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

Eternal Executive
and His
Angelic Agents

Post 15.  02/11/2018 continued . . .

Cosmopsychism vs Enformationism

   Sentient Universe; Cosmic Purpose?

After objecting to the teleological implications of the axiarch theory, he introduces another hypothesis of his own, “agentive cosmopsychism”, in which "the Universe itself ‘chose’ the fine-tuned values in order to make possible a universe of value." But, Goff seems to use the terms “agent” and “choice” in a counter-intuitive manner. Normally, we think of an agent as conscious and intentional5. But again, he stops short of person-ifying that agent as “God” or “Creator”. At first, I too shied away from those terms, with their Theistic baggage. But as I became familiar with the Deist philosophy, I realized that by avoiding those well-known words, I might also strain the vocabulary of my readers. So, I compromised with spelling changes from terms already in common usage, such as G*D and EnForm-Action, along with with lots of explanatory footnotes and glossary entries.   

Goff next brings up Epistemology, regarding how we are able to know anything. "The Scottish philosopher David Hume long ago noted that all we can really observe is how things behave – the underlying forces that give rise to those behaviours are invisible to us. . . . It is parsimonious to suppose that the Uni-verse has a consciousness-involving nature." Indeed, thinkers of all eras have observed that the universe behaves as-if it is on-course toward some distant teleological harbor, implying a single-minded intention. But it is also buffeted by the winds & waves of randomness, that temporarily blow it off-course. So, they concluded that mischievous demi-gods were meddling with the various functions of Nature, such as the weather. Today though, it’s clear that the fickle zig-zags of daily events don’t alter the overall course of Nature's ship. Alas, we humans are not privy to the intentions of the Great Navigator, so we can only speculate about that final port-of-call. Which may be why some impatient prophets have engraved their own conjectures into Holy Scriptures.

Although Goff’s inferred “agent” of consciousness sounds god-like, he demurs that, "Unlike the God of theism, this is an agent of limited power." I agree that Goff's choice-making conscious-ness is of limited power, because he is referring to the physical world itself, limited by restrictions that were ecoded in the Singularity as Natural Laws. Note that Goff's article began by discussing the fine-tuning of nature's defining initial conditions, that were established prior to the birth of Nature itself. So, these were not laws chosen by time-bound Nature, but imposed upon the new-born universe by a higher authority. Hence, we may logically conclude that the law-maker existed prior to the “birth” of Goff’s space-time-matter-energy agent6. Therefore, it seems that Goff has missed the implications of his own argument : super-natural agency.

Goff says that “the Universe is a conscious mind that responds to value”. But, in the Enformationism thesis,  I portray the physical world as more like a computer that responds to the values input by the pre-existing Programmer. It’s some of the computer’s self-reflective sub-routines7 that have grown a mind of their own, and turned their attention outward in order to under-stand their place in the cosmic scheme of things. Who knows what those creative little minds could become, if they mind-meld, and begin to work toward a destiny of their own design; an ambition that suits their own human-scale needs and desires 

End of Post 15

5. Conscious Agent :
   Self-aware entity with the power to choose and to act.

See Hoffman’s theory :
https://www.quora.com/What-are-concious-agents-according-to-Donald-Hoffmans-theory

6. A-priori Agent :
   In the context of Goff’s theory that the physical world is a conscious agent, capable of creating it’s own sentient beings;
   Imagine if you will, that our Cosmos was born from a seed or egg (singularity), which contained all the instructions for building a Universe (DNA, laws), and enough  stored building material (energy, EnFormAction) to get it going.
  If so, then some motherly pre-creation intelligent Agent must have fine-tuned those embryonic settings to guide He/r immature creation toward a desired Omega Point of maturity.
   In that case, we might be excused for thinking of the seed-maker or egg-layer as the eternal Creator (G*D) of our space-time reality, with some ultimate purpose in mind. If so, then we are not godless orphans after all.

7. Sentient Subroutines :
  Special algorithms spun-off from the main program to serve a specific function.
   Are humans little feedback loops within the context of a universal program of evolution toward some final output?
   For example, artificial intelligence would be an example of the creatures becoming like gods, designing novel beings in their own likeness.

The Big Boss
may be
outside
the system