Absential Materialism

ucarr

Godel_Penrose_Deacon_Absential Materialism 08:16, Fri 19 Jan 2024

Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem is an examination of axiomatic sets that ground math equations. Without him looking for it specifically, Gödel elaborated within his theorem a representational description of absential materialism. Due to their encompass of absential materialism, a label for higher-order dynamical processes elaborated in Terrence W. Deacon’s Incomplete Nature, axiomatic math sets are strategically incomplete.

They are incomplete because a comprehensive description of math set theory will include a representation of absential materialism. Material incompleteness at the higher-orders of dynamical systems manifests as the uncontainability of some of the true math statements in one place; this is a representation in logic of the non-locality, both spatial and temporal, of absential materialism. The axiomatic system provides reasons to believe the statements are true, but this cannot be proven.

The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism: what is not yet but will be. This is the heart of an enduring self who lives via enactment of intentions. Selfhood wraps itself around the nullity, or absence, of about-ness, which is the set of individual intentions.

The material model for consciousness is the interaction of two gravitational fields. For clarity, think of a simple, parallel relationship: the silicon of sand and the silicon of a looking glass. A handful of sand from the beach is the raw silicon, the baseline precursor of the looking glass. A looking glass, in the elegant form of a vanity, is the deluxe model worked up from the baseline handful of sand. In a parallel relationship modeling consciousness, consider the earth and its orbiting moon. That’s a baseline model of consciousness. The deluxe model worked up (via evolution) from two orbiting celestial bodies is two humans in conversation. They too are orbiting celestial bodies interacting gravitationally. This is so because consciousness, of which conversation is an example, lies rooted in the interaction of two (or more) gravitational fields.

Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness.

When we take the notion of absential materialism, modeled representationallly by the Incompleteness Theorem, and model it physically and thus empirically, we arrive at the intersection of two gravitational fields. The critical attribute of their interaction is action-at-a-distance absentialism. This tells us the two gravitational fields are probabilistically locatable. They hold physical position in spacetime via the waveform.

The waveform as physical phenomenon is a fog of mass-energy in the mode of a mathematically determined cloud of probability describing the range of possible positions of an elementary particle. An apt physicalization of a fog of mass-energy is a gravitational field. When two gravitational fields interact, they generate meaning physically. Meaning, a narrative about a narrative, in its physical manifestation, is absential materialism. Meaning is about-ness signified in a language.

The physical generation of meaning via interacting gravitational fields suggests a bounded infinity of fate within a specified universe as bounded by interacting gravitational fields. If collapse to black hole density is possible in such a universe, then what will happen phenomenally_historically is pre-determined by said black hole density. Infinite gravity seems to mean that what can happen must happen.

This sounds like the physically grounded determinism of reductive materialism taken to its extreme. This sounds like a rigidly deterministic universe. However, collapse to black hole density may not be certain within every conceivable universe. Also, if collapse to black hole density can be controlled and thus either prevented or reversed, then hierarchical about-ness can include physically deterministic meaning that’s deconstructable.

Absential materialism, the phenomenal ground of the intention-rich about-ness of the enduring self and its central, abiding concerns with not-yet-but-will-be forward-lookingness expresses as meaning which is narrative about narrative.

The non-locality of selfhood is serial aboutness: the self, as such, is a continual roadmap to somewhere else.* In its act of thinking, the self displaces itself from what it thinks about such that whatever it thinks about is not-yet-but-will-be. In this regard, thought is both manipulatable and unapproachable. Herein we get a whiff of Satre’s human freedom in the form of the uncontainable self as consciousness. Existentialism must therefore be about authenticity, and its impossibility. The authentic self, therefore, is rooted in a series of forward-looking fictions about the illusive_elusive self as once-was-but-no-longer-is.

*Godel’s logical analysis tells us that axiomatic math sets are always roadmaps to somewhere else. The seeming perplexity of this is the fact that math measures position here and now, except when it doesn’t, as when, at the axiomatic level, it measures the mathematics of intentional about-ness, which is non-local.

Gnomon

Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem is an examination of axiomatic sets that ground math equations. Without him looking for it specifically, Gödel elaborated within his theorem a representational description of absential materialism. Due to their encompass of absential materialism, a label for higher-order dynamical processes elaborated in Terrence W. Deacon’s Incomplete Nature, axiomatic math sets are strategically incomplete. — ucarr

I'm aware of Deacon's application of the mathematical Incompleteness Theorem to the real world in his book Incomplete Nature. However I was not familiar with Absential Materialism, so I Googled it, and found no entries. Hence, I assume the paradoxical & oxymoronic term is of your own coinage. Since this post is fairly long, and technically over my untrained head, I'd appreciate an abbreviated definition of "absential materialism" that distinguishes it from "immaterialism", and identifies why the term is needed for philosophical intercourse. I may want to use it in my own argumentation, but need to make sure I understand its meaning and relevance. :smile:

PS___ I looked for graphic images of intersecting gravitational fields, and didn't find any that looked like a model of Consciousness, or might illustrate Absential Materialism.

Paradox at the heart of mathematics :
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are connected to unsolvable calculations in quantum physics. A logical paradox at the heart of mathematics and computer science turns out to have implications for the real world, making a basic question about matter fundamentally unanswerable.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18983

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposite meanings within a word or in a phrase that is a self-contradiction. As a rhetorical device, an oxymoron illustrates a point to communicate and reveal a paradox. ___Wikipedia

ucarr

↪Gnomon

I assume the paradoxical & oxymoronic term is of your own coinage. — Gnomon

Yes, the pairing of the adjective with the noun is my own doing. Deacon’s use of absential as an adjective in Incomplete Nature introduced me to the adjective form of “absent.” For this reason, I don’t think my pairing rises to the level of a new coinage. More importantly, I’m inclined away from characterizing the pairing as oxymoronic. I see the main thrust of the pairing as an expression of the bridge across the matter/immaterial divide. Mind entails a non-local materialism that should not be confused with immateriality. Paradoxicality lays too much stress upon an undecidable material status.

…I'd appreciate an abbreviated definition of "absential materialism" that distinguishes it from "immaterialism", and identifies why the term is needed for philosophical intercourse. — Gnomon

Here’s how I say it in terse language:

The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism: what is not yet but will be. This is the heart of an enduring self who lives via enactment of intentions. Selfhood wraps itself around the nullity, or absence, of about-ness, which is the set of individual intentions. — ucarr

Thinking in abstraction from immediate sensory interaction with environment is ententional behavior towards a future and desired state of being; here I try to express as Deacon might do. The non-locality of ententional mind is not transcendence of our natural world of material_physical things. Instead, it is gravitational manipulation of spatio_temporally extended material things.

Consciousness, as I understand it, concerns itself with action-at-a-distance design of desired future states of being as mediated by gravitational fields. It confers onto organized mind an interior/exterior interface, or complex surface that multiplexes the location of conscious beings. As I say above, we humans are mostly local and locatable, but not entirely so.

When we walk about, does our consciousness travel with us? Yes and no.

Wayfarer

↪ucarr

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in it?

Janus

↪ucarr

↪Wayfarer

I read it as suggesting that reality is exhaustively characterized by manifestations of matter and the absence of matter, eschewing the idea of anything transcendent of matter. Matter is able to manifest its own absence, a material absence that matters. not an unknowable immaterial presence. Makes sense to me.

Gnomon

For this reason, I don’t think my pairing rises to the level of a new coinage. More importantly, I’m inclined away from characterizing the pairing as oxymoronic. I see the main thrust of the pairing as an expression of the bridge across the matter/immaterial divide — ucarr

OK. Let's just call Absential Materialism a "novel pairing" with seemingly paradoxical implications. It's oxymoronic only in contrast to Materialism as here & now Realism.

But my main interest is in the "bridge" of which you speak. My own personal worldview, Enformationism, is not posited as the opposite to Materialism, but as a 21st century update to that ancient worldview, expressed most simply in Atomism : nothing but atoms & void.

I suppose you could say that Deacon's absence discovers a purpose for the Void*1 : not only to serve as a passive complement to material Presence, but to make room for material Change. In a related sense, Absence/Void is the not-yet-real pool-of-Potential from which Actual material things and immaterial properties may Emerge. :smile:

The non-locality of ententional mind is not transcendence of our natural world of material_physical things. Instead, it is gravitational manipulation of spatio_temporally extended material things. — ucarr

I notice that you spell "intentional" with an "e", as I do in my own thesis, following Deacon. For me, it implies Energy as in Mental Causality --- intent to cause change --- which is unexplained by Materialism. My thesis postulates a precursor to Energy, Matter and Mind in the power to transform Potential into Actual. That "power" is what J. A. Wheeler referred to in his "it from bit" analogy of matter emerging from causal information. And the most common term for the power-to-transform is "Energy"*2.

I still don't fully grasp your analogy of Absence to the interaction of two gravitational fields. Deacon uses the metaphor of a whirlpool, sucking calm water into its maw. A graphic image might help me to imagine how two gravitational fields interact. A black hole is usually portrayed as a solo, not a pas de dieux. The image below is not very enlightening*3.

↪Wayfarer

asks "what is the role of matter" in this scenario. As I proposed above, Absence may play the role of causal Energy in an evolving world of Stuff (matter ; the clay) and Changes to stuff (energy ; sculpting). BTW, in my philosophical model, Gravity is a form of Absential Energy, warping the immaterial Void. :nerd:

*1. Absence :
Deacon says that Absence is “a defining property of life and mind”. Like the name-less Tao, it’s a way, not a wayfarer, it’s a channel, not the flowing water.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html

*2. What Is The Power of Absence?
Energy flows into The Void
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page33.html

*3. GRAVITY WHIRLPOOL
cropped-ether.jpg?w=246&h=246

ucarr

↪Wayfarer

↪Janus

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in it? — Wayfarer

Your question is important because absential materialism has a knack for looking like immaterialism without being such. In a parallel manner, the moon’s gravitational field looks as if it has no presence on earth. This appearance is dispelled by understanding earth’s ocean tides are much affected by the moon’s gravitational, action-at-a-distance influence upon the ocean tides and thus upon the weather.

I read it as suggesting that reality is exhaustively characterized by manifestations of matter and the absence of matter, eschewing the idea of anything transcendent of matter. Matter is able to manifest its own absence, a material absence that matters. not an unknowable immaterial presence. Makes sense to me. — Janus

Yes. Deacon goes into great detail with his elaborations of the multi-step ladder of dynamical processes that progressively organize what we see in nature, including the mind and the thinking of humans. As the dynamical processes become end-directed, they create strategic constraints that compel emergent properties to organize around what is not yet but will be. In so doing, these emergent properties operate within boundaries radically different from their substrates. These radical differences in boundaries give rise to radical differences in functions. The upshot is the appearance of causal forces divorced from material things. Although functionally independent from their material substrates, they are, in fact, still rooted in them as emergent properties.

Wayfarer

Your question is important — ucarr

Does it have an answer?

absential materialism — ucarr

Googling that term produces three hits, the top two being this thread, the third being what looks like a self-published manifesto by one Adrian Johnston. From my limited reading of Deacon I don't recall ever mentioning that phrase. Nor do I think he describes his work as materialist, rather as challenging the materialist paradigm, but within a broader naturalist framework. In other words, a form of extended naturalism. Different to philosophical materialism.

Although functionally independent from their material substrates, they are, in fact, still rooted in them as emergent properties. — ucarr

However Deacon's discussion of constraints often aligns with the concept of "top-down" causation. This idea suggests that in complex systems, the higher-level structure and organization can influence and constrain the behavior of lower-level components. In biological terms, this might be understood as how the structure of an organism (its morphology, for instance) can dictate the behavior of its cells and molecular components. This shows up even in physics. Free neutrons (outside an atomic nucleus) have a half-life of about 14 minutes and 39 seconds. This means that it will decay into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino in roughly this time frame due to a process called beta decay. But when neutrons are bound within an atomic nucleus, their stability is significantly different, depending on the particular isotope of the element, but in some cases will not decay for a very long time, potentially millions of years, illustrating the efficacy of top-down constraints even outside biology.

In terms of constraints in physics, these can ultimately be traced back to the fundamental cosmic constraints associated with the cosmological anthropic principle, without which complex matter and living organisms could not have formed. So again I believe this challenges the materialist account.

jgill

Is this the way forward in philosophy - to create new expressions or words, then debate them? Actually, it resembles math in this respect, other than math defines the expression clearly.

ucarr

↪Gnomon

Let's just call Absential Materialism a "novel pairing" with seemingly paradoxical implications. It's oxymoronic only in contrast to Materialism as here & now Realism. — Gnomon

Good.

my main interest is in the "bridge" of which you speak. — Gnomon

My metaphor of the bridge is meant to express the theme of unification across upwardly evolving dynamical systems essential to upwardly evolving life forms. Establishing linkage between the levels of end-directed behavior aimed at maintaining the far-from-equilibrium metabolic processes is the central goal.

This bridging over the material/immaterial duality strives to render it inconclusive.

…Absence/Void is the not-yet-real pool-of-Potential from which Actual material things and immaterial properties may Emerge. — Gnomon

If Absence/Void is active and causal, as in the case of grounding emergent material things, then its energetic_material, not absential. The absential gaps are due to constraints imposed by dynamic metabolics upon the universal, thermo-dynamical tendency towards equilibrium and inaction. Life arises from dynamic metabolics that constrain the tendency towards equilibrium on behalf of far-from-equilibrium, vital organisms.

Highly ordered material things, such as living organisms, don’t arise from a void. Instead, they arise from a thermo-dynamic equilibrium constrained upwardly towards ever-more complex
and individualized states of being.

I notice that you spell "intentional" with an "e", as I do in my own thesis, following Deacon. — Gnomon

Ententional: A generic adjective coined in this book for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic. This includes function, information, meaning, reference, representation, agency, purpose, sentience, and value. — Terrence W. Deacon

Deacon’s term encompasses an array of attributes associated with cerebration within a set of end-directed processes.

Absence may play the role of causal Energy… — Gnomon

Energy, even as a waveform, is a presence.

ucarr

↪Wayfarer

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in i — Wayfarer

Your question is important — ucarr

Does it have an answer? — Wayfarer

From my limited reading of Deacon I don't recall ever mentioning that phrase. Nor do I think he describes his work as materialist, rather as challenging the materialist paradigm, but within a broader naturalist framework. In other words, a form of extended naturalism. — Wayfarer

Are you saying the natural world stands some degree apart from material things?

Are you acknowledging the immaterial realm is a part of the natural world and therefore is not supernatural?

Are you aligning the immaterial world with top-down causation?

In terms of constraints in physics, these can ultimately be traced back to the fundamental cosmic constraints associated with the cosmological anthropic principle, without which complex matter and living organisms could not have formed. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation?

Are you saying the natural world emerged from immaterial causation?

ucarr

↪jgill

Is this the way forward in philosophy - to create new expressions or words, then debate them? Actually, it resembles math in this respect, other than math defines the expression clearly. — jgill

Philosophy should meet the same standard of clarity met by math.

180 Proof

@ucarr, how does this "absential materialism" metaphysically differ from Democritean-Epicurean atomism (i.e. swirling atoms in void)?

ucarr

↪180 Proof

…how does this "absential materialism" metaphysically differ from Democritean-Epicurean atomism (i.e. swirling atoms in void)? — 180 Proof

There is no binary of material/immaterial. Instead, there are only material processes moving upwards along a continuum of higher-order, dynamical systems.

In consequence, the grammar of these materialist processes is, morphologically speaking, monist, not dualist.

180 Proof

↪ucarr

Classical atomism is monist – atoms are aspects (à la density differentials) of void, not separable from, or transcendent of, void – so no "dualism" (like e.g. platonism, hylomorphism, etc).

Wayfarer

Are you saying the natural world stands some degree apart from material things? — ucarr

I asked first: how is Deacon's 'incomplete nature' compatible with materialism? What role does 'matter' occupy?

For that matter, just what is 'materialism'? Let's see some definitions:

Brittanica: Materialism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them.

Wikipedia: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist.

New World Encyclopedia: In philosophy, materialism is a monistic (everything is composed of the same substance) ontology that holds that all that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, everything is material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions.

Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation? — ucarr

I think Deacon's notion of absentials and constraints challenge those forms of reductive materialism. In "Incomplete Nature," Deacon criticises reductionism, the viewpoint that complex phenomena can be entirely explained by breaking them down to their most basic physical components, saying that approach is insufficient in explaining phenomena like consciousness and purpose. Instead, Deacon emphasizes the importance of emergent phenomena, properties or behaviors that appear at higher levels of complexity and cannot be predicted from (and, so, reduced to) the properties of individual components. This challenges a purely materialistic view by suggesting that understanding the parts does not necessarily equate to understanding the whole. In a carefully-qualified way, he supports the Aristotelian idea that 'the whole is greater than' (or, not reducible to) the sum of its parts. He's part of what I'm referring to as 'extended naturalism', an emerging paradigm that recognises the shortcomings of materialism in regards to accounting for mind and life.

Which is why I don't think you're term 'absential materialism' does justice to Deacon's work.

jgill

Philosophy should meet the same standard of clarity met by math — ucarr

Let's start with Being compared with, say, Complex number. :roll:

Lionino

Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness. — ucarr

:shade: :shade:

Corvus

If materialism is a belief that even mind is matter, then it is an addlepated belief.

Gnomon

If Absence/Void is active and causal, as in the case of grounding emergent material things, then its energetic_material, not absential. The absential gaps are due to constraints imposed by dynamic metabolics upon the universal, thermo-dynamical tendency towards equilibrium and inaction. — ucarr

My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). In other words, Aristotelian Potential is unreal & immaterial & meta-physical, and not measurable in terms of thermo-dynamics. Potential is knowable only in hindsight by reasoning, or by mathematical calculation of statistical Probability for a future event.

I suppose you could say that "Potential" refers to the Absence part of Absential Materialism. It's the latent Tendency or Propensity, not the manifest Actuality. Potential is another name for my concept of EnFormAction as a precursor of Energy. Potential is Absence that causes Presence. It's not a valid concept in materialistic Physics, but is a useful concept in mathematical Physics. :nerd:

PS___ The potential-to-actual transformation could be construed as "top-down" causation. As Deacon put it : "the downward . . . causation . . . is in this sense not causation in the sense of being induced to change . . . but is rather an alteration in causal probabilities" p161. {my emphasis}

Potential :
Aristotle's concept of potentiality and actuality is a fundamental aspect of his metaphysical philosophy. Potentiality refers to the capacity or possibility for something to become actual, while actuality refers to the state of being fully realized or manifested. . . . Actuality is what 'manifests.' Potentiality is what 'could be'.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Aristotles-potentiality-and-actuality

Probability :
The philosophy of probability presents problems chiefly in matters of epistemology and the uneasy interface between mathematical concepts and ordinary language as it is used by non-mathematicians. Probability theory is an established field of study in mathematics. . . . . "physical" and "evidential" probabilities.[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_interpretations

Absence may play the role of causal Energy… — Gnomon
Energy, even as a waveform, is a presence. — ucarr

In order to "play the role of energy", Absence (void) must transform from Potential (not yet real) into Actual (matter). The mathematical waveform is not a real thing, but a pointer to the potential or possible Presence of a particle (photon). There are no material waveforms in Reality, only conceptual forms in Ideality. Do, you see what I mean? :smile:

ucarr

↪180 Proof

how does this "absential materialism" metaphysically differ from Democritean-Epicurean atomism (i.e. swirling atoms in void)? — 180 Proof

Classical atomism is monist – atoms are aspects (à la density differentials) of void, not separable from, or transcendent of, void – so no "dualism" — 180 Proof

How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void?

jgill

The mathematical waveform is not a real thing — Gnomon

:up:

There are no material waveforms in Reality — Gnomon

Ocean waves might be considered as waveforms, although they are erratic. Radar, etc. are waveforms in reality.

180 Proof

↪jgill

:up:

How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void? — ucarr

I 'm confident they would say existence (i.e. being); however, I prefer to think of "void" as the real (i.e. the ineluctable exceeding, or encompassing horizon, of both (human) effability and rationality). Another way of putting it: there are 'dynamics' in every sense, we say, only because void fundamentally affords 'changes, combinatorials, contingencies, chance' – or, in contemporary terms, universal computability (re: D. Deutsch, S. Lloyd, S. Wolfram, M. Tegmark ... Spinoza ...)

ucarr

↪Wayfarer

The human individual is the exemplar of absential materialism:what is not yet but will be. — ucarr

But how is it 'materialism'? What role does matter occupy in it? — Wayfarer

Ententional: A generic adjective coined in this book for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic. This includes function, information, meaning, reference, representation, agency, purpose, sentience, and value. — Terrence W. Deacon

Absential materialism is merely my wording for Deacon’s “Ententional.” I’m not proposing anything different from what from he expounds in Incomplete Nature.

The nine items listed above as examples of ententional things are, in my own words, distinguished by their action-at-a-distance causality. This means they cause resultants distributed away from them across space and time. When America’s federal reserve bank raises the cost of money, they are an agent seeking to achieve something non-intrinsic to their location: reduction of inflation via reduction of spending. Intentional reduction of inflation, a cerebral-material action, nonetheless distributes across spacetime, a material medium, This cerebral-material action, although absent via distribution from the federal reserve bank, absentially constrains spending by agents unknown personally.

In the context of evolutionary biology, a phenomenon that features mind’s emergence from matter, let’s look at two examples of absential materialism in action.

Through nested dynamical metabolic contraints on cell generation with genetic variations included, the favoring of a big brain over a strong, hairy body occurs. One of the resultants, distributed across spacetime, primes intelligent humans for reduction of hunting and gathering of food in favor of developing agriculture. Another resultant of the same dynamical metabolic constraint primes humans to cover their naked flesh, first with animal pelts and then with woven plant fibers and onward further towards development of the fashion industry.

Absential materialism utilizes the long reach of spacetime, a material cord binding together material things in accordance with planning.

ucarr

↪Gnomon

My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). In other words, Aristotelian Potential is unreal & immaterial & meta-physical, and not measurable in terms of thermo-dynamics. Potential is knowable only in hindsight by reasoning, or by mathematical calculation of statistical Probability for a future event. — Gnomon

I think your use of “potential,” a stored-energy, material phenomenon, connects Absence/Void to other material things. Think of a battery.

Joshs

↪ucarr

The non-locality of selfhood is serial aboutness: the self, as such, is a continual roadmap to somewhere else.* In its act of thinking, the self displaces itself from what it thinks about such that whatever it thinks about is not-yet-but-will-be. In this regard, thought is both manipulatable and unapproachable. Herein we get a whiff of Satre’s human freedom in the form of the uncontainable self as consciousness. Existentialism must therefore be about authenticity, and its impossibility. The authentic self, therefore, is rooted in a series of forward-looking fictions about the illusive_elusive self as once-was-but-no-longer-is. — ucarr

This absent-self idea comes from Heidegger but Sartre insisted on bringing back the Cartesian subject and freely willing consciousness as the basis of the self.

ucarr

↪180 Proof

How do Democritus, Epicurus and you define void? — ucarr

I'm confident they would say existence (i.e. being); however, I prefer to think of "void" as the real (i.e. the ineluctable exceeding, or encompassing horizon, of both (human) effability and rationality). Another way of putting it: there are 'dynamics' in every sense, we say, only because void fundamentally affords 'changes, combinatorials, contingencies, chance' – or, in contemporary terms, universal computability (re: D. Deutsch, S. Lloyd, S. Wolfram, M. Tegmark ... Spinoza ...) — 180 Proof

How is your above definition of void ontically different from spacetime (and its virtual particles)?

ucarr

↪Joshs

This absent-self idea comes from Heidegger but Sartre insisted on bringing back the Cartesian subject and freely willing consciousness as the basis of the self. — Joshs

Thanks for weighing in, Joshs; I’ve been missing your input.

What a knot of complexity here! The absential self, on which Cartesian freedom depends, effects its intention_design control of what-will-be, apparently in absentia, and thus the mind/body-problem puzzle of apparent duality.

I’m at pains here in this conversation to argue and persuade correspondents about the innate physical materiality of in absentia design.

ucarr

↪Gnomon

↪Wayfarer

My Absence/Void analogy was referring to Potential for change (probability), not Actual causation (energy). — Gnomon

For that matter, just what is 'materialism'? Let's see some definitions:

Brittanica: Materialism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming the fundamental cosmic constraints exemplify immaterial causation? — ucarr

I think Deacon's notion of absentials and constraints challenge those forms of reductive materialism. — Wayfarer

Herein, I will attempt to profile Gnomon and Wayfarer philosophically: You’re trying to plot a course midway between reductive materialism at one extreme and brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. In so doing, you must affect a dalliance with materialist science without becoming infected by it. You’re both involved in the game of double-agentry. I’m surmising dancing with science-nuanced-cum-philosophy presents as one of the major strategies of today’s savvy immaterialists.

ucarr

↪Lionino

Intersecting gravitational fields are therefore the physical model of consciousness. — ucarr

:shade: :shade: — “Lionino

Consciousness is an aggregate of nested sub-routines of reflection. We start with the thing-in-itself noumenal state; next, we have reflection: Aha! There’s something out there! We don’t know this; it is sensed, sub-consciously; next, we have reflection upon reflection: “Now I, the self, make my appearance. I will have the future state of things be such and so, I declare!” Next, we have philosophy: I think that you’re thinking about your thinking is fatally flawed.”

I feel, in some as yet vague way, the recursion of machine learning is the heart and soul of socializing and society. Consciousness is inherently social. Brains in vats are merely consciousness potential.

For this reason, the earth with its orbiting moon is a good example of consciousness. These orbiting, celestial bodies aptly model the entangled selves and selfhoods of conscious individuals.

As for action at a distance, after our conversation, I carry off some of you with me into the next room.

Gnomon

The mathematical waveform is not a real thing — Gnomon
There are no material waveforms in Reality — Gnomon
Ocean waves might be considered as waveforms, although they are erratic. Radar, etc. are waveforms in reality. — jgill

Hmmm? An ocean wave is a modulation of water, but what is the real substance of a radar waveform? Radar is a modulation of physical Energy, but it has no "real" substance, except perhaps for ethereal Aether. The waveform is described in terms of time, frequency, space, polarization, and modulation. But all of those are mental concepts, not material objects. Hence, they exist in what I call Ideality. :smile:

Note --- I was a radarman in the Navy, but never saw or touched a waveform, except as a graphic representation in a book. That's because a waveform is a mathematical idealization, not a real thing like "radar love". :joke:

PS___ I asked

↪ucarr

for a graphic representation of Interacting Gravity Fields to help me understand his analogy to Absential Materialism. He didn't respond, so do you know where I could find such an illustration of material absence? I'm serious.

Radar Love
I've been drivin' all night, my hands wet on the wheel
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel
It's my baby callin', sayin', "I need you here"
And it's a half past four and I'm shiftin' gear…

Absential Materialism

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