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

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 the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory – of – Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.

  Post 136.  August 5, 2024

  Holism and Creative Evolution

     The Ghost in the Mechanism

In the science of Physics, Energy is the causal force behind all form changes, but for inanimate objects it may seem to be randomly rambling instead of goal-directed. Yet, in Biology, aimless energy cannot explain the emergence of living organ-isms from non-living matter. That’s why self-organization & spontaneous morphogenesis within evolution were the focus of Bergson’s book, and the reason he inferred that some intelli-gent organizing agency was logically necessary; hence his Quixotic quest for the Elan Vital (life force or living soul)⁷. But that notion was deemed too close to religious beliefs, so John Dewey proposed an alternative in which Nature’s “habits” only seem intelligent to imaginative observers. However, another contemporary, Jan Smuts, agreed with Bergson that a natural system capable of producing the inquisitive human mind must be, not only creative, but intelligent⁸ to some degree. In order to avoid compromising his scientific objectivity, he doesn’t use that fraught term, yet the emergence of rational Mind logically implies a precursor smarter than dumb mechanical Matter.

Scientists, in their quest for the elusive un-cuttable Atom of evolution, have analyzed Matter into microscopic Molecules, later found to consist of multiple smaller parts. Then they discovered what we now still refer to as “Atoms”, even though they are built-up from even more elementary Protons, Gluons, Neutrons, and Electrons. Yet, even those sub-sub-atoms are now defined as a constellation of hypothetical Quarks⁹ that are invisible, except to the fanciful imagination. Ironically, all physical particles are now defined as merely temporary “excitations” or “peaks” above the ground state of its “field” {image at right}. So, what is currently considered the final fundamental is the statist-ical Quantum Field¹⁰. That postulated indefinite energetic zone of influence is variously described as amorphous, cloud-like, unbounded, non-local, immaterial, mathematical, and even eternal. Perhaps that “imponderable” eternal Pool of Potential¹¹ is the original Whole of which all material things are parts.

Bergson contrasted his creative force with the destructive effects of Entropy : “The interaction of antagonistic tendencies is always implied. In particular, it may be said of individuality that, while the tendency to individuate¹² is everywhere present in the organized world, it is everywhere opposed by the tendency towards reproduction¹³”. Reductive Science typically focuses on that natural tendency to isolate parts from wholes. But Systems & Complexity Science concentrates on the exceptions to Entropy that tend toward integrated cohesive organization. Darwinian Evolution is commonly imagined as a> an unrolling scroll of destiny b> descent from the past, and c> divergent change from simple origin in the Big Bang. But Creative Evolution would be a> the gradual emergence of compound systems, b> ascension from a simple past toward a more complex and cooperative future state, and c> generation of novel forms . Working together, reductive Entropy and reproductive Elan Vital have produced the amazing cosmos we see today from a tiny speck of creative Potential.

7. Elan Vital :
  Élan vital is Bergson's term for an event that initiated with terrestrial life, unleashing an immanent tendency that presses life to all its diversity. Intelligence and instinct are two lines in which evolution has been most progressive, culminating respectively in human beings and the Hymenoptera
https://academic.oup.com/book/46124/chapter-abstract/404696890?

8. Intelligent Evolution :
   Eminent biologist E.O. Wilson entitled his intro-duction to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species as Intelligent Evolution : The consequences of Charles Darwin's "one long argument". That title may have been a response to the then current debate over the religiously motivated Intelligent Design theory.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2005/11/intelligent-evolution-html

9. Quark Fundamental? :
   Scientists' current understanding is that quarks and gluons are indivisible—they cannot be broken down into smaller components. But they are hypothetical entities, not empirical.

10. Universal Field :
   In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory

11. Potential :
   An Ideal not-yet-real state of possible things that have not been Actualized by the creative process of Evolution.

12. Individuation :
   Act of division or subtraction. The decaying function of degenerating Entropy.

13. Reproduction :
   Act of addition or multiplication. The creative function of evolutionary Enformy.

Spooky Ghost in the Machine

Blog Post 136 continued . . . click Next

Particle excitation peak in a gravitation field