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.
6. Creative Causation : The ability of physical energy to create novel forms of matter via the process of en-form-action.
7. An idea that bombed : “Hungarian-German physicist Leo Szilard con-ceived the possibility of self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions, or a nuclear chain reaction, in 1933.” “This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/making-the-atomic-bomb-trinity-test
8. Manhattan Project : “A project is any under-taking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal.” “The word "project" thus originally meant "before an action". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project To project means to imagine the consequences of a mere idea in order to motivate a future action in the world.
Instead of "experience" as fundamental to existence, I view "creative causation"⁶ as essential. Apart from hypothetical Alien Life, Experiential (knowing, sensing) entities are a very late emergence from the mechanism of Evolution. Basic material existence came first (atoms, stars, etc) and continued for eons of Accidental change. Eventually, animated existence introduced Willful change (behavior) And recently, mental existence added Intentional change (purpose). In the beginning, all change was Differentiation (e.g. random mutation). With Life, change became Organization (willful survival). Since the emergence of self-conscious Mind, change became Intention (purpose ; holistic selfish thrival). From random existence, to organic existence, to oriented existence (goal directed). Thus, Mechanical causation was gradually & naturally transformed into Organic Energy, and thence into the Meta-physical power of Ideas : Information.
The notion of an incorporeal Idea as the cause of real-world effects on palpable matter is not commonly held by Physicalists & Materialists. But an illustration may help to support the idea of ideas as a form of causal energy. The Oppenheimer movie is in theaters as I write this. “Oppie” became known as the “father” of the Atom Bomb, but we may not be able to put a name to the first person to imagine nuclear energy in the form of an explosive device for use in warfare. The nonspecific general idea of nuclear fission⁷ was incubated in atomic physics labs over a period of years, as the understanding of enormous potential energy locked into small bit of matter took shape. However, the movie tracks the story of the bomb’s birth, from the vague idea that uranium contained more potential explosive energy than conventional dynamite(literally, power in a small package). Once the US president was warned that the NAZIs were working on an atom bomb ─ a mere conjecture (but with potential) ─ quickly became a quest for the Holy Grail of the power to destroy whole cities (e.g. Manhattan) with a single bomb⁸. And the rest is history. But, would the hypothetical destructive & productive power of atoms have been realized, without the motivating Causal Concept (a well-defined project) — of ruling Europe or defending America — to bring it to fruition? Ideas are immaterial (potential), but they do have (actual) real-world consequences.
Therefore, I propose that the true fundamental force in the world is the power to transform both minds & matter : EnFormAction.⁹ That term was coined from a combination of “Energy, Form, and Action”. Yet those potentialities are also subsumed in the common word “Information”. It originally referred to the power to enform minds; to export ideas into another person’s mind. In the early 20th century though, the word was given a new meaning. Claude Shannon used it to refer to mathematical codes that are able to condense ideas from one mind into abstract symbols, to convey arbitrary meanings from one place to another, and one mind to another (communication of information). That universal & ubiquitous Causal power is what you might call Pan-Enformationism.
End of Blog Post 130
My primary disagreement with Panpsychism is the notion that inanimate objects are active agents in the world.
Panpsychism The Philosophy of the Sensuous Cosmos
Peter Ells
Historian & Philosopher
This book proposes that all fundamental constituents of the universe are agents, which perceive one another, and freely act according to their percepts. Contemporary science can be explained in entirely mentalistic terms.
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