Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. — Gnomon

You are welcome to your speculations.

You are way above me, my friend. I never got over an infatuation with BASIC, merely dabbling in Fortran, C++, etc. Look at my icon. This little guy materialized after a magnification of well over 1,000X from a program I wrote on certain dynamical systems. :cool: — jgill

I think you cut my quote, incompletely:

I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill — universeness

instead of:

I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill,enjoys with maths. — universeness

I was not comparing our knowledge of Computing Science, I was suggesting my love of Computing Science was probably comparable with your love or Pantagruel's love of mathematics.

Yes, the icon you produced, reminds me of the many images we produced at uni, when we used recursive algorithms to produce fractal patterns.

I will take the liberty of repeating them here, to help remind @Gnomon, that he should try to answer them and I confirm, that he does not need to provide substantive empirical evidence, to do so.
It's me who insists that empirical science is the final arbiter of all philosophical musing, not @180 Proof.

A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably?
B. In philosophy, what non-trivial, coherent question does "Enformationism" raise without begging any (or translate into a more probative question or questions)?
• How does your "Meta-physics" trump physics' conservation laws (e.g. Newton's 3rd law of motion)?
• How have you solved the causal interaction problem (re: substance dualism)?
• With respect to "Causal Agency", what non-trivially differentiates "Enformationism" from creationism / intelligent design?
1. Why do "ancient Holistic philosophies" need non-philosophical "support"?
2. What is such "support" suppose to change about or with "ancient Holistic philosophies"? And change for whom?
3. Lastly, insofar as scientifically literate philosophers / students of philosophy tend to dismiss your repetitious (mis)uses of scientific theories and their findings coupled with your own (disingenuous?) confession to being a neophyte in both philosophy and natural sciences, how do you know, Gnomon, that the pervasive "lukewarm reception ,"is due to "reductive scientistic bias" and not due to well-founded learning that is philosophically and/or scientifically superior to your own? What does overlooking or denying the more likely prospect of the latter possibility say about the "openness" – or lack thereof – of your "mind", sir?

Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. — Gnomon
You are welcome to your speculations. — universeness

Since you have me pegged as an anti-science god-fearing religious nut, I feel obligated to tell you what I'm giving-up for Lent : Epistemic Gaslighters. :joke:

Thanks. :up:

I was not comparing our knowledge of Computing Science, I was suggesting my love of Computing Science was probably comparable with your love or Pantagruel's love of mathematics. — universeness

Whoops. Sorry. My fault. :yikes:

Whoops. Sorry. My fault. — jgill

Nae problem bruv! Your icon is still very cool looking, and I still envy your title of maths 'prof.'

Thanks. — 180 Proof

You are welcome! It's bizarre to me that @Gnomon actually thinks we are doing him a favour, by encouraging him to explain more about his motivations and personal reasons for inventing and blogging about his personal theocratic musings that he labels enformationism and the gap god he has titled 'the enformer.'

Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. :smile: — Gnomon

I could understand, if many, many TPF members were enthusiastically, posting in support of his claims.
So, I think this further exposure, of his speculations, and his own admission of it's direct connection to theological stances such as deism and a Kalam style first cause mind with intent, has further damaged the rationality of his creationist worldview. In many, many cases, it's just not true that any publicity is good publicity.

:100: :up:

revised

Y= The town is entirely flooded by the river. X=River Drive is flooded. Go figure. — jgill

So, the part is part of the whole, except when its not.

You are welcome! It's bizarre to me that Gnomon actually thinks we are doing him a favour, by encouraging him to explain more about his motivations and personal reasons for inventing and blogging about his personal theocratic musings that he labels enformationism and the gap god he has titled 'the enformer.' — universeness

It's amusing to picture you and celebrating & high-fiving & thumbs-uping your victorious vanquishing of a mythical dragon. Unfortunately, that supernatural serpent exists only in your imagination. Yet, it emerged into your fanciful personal reality (worldview) due to your misinterpretation of my use of the “G*D” label to describe the hypothetical ultimate source of natural Reality*1. As a moderate skeptic myself, I understand & appreciate your stance against religious “Supernaturalism”. But, other than "preternatural", I didn't have a official dictionary word to describe the nature of a Hypothetical entity. So, I made-up a neologism, based on its role in traditional cultures.

Just today though, I came across the high-tech philosophical term : “Manifest Image”*2 , in which “G*D” is a semantic device (artefact), not a physical thing subject to empirical proof or disproof --- a conceptual gap filler*3. In The Logic of Information, professional philosopher Floridi says “the normative and semantic environment – the manifest image of the world – is built by our minds, but it is no less real. . . . it is the contribution that the mind makes to the world.” MI is human imagination, not perception, yet it is how we know (cognize) reality (Kant). So, due to your "encouragement", I have learned a technical term that is above my amateur pay-grade.

Such mental images are integral parts of our worldviews, but they are Cultural instead of Natural. Hence, they cannot be proven or disproven by scientific methodology. Semantic MI, such as quantum wave-particles, become useful elements of our Kantian reality. But their normative existence is meta-physical, not physical. In Sellars' sense, they are non-natural (cultural ; mental), but not super-natural (spiritual). Consequently, they are detected, not by what they are (material), but by what they do (role).

Floridi says that the “explanatory gap” is due to the “artefactual nature of the natural”. That's because “we know, semanticize, and explain reality through the construction, expansion, and refinement of our semantic artefacts . . .” For example, “we know there is no God's-eye perspective”, but Cosmologists & Philosophers feel free to construct “manifest images” to represent such an outside-in worldview. He goes on to conclude that, for homo sapiens, “the non-natural is our first nature, and the natural is our second nature". Therefore, we humans don't just perceive physical nature, we conceive Nature meta-physically, in terms of Manifest Images.

I don't expect this semantic excursion to change your mind. It's merely an attempt to express the G*D concept in terms less likely to be interpreted based on the historical prejudicial antipathic antimony of religion vs science, where the same word can have opposite meanings. :smile:


*1. Science and Ultimate Reality : Quantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity
This volume provides a fascinating preview of the future of physics. It comprises contributions from leading thinkers in the field, inspired by the pioneering work of John Wheeler.
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Ultimate-Reality-Cosmology-Complexity/dp/052183113X

*2. Manifest Image (Wilfred Sellars) :
“his development of a coherentist epistemology and functional role/inferentialist semantics, for his distinction between the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” of the world, for his proposal that psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts, and for a tough-minded scientific realism” . . . . The scientific image grows out of and is methodologically posterior to the manifest image, which provides the initial framework in which science is nurtured,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/

*3. The manifest image contrasts with the scientific image, which deals in the behaviour of conglomerates of the physical particles postulated by scientific theory. What Sellars called the ‘perennial philosophy’ from Plato onwards accepts the reality of the elements and features of the manifest image, but it is also a perennial problem to compare and reconcile its claims with that of the scientific image, which is in reality the arbiter ‘of what is, that it is, and of what is not that it is not’.
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100130832;jsessionid=0297B7D765A0033DE113DE8550B5341A

In other words: "Stop picking on my Enformer-of-the gaps!" :lol:

↪universeness
↪Gnomon
In other words: "Stop picking on my Enformer-of-the gaps!" :lol: — 180 Proof

No. In Wilfred Sellars words : "stop attacking your own Manifest Image, then claiming to vanquish Gnomon's metaphors". :joke:

:ok: :sweat:

I 'liked' your last 2 posts, they contained a lot of 'reasonable' points.
I also credit @180 Proof's summary of your 'complaints' as 'stop picking on my Enformer of the gaps.'

To me, you painted your metaphysical floor in theistic shades and found yourself in a corner of the room waiting for the floor to dry, lest you should you should mess up your work. The problem is that the paint you used takes a loooooooooong time to dry and is prone to 'flaking' soon after it does.
If you added some rationality to the mix and stated categorically, that you fully accept, that any posit that suggests that our universe was created by a first cause MIND with INTENT is unfalsifiable and therefore has no validity as a hypothesis, and is certainly not worthy of the term 'theory,' then that might help. There IS NO theory of enformationism, it is nothing but YOUR philosophical musings (which you admit to at times and then at other times you call enformationism a 'theory.') and at its FOUNDATION, is a gap god character, you labelled the Enformer.
YOU are a good thinker with laudable debating skills, but in this case, your dalliance with theology has caused you to try to defend a hopeless position. You are in the same place as any theist, who simply says there is a first cause mind with intent that created the universe because I SAY THERE IS and then they (you thankfully don't!) pull out some ancient book of BS and claim this contains the ONLY truth's about the human race and it's origins and all other such ancient books of BS, are full of BS. :roll:
My advice in all earnest @Gnomon, is take out the BS woo woo from your Enformationism, if you want it to gain some credence ground within the scientific community. Otherwise, it may only ever find followers amongst nefarious characters like Ken Hovind, shown below from a year or so ago, debating evolution with a scientist. I think if he knew about your 'enformationism' he would try to promote it as 'scientific' and valid evidence of god. He would do this as all those in his camp are desperate for any life raft of flotsam they can find.

To me, you painted your metaphysical floor in theistic shades — universeness

No. It was you & 180 who painted Enformationism as "Theistic". Gnomon denied that denigrating mis-characterization, but accepted the philosophical label of rational "Deism"*1. Which you quickly re-defined as "Theistic", even though reason-based Deism was intended to be a naturalistic (nature as organism instead of mechanism) alternative to Theism. It was also an attempt to avoid the excesses of Imperial religions that resulted from authoritarian political power.

Both Theists and Atheists belittled Deism for its do-nothing-deity. But Enformationism offers a quantum science update that envisions the Enformer/Programmer more like a do-everything First Cause, which works via bottom-up Natural processes (Causation ; En-formation) instead of top-down Miraculous interventions. That thesis is neither faith-based Religion nor evidence-based Science, but reason-based Philosophy. As a freely-chosen personal philosophical worldview, it has no dominion over the beliefs of un-believers, such as Atheists. It does however, have one thing in common with New Age philosophies : it treats Nature respectfully as a living organism, not an inorganic machine to be used & abused by money-motivated men*2.

Putin ironically defined his invasion of Ukraine, reminiscent of the Nazi invasion of Poland, as a purge of Nazis from a sovereign nation. So, even though he is not obtaining his real objective, he can still withdraw and declare that debacle a victory. The party that unilaterally defines the battle, also defines the terms of success. An old saying advises the invader to "declare victory and depart". But Putin may be too stubborn to admit defeat, until both sides are devastated. Are you & 180 still doing the victory dance over your vanquishment of a religion of your own devising? :smile:


*1.Deism beyond Reason :
In his respectful critique of Deism, he makes one telling observation : "Most deists I know do believe in more (about God) than what natural, unaided reason can discover." Although Reason is their raison d'etre, Deists cannot deny that some of their beliefs and hopes are not derived from pure Reason, but from reason supplemented with hope or speculation. So the original post-enlightenment boast of a “rational religion”, was true only by comparison to the more dogmatic Faith religions of the day.
Olson admits, "I think there’s some truth in the claim that deism is (or can be) more rational than full, robust Christianity." But he doesn't agree that Reason is sufficient to make a worldview into a religion. And I happen to agree with him. But, Olsen goes on to point-out the problem with an austere, abstract, logic-driven, Spock-like worldview. "A religion that doesn’t go beyond reason has no place for love or sin or care for the weak or hope for an ultimate triumph of good over evil. And its god would seem to me to be bad insofar as he is omnipotent but never intervenes in history or persons’ lives."
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page69.html

*2. Einstein -- New Age nut? :

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/29/archives/the-einstein-papers-a-man-of-many-parts-the-einstein-papers-man-of.html

Note -- I look forward to the next smirking reply from satirizing Einstein's spooky woo-woo nature-worship.

Note -- I look forward to the next smirking reply from ↪180 Proof satirizing Einstein's spooky woo-woo nature-worship. — Gnomon

The only thing "spooky woo woo" about Einstein is your (willful?) misunderstanding of him and his work which suits your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps tilts at windwills. :sparkle:

Our exchange regarding your enformationism and your enformer has again reached a panto style exchange of 'oh yes it is,' and 'oh no it's not,' impasse.
I don't respect paganistic viewpoints that anthropomorphise nature as a single entity with intent.
To compare your debate with me and @180 Proof with references to Nazism and the actions of Putin in Ukraine, leave me thinking that you may be a little bit mad, and inebriated with your own vernacular.

The only thing "spooky woo woo" about Einstein is your (willful?) misunderstanding of him and his work to suit your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps tilt at windwills. :sparkle: — 180 Proof

"Who's zooming who?" __Aretha Franklin

"Intolerant AntiTheism uses emotional WooBoo labels as substitutes for logical arguments" __Gnomon

Philosophical fallacies :
Ad Hominem -- label philosophical opponent as woo-monger
Strawman -- define philosophical god-concept as religious god-model
Ignorance -- denying the pre-big-bang epistemological gap
False Dilemma -- Religion vs Science ; Theism vs Atheism
Slippery Slope -- any god-posit will lead to religious irrationalism
Causal Fallacy -- Asserting or denying a causal relationship based on the fact that the proposed cause does not immediately, absolutely, or uniquely determine the effect.

Einstein's Nature God compared to Enformationism's Nature God :

A. "He could not conceive of a God who punished and rewarded people (partly because he was a thoroughgoing determinist). He repeatedly distanced himself from the idea of a personal God." ___CHECK.

B. "This was not the personal God of the Abrahamic faiths, but nor was it the idiomatic “God” of atheism."
___CHECK

C. “I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist,” he once said when asked to define God. “I believe in Spinoza’s God,” he told Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogues of New York, “who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.”
___CHECK

D. "There are still people, he remarked at a charity dinner during the War, who say there is no God. “But what really make me angry is that they quote me for support of such views.” “There are fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics,” he said in 1940."
___CHECK
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/did-albert-einstein-believe-in-god

Note -- The "idiomatic" GOD of Atheism is not the First Cause of philosophical Enformationism.

Philosophical fallacies — Gnomon

Interesting list.
I would add "Zeno-type pseudo-paradoxes -- Dividing the indivisible (Dichotomy of space and time)"
(One of my favorite fallacies to talk about.)

Our exchange regarding your enformationism and your enformer has again reached a panto style exchange of 'oh yes it is,' and 'oh no it's not,' impasse.
I don't respect paganistic viewpoints that anthropomorphise nature as a single entity with intent.
To compare your debate with me and 180 Proof with references to Nazism and the actions of Putin in Ukraine, leave me thinking that you may be a little bit mad, and inebriated with your own vernacular. — universeness

That's because my replies are tailored to the posts I'm responding to ; reflecting biases back to you. may be a bit more absolutist (Black vs White) than Uni, but both tend more toward Left vs Right ideological debates than philosophical possibility dialogues. My communications with other, less antagonistic, posters are much less combative. I continue to respond to your Either/Or categorizations, mainly because they are very narrowly targeted, and help me to find possible weaknesses in my own worldview. If you are offended, it's from looking in a mirror.

For example, 180 refers to my "willful misunderstanding" of Einstein, when I use him as an example of a rational scientist who is not a hardline Atheist. This was a response to 180's insistence that I must be either a Theist or an Atheist : no middle ground. But Einstein was quoted, in his own words, saying "I am not an Atheist". By your Yes-or-No definition, does that make him a Theist? In contrast to 180's mis-characterization, Enformationism is intended to be a moderate position, between Theism and Atheism, more like Deism. But he and you place Deism in the same pigeonhole with Theism. So, who is "inebriated with his own vernacular" -- a language of White vs Black labels, which omit the whole range in between extremes?

Like Einstein, "I am not an Atheist". And I'm also not a Theist --- not that there's anything morally wrong with that. Most of the people I know & love are Theists, and are morally good(-ish) people. Yet, like Albert, I view Nature as functionally equivalent to the traditional notions of pagan or universal gods. Einstein replied to a similar attempt to pin him down : “I believe in Spinoza’s God”. Nature may not be a loving father or a vengeful spirit, but it is a source of information for us humans to tap into. As Einstein advised "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better". The only problem with Spinoza's God, is that it does not account for a space-time creation event, satirically labeled "The Big Bang". Einstein's "Steady State" alternative does not fit the evidence, and is now considered, by most cosmologists, to be passé*1.

Your mischaracterization of Enformationism as "paganistic viewpoints that anthropomorphise nature as a single entity with intent", illustrates your own misinterpretation, not my own intent. Instead, I portray Nature as a program processing information without intent of its own. However, like many philosophers faced with evidence of a creation event, I look beyond the Big Bang for the Logos*2 that is playing-out in Evolution. I have never claimed to know what that ultimate Purpose is. And I do not have a personal relationship with the Programmer. It's just a philosophical postulate to explain the evidence that is emerging within Quantum Theory and Information Theory. You are welcome to your own explanation for that pre-bang explanatory gap. But the existence of Causal Energy & Natural Laws must be accounted for in any gap-filler. :smile:

PS___The Nazi reference was merely to illustrate how much easier it is to argue ideologically (via labeling) instead of philosophically (via reasoning). Are you aware of the hypocrisy of Putin's validation of his invasion? I was not calling anyone on this forum a Nazi. But I have been labelled a Theist, with the same diversionary intent.

*1. Big Bang or Steady State? :
For most purposes, however, the debate between the big bang and the steady state was over in 1965, with big bang the clear winner.
https://history.aip.org/exhibits/cosmology/ideas/bigbang.htm

*2. Logos :
A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity. An eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation, available to every individual who seeks it.
https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html
Note -- Einstein's aphorism "look deep into nature" for understanding, may have been referring to the Logos logic programmed into Nature.

This is a very well written article. Thank you for sharing it! It is a good description of faith. This is probably why those who believe in God are said to have 'faith in God'.

Every snakeoil charlatan strives to "bedazzle 'em with bullshit" but, of course, only you, O Sage "Enformer" of this site's Quantum-Woo Crew, are bedazzled. :sparkle: :sweat:

Philosophical fallacies — Gnomon
Interesting list.
I would add "Zeno-type pseudo-paradoxes -- Dividing the indivisible (Dichotomy of space and time)"
(One of my favorite fallacies to talk about.) — Alkis Piskas

Sadly, Fallacy lists can be used by both sides in a debate. For example, often labels me as slander slinger of "Ad Hominems", when that is his own favorite arguing tactic. Another trick is to corral your opponent into a biased category that is easier to dismiss with a wave of the hand : "Strawman". I suspect that, when a dialogue descends to the point of Fallacy listing, it has long since fallen into repetitive Circular Reasoning.

"Dividing the Indivisible" sound like a very technical approach. Where did you run into such an infinitesimal argument? :smile:

Besides quoting @universeness, Albert Einstein and myself out of context in order to bark at shadows of strawmen dancing on the walls of your thin-skinned thick skull, sir, it's also fair and reasonable to remind you that your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps dogma is in no way remotely comparable logically or metaphysically to what Einstein loosely refers to as "the God of Spinoza". :cool:

A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably? — universeness

Although your question is completely off-target, I'll answer a similar unstated question, which is pertinent to this thread. This response is mainly for the benefit of open-minded onlookers to this mudslinging street brawl, who may not presume that everything is about Physics. As I have repeated repeatedly, Enformationism is not a scientific theory, so it does not offer empirically falsifiable solutions to physical problems. It does instead present a hypothetical philosophical conjecture on ancient Meta-physical (Ontology & Epistemology) questions as noted below. :smile:

What is the thesis about? :
This informal thesis does not present any new scientific evidence, or novel philosophical analysis. It merely suggests a new perspective on an old enigma : what is reality? The so-called “Information Age” that began in the 20th century, has now come of age in the 21st century. So I have turned to the cutting-edge Information Sciences in an attempt to formulate my own personal answer to the perennial puzzles of Ontology, the science of Existence.
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html
Note -- The thesis assumes, like most philosophical treatises throughout history, that Philosophical reasoning does not stop at the Big Bang barrier of space-time.

Another trick is to corral your opponent into a biased category that is easier to dismiss with a wave of the hand : "Strawman". — Gnomon

Right, there are many ways to avoid direct confrontation! :smile:

"Dividing the Indivisible" sound like a very technical approach. Where did you run into such an infinitesimal argument? :smile: — Gnomon

It's you who is underrating it! :grin:
"Sophism": "a clever but false argument, especially one used deliberately to deceive." Do you consider this an insignificant or unimportant example?
Then check "sophism" in ancient Greece, as well as Zeno's "paradoxes", which are blatant cases of fallacious reasoning.

I'm also not a Theist --- not that there's anything morally wrong with that. Most of the people I know & love are Theists, and are morally good(-ish) people. — Gnomon

I hold the same opinion as Christopher Hitchens, that all religion is pernicious and I agree with the opinion behind his book title "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." So, I do have a very strong anti-religious stance. I don't mind a non-proselytizing individual theist/deist/theosophist. I only find such a person pernicious, when they, on occasion, try to justify their beliefs, by trying to link them with real scientific theory, such as quantum physics.

As I have repeated repeatedly, Enformationism is not a scientific theory, so it does not offer empirically falsifiable solutions to physical problems. — Gnomon

The point is, its not a 'theory,' at all!

Quantum physics actually qualifies as a scientific THEORY. As you admit, enformationism, certainly does not, but you have suggested enformationism is a theory, that has some association with quantum physics. It is NOT and it DOES NOT, it also does not qualify as a hypothesis, it is pure speculation.
Perhaps you could get something from the first definition of a theory, shown below, but very little, in my opinion, based on the words I have underlined in the first definition below.
I think the fact that 'most people you know and love are theists,' has resulted in an unconscious or perhaps even conscious bias towards their viewpoints on human existence.

A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be scientific, belong to a non-scientific discipline, or no discipline at all. Depending on the context, a theory's assertions might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings.

A scientific theory must be:
a simple unifying idea that doesn't include anything unnecessary
logically consistent (contradictions aren't allowed)
logically falsifiable (there must be possible or theoretical situations in which the theory would be invalid)
limited, so it's clear whether data verifies, falsifies, or is irrelevant (i.e., it doesn't presume to explain absolutely everything)

Following are the characteristics of the hypothesis:
The hypothesis should be clear and precise to consider it to be reliable.
If the hypothesis is a relational hypothesis, then it should be stating the relationship between variables.
The hypothesis must be specific and should have scope for conducting more tests.

Besides quoting universeness, Albert Einstein and myself out of context — 180 Proof

:clap:

it's also fair and reasonable to remind you that your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps dogma is in no way remotely comparable logically or metaphysically to what Einstein loosely refers to as "the God of Spinoza". — 180 Proof

Absafragginlootly!

A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably?
— universeness
Although your question is completely off-target, I'll answer a similar unstated question, which is pertinent to this thread. — Gnomon

:lol: You can't just 'hand wave away' @180 Proof's valid question and replace it with a question you invent and are quite willing to answer :rofl: That's not how honest debate works!
It's ridiculous that you would employ such a stealth tactic, soon after typing a list of actions which qualify as negative actions in any honest debate.