...we may be surrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to nor derives from them in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined by nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual I.' — The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy, Alfredo Ferrarin

To me this is just a fancy acknowledgement that the human world is not just stupid junk. We can talk about our talk about our talk. I do of course agree with and have been emphasizing reason's transcendence of any individual 'I' that it arguably makes possible in the first place. The 'ego' is a ripple, one might speculate, upon the surface of our shared semantic field, a sort of layer of our lifeworld. Even those junky ordinary objects mentioned above imply the breaking up of the world into little unities, presumably in a way useful to creatures such as ourselves. This 'softwhere' is nowhere in particular, any more than a dance lives in any particular dancer.

It's not anywhere, obviously - but there are things within it, the natural numbers, and things outside it, like the square root of minus 1. So, 'domain', 'inside', 'outside' 'thing', and 'exist' are all in some sense metaphorical when it comes to these 'objects'. They're more like the constituents or rational thought, they inhere, or subsist, in the way that we reason about experience. They don't 'exist' - they precede existence, that is why they inhabit the realm of the a priori. — Wayfarer

I don't disagree that they are part of our softwhere, and of course I myself emphasize the centrality of analogy or metaphor in human cognition. The so-called 'a priori' is often the product of a previous generation's creativity. Note that math has evolved over the centuries. As I'm sure you know, zero and negative numbers and imaginary numbers and Cantorian set theory were all controversial once. Folks were outraged and swatted them away like horseflies. This is an argument against their priority to experience. Why couldn't our faculty of immaterial reason immediately grasp them as real?

This 'softwhere' is nowhere in particular, any more than a dance lives in any particular dancer. — lll

:up: Simple once you see it.

Does Kastrup think E & M are not correlated mathematically? What does the "=" sign in E=MC^2 mean? — Gnomon

He does, and of course that's true. But I was leery of the 'intangible energy' idea, as if that amounts to anything more than or other than physics. But I'm considering the idea that even the humble "=" sign has no physical equivalent, it's a purely rational idea, but without it maths couldn't even begin.

This is an argument against their priority to experience. Why couldn't our faculty of immaterial reason immediately grasp them as real? — lll

Damned if I know. There's lots of really hard questions around this point. The only, the sole, point I'm always making is that 'number is real but not material', where 'number' amounts to a kind of token for 'rational intellection' or the operations of nous. It's hardly a new idea.

It's like looking for your keys under the streetlight. Fortunately we found something there. — lll

If only because, through scientific reasoning, we were able to invent streetlights.

How can we explain the astonishing progress of mathematical physics since the 17th century? Why is it that mathematical reasoning has disclosed previously unknowable aspects of the nature of reality? That is the subject of Wigner's Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. The 'fictionalist' accounts seem to have no answer to that. — Wayfarer

I agree that it's a fact that deserves speculation and investigation. One immediate reaction I have is to stress the simple genius of just counting things and looking for patterns in what happens without trying to explain (poetically) why they happen. Stuff just is attracted to stuff according to an inverse square law. It's like looking for your keys under the streetlight. Fortunately we found something there. For all we know there's a wealth of yet unexploited patterns invisible to us because our hardware and/or softwhere is just not tuned for it. Neural networks are finding such patterns in our own chatter, so that translation becomes automated. Amazing! But the models are 'black boxes' in their complexity, with billions of parameters.

I'm not a fictionalist, by the way. I haven't settled on an 'ism,' though I do like aspects of structuralism.

The only, the sole, point I'm always making is that 'number is real but not material', where 'number' amounts to a kind of token for 'rational intellection' or the operations of nous. It's hardly a new idea. — Wayfarer

I can join you at a certain level of blurriness. We live in a lifeworld with something like a layer of significance, and language including math is part of that.

Simple once you see it. — Wayfarer

I agree, so we meet there and perhaps diverge on what we make of this recognition.

If only because, through scientific reasoning, we were able to invent streetlights. — Wayfarer

I take this metaphor to gesture toward the exploitability of quantitive pattern finding that maps from uncontroversial observables now to uncontroversial observables later. Finally prognostication was made reliable, at the cost however of any poetically satisfying Explanation.

I see the elements of reason, numbers, logical laws, scientific principles, etc, as the constituents of reality - because reality is not something that exists outside of or separate to our being. I think physicalism fails because there is no coherent definition of what 'physical' means - all it amounts to is 'faith in science', that science will 'one day' join all the dots. It's a cultural attitude, more than a philosophy as such. — Wayfarer

I relate to much of this, especially the blurriness of the word 'physical.' Wittgenstein asks in On Certainty when exactly a child learns that their are physical objects. I think you'll agree that there's seemingly or plausibly some vague postulated 'stuff' that preceded and 'grounds' our species, 'stuff' which is mapped and modeled in a framework that includes 'quarks' and 'energy.' This 'stuff' might just be a sort of point at infinity, indicating the tendency of a certain kind of mapmaking toward impersonality.

Does Kastrup think E & M are not correlated mathematically? What does the "=" sign in E=MC^2 mean? — Gnomon
He does, and of course that's true. But I was leery of the 'intangible energy' idea, as if that amounts to anything more than or other than physics. But I'm considering the idea that even the humble "=" sign has no physical equivalent, it's a purely rational idea, but without it maths couldn't even begin. — Wayfarer

I assume you got that idea from Kastrup's Materialism is Baloney, which I haven't read. But, I have read The Idea of the World. His worldview seems to be similar to my own Enformationism, in which Information (meaningful relationships) is the Ontological Primitive. However, I locate that "primitive" in the mind of the Programmer, not in the multiple minds of her avatars or creatures. Therefore, what seems "tangible" to me, should also seem real to anybody else.

In other words, Reality is objective, not Subjective. So, what I experience as Energy or Matter is actually out there. It's only my interpretation, my model of reality, that exists subjectively in my mind. Yet, we all -- energy, matter, & me -- exist in the imaginative Mind of God (the Enformer), so to speak. In which case, the "Idea of the World" is generated by the Cosmic Mind, not by me. Consequently, I have to take Einstein's word for it that Energy is mathematically (logically) correlated with Mass, but neither is itself a material object, but merely a Potential for causation and for materialization. :nerd:


Do we know what matter is? :
That leaves the question of mind vs. matter. What is primary? What is, in Kastrup’s words, the “ontological primitive”? Rovelli says it is all relations, yet there can be no relations that we know of without stuff. Relations don’t operate in a void. What is the stuff that makes relationships work? Kastrup says it is mind. That mind, or Mind, generates the perturbations of energy in the medium of mind and we call those perturbations the stuff of reality.
https://medium.com/top-down-or-bottom-up/do-we-know-what-matter-is-f05a335ac874

His worldview seems to be similar to my own Enformationism, in which Information (meaningful relationships) is the Ontological Primitive. However, I locate that "primitive" in the mind of the Programmer, not in the multiple minds of her avatars or creatures. — Gnomon

This sounds like a variety of deism. The philosophical problem, which I don't think you've address, is the trust you put in the word 'mind' to do so much lifting for you. If you look into philosophers that your own ancient foes (scientism's scimitar welding scions) also fear and despise, you might be surprised at what you find (for instance 'Went-gone-slime.') There are understandings of the world that are neither visions of only junk nor visions of only dreams.

This sounds like a variety of deism. The philosophical problem, which I don't think you've address, is the trust you put in the word 'mind' to do so much lifting for you. — lll

Again, your perception is accurate, but your interpretation is off-target. My personal worldview is similar to Deism, but more specifically PanEnDeism. So, the "Universal Mind" is infinite & eternal, hence prior to, and outside of the space-time world. PED is an abstruse philosophical concept, not a popular religion. Unlike, the Abrahamic god, the hypothetical (mythical) deity of PED does not interfere in the workings of the world. Instead, like a Programmer, S/he created an evolutionary program, stored it in the Singularity, and executed it in the Big Bang. Metaphorically, you and I are avatars in the game, living by our wits, not by faith.

This is not a scriptural revelation, but a reasonable interpretation of 21st century science, especially Quantum & Information theories. However, if you have negative emotions about any god-concept, you can imagine the PED as a material Multiverse, or tower-of-turtles Many Worlds, or a Big Ball of creative Power, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Whatever floats your boat. In any case the Energy & Laws that enform the material stuff, necessarily existed before the Beginning. Nobody knows for sure what caused our space-time universe to pop-out of who-knows-what-or-where. And nobody is going to condemn you to hell for denying the existence of a mystery that predates your world of experience. We are all just guessing here. :joke:

Panendeism : holds that God pervades and interpenetrates every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time, but does not intervene in its self-organizing evolution.

His worldview seems to be similar to my own Enformationism, in which Information (meaningful relationships) is the Ontological Primitive. However, I locate that "primitive" in the mind of the Programmer, not in the multiple minds of her avatars or creatures. — Gnomon

I don't think he would endorse the idea of 'multiple minds'. Like all idealists, he says that the ground of existence is subjective in nature - that the subject of experience is the one indubitable reality (e.g. Descartes), whereas the reality of apparently external objects is inferred on the basis of sensory experience (e.g. Berkeley). But as we are a single species and inhabit a generally uniform linguistic culture, then the experiences of individuals tends to be uniform across a wide range (c.f. Hegel) - Kastrup talks of 'mind' in the sense of 'the mind' - not your or my mind. Your or my mind is an instance of mind in that broader sense (although mind in that sense is not something objectively existent.) But I would say that makes the ground of reality neither objective nor subjective, that these are the poles of the nature of experienced reality; rather that it transcends the self-other distinction which is the fundamental condition of embodiment (c.f. Buddhism)

what I experience as Energy or Matter is actually out there. It's only my interpretation, my model of reality, that exists subjectively in my mind. Yet, we all -- energy, matter, & me -- exist in the imaginative Mind of God (the Enformer), so to speak. In which case, the "Idea of the World" is generated by the Cosmic Mind, not by me. — Gnomon

I don't think Kastrup is theistic. (Neither, for that matter, is Yogācāra Buddhism which is an idealist Buddhist school.) I think that these kinds of schools say something like: the degree to which we identify experience as 'mine', as 'my' mind and 'my' sense of reality, is a measure of our sense of 'otherness', which ultimately is the fundamental source of our grief, as it results in our identification with the shifting sands of our particular perceptual experiences (compare both Schopenhauer and Buddhism although I think it's much better elaborated in the latter.)

So, the "Universal Mind" is infinite & eternal, hence prior to, and outside of the space-time world. PED is an abstruse philosophical concept, not a popular religion. — Gnomon

I get that. I've always understood it as your own invention, a brew or a stew or superscientific postreligious goo, and I like the taste of my poetry too. I've challenged you not because I resent such a harmless creation (I respect he creativity), but only philosophically for (in my eyes) being rather complacent about the concept of 'mind.' As I said initially, my nudges are from a place of 'semantic pragmatism' that generally finds folks way to satisfied where I scents ambiguity. Mind and matter? These tour in the path dump chew gather.

But I would say that makes the ground of reality neither objective nor subjective, that these are the poles of the nature of experienced reality; rather that it transcends the self-other distinction which is the fundamental condition of embodiment (c.f. Buddhism) — Wayfarer

Yes. In my hypothetical worldview the "ground of reality" is a singular timeless spaceless whole, which encompasses all possibilities in the form of Platonic Forms or un-formed Potentials. So it is not characterized by the particulars & polarities of human experience. But then, I have no personal experience with Ideal perfection. And, I only think outside the "fundamental condition of embodiment" for the sake of philosophical argument. For all practical purposes, I am a materialist & realist. For the "trolls" though, that non-creedal position statement may sound oxymoronic.

However, on this philosophical forum, rather than take them for granted, we still debate what's "real" and what's "material". The only way I know to reconcile disagreements on such impractical questions is to put them into a larger context. To view the variety of things & beings against a hypothetical featureless background : the Ground of Being. I suppose even the Buddha must have been forced to assume such an Ideal perfect state, by which to compare the ups & downs of reality. Yet he advised his followers to avoid becoming entangled in metaphysical speculations & derogations, as some of us on this forum do. In order to maintain peace-of-mind though, we must become tough-minded. Can we draw strength from the Universal Mind, or do we just develop mental calluses from butting our individual minds together? :wink:

I don't think Kastrup is theistic. — Wayfarer

Nor am I. I'm not sure what niche Kastrup puts his own idealistic philosophy in, but my idiosyncratic philosophical position could also be labeled as "bottom-up Panpsychism", or as "PanEnDeism". Which are not necessarily religious in nature. Again though, the "trolls" like to put such mind-centric worldviews into some conventional conceptual box, so they can more easily trash them. :cool:

I get that. I've always understood it as your own invention, a brew or a stew or superscientific postreligious goo, and I like the taste of my poetry too. I've challenged you not because I resent such a harmless creation (I respect he creativity), but only philosophically for (in my eyes) being rather complacent about the concept of 'mind.' As I said initially, my nudges are from a place of 'semantic pragmatism' that generally finds folks way to satisfied where I scents ambiguity. Mind and matter? These tour in the path dump chew gather. — lll

I'm not sure what the "it" refers to in the quote above, which speaks of "universal Mind" & "PanEnDeism". Neither of which are my "own invention". Maybe you are disingenuously casting aspersions on my personal philosophical thesis : Enformationism. But I doubt that you know anything about it, other than that it sounds vaguely New Agey & manifestly Metaphysical. If you were to look into it though, you'd find that the premise was inspired by leading-edge scientific theories, and not by any far-out philosopher or giggling guru. So, in that sense, it is my "own invention".

Speaking of “inventive” ridicule, your “superscientific postreligious goo” is at least an improvement on 180prove-it's worn-out “woo”. His post-scientism sophistry takes the form of supercilious pseudo-philosophical arguments. As an incitement though, "woo" is not as effective as "n*gger". Moreover, ad hominems are so pre-medieval.

So, I'll share with you a new-to-me term of abuse : “Schizotypy”. It is an unproven psychological label (type) for odd or eccentric behavior or beliefs. But it sounds like "just-plain-crazy". I found that word in a Skeptical Inquirer article about UFO & alien invasions. “Everyday experiences, for those with schizotypal tendencies may cross an ethereal line into an unusual, idiosyncratic universe of occult importance and hidden truth”. Do you think that kind of psychological typing is "complacent about the concept of 'mind' "? Be forewarned, if you sling that schizo-sh*t at me, it will go right over my pointy little head.

The Sci-Inq article admits that “all human cultures possess beliefs in the paranormal”. And “paranormal” could apply to any novel idea that is counter-intuitive or statistically-atypical or paradigmatically unorthodox. So you could use that technical-sounding calumny to belittle anyone whose ideas you don't like, and don't want to seriously engage-with, using Philosophical Methodology . :joke:


Schizotypy : a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis

Philosophical Methodology :
The questions in philosophical methodology do not primarily concern which philosophical claims are true, but how to determine which ones are true. . . .
The methods of philosophy differ in various respects from the methods found in the natural sciences. One important difference is that philosophy does not use experimental data obtained through measuring equipment like telescopes or cloud chambers to justify its claims.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_methodology

PS__The same Skeptical Inquirer magazine (mar/apr 2022) has an article on the Scientific Method. Regarding "replicability", it says "the goal of science is to understand Nature". But lest you forget, the goal of Philosophy is to understand Culture, which as you noted, includes the "ambiguity" of the human Mind. Which can blithely string together offbeat arguments such as :"These tour in the path dump chew gather." Comprende?

Yet [the Buddha] advised his followers to avoid becoming entangled in metaphysical speculations & derogations, as some of us on this forum do. — Gnomon

Buddhism also has the two truths doctrine - the idea of the domain of conventional and absolute truth (although not unique to Buddhism, it is expressed with the clarity characteristic of Buddhism).

As for the 'trolls' - not all your critics are trolling. You yourself refer to your "idiosyncratic philosophical position", so those inclined to the physicalist or 'scientistic' attitude are going to pounce on those perceived idiosyncracies. (Although I agree there is also some trolling.)

The deeper issue is the conflict between scientific materialism and any form of philosophical idealism. As I'm on the idealist side of the ledger, I do understand how my posts rub a lot of people up the wrong way and endeavour, often without success, to maintain an even tone, at least. But there is a real conflict, which is the subject of many of the articles pinned to my profile page (which are nearly all from popular media, not from specialist academic journals. I've never liked that 'Skeptical Enquirer' rag, although I noted with surprise the recent online interview between one of its founders, Michael Shermer, and Bernardo Kastrup, which was surprisingly congenial, I thought, causing me to re-consider a little.)

you'd find that the premise was inspired by leading-edge scientific theories, and not by any far-out philosopher or giggling guru. — Gnomon

I have long understood 'it' (your bowl of beep stew) to be inspired by popularizations of science. I see it as spiritualized science fiction or just a work of sculpture really, your latest architectonic erection.

I know people who read about the 'holographic universe' and find it stimulating and 'Spiritual' without knowing what a differential equation is. Of course 'Science' (as in 'the seance of muffle physics') tends to be more exciting than a dreary old science that won't plug up the god shaped hole or give us at least an amusing yarn. (I've suggested elsewhere that we are stains on the diapers of drooling giants.)

Speaking of “inventive” ridicule, your “superscientific postreligious goo” is at least an improvement on 180prove-it's worn-out “woo”. — Gnomon

Note that you and I are simply rival distilleries. I don't claim to offer more than stuporscientific prosereligious glue myself, or at least not when I wander from the banality of trusting actual science in practical affairs. We are foils for one another. We'll both hopefully end up with sharper claws and thicker manes.

. I've never liked that 'Skeptical Enquirer' rag, although I noted with surprise the recent online interview between one of its founders, Michael Shermer, and Bernardo Kastrup, which was surprisingly congenial, I thought, causing me to re-consider a little.) — Wayfarer

It's hard not to like Kastrup, he is very endearing and he communicates/writes so clearly. I consider myself to be in the naturalist camp but I find idealism very interesting and if I appear critical of it is is just to test it out as best I can, not to ridicule. I think the Western philosophical and religious traditions seem to be built around idealism and its ghostly afterlife haunts most of us. And yes, maybe idealism is coming back into intellectual fashion. I suspect simulation theory and the impact of online living has assisted in proving us with new metaphors for gateway understanding.

I read a fascinating article by a film critic years ago that explained the popularity of the genre of sci fi films like Inception, Matrix, Contact and others, is that they appeal to the idea of the world being illusory or there being dimensions of existence that we can't be aware of. (Could never find that review again later.) Also books like Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Seth Lloyd's Programming the Universe. All variations on the grand theme of reality being not what it appears.

Also, in my view, many of those who recoil in horror from idealism really don't understand it. 'You mean, the whole universe is in your mind? What happens to it when you're asleep?' (Stands back, triumphantly folding arms.) The arguments against are usually variations of the 'argumentum ad lapidem'.

(Have a read of The Mental Universe, Richard Conn Henry, Nature.)

many of those who recoil in horror from idealism really don't understand it. — Wayfarer

I expect this applies in all kinds of cases. As Hegel might stress, philosophies just cannot be summed up into aphorisms. Words in a conversation accumulate meaning historically. You have to put the time in.

That said, your recoiling doof is not entirely without merit, because philosophy's radical theses often just don't have much practical import. If the world don't disappear when the poor doof dies, then that idealism is of course less interesting, 'cause he's still got to pay that life insurance premium. It's like that philosopher's god who don't even give you an afterlife or help you win the lottery or cure mama's lymphoma. He might with some justification accuse us all of getting drunk on yawn-fiction.

As for the 'trolls' - not all your critics are trolling. — Wayfarer

On a philosophical forum, I expect rational criticism. That's the whole point of presenting controversial (or idiosyncratic) topics for discussion. Fortunately, only few on this forum are trolls, who engage in passionate bullying instead of dispassionate reasoning. I assume they think they are defending the "revealed truth" of materialistic science (Scientism) from the falsehoods of casuistic Spiritualism. 180proveit likes to refer to non-physical notions as "donut holes without the dough". But I prefer another analogy : the Materialist worldview is like a Zombie : a body without a mind. The trolls also seem to equate "Metaphysics" with Christian Theology, whereas I associate "Meta-Physics" with the "wisdom" of Aristotle's follow-up to The Physics.

I deliberately chose the name Enformationism to indicate an inter-connecting bridge between Spiritualism and Materialism. That consilient notion is based on the recent discoveries indicating that Information (mind-stuff, knowledge, ideas, etc) is essentially the perception of logical Relationships (mathematical Ratios). Shannon himself related Information with Energy in the notion of Entropy. Consequently, some pioneering scientists are touting the concept that Matter, Energy & Information are different forms of the same essential "substance" (in the Aristotelian sense).

What the ancient sages called "spirit" is what we now know as "energy" : invisible forces & causes. And what the early philosophers called "matter" is now known to be merely a different form of Energy. And, in Thermodynamics, Energy is defined in terms of Ratios (relationships), which is also the basis of Reasoning (rational thought). So, I perceive a three-way relationship between causal Energy, substantial Matter, and rational Mind, which is an emergent function of energetic Life. This equation of Causation with Matter and Mind is indeed idiosyncratic and eccentric, in the sense that it is not yet a mainstream "fact" in scientific textbooks.

I came to this BothAnd (matter & mind) worldview late in life. So, I pursue my thesis on internet forums instead of in college classrooms. I don't expect to get any formal recognition for my minor contributions to Science & Philosophy. So, I have to be content with sharing the news with a few open minds on this forum, and on my blog. It's not a religion, but it serves as a sort of philosophical replacement for the religious worldview I was indoctrinated with as a child. Unfortunately, with no Bible to guide me, I'm like a child wandering in the wilderness. This forum provides feedback to help me get my bearings. :brow:


Aristotle’s Metaphysics :
Aristotle himself described his subject matter in a variety of ways: as ‘first philosophy’, or ‘the study of being qua being’, or ‘wisdom’, or ‘theology’. A comment on these descriptions will help to clarify Aristotle’s topic. . . . .
In Metaphysics Α.1, Aristotle says that “everyone takes what is called ‘wisdom’ (sophia) to be concerned with the primary causes (aitia) and the starting-points (or principles, archai)” (981b28), and it is these causes and principles that he proposes to study in this work.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/

Information, Matter and Energy – a non-linear world-view :
Hence, nature can no longer be interpreted by means of matter and energy alone - a
third component is required: information.
https://biophysics.sbg.ac.at/paper/biosem-madl-2006.pdf

can blithely string together offbeat arguments such as :"These tour in the path dump chew gather." Comprende? — Gnomon

That's not an argument, and it's spine is 'these two are in the bath tub together.' The bath tub is also a path dump, since language is a system of inherited/discarded token-dealing habits, squirts of the tribal mammary glance. 'Chew gather' emphasizes the materiality orphysically of our signal system. 'I made it out of a mouthful of air.' We chew the air, promise-and-everything-else crammed. 'Gather' stresses semantic holism, for 'a talk links its runes' and a dog licks it wounds, for it's our rational duty and itch for coherence that has us do what we can to assimilate the offensively inscrutable or surprising. 'Tour' emphasizes the time of reading, the way that meaning gathers to erupt at the and of the sentence (the now is not a point but more like a splatter of paint.) This necessarily-incomplete unpacking cannot be canonical, however, for I don't 'own' the effect of my token string, which must function in my absence as a machine or a virus, a suggestive irritant that goads an ungovernable-by-me assimilation within a new context which I cannot anticipate. I can never gnaw just what I'll meme or even what I just mount. (I can't know exactly what I will mean or have meant, for the very tail of the homunculus is slippery when rat.)

I associate "Meta-Physics" with the "wisdom" of Aristotle's follow-up to The Physics. — Gnomon

Fair enough. But remember Aristotle's dualism was of matter and form (hyle-morphe), not matter and spirit.

I question this:

What the ancient sages called "spirit" is what we now know as "energy" — Gnomon

What energy lacks, in either the ancient or modern sense, is intelligence or intentionality. 'Spirit' is a hard word to define, obviously, but 'chi', 'prana', and such like are more like 'vitality' or 'vital energy'.

Likewise, 'information' is impersonal. By itself, the word has no intrinsic meaning - it has to be specific to have any meaning, i.e. what information.

The missing element, I think, is 'being' - which is not necessarily theistic in conception. But you can't crystalise 'being' into a concept, its meaning has to be realised, which is what I explored through Buddhist studies, which provides a 'way of being', not a conceptual schema.

Unfortunately, with no Bible to guide me, I'm like a child wandering in the wilderness. This forum provides feedback to help me get my bearings. — Gnomon

:clap:

philosophies just cannot be summed up into aphorisms

This might explain the success of physicalism. It gets a full treatment in science classes. And while these classes don't get into ontology, the abstract systems of physicalism are generally presented as being "what there is."

Since philosophy isn't generally taught at the pre-collegiate level, and even then normally isn't a prerequisite for most majors, no alternative is laid out. Science and physicalism also get conflated, the ontology for the epistemology, an interpretation of the results for the results themselves.

I've never liked that 'Skeptical Enquirer' rag, although I noted with surprise the recent online interview between one of its founders, Michael Shermer, and Bernardo Kastrup, which was surprisingly congenial, I thought, causing me to re-consider a little.) — Wayfarer

I have subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic magazine for over 50 years. So, I'm well-informed about Pseudoscience & Paranormal pros & cons. SI is mainly focused on pop-sci UFO & Bigfoot controversies, while Skeptic seems to be more interested in the philosophical angle of Science versus Metaphysics.

Shermer is definitely on the side of physical Science, but he gives counter-paradigm proponents, such as Kastrup, the benefit of the doubt, as long as they don't stray too far from "established facts". He usually seems open to alternative interpretations of non-empirical speculative science, especially Quantum queerness. Which is also how I try to approach such debatable ideas. My own worldview is based on avant-garde scientific concepts, that have not yet made their way into the textbooks. An early deviation from the materialistic model was John A. Wheeler's "it from bit", which called into question the fundamental element or essence of physics. His heretical opinions about Materialist assumptions were tolerated only because his scientific credentials were impeccable ; yet "it from bit" remains a footnote in mainstream textbooks.

Even Einstein was disturbed by some of the metaphysical & idealistic implications of his own paradigm-busting ideas of Relativity & Light Quanta. But, he also insisted, that for him, imagination is more important than knowledge. And in that sense, Enformationism remains imaginary, since verification of nonphysical phenomena is still difficult. However some very smart people are also thinking along the same lines. I can take some comfort in knowing that someone as perceptive as Kastrup, has had his innovative ideas rejected as "voodoo" by prominent scientists.

My own experience with labels of "woo-mongering" have also caused me to reconsider, not the foundations of my worldview, but the way I express concepts that challenge the prevailing paradigm of Materialism, as its presumptions are gradually undermined by bits of quantum information. :nerd:

A Super-Simple, Non-Quantum Theory of Eternal Consciousness "
In “Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality?”, recently posted by Scientific American, Kastrup contends that quantum mechanics—as well as cognitive science, which suggests that minds construct rather than passively mirroring reality--undermines the assumption that the physical world exists independently of our observations. He calls for a new paradigm that makes mind “the essence—cognitively but also physically—of what we perceive when we look at the world around ourselves.”
___John Horgan, Scientific American magazine
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/a-super-simple-non-quantum-theory-of-eternal-consciousness/

It From Bit :
"It from bit symbolises the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." ___John A, Wheeler, physicist
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/05/it-from-bit-what-did-john-archibald-wheeler-get-right-and-wrong/

Fair enough. But remember Aristotle's dualism was of matter and form (hyle-morphe), not matter and spirit. — Wayfarer

Yes. But, from the perspective of Information theory, I place Hyle in the modern category of matter (physical substance), and "morphe" or "form" in the class of In-form-ation (mental -- design, pattern, meaning). And my thesis interprets the ancient notion of "spirit" (psyche, anima, atman, elan vital) as various interpretations of Energy as Causation & Trans-form-ation. Ultimately, everything in the space-time world is a unique form of shape-shifting EnFormAction (power + design + causation). Therefore, "spirit" is just one of many ways to characterize the particular expressions of Potential Platonic "Form", and Actual Aristotelian "Form". So, it's all Information/EnFormAction, all the way down. :joke:

EnFormAction :
Unsatisfied with religious myths and scientific paradigms, I have begun to develop my own personal philosophical world-view, based on the hypothesis that immaterial logico-mathematical "Information" (in both noun & verb forms) is more fundamental to our reality than the elements of classical philosophy and the matter & energy of modern Materialism. For technical treatments, I had to make-up a new word to summarize the multilevel and multiform roles of generic Information in the ongoing creative act of Evolution. I call it EnFormAction.
BothAnd Blog, post 60

SAME EN-FORM-ACTION ALL THE WAY DOWN

Science and physicalism also get conflated, the ontology for the epistemology, an interpretation of the results for the results themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

100%

I teach math to college students, and part of the work is cutting against the grain of an implicit metaphysics. To see the formalism as such is no small accomplishment.

while these classes don't get into ontology, the abstract systems of physicalism are generally presented as being "what there is." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed ! Because perhaps it flatters the physicist to assume so, or there's just no time to' indulge' in such 'useless' chatter. I know a mathematician who hates philosophy. I told him that he can't hate it as much as philosophers do.

And my thesis interprets the ancient notion of "spirit" (psyche, anima, atman, elan vital) as various interpretations of Energy as Causation & Trans-form-ation. — Gnomon

The issue is then how do your recover what folk think they mean by meaning, consciousness, mind, intentionality, agency, etc, from an infodynamic perspective?

That is the next trick to close the loop.

Hylomorphic substance does reduce reality to the ur-dichotomy of free material possibility and the imposed constraints of form and purpose. Substantial being is a combination of what folk think of as the material vs the mental causes of existence.

And the modern infodynamic view - as a dichotomy of entropy and information - again reduces all reality to the same idea of radical "material" instability shaped by the Platonic inescapability of global rational structure. And while Aristotelan substance still seems rather material in the end, infodynamics (or dissipative structure theory) emphasises that we are talking about a process philosophy. Reality is a structured process of development where stability and coherence is what the Cosmos achieves by becoming a steady-state dynamical process.

But to be a success, this reduction to "atoms of form" has to incorporate more than just a process metaphysics to take the edge off the hard materialism (that wants to oppose itself to the fluffy idealism).

The one complete theory has to include all four Aristotelean causes. It has to cover off life and mind as more evolved levels of hylomorphism or infodynamics.

Which all, of course, leads us to Peirce, semiotics, codes and epistemic cuts. :grin:

But my general point is that system science has its version of a quantum gravity theory of everything. The theory isn't complete until it is the meaningfulness of signs all the way down, coupled to the meaningless of material contingency all the way up.

So, it's all Information/EnFormAction, all the way down. — Gnomon

Yes. And that is matched to? And the third thing that is a meaningful balance of the opposing forces of spontaneity and constraint is being explicitly offered in the theory where?