In both cases the information is presupposed on the side of the interpreted. A correct expression according to my theory would be, "In-form me!" In the sense of causing something in the interpreter. — JuanZu

I think you are on the right track. The noun "information" refers to the act of informing*1, which is typically construed as imparting knowledge to a mind. As a verb, it takes the form of "to inform"*2. In a conventional context, the word "form" typically refers to the shape or configuration of something that is perceived by the senses as a physical object, and is stored in memory as an image.

But sometimes it refers to the logical structure or design that can only be inferred & conceived by a functioning human mind. Architects and Artists refer to the conceived Form as the "design intent"*3 or meaning of the art. In which case you (interpreter) can read the mind of the artist (the enformer).

In my personal worldview, I have made Information an integral element of How and Why the world works as it does (evolution). Since enforming (transforming) is a causal act, I view it as a form of Energy. With that in mind, I coined the term : EnFormAction : the power to cause change in Matter & MInd. Does that make sense to you? :smile:


*1. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest historical meaning of the word information in English was the act of informing, or giving form or shape to the mind, as in education, instruction, or training. The English word was apparently derived by adding the common "noun of action" ending "-ation" [Hence, En-Form-Action] ___ Wikipedia
https://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html

*2. The suffix "-ation" is a common way to form nouns in English, typically indicating an action, process, state, or condition. It often transforms a verb into a noun, for example, "create" becomes "creation".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=%22-ation%22+suffix

*3. In design, "form" refers to the visual and aesthetic qualities of a design, encompassing elements like shape, color, texture, and overall appearance. It's the aspect of a design that people visually perceive first, and it plays a crucial role in conveying emotions, communicating messages, and establishing brand identity. Form can be a 3-dimensional representation in graphic design, created through illusions like shadows, shading, and highlights
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=%22form%22+as+design

This is pretty close to my understanding of metaphysics except in most cases people who take a particular metaphysical position are not aware that they are. Metaphysics is generally the unconscious, unexpressed, unintentional foundation of what we believe and how we act. — T Clark

In another thread, we clashed about my unconventional (Aristotelian) definition of Meta-Physics*1 (abstract ideas vs concrete things) ; i.e. non-physical ; mental ; conceptual. But, at the time, I didn't know how you understood the term, or why you found my version so repugnant. So I assumed you considered Metaphysics to be a reference to Theology-in-general, or Catholic Scholasticism in particular. Which does not apply to my Information-Science-based hypothesis. But the quote above seems to narrowly define Metaphysics as something like "faith in fictional concepts", or perhaps "unsupported personal opinions"*2. Is that close to your understanding?

The OP gives an example of Metaphysics as Poetry : "You just write it as-if". Yet the term "as-if" can be used positively to describe a scientific Hypothesis *3, or negatively to indicate dis-belief in something Impossible. The first usage is close to my own philosophical notion, but the latter is teen-lingo and often accompanied by an eye-roll and an exclamation point.

However, I understand the OP as saying that Metaphysics is an imaginative way to describe the world, and not to be taken literally. That's not exactly how I use the term, but I can live with that. For example, the Standard Model of fundamental sub-atomic particles ascribes fanciful properties to Quarks, such as "charm" and "strange". I would accept them as placeholder names, not as physical properties.

Likewise, when scientists explore the world beyond the physical limit of the Big Bang --- e.g. String Theory --- they are doing Philosophy, not Physics, and not Poetry. Yet their fanciful descriptions of an invisible realm of 11 dimensions, could even be categorized, with tongue-in-cheek, as Poetry. However, when I make postulations about the Cause of the Big Bang, I think of it as Philosophy, and I suppose it could also be Poetry. But not in the sense of religious Faith or unsupported Opinions. :smile:


*1. Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts)
were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Angels, but about Ontology (science of being).
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

*1. No, metaphysics is not simply a matter of personal opinion. While it delves into topics beyond empirical observation, its core principles and methods rely on logic, analysis, and reasoned argument, rather than subjective preferences. Metaphysics explores fundamental questions about reality, existence, and knowledge, using philosophical tools to examine these concepts.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=metaphysics+mere+opinion

*3. As-If :
An "as-if hypothesis" is a concept where an unproven hypothesis is treated as true for the purpose of explanation, experimentation, or research, even though it hasn't been confirmed. This approach allows scientists to explore ideas and conduct research without needing to first establish the absolute truth of a hypothesis.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=as+if+hypothesis

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.
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

I think we could usefully conceive of such efforts as looking at formal causality, not efficient causation. . . . . Ontic structural realism goes in this direction and seems fairly popular in physics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ontic Structural Realism is over my head. But it seems to take for granted the timeless existence of real material things (beings) instead of ideal phenomenal percepts that are interpreted from local energetic signals (e.g. light). In any case, OSR seems to be one of several ways to interpret the world based on modern post-quantum physics*1. My own personal (amateur) worldview is also grounded, not in the phenomenal material world, but on the "form or structure" of what we interpret as Reality.

Almost a century ago, astronomers compiled evidence to construct a model of how the cosmos came to be in the structural form it now is : an expanding sphere of material stuff loosely held together by the mutual attraction we call Gravity. Ironically, the Big Bang theory of instantaneous emergence of matter & energy from who-knows-where? left itself open to biblical interpretations. So other scientists & philosophers have spent the last century re-interpreting the astronomical evidence in hopes of proving that Material Reality is an eternal cycling process, which occasionally goes "pop!", to spin-off a new cycle. Hence no creation miracle necessary.

The BB hypothesis assumed that Causal Energy (including its many forms of matter) and Natural Laws (formal restraints) exist eternally. Is Gravity an energetic force, or a formal law of Nature? Presumably, that ante-BB multiverse was generally formally similar to our current implementation of natural laws. Yet, BB theory implies that our bubble universe is gradually expending its allotment of energy, and trending toward the empty tank of max Entropy. So, the open question here is, in the previous multiverse, "what force triggered the Big Bang outburst of a new cycle of space-time, with surprisingly low Entropy" ?

Yesterday, I came across a Quora forum response with the Transcendent Gravity image below. It illustrated a hypothetical alternative to miraculous creation by a powerful divine being. The god-substitute in this case is Gravity --- an "unobservable entity", which is called a "force', as opposed to Einstein's definition as a geometric (formal) relationship. Would you consider Cosmic Creation by Gravity to be Formal or Structural Realism? If Formal, is this creative force Real or Ideal? :smile:

PS___ I apologize if this post is not well-formed. As I said, such abstruse topics are over my curious little head. I wrote it mainly as an excuse to post the image below in the Big Bang thread, to elicit comments.

*1. "The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts." ___Werner Heisenberg

*2. Ontic structural realists argue that current physics teaches us that the nature of space, time and matter are not compatible . . . .
Scientific realism requires belief in the unobservable entities posited by our most successful scientific theories. It is widely held that the most powerful argument in favour of scientific realism is the no-miracles argument, . . . .
Structural realism is often characterised as the view that scientific theories tell us only about the form or structure of the unobservable world and not about its nature.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/



Note --- Gravity is immanent to the material universe, but it is not actually a vectored Force, it is an omnidirectional Form. Gravity is the interactive relationship between lumps of condensed energy (i.e. matter). You could say that Gravity is the Logical Structure of the universe.

Since the information, this is my theory, does not exist inside the USB stick. Nor does it exist in the USB reader.
The information exists in the relationship between the two devices, the interpreting reader and the USB device. But then we cannot say that the information was contained in the USB stick as a ghost in the device. — JuanZu

I agree that the USB stick contains no substantial Information in Material form, However, I could say that it does contain Information in Potential form (as a ghost in the machine). It's like a battery, that contains no Electricity (only chemistry), until a circuit is completed. For the “interpreter” (receiver) Information is Meaning, and there is no meaning in the memory stick until a connection (relationship) is made to the Sending mind. In that sense, the information is not a material substance. But meaning can be transmitted by physical means in conventional codes (a la Morse code or ASCII). The code must be meaningful to both parties in order for the Information to be transmitted. And we call that inter-relationship (the circuit) “communication”.

However, in recent years, scientists have come to equate Information with Energy (negentropy), instead of Shannon's meaningless Entropy. And, Einstein equated Energy with Mass (matter). So, one physicist in particular, Melvin Vopson, now calls Information : “the fifth state of matter”*1. Hence, other scientists have been able to transmit abstract information from one place to another, where it is converted into matter. So, in that sense, you could say that the information existed as a substance : in the USB as electronic components and their code states. But this new way of thinking about Information is not well known. So some posters may take issue with the title of your post.

The new understanding of the role of Information in the world has philosophical implications, as you suggest. I have gone so far as to coin a neologism, EnFormAction, to convey the idea that Information has causal effects in the material world, in addition to the meaningful effects in an immaterial mind*2. So, I'm open to both sides of your post : that Information consists of both metaphysical relationships, and physical substances. :nerd:



*1. information the fifth state of matter? :
If Vopson's proposed experiment turns out the way he expects, it would prove the existence of information as the fifth state of matter in the universe, along with gas, plasma, liquid, and solid states.Mar 30, 2022
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a39588076/information-could-be-the-fifth-state-of-matter/

*2. Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause  or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15896/information-exist-as-substance-entity/p1

The MAGIC MOUNTAIN
by Thomas Mann, 1926
"“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;"

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:

seekers of wisdom — Gnomon

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

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. 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.
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. 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.
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

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 — PoeticUniverse

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

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.

We are both essence and form, — PoeticUniverse

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

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

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

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. — PoeticUniverse

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

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. — PoeticUniverse

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/

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

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. — PoeticUniverse

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,'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:


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.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=problems+with+the+multiverse+theory

In chapter 11 of the Annaka Harris audiobook Lights On, she has a conversation with Carlo Rovelli. Most of the conversation is about Rovelli's view that time is not fundamental, but is an emergent experience from the structure of the universe. Part of the conversation, though, touched on Rovelli's view of objects-as-processes. — flannel jesus

I agree with Rovelli. Although we tend to think of Space-Time as essential to Nature, those categories seem to be inferred from human experience with Change & Extension, and then attributed to Nature as-if they are objective things. Nevertheless, the "illusion"*1 of a river of time serves a valid function for humans attempting to swim with or against the flow.

Since flowing time is not a material substance, Whitehead warned us not to confuse the Now of our conception with an atom of Time : a "durationless instant"*2. So, there are no Real increments of time, equivalent to seconds, yet we construct an Ideal model of space-time as-if made of malleable matter.

Similarly, all observed objects are dynamic processes, not static things. That fact became evident when quantum physicists discovered that sub-atomic particles are actually continuous waves in the flow of Time. Which is the process of world creation. And even observed processes are mental models (ideas) created by the brain to explain change in the world. So, all discontinuities are man-made. Hence, we don't cut Nature at its physical joints, we carve at the logical intersections of the structure of reality ; whatever that means.

I suppose that counter-intuitive fact of flow is the crux of his Idealistic worldview, which serves as a Critique of Materialism*3. And which makes it difficult for many thinkers on this forum, including me, to understand what he was talking about. :smile:


*1. Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli argues in his book, "The Order of Time," that our perception of time as a flowing, universal entity is an illusion, and that time may not exist in a fundamental way, but rather emerges from a complex network of events.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=rovelli+time+does+not+exist

*2.Rejection of Instantaneous Time :
He argued that the concept of a durationless instant as an ultimate entity is problematic and leads to difficulties in understanding reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=a+m+whitehead+on+time

*3. Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, particularly his "Philosophy of Organism," is a critique of scientific materialism, arguing that reality is not simply a collection of independent material objects but a dynamic, interconnected web of processes and events, a view he articulated in works like "Process and Reality".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+materialism

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.

"“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;"

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. — PoeticUniverse

'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 :
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.
https://quantumphysicslady.org/glossary/acausal/

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

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? 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. 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.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Max_Tegmark.jpg

I have no formal education in philosophy either. Your use of "indoctrination" in this context shows why it's hard to take your philosophical opinions seriously. — T Clark

"Indoctrination" literally means teaching or instruction. But it may be interpreted as implying that the doctrine is supposed to be accepted un-critically. So, I suppose that's why you find it hard to take seriously. Yet, if you were not indoctrinated in college, how did you arrive at your philosophical worldview?

I think you will agree, though, that most of the contentious argumentation on this forum seems to divide along the line between Physics (Materialism) and Metaphysics (Mentalism). Would you also agree that, since the 17th century, academic philosophy has tended to favor Empiricism over the ancient focus on Rationalism. That's the academic bias I was referring to. If you believe in the metaphysics of Materialism, you may think it's biased in favor of "hard Truth" (nothing immaterial), as opposed to the "sweet lies" of Spiritualism.

However, my non-academic personal worldview is intended to include both the observed facts of Materialism and the inferred reasons of Mentalism. It's an attempt to emulate the broad scope of Aristotle's Physics, which included both observed facts of Nature, and the reasoned interpretations of Human Nature, which later came to be labeled : Metaphysics. When Ari talked about Gods, though, he was referring to universal Principles*1, not to the anthro-morphic deities of the Greek religions.

Even modern Science judges its facts according to general principles : Laws of Nature*2. But where did those universal rules come from? In the metaphysics of Materialism, they seem to be taken for granted : i.e. on Faith. Similarly, the ancient Hebrews accepted Moses' ten commandments as revelations from God.

Yet, since I have learned to doubt Blind Faith, I tend to ask embarrassing questions : such as what caused the Big Bang, and where did its Energy & Laws come from? Ironically, such inquiries into universals seem to require something like Aristotle's Gods (abstract principles) to explain them. Or to turn a blind eye to Ontological questions*3.

That may be why Materialists tend to prefer to leave the "why" questions unasked. Which allows them to adopt the condescending position of Nominalism vs Idealism*4. Is that why you find my reasoning beyond Physics, into Metaphysics, not worthy of serious consideration? :smile:


*1. Aristotle conceived of a single, unmoved mover as the ultimate cause of motion and order in the universe, distinct from the traditional Greek gods, and often interpreted as a divine, perfect actuality of thought.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+gods

*2. The natural laws of the universe, often referred to as universal laws or principles, are fundamental, immutable rules that govern the workings of the cosmos, encompassing everything from the smallest particles to the largest structures.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=natural+laws+of+the+universe

*3. Ontological questions delve into the fundamental nature of existence and reality, exploring what exists and what doesn't, including questions about the existence of God, the nature of consciousness, and the meaning of reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ontological+questions

*4. Idealism and nominalism are contrasting philosophical positions on the nature of reality, specifically concerning universals (general concepts or ideas) and particulars (individual instances). Idealism posits that universals are real and exist independently of particulars, while nominalism denies the existence of universals, asserting that only particulars are real.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=idealism+vs+nominalism
Note --- Are Natural Laws real & particular, or Ideal and universal?

Not if they speculate within the normal scope of science. But, if they conjecture that action at a distance has religious connotations, or that the universe is a reification of mathematics, then, yes. — jgill

I agree. The Big Bang Theory is within the normal scope of empirical science, in that it is a summation of cosmological evidence. They tracked expanding matter backward to see where it came from. But the religious implications of a something-from-nothing beginning provoked Fred Hoyle to ridicule it with a catchy name, that unfortunately stuck.

Since then, numerous atheistic or agnostic scientists have proposed a variety of philosophical extensions of cosmology beyond the empirical evidence : Cyclical Universe ; Brane Cosmology ; Pre-Inflationary Scenarios ; Ekpyrotic Model ; Mathematical Universe models, etc. There's nothing wrong with scientists dabbling in philosophy by speculating beyond the evidence. Even Isaac Newton's Mechanistic Universe theory went beyond the scope of observational science to specify the Lawgiver.

Note the "-ism" suffix below, indicating a belief system. His mathematical theory openly postulated religious connotations. But there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the theory is useful for scientific applications. Scientists did their work for three centuries, despite Newton's theological leanings. :smile:


Newton's philosophy, or "Newtianism," emphasized a mechanistic view of the universe, governed by natural laws, and a focus on empirical observation and mathematical reasoning, as seen in his Principia Mathematica. . . .
While known for his scientific achievements, Newton was also a deeply religious man, believing in a God who created the universe and set its laws in motion
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=newton+philosophy

You and I have always had different ideas of what is metaphysics and what isn't. It makes it hard for us to have a fruitful discussion. — T Clark

Yes, I know. For those who have had formal education in philosophy, it's hard to grasp a novel definition of an old term. I have had no academic instruction (indoctrination) in philosophical vocabulary. And until I started posting on this forum, most of my experience was in Science and Engineering. So, as an amateur, I tend to take liberties in my usage of ancient Greek and Catholic terminology, adapting it to our modern knowledge of how the world works.

Note what the examples below have in common*1. They are all abstract concepts with no physical properties. Hence Meta-Physics (beyond substance) refers to all of the non-physical features of the cosmos that emerged from evolution only after the appearance of homo sapiens in the Holocence epoch : i.e. the Anthropocene*2. The Brain is physical, but the Mind is meta-physical. Brain is a material object, but Mind is an immaterial process : a function. Hence, meta-physical*3. By that term, I don't mean super-natural, but merely non-concrete mental abstractions, concepts, ideas, designs, etc. :nerd:

PS___ For the purposes of my personal cosmological thesis, I got my understanding of the term Metaphysics from Aristotle's book on Nature (Phusis), not from Catholic theological doctrine. In my opinion, the Greek philosopher was talking about the kind of abstract ideas in the definition below, not about religious dogma. But, if that archaic word offends you, just substitute the term Mental or Ideal in place of Metaphysical, as I often do, to make a distinction from Material or Real.


*1. Metaphysics :
the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
___Oxford Dictionary

*2. What is Holocene vs Anthropocene? :
The Holocene is the only state in which we know humanity can thrive with anything like the 7.5 billion humans being supported today. We have now left the Holocene and are in the transition to the Anthropocene. This new geological epoch was named to acknowledge human influence on the state of the planet.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1443-2_3
Note --- Until the Anthropocene the universe was all Physics all the time. Since then, Meta-Physics (human thoughts & ideas) has accelerated the evolution of our little blue planet (e.g. global warming). Did Aristotle have any inkling of where his notion of "beyond-physics" would take us? Some technical features of 21st century human culture might seem super-natural to him. But, they are merely products of post-natural (i.e. cultural) human engineering.

*3. Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

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? — Corvus

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

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. — PoeticUniverse

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

Is everything we call scientific explanation really just metaphysics? — T Clark

No. But when scientists go beyond compiling facts to explaining their significance, they are straying into metaphysics, and doing Philosophy. Us amateurs on the Philosophy Forum are not qualified to laboriously extract the facts from raw physics. But we can lean back in our easy-chairs and reason from facts to meanings. The Big Bang theory is generally accepted as an Axiom : a hypothetical fact. But for empirical scientists, that's the end of the story of Cosmology, told in reverse, and summarized as "Poof! let there be matter and motion".

For philosophers though, it's just the beginning of the story of "Life, the Universe, and Everything". Yet, unlike a super-duper-computer, we may not be content with a numerical summary : "42". We want the sexy juicy details, even if we have to make them up, by combining facts with a dash of Logic & a soupçon of imagination. That's called "cooking with Reason".

Unlike religious believers though, when philosophers are given an ex nihilo fact, they respond with ex nihilo, nihil fit. And instinctively look for a ding an sich to explain the contingent claim. Traditionally, that explanation has been an unconditional self-existent Cause, or First Principle. Which, of course, is a Metaphysical reason for being. And the rest is, as they say, history. :smile:


Metaphysics, often considered a branch of philosophy, explores fundamental questions about reality, existence, and the nature of being, going beyond the scope of empirical, physical science.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+metaphysics

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

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

As for me - It's not clear the big bang was caused at all. — T Clark

That is a true statement. Yet, a cosmic explosion of matter & energy that continues to this day is an effectual event that deserves some kind of explanation. Empirical scientists are bound by the requirement for hard evidence to opt out of such questions. But Mathematical scientists and Theoretical Cosmologists do not shy away from implications of Causation. So they postulate a plethora of causes (e.g. quantum fluctuation) that serve for storytelling, but admit no proof. Yet, bringing clarity to confounding questions is the job description for philosophers. So let the speculation begin . . . . with a bang! :smile:

PS___The Count has already begun the count-down to a philosophical distinction between physical Causation and metaphysical Creation.

Again, I normally try to ignore Politics — Gnomon
Based on what you've said here, a sound practice — Wayfarer

Thanks. I try to know my own limitations.

Perhaps, if I was a member of a powerful political party I could change the system. But as a lone militant moderate, I avoid aligning with Left or Right Wing factions. World polity has always oscillated between top-down & bottom-up government, waging warfare by "other means", while a few in the moderate middle follow the philosophical Golden Mean --- content to interpret the world, without taking-up arms to change it by violent means. How well did Marx's "practical action" work out?

If you fight against a populist demagogue, you are aligning yourself against the majority of your fellow citizens. Perhaps heroic, but not a winning strategy. As I said before, I'm a curious observer of partisan politics, not a player on the field. :cool:


The famous quote "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it," attributed to Karl Marx, emphasizes the importance of practical action and social transformation over mere philosophical contemplation.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=marx+the+point+is+to+change+it

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. — PoeticUniverse

# 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:

Again, I normally try to ignore Politics for the same reason I don't pay much attention to Broadcast News : if it's news its bad ; "if it bleeds it leads". And a steady diet of badness is bad for the psyche. Nevertheless, an article in the current Philosophy Now magazine struck a chord with me, and a slightly different tune.

THE MATERIAL CREATION OF FREEDOM suggests that Free Markets are the key to free Democracy. And it seems that Trump's tariffs are top-down interference with the "invisible hand" of the market. Which, the article implies, is how kings have traditionally attempted to control the flow of money in their societies. The author says that in 459BC Pericles was a military general, who wanted to take control of Egyptian grain, which was essential to the Greek economy. But when his top-down takeover failed, he changed course and adopted free-market policies that not only allowed more freedom for citizens of Athens, but led to their Golden Age. A modern example of the same principle is the thriving economy and civil freedom of democratic South Korea compared to the top-down autocracy of regimented North Korea.

Historically, "the transition from autocracy to democracy is often bloody. It took the British two centuries to restrain their royalty and unleash their industry". The increased cash flow of the industrial revolution was "welcomed by the government, mostly aristocrats who were eager to tax the wealth that resulted." And much of that "tax" was in the form of tariffs on trade that limit bargaining freedom. So, the tariff tactic is not surprising, considering that Trump imagines himself as a successful businessman, when in fact his talent is in selling his own artificially-cultivated "image & likeness", not in the reciprocal give & take of "the art of the deal" between equal partners. Trump portrays himself as a Napoleon, but may be more like the "little rocket man" running Korea.

The author says "political leaders who do not understand the engine of production and trade that drives the creation of of a democratic mindset imagine that democracy can be imposed upon people". So, it's likely that the Trumpsk administration will become even more autocratic, if the US and world financial system descends into depression, in an attempt to "impose" free trade on a moribund economy. :smile:

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. — PoeticUniverse

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."

1) is faith an emotion or a thought? What if it is neither — Gregory

Religious and Political Faith is both an Idea and a Feeling that motivates people to do what is not necessarily in their own self-interest, but in the interest of the Faith Community. The FC typically divides society into US vs THEM (e.g. Jews vs Gentiles, or Aryans vs Jews, or Catholics vs Heretics). Military and Religious "soldiers" are indoctrinated into an in-group vs out-group mentality, which allows them to treat outsiders without fellow-feeling. :sad:

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. — PoeticUniverse

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:

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

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 :
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.
https://footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/whiteheads-revolutionary-concept

What caused the Big Bang, in your opinion?

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such a question. — an-salad

For almost everything in our space-time Cosmos --- except Dark Energy & Matter --- our scientific logic & reason have proven capable of answering most causal questions. So, I suppose it's temporal empirical Science that you find "insufficient" for such pre-Bang questions*1 for which we have no objective measurable data. And un-earthly powers, such as divine revelation might be suspect, as disguised human opinions.

But, this is a Philosophy forum. So, would you allow theoretical philosophical conjectures*2 in your thread? :smile:


*1. Questions Outside the Scope of Scientific Inquiry :
# Subjective Experiences and Values:
Science is focused on objective, measurable data, so questions about the meaning of life, the value of art, or personal experiences like happiness are not within its purview.
# Morality and Ethics:
Science can analyze the consequences of actions, but it cannot dictate what is right or wrong.
# Supernatural and Divine:
Questions about the existence of gods, ghosts, or other supernatural entities are beyond the scope of scientific investigation, as they deal with concepts that cannot be observed or tested.
# Meaning and Purpose:
While science can explain how things work, it cannot provide answers to questions about the meaning of existence or purpose.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=questions+science+can%27t+answer

*2. Questions Philosophy Can Answer :
Philosophy grapples with fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, and reality, often exploring topics like the nature of consciousness, the meaning of life, and the foundations of morality, without necessarily providing definitive answers, but rather encouraging critical thinking and exploration.
Here are some examples of questions that philosophy explores :
# Metaphysics (the nature of reality) {including Causation?}
# The Origin of the Universe: What came before the Big Bang? {First Cause?}
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=questions+science+can%27t+answer

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. — PoeticUniverse

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 's knee-jerk woo-woo attacks. :smile:

Whitehead and Information Philosophy :
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. "
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/whitehead/

Not sure I agree with every characterization here but once again a very reasonable and interesting post, — philosch

Obviously, the characterizations of Autocrat (King ; Prince ; President) and Democrat (rule by committee) are over-simplifications of complex issues that I am not qualified to discuss. But the founders of the US Constitution tried to offset the negative aspects of single-minded Autocrat and indecisive Democrat, by forcing them to work together. :smile:


Making trains run on time :
IT IS A myth that, whatever his faults, Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, made the trains run on time. He didn't. If even a man with dictatorial powers cannot enforce a railway timetable, what hope is there in a messy democracy?
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/03/making-trains-run-on-time

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. — PoeticUniverse

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:

Totally agree and applaud your whole post here. Although there is no dictator in this picture, nothing that has been done by the executive has been unconstitutional or against the "republic" despite the best efforts of the media machine and the TDS folks will have you believe. I think you have correctly characterized the overall picture and put it in a decent historical perspective. In the same way FDR did what was necessary at the time, Trump/Musk are making a necessary correction. — philosch

For a philosophical perspective, the Feb/Mar 2025 issue of Philosophy Now magazine asks "was Machiavelli so bad?" The editorial discusses Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politika. The editor says Politika was the "first scientific study of different forms of government". Then notes that "each type has a 'true form' and 'deviant form'. Here are Aristotle's six forms of government : Monarchy (king) & Tyranny (despot) ; Aristocracy (nobility) & Oligarchy (2% wealthy) ; Polity (oligarchy+democracy) and Democracy (100% representation). At this time, we seem to be precariously balanced on the knife-edge of a Polity. I'll let you decide which is "good/true" and which "bad/deviant" for any particular time & place.

Referring back to Machiavelli, the editor says "For a politician, he says 'good' doesn't mean being nice, but doing what needs to be done, even if it's treacherous, violent or cruel.". The editorial doesn't specifically mention Trump/Musk, but I assume that Trumpsk may agree with Machiavelli's pragmatic advice to a Prince with an unruly populace. "Thinkers such as Spinoza and Rousseau have therefore read The Prince as a warning to all of us, so we learn how politicians think and how we may protect our liberty".

The US government has always been a compromise between the efficiency of an autocrat (allied with noble senators) and the stability of a democrat (with plebian house of commons). Since Trump has been elected temporary King, we now seem to be in a Polity with a feckless Congress. But, since I have no money or property to worry about, I'm content to wait & see what this overhaul of "Liberal" government will do for the often polarized polity. Will we endure another Great Depression or a Civil War? Or will we just muddle through as usual? :smile:


The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy

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

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: