successful in relation to which others.

True, no vested interest, those who were in a position to ‘adapt’ and survive, were not necessarily ‘nice’ (could even be ‘mean’).

Still, I tend to wonder why all species of my experience offer a great struggle to survive, when the alternative of doing nothing is by far the easier choice?

Survival is the brain’s objective, thus often even thinking its way into the afterlife.

Break time. …

The theistic evolution trial resumes…

Judge Graybeard looks half-asleep, but seems to be listening with one ear.

God is outside of time and takes a long time to fiddle with evolution.

The prosecution answers and continues: It has been suggested that God’s mindset is very slow compared to the ‘speedy’ time of the operation of the universe, and thus I submit that slow God would not have been alert or responsive enough to direct evolution through mutation.

The defense objected, stating that they would have to check with their client on this, the judge asking how long would this would take, noting that it took over 200 years for a response to Haiti’s pact with the Devil.

Oh, about a million years. OK, we’ll reconvene…

Wait! We can’t wait that long… So I’ll allow the claim that God says that he directs mutations. Let the record show both opinions.

Thank you, judge, for our theory can adapt to any and all turns of events.

The trial droned on…

Testimony: Why would God create complete ecosystems only to have them virtually annihilated, so that entirely different ecosystems would temporarily emerge in their place, only to meet the same fate, over and over again? Had the asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago missed the Earth, it’s likely that our little branch on the tree of life would never have developed, since it was the end of dinosaur dominance made it possible for our small mammal ancestors to flourish; how are such chance contingencies in the history of life compatible with the alleged providence of a Creator?

Graybeard, the judge, was fully awake now and was carving something out of a large block of wood.

Worse still, consider the vast amount of suffering needed to secure our existence through natural selection; the environment “selects” those organisms best adapted to it not the most even-tempered ones.

Consequently, numerous predatory creatures have evolved which regularly inflict suffering on prey and host animals. The screw-worm fly (Cochliomyia hominivorax), for instance, lays its eggs in the wounds or eyes of mammals (including humans), causing any wounds to widen when the eggs hatch and the larva eat the surrounding tissue. This attracts more congeners, further widening the wounds. Untreated, such parasitism often leads to a gruesome death. Or consider the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes autoimmune deficiency syndrome (AIDS); is a great evolutionary success one which creates immense suffering among human beings?

It was now getting near 3 PM, the judge announcing, “That’s it for today; let’s meet again sometime after my vacation. …

The mind is like a man in a rowboat.

A few days ago there were 50-foot waves on the north shore of Oahu. Some ants looking like people surfed on them or at least the wave remnants, enjoying the ecstasy, and then were ground up into the sand—the agony; a guy in a rowboat fished them out.

I can see a tree with my physical eye because that tree is embodied in matter, but, to conceptualize that tree my mind goes into universal concepts of meaning which have never taken embodiment in matter, for they do not require physical presence before my eye. So, you see, concepts are not acts of a bodily organ such as the brain or they would exist in matter; conceptual thought is an immaterial power which we use to form concepts of meaning. Utilizing that power does not require any physical sense or organs.

Judge: immaterial, since the brain is an organ.
…

The theistic evolution case resumes:

Attorney: I’d like to address the tree.

Judge: Proceed.

Attorney: Hello tree.

Judge: Ha-ha.

Attorney: The tree, as out there, is a bunch of waves, the photons carrying the ‘visuals’, the air-vibrations passing on the ‘sounds’, the molecules transmitting ‘odour’ by their shapes, etc. I use quotes to show that these transformations are fully made later on by the brain; if there is no brain around, then there are just the waves emanating.

While our senses are absolutely in direct contact with the waves/particles that are out there, we don’t have awareness at that level, plus, the direct jumble of waves all interfering with each other might not reveal anything much right off the bat. So, the brain proceeds to process the information with its many modules and subsystems through higher and higher levels, finding edges, intensity, color, and distance for vision, detecting molecules shapes for smell, interpreting air waves as sound, etc., as often much more detailed elsewhere, until the tree is seen, smelled, heard, and so forth as the final perception of the tree with its qualities within the head.

There is no dividing line where the brain says “I can do no more” and hands it off to some nonphysical realm, for it has already done it all. This includes the brain’s memory coming along and knowing what a tree is as a whole and its parts, associations arising, such as the old tree house or that leaves have chlorophyll and fall in the autumn, etc., and then more associations upon those associations.

The brain is the lifeboat navigating and re-cognizing the waves of reality, painting a useful face upon the waters. All is ever in the brain as a representation, the tree never being directly known as matter, not even in the first place.

Judge: OK, back to evolution.

Testimony: Immense suffering, like wasteful “trial and error,” is not incidental, but is inherent to the process of evolution. And it does not sit well with the notion that evolution has been set up or directed by a loving God. The theistic retort that “God moves in mysterious ways” goes well beyond the evidence from evolutionary biology, not to mention that it is a kind of excuse for very poor, sometimes seemingly near insane, ways of accomplishing things.

There is a far simpler and elegant explanation for that evidence: there is no divine will to grope at in the dark, just the indifferent, pitiless, and naturalistic forces of evolution. Since evolution is a slow, wasteful, and brutal process, prima facie it is not the way in which a goal-oriented, omnipotent, omniscient, and loving God would choose to create the world. Thus a naturalistic explanation for the origin of all species, including homo sapiens, is more plausible than a theistic one.

Judge: nap time.[/hide]

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Let us realize that what is Eternal
Stands as the bedrock of all that appears,
The permanent presence beneath every change,
Unchanging through all of time’s gathering years.

What truly exists cannot fade or dissolve,
Cannot be created or suffer decay;
The Eternal simply and perfectly Is,
While temporary forms drift like clouds away.

You got it! The fundamental fact of our evolving world is Change, which is sometimes good, but also can be bad. As Heraclitus noted : Panta Rhei, "everything flows, nothing abides". But philosophers are on the lookout for something stable, something fundamental ; a foundation upon which Causation can move the world in a positive direction. But what is positive, except that which aligns with the Will (Tao) of the uncaused Cause of temporal flow?

All philosophies & religions have postulated some First Cause or Prime Mover that stands outside the decaying reality that we see & touch with our limited sense organs in our animal bodies. We only know of that which "truly exists" by using our god-like talent for logical reasoning. We can't know that it is, in the sense of temporal existence, but we can know that it logically must be, in the sense of Necessity, of Ontology, of absolute eternal Being. :smile:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

For this is wisdom’s deepest, sweetest song:
That in the heart of all that seems to flee,
There dwells that which has never left its place—
The one still point of all eternity.

Lovers of Wisdom are called Philosophers. They know that which cannot be seen : Ideal concepts. But they also have the wit to avoid placing their Faith in the heart's desire, if the Ideal is in conflict with the Real. Ancient mothers reluctantly gave their babies to fiery Moloch in exchange for temporal rewards. But when those blessings, promised by servile priests, do not come to pass, wise women will learn that idols of gold are merely tools for political domination. Only the unseen unchurched Nature god has the innate power of flourishing. The rock from which the water of Life flows. The rock abides, but we philosophers must go with the flow. :grin:
.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

How is it that a Great Programmer is sitting around? Wouldn't he need a zillion times more explaining than humans getting explained through him?

In a previous post, I said "The God of the Process is both Immanent (what you see) and Transcendent (what you infer), as is my Programmer." To clarify, I'll explain further : the Transcendent aspect of the Programmer is Plato's eternal principle of Form (an infinite pool of possibility : Potential), and the Immanent aspect is what I call EnFormAction (causal Energy) and Mind (mental information). :nerd:


Quoting PoeticUniverse

The ‘God hypothesis’ provides no additional explanatory value. It is but a refuge of ignorance. One who feels the need to postulate a divine cause is left with the question of what caused God to exist!

OK. What caused the Big Bang to exist as the point of origin for our space-time cosmos? That Something from Nothing hypothesis "provides no additional explanatory value", and Multiverse hypotheses treat the BB as a minor speed-bump, magically extending the timeline into the infinite past. Is that conjecture merely a "refuge of ignorance"? Where's the evidence?

The unprecedented BB theory is the best Materialistic Science has to offer, because that discipline pragmatically limits its search for knowledge to what we humans can manipulate physically. Yet, if the question of ultimate causation is valid, why not let the impractical (theoretical) philosophers have a crack at it? Causation is not something we can see or touch ; we infer it via Reason & Imagination, which can pass through solid barriers, just like quantum tunneling*1. Is QT a miracle, preached by Pat Robertson, or an inference by theoretical physicists? Mechanism & Materialism can explain a lot, but not the emergence of Life & Mind from non-life & mindlessness.

The Eternal Something postulation (God or Multiverse) at least goes one step farther back beyond the current stumbling block of "Bang! Let there be Momentum". So, what makes nothingness go Boom? The Multiverse miracle is a tower of turtles explanation. But the God Hypothesis is a Causal explanation, based on a talent that makes humans more creative than animals : future-directed Intention. The BB event was an impetus of momentum similar to the kind of causation that makes a rack of billiard balls explode across the table, then into the designated pockets : the Intention of the pool-shooter. I suppose, a preference for meaningless Multiverse over Purposeful Creation depends on your understanding of the world as we know it : random meandering vs an evolutionary Process. :cool:


*1. Quantum Tunneling :
In physics, quantum tunnelling, barrier penetration, or simply tunnelling is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which an object such as an electron or atom passes through a potential energy barrier that, according to classical mechanics, should not be passable due to the object not having sufficient energy to pass or ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling

THE MULTIVERSE CONJECTURE

Quoting Gnomon

All philosophies & religions have postulated some First Cause or Prime Mover ...

False (again). :roll:

Quoting Gnomon

But the God Hypothesis is a [s]Causal[/s] explanation

Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo no "first cause"; spacetimes (nonrandom event-patterns (e.g. universes)) do emerge rarely as it's reasonable to expect (re: law of very large numbers ... of random events), etc. A god-fairytale (e.g. "prime mover", "enformer / programmer", etc) is not needed and does not explain anything – even in principle; it just begs the question as a woo-of-the-gaps appeal to ignorance. Physical cosmogeny only circumstantially suggests stages of spacetime development not "the ultimate origin of" anything. As many others besides myself have pointed out for years, your scientistic reduction of metaphysics, Gnomon, amounts to a risibly dogmatic pseudo-theology (on par with astrology & alchemy). Do yourself (us) a favor and read God: The Failed Hypothesis by physicist and philosopher Victor Stenger.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/God:_The_Failed_Hypothesis :fire:

Quoting Gnomon

What caused the Big Bang to exist as the point of origin for our space-time cosmos? That Something from Nothing hypothesis

There cannot be a 'Nothing' for one, and two, if someone still wants a 'Nothing' that changes into a Something, as a event in time, this cannot be, either, for 'Nothing' has no time, no anything, and again, 'it' doesn't have an it. Those ex nihlilo believers don't get it or 'it'.

So, yes we can show that the Basis of All has to be eternal, as permanent. Logically, what is never made can't have parts; it is unmakable and unbreakable, and thus very tiny. All the temporaries are made of it, as arrangements of it, and it is such as the quantum fields. Empirically, we see that the basis is minuscule, as well as the elementaries that it produces.

Quoting Gnomon

So, what makes nothingness go Boom?

No 'Nothingness'! What goes Boom is the stuff-effect from the cause before the Bang, but not from the Great Pool Player, for complexities, like us, come later, not earlier, and so cannot be the Basis.

Can't ever have something greater being responsible for the lesser, etc.

''God' is a stance from us having fathers; Can't have Fathers of fathers all the way down.

Read Stenger and Dawkings and 180 Proof and Poetic Universe!

PS: 'Nothing' cannot even be meant.

Quoting Gnomon

The God of the Process is both Immanent (what you see) and Transcendent (what you infer), as is my Programmer.

Entertainment break:

@Gnomon
Quoting PoeticUniverse

Read Stenger and [s]Dawkings[/s][Hawking] and 180 Proof and Poetic Universe!

:cool: :up:

'Nothing' cannot even be meant.

:smirk:

Btw, Keiji Nishitani's Religion and Nothingness is a great meditation on ...!

Quoting PoeticUniverse

There cannot be a 'Nothing' for one, and two, if someone still wants a 'Nothing' that changes into a Something, as a event in time, this cannot be, either, for 'Nothing' has no time, no anything, and again, 'it' doesn't have an it. Those ex nihlilo believers don't get it or 'it'.

That's a good summary of Immanentist-Materialist doctrine, from an Earth-based animal-mind perspective. Pragmatic Matter-only believers can't imagine the absence of material Things*1 ; that would be an abyss of utter negation : outer darkness. On the other hand, a Transcendentalist-Idealist worldview, from a theoretical cosmic-philosophical perspective, does not negate the common-sense material world of the animal senses : ex nihilo nihil fit. But it does go beyond the here & now, as only humans can do, to "see" what lies beyond the horizon. Dogmatic Matter-only (what-you-see-is-all-there-is) {all Terrain, no Map} believers are not allowed to imagine anything that is not-yet-real, such as abstractions & symbols & potentials. However, Transcendentalists --- or in my case, PanEnDeists --- are free to envision ex omni or ex deo creation or manifestation*2. Not what is, but what logically could be. :cool:



*1. What fallacy is lack of imagination?
Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity, appeal to common sense, or the divine fallacy, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

*2. What is the difference between creatio ex nihilo and creatio ex deo?
Alternatives to creatio ex materia include creatio ex nihilo ("creation from nothing"); creatio ex deo ("creation from God"), referring to a derivation of the cosmos from the substance of God either partially (in panentheism) or completely (in pandeism), and creatio continua (ongoing divine creation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatio_ex_materia

Quoting Gnomon

However, Transcendentalists --- or in my case, PanEnDeists --- are free to envision ex omni or ex deo creation or manifestation*2. Not what is, but what logically could be.

Logically, human life and mind needing a Higher Life and Mind to form it all the more requires a HIGHER LIFE and MIND to form the Higher Life and Mind, and so forth, unto infinite regress. There's really no way around this. Rather, all becomes from the lower stuff.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Logically, human life and mind needing a Higher Life and Mind to form it all the more requires a HIGHER LIFE and MIND to form the Higher Life and Mind, and so forth, unto infinite regress. There's really no way around this. Rather, all becomes from the lower stuff.

The infinite regress wheel-spinning is only a problem in space-time. In Eternity or Block-Time there is no before & after or higher & lower. Materialist thinking is inherently limited to such spatial & temporal relationships. But Transcendental thinking, i.e. philosophical thinking, goes beyond such limitations by abstracting logical relationships from concrete things. So, there is a way around the lower-level thinking. But you have to learn how to quiet the noisy animal mind*1 of the physical senses. :smile:

PS___ I have seldom thought in these terms (e.g. transcendentalism) before. So thanks for pushing me to think outside the box. Unfortunately, it's like poetry*2 : if you have to explain it, you will lose it.
# Please don't relegate me to the spooky Transcendent box only. My worldview is both Immanent and Transcendent ; both Material and Mental. For all practical purposes (science), I am a materialist, but for theoretical speculation (philosophy), I can color outside the matter box.
# Your stanza'd poetry sometimes touches on transcendence, but when you switch to conventional prose, it sounds more like Materialist dogma.


*1. I don't think the difference between human and animal minds is absolute, as in the notion of a Cartesian soul. Instead, in my Monistic worldview, it's a difference of degree due to the progressive process of incremental evolution.
While animals possess complex cognitive abilities and emotions, the human mind is distinguished by its capacity for abstract thought, language, and complex social structures, leading to unique forms of intelligence and creativity.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=animal+vs+human+mind

[i]Poetry beyond bounds
poetry that breaks free from traditional forms and conventions {e.g. materialism}, exploring new expressive possibilities and pushing the boundaries of what is considered "poetry". It can also mean poetry that transcends specific themes or experiences, exploring universal human emotions and experiences.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=poetry+beyond+bounds

Quoting Gnomon

But Transcendental thinking, i.e. philosophical thinking, goes beyond such limitations by abstracting logical relationships from concrete things.

Quoting Gnomon

Block-Time

This has no time, as it is all-at-once and done, perhaps made in the 5th dimension.

Anyway, the Great Programmer no longer has to work 24-7, in linear time, fiddling with the evolution of the universe and life, for he has been replaced by Artificial Intelligence and laid off.

Oh! Behold what He hath wrought:

Quoting Gnomon

Eternity or Block-Time

is, of course, a physical theory. :smirk:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time)

Btw, a less speculative version, or alternative, is the Growing Block Universe theory.

My worldview is both immanent and Transcendent ...

... both real X and Not Real X (i.e. self-contradictory, or necessarily false). Good job! :clap:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Oh! Behold what He hath wrought:

The women portrayed in your videos are not Real but Ideal. You won't find anything that perfect in your local bars or ashrams. They exist only as Ideas (Ideals) reproduced by manipulating 1s & 0s in an AI computer, and what you see is pixels on a screen. But what you think you see is merely an idea in your mind. You can "behold" them, but you can't hold them.

Reply to 180 Proof sarcastically stated the obvious, as-if a revelation : what's transcendent is not immanent, hence is not Real. Yet, on this forum, we freely exchange matterless ideas shamelessly. Despite their unreality, humans often react, emotionally, to transcendent ideas as-if they are real {try to look at the image below without drooling}. They "behold" the idea despite its lack of material (flesh & blood) implementation.

Whitehead never claimed that his postulated transcendent deity is real, in 180's mundane sense of atoms & molecules. Yet, 180 is despising the very thing he's doing on this forum : presenting intangible (hence worthless) ideas for your consideration. The medium of presentation may consist of matter, but the meaningful message is matterless. Whitehead's God is an ideal, not an idol of gold.

There is a free online GirlGenerator where you can create your dream girl. But she won't have any of the tangible stuff that makeup a real woman. Like God, the dream girl will be an abstraction. But, unlike the deity, the onscreen image won't be able to philosophically explain the existence of the contingent material world, that materialized in a flash (energy), but will vanish in time (entropy).

A real flesh & blood woman can produce your children, but not a self-sustaining ever-evolving world of visible matter & invisible energy, and deadly entropy. Cosmic Creation requires Transcendent power. Yet, an uncomprehending immanentist may ask the myopic question : who created the Creator? Who banged the goddess to produce this imperfect world? Marshall McLuhan was wrong : the medium is not the message. :smile:

IS IT REAL, OR IS IT MEMOREX, OR IS IT AI?

Reply to Gnomon :yawn:

Quoting Gnomon

Cosmic Creation

1
In nothing’s hush, before the Bang was born,
No sky to light, no stars, no eve nor morn—
A whisper stirred within the void so black,
And Time awoke with Light’s resounding horn.

2
The Cup of Silence spilled its radiant wine,
Exploding Thought into a world divine;
From One became the many scattered stars,
And laws arose to give their paths a spine.

3
Why came it thus? Some ancient Poet willed—
A Love too vast to leave the canvas filled;
Creation sighed, and space began to stretch—
A painter’s breath, and all the void was thrilled.

4
Not chance alone, nor purely fated scheme,
But longing’s spark within a silent dream—
The Universe, a poem yet to end,
Each quasar dotting out the starlit theme.

5
Now time unrolls its carpet, vast and deep,
While galaxies in stately spirals sleep;
But hark—the music of the stars still sings,
From nothing’s cup to everything we keep.

6
The Night was pregnant with a burning need,
No thought, no form, no atom, no dark seed—
Until a sparkless spark did bloom and blaze,
And all the void became a field of speed.

7
A billion fires danced in newborn flight,
Their songs became the scale of sound and light;
They spun their orbits, flung out arms of flame,
And sang the laws that hold the dark in tight.

8
The sky, a scroll of ink, began to glow,
With glyphs of stardust drawn in spiral flow—
Each nova wrote a verse upon the dark,
Each black hole sealed it with a silent “No.”

9
But what of Will—was it mere chance’s scheme?
Or breath of One who dreamt the primal dream?
Perhaps the Bang was but the heartbeat’s thrum
Of One asleep within a mirrored stream.

10
The Cosmos, then, a thought still being spun—
A ruby verse beneath a setting sun—
And we, the readers, cup in hand, amazed,
Still asking how the All from not-there begun.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The Night was pregnant with a burning need,
No thought, no form, no atom, no dark seed—
Until a sparkless spark did bloom and blaze,
And all the void became a field of speed.

The Cosmos, then, a thought still being spun—
A ruby verse beneath a setting sun—
And we, the readers, cup in hand, amazed,
Still asking how the All from not-there begun.

The void was pregnant with untapped latency,
No things yet, just Ideal Forms for seeds,
Until an unsparked explosion created light,
And the abyss was actualized at cosmic-speed.

The unrealized Forms were thoughts like fluff,
Until intention said "let there be stuff"
Now we, the readers of the sky,
Are still asking "here am I . . . why?" :chin:

Quoting Gnomon

The void was pregnant with untapped latency,
No things yet, just Ideal Forms for seeds,
Until an unsparked explosion created light,
And the abyss was actualized at cosmic-speed.

The unrealized Forms were thoughts like fluff,
Until intention said "let there be stuff"
Now we, the readers of the sky,
Are still asking "here am I . . . why?"

Great!

Is this the shortest poem?

I,
Why?

Quoting Gnomon

Whitehead's God is an ideal

Good! I live in the ideal too.

So, the Great AI Program as the Ideal God is now micromanaging everything and it decides to create males to appreciate the females and also fleshes them out a bit, even making for some magical djinn in His image.

And so the Biblical AI upgrades humanity and continues on…



And then brings them into the daylight…

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Is this the shortest poem?
I, . . . . Why?

That may summarize THE fundamental philosophical question. We can look down at our physical bodies, and feel some connection, but we can't look behind the mind's eye to see the questioner. So, we wonder who's looking?


Reply to 180 Proof seems to think that Whitehead and Gnomon are disguising primitive Animism and Spiritualism under the more sciency label of Process. When early humans saw self-moving animals, they marveled at stolid placid matter in motion, and conjectured some invisible force, like wind or breath, to propel mundane matter, like zephyrs ballooning sails to impel the ship in the windward direction. It's still the same ancient philosophical quandary, but the terminology is modern.

That immaterial-motivating-something came to be known as "Spirit" or "Pneuma" or "Soul". But today, pragmatic scientists call that same pushing or pulling force "Energy" or "Gravity". Ironically, Newton seemed perplexed by his theory of gravity (principle of weightiness) which implied what Einstein later quipped : "spooky action at a distance" . And 21st century physicists are still in the same becalmed boat as the ancients : they know what Energy does, but they don't know what it is : its insubstantial substance. What's the invisible link between substantial Puller and material Pullee, between Pusher and the thing Caused to Change position? In specific cases, we call it simply "Difference", but cosmically, we call it "Evolution".

What Energy is not, is malleable corporeal matter. It is instead the spooky invisible Process of Causation, of Change, in which Matter is Transformed in various ways, including back into ephemeral Energy. And yet an early 20th century engineer transformed our vocabulary of Change by combining the notions of mental Information with physical Entropy (negative Energy). The Laws of Thermodynamics describe Energy in terms, not of material stuff, but of logical relationships : Equations*1. So, what Energy is is the power to initiate the Process of form-change : Causation & Cognition*2. And that is the basis of my Enformationism thesis. :smile:



*1. In thermodynamics, the fundamental thermodynamic relation are four fundamental equations which demonstrate how four important thermodynamic quantities depend on variables that can be controlled and measured experimentally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_thermodynamic_relation

*2. Cognition :
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
___ Oxford Dictionary

Quoting Gnomon

Energy

Energy: All That Lies Between:

Quoting Gnomon

?180 Proof seems to think that Whitehead and Gnomon are disguising primitive Animism and Spiritualism under the more sciency label of Process[ghost in the machine]

[Energy] its insubstantial substance

i.e. Woo-of-the-gaps :sparkle: :smirk:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

So, the Great AI Program as the Ideal God is now micromanaging everything

Yes, the AI program known as Evolution is automatically "managing" the process of progressive creation : from near nothing at the Bang, to everything seen on the Webb scope, plus everything back on Earth that the scope is not designed to look at. And that part of everything includes Djinn & Democracy, and all other immaterial products of human imagination that are not objects, but subjects : such as Art, Literature, and Science.

The "Ghost in the Machine" is a sub-routine of the general evolutionary process, that runs on wet-ware. But the Program itself is merely a message (instructions) from the Programmer, not to be mistaken as a world-creating deity. :smile:

PS___ 180's own "woo-of-the-gaps" is the metaphysical belief that Matter (clay) can create Mind (idea) by rubbing atoms together. :joke:

Quoting Gnomon

180's own "woo-of-the-gaps" is the metaphysical belief that Matter (clay) can create Mind (idea) by rubbing atoms together.

Evidence – how facts (signals) are distinguished from fantasies (noise) – of im-material (i.e. dis-embodied) "Mind" is profoundly lacking. And my Democritean "woo", Mr. Enformer, is far more evident (i.e. much less of an arbitrary / transcendent(al) gap-filler) than your pseudo-scientific "intelligent designer", or Aristotlean-Thomistic, "Woo". :smirk:

Quoting Gnomon

The void was pregnant with untapped latency,
No things yet, just Ideal Forms for seeds,

At LAX a hairless guide you’ll meet,
Avoid their feast of parsley, though it’s sweet;
Then motorcycles climb in lowest gear—
Wear tropical attire against the heat.

[hide="Reveal"]At L.A., you will be whisked to a special charter jet that will take you to your final destination. After you land, a Hari-Krishna will give you a map at the airport. Look for the one with no hair; no, never mind; s/he will recognize you. Do not attend the feast that they will offer you, since it is just but a few sprigs of parsley. Although I cannot tell you where we are meeting, you will all have to rent motorcycles and endure an uphill climb up a mountain in first gear. Wear old shoes, a colorful tropical shirt, and some weird shorts, and try to act normal: to thy own selves please do not be true.

For ninja training must prepare us all,
Before the governments should heed our call;
The TOE we’ve found must stay secure and safe,
Till we convene behind our mountain wall.

Unsigned, this missive bears Nobody’s hand,
Questions post on ToeQuest’s distant strand;
The truth of cosmos waits within our grasp—
If only we can meet as we have planned.

Now, the inevitable is that all governments of the world will accidentally wise up and realize that we have the TOE and so I am sending you all to your local ninja training school for a week of instruction before your ‘vacation’.
unsigned,
nobody

P.S. Post any questions about the expedition on ToeQuest…

“Should Lincoln to his time now homeward go?”
Kirk asked, but Nobody was quick to show:
“He’s honest politics’ last standing man—
Let’s pit him ‘gainst fair Hillary’s campaign flow!”

“Shouldn’t we return Abraham Lincoln to his own time?” posted Mkirkpatrick.
“Not so fast; we’re thinking of running him against Hillary Clinton, for he’s now the only honest politician on Earth.”

“My Theory shirt proclaims that Thing is One:
Just Energy!” Kirk spoke, his words to run.
“My nothing’s no-thing,” Nobody replied,
While Austin claimed that food was all he’d done.
“Can I wear my new T-shirt about ‘The Theory of Thing’ that says ‘Forget Everything; There is Only One Thing: Energy’?” added Mkirkpatrick.
“That’s fine, but my none thing is no-thing.”
“Mine is food,” said Austin to Mkirkpatrick.

“Two parallel lines make my one thing true,”
Said MJA, as questions further grew;
Kirk asked of chairs made pure of energy,
“I sought a bigger part!” he then broke through.

“My one thing is two parallel lines,” said MJA.
“Can I bring my lounge chair that is made of energy?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
“Yes, but why do you have so many questions?”
“I asked Austin for a bigger part,” Michael answered.

“That energy you seek,” Profpat declared,
“I sit upon!” while Graybeard’s wisdom shared:
“Don’t let it slip away!” Nobody spoke:
“Our synergy will power all we’ve dared.”
“Michael Kirkpatrick,” said Profpat, “I’ve been looking all over for that energy and here I am sitting on it!”
“Well, try not to let any escape,” said Graybeard.
“OK guys,” said Nobody, “Our synergy will produce all the energy we need.”

“Where lies the punch line?” Michael dared to ask;
“Reality’s protection is our task—
No funeral of fun,” Nobody said,
Though ChickenMan’s egg jokes broke through the mask.

“Where’s the punch line?” asked Mkirkpatrick.
“The protection of the secret of reality is a serious undertaking, not a fun-eral,” answered Nobody. “Remember, the jokes are over.”
“What about egg jokes?” asked ChickenMan.
“The yolk is on you!”

“Of voids,” asked Fredrick, “where might they reside?”
“Nature abhors them,” Nobody replied,
“Save Profpat’s checks, which void themselves with time—
That much remains completely justified.”

“Is there a void anywhere?” asked Fredrick.
“I would avoid a void like the plague since Nature abhors a vacuum and since no void has coughed up or voided anything but a whole lot of goose eggs.”
“What about the void that Profpat wrote on a check?” continued Fredrick.
“That was unavoidable.”

“How shall I ride,” asked Rascal, “without fall?”
“Gyroscopic wheels shall guard you through it all.”
“But I’m Australian!” Graybeard did exclaim;
“My sympathies,” came Nobody’s dry call.

“How do I ride a motorcycle without falling over?” asked Rascal.
“I will give you one with gyroscopes front and back that look like wheels“
“But I live in Australia!” exclaimed Graybeard.
“My condolences.”

“Is Austin’s mountain hideaway our place?”
Asked Rascal, probing secrets face to face;
“No,” came reply, then: “Is that truth unveiled?”
“I ain’t not lying,” Nobody showed grace.

“Is this secret meeting place anything to do with Austin’s mountain top hideaway?” questioned Rascal.
“No.”
“Is your answer an untruth,” added Rascal, “for security purposes?”
“I ain’t not lying about nothing no way, no how, or nothing exists,” unanswered Nobody.

“Meanwhile,” he added, “lunch flows freely here,
For Profpat’s wisdom-trading scheme is clear:
A penny for their thoughts he gladly pays,
Then keeps the change when two cents’ worth appears!”

“Meanwhile,” added Nobody, “we’re serving free lunches for everyone and giving away a lot of other stuff, for Profpat has been giving people a penny for their thoughts and then keeping the change when they put in their two cents worth.”

The Eternal knows no point where it begins,
No gateway through which any design slips in;
Thus must it be the All-in-All that flows
As line by line or where all lines are twins.

What has no start must stretch through every way,
Through linear paths where moments mark their sway,
Or simultaneous in timeless dance—
For how else could the Boundless choose to play?

When entry points are nowhere to be found,
All possibilities must there abound:
As flowing stream, the instant’s flash of light,
The sequence, or the circle’s endless round.

Without a threshold where its being starts,
The Eternal must embrace all cosmic parts—
As time’s long river flowing ever on,
Or instant’s unity where difference parts.

Imagine Form as boundless ocean deep,
Where all potential does its secrets keep;
Our measured world, a single droplet drawn
From depths where countless possibilities sleep.

This scrutinized reality we know
Is but one pattern that the Forms bestow—
A crystal lifted from infinite seas
Of what could be, what might yet come to flow.

The abyss of Forms holds every dream untold,
Each possible shape that matter might unfold;
While we perceive one manifestation clear,
The endless pool holds mysteries yet to mold.

From vastness of the possible sublime,
We dredge one moment’s substance out of time;
Yet still beneath our certainties there swirls
The infinite from which all forms may climb.[/hide]

Quoting PoeticUniverse

After you land, a Hari-Krishna will give you a map at the airport. . . .
“Is your answer an untruth,” added Rascal, “for security purposes?”
“I ain’t not lying about nothing no way, no how, or nothing exists,” unanswered Nobody.

Reply to 180 Proof likes to portray Gnomon as a hippie-dippy hairless-hare-krishnut, chanting praise to an imaginary blue-skinned god-man, with drums, incense, and navel gazing. Ironically, back when the hippies & haries were doing their thing in the US of A, short-haired-but-not-yet-bald Gnomon was in Viet Nam, metaphorically (not really, no how) killing the little yellow commie-farmers.

Be that as it may (or not), by imagining his stubborn "reality-denier" as an ignorant savage, 180 allows himself to feel intellectually superior, and sets-up a 2-dimensional soft target for his mundane-material-metaphysics barbs, and his immanent-nature-god dogma, as revealed by physical-prophet Spinoza.

But Gnomon don't play dat game. He mostly ignores 180's put-down-preaching, and discusses relevant topics with more open-minded un-indoctrinated others : for whom philosophy is a process : an ongoing search for wisdom, not a pre-defined doctrine to defend. Truth is not revealed by magic, it's only approximated by inference. As the bald kid in The Matrix said to Neo, "remember, there is no spoon". It's just an idea. And there are no true ideas, only shadows, in the matter-matrix world of Plato's cave. :wink: :joke: :cool:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Hari-Krishna

Oops, I didn't mean to post all that…

The Hari-Krishna had a constant presence in Waikiki in 1971, where I was in the army doing computer programming at Fort Shafter, drafted out of my first year at IBM.

Reply to Gnomon More of your typical run-on non sequiturs and ad hominems pathetically failing to deflect from my straightforward criticisms (of your "enformer"-of-the-gaps pseudo-scientistic woo-woo sermons) which you cannot invalidate or counter soundly. You're smugly satisfied that you already have The Answer (à la your "Meta-Physics" "personal belief-system" "worldview") but as all of us, except you (a poor Dunning-Kruger kid :sweat:), are aware: for years you've been Answering the wrong (or pseudo) question(s). :lol:

Anyway, like most of your critics, Gnomon, I'm just an elliptical orbits kinda guy (Copernican) and apparently you're an epicycles kinda guy (Ptolemyan) who hasn't yet groked the cosmological memo. Maybe you can't. Well, I aim to find out which it is. Gn?thi Seauton, man. :victory: :cool:

Reply to PoeticUniverse :fire:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The Hari-Krishna had a constant presence in Waikiki in 1971, where I was in the army doing computer programming at Fort Shafter, drafted out of my first year at IBM.

I'm not a computer programmer, but was introduced to digital coding on mainframes back in the 80s. Hippies & Hares were not much of a presence on my southern conservative college campus. Instead, my 2010 Enformationism thesis was inspired mainly by statistical Quantum Physics (energy) and digital Information Theory (entropy). Whitehead's Process Cosmology seemed to me to combine those radical scientific ways of understanding the world into a general philosophical worldview for the 20th century. Here's a review of Whitehead by The Information Philosopher. His criticism of Reductionism (in favor of Holism) and advocation of "purpose" in evolution, may instigate another of Reply to 180 Proof's knee-jerk woo-woo attacks. :smile:

Whitehead and Information Philosophy :
[i]There are some broad similarities between information philosophy and Whitehead's "philosophy of organism" or his oddly named "organic mechanism." To see the connection, we must sharpen the idea of Newtonian mechanism and even the deterministic motions of matter in special relativity. These both seem well-described by Whitehead's attack on "simple location."
Today we describe this as "reductionism," the mistaken idea that all phenomena are reducible to physics and chemistry, that biological organisms and even mental phenomena are reducible to the motions of their constituent material particles.
Reductionism claims that there are deterministic causal chains coming "bottom up" from matter. If there are "mental phenomena," they are merely "epiphenomena," giving us the illusion of mental events and "mental causation. . . . .
Perhaps the greatest similarity between I-Phi and Process Philosophy is that they both claim to explain a "creative process," which lies behind the "emergence of "purpose" (the entelechy of Aristotle or the teleonomy of Colin Pittendrigh and Jacques Monod) in living things. "[/i]
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/whitehead/

Quoting Gnomon

Whitehead

His prehensions could be the qualia, which get stored in memory for future use.

Quoting Gnomon

Here's a review of Whitehead by The Information Philosopher

Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.

The Great Programmer may be creating the DNA of the universe, and ours, too, for in that way there can be form before substance.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

His prehensions could be the qualia, which get stored in memory for future use.

That may be a simpler interpretation of an arcane term that I didn't grasp 20 years ago, upon first attempting to read a technical philosophical work that was way over my untrained head. I'm using this thread to get a deeper understanding of Process Philosophy, as an adjunct to my own amateur worldview of Enformationism*1.

While searching on Prehension & Qualia I came across the sites below*1. It may take me a while to fully "prehend" the four "habits of thought"*2. But they point to contentious issues that often come up in discussions of Materialism vs Idealism. Enformationism has a foot in both camps. But, I often get the feeling (qualia?) that proponents of Materialism tend to belittle the mental qualities that distinguish humans from animals (Anthropophobia?), and philosophy from empirical science . :smile:


*1. What is the Prehension process in philosophy?
Prehension is the experiential activity of an actual occasion by which characteristics of one occasion come to be present in another. Thus, one occasion may prehend certain qualities of an occasion in its past (for example, a shade of red or a certain proposition).
https://iep.utm.edu/processp/


*2. Whitehead's Revolutionary Concept of Prehension :
[i]Hartshorne lays out sixteen habits of thought (comprehensive list below)—from the dominance of subject-predicate grammar and substance-thinking, to the fear of anthropomorphism and determinism—that repeatedly blocked the kind of asymmetric, creative-relational insight Whitehead provides with his concept of prehension. Tim and I noted several that remain relevant to science:
A. Determinism : The common assumption that cause and effect must be symmetrical, stifling any serious account of novelty.
B. Anthropophobia : The dread of reading anything akin to feeling into nature, which ironically yields an anthropocentric stance.
C. Nominalism : Overzealous denial of real potentialities.
D. Hume’s axiom : Confusing distinction with separation, thus missing how events can be distinguished without being externally divided.[/i]
https://footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/whiteheads-revolutionary-concept

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.

I'll have to take your word for that. But I suspect that thinking in terms of Eternalism might be like breathing under water. It doesn't come naturally, as does Presentism. I suppose philosophers, who dare to tread in transcendent terrain, must be somewhat amphibious. For hardline Immanentists, trying to imagine a static, non-processing, space-time-transcendent Block Universe might make them choke. :cool:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.

More poetic prose from Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain :

Thomas Mann was writing in the early 20th century, around the same time that Einstein was forced, by the paradoxes of Relativity and Quantum Physics, to conclude that matter-molding Space and mind-molding Time can be understood as conceptual dimensions in a realm he called Space-Time, and metaphorized as frozen Block-Time. I doubt that Mann was familiar with Einstein's technical writing. But such ideas may have been "in the air" so to speak.

The narrator mused on Time immediately after a chapter in which the German protagonist had his first conversation --- mostly in French --- with his paramour-to-be, whom he had previously only admired from afar across the seven table dining room. The scene was during a Carnival (Mardi Gras??) festival, when the patients, of various degrees of sickness, let loose in anomalous costumes and strange behavior. The adored-one told him she was going away --- far away --- just to get away from the hum-drum of sanitarium life. Immediately cut to the next chapter :


"WHAT is time? A mystery, a figment—and all-powerful. It conditions the exterior world, it is motion married to and mingled with the existence of bodies in space, and with the motion of these. Would there then be no time if there were no motion? No motion if no time? We fondly ask. Is time a function of Space? Or space of time? Or are they identical? Echo answers. Time is functional, it can be referred to as action; we say a thing’s “brought about” by time. What sort of thing? Change! Now is not then, here not there, for between them lies motion. But the motion by which one measures time is circular, is in a closed circle; and might almost equally well be described as rest, as cessation of movement—for the there repeats itself constantly in the here, the past in the present. Furthermore, as our utmost effort cannot conceive a final limit either to time or in space, we have settled to think of them as eternal and infinite—apparently in the hope that if this is not very successful, at least it will be more so than the other. But is not this affirmation of the eternal and the infinite the logical-mathematical destruction of every and any limit in time or space, and the reduction of them, more or less, to zero? Is it possible, in eternity, to conceive of a sequence of events, or in the infinite of a succession of space-occupying bodies? Conceptions of distance, movement, change, even of the existence of finite bodies in the universe. "how do these fare? Are they consistent with the hypothesis of eternity and infinity we have been driven to adopt? Again we ask, and again echo answers."

Quoting Gnomon

creative process

Whitehead says the ultimate reality is Creativity, a principle:

“The universal of universals, characterizing ultimate matter of fact, is Creativity.”

Everything that exists is a process of creative becoming. Actual entities (also called “actual occasions”) arise by creatively prehending other entities, and in doing so, add something new to the universe.

[i]So the universe is not made of stuff - but made of events; not governed solely by laws, but by relational creativity.[/I]

There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.

:cool: ... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and no first random vacuum fluctuation.

Quoting Gnomon

Again we ask, and again echo answers

The Occasions of Experience

Like drops of dew upon the morning grass,
Brief moments sparkle, then are quick to fade;
Each "occasion" born, fulfilled, surpassed—
From these small deaths, reality is made.

The universe—a vast mosaic laid
Of prehensions, feelings, pure events;
Each atom, thought, and star in grand parade
Becoming, perishing, in present tense.

No substance fixed beneath the world we sense,
But process flowing through eternal Now;
Each moment grasps the past with reverence,
Then adds its novel aim, and takes its bow.

The concrescence of all things that be—
Each drop contains the cosmos' memory.

[hide="Reveal"]Each moment bears within its fleeting form
The echoed traces of what came before;
Subjective aim transforms the uniform
Into creation's never-ending score.

We are not things but poems being writ,
A string of moments dancing into one;
The many and the one forever knit—
A billion suns comprising just one sun.

The void of time fills up with occasions bright,
Each grasping, feeling, yearning into form;
The universe—a symphony of light
Where past and future meet in endless storm.

So Whitehead taught: reality's not clay,
But living moments born and passed away.

The actual world—a tapestry unfurled
Of prehended moments, gathered whole;
Each subject weaves the threads of what has swirled
Into new patterns as the cosmos rolls.

No static substance underlying all,
But drops of experience, self-creating;
Each moment rises, answers to the call,
Then perishes, its being still vibrating.

The great philosopher's vision clear and bold:
Reality is not of things, but acts;
Each "now" contains what every "then" has told—
A living process, not just lifeless facts.

The past is not just gone, but flows within
Each nascent moment, ready to begin.

Beyond the veil of common sense's reach,
Lies truth more fluid than our words contain;
Each entity, like waves upon the beach,
Is but a ripple in experience's chain.

The Poet’s primordial vision guides
Each occasion toward its best becoming;
The lure of beauty where all truth resides—
Eternal objects, endlessly oncoming.

The universe is not a clockwork cold,
But living feeling, sentient at its core;
Each quantum flash of being, brave and bold,
Creates itself, then passes through death's door.

So Whitehead saw beyond the ancient rift—
As moments bloom and die, existence shifts.

Each moment blooms, a pulse in Time’s great sea,
Not things, but acts—events that come to be.
From drop to drop the cosmos takes its shape,
A dance of mind and matter, wild and free.

No static stone, no idle, lifeless clod—
But process moves beneath the soil and sod.
Each flash of being, brief as morning dew,
Is real as stars, is kissed by thought not odd.

These “occasions” rise with feeling at their core,
They prehend the past, yet seek a little more.
Each grasps the world, then yields itself in turn,
A spark that fades, but opens up the door.

They form a web, these nodes of sentient flare,
The past flows in, the future stirs the air.
Reality’s not built of blocks and beams,
But woven through with feeling, time, and care.

The world’s not made, but making ever still,
With every act a push against the will.
No fate is fixed, no god is locked above—
Creation wakes in each occasion’s thrill.

So sip this cup—each moment brims with wine,
Distilled from all that was, in grand design.
A drop contains the cosmos in its fold,
And flickers out, yet calls the next to shine.

The world becomes, it never merely is,
A flux of feeling, not a world of fizz.
No atom sits alone in timeless gloom—
It feels, it yearns, it tells us what it does.

Each moment’s born from many come before,
It draws their echo, adds a little more.
Then perishes, a whisper in the dark—
Yet leaves a trace no future can ignore.

Subject becomes object, tossed in the stream,
Each plays its part within the larger scheme.
No soul stands still, no world remains the same—
All shift and shape as in a woven dream.

From Poet’s lure to matter’s smallest twitch,
Each moment leans toward depths we cannot pitch.
Reality’s a poem never done—
Penned not in stone, but in becoming’s witch.

Not being, but becoming—this we are,
More like a flame than like a fallen star.
We flicker, burn, and pass our light along—
Each life a note in Time’s unending bar.

So here we dance, occasion upon flame,
Each flicker formed with joy, regret, or shame.
Yet in the forming lies the sacred spark—
A fleeting self that bears eternal name.

The stars themselves are thoughts that came to be,
Each nova sings in process, not decree.
A galaxy’s a rhythm, not a rock—
It hums with ancient acts of poetry.

Each quark, each pulse, each curve of stellar flare,
Responds to past and feels the future’s air.
The cosmos is a mind that builds itself—
A scaffold strung with intuition’s care.

No vast machine with cold and mindless gears—
But swirls of yearning shaped by hope and fears.
A thousand billion hearts in every sphere,
All whispering their stories through the years.

The past is real, but not a prison cell,
Its echoes guide, but do not bind or quell.
Each moment holds the power to re-form
The curve of time, the place where starlight fell.

From primal flux to now, the arc has bent—
Not by command, but lure and deep intent.
A One who woos, not rules, the world to grow—
Each choice a note in Love’s great instrument.

So let the comet blaze and atoms spin,
Each dance of dust a tale that dwells within.
No void is empty—everywhere there burns
A silent hymn of process born in din.

Creation is not done—it is the song,
Each verse a shift, each rhyme both right and wrong.
We are the singers, listeners, and score—
The universe becoming all along.[/hide]

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Whitehead says the ultimate reality is Creativity, a principle:

“The universal of universals, characterizing ultimate matter of fact, is Creativity.”

Everything that exists is a process of creative becoming. Actual entities (also called “actual occasions”) arise by creatively prehending other entities, and in doing so, add something new to the universe.

So the universe is not made of stuff - but made of events; not governed solely by laws, but by relational creativity.

There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.

# Creativity is an essential characteristic of a Deity. And also the most universal fact of our contingent (fortuitous) universe.

# In my Enformationism thesis, I coined a new name for "creative becoming" : EnFormAction (energy + form + event) : 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.

# For the purposes of Chemistry, the universe is made of Stuff (matter). But for the purposes of Physics, even matter is made of "events" of causation : i.e. Energy or Force. Causation (Change) is always a before & after relationship between Cause & Effect ; Input & Output (relational creativity)

# For the purposes of Cosmology, the universe did have a creation event : a T=0 for a linear clock of successive events. But for the needs of Philosophy, the age of the universe is so far beyond our human experience that we make our time-counters go in circles, emulating the solar & lunar cycles. But these local time measurements have a new beginning every 12 hours, or 12 months. So, our time-counting is always relational, not absolute.

PS___ you didn't cite the source for your Whitehead quotes. :smile:

Quoting Gnomon

*6. The Big Bang Theory stands as the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe.

But it cannot explain the origin of existence of the Earth and life, can it?

Quoting Corvus

But it cannot explain the origin of existence of the Earth and life, can it?

No. That's why I have pieced together my own philosophical theory of how the primal Energy (causation) and Laws (information) of the Big Bang could evolve into living and thinking beings. :smile:


Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Materialism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory of Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Process Evolution :
Alfred North Whitehead’s book, Process and Reality, is a philosophical thesis, not a scientific essay. But it challenges the philosophical implications of Darwin’s mechanistic theory of Evolution. Instead of a simple series of energy exchanges, the Cosmos functions as a holistic organism. Hence, the eventual emergence of subordinate living creatures should not be surprising.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page43.html

Quoting Gnomon

But for the purposes of Physics, even matter is made of "events" of causation : i.e. Energy or Force. Causation (Change) is always a before & after relationship between Cause & Effect ; Input & Output (relational creativity)

Presentism is astounding: The frame rate is zillions of times per second or whatever is one second divided by the Planck time! The Poet Programmer must be coding on a natural quantum computer of the quantum fields, everything connected to everything via entanglement.

Since the making of the new 'now' utilizes all that came before, not just simply doing a single Planck time progression from the last 'now', the universe seems like to be of a growing block mode, in which the past is an amounting Eternalism and the present going forward is ever of Presentism.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Presentism is astounding: The frame rate is zillions of times per second or whatever is one second divided by the Planck time! The Poet Programmer must be coding on a natural quantum computer of the quantum fields, everything connected to everything via entanglement.

Since the making of the new 'now' utilizes all that came before, not just simply doing a single Planck time progression from the last 'now', the universe seems like to be of a growing block mode, in which the past is an amounting Eternalism and the present going forward is ever of Presentism.

Yes. The quantum computer of Nature has a frame rate (frequency) of 400 - 700 teraHz. So it can simulate Reality with astonishing accuracy.

This simulation of Block Mode Eternalism is limited only by the necessity for time to change from one frame to the next. We observers call each tick of the cosmic clock (oscillator) the Present. And the belief that we live our lives in that brief interval is called Presentism*1.

The Poet Programmer can even tune he/r computer to create Matter from Light Energy by slowing down the frequency*2. It's almost like magic. One prehensive lump of that miracle matter is the brain reading this post. Who could have imagined that a Bang of light in the darkness of pre-time could create Life and Mind? :wink:


*1. Process Philosophy :
Whitehead's cosmology is rooted in his philosophy of process, which posits that reality is fundamentally a process of becoming rather than a collection of static entities.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+cosmology
Note --- his Reality is the flow, not the frames

*2. Is all matter just slowed down light? :
Therefore, since massless particles travel at the speed of light, you can see that electrons are born to be fast but are caught up in the molasses of their interactions.
https://www.quora.com/Is-all-matter-just-slowed-down-light

Quoting Gnomon

No. That's why I have pieced together my own philosophical theory of how the primal Energy (causation) and Laws (information) of the Big Bang could evolve into living and thinking beings. :smile:

Isn't evolution from living biological species to the same living biological species but for the better adaptation for the survival in the given environment?

The primal Energy and Laws of the Big Bang is not living biological species, but it sounds like non-living force of some sort. How could the non-living evolve into the living?

Quoting Corvus

The primal Energy and Laws of the Big Bang is not living biological species, but it sounds like non-living force of some sort. How could the non-living evolve into the living?

That is indeed the question! My amateur philosophical thesis postulates that Life & Mind are highly-evolved forms of primitive Energy : the power to change form (a process, not a thing). The key to make sense of that conjecture is the 21st century discovery that Energy (negative entropy) is a form of Information (en-form-action), and vice-versa. The thesis and blog go into some detail to explain the Process of transformation from non-living to living & thinking. The link below gives a quick peek at how Whitehead's Process metaphysics compares to the Substance physics of Materialism. :smile:


Evolutionary Process and Cosmic Reality :
Process Metaphysics vs Substance Physics
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page43.html

Quoting Gnomon

My [s]amateur[/s][pseudo] philosophical thesis postulates ... Energy (negative entropy)

:rofl: :lol: :sweat: :smirk: :roll: :chin: :sad:

Quoting Gnomon

The Poet Programmer

The DNA of the Universe

Intro

Behold the helix dance of DNA,
Where four notes sing life's complex interplay;
Each strand a ladder to creation's heights,
Where single missteps lead the whole astray.

But deeper still lies nature's greatest code,
A template vaster than what life has showed:
The Universe's own encrypted chain,
Where space and time and matter are bestowed.

This holographic dance of Everything
Spins out reality like golden string;
Each quantum bit precisely placed in space
To make the cosmic harmonies all ring.

Like fractals folded into deeper space,
Each pattern shows the whole in micron-trace;
The universe, a grand computer's dream,
Projects existence through digital grace.

[hide="Reveal"]The Matrix

The Infinite pulses through space-time’s web,
A matrix of possibility and flow,
Where mathematics whispers ancient codes
Through dimensions that we cannot know.

Information dances with Energy,
Twin aspects of reality’s deep source,
Weaving patterns through the quantum foam
That guide creation’s fundamental course.

The Broadcast

The Cosmic Background fills the void
With whispers from creation’s dawn,
An omnidirectional antenna array
Broadcasting since light first shone.

Its static holds encrypted tales
Of quantum fluctuations past,
When space and time were newly born
And causality was cast.

The Pattern

Interference ripples through the deep,
Where virtual particles emerge and fade,
Their quantum waltz of might-have-been
Creates the substance from which worlds are made.

Reality shimmers like a hologram,
Each fragment holding all we see,
While strings vibrate their sacred songs
Through manifolds of symmetry.

The Code

Like DNA but vaster still,
The cosmic code writes space and time,
In languages of spin and charge
Where entropy keeps perfect rhyme.

Through quantum fields that permeate
The vacuum’s pregnant emptiness,
Information flows and builds
The scaffolding of consciousness.

The Transmission

Each particle contains within
A message from the universe,
Entangled threads that stretch across
The cosmic web, for better or worse.

The void itself remembers all,
Each quantum state forever stored
In patterns of probability
Where past and future are explored.

The Program

Is spacetime but a simulation,
A program running deep and vast?
Are we subroutines in the code,
Through quantum circuits flowing fast?

The matrix of reality
Computes on scales both large and small,
While information’s endless dance
Creates the stage that holds it all.

The Signal

Through background radiation’s hiss,
We hear creation’s primal song,
A melody of math and light
That’s been playing all along.

Each wavelength carries ancient news
Of how the cosmos came to be,
While quantum tunnels bridge the gap
Between what is and what could be.

The Structure

Like lattices of crystal thought,
The universe builds form from void,
Using rules both strange and deep
That Einstein’s God might have employed.

The cosmic DNA unfolds
Through dimensions curled and bright,
Where information crystallizes
Into matter, energy, and light.

The Resonance

Virtual reality emerges
From interference patterns pure,
Where quantum superposition builds
The solid world we think secure.

Yet underneath our classical realm,
The matrix continues its endless play,
Computing futures yet to come
As present moments slip away.

The Understanding

Perhaps the universe itself
Is one vast quantum neural net,
Processing information flows
Through patterns we don’t fathom yet.

The Infinite speaks through the code
Of quarks and leptons, space and time,
While consciousness emerges from
This cosmic algorithm sublime.

The Mystery

Yet still we cannot fully grasp
The deepest levels of this dance,
Where information, energy,
And mind entwine by quantum chance.

The universe keeps secrets still
Within its matrix vast and strange,
While we decode small fragments of
The patterns that will never change.[/hide]

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The DNA of the Universe . . . .
The Universe's own encrypted chain

The helical geometry of DNA is well-adapted to the reproductive functions of biological creatures. But the Organic Cosmos*1 itself may possess something similar to DNA, as encoded in its logical lawful structure*2 : its "own encrypted chain". From that perspective, the physical universe may be viewed as a Logical Creature. Physicist Max Tegmark has offered a unique way of thinking about the birth & maturation of our universe in terms of mathematical structure. He may even have borrowed some of his ideas from Whitehead's Process cosmology*3.

If the universe was "born" in a Big Bang, don't you think it's reasonable to determine its paternity? Reply to 180 Proof may think the very idea is blasphemous to his belief in the immaculate conception of Immanentism. As a True Believer in a virginal cosmos, He will rise to the defense of his Faith, with hysterical emoticons. :joke:

*1. Whitehead‘s Conception of the Cosmos as an Organic Unity :
The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate A. N. Whitehead’s philosophical position, according to which the dualism is a fatal fallacy at the heart of the modern scientific cosmology, and thus it should be considered as one of the causes of modern environmental and socio-economic crisis. First Whitehead’s criticism of mechanistic materialism in which dualistic feature of Western thought, called the bifurcation of nature, is rooted is summarized. It is shown that such division of the human mind and the cosmos does not leave any space for the self-being consciousness and life and that the attribute of independence of spirit results in the private worlds of experience and morality. Further it is argued that central motivation of Whitehead’s cosmology is to build up a system in which the aesthetic, religious and moral interests are in accordance with the natural science conceptions of the world. Whitehead's cosmology is interpreted as the transition from materialism to organicism and at the same time as shift from the static conception of cosmos to the dynamic one.
https://journals.phil.muni.cz/profil/article/view/19949

*2. The idea of a "universe DNA" refers to the concept that the fundamental laws and structures of the universe, like the structure of DNA, could be encoded in a way that determines its properties and behavior, potentially even allowing for a "reproducing" universe.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=universe+dna

*3. [i]Max Tegmark, a physicist and MIT professor, and Alfred North Whitehead, a philosopher and mathematician, are linked by their shared interest in metaphysics and the nature of reality, though their approaches and conclusions differ significantly. . . . .
Max Tegmark's "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis" (MUH) proposes that our physical reality is a mathematical structure, meaning that what we perceive as the universe is not just described by mathematics, but is mathematics, and therefore, concepts like DNA and life forms are mathematical structures themselves. [/i]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Max_Tegmark.jpg

Quoting Gnomon

If the universe was "born" in a Big Bang, don't you think it's reasonable to determine its paternity?

:roll:
Quoting 180 Proof

Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo no "first cause"; spacetimes (nonrandom event-patterns (e.g. universes)) do emerge rarely as it's reasonable to expect (re: law of very large numbers ... of random events), etc. A god-fairytale (e.g. "prime mover", "enformer / programmer", etc) is not needed and does not explain anything – even in principle; it just begs the question as a woo-of-the-gaps appeal to ignorance.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

This holographic dance of Everything
Spins out reality like golden string;
Each quantum bit precisely placed in space
To make the cosmic harmonies all ring.

Reply to 180 Proof's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause, would cause the world to dance like a maniac, and makes empirical Science sound like wizardry. It describes Chaos, not Cosmos ; Dissonance, not Harmony ; Noise, not Signal. Plato conjectured that Cosmos emerged from a primal state of Chaos --- what I call Eternal Potential --- via the actions of a Demiurge (workman). Today, we define Energy as the ability to do work. And my thesis refers to the artisan/craftsman as EnFormAction : energy + form + actual occasions.

The physical world does indeed have random & chaotic properties*1. But on the whole, random events --- obeying the law of large numbers*2 --- average-out to produce the orderly & organic world we know & love*3. Chaos theory reveals why, despite low-level randomness, the world can be predictable enough for scientific purposes, to make practical use of the inherent logical structure. Even the speculative holographic universe theory must assume predictable causality*4. Besides, Quantum Theory postulates Acausality*5 only because the fundamental complexity makes the paths of individual particles hard to predict. But collectively (holistically) even quantum randomness is orderly and harmonious. :smile:


*1. Acausality :
[i]The idea of acausality, true randomness, is a feature of many interpretations of quantum physics, including the so-called “orthodox” one, the Copenhagen Interpretation developed by the founders of quantum physics. This interpretation was developed by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, and several other key physicists in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
https://quantumphysicslady.org/glossary/acausal/
Note --- True Randomness may be impossible. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=true+randomness+is+impossible

*2. Law of Large Numbers :
The "randomness cancels out" concept is closely related to the law of large numbers, which states that as the number of trials or observations in a random process increases, the average of the outcomes will converge to the expected value (or mean).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=randomness+cancels+out

*3. Chaos theory explores the seemingly random nature of complex systems, revealing underlying patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization, suggesting that order can emerge from disorder.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chaos+theory+order+in+disorder

*4. The Holographic Universe: Implicit Order versus Holographic Projection :
Entangled qubits have a natural tendency to align together, and that alignment of information is what gives rise to the implicate order of a holographic world.
Note --- The resemblance to Bohm's theory of Implicate Order.

*5. At the time, Albert Einstein, also a founder of quantum physics, strenuously objected to the notion of acausality in the theory. He famously argued that “God does not play dice.” Einstein felt that if something in the universe appears to act randomly, it’s only because our understanding of it is not deep enough. He felt that there is always a cause.
Other, later, interpretations are completely causal or, at least, claim to be. This includes the Many Worlds Interpretation and the deBroglie-Bohm Interpretation. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics]. In these interpretations, it may appear that quantum behavior is random; but this is an illusion. There is no true randomness. It should be noted that almost all the various interpretations of quantum physics rely on the same mathematical equations and create the same mathematical predictions. Their differences lie only in how they understand the physical reality that the equations describe.[/i]
https://quantumphysicslady.org/glossary/acausal/

Quoting Gnomon

?180 Proof's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause ...

And another strawman. :roll:

Pay attention, troll ...
Quoting 180 Proof

Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo NO 'first cause'

Quoting 180 Proof

... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and NO 'first' random vacuum fluctuation.

Reply to PoeticUniverse
Reply to 180 Proof has been trolling Gnomon for several years. Presumably, because the Enformationism worldview seems to him, to be diametrically opposed to his Imminentism belief system. He acts like an incensed Catholic defending the Faith from a heretic. But my information-based worldview is personal, not a religion, not anti-science, and not intentionally opposed to any other philosophical system. I make reference to my own worldview, only to distinguish it from others under consideration. Not to impose my belief on anyone else. So, I don't know what gets his panties in a bind.

Since his unsolicited responses are arrogant and supercilious, and I don't want to invite any more ad hominem attacks, I don't engage him directly --- but indirectly through third parties. I do attempt to provide relevant evidence and arguments in favor of my own views. It's good exercise for me to defend my own thesis, and the primary reason for posting on this forum. But, I'd prefer a more amicable exchange of views, unlike the one excerpted below. :smile:

PS___ FWIW, my Whiteheadian* God is both Immanent and Transcendent.
*In Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, God is conceived as both transcendent and immanent, meaning God is not limited to the world but also actively engaged in and shaped by it, a concept that differs from traditional views of a completely detached, omnipotent deity.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+god+transcendent


Excerpt from Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain :
In which two haughty & sarcastic philosophers argue over adversarial concepts like Nominalism vs Idealism or Immanence vs Transcendence.

[i]"“Aristotle? Didn’t Aristotle place in the individual the reality of universal ideas? That is pantheism.”

“Wrong. When you postulate independent being for individuals, when you transfer the essence of things from the universal to the particular phenomenon, which Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, as good Aristotelians, did, then you destroy all unity between the world and the Highest Idea; you place the world outside of God and make God transcendent. That, my dear sir, is classic mediævalism.”

“Classic medievalism! What a phrase!” “Pardon me, I merely apply the concept of the classic where it is in place: that is to say, wherever an idea reaches its culmination. Antiquity was not always classic. And I note in you a general repugnance to the Absolute;"[/i]

Quoting 180 Proof

it just begs the question

I still wonder why it should be that a human life and mind is so impossible to come about without help but so easy for there to be a god or a deity there without help.

Reply to PoeticUniverse :up:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

I still wonder why it should be that a human life and mind is so impossible to come about without help but so easy for there to be a god or a deity there without help.

In my view, human Life & Mind did come about via evolution, without miraculous "help". And the only reason we look beyond ongoing physical evolution for a jump-start is the physical evidence that the natural process had a beginning and will have an end. That observed fact leaves an ellipsis before and after for human reasoning to explain. The traditional gap-filler has always been a humanoid god outside of space-time. But some modern thinkers imagine a hypothetical Multiverse (eternal evolution) as a mundane God substitute.

Another alternative to a supernatural deity is to assume, like Spinoza, that the physical universe is a God in some sense : Pantheism or Immanentism. But Spinoza's 17th century substantial Nature-God was assumed to be both eternal and physical. So,Reply to 180 Proof's 2025 solution to the God problem seems to be to just ignore the evidence for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then assume that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for super-natural "help". In that case, we would not be living in a uniquely created Universe, but something like an eternally morphing Multiverse, going nowhere in particular.

With unlimited time to evolve, and no Entropy to tear things down, you'd think the hypothetical Omniverse should be perfected by now, unless it's just going in circles. If that ideal immanent world was not limited by the second law of thermodynamics, the energy propelling evolution would never run down. Or maybe, the empty batteries of one cycle could be miraculously recharged, to begin the next cycle with a Bang! Meanwhile, the matter of the Omniverse would have the seemingly magical power to make Life & Mind from malleable clay (like the Jewish Golem, or the medieval science of spontaneous generation). Do atoms randomly agglomerate into molecules, and then into living bodies with thinking minds?

If I could just forget what empirical scientists have been telling me all my life, I could easily label my worldview as Immanentism. And if I could believe what my religious upbringing taught me, I would label myself as some form of Judeo-Christian. Instead, I began to construct a worldview of my own, based on 21st century science & philosophy. Instead of the typical tyrannical supernatural ruler though, my Enformer/Programmer is a natural rational Principle, similar to Plato's Logos, or perhaps to Spinoza's deus sive natura. I don't postulate any personal or powerful characteristics beyond what is necessary to explain the Reality we experience with our limited senses. Anything more than that would be metaphorical poetry. :smile:


[i]The multiverse theory, while intriguing, faces significant challenges, including its lack of empirical evidence, the difficulty of testing and falsifying such a concept, and the potential for metaphysical issues that go beyond scientific inquiry. . . . .
There's currently no empirical evidence to support the existence of other universes, and no way to directly test the theory. . . .
The universe appears to be finely tuned for life, with specific constants and conditions that, if altered slightly, would prevent the formation of stars, planets, and life as we know it. . . . .
The scientific method relies on empirical evidence and testability, and the multiverse theory, in its current form, falls short of these standards.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=problems+with+the+multiverse+theory

Quoting Gnomon

So,?180 Proof's [s]2025 solution to the God problem[/s] seems to be to just [s]ignore the evidence[/s] for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then [s]assume[/s] that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for [non-explanation][s]super-natural "help".[/s]

:roll:

As always, more of the same, troll is as troll does.

My interpretation of cosmogeny from p.1 ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976427

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976662

Non-duality is a Buddhist concept that refers to the fundamental unity of all things. My background is not in oriental philosophy, but based on post-quantum physics and Information Theory, I have come to view the world as essentially monistic (single substance). And the common essence of all things can be described as Information (EnFormAction : the creative power to give form to the formless). Perhaps the easiest way to grasp that concept is to view Generic (begetting) Information in terms of physical Energy, which is not a material substance, but a causal essence (E=MC^2).

Materialism is an ancient monistic philosophy (Atomism). But modern physics seems to view active Energy, instead of passive Matter, as the Single Substance of the physical world. Based on that primacy of Causation over Concreteness, we could easily assume that the world has been trucking along forever. Except that physical laws describe dynamic Energy as something that can be metaphorically "burned up", and converted to the ashes of Entropy.

On top of the second law of thermodynamics, we have astronomical evidence that the material world has evolved from a Singularity, which is a mathematical description of Infinity. So, our best science to date, implies that ballooning space-time emerged from formless & unbounded infinity-eternity. And that may be why Whitehead adopted the concept of an undefinable unitary deity, to explain the pluralistic reality we now know.

I just came across the article excerpted below, which interprets Process Philosophy in terms of Non-Duality. But it also takes an allegorical poetic stance instead of a dogmatic religious position. And, like Whitehead himself, it describes the creator of the world as a Poet, not as a King. :smile:


Non-Duality and Process Philosophy :
Alfred North Whitehead was considered by many to be an absolute genius of his time. Here was a man who was as gifted creatively as he was intellectually. He somehow managed to balance metaphysics — which many 20th CE. philosophers would commit to the flames — with mathematics, physics, and poetry. In fact, he was so good at metaphysics that his imaginative brilliance shone through in the empirical sciences. When one is reading Whitehead, there is a feeling that you are being thrown into a place of poetic rapture, and at the same time, attending to the undeniable facts of existence. When you look out at the world after reading Whitehead, existence is poetry. In fact, he defined God as being a poet: “Whitehead’s God is the everlasting world-soul whose values erotically lure each moment of finite experience toward the ideal of beauty (which is nothing other than the true and the good). This is not an omnipotent Creator deity. If anything is omnipotent, it is Creativity; God is a creature of Creativity like every other. God is the poet of the world, “with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”
https://medium.com/@prestonbryant/non-duality-and-process-philosophy-an-exploration-of-consciousness-in-alfred-north-whitehead-and-3f4ba86bf484
Note --- Medium is a website for writers, not for contacting ghosts :joke:

Poetry :
The word "poetry" originates from the Greek word "poiesis," meaning "a making" or "creation," and the verb "poiein," which means "to make".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=poetry+greek+meaning

Reply to PoeticUniverse

Quoting Gnomon

If anything is omnipotent, it is Creativity; God is a creature of Creativity like every other. God is the poet of the world, “with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”

Love’s spirit weaves the soul’s warp, weft, and wave,
Creating an eternal, perfect braid,
Wound from strands of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty;
Each different forms, but from the same All made.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Love’s spirit weaves the soul’s warp, weft, and wave,
Creating an eternal, perfect braid,
Wound from strands of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty;
Each different forms, but from the same All made.

This expression reminded me of Douglas Hofstadter's book : Gödel, Escher, Bach -- The Eternal Golden Braid. It weaves a complex argument for Evolutionary Emergence : "that consciousness arises from organisms crossing a complexity threshold. Seasoned with ideas from chaos theory, complex adaptive systems theory, and what came to be called the study of emergence."*1 Emergence theories attempt to explain --- contrary to Atomism/Reductionism --- how sophisticated novel functions, such as Life & Mind, can evolve from simple formal beginnings.

For example, some thinkers interpret the Singularity*2 as merely a compressed particle of matter ; while others view it more like cosmic DNA, the braid of life : containing all the mathematical information necessary for the gradual construction of a physical universe with built-in observers. In my own worldview, that non-dimensional Singularity functions like a computer program by "braiding" bits of abstract information into a plethora of forms. So all real forms are made from the same ideal Information, which I call EnFormAction, of which physical Energy is the best known instance.

The philosophical enigma of the Big Bang theory is : how did the Singularity come to compress a vast universe into a minuscule seed of data?*3 Several possible solutions have been proposed : A. Cosmological Principle, infinite, hence unlimited possible states (multiverse) ; B. Cyclic Cosmology, eternal cycles of physical expansion & contraction of matter as an alternative to instantaneous Inflation from quantum fluctuations ; C. Miracuous act of creation by an eternal deity in need of slavish worshippers ; D. Dramatic execution of an information program (poiesis) encoded in a seed-like Singularity, for unknown reasons, written by Whitehead's anonymous poetic principle of concretion. :smile:


*1. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1ay0xoo/godel_escher_bach_the_eternal_golden_braid/

*2. In the context of the Big Bang theory, a singularity refers to a hypothetical point of infinite density and temperature, where all known physical laws break down, and from which the universe is thought to have originated.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=big+bang+singularity

*3. In particular, the big bang model of the universe begins with a singularity—a point that appeared out of nothing and contained the precursors of everything in the universe in a region so small that it had essentially no size at all.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-began-with-a-bang-not-a-bounce-new-studies-find/

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Love’s spirit weaves the soul’s warp, weft, and wave,
Creating an eternal, perfect braid,
Wound from strands of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty;
Each different forms, but from the same All made.

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are human evaluations of their environment. And not necessarily properties of the world-weaving Poet, except in unactualized potential. However, the transcendent creator of a dynamic evolving emerging world is required by logical necessity to include opposing forces, such as hot & cold or action & reaction. So, the natural world is a process of Causes & Effects, which human poets & philosophers describe --- from the mortal human perspective --- in terms of experienced oppositions such as Good & Evil.

But some religious apologists & moralists, in their cosmologies, begin with the assumption that God per se is the ideal of Truth, Goodness & Beauty, hence fallen man by comparison is False, Evil, & Repugnant. Even Whitehead uses similar poetic terms to describe his poet-god. But, his eternal Principle of Concretion*1 seems to be the Potential for all possibilities, including both good & evil, both positive & negative, both beautiful & ugly. Although homo sapiens may be the most highly evolved creatures on Earth, we are still a work in progress, and fall short of godly perfection.

Therefore, I think of Whitehead's actual world as equivalent to Spinoza's immanent Nature-god : it is Nature in toto, woven from strands of oppositions that sentient beings interpret as Good or Bad for their own survival. Yet, Whitehead's logically inferred deus sive natura was described as "transcendent", in the sense that any creator or programmer stands apart from its creation. Although I doubt that he was aware of the Big Bang theory, which emerged years after the book, his cosmology was defined in terms of Epochs, that could be interpreted as amenable to the current models*2.

This program of world poiesis is still an ongoing process, hence Reality is not fully actualized. And its Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are relative, not absolute. :smile:


PS___ I read Process and Reality about 20 years ago, but didn't fully understand it. So I'm using this thread to deepen my prehension of his worldview in order to improve my own. Your poems are useful for stimulating new ways of thinking about the poetic Process and the prosaic Reality.


*1. What is God according to Whitehead? :
In Whitehead's metaphysics, God functions as a "principle of concretion." Put differently, God is what determines which things move from a state of possibility to a state of actuality.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/zpyo5u/can_someone_explain_whiteheads_conception_of_god/

*2. Whitehead’s Cosmic Epochs and Contemporary Cosmology :
The notions of the big bang and a dynamic, expanding universe are consistent with Whitehead’s notion of what occurs within a cosmic epoch.
https://www.csun.edu/~lmchenry/documents/CosmicEpochs%5B1%5D.pdf

Quoting Gnomon

poiesis

Poetic Report:

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling our live’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, from strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Forming the words as the atoms whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as phrases,
Onto proteins and cells, as sentences,
Up to paragraphs of organisms,
And unto the stories of the species.

In this concordance of literature,
We are the Cosmos’ book of adventure,
As a uni-verse of sentient poems,
Being both the contained and the container.

Our poem is both the thought and the presence,
An object born from the profoundest sense,
An image of diction, feeling, and rhythm;
We’re both the existence and the essence.

Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.

Syntactical information exchange,
Without breaking of the holistic range,
Reveals the epic whole of nature’s poetics,
Within her requisite of ongoing change.

So there’s form before gloried substance,
Relationality before the chance
Of material impressions rising,
Traced in our world from the gestalt’s dance.

All lives in the multi–dimensional spaces
Of basic superpositional traces
Of Possibility, as like the whirl’s
Probable clouds of distributed paces.

Quoting Gnomon

I think of Whitehead's actual world as equivalent to Spinoza's immanent Nature-god [ ... ]. Yet, Whitehead's logically inferred [s]deus sive natura[/s][panentheism] was described as "transcendent", in the sense that any creator or programmer stands apart from its creation.

:rofl: Again, "immanent" is "equivalent to" not-immanent (i.e. "transcendent"). Good job! :clap:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

We are both essence and form,

Materialism takes the existence of the myriad concrete forms for granted, without questioning the underlying essence (the information ; EnFormAction ; mathematical structure) that causes form change. In topology, that immaterial interrelationship structure is often represented symbolically as lines of force. In architecture those abstract vectors are converted into concrete elements of physical structure. Engineers can "see" (visualize) those essential abstract lines, while laymen see only the superficial material. But modern computers can make those invisible lines visible {image below}. :smile:


In his dialogues Plato suggests that concrete beings acquire their essence through their relations to "forms"—abstract universals logically or ontologically separate from the objects of sense perception. These forms are often put forth as the models or paradigms of which sensible things are "copies".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence

In general, information has been considered as the following essences: as structures; processes (like becoming informed); changes in a knowledge system; some type of knowledge (for example, as personal beliefs or recorded knowledge); some type of data; an indication; intelligence; lore; wisdom; an advice; an accusation ...
https://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_pdf/wiener05.pdf

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.

Information is the invisible interrelations that the human mind interprets holistically as meaning. Information is the syntax & semantics of the world around us. :smile:

For Whitehead, God is not necessarily tied to religion. Rather than springing primarily from religious faith, Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

In Philosophy Now magazine (feb/mar 2025) a letter-to-the-editor said about the Return of God article : "disproof is not a necessity for me. All that is necessary for me is the lack of any reason I can accept to give the God hypothesis serious consideration."
Note --- Presumably the only "reasons" he could accept are physical demonstrations. Which, ironically leaves philosophical reasoning out of the question.

Same magazine : "reasoning without reference to empirical data is appropriate when applied to phenomena which transcend the physical world or constitute its ground of being, such as God".
Note --- If the physical universe could be proven to be self-existent, then a transcendent Cause would be unnecessary. The Big Bang is not proof of God, but it is an indication that our universe is contingent upon something outside of Space-Time as we know it. We accept transcendental numbers & equations because they are useful for the abstract purposes of mathematics.
Note --- Phenomena that transcend the physical world are Noumena (ideas ; ideals).

Obviously, Whitehead's God is neither provable nor disprovable by empirical scientific methods. So, he made no scientific claims. He merely observed an evolving physical (matter) & metaphysical (mind) universe, and made a logical deduction of its metaphysical provenance. Atheists tend to deny all metaphysical arguments, relying simply on Appeal to the Stone. This is a reference to Samuel Johnson's counter-argument to Berkeley's God : he kicked a rock to demonstrate that it was real (i.e. material), as opposed to the unreal (Ideal) deity. Thus, he demonstrated his low opinion of philosophical metaphysics.

A. N. Whitehead was a mathematician, so grounding his metaphysical worldview in a non-empirical axiom is understandable. An Axiom (Greek : Worthy) is not a sensory observation, but a conceptual proposition on which an abstractly defined logical structure is based. Since over 90% of humans over all time have believed in some kind of invisible deity (represented in symbols), he could assume that the general concept would be accepted by most people. Of course, atheists are exceptional, in that they demand hard evidence for any belief. But Whitehead developed his Process theory first, and only added the God postulate later, when the system needed a universally applicable foundation. Obviously, he found that transcendent notion useful for his abstract philosophical purposes. :smile:


Metaphysical immanentism restricts reality either to the data of human experience furnished by the senses, as in the empiricism of D. hume and his positivist heirs, or to the data of human thought, as in subjective idealism.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/immanentism
Note --- Whitehead's god postulate is based on the "subjective idealism" of metaphysical Mathematical reasoning. His transcendental God has no role in scientific practice, but is just as reasonable and useful as Transcendental Numbers, Sets, Infinity, Zero, etc.

Quoting Gnomon

human experience

The Web of Life

Life's a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows,
Stretched as time between eternal boughs.
Gossamer threads bear the beads that glisten,
Each moment a sequence of instant nows.

Dew-dropped strands catch morning’s golden light,
While spider-silk of dreams spans day and night,
Each crossing point a choice that might have been,
Each junction where our paths could take their flight.

The present dangles on this cosmic lace,
A trembling drop in vast eternal space,
While past events string out behind like pearls,
And future moments wait to take their place.

Some threads lead up toward heaven’s distant peak,
Some spiral down where darker answers seek,
While others stretch horizontal through time,
Where cause and effect their pattern speak.

The web vibrates with every choice we make,
Each action sends fresh ripples in its wake,
While distant strands, connected, feel the touch—
What quantum tangles in our movements wake!

Between the threads swim particles of chance,
Like fireflies that through the evening dance,
Each flash illuminates a different path
Through which our destinies might advance.

The ancient spinners weave with patient care,
Each filament of fate both strong and rare,
While we, poor flies caught in this grand design,
See beauty in the trap that holds us there.

Some strands are spun from joy’s pure golden light,
Some dark with grief that dims the stars at night,
Yet all together form the pattern whole
That makes our brief existence burning bright.

The web holds memories like morning dew,
Each droplet showing different points of view,
While time flows on, refreshing every strand
With possibilities both false and true.

So dance upon these threads while still you may,
For though they quiver, still they hold their sway,
And in their intricate connecting lines
Lies meaning for our brief cosmic stay.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

human experience — Gnomon
The Web of Life
Life's a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows, . . . .
Some threads lead up toward heaven’s distant peak,
Some spiral down where darker answers seek, . . . .
And in their intricate connecting lines
Lies meaning for our brief cosmic stay

Whitehead's metaphysical worldview encompasses all of the various human experiences*1, including Who, What, When, and Why? Empirical Science focuses on What & How? So, it overlooks the subjective & spiritual aspects of human experience. However, the soft subjective science of Psychology does accept "spiritual" experiences as valid topics for investigation*2. Process Philosophy established no religious doctrines of spirituality, but it does make allowances for the diversity of human experiences*3, which each mind can interpret as they see fit.

My understanding of Spirituality over the eons of human nature, is based on Emotional feelings rather than Rational facts. And, I personally tend to value the rational over the emotional, but that's just me. Yet I'm not atheist or political enough to despise an essential feature of human nature. Some people are sheep, who need to be led to communal Faith. I may not agree with their particular beliefs, but I believe in freedom of belief, because that's the ground of "meaning for our brief cosmic stay". :grin:


*1.What are the 5 human experiences? :
Coaches who support clients to create profound sustainable change will work with the 'whole' person, or as we say, at the five levels of human experience: the physical, mental, emotional, intuitive and spiritual. This is with the belief our mind, body, heart and soul are all connected.
https://www.empower-world.com/blog/supporting-our-clients-at-the-five-levels-of-the-human-experience

*2. The psychology of spirituality, or transpersonal psychology, explores the spiritual and transcendental aspects of human experience, seeking to understand how connection to something beyond the self can lead to growth and self-development. It integrates spirituality and consciousness studies into psychological theory, often exploring themes like meaning, purpose, and connection
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=psychology+of+spirituality

*3. Reconciling Diverse Intuitions: It aims to reconcile diverse human experiences, including religious, scientific, and aesthetic intuitions, into a coherent, holistic framework
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=process+philosophy+spiritualism

Why should we prefer 'process philosophy/ontology' against the traditional 'substance theory/ontology' in metaphysics? — Metaphysics of Science
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/comments/1eej0sd/why_should_we_prefer_process_philosophyontology/

Materialism is a Substance philosophy, which focuses on the elementary stuff (phenomena) our physical senses are designed to detect. Everything else is interpreted as incidental epiphenomena. Process Ontology is an Evolutionary philosophy, focused on the dynamics (causes ; changes) of the physical world. And two of those evolutionary changes, emergence of biological Life and Psychological Mind, are of special interest to seekers of wisdom.

But why should posters on a philosophy forum focus more on the changes (Causation & Effects) than on the raw stuff being modified, developed, and organized? Einstein provided one good reason for Process preference in his E=MC^2 equation*1. Which implies that causal Energy is more fundamental & universal than the myriad forms of matter.

Ancient philosophers and scientists typically used terms like "Spirit"*2 in reference to what we now know as "Energy". Both are invisible causes of all things (objects) and changes (motion, modification) that we perceive in the world. So, the power to create physical substances and to cause changes in matter seems to be the most important factor in the philosophical view of Nature. Modern Energy may be the Essence that Aristotle defined as essential to Nature*3. Scientific Knowledge may be awareness of material facts, but Philosophical Wisdom is understanding of causes & relationships. :smile:


*1. [i]Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, "Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to a point of visibility. There is no matter.". He also famously stated, "Everything is energy and that's all there is to it," which underscores the fundamental equivalence of matter and energy. This idea is further supported by his E=mc² equation, which demonstrates that mass and energy are fundamentally interchangeable.
PS___ The quote you mentioned is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but there is no direct evidence that he actually said or wrote those exact words. It reflects a philosophical interpretation of Einstein's theories, particularly his famous equation E=mc2, which describes the relationship between mass (matter) and energy.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=einstein+matter+energy+quote
Note --- Quora Asistance Bot :
Einstein did express ideas related to the nature of matter and energy in various writings and speeches, but this specific quote is not found in his documented works. It's more likely a paraphrase or interpretation of his views on the relationship between matter and energy.
https://www.quora.com/Did-Albert-Einstein-say-Concerning-matter-we-have-been-all-wrong-What-we-have-called-matter-is-energy-whose-vibration-has-been-so-lowered-as-to-be-perceptible-to-the-senses-There-is-no-matter

*2. [i]The term "spirit" is used metaphorically to represent a fundamental, underlying reality or energy from which all matter is derived.
While Einstein's words have been interpreted in various ways, they generally point to a view of reality where energy is the fundamental substance, and matter is a condensed or manifested form of that energy.[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Matter+is+spirit+reduced+to+a+point+of+visibility

*3. In Aristotelian philosophy, substance refers to a thing's fundamental and durable nature, the thing itself, while essence is what makes a thing what it is, its defining characteristic. In simpler terms, substance is the "what" of a thing, while essence is the "whatness" or the defining properties that make it that kind of thing.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+essence+and+substance

Quoting Gnomon

seekers of wisdom

Quoting Gnomon

seekers of wisdom

The Cosmic Conversations video mentioned "Persia Fume" as something that might be of cosmic significance. So, I Googled it and found the image below, but not much else. It portrays an ornate bottle of perfume as-if it has spiritual significance : note the black & white angel emerging from the bottle. What does this mean for "seekers of wisdom"? :smile:

The Persian chemist Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna) introduced the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation, the procedure most commonly used today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume

In a spiritual context, an "angel of alchemy" often represents the divine guidance and transformative power associated with alchemical practices. These angels are seen as keepers of alchemical knowledge and guardians of the alchemical process, helping individuals to find their own path of inner transformation and self-realization.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=angel+of+alchemy+meaning

The MAGIC MOUNTAIN
by Thomas Mann, 1926
[i]"“Aristotle? Didn’t Aristotle place in the individual the reality of universal ideas? That is pantheism.”

“Wrong. When you postulate independent being for individuals, when you transfer the essence of things from the universal to the particular phenomenon, which Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, as good Aristotelians, did, then you destroy all unity between the world and the Highest Idea; you place the world outside of God and make God transcendent. That, my dear sir, is classic mediævalism.”

“Classic medievalism! What a phrase!” “Pardon me, I merely apply the concept of the classic where it is in place: that is to say, wherever an idea reaches its culmination. Antiquity was not always classic. And I note in you a general repugnance to the Absolute;"[/i]

By contrast with medieval Scholasticism, Whitehead's god-model portrays the Cause of the Process we call Evolution as both Immanent (evolving physical world) and Transcendent (primordial potential for being) : PanEnDeism. I view this model as an update of Spinoza's deus sive natura, to accommodate modern cosmology, which found evidence of a First Tick and Prime Time of our contingent & temporary space-time universe, as it is currently being mapped by physical Science. :nerd:

Quoting Gnomon

an update of Spinoza's deus sive natura, to accommodate modern cosmology

Funny thing, though, Einstein didn't see a reason for "an update of Spinoza's Deus, sive nature, perhaps because he actually studied Spinoza, unlike you, Mr Enformer-of-the-gaps, and therefore does not conflate, or confuse, metaphysics with physics as pseudo-thinkers do. Fwiw, the philosophical speculation I find most parsimonious and consistent with "modern cosmology" is pandeism¹ (not your "PanEnDeism" or panentheism or pantheism).

(2022)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/607424 [1]

Quoting Gnomon

Cosmic

Vacation Planets: A Cosmic Tour

Uranus tilts and tumbles through the void,
Its icy winds would leave one quite annoyed,
Yet compared to Pluto’s frozen sphere,
It’s practically a resort asteroid.

Poor Pluto, like a puppy left outside,
Was stripped of planet status, dignity denied;
Now orbits with the Kuiper Belt debris—
A cosmic demotion it must abide.

In Hell’s own realm it now holds court supreme,
With Charon dancing round in endless dream;
Better king of dwarf worlds, so they say,
Than ninth planet in the solar team.

[hide="Reveal"]I ventured down to Venus’ clouded face,
Expecting something of celestial grace;
Instead found acid rain and crushing weight—
No goddess would choose this as dwelling place.

The sulfur fumes would make a skunk turn pale,
While temperatures would cook a devil’s tail;
Compared to this infernal pressure cooker,
Uranus’ methane breeze would be a gale.

Jupiter, the king of gaseous spheres,
Has storms that’ve raged for hundreds of years;
Its Great Red Spot, a tempest wild and free,
Could swallow Earth with all its hemispheres.

Saturn’s rings may look like heaven’s lace,
But fragments fierce fly through that lovely space;
A billion moonlets dance their deadly waltz—
No tourist trap I’d recommend with grace.

Those gas giants with their swirling bands
Have gathered moons like grains of cosmic sands;
Europa, Titan, Io, and the rest—
Their mooning around has gotten out of hand.

That leaves us Mars, the red world’s rusty plains,
Where ancient rivers left their dried remains;
Though Klingons now by Uranus patrol,
On Mars at least the gravity’s humane.

Perhaps we’d best stay home on Earth instead,
Where air is sweet and skies are overhead,
For though the Cosmos calls with siren song,
Most vacation spots out there would leave us dead.

The universe may sparkle, vast and bright,
With worlds that beckon through the endless night,
But Earth remains our perfect paradise—
The only planet that feels just right.[/hide]

Quoting Gnomon

"Persia Fume"

It could be ageless rhymes from ancient times rising up from Omar's tomb.

[i]During his years of teaching philosophy at Harvard University, Alfred North Whitehead aroused newly intense questions concerning God and the World. Here are some selections from Religion in the Making, Science and the Modern World and Process and Reality.

# Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the passing flux of immediate things;

# Today there is but one religious dogma in debate: What do you mean by “God”?

# There are three main simple renderings of this concept before the world.

1. The Eastern Asiatic concept of an impersonal order to which the world conforms. This order is the self-ordering of the world; it is not the world obeying an imposed rule. The concept expresses the extreme doctrine of immanence.

2. The Semitic concept of a definite personal individual entity, whose existence is the one ultimate metaphysical fact, absolute and underivative, and who decreed and ordered the derivative existence which we call the actual world. This Semitic concept is the rationalization of the tribal gods of the earlier communal religions. It expressed the extreme doctrine of transcendence.

3. The Pantheistic concept of an entity to be described in the terms of the Semitic concept, except that the actual world is a phase within the complete fact which is this ultimate individual entity. The actual world, conceived apart from God, is unreal. Its only reality is God’s reality. The actual world has the reality of being a partial description of what God is. But in itself it is merely a certain mutuality of “Appearance,” which is a phase of the being of God. This is the extreme doctrine of monism.[/i]
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1925/08/religion-and-science/304220/

My childhood religion taught the Semitic god-concept, but I eventually realized that the Bible was not the revelation of a Hebrew tribal-God, but the work of imperial Roman compilers & editors . So, I gave-up on my inherited religion, but had no philosophical alternative to a god of some kind, to explain the existence of the evolving reality outside of myself.

I was not impressed by the polytheistic Oriental god-models, but godless Buddhism seemed acceptable as a stoic philosophy of self-reliance. Yet modern Science goes beyond mere acquiescence to Fate, and provides a plausible account of the How, if not the Why of the world. So, my current worldview is focused mainly on the open Why questions.

I only became aware of modern non-religious philosophical worldviews late in life. For example, Immanent Pantheism*1, such as Spinoza's deus sive natura, made some sense to me, with one major shortcoming : his 17th century nature-God turns-out to be a temporary flash-in-the-pan, compared to eternal universal principles such as Logos & Brahman. Moreover, his predestined machine-like world --- and its sentient creatures --- was completely determined by the laws of Nature, hence no Free Will. And his "nothing new under the sun" assertion, denied the fecundity & creativity that is now undeniable in cosmic Evolution*2.

So again acquiescence to Fate seemed to be Spinoza's only viable philosophical option. Ironically, the time-bound law-maker God was deemed subject to its own laws & limitations. Spinoza axiomatically assumed that his god-substance (matter) was self-existent. Yet, The scientific Big Bang theory portrays our Cosmos (Nature) as a temporary process, with a sudden birth-like beginning and an inevitable Entropic end. To avoid the obvious creator-god implications, a variety of unverifiable transcendent conjectures, such as Inflation & Multiverse & Cycleverse have been imagined, as place-holders for the traditional transcendent deities.

Cosmologists were astonished that the material world began with an impossibly low level of Entropy, and high level of causal potential (Energy). Which implies that insubstantial & invisible Energy is more fundamental than the complex & crumbling material substances that eventually evolved from near-infinite Potential and near nothing Actual. Therefore, the self-organizing & dis-organizing material world is a feeble substitute for the ancient timeless principles postulated as the First & Final Cause of the space-time world.

So, in recent years, I have developed a personal worldview and God-concept that seems surprisingly close to that portrayed in Whitehead's Process and Reality. One descriptive label for that god-model is PanEnDeism, as proposed by his associate Charles Hartshorne, which describes the deus as both Immanent (Nature) and Transcendent (Super-Nature). :smile:


*1. Spinoza's God was pantheist, a modern version of the God of the Stoics, for whom God was essentially the same as the laws of Nature. And these laws were necessarily completely determined by God.. . . . Nothing is possible but the actions of God, so there are no alternative possibilities to choose between. There is no chance. . . . . Like Spinoza's God, laws of Nature are not something to be prayed to. Spinoza believes that new information is never created. "Nothing new under the Sun.".
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/spinoza/

*2. Is Evolution Creative? :
For example, biological evolution has been described as a creative process , bringing novel living systems into the world.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2427106_Is_Evolution_Creative

VARIETIES OF PHILOSOPHICAL GOD MODELS

Quoting Gnomon

creative process

The answer to your quest!

Quoting PoeticUniverse

creative process — Gnomon
The answer to your quest!

As a conceptual model, to imagine the physical universe as-if it is a computer simulation*1, is compatible with my Enformationism thesis. But the philosophical question remains : who or what was the Putative Programmer, the Cosmic Coder, the Quantum Quester? In the 21st century, several physicists and mathematicians have written books on related topics*2. I suspect that even 180proof could accept that as a plausible concept, except for the logical necessity for a transcendent Programmer to setup the evolutionary system to compute a cosmos from scratch.

Personally, I find the notion of a spontaneous self-creating self-programming computer cosmos to be implausible. So, I still see a logical need for Whitehead's God ; and even Spinoza's deus sive natura, as long as both conjectures are updated to take account of 21st century cosmology*3. Since classical physics, and Einstein's Relativity, do not compute at Singularity scales, we still need to face the enigma of provenance for Causal Energy & Limiting Laws & queer Quantum Math.

Presumptive Multiverse & Brane hypotheses merely kick the can of genesis down the road. Leaving us with an originless & endless (hence irrational) infinite-regress Tower of Turtles paradox. Therefore, for my philosophical purposes, I simply call that logical paradox : G*D or Programmer or Logos. But I refuse to bow before a Magician who hides behind a curtain of quantum complexity. Instead of blind faith, I say "show me". Hence my ongoing quest for a credible Ontology. :nerd:



*1. Computer Universe :
The idea that the universe could be a vast computer simulation, or a type of digital computation, is a concept explored in the field of digital physics and by some physicists. This perspective suggests that the universe's fundamental structure and evolution might be viewed as a complex computation rather than a purely physical process. . . . .
The simulation hypothesis also raises philosophical questions about the nature of reality and our perception of it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=universe+as+computer

*2. Programming the Universe : A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos
Seth Lloyd "Particles not only collide, they compute."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Universe

*3. Quantum cosmology is the field that attempts to apply quantum mechanical principles to the entire universe, particularly focusing on the quantum nature of the universe's early stages and the Big Bang. It seeks to address questions about the universe's origins and early evolution, where classical general relativity breaks down.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=quantum+cosmology

TOWER OF TURTLES with no foundation


Postscript : Reply to 180 Proof says there's no physical evidence of a Cosmic Programmer of physics. Would you expect to find DNA of a computer programmer in the code? Experts in coding may claim to see the metaphysical "fingerprints"*4 of a well-known coder in peculiarities of the instruction set : an "explanatory function".

Philosophy is not an empirical science. So it only requires logical plausibility, not physical evidence. Apparently an Immanentist prefers to leave ultimate origins unanswered. That "free lunch" attitude is OK for a Chemist or a Physicist, but not for a Cosmologist or Philosopher. :wink:

*4. Fingerprints of God --- https://youtu.be/DB_APoFu2BA?si=PB3IUOPM27a_j0zi

Reply to PoeticUniverse Reply to Gnomon

Even if "the universe is a quantum computer", this does not necessitate it was programmed (or is programmable) or that it has a Babbage-Lovelace/Von Neumann/Turing-like architecture. Clearly, there isn't any evidence of a "transcendent programmer" or explanatory function for one.

Btw, I recommend Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd (2006); also Stephen Wolfram's work on complexity / computation, David Deutsch's work on MWI quantum computing and Carlo Rovelli's work on RQM.

Reply to Wayfarer :smirk:

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Life's a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows,
Stretched as time between eternal boughs.
Gossamer threads bear the beads that glisten,
Each moment a sequence of instant nows.

I'm currently reading a science book for the general public : The Science of Why We Exist, A history of the universe from the Big Bang to Consciousness. Understandably, the author presents his story in a linear cause & effect fashion --- like a computer program --- instead of a non-linear web of Fate. Ironically, given the title, the book is about the Hows, not the Whys*1.

In his chapter on Beginnings, he says : "Physics is the science that explains why the universe behaves like it does". Yet again, the explanation is a list of mechanical sequential causes (Hows) instead of a single synopsis of an intentional Why. Nevertheless, I found one expression to be suggestive of a Why motive for beginning the evolutionary sequence of our Cosmos. He said : "If physics is the universe's way of turning energy into atoms, then chemistry is the cosmos's way of transforming elements into life". Hence : A Physics = Energy ??? Atoms (matter), and B Chemistry = Elements ??? Life (animated matter). The arrows indicate the steps & direction of transformation. So the general direction of Evolution is from simple to complex, and from Matter to Mind. But what step came before Physics?

In a marginal note, I extended that programming logic to say : Biology is the cosmos's way of transforming Energy into purposeful behavior : *C* Biology ??? Purpose (intentional action). Then, Psychology is the cosmos's way of transforming Energy into Thought : *D* Psychology = Energy ??? Mind (intellectual function). This step by step story of evolution begins with an undifferentiated burst of cosmic scale energy (the input), which gradually, over billions of solar cycles, transforms from A generic causation, to B the diversity of things, to *?* meaningful ideas (the output??) via the process of differentiation*4. This notion of omni-causal power is amenable to my own theory of EnFormAction : the generic power to transform. Of course all those logical stages along the way are also inter-related by our minds into a cosmic web of whos, whats, wheres & whys. You could say that Evolution is the Cosmos's way of weaving a world of intellectual interest to its questioning elements. :smile:


Note --- Since I lack your talent for rhyme & reason, I thought you might be able to turn the linear logical path of causation into a poem of creative computation. Although, 180proof may cringe at the pre-causal (First Cause) implication, here's my crude attempt :

THE WHYS OF EVOLUTION
[i]The universe behaves as it does,
Not randomly, but because. . . .
It was designed to evolve via telesis*2
'to a world of life, mind and poiesis*3.

It was programmed to transform
Potential into material forms.
By means of Logic, not Accident,
Yet who knows what it meant.

It possessed both Power and Purpose
To evolve a world that slowly goes
From Bang to Thing to Think,
In the space of a god's eye blink.

Yet the motive behind the act
Is concealed in the syntax
Of a world creating algorithm
And an Easter Egg*5 with'em.[/i]


*1. "Why" questions seek to understand the reason or cause behind an action or event, while "how" questions focus on the process or method of achieving something. "Why" delves into the purpose and motivation, whereas "how" examines the mechanics or steps involved.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=why+vs+how

*2. "Telesis" refers to progress that is intentionally planned and directed towards a specific end, often through the application of human intelligence.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=telesis

*3. Poiesis : (poetry)In philosophy and literary theory, poiesis refers to the act or process of creation, or the making of something that didn't previously exist.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=poiesis

*4. Differentiation : The act or process of differentiating. 2. Development from the one to the many, the simple to the complex, or the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/differentiation

*5. Easter Egg : Computer easter eggs are hidden, undocumented features, messages, or jokes embedded within software or hardware. These "secrets" are often discovered by users who find a way to activate them through specific keystrokes, commands, or actions.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=computer+easter+eggs

Quoting Gnomon

a poem of creative computation

The cosmos moves by laws precise and deep,
Not random chance that makes the heavens leap,
But designed to evolve through purposeful intent
To worlds where life and mind and art may reap.

The atoms dance in patterns yet unseen,
From simple dust to matters more serene,
A cosmic code inscribed in every part
That guides what is to what has never been.

From single cells to minds that contemplate,
The universe did slowly orchestrate
A symphony of change through time's long flow,
Not random notes, but scores that resonate.

Programmed from void to form with subtle skill,
Potential turns to substance by its will.
By Logic's hand, not Accident's blind touch,
Though what it meant remains a mystery still.

The stars that burn and planets that revolve
Hold secrets of the plan that did involve
Both time and space in grand experiment
Where problems find the means to them resolve.

What force compels the simple to complex?
What wisdom guides the code that doth annex
New forms from old through trials of survival,
A game whose rules the cosmos did perfect?

Perhaps the meaning lies not at the end
But in the ways that all things do transcend
Their former state to reach for something more,
A path on which all beings must depend.

Both Power and Purpose dwell within its core
To shape a world that slowly something more
From Bang to Thing to Think becomes at last,
In time that gods would barely count before.

The hidden hand that writes creation's tale
Leaves traces of intent we might unveil,
If only we could read between the lines
Of DNA and stars that never fail.

The motive for creation's grand design
Lies hidden in algorithmic line,
A world-creating code that carries forth
An Easter Egg of meaning most divine.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

creative process — Gnomon
The answer to your quest!

Yes, others have joined in the quest to understand the "creative process" of our evolving universe. Some even liken that Process to a line-by-line computer program, as-if designed by a creative mind. For example, Charles Seife makes use of the computer analogy in his 2007 book Decoding The Universe. But, since he is not a philosopher, he does not attempt to define the logically necessary Programmer, other than a vague reference to Infinity*1. Also, Seth Lloyd's Programming the Universe, presents the evidence of coded information in Nature, but leaves the inference of a cosmic coder to the reader's reason. Unlike free-thinking philosophers, professional scientists are limited by their empirical method to physical evidence.

As usual, Reply to 180 Proof demands immanent physical "evidence"*2 of the programmer, but all we have access to is the lines of code known as Natural Laws : the syntax of cosmic creation. So, we can follow the trail of evidence back to the scene of the "crime" (Big Bang), and use our detective skills to pin the crime of creation on the transcendent perpetrator. Yet, if the programmer is infinite & indefinite, what kind of evidence would you expect to find : footprints in the mud, or fingerprints on the DNA? For philosophers, logical & rational evidence, interpreted from the physical evidence, should suffice, to prove within reason that the programmer got away with, not murder, but creation of Life from scratch*3. :smile:


*1. “This is the definition of the infinite : it is something that can stay the same size even when you subtract from it.” — Charles Seife
Note --- Since our space-time universe is always increasing in size, his "infinity" must be referring to the concept of an entity Greater Than the physical world. His Cosmic Coder could be described as PanEnDeism : physical universe within meta-physical Mind. Hence, the only physical evidence is the creation itself.

*2. Btw, I recommend Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd (2006); also Stephen Wolfram's work on complexity / computation, David Deutsch's work on MWI quantum computing and Carlo Rovelli's work on RQM. ___excerpt from Reply to 180 Proof's post above
Note --- We read the same science books, but interpret their philosophical implications differently.

*3. "Deus absconditus," a Latin term meaning "hidden God," refers to the Christian theological concept that God's essence is fundamentally unknowable and that God is often perceived as absent or hidden, even when actively present. This idea contrasts with the concept of "Deus revelatus," or the revealed God, as seen in Christ.
Note --- My philosophical thesis is amenable to the hidden god concept, but not the revealed god of Theology

Quoting Gnomon

Note --- We read the same science books, but interpret their philosophical implications differently.

Except that your interpretations consist in appeals to ignorance fallacies, as quite a few members have exhaustively pointed out over the years, and my interpretations do not.

NB: Philosophy says, in effect, 'here, we don't know (yet)' and thereby rigorously makes explicit the (current) limits of reason and knowledge whereas in contrast sophistry / theology / pseudo-science deludes itself with woo-of-the-gaps fairytales (e.g. "Enformer", "transcendental programmer", "intelligent designer", etc) which purport to explain (i.e. resolve fundamental mysteries) yet do not explain anything.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The hidden hand that writes creation's tale
Leaves traces of intent we might unveil,
If only we could read between the lines
Of DNA and stars that never fail.

Excerpt from Reply to 180 Proof post above :
" [i]Note --- We read the same science books, but interpret their philosophical implications differently. — Gnomon
Except that your interpretations consist in appeals to ignorance fallacies, as quite a few members have exhaustively pointed out over the years, and my interpretations do not.[/i]"

As usual, 180 alcohol content responds to my philosophical arguments --- in favor of a Cosmic Cause (hidden hand) for the contingent universe we living & thinking beings inhabit --- with ad hominem political attacks : e.g. liberal (logical) inference bad vs conservative (physical) evidence good. I assume he is appalled at the worldwide popularity of the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, who frequently punished his chosen people with mass death and deportation. 180 may also have had a bad experience with pedophile priests or knuckle-rapping nuns.

What he calls an “argument from ignorance”*1 is actually a logical inference from circumstantial evidence to a general conclusion, not the ridiculous claim that “absence of evidence is evidence of presence”. Even scientist & skeptic Carl Sagan*2 used the reverse argument to indicate that we should keep an open mind about hypotheses that lack conclusive, “I rest my case”, evidence.

However, this thread is about the “God” of A.N. Whitehead*3, which is essentially what Blaise Pascal called the “God of the philosophers”*4 --- referring to Spinoza. The Philosopher's God doesn't reward or punish anybody; She just creates an ongoing Process of Emergence which inspires philosophers to ask “Why” questions. Spinoza inferred from the evidence of Nature that there must be some universal & eternal substance or essence with infinite attributes, which he, like Whitehead, reasoned to be a “necessary assumption”*3 for understanding the world.

I suspect that Spinoza might agree with Whitehead's god of organism, if he had lived in the 20th century. Both inferred from circumstantial evidence that a universal Substance/Essence was logically necessary to explain the existence, persistence, and consistence of the world we questioning beings inhabit. :nerd:



*1. An appeal to ignorance fallacy occurs when someone claims something is true or false simply because there's no evidence for or against it. It's essentially arguing "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" or "absence of evidence is evidence of presence", which is a flawed logical leap.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=argument+from+ignorance+fallacy+examples
Note --- 180 demands physical (material) evidence of a god immanent in the space-time world. But Gnomon presents metaphysical (logical) evidence of the necessity for a transcendent (pre-bang) Cause of the innate Process we know as Evolution.

*2. The statement "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" means that the lack of proof for something doesn't necessarily mean that the thing doesn't exist. It's often attributed to Carl Sagan, who famously stated that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". This means that the absence of evidence for a hypothesis doesn't automatically prove that the hypothesis is false.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=absence+of+evidence+is+evidence+of+presence

*3. Whitehead's conception of God, articulated in his philosophy of process and organism, is not presented as a proof of God's existence in the traditional sense, but rather as a necessary assumption for understanding the world.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+evidence+for+god

*4. The phrase "not the God of the philosophers" often refers to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as distinguished from the God of philosophical inquiry. Blaise Pascal famously used this distinction, highlighting a personal, relational God rather than a purely abstract or logical one. Some interpret this as a contrast between a God who is part of religious belief systems and a God who is understood through reason and logic, often portrayed as more impersonal.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=not+the+god+of+the+philosophers

*5. Evidence for universal Substance : Spinoza has not proved but assumed that God is an - or rather the - existing substance.
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/51293/spinozas-proof-of-god
Note --- Ironically, 180proof's favorite philosopher didn't present physical evidence for his universal Substance. Instead, the natural world was taken for granted as beyond argument, and the God Substance was assumed as a logically necessary Axiom.

Quoting Gnomon

As usual, 180 alcohol content responds to my [s]philosophical arguments[/s] --- in favor of a Cosmic Cause (hidden hand) for the contingent universe we living & thinking beings inhabit --- with ad hominem political attacks : e.g. liberal (logical) inference bad vs conservative (physical) evidence good. I assume he is appalled at the worldwide popularity of the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, who frequently punished his chosen people with mass death and deportation. 180 may also have had a bad experience with pedophile priests or knuckle-rapping nuns.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Like Trump, your fatuous accusations are confessions, Gnomon – I must've struck a raw nerve (i.e. truth hurts! :sweat:) with my last post ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/984104 :up:

Quoting Gnomon

She just creates an ongoing Process of Emergence

Quoting Gnomon

She just creates an ongoing Process of Emergence

The video begins with a wardrobe malfunction, and concludes with a philosophical malfunction. If you ignore the progression of the Evolutionary Process, and assume it is totally random, then the Pale Blue Dot in the cosmic blackboard "should not exist". We're not playing darts here, but from the perspective of the only sentient beings we know, that "dot" is in the center of the target. How did we get here from the propulsive Singularity? :joke:

ONE SMALL PLANET DEFIES THE ODDS


PS___ I'm skeptical of some of the interpretations of "coincidences" in the video. But I can agree that Evolution has hit a lot of coincidences on the nose.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

So dance upon these threads while still you may,
For though they quiver, still they hold their sway,
And in their intricate connecting lines
Lies meaning for our brief cosmic stay.

Humans did not compose the rhythms of reality, but we are motivated by necessity to dance to the music of Evolution. For some, the dancing may look like quivering spasms, to others like sexy swaying, but the dancers create their own meaning to explain why they do what comes naturally.

In another god-related thread*1, I said :
"That's why I prefer A.N. Whitehead's notion of God (Nature) as the inexorable Process of Evolution. The Darwinian Procedure works like a program*1, via And/Or/Not (selection & combination & elimination), to improve the current stock for the next generation. Like Spinoza, Whitehead uses the term "god" in a technical, not religious, sense to designate the implicit Programmer of this ongoing process of cosmic Creation. So, God is still in "the mix", not as the intervening manager, but as the program and/or programmer of the creative system we call "Evolution" or "Nature". The manager is not at the front desk, but at the cosmic computer console."

I also opined about those "intricate connecting lines" :
"Obviously, the goal of evolution is not you or me. So we are merely means to some other end. Meanwhile, we philosophize." To what end are you doing the wishful waltz? :joke:


*1. The 'Hotel Manager' Indictment (anti-theodicy)
But this framing of the problem reflects a profound misunderstanding of its nature. It assumes a particular conception of God — one that is, in effect, a kind of cosmic hotel manager. The world is imagined as a well-appointed establishment where the guests expect, indeed are entitled to, a decent standard of accommodation.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/984441

Quoting Gnomon

we philosophize

My new books in Lounge:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15928/books-rubaiyat-weave-with-omarian-echoes-main-epilog

Quoting PoeticUniverse

we philosophize — Gnomon
My new books in Lounge:

I looked at the Rubaiyat Weave webpage. Is the artwork yours? Fantastic!
What is your connection to the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam?*1

I noticed the Sean Carroll quote : "there is no life after death". And I must agree, except that my Enformationism thesis concludes, as an aside comment, that causal Enformation {power to give form to the formless} --- besides being a vectored process*2 --- is a pattern of interrelationships (information ; meaning). So, a particular form-pattern could in principle be reconstituted, just as computers can copy & paste data. I wouldn't organize my life around the expectation of a better life in the hereafter (bird in hand . . .). But it's a possibility that philosophers could argue endlessly about. :wink:


Life Is the Flame of a Candle :
So I decided on a cheerful topic: Death and Physics. I talked about modern science gives us very good reasons to believe (not a proof, never a proof) that there is no such thing as an afterlife. Life is a process, not a substance, and it's a process that begins, proceeds along for a while, and comes to an end.
___ Sean Carroll
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/01/03/life-is-the-flame-of-a-candle/comment-page-2/


*1. "[i]Sadegh Hedayat commented that "if a man had lived for a hundred years and had changed his religion, philosophy, and beliefs twice a day, he could scarcely have given expression to such a range of ideas". . . .
FitzGerald . . . . describes Omar's philosophy as Epicurean[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam
Note --- "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die." ___ Epicurus ; Ecclesiastes???

*2. The cosmic process of Enformation (EnFormAction ; Evolution) appears linear to us limited-life beings. But on an eternal-infinite scale, the process could be cyclic, as some scientists speculate.

PS___ I'll append my *thanks* to the Transcendental Troll for his unrequested political opinions in the post below. :joke:

Quoting Gnomon

I noticed the Sean Carroll quote: "there is no life after death". And I must agree, except [nonsense]. So, a particular form-pattern could in principle be reconstituted, [s]just as computers can copy & paste data[/s]. I wouldn't organize my life around the expectation of a better life in the hereafter (bird in hand . . .). But it's a possibility that philosophers could argue endlessly about.

This might be so for "philosophers" ignorant of Conservation Laws¹ (modern physics > Noether's theorem²). You're right, Gnomon, not hang your tinfoil hat on "form-pattern ... reconstituted" à la miraculously un-scrambling eggs, perpetual motion woo-woo, etc. Sean Carroll is right, of course, insofar as complete dissolution of a dynamic system – death – in effect, randomizes the system-pattern (i.e. information processes) as per maximum entropy.³

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law [1] (re: information is not conserved)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem [2]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) [3]

Quoting Gnomon

Is the artwork yours?

Yes, my digital compositions, not drawn, or AI, or chatgpt 4o improvements to my art.

I told chatgpt: Rubaiyat era image: improve quality, make realistic, make bright, use a young man or a young woman character from old Persia when needed, and add many creative details and elements; medium vibrant; keep text as it is; use 3:2 aspect ratio always.

Now there's another book in the Lounge - my attempt at illumination:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15929/book-illuminated-rubaiyat-of-austin-fitzomar