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 137.  September 13, 2024

  Active Information, Meaning & Form

     Information is Physical and Metaphysical

According to Wikipedia, David Bohm was one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century, “who  contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuro-psychology and the philosophy of mind”. He attempted to prove that quantum physics could be interpreted determinist-ically, as in classical physics. But his argument required un-observed, hence non-empirical, mysterious metaphysical hidden variables (“implicate order”) that melded physics into an integrated Holistic system. As a result of his dabbling into metaphysics, some of his theories were not taken seriously by more mainstream material & mechanical physicists.

Quantum physicist David Peat worked with, and was influenced by both Bohm and Roger Penrose, who also postu-lated some unorthodox theories of physics and metaphysics. I borrowed the name of his article¹ for this blog post. There, he noted that “Towards the end of the 1980s David Bohm intro-duced the notion of Active Information into his Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory”. To explain the “active” element of Information, Peat says “I suggest that Information is the final element in a triad—information is that which gives form to energy”.

Which sounds similar to my own concept of EnFormAction² (energy + form + causation) : A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random inter-actions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. The common material forms & systems of the world are the subject matter of physical Science. But, there are also some immaterial systems in the knowable world, such as Mind, Consciousness, and Self, that do not lend themselves to the empirical methods of the material sciences.

Consequently, the modern physical sciences have spun-off some theoretical sub-sciences to deal with metaphysical topics such as Psychology, Sociology, and Economics. Ironically, the primary methods of highly effective Quantum Physics are based, not on Matter, but Mathematics : Quantum Field Theory (QFT)³. And the fundamental elements of QFT are not material stuff, but mathematical Fields consisting of nothing but conceptual inter-relationships. Such connections are not found in Newtonian Mechanics, but in philosophical Meta-physics⁵. The latter is not concerned with super-natural forces, but merely the immaterial aspects of Nature, such as Consciousness.

Since we know about Nature & Physics only by means of our conscious Minds, it wouldn’t make sense to dismiss our sole-medium-of-obtaining-Information as irrelevant simply because it is literally immaterial. Filling-in that supposed gulf between Mind & Matter is what philosopher David Chalmers labeled as the “Hard Problem”. But, what if the gap is simply a misunder-standing of Christian theology and conventional Cartesian Dualism? In my own philosophical worldview, there is no gap, because the world is Monistic, consisting of a Single Substance⁴ similar to that postulated in the 17th century by Baruch Spinoza.

1. Active Information :
  https://paricenter.com/library-new/david-bohm/active-information-meaning-and-form/

2. EnFormAction :
   Ententional Causation; The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html  

3. Quantum Fields :
 “QFT taken seriously in its metaphysical implications seems to give a picture of the world which is at variance with central classical conceptions of particles and fields, and even with some features of Quantum Mechanics.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/

4. Substance :
   The modern meaning of the word is influenced by association with Material-istic Science. But the original usage goes back to the 5th century BC philosophy of Aristotle, whose meaning is closer to an immaterial Essence.  

5. Bohm Metaphysics :

  “David Bohm is famous for re-invigorating and developing the ‘pilot wave’ interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM) originally articulated in 1926 by Louis de Broglie. Bohm’s theory envisages a world of particles which all have definite momenta and positions, albeit the values of which are generally inaccessible, and which are deterministically ‘steered’ or ‘guided’ by a universal field. This field is described by the quantum wave function. It is sometimes said that Bohm’s view is a return to a classical picture of the world, embracing atomistic particularity and determinism.”
https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~seager/entropy_draft.pdf

The sixth sense is non-physical Reason

Blog Post 137 continued . . . click Next