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

Ultimate Reality
is an idea
in the mind of G*D

Post 8. 12/20/2017 continued . . . .  

 True Reality : Both Real & Ideal

   Reality & Ideality

 A persistently mysterious aspect of our reality is the puzzling fact that our physical bodies have some non-physical qualities & properties that can't be explained by the standard model of physics. Our mechanical meat-brains seem to produce intangible thoughts, feelings, and experiences as an unintended “by-product” of running the metabolism of the body. This curious fact-of-life causes lovers of wisdom to wonder why? Why did blind & dumb evolution, after eons of manipulating non-sentient matter & energy, suddenly create animated objects with, not only the life-energy to move around at will, but also the mental-force to control those movements toward desired ends? How and why did personal & systematic consciousness emerge from the impersonal & chaotic atom-smashing of reckless particles of energy? Was the single most important thing to humans, self-awareness, a meaningless cosmic accident?

One plausible response to that question is that the plan or potential for consciousness was "in there" all the time, and simply emerged at a pre-determined level of complexity of physical interactions. Another notion is that life & mind were algorithmic solutions to the cosmic-scale calculations of a real or metaphorical universal computer. But if consciousness was an integral element of the infinite singularity that erupted into a dynamic world, how did it get in there? If sentient beings were factors of the primal program for an evolving universe, who was the programmer? If the essence of humanity was merely happenstance, from the perspective of objective physics, why is it so important to subjective perceivers?

Chance & Necessity

Obviously, reliable empirical facts about how the world works are necessary for upright apes, weak in tooth & claw, to enable them to survive in the unsentimental Real world. But it is also essential for big-brained apes to make use of experiential ideas & feelings, in order to make a living in their elaborate social orders. Fortunately, the wisdom of natural evolution – combining Chance & Necessity (randomness & laws) into a harmonious dance of creation – has produced two-legged creatures with feet in two realms : both Physical & Metaphysical, both Facts & Feelings, both Science & Mythology, both Reality & Ideality. Was that consilience of trends just a happy accident, or was it a planned emergence? In any case, the duality of human nature is why we require an understanding of both mundane & sublime aspects of our fleeting existence in order, not just to survive, but to thrive.

The Enformationism thesis concludes that a First Cause is logically required to provide the “necessity” (natural laws) that “select” from a range of random mutations the best fit for each environmental niche, and imposes limitations on the chaos of undirected causality. Nobel winning (1965) biologist Jacques Monod adopted the term teleonomic to permit recognition of purpose in biology without appealing to a final cause. Likewise, the term EnFormAction was coined to explain, according to Information Theory, why evolution appears to be teleological : it unfolds according to the dictates of a Final Cause : the Prime Programmer in the Great Beyond.

Post 8 continued  . . . click Next

Chance and Necessity: Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology
By Jacques Monod, 1970

<< The basic tenet of this book is that systems in nature with molecular biology, such as enzymatic biofeedback loops can be explained without having to invoke final causality.>>

Two realms in one world, as exemplified in the Yin/Yang symbol
above