Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Post 7. 12/10/2017

   Foundation of Reality?

   
   Matter or Mind?

Prior to the emergence of modern materialistic Science, the general consensus among deep thinkers was dualistic, as epitomized by 17th century philosopher Descartes’ dictum, that reality is a combination of Body and Soul, or Matter and Mind. Yet, the modern monistic (matter only) model of the world has been very successful in learning to understand and control Nature. Nevertheless, since the surprising discovery of a hitherto-unknown invisible Quantum realm, that simplistic pardigm has been called into question by strange paradoxes, such as the wave/particle duality. Subatomic particles normally act predictably as discrete little chunks of matter, but in certain lab experiments, they seem to melt into fluid waves of energy. And like space-warping gravity, quantum entanglement is characterized by “spooky action at a distance”. Consequently, compared to the stable predictable classical physics of Newton and Gallileo, the squishy chancy subatomic level of reality seems weird and unreal.

Even Materialism was dualistic though, in the sense that malleable matter was subject to changes imposed by mysterious but lawful energies and forces. But those natural laws and the physical forces were assumed to be inherent in the nature of matter, not some external influence. Now, the Enformationism theory underlying this blog proposes a return to Monism, wherein all dualisms of this world -- matter/ energy, forces/fields, minds/bodies, etc -- are merely different forms of a single “substance” : Information -- as I call it : EnFormAction -- the creative power to enform. In the early 20th century, Claude Shannon concluded from his calculations, regarding transmission of meaningful information (data), that the mental ideas to be transmitted, and the physical mechanisms carrying the data, can be logically distilled down to mathematical 1’s and 0’s : something or nothing, to-be or not-to-be.

Post 7 continued  . . . . click Next

Quora Quotes :

Q : Is Consciousness a fundamental property of the universe just like gravity . . .?

A : Nicholas Rosseinsky, Program Director, Neurosciences

<< For many (at least for many academic professionals within mainstream science), it’s important that consciousness be an emergent property, because that style of explanation preserves an important form of materialism. . . .

 . . . it might be that consciousness is in some sense more fundamental than gravity . . .
 . . . Additionally, we could take a view in which matter itself is a sort of appearance in what might be called ‘Universal consciousness’. . . .
 . . .There are at least four feasible choices about fundamental consciousness: . . .  3. Consciousness involves both fundamental and emergent aspects. . . . >>

This is not a real pipe.
It’s one man’s idea of a typical pipe.
Magritte : Treachery of Images

Now the materialists say that conscious experience has no effect on matter. Therefore it can’t influence behavior. Therefore it can’t increase survival or ‘thrival’ of the organism. Therefore conscious experience confers no evolutionary advantage, according to narrow materialists!

Which means what? Consciousness can’t have evolved. Conscious experience must have come into being by the most extraordinary accident ever!!! But this ‘miraculous accident’ explanation is a complete contradiction to the whole methodological thrust of materialism!

Nicholas Rosseinsky
Neuroscientist