I didn't intend for this thread, on a philosophy forum, to be a scientific analysis of evidence for "signals from the cosmos". Other than as a Noetic postulate to resolve the Hard Problem of Consciousness, I'm not aware of any scientific evidence of intelligible signals being received and interpreted by the brain, except of course as energetic inputs (light, sound) from the local environment. Instead, I'm asking for philosophical reasoning about the likelihood or possibility of "non-local" inputs of meaningful signals from an intelligent source out there in the Cosmos at large. :chin:But that would be leading the conversation back into the realm of the actually scientific. — apokrisis
Now, we're getting somewhere! My own --- philosophical, not scientific --- musings, about the hard problem, point toward Causation (natural energy, gravity, forces) as the precursor of Consciousness in biological entities. This is a holistic interpretation instead of a reductive inference from specific observations. If so, then perhaps human awareness is a high-level function of brain processes, not a reified thing or substance like the aether. All natural processes must have some evolutionary fitness function to avoid being weeded-out by natural selection. And all physical processes, including brain functions, require Energy.So it is the same old causal debate. Top-down holism vs bottom-up contruction. Two ways of treating consciousness as a reified "thing" – an elemental property of nature. But two opposite ways of framing that fact. — apokrisis

Thanks for making a rational philosophical suggestion, instead of emotional political derision. :razz:It is only likely in a block universe of pre-determined events of experience, while in presentism the brain produces the experiential from one's nature and nurture, although still determined as time goes along. The two implementations, or messengers, deliver the same message of being; it's like a music CD versus a live band. — PoeticUniverse
You are just being contrarian & polemic & off-topic. I didn't say they are the same thing, but only that they are related, as a general Form and and a particular Thing are related (hylomorph). Do you understand the relationship between Islam and Monotheism? One is a specific doctrinal religion, while the other is a general doctrine regarding Deity : Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all philosophically monotheistic, but differ in specific doctrinal beliefs.The OP does mention PanTheism, which is a religious form of philosophical PanPsychism. — Gnomon
This is not true. Pantheism and panpsychism are entirely different things. — T Clark
First, let me clarify that the title of this thread does not describe my own philosophy, but an attempt to encapsulate the worldview underlying Noetic "science" as described in Dan Brown's mystical mystery novel. The OP does mention PanTheism, which is a religious form of philosophical PanPsychism.You’re OP is not about panpsychism. It’s not even mentioned. It’s primarily about consciousness being the result the transmission from outside the body. — T Clark
I was not aware that W. James had speculated on brain as receiver or transmitter*1. accused me of promoting pseudoscience, where I'm merely exploring an idea that is novel to me.In earlier works , like Principles of Psychology, his approach was mainly materialistic. But toward the end of his career his thinking became more speculative. In the essay, he proposes that the idea that the brain transmits rather than produces consciousness is philosophically and scientifically conceivable, and perhaps better fits the facts than strict materialism. — Joshs
I don't know. What do you think?is that not another instance of "forms" activating "matter?"
In that case, not an inversion of the Wayfarer thread. — Paine
This question is off-topic, because the thread is about a fictional pseudo-scientific worldview, not (or not yet) a mainstream scientific hypothesis. I was hoping to get some feedback from Wayfarer to see if the novel's implicit --- not explicit --- Cosmic Mind worldview is similar to his own Idealistic philosophy. I made-up the Cosmos Created Mind label, as an inversion of the Mind Created World thread.The link you provided doesn’t really identify any scientists who support panpsychism, although it does identify some philosophers. Can you name some scientists who do? . . . .
This is not a philosophical question at all—it’s a scientific one. Does our consciousness result from signals coming from outside our bodies? — T Clark
Sarcasm noted. This novel is no more scientific than The DaVinci Code, and not cited as "evidence" for any particular aspect of objective reality. But its discussion of a controversial philosophical concept is evidence of some far-out philosophical conjectures that are out-there in the ether. Quite a few prominent scientists have embraced Panpsychism*1 as an explanation for the emergence of human sentience.I’m glad we’ve finally got a credible source of evidence for your ideas—a Dan Brown novel. — T Clark
Thanks for the link. I scanned the long, technical document, and found it was mostly over my amateur head. But the AI summary revealed that some of the concepts covered are compatible with my non-professional thesis. For example "Causation as Information Transfer" is equivalent to the Information = Energy sources in the thesis. Collier's "The Role of Form" is essentially the same as my usage of Platonic Form. Also "Quantification of Form and Complexity" is basically what the Santa Fe institute is doing. And "The Negentropy Principle of Information" is what I call EnFormAction or Enformy*1. So, it seems that we are thinking along the same lines. :smile:I Googled "John Collier" and got nothing relevant. — Gnomon
Just click the link I provided, — apokrisis
I didn't say "not mystical but "As non mystical as possible" for a viable religion. My religious upbringing didn't emphasize the Pentecostal gifts of the Holy Spirit, but did focus on rational beliefs to support emotional faith. However, my own reasoning concluded that their faith in a 2000 year old book was misplaced. Hence, I now have no religious beliefs, and no religious community. I'm alone in philosophical limbo, except for a few argumentative skeptics on an internet forum. :wink:Actually, the fundamentalist religion of my childhood was about as non-mystical as possible. — Gnomon
Really? The 'Holy Ghost' is non-mystical, how peculiar. — Pieter R van Wyk
As I said, "I would place my religion right next to (but not in) the lenticular overlap." So it remains in the Religion category, not the Science class. Is that reasonable for you? :smile:You can put your religion anywhere you want. If you name it religion then it should be that, not so? — Pieter R van Wyk
I'm a retired professional architect, and an part-time amateur philosopher, working a retirement gig to make ends meet. So I have very limited time or inclination for academic discipline. And no ambition to "reach the inner circles of thought". That's why my "resistance to learning" may be more charitably termed "time management".Not always offended, but puzzled that you would be resistant to learning of the philosophers and scientists already saying much the same thing in a more nailed down fashion. . . . . But having the discipline of a research mentality is the only way to reach the inner circles of current thought. And that is just the way it is. — apokrisis
The only philosophy course I took in college was Logic. And that was a math requirement. My interest in philosophy, post college, was mainly in looking for a substitute worldview to replace my childhood religious indoctrination. But I never had time to get into philosophy seriously until after retirement. And most of my autodidact education since college has been obtained from science books with a philosophical inclination.I haven’t a degree in philosophy (accounting and finance instead, 2023 graduate) but I’m highly, highly interested in it. — KantRemember
Actually, the fundamentalist religion of my childhood was about as non-mystical as possible. It was an extreme form of Protestantism, which eliminated most of the mystical and political features of Catholicism. Which left only the social bonding of those who held the "like precious faith" in a leather-bound idol : a byblos.In my understanding, religion is a collection of humans subscribing to a similar form of mysticism — Pieter R van Wyk
Empirical Science and Emotional Religion are indeed "incompatible", in the sense that information drawn from one domain (public vs private knowledge) does not directly map onto the facts/beliefs of the other. That's why S.J. Gould took the cooperative attitude that Science & Religion are "non-overlapping" systems of thought, hence not in direct competition.Since science does require some proof (and we could certainly argue some more on what, exactly constitute such a 'proof'), it would seem that the two concepts, science and religion, is incompatible. — Pieter R van Wyk

I haven't viewed the video, but I get the impression that the OP is actually proposing the integration of metaphysical Mysticism (not Religion) --- i.e. personal, not social --- with physical Science. Although I'm still skeptical, history records a variety of mystical notions that are considered by adherents as a kind of practical science or technology.That may be why there are approximately 4200 different Christian denominations in the world today. Which is evidence that Science & Religion mix like oil & water. :smile: — Gnomon
The evidence you presented are most compelling. Thank you. — Pieter R van Wyk

Your challenge to define the terms of this thread sparked an idea in my own head.You claim it is possible to integrate science and religion. This implies, I think, that you know, exactly, what is science and what is religion. Please share your definitions else comments will not be valid. — Pieter R van Wyk
Now*1 is not an objective physical thing, but as you noted, a metaphysical subjective label for the ephemeral Planck time between instances of Cause and Effect, which are also labels for instants of Change, or a snapshot of Becoming. If you subtract Before from After, the result is Change or Difference.More so, the laws say nothing about the ‘now’ point. In this static universe of space-time, any flow of ‘time’, or passage through it thus must be a mental construct or an illusion. — PoeticUniverse
Good post!Causation. — Gnomon
See my post above. — PoeticUniverse
Precisely! That's why non-philosophers typically think in terms of real-world experiences --- Father in heaven --- instead of groundless abstractions : Ungund.Unless you go for some Big Daddy in the Sky divine creator figure, you are going to have to posit an ultimate stuff so vague it is just the potential for stuff, which then becomes something by dividing against itself in the complementary fashion that allows it to evolve into the many kinds of things we find. — apokrisis
Thanks for the summary. My philosophical vocabulary is narrow & limited, and obtained mostly since I retired. Before retirement I was more interested in physical sciences.Anaximander used the term apokrisis (separation off) to explain how the world and its components emerged from the apeiron—the boundless, indefinite, and eternal origin of all things. In his cosmology, this process involved the separation of opposites, such as hot and cold or wet and dry, from the undifferentiated primordial substance.
Again, I apologize for butting-in to your scholarly dialog with . The terminology alone is baffling to a late-blooming amateur philosopher with no formal training. But sometimes when I Google some esoteric language, I may actually learn something useful & meaningful. For example, "the dichotomising action of apokrisis" meant nothing to me, until Google revealed some associated concepts that I was already familiar with.So in this thread, I have argued for the immanent and hylomorphic view of causality. . . . .
Our current universe is in its very complex – and yet also very simple – state. This seems an odd thing to say, but that itself stresses we are dealing with a logic of dichotomies. Things start to happen when two complementary things are happening at once. This is the thought that breaks the logjam of metaphysics. And has done so ever since Anaximander figured out the logic of the Apeiron split by the dichotomising action of apokrisis. — apokrisis
I'm not a physicist, so this stuff is over my head. I had to Google "symmetry breaking"*1 to see if it can happen spontaneously without any causal inputs.It is against to the thesis that matter is a passive receptacle for external and transcendent forms (first cause), while symmetry breaks give matter (to which they are immanent) the ability to generate forms without external intervention. — JuanZu
I'm more familiar with the ancient Taoist Yin-Yang version, as an illustration of the concept of Complementarity. But my understanding of those general concepts is superficial and non-technical. :nerd:But the unity of opposites is preSocratic. — apokrisis
Again, this stuff*1*2 is way over my little pointy (not Poincare) head. And I can't see what it has to do with the topic of this thread : local cause/effect vs First Cause. :joke:And not any old forms but gauge symmetries. Special relativity zeroes the spacetime metric to a set of local points under the invariance of the Poincare group of symmetries. — apokrisis
Again, I apologize for my ignorance of modern technical philosophical arguments. I'm just not familiar with the arcane jargon. My philosophical vocabulary is derived mostly from the ancient reasoning of Plato & Aristotle. Since I got into philosophy only after retirement from the practical world, I have skipped most of the post-Platonic academic argumentation.And so my reply was precisely about that. The holistic view of a first cause. The unit 1 story of the first symmetry-breaking. The unit 1 story of a unity of opposites. — apokrisis
Again, you are talking about practical (useful) Science, instead of theoretical (reasonable) Philosophy. Except that the notion of "constants" is a generalization & abstraction from specific & concrete instances of physical changes. Likewise, the notions of Unity and Absolute are never observed in the real world, but inferred from multiple instances.In fact what Penrose showed was that all the useful structure of fundamental of physics would break down if you pushed it to an actual zero point. And what instead saves it is that all of that physics rather neatly converges on the unit 1 that is the Planck point. The point at which the three fundamental constants of nature - c, G and h - become unified and have the one absolute value. — apokrisis
Of course, physics & metaphysics should be harmonious, if possible. But as the Quantum action-at-a-distance paradox indicates, sometimes we are forced to reinterpret the physics in order to derive a corrected metaphysical interpretation.I move from the metaphysics of cause to the physics of cause. — apokrisis
Again, for scientific purposes, the weak notion of this-to-that causation is usually sufficient. Except perhaps, in Quantum physics, where Non-locality and "spooky action at a distance" remains a cause-effect mystery, yet it is accepted as a real phenomenon.I am arguing against any strong notion of first cause. — apokrisis
That's OK with me. I don't have any "strong" scientific notion of First Cause. In fact, most practical scientists seem to avoid such metaphysical speculations in their work*1. For me, the notion of a First Cause is merely a philosophical conjecture to put a period on all, otherwise open-ended, causal sequences.Note --- I interpret First Cause to be logically & necessarily eternal & intentional Essence instead of temporal & accidental Substance. — Gnomon
I am arguing against any strong notion of first cause. — apokrisis

Ouch! That kind of complexified conjecturing makes my amateur philosopher head hurt. It's so far over my little pointy pate, that I probably shouldn't even comment. Do all those polysyllabic words add-up to agreement or disagreement with my quoted summation (#) of the Argument Against Causation?My argument is instead the one to be found in Anaximander, Peirce and quantum field theory. The Cosmos exists as the constraint on possibility. It emerges not from fundamental intentionality nor from fundamental mechanistic cause but from the fundamental vagueness of unorganised free potential. An essential state of everythingness that then must start to self-cancel until it becomes reduced to some coherently organised somethingness. A realm of inevitable structure. — apokrisis
If I hit a cue ball and it bounces off the bumper and into the eight ball which goes in the corner pocket, what caused the eight ball to move into the pocket? Me? The cue? The cue ball? The pool table? My muscles and bones? The electrons in the outer valence orbital of the atoms at the surface of the ball that exert repulsive force as they approach each other? My mother who gave birth to me? My friends who convinced me to go to the bar? The car that I rode in to get to the bar? The star that created all the elements that make up the pool balls? — T Clark
This quote is much more to the point than the rambling OP of opposition to some vague notion of imparted motion and being.But my argument would be that the mechanical notion of causality only arises within the context of intentional being. — apokrisis
Exactly! The world has changed radically in the 21st century. National or state borders are now much more fluid & porous than in the early 20th century. And us-vs-them antipathies are no longer aimed externally at well-defined enemies, but at neighbors, who may differ only in ideologies. In the 1970s, cartoonist Walt Kelly created a new meme, by turning a famous 19th century quote inside-out*1. His lovable possum philosopher made an early environmental statement by pointing the finger-of-blame at us, instead of at them*2.In the United States, however, in my view, the antithesis is more internal. — Astorre

I'm currently reading a memoir, based on a series of Harvard University lectures, by philosopher/mathematician A. N. Whitehead : Science and Philosophy. He was born & bred British, toward the end of Empire, but spent his later years in the U.S., which he viewed as a beacon of reason for the rest of the world. If only he could see us now!Over the past decade, I've observed a notable shift in global sentiment—especially from my vantage point in the East. Not long ago—perhaps 10 to 15 years back—there was a widespread admiration for the West in my country. The U.S. dollar was seen as unshakable. Western democracy was often cited as the highest political ideal. Western consumer goods were considered objectively superior. And the broader cultural narrative—academic, technological, even moral—was clearly West-centric. — Astorre
If I don't understand a word, I Google it.Collingwood's abstruse concept is over my untrained head — Gnomon
Here’s an idea— if you don’t understand a word don’t use it.
I simply construe the term to mean that the conclusions follow logically from the premises. — Gnomon
This is not correct. — T Clark
I don't know. Why do you ask? What do you think has been reified*1 in this thread?Gnomon Do you think hypostatization is a sensible route to take when trying to lay down the groundwork for a larger body of work? — I like sushi
Since I'm an introvert and a loner, I have no interest in a structured religion, old or new*1. And not much need for the "peace & security" of belonging to a unified group of people : sect or social system. I guess you could say that Philosophy is my solo religion ; but it offers no final answers, and little existential comfort. In lieu of a biblical or tribal religion I have developed my own personal worldview*2, based partly on Holism, Information theory, and Quantum physics. No rules or rituals, wines or ganja, candles or incense, priests or preachers . . . . just a better understanding of why the world is the way it is. :halo:From my perspective, there is a new religion popping up, based on Holism and human consciousness. A religion that would be about as good as any religion we have (or had). — Pieter R van Wyk
Gnomon is not a professional Logician, or Mathematician, or Systems theorist. Just an amateur philosophical scrivener. So the general (non-technical) concept of Holism is sufficient for my needs, to make sense of complex physical & philosophical systems.The possibility exist that Gnomon's notion of a system as a holism might be the key to such a theory - but I doubt that. You see: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language." — Pieter R van Wyk
I probably missed the point of the OP. But the subsequent clarifications only muddied the water for me.So the OP was about the limits of the efficacy of the mechanistic mindset. The complaint was that because it seemed a severely limited view of Nature in practice, one might as well give up on the very idea of believing in “causality”. — apokrisis
Collingwood's abstruse concept is over my untrained head. I simply construe the term to mean that the conclusions follow logically from the premises. But the path of reasoning can be traced from Top-Down or from Bottom-Up, and can be evaluated as Statistical (permanent pattern) or Intentional (aimed at future state). :smile:In that simplistic dichotomy, where is the "logical efficacy" of the OP? Is it in the "top-down constraints" or the "bottom-up degrees of freedom". Is it the top-down logical or intentional efficacy that the OP was arguing against? :smile: — Gnomon
This is not what Collingwood meant by logical efficacy. — T Clark
True. Billiard balls are causal, but not self-causal. So what is the initial cause of their motion? Does the cue ball initiate the aim & activity on the table? Or does the chain of causation link back to an intentional*1 Prime Cause, with the mental goal of moving all balls into pockets?The fact that humans engage in intentional behavior implies only that some causation is the product of intent. Not that all causation is. — Relativist
