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. — ucarr

No. I was not talking about storage of invisible energy in tangible chemistry, but about Potential as a Principle, as Aristotle defined it. The Map is not the Terrain ; the Potential is not the Chemical. :smile:


Principle in philosophy and mathematics means a fundamental law or assumption. The word "principle" is derived from Latin "principium" (beginning)
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Principle

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

Actually, on this thread, "double-agent" Gnomon is trying to understand your "course" right through the middle of Materialism and Absentialism simultaneously. Your arcane language is over my head, so I was hoping you could provide a graphic representation of your overlapping field concept : a picture is worth a thousand words ___Henrik Ibsen :smile:

PS___ Your characterization of & Gnomon as "immaterialists" may provide a clue as to where your strategy is coming from.

brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. — ucarr

That expression conveys an incomprehension of Platonism in my view. Not that I consider myself to possess any expertise in Greek philosophy beyond self-education.

I've always rejected philosophical materialism, even in childhood, although I wasn't able to articulate it then. I feel it's based on a false intuition of the nature of existence and a blighted vision of human potential, but I've said enough about that elsewhere. Suffice to say that philosophical idealism requires something like a perspectival shift, very like a gestalt shift, which cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms.

I started reading Incomplete Nature, and very much liked the overall tone and quality of prose. I looked up some index entries on materialism:

The purpose of my writing this book is not the tapping of computer keys, nor the deposit of ink on paper, nor even the production and distribution of a great many replicas of a physical book, but to share something that isn’t embodied by any of these physical processes and objects: ideas. And curiously, it is precisely because these ideas lack these physical attributes that they can be shared with tens of thousands of readers without ever being depleted. ....

A complete theory of the world that includes us, and our experience of the world, must make sense of the way that we are shaped by and emerge from such specific absences. What is absent matters, and yet our current understanding of the physical universe suggests that it should not. A causal role for absence seems to be absent from the natural sciences. ....

In this age of hard-nosed materialism, there seems to be little official doubt that life is “just chemistry” and mind is “just computation.” But the origins of life and the explanation of conscious experience remain troublingly difficult problems, despite the availability of what should be more than adequate biochemical and neuroscientific tools to expose the details. So, although scientific theories of physical causality are expected to rigorously avoid all hints of homuncular explanations, the assumption that our current theories have fully succeeded at this task is premature.... — Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter

As I said already, I think Deacon is one of those developing an extended form of naturalism, recognising the limitations of lumpen materialism ('atoms and the void'). And he's setting out to address these 'troublingly difficult problems' in a pretty ingenious way. But I don't know if I accept his fundamental premise of what constitutes an 'absence' or 'abstential'. Sure, ideas do not exist as do the objects of physic - they are not located in time and space and are not composed of particles. But then, neither are numbers, but without mathematics, physics could not even get started.

(I found a long and difficult critique by a writer called R Scott Bakker, a philosopher and science fiction author. The gist of this criticism is that Deacon fails to account for 'observer dependency', which undermines the entire premise of his enterprise. But I'll leave that for others to decide.)

But I don't know if I will continue with it, or this thread. Life is short, and books are many.

@Gnomon

but what is the real substance of a radar waveform? — Gnomon

Pulsating electromagnetic energy? I consider this a real "thing", but the aether probably is not.

so do you know where I could find such an illustration of material absence? I'm serious. — Gnomon

How about radar.

I think Deacon is one of those developing an extended form of naturalism — Wayfarer

Yes. But, ironically, Ursula Goodenough and Terrence Deacon, in The Sacred Emergence of Nature --- referred to the topic as "religious naturalism".
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=bio_facpubs

In a marginal note of Incomplete Nature, I summarized the book as "a naturalized account for Life, Mind, Soul, Sentience, & Consciousness". But, as a practicing scientist, he seems to carefully avoid crossing the taboo line between Physics vs Metaphysics, Realism vs Idealism, and Science vs Philosophy. So, I also noted, "In order to establish the plausibility of absence-based (Metaphysical) causation, Deacon has to weed out unwarranted assumptions of Physicalism and Materialism". This straddling strategy and ontological balancing act led me to add : "The deistic inferences I'm drawing from Deacon's evidence & reasoning are precisely the one's he's trying to avoid".

I give him some slack though, because Deacon is a scientist whose specialties --- Anthropology, Biosemiotics & Neuroscience --- straddle the dividing line between Science & Philosophy and Classical & Quantum worldviews. My own Enformationism worldview also tiptoes along the same borderline. But, I assume that intends to remain firmly on the side of "secular naturalism". Which is fine with me. But, I view the Presence vs Absence dichotomy as a figure/ground concept like Ideal/Real & Physics/Metaphysics that depend on your personal subjective perspective, not on True/False facts.

An early Wiki review said, "this book speculates on how properties such as information, value, purpose, meaning and end-directed behavior emerged from physics and chemistry". Enformationism could be described the same way. And the associated philosophical attitude of BothAnd --- neither Realism nor Idealism, but Both --- places me on the same moot margin as Deacon. So, his book has added new dimensions to my own understanding of how Physical Reality and Metaphysical Ideality can co-exist in a world of embodied minds, capable of exploring the near infinite universe by means of ententional imagination. :smile:


Incomplete Nature :
The book expands upon the classical conceptions of work and information in order to give an account of ententionality that is consistent with eliminative materialism and yet does not seek to explain away or pass off as epiphenominal the non-physical properties of life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature

(I found a long and difficult critique by a writer called R Scott Bakker, a philosopher and science fiction author. The gist of this criticism is that Deacon fails to account for 'observer dependency', which undermines the entire premise of his enterprise. But I'll leave that for others to decide.) — Wayfarer

I'm somewhat familiar with Bakker's 'blind brain theory' and his notion of metacognitive illusions. He is an eliminativist roughly along the lines of Dennett. What do you think the idea of "observer dependency' you have imputed to him consists in and explains or entails?

Pulsating electromagnetic energy? I consider this a real "thing", but the aether probably is not. — jgill

Energy is real in its observed effects, but immaterial in its thingness. :nerd:

Is energy real or a concept?
The reason it is so hard to define is because it's an abstract notion. In physics, the concept of “energy” is really just a kind of shorthand, a tool to help balance the books. It is always conserved (or converted into mass) so is incredibly useful in working out the results of any kind of physical or chemical process
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/what-is-energy/

so do you know where I could find such an illustration of material absence? I'm serious. — Gnomon
How about radar. — jgill

OK. How does Radar --- a focused energy field --- illustrate how Absential Materialism works? Radar is not a pulsating machine gun shooting bullets (matter) & spaces (absence) at a target. Or is it? :wink:

PS___As a radarman, I once saw a high-powered radar antenna cook a seagull perched nearby. Definitely real effects! But the "bullets" (pulses or bad vibes) could pass right through or bounce off most matter, and worked best on transparent water; as in a microwave.

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

As I discern the difference, "void" is a speculative supposition of fundamental reality (analogous to Spinoza's substance (or being)) whereas "spacetime", according to various formulations of quantum gravity, mathematically describes only an emergent physical structure (again, analoguous to an infinite mode of the extension attribute of Spinoza's substance (or a being)).

I'm somewhat familiar with Bakker's 'blind brain theory' and his notion of metacognitive illusions. He is an eliminativist roughly along the lines of Dennett. What do you think the idea of "observer dependency' you have imputed to him consists in and explains or entails? — Janus

He goes into it in that review I linked to but it's very long, and linked to another long piece. I think I'll steer clear of him, I don't like the vibe.

I think I'll steer clear of him, I don't like the vibe. — Wayfarer

:lol: Fair enough...

Energy is [ ... ] immaterial in its thingness. — Gnomon

So (rest) mass is "immaterial" too?

From that interesting paper:

Biologically we are just another ape; mentally we are a whole new phylum of organism.’ Our ‘whole new’ traits—symbolic languages, cultural transmission of ideas via languages, and generation of an autobiographical self — are of central importance to our lives and our religious lives,and much remains to be understood. At this juncture, however, the concept to take in is that these human-specific traits are quintessentially emergent: they are constructe bottom-up and then deeply infuenced by environmental contexts; they make use of ancient protein families that are deployed in novel patterns and sequences.

This says a lot. Even though there's the acknowledgement of the sense in which humans 'transcend previous biology' ('whole new phylum'), the aim is to 'explain' these 'emergent tendencies' in terms of 'ancient protein families' being 'deployed' (and note the implication of agency!) in 'novel patterns'. So again, the over-arching paradigm here is that of material evolution - what sequences of material interaction 'cause' or 'give rise' to these capacities or abilities?

But what if one specifically human ability that has arisen along with this provides an insight into causal factors quite other than those pre-supposed by that paradigm? One that could be allegorised as, instead of complex molecular interactions giving rise to living beings, a kind of latent intelligence taking material form?Of course sounds too much like vitalism, at least so long as that kind of intelligence is conceived of in objective terms.

I have perused the definition of 'religious' in that paper, although barely, given the time. But I wonder if that acknowledges the so-called 'sapiential dimension' that is generally associated with philosophical spirituality? Insight into the ground of being, that is associated with the great axial age religious philosophies? (My lecturer in Indian philosophy used to intone, 'what is latent becomes patent'.)

Nevertheless, I think the very existence of this kind of paper arises because of an acknowledgement of the barreness of reductive materialism, 'atoms in motion'. I mean, it's embarrasingly inadequate for all but the most shameless of materialists. So there are all these cross-cultural dialogues going on, conferences on consciousness, re-configurations of the meaning of evolution and physics. Probably it has something to do with the Age of Aquarius.

PS___ I asked ↪ucarr for a graphic representation of Interacting Gravity Fields to help me understand his analogy to Absential Materialism. — Gnomon

Your arcane language is over my head, so I was hoping you could provide a graphic representation of your overlapping field concept : a picture is worth a thousand words ___Henrik Ibsen :smile: — Gnomon

Picture the moon in earth’s skyline, with the ocean at high tide. This is an interaction of two celestial bodies with gravitational fields: earth holds the moon in its orbit and the moon raises the ocean tides.

No. I was not talking about storage of invisible energy in tangible chemistry, but about Potential as a Principle, as Aristotle defined it. The Map is not the Terrain ; the Potential is not the Chemical. :smile:

Principle in philosophy and mathematics means a fundamental law or assumption. The word "principle" is derived from Latin "principium" (beginning)

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Principle — Gnomon

I know that an abstract principle may have truth content and some level of application to the phenomenal world. How may it have realizable potential? Does such realizable potential evolve over an interval of time of positive value? If so, how is this time interval pertaining to an abstract principle measured?

PS___ Your characterization of ↪Wayfarer & Gnomon as "immaterialists" may provide a clue as to where your strategy is coming from. — Gnomon

Are you suggesting my language characterizing you and Wayfarer is actually a more apt description of me?

…brain-in-a-vat Platonism at the other. — ucarr

That expression conveys an incomprehension of Platonism in my view. — Wayfarer

As I said already, I think Deacon is one of those developing an extended form of naturalism, recognising the limitations of lumpen materialism ('atoms and the void'). — Wayfarer

But I don't know if I will continue with it (Incomplete Nature), or this thread. — Wayfarer

If you do sign off from this conversation, before you do, I hope you’ll elaborate some details of your judgment that “brain-in-a-vat Platonism” conveys an incomprehension of Platonism.

…philosophical idealism requires something like a perspectival shift, very like a gestalt shift, which cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms. — Wayfarer

Do you mean comprehension of Plato’s Ideal Forms requires a systemic transformation of a person’s perceptions, thoughts and beliefs?

You say philosophical idealism cannot be explained or reduced to propositional terms. Are you saying it shares common ground with ineffable dimensions of spirituality?

As I discern the difference, "void" is a speculative supposition of fundamental reality (analogous to Spinoza's substance (or being)) whereas "spacetime", according to various formulations of quantum gravity, mathematically describes only an emergent physical structure (again, analoguous to an infinite mode of the extension attribute of Spinoza's substance (or a being)). — 180 Proof

I understand you to be saying “void” is more fundamental than “spacetime.”

Since you say “void” is analogous to Spinoza’s Substance, I understand you to be implying “void” is physical_material and of infinite extension.

I hope you’ll elaborate some details of your judgment that “brain-in-a-vat Platonism” conveys an incomprehension of Platonism. — ucarr

Well, as you've asked, I should respond. As I try to explain in my Mind-Created World OP, what I believe philosophical idealism is about, or should be about, is insight into the way the mind constructs or creates what we understand as the world. The mind is not the passive recipient of information from an already-existing world, but an active agent which synthesises sensory input with pre-existing intellectual elements, per Kantian idealism, which creates of constructs the consciousness we have of the world, which is how we know the world. That perspective calls into question the sense we have of an entirely mind-independent world. The reason I question the 'brain in the vat' analogy (which I believe goes back to Hilary Putnam) is because it's rather a caricature of that insight (although I should look it up and read it). It's as if we are trying to create a snapshot of that deep, constructive process that the mind is continually engaged in, and look at it from the outside, when in reality, we cannot get outside of it. I suppose it is something like a 'thought-experiment' but I don't think it conveys the profound nature of the original insight.

Anyway, I don't think Platonism thought about it like that - the way we're discussing it is a product of our own modern cultural background. But I nevertheless believe that Platonism was deeply concerned with the question of the reality of the sensible world (that is, the domain of what can be detected and measured by senses and instruments). Plato was concerned with discerning what he designated the 'ideas', by which I think he was referring to something very like 'principles' (although admittedly that is a revisionist reading). If you consider the debate over Platonism in mathematics, the essence of the debate is whether, or in what sense, numbers and other such 'intelligible objects' are real (as distinct from being products of the mind). Because if they *are* real, then it suggests an order of existence that transcends space and time. It has its proponents, notably Roger Penrose and Kurt Godel, but it does call into question one of the fundamenal axioms of naturalism, namely, that the world can be entirely understood in terms of manifest objective processes in space-time.

Do you mean comprehension of Plato’s Ideal Forms requires a systemic transformation of a person’s perceptions, thoughts and beliefs? — ucarr

Well I think it's historically defensible. It is said that at the entrance to the Platonic Academy was inscribed the slogan 'Let no-one ignorant of geometery enter here'. Those who qualified were admitted to the Academy where they were immersed in a curriculum including mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy etc- as is well-known, this was the ancient pre-cursor to the modern University system. But I think in ancient philosophy, there was still the idea of the 'philosphical ascent' - that grasp of certain kinds of truth required persons of a certain sort. (Perhaps that is still the case with mathematical physics, insofar as in order to grasp its concepts one must have an extraordinarily high degree of mathematical aptitude. But modern science typically eschews the qualitative aspects of being, hence the whole debate over qualia. Platonism was, shall we say, considerably more holistic.)

You misunderstand me (re: Spinoza's substance / being) by confusing "void" (that's metaphysical, not just "physical") with what I wrote about "spacetime" (i.e. a physical structure analogous to "an infinite mode of the extension attribute ...")

Energy is [ ... ] immaterial in its thingness. — Gnomon
So (rest) mass is "immaterial" too? — 180 Proof

Yes. Mass is not an objective thing, it's a measure of Matter. And measurement is a mental function. In my personal philosophical thesis, Mind (e.g. Intention) is also a form of shape-shifting Energy. And physical energy is just one of many forms of Generic Information (power to change form). Matter is a tangible form of that universal Causal Potential. Causation is the process of form change, again not a material thing. :smile:

Rest Mass Energy :
One of the terms in the relativistic kinetic energy equation is the rest-mass of the particle and its given by E=mc^2. The rest-mass energy is the energy that is stored inside a stationary particle as a result of its mass. Rest-mass energy implies that mass is simply another form of energy.
https://aklectures.com/lecture/relativistic-momentum-and-rest-mass-energy/rest-mass-energy

Mind as Energy :
The mind is viewed as energies of relationships, with no beginning and no end, that give rise to consciousness in an observer processing change or information from the universe.
https://researchoutreach.org/articles/mind-as-energy/

Consciousness as Energy :
Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests that consciousness is a product of the way energetic activity is organized in the brain.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02091/full

Picture the moon in earth’s skyline, with the ocean at high tide. This is an interaction of two celestial bodies with gravitational fields: earth holds the moon in its orbit and the moon raises the ocean tides. — ucarr

OK. I'm imagining those interacting gravitational fields. Now, what does that mutual attraction have to do with Absential Materialism? Deacon says that "what is absent matters"; but that means it's meaningful to an observer. Is Meaning the kind of Matter your term refers to? :smile:

Energy is [ ... ] immaterial in its thingness.
— Gnomon
So (rest) mass is "immaterial" too?
— 180 Proof
Yes. Mass is not an objective thing... — Gnomon

:clap: :lol: :sad: :rofl:

I know that an abstract principle may have truth content and some level of application to the phenomenal world. How may it have realizable potential? Does such realizable potential evolve over an interval of time of positive value? If so, how is this time interval pertaining to an abstract principle measured? — ucarr

Energy is an "abstract principle" that has effects in the phenomenal world. We refer to that effect as Change. And all material transformations take time. That's why we call change-in-general : Time. So the time-interval (experience A relative to experience B) is one way to measure Change & Causation.

But the Energy itself is a Potential principle (the power to change form), not an Actual physical phenomenon. Our physical senses cannot detect Energy directly, only its effects on tangible Matter. That observation of Change is what we call "Realization" : from possible to actual (unreal to real) states of being. :smile:


Invisible Energy :
What is always present but never visible? Energy. Energy is a difficult
concept to understand because it is not a concrete object that you can
see or touch. To comprehend what energy is, you need to understand
what it does. That is, although energy isn’t visible, you can detect evidence
of energy. . . . . Movement, sound, heat, and light provide evidence that energy is
present and being used.
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/Documents/Activities/EvidenceofEnergy.pdf

Energy is [ ... ] immaterial in its thingness.
— Gnomon
So (rest) mass is "immaterial" too?
— 180 Proof
Yes. Mass is not an objective thing... — Gnomon
:clap: :lol: :sad: :rofl: — 180 Proof

Please look in the mirror. Can't you see that "Boo!" and "Boo-Hoo!" are childish emotional reactions to something personally unpleasant. Not a philosophical argument for a stated position.

if you can calm down long enough to think rationally, here are some formal positions that you can argue against, to support your materialistic belief system. Can you understand that Energy is a metaphysical philosophical Principle, not a material object? :cool:


Is energy a metaphysical concept?
Because it is ubiquitous, the concept of energy must be philosophical and, in particular, metaphysical (or ontological). That is, it belongs in the same league as the concepts of thing and property, event and process, space and time, causation and chance, law and trend, and many others.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4408-0_14

Rest Mass Energy :
One of the terms in the relativistic kinetic energy equation is the rest-mass of the particle and its given by E=mc^2. The rest-mass energy is the energy that is stored inside a stationary particle as a result of its mass. Rest-mass energy implies that mass is simply another form of energy.
https://aklectures.com/lecture/relativistic-momentum-and-rest-mass-energy/rest-mass-energy

Invisible Energy :
What is always present but never visible? Energy. Energy is a difficult
concept to understand because it is not a concrete object that you can
see or touch. To comprehend what energy is, you need to understand
what it does. That is, although energy isn’t visible, you can detect evidence
of energy. . . . . Movement, sound, heat, and light provide evidence that energy is
present and being used.
https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/Documents/Activities/EvidenceofEnergy.pdf

PS___In this exchange, seems to define "immaterial" as unreal or spiritual, or imaginary or irrelevant. A secondary dictionary definition is "spiritual, rather than physical". Personally, I don't think in terms of "spiritual". So, for me "immaterial" means literally "not made of matter".

And that "immaterial" label includes invisible metaphysical Energy, as noted in the links above. Causal Energy is Real, in the sense that its actions have sensable and measurable effects on matter. But Energy is also a subjective Metaphysical process in that it is a definition, not an objective thing. Likewise, Space, Time, and Causation are philosophical ideas, not real things. None of those concepts can be observed with eyes or scopes, but only through reasoning from observations. Perhaps 180 would say that Reasons are Real. And I would agree that those mental functions are indeed included as immaterial Ideas in my Real world.

PS___ Your characterization of ↪Wayfarer & Gnomon as "immaterialists" may provide a clue as to where your strategy is coming from. — Gnomon
Are you suggesting my language characterizing you and Wayfarer is actually a more apt description of me? — ucarr

No. I was suggesting that you were portraying us --- "immaterialists" --- as opposed to your own position : "materialist". Is that an incorrect guess?

FWIW, my philosophical worldview is neither Materialism nor Immaterialism, Realism nor Idealism, but a philosophical Monistic marriage of both ontologies. My Holistic BothAnd worldview includes both visible Matter and invisible Energy, both tangible Brain and intangible Mind. That's not a denial of Reality, but an acceptance of Ideality within Reality. How would you describe your worldview? :smile:


BothAnd-ism :
An inclusive philosophical perspective that values both Subjective and Objective information ; both Feelings and Facts ; both Mysteries and Matters-of-fact ; both Animal and Human nature ; both Real things and Ideal concepts.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Can you understand that Energy is a metaphysical philosophical Principle, not a material object? — Gnomon

Ah riiiight, just like "The Force" :sparkle: :rofl:

An ocean wave is a modulation of water, but what is the real substance of a radar waveform? — Gnomon

A wave of water is a wave of water. Modulation is a transformation of a wave. Separate issues.

That's because a waveform is a mathematical idealization, — Gnomon

Looks like a real thing to me, and it is a wave.

Looks like a real thing to me, and it is a wave. — Lionino

A representation of an energetic wave and the wave itself are different things : one a natural function and the other an artificial mental model of that function. Do you "see" the difference between the Map and Terrain? :smile:

Mental Map vs Physical Territory :
“The map is not the territory” is a phrase coined by the Polish-American philosopher and engineer Alfred Korzybski. He used it to convey the fact that people often confuse models of reality with reality itself.
https://www.the-possible.com/the-map-is-not-the-territory/

A representation of an energetic wave — Gnomon

Wave is propagation of energy, there is no such thing as "energetic wave".

one a natural function and the other an artificial mental model of that function — Gnomon

None of these things are well defined. What is a natural function? Every model is artificial, and the fact I can model something means that that something exists, or that at least I perceive it.