• 180 Proof
    15.8k
    More of your typical run-on non sequiturs and ad hominems pathetically failing to deflect from my straightforward criticisms (of your "enformer"-of-the-gaps pseudo-scientistic woo-woo sermons) which you cannot invalidate or counter soundly. You're smugly satisfied that you already have The Answer (à la your "Meta-Physics" "personal belief-system" "worldview") but as all of us, except you (a poor Dunning-Kruger kid :sweat:), are aware: for years you've been Answering the wrong (or pseudo) question(s). :lol:

    Anyway, like most of your critics, Gnomon, I'm just an elliptical orbits kinda guy (Copernican) and apparently you're an epicycles kinda guy (Ptolemyan) who hasn't yet groked the cosmological memo. Maybe you can't. Well, I aim to find out which it is. Gnōthi Seauton, man. :victory: :cool:

    :fire:
  • Gnomon
    4k
    The Hari-Krishna had a constant presence in Waikiki in 1971, where I was in the army doing computer programming at Fort Shafter, drafted out of my first year at IBM.PoeticUniverse
    I'm not a computer programmer, but was introduced to digital coding on mainframes back in the 80s. Hippies & Hares were not much of a presence on my southern conservative college campus. Instead, my 2010 Enformationism thesis was inspired mainly by statistical Quantum Physics (energy) and digital Information Theory (entropy). Whitehead's Process Cosmology seemed to me to combine those radical scientific ways of understanding the world into a general philosophical worldview for the 20th century. Here's a review of Whitehead by The Information Philosopher. His criticism of Reductionism (in favor of Holism) and advocation of "purpose" in evolution, may instigate another of 's knee-jerk woo-woo attacks. :smile:

    Whitehead and Information Philosophy :
    There are some broad similarities between information philosophy and Whitehead's "philosophy of organism" or his oddly named "organic mechanism." To see the connection, we must sharpen the idea of Newtonian mechanism and even the deterministic motions of matter in special relativity. These both seem well-described by Whitehead's attack on "simple location."
    Today we describe this as "reductionism," the mistaken idea that all phenomena are reducible to physics and chemistry, that biological organisms and even mental phenomena are reducible to the motions of their constituent material particles.
    Reductionism claims that there are deterministic causal chains coming "bottom up" from matter. If there are "mental phenomena," they are merely "epiphenomena," giving us the illusion of mental events and "mental causation. . . . .
    Perhaps the greatest similarity between I-Phi and Process Philosophy is that they both claim to explain a "creative process," which lies behind the "emergence of "purpose" (the entelechy of Aristotle or the teleonomy of Colin Pittendrigh and Jacques Monod) in living things. "

    https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/whitehead/
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    WhiteheadGnomon

    His prehensions could be the qualia, which get stored in memory for future use.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Here's a review of Whitehead by The Information PhilosopherGnomon

    Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.

    The Great Programmer may be creating the DNA of the universe, and ours, too, for in that way there can be form before substance.
  • Gnomon
    4k
    His prehensions could be the qualia, which get stored in memory for future use.PoeticUniverse
    That may be a simpler interpretation of an arcane term that I didn't grasp 20 years ago, upon first attempting to read a technical philosophical work that was way over my untrained head. I'm using this thread to get a deeper understanding of Process Philosophy, as an adjunct to my own amateur worldview of Enformationism*1.

    While searching on Prehension & Qualia I came across the sites below*1. It may take me a while to fully "prehend" the four "habits of thought"*2. But they point to contentious issues that often come up in discussions of Materialism vs Idealism. Enformationism has a foot in both camps. But, I often get the feeling (qualia?) that proponents of Materialism tend to belittle the mental qualities that distinguish humans from animals (Anthropophobia?), and philosophy from empirical science . :smile:


    *1. What is the Prehension process in philosophy?
    Prehension is the experiential activity of an actual occasion by which characteristics of one occasion come to be present in another. Thus, one occasion may prehend certain qualities of an occasion in its past (for example, a shade of red or a certain proposition).
    https://iep.utm.edu/processp/


    *2. Whitehead's Revolutionary Concept of Prehension :
    Hartshorne lays out sixteen habits of thought (comprehensive list below)—from the dominance of subject-predicate grammar and substance-thinking, to the fear of anthropomorphism and determinism—that repeatedly blocked the kind of asymmetric, creative-relational insight Whitehead provides with his concept of prehension. Tim and I noted several that remain relevant to science:
    A. Determinism : The common assumption that cause and effect must be symmetrical, stifling any serious account of novelty.
    B. Anthropophobia : The dread of reading anything akin to feeling into nature, which ironically yields an anthropocentric stance.
    C. Nominalism : Overzealous denial of real potentialities.
    D. Hume’s axiom : Confusing distinction with separation, thus missing how events can be distinguished without being externally divided.

    https://footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/whiteheads-revolutionary-concept
  • Gnomon
    4k
    Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.PoeticUniverse
    I'll have to take your word for that. But I suspect that thinking in terms of Eternalism might be like breathing under water. It doesn't come naturally, as does Presentism. I suppose philosophers, who dare to tread in transcendent terrain, must be somewhat amphibious. For hardline Immanentists, trying to imagine a static, non-processing, space-time-transcendent Block Universe might make them choke. :cool:
  • Gnomon
    4k
    Whitehead models his occasions of experience on the events in Einstein's Block Universe of General Relativity; however, he mixes and matches by using Presentism instead of Eternalism.PoeticUniverse
    More poetic prose from Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain :

    Thomas Mann was writing in the early 20th century, around the same time that Einstein was forced, by the paradoxes of Relativity and Quantum Physics, to conclude that matter-molding Space and mind-molding Time can be understood as conceptual dimensions in a realm he called Space-Time, and metaphorized as frozen Block-Time. I doubt that Mann was familiar with Einstein's technical writing. But such ideas may have been "in the air" so to speak.

    The narrator mused on Time immediately after a chapter in which the German protagonist had his first conversation --- mostly in French --- with his paramour-to-be, whom he had previously only admired from afar across the seven table dining room. The scene was during a Carnival (Mardi Gras??) festival, when the patients, of various degrees of sickness, let loose in anomalous costumes and strange behavior. The adored-one told him she was going away --- far away --- just to get away from the hum-drum of sanitarium life. Immediately cut to the next chapter :


    "WHAT is time? A mystery, a figment—and all-powerful. It conditions the exterior world, it is motion married to and mingled with the existence of bodies in space, and with the motion of these. Would there then be no time if there were no motion? No motion if no time? We fondly ask. Is time a function of Space? Or space of time? Or are they identical? Echo answers. Time is functional, it can be referred to as action; we say a thing’s “brought about” by time. What sort of thing? Change! Now is not then, here not there, for between them lies motion. But the motion by which one measures time is circular, is in a closed circle; and might almost equally well be described as rest, as cessation of movement—for the there repeats itself constantly in the here, the past in the present. Furthermore, as our utmost effort cannot conceive a final limit either to time or in space, we have settled to think of them as eternal and infinite—apparently in the hope that if this is not very successful, at least it will be more so than the other. But is not this affirmation of the eternal and the infinite the logical-mathematical destruction of every and any limit in time or space, and the reduction of them, more or less, to zero? Is it possible, in eternity, to conceive of a sequence of events, or in the infinite of a succession of space-occupying bodies? Conceptions of distance, movement, change, even of the existence of finite bodies in the universe. "how do these fare? Are they consistent with the hypothesis of eternity and infinity we have been driven to adopt? Again we ask, and again echo answers."
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    creative processGnomon

    Whitehead says the ultimate reality is Creativity, a principle:

    “The universal of universals, characterizing ultimate matter of fact, is Creativity.”

    Everything that exists is a process of creative becoming. Actual entities (also called “actual occasions”) arise by creatively prehending other entities, and in doing so, add something new to the universe.

    So the universe is not made of stuff - but made of events; not governed solely by laws, but by relational creativity.

    There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.
  • 180 Proof
    15.8k
    There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.PoeticUniverse
    :cool: ... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and no first random vacuum fluctuation.
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    Again we ask, and again echo answersGnomon

    The Occasions of Experience

    Like drops of dew upon the morning grass,
    Brief moments sparkle, then are quick to fade;
    Each "occasion" born, fulfilled, surpassed—
    From these small deaths, reality is made.

    The universe—a vast mosaic laid
    Of prehensions, feelings, pure events;
    Each atom, thought, and star in grand parade
    Becoming, perishing, in present tense.

    No substance fixed beneath the world we sense,
    But process flowing through eternal Now;
    Each moment grasps the past with reverence,
    Then adds its novel aim, and takes its bow.

    The concrescence of all things that be—
    Each drop contains the cosmos' memory.

    Reveal
    Each moment bears within its fleeting form
    The echoed traces of what came before;
    Subjective aim transforms the uniform
    Into creation's never-ending score.

    We are not things but poems being writ,
    A string of moments dancing into one;
    The many and the one forever knit—
    A billion suns comprising just one sun.

    The void of time fills up with occasions bright,
    Each grasping, feeling, yearning into form;
    The universe—a symphony of light
    Where past and future meet in endless storm.

    So Whitehead taught: reality's not clay,
    But living moments born and passed away.

    The actual world—a tapestry unfurled
    Of prehended moments, gathered whole;
    Each subject weaves the threads of what has swirled
    Into new patterns as the cosmos rolls.

    No static substance underlying all,
    But drops of experience, self-creating;
    Each moment rises, answers to the call,
    Then perishes, its being still vibrating.

    The great philosopher's vision clear and bold:
    Reality is not of things, but acts;
    Each "now" contains what every "then" has told—
    A living process, not just lifeless facts.

    The past is not just gone, but flows within
    Each nascent moment, ready to begin.

    Beyond the veil of common sense's reach,
    Lies truth more fluid than our words contain;
    Each entity, like waves upon the beach,
    Is but a ripple in experience's chain.

    The Poet’s primordial vision guides
    Each occasion toward its best becoming;
    The lure of beauty where all truth resides—
    Eternal objects, endlessly oncoming.

    The universe is not a clockwork cold,
    But living feeling, sentient at its core;
    Each quantum flash of being, brave and bold,
    Creates itself, then passes through death's door.

    So Whitehead saw beyond the ancient rift—
    As moments bloom and die, existence shifts.

    Each moment blooms, a pulse in Time’s great sea,
    Not things, but acts—events that come to be.
    From drop to drop the cosmos takes its shape,
    A dance of mind and matter, wild and free.

    No static stone, no idle, lifeless clod—
    But process moves beneath the soil and sod.
    Each flash of being, brief as morning dew,
    Is real as stars, is kissed by thought not odd.

    These “occasions” rise with feeling at their core,
    They prehend the past, yet seek a little more.
    Each grasps the world, then yields itself in turn,
    A spark that fades, but opens up the door.

    They form a web, these nodes of sentient flare,
    The past flows in, the future stirs the air.
    Reality’s not built of blocks and beams,
    But woven through with feeling, time, and care.

    The world’s not made, but making ever still,
    With every act a push against the will.
    No fate is fixed, no god is locked above—
    Creation wakes in each occasion’s thrill.

    So sip this cup—each moment brims with wine,
    Distilled from all that was, in grand design.
    A drop contains the cosmos in its fold,
    And flickers out, yet calls the next to shine.

    The world becomes, it never merely is,
    A flux of feeling, not a world of fizz.
    No atom sits alone in timeless gloom—
    It feels, it yearns, it tells us what it does.

    Each moment’s born from many come before,
    It draws their echo, adds a little more.
    Then perishes, a whisper in the dark—
    Yet leaves a trace no future can ignore.

    Subject becomes object, tossed in the stream,
    Each plays its part within the larger scheme.
    No soul stands still, no world remains the same—
    All shift and shape as in a woven dream.

    From Poet’s lure to matter’s smallest twitch,
    Each moment leans toward depths we cannot pitch.
    Reality’s a poem never done—
    Penned not in stone, but in becoming’s witch.

    Not being, but becoming—this we are,
    More like a flame than like a fallen star.
    We flicker, burn, and pass our light along—
    Each life a note in Time’s unending bar.

    So here we dance, occasion upon flame,
    Each flicker formed with joy, regret, or shame.
    Yet in the forming lies the sacred spark—
    A fleeting self that bears eternal name.

    The stars themselves are thoughts that came to be,
    Each nova sings in process, not decree.
    A galaxy’s a rhythm, not a rock—
    It hums with ancient acts of poetry.

    Each quark, each pulse, each curve of stellar flare,
    Responds to past and feels the future’s air.
    The cosmos is a mind that builds itself—
    A scaffold strung with intuition’s care.

    No vast machine with cold and mindless gears—
    But swirls of yearning shaped by hope and fears.
    A thousand billion hearts in every sphere,
    All whispering their stories through the years.

    The past is real, but not a prison cell,
    Its echoes guide, but do not bind or quell.
    Each moment holds the power to re-form
    The curve of time, the place where starlight fell.

    From primal flux to now, the arc has bent—
    Not by command, but lure and deep intent.
    A One who woos, not rules, the world to grow—
    Each choice a note in Love’s great instrument.

    So let the comet blaze and atoms spin,
    Each dance of dust a tale that dwells within.
    No void is empty—everywhere there burns
    A silent hymn of process born in din.

    Creation is not done—it is the song,
    Each verse a shift, each rhyme both right and wrong.
    We are the singers, listeners, and score—
    The universe becoming all along.
  • Gnomon
    4k
    Whitehead says the ultimate reality is Creativity, a principle:

    “The universal of universals, characterizing ultimate matter of fact, is Creativity.

    Everything that exists is a process of creative becoming. Actual entities (also called “actual occasions”) arise by creatively prehending other entities, and in doing so, add something new to the universe.

    So the universe is not made of stuff - but made of events; not governed solely by laws, but by relational creativity.

    There was no “beginning” in the absolute sense. The universe is a creative advance into novelty. It has always been becoming.
    PoeticUniverse
    # Creativity is an essential characteristic of a Deity. And also the most universal fact of our contingent (fortuitous) universe.

    # In my Enformationism thesis, I coined a new name for "creative becoming" : EnFormAction (energy + form + event) : Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy.

    # For the purposes of Chemistry, the universe is made of Stuff (matter). But for the purposes of Physics, even matter is made of "events" of causation : i.e. Energy or Force. Causation (Change) is always a before & after relationship between Cause & Effect ; Input & Output (relational creativity)

    # For the purposes of Cosmology, the universe did have a creation event : a T=0 for a linear clock of successive events. But for the needs of Philosophy, the age of the universe is so far beyond our human experience that we make our time-counters go in circles, emulating the solar & lunar cycles. But these local time measurements have a new beginning every 12 hours, or 12 months. So, our time-counting is always relational, not absolute.

    PS___ you didn't cite the source for your Whitehead quotes. :smile:
  • Corvus
    4.5k
    *6. The Big Bang Theory stands as the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe.Gnomon

    But it cannot explain the origin of existence of the Earth and life, can it?
  • Gnomon
    4k
    But it cannot explain the origin of existence of the Earth and life, can it?Corvus
    No. That's why I have pieced together my own philosophical theory of how the primal Energy (causation) and Laws (information) of the Big Bang could evolve into living and thinking beings. :smile:


    Enformationism :
    A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Materialism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory of Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
    https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

    Process Evolution :
    Alfred North Whitehead’s book, Process and Reality, is a philosophical thesis, not a scientific essay. But it challenges the philosophical implications of Darwin’s mechanistic theory of Evolution. Instead of a simple series of energy exchanges, the Cosmos functions as a holistic organism. Hence, the eventual emergence of subordinate living creatures should not be surprising.
    https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page43.html
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    But for the purposes of Physics, even matter is made of "events" of causation : i.e. Energy or Force. Causation (Change) is always a before & after relationship between Cause & Effect ; Input & Output (relational creativity)Gnomon

    Presentism is astounding: The frame rate is zillions of times per second or whatever is one second divided by the Planck time! The Poet Programmer must be coding on a natural quantum computer of the quantum fields, everything connected to everything via entanglement.

    Since the making of the new 'now' utilizes all that came before, not just simply doing a single Planck time progression from the last 'now', the universe seems like to be of a growing block mode, in which the past is an amounting Eternalism and the present going forward is ever of Presentism.
  • Gnomon
    4k
    Presentism is astounding: The frame rate is zillions of times per second or whatever is one second divided by the Planck time! The Poet Programmer must be coding on a natural quantum computer of the quantum fields, everything connected to everything via entanglement.

    Since the making of the new 'now' utilizes all that came before, not just simply doing a single Planck time progression from the last 'now', the universe seems like to be of a growing block mode, in which the past is an amounting Eternalism and the present going forward is ever of Presentism.
    PoeticUniverse
    Yes. The quantum computer of Nature has a frame rate (frequency) of 400 - 700 teraHz. So it can simulate Reality with astonishing accuracy.

    This simulation of Block Mode Eternalism is limited only by the necessity for time to change from one frame to the next. We observers call each tick of the cosmic clock (oscillator) the Present. And the belief that we live our lives in that brief interval is called Presentism*1.

    The Poet Programmer can even tune he/r computer to create Matter from Light Energy by slowing down the frequency*2. It's almost like magic. One prehensive lump of that miracle matter is the brain reading this post. Who could have imagined that a Bang of light in the darkness of pre-time could create Life and Mind? :wink:


    *1. Process Philosophy :
    Whitehead's cosmology is rooted in his philosophy of process, which posits that reality is fundamentally a process of becoming rather than a collection of static entities.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+cosmology
    Note --- his Reality is the flow, not the frames

    *2. Is all matter just slowed down light? :
    Therefore, since massless particles travel at the speed of light, you can see that electrons are born to be fast but are caught up in the molasses of their interactions.
    https://www.quora.com/Is-all-matter-just-slowed-down-light
  • Corvus
    4.5k
    No. That's why I have pieced together my own philosophical theory of how the primal Energy (causation) and Laws (information) of the Big Bang could evolve into living and thinking beings. :smile:Gnomon

    Isn't evolution from living biological species to the same living biological species but for the better adaptation for the survival in the given environment?

    The primal Energy and Laws of the Big Bang is not living biological species, but it sounds like non-living force of some sort. How could the non-living evolve into the living?
  • Gnomon
    4k
    The primal Energy and Laws of the Big Bang is not living biological species, but it sounds like non-living force of some sort. How could the non-living evolve into the living?Corvus
    That is indeed the question! My amateur philosophical thesis postulates that Life & Mind are highly-evolved forms of primitive Energy : the power to change form (a process, not a thing). The key to make sense of that conjecture is the 21st century discovery that Energy (negative entropy) is a form of Information (en-form-action), and vice-versa. The thesis and blog go into some detail to explain the Process of transformation from non-living to living & thinking. The link below gives a quick peek at how Whitehead's Process metaphysics compares to the Substance physics of Materialism. :smile:


    Evolutionary Process and Cosmic Reality :
    Process Metaphysics vs Substance Physics
    https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page43.html
  • 180 Proof
    15.8k
    My amateur[pseudo] philosophical thesis postulates ... Energy (negative entropy)Gnomon
    :rofl: :lol: :sweat: :smirk: :roll: :chin: :sad:
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    The Poet ProgrammerGnomon

    The DNA of the Universe

    Intro

    Behold the helix dance of DNA,
    Where four notes sing life's complex interplay;
    Each strand a ladder to creation's heights,
    Where single missteps lead the whole astray.

    But deeper still lies nature's greatest code,
    A template vaster than what life has showed:
    The Universe's own encrypted chain,
    Where space and time and matter are bestowed.

    This holographic dance of Everything
    Spins out reality like golden string;
    Each quantum bit precisely placed in space
    To make the cosmic harmonies all ring.

    Like fractals folded into deeper space,
    Each pattern shows the whole in micron-trace;
    The universe, a grand computer's dream,
    Projects existence through digital grace.

    Reveal
    The Matrix

    The Infinite pulses through space-time’s web,
    A matrix of possibility and flow,
    Where mathematics whispers ancient codes
    Through dimensions that we cannot know.

    Information dances with Energy,
    Twin aspects of reality’s deep source,
    Weaving patterns through the quantum foam
    That guide creation’s fundamental course.

    The Broadcast

    The Cosmic Background fills the void
    With whispers from creation’s dawn,
    An omnidirectional antenna array
    Broadcasting since light first shone.

    Its static holds encrypted tales
    Of quantum fluctuations past,
    When space and time were newly born
    And causality was cast.

    The Pattern

    Interference ripples through the deep,
    Where virtual particles emerge and fade,
    Their quantum waltz of might-have-been
    Creates the substance from which worlds are made.

    Reality shimmers like a hologram,
    Each fragment holding all we see,
    While strings vibrate their sacred songs
    Through manifolds of symmetry.

    The Code

    Like DNA but vaster still,
    The cosmic code writes space and time,
    In languages of spin and charge
    Where entropy keeps perfect rhyme.

    Through quantum fields that permeate
    The vacuum’s pregnant emptiness,
    Information flows and builds
    The scaffolding of consciousness.

    The Transmission

    Each particle contains within
    A message from the universe,
    Entangled threads that stretch across
    The cosmic web, for better or worse.

    The void itself remembers all,
    Each quantum state forever stored
    In patterns of probability
    Where past and future are explored.

    The Program

    Is spacetime but a simulation,
    A program running deep and vast?
    Are we subroutines in the code,
    Through quantum circuits flowing fast?

    The matrix of reality
    Computes on scales both large and small,
    While information’s endless dance
    Creates the stage that holds it all.

    The Signal

    Through background radiation’s hiss,
    We hear creation’s primal song,
    A melody of math and light
    That’s been playing all along.

    Each wavelength carries ancient news
    Of how the cosmos came to be,
    While quantum tunnels bridge the gap
    Between what is and what could be.

    The Structure

    Like lattices of crystal thought,
    The universe builds form from void,
    Using rules both strange and deep
    That Einstein’s God might have employed.

    The cosmic DNA unfolds
    Through dimensions curled and bright,
    Where information crystallizes
    Into matter, energy, and light.

    The Resonance

    Virtual reality emerges
    From interference patterns pure,
    Where quantum superposition builds
    The solid world we think secure.

    Yet underneath our classical realm,
    The matrix continues its endless play,
    Computing futures yet to come
    As present moments slip away.

    The Understanding

    Perhaps the universe itself
    Is one vast quantum neural net,
    Processing information flows
    Through patterns we don’t fathom yet.

    The Infinite speaks through the code
    Of quarks and leptons, space and time,
    While consciousness emerges from
    This cosmic algorithm sublime.

    The Mystery

    Yet still we cannot fully grasp
    The deepest levels of this dance,
    Where information, energy,
    And mind entwine by quantum chance.

    The universe keeps secrets still
    Within its matrix vast and strange,
    While we decode small fragments of
    The patterns that will never change.
  • Gnomon
    4k
    The DNA of the Universe . . . .
    The Universe's own encrypted chain
    PoeticUniverse
    The helical geometry of DNA is well-adapted to the reproductive functions of biological creatures. But the Organic Cosmos*1 itself may possess something similar to DNA, as encoded in its logical lawful structure*2 : its "own encrypted chain". From that perspective, the physical universe may be viewed as a Logical Creature. Physicist Max Tegmark has offered a unique way of thinking about the birth & maturation of our universe in terms of mathematical structure. He may even have borrowed some of his ideas from Whitehead's Process cosmology*3.

    If the universe was "born" in a Big Bang, don't you think it's reasonable to determine its paternity? may think the very idea is blasphemous to his belief in the immaculate conception of Immanentism. As a True Believer in a virginal cosmos, He will rise to the defense of his Faith, with hysterical emoticons. :joke:

    *1. Whitehead‘s Conception of the Cosmos as an Organic Unity :
    The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate A. N. Whitehead’s philosophical position, according to which the dualism is a fatal fallacy at the heart of the modern scientific cosmology, and thus it should be considered as one of the causes of modern environmental and socio-economic crisis. First Whitehead’s criticism of mechanistic materialism in which dualistic feature of Western thought, called the bifurcation of nature, is rooted is summarized. It is shown that such division of the human mind and the cosmos does not leave any space for the self-being consciousness and life and that the attribute of independence of spirit results in the private worlds of experience and morality. Further it is argued that central motivation of Whitehead’s cosmology is to build up a system in which the aesthetic, religious and moral interests are in accordance with the natural science conceptions of the world. Whitehead's cosmology is interpreted as the transition from materialism to organicism and at the same time as shift from the static conception of cosmos to the dynamic one.
    https://journals.phil.muni.cz/profil/article/view/19949

    *2. The idea of a "universe DNA" refers to the concept that the fundamental laws and structures of the universe, like the structure of DNA, could be encoded in a way that determines its properties and behavior, potentially even allowing for a "reproducing" universe.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=universe+dna

    *3. Max Tegmark, a physicist and MIT professor, and Alfred North Whitehead, a philosopher and mathematician, are linked by their shared interest in metaphysics and the nature of reality, though their approaches and conclusions differ significantly. . . . .
    Max Tegmark's "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis" (MUH) proposes that our physical reality is a mathematical structure, meaning that what we perceive as the universe is not just described by mathematics, but is mathematics, and therefore, concepts like DNA and life forms are mathematical structures themselves.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Max_Tegmark.jpg
  • 180 Proof
    15.8k
    If the universe was "born" in a Big Bang, don't you think it's reasonable to determine its paternity?Gnomon
    :roll:
    Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo no "first cause"; spacetimes (nonrandom event-patterns (e.g. universes)) do emerge rarely as it's reasonable to expect (re: law of very large numbers ... of random events), etc. A god-fairytale (e.g. "prime mover", "enformer / programmer", etc) is not needed and does not explain anything – even in principle; it just begs the question as a woo-of-the-gaps appeal to ignorance.180 Proof
  • Gnomon
    4k
    This holographic dance of Everything
    Spins out reality like golden string;
    Each quantum bit precisely placed in space
    To make the cosmic harmonies all ring.
    PoeticUniverse
    's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause, would cause the world to dance like a maniac, and makes empirical Science sound like wizardry. It describes Chaos, not Cosmos ; Dissonance, not Harmony ; Noise, not Signal. Plato conjectured that Cosmos emerged from a primal state of Chaos --- what I call Eternal Potential --- via the actions of a Demiurge (workman). Today, we define Energy as the ability to do work. And my thesis refers to the artisan/craftsman as EnFormAction : energy + form + actual occasions.

    The physical world does indeed have random & chaotic properties*1. But on the whole, random events --- obeying the law of large numbers*2 --- average-out to produce the orderly & organic world we know & love*3. Chaos theory reveals why, despite low-level randomness, the world can be predictable enough for scientific purposes, to make practical use of the inherent logical structure. Even the speculative holographic universe theory must assume predictable causality*4. Besides, Quantum Theory postulates Acausality*5 only because the fundamental complexity makes the paths of individual particles hard to predict. But collectively (holistically) even quantum randomness is orderly and harmonious. :smile:


    *1. Acausality :
    The idea of acausality, true randomness, is a feature of many interpretations of quantum physics, including the so-called “orthodox” one, the Copenhagen Interpretation developed by the founders of quantum physics. This interpretation was developed by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, and several other key physicists in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
    https://quantumphysicslady.org/glossary/acausal/
    Note --- True Randomness may be impossible. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=true+randomness+is+impossible

    *2. Law of Large Numbers :
    The "randomness cancels out" concept is closely related to the law of large numbers, which states that as the number of trials or observations in a random process increases, the average of the outcomes will converge to the expected value (or mean).
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=randomness+cancels+out

    *3. Chaos theory explores the seemingly random nature of complex systems, revealing underlying patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization, suggesting that order can emerge from disorder.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chaos+theory+order+in+disorder

    *4. The Holographic Universe: Implicit Order versus Holographic Projection :
    Entangled qubits have a natural tendency to align together, and that alignment of information is what gives rise to the implicate order of a holographic world.
    Note --- The resemblance to Bohm's theory of Implicate Order.

    *5. At the time, Albert Einstein, also a founder of quantum physics, strenuously objected to the notion of acausality in the theory. He famously argued that “God does not play dice.” Einstein felt that if something in the universe appears to act randomly, it’s only because our understanding of it is not deep enough. He felt that there is always a cause.
    Other, later, interpretations are completely causal or, at least, claim to be. This includes the Many Worlds Interpretation and the deBroglie-Bohm Interpretation. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics]. In these interpretations, it may appear that quantum behavior is random; but this is an illusion. There is no true randomness. It should be noted that almost all the various interpretations of quantum physics rely on the same mathematical equations and create the same mathematical predictions. Their differences lie only in how they understand the physical reality that the equations describe.

    https://quantumphysicslady.org/glossary/acausal/
  • 180 Proof
    15.8k
    ↪180 Proof's ironic fairy tale of acausal (random) fluctuations as the First Cause ...Gnomon
    And another strawman. :roll:

    Pay attention, troll ...
    Planck scale pre-spacetime (vacuum) consists of random – a-causal – fluctuations (events), ergo NO 'first cause'180 Proof
    ... just as there is no edge to a sphere, no beginning of a circle (or Möbius loop) and NO 'first' random vacuum fluctuation.180 Proof
  • Gnomon
    4k

    has been trolling Gnomon for several years. Presumably, because the Enformationism worldview seems to him, to be diametrically opposed to his Imminentism belief system. He acts like an incensed Catholic defending the Faith from a heretic. But my information-based worldview is personal, not a religion, not anti-science, and not intentionally opposed to any other philosophical system. I make reference to my own worldview, only to distinguish it from others under consideration. Not to impose my belief on anyone else. So, I don't know what gets his panties in a bind.

    Since his unsolicited responses are arrogant and supercilious, and I don't want to invite any more ad hominem attacks, I don't engage him directly --- but indirectly through third parties. I do attempt to provide relevant evidence and arguments in favor of my own views. It's good exercise for me to defend my own thesis, and the primary reason for posting on this forum. But, I'd prefer a more amicable exchange of views, unlike the one excerpted below. :smile:

    PS___ FWIW, my Whiteheadian* God is both Immanent and Transcendent.
    *In Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, God is conceived as both transcendent and immanent, meaning God is not limited to the world but also actively engaged in and shaped by it, a concept that differs from traditional views of a completely detached, omnipotent deity.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+god+transcendent


    Excerpt from Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain :
    In which two haughty & sarcastic philosophers argue over adversarial concepts like Nominalism vs Idealism or Immanence vs Transcendence.

    "“Aristotle? Didn’t Aristotle place in the individual the reality of universal ideas? That is pantheism.”

    Wrong. When you postulate independent being for individuals, when you transfer the essence of things from the universal to the particular phenomenon, which Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, as good Aristotelians, did, then you destroy all unity between the world and the Highest Idea; you place the world outside of God and make God transcendent. That, my dear sir, is classic mediævalism.”

    Classic medievalism! What a phrase!” “Pardon me, I merely apply the concept of the classic where it is in place: that is to say, wherever an idea reaches its culmination. Antiquity was not always classic. And I note in you a general repugnance to the Absolute;"
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    it just begs the question180 Proof

    I still wonder why it should be that a human life and mind is so impossible to come about without help but so easy for there to be a god or a deity there without help.
  • Gnomon
    4k
    I still wonder why it should be that a human life and mind is so impossible to come about without help but so easy for there to be a god or a deity there without help.PoeticUniverse
    In my view, human Life & Mind did come about via evolution, without miraculous "help". And the only reason we look beyond ongoing physical evolution for a jump-start is the physical evidence that the natural process had a beginning and will have an end. That observed fact leaves an ellipsis before and after for human reasoning to explain. The traditional gap-filler has always been a humanoid god outside of space-time. But some modern thinkers imagine a hypothetical Multiverse (eternal evolution) as a mundane God substitute.

    Another alternative to a supernatural deity is to assume, like Spinoza, that the physical universe is a God in some sense : Pantheism or Immanentism. But Spinoza's 17th century substantial Nature-God was assumed to be both eternal and physical. So,'s 2025 solution to the God problem seems to be to just ignore the evidence for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then assume that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for super-natural "help". In that case, we would not be living in a uniquely created Universe, but something like an eternally morphing Multiverse, going nowhere in particular.

    With unlimited time to evolve, and no Entropy to tear things down, you'd think the hypothetical Omniverse should be perfected by now, unless it's just going in circles. If that ideal immanent world was not limited by the second law of thermodynamics, the energy propelling evolution would never run down. Or maybe, the empty batteries of one cycle could be miraculously recharged, to begin the next cycle with a Bang! Meanwhile, the matter of the Omniverse would have the seemingly magical power to make Life & Mind from malleable clay (like the Jewish Golem, or the medieval science of spontaneous generation). Do atoms randomly agglomerate into molecules, and then into living bodies with thinking minds?

    If I could just forget what empirical scientists have been telling me all my life, I could easily label my worldview as Immanentism. And if I could believe what my religious upbringing taught me, I would label myself as some form of Judeo-Christian. Instead, I began to construct a worldview of my own, based on 21st century science & philosophy. Instead of the typical tyrannical supernatural ruler though, my Enformer/Programmer is a natural rational Principle, similar to Plato's Logos, or perhaps to Spinoza's deus sive natura. I don't postulate any personal or powerful characteristics beyond what is necessary to explain the Reality we experience with our limited senses. Anything more than that would be metaphorical poetry. :smile:


    The multiverse theory, while intriguing, faces significant challenges, including its lack of empirical evidence, the difficulty of testing and falsifying such a concept, and the potential for metaphysical issues that go beyond scientific inquiry. . . . .
    There's currently no empirical evidence to support the existence of other universes, and no way to directly test the theory. . . .
    The universe appears to be finely tuned for life, with specific constants and conditions that, if altered slightly, would prevent the formation of stars, planets, and life as we know it. . . . .
    The scientific method relies on empirical evidence and testability, and the multiverse theory, in its current form, falls short of these standards.

    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=problems+with+the+multiverse+theory
  • 180 Proof
    15.8k
    So,↪180 Proof's 2025 solution to the God problem seems to be to just ignore the evidence for Big Bang & Big Sigh (the standard model of cosmology), then assume that the natural world has been ticking right along for eternity. Hence, no gap to be filled, and no need for [non-explanation]super-natural "help".Gnomon
    :roll:

    As always, more of the same, troll is as troll does.

    My interpretation of cosmogeny from p.1 ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976427

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/976662
  • Gnomon
    4k
    Non-duality is a Buddhist concept that refers to the fundamental unity of all things. My background is not in oriental philosophy, but based on post-quantum physics and Information Theory, I have come to view the world as essentially monistic (single substance). And the common essence of all things can be described as Information (EnFormAction : the creative power to give form to the formless). Perhaps the easiest way to grasp that concept is to view Generic (begetting) Information in terms of physical Energy, which is not a material substance, but a causal essence (E=MC^2).

    Materialism is an ancient monistic philosophy (Atomism). But modern physics seems to view active Energy, instead of passive Matter, as the Single Substance of the physical world. Based on that primacy of Causation over Concreteness, we could easily assume that the world has been trucking along forever. Except that physical laws describe dynamic Energy as something that can be metaphorically "burned up", and converted to the ashes of Entropy.

    On top of the second law of thermodynamics, we have astronomical evidence that the material world has evolved from a Singularity, which is a mathematical description of Infinity. So, our best science to date, implies that ballooning space-time emerged from formless & unbounded infinity-eternity. And that may be why Whitehead adopted the concept of an undefinable unitary deity, to explain the pluralistic reality we now know.

    I just came across the article excerpted below, which interprets Process Philosophy in terms of Non-Duality. But it also takes an allegorical poetic stance instead of a dogmatic religious position. And, like Whitehead himself, it describes the creator of the world as a Poet, not as a King. :smile:


    Non-Duality and Process Philosophy :
    Alfred North Whitehead was considered by many to be an absolute genius of his time. Here was a man who was as gifted creatively as he was intellectually. He somehow managed to balance metaphysics — which many 20th CE. philosophers would commit to the flames — with mathematics, physics, and poetry. In fact, he was so good at metaphysics that his imaginative brilliance shone through in the empirical sciences. When one is reading Whitehead, there is a feeling that you are being thrown into a place of poetic rapture, and at the same time, attending to the undeniable facts of existence. When you look out at the world after reading Whitehead, existence is poetry. In fact, he defined God as being a poet: “Whitehead’s God is the everlasting world-soul whose values erotically lure each moment of finite experience toward the ideal of beauty (which is nothing other than the true and the good). This is not an omnipotent Creator deity. If anything is omnipotent, it is Creativity; God is a creature of Creativity like every other. God is the poet of the world, “with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”
    https://medium.com/@prestonbryant/non-duality-and-process-philosophy-an-exploration-of-consciousness-in-alfred-north-whitehead-and-3f4ba86bf484
    Note --- Medium is a website for writers, not for contacting ghosts :joke:

    Poetry :
    The word "poetry" originates from the Greek word "poiesis," meaning "a making" or "creation," and the verb "poiein," which means "to make".
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=poetry+greek+meaning



    maxresdefault.jpg
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.6k
    If anything is omnipotent, it is Creativity; God is a creature of Creativity like every other. God is the poet of the world, “with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”Gnomon

    Love’s spirit weaves the soul’s warp, weft, and wave,
    Creating an eternal, perfect braid,
    Wound from strands of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty;
    Each different forms, but from the same All made.
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