Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 117. October 22, 2021 . . . . continued
Information - Consciousness - Reality
The Guiding Force of Evolution
Glattfelder reaches the same conclusion that other Inform-ation theorists have inferred : that we live in “a universe built of Information”. Again, that insight is in agreement with the Enformationism thesis. (Click Enformationism at right) Likewise, he concludes that “overall, the universe appears to be guided by an invisible force driving it to ever higher levels of self-organized complexity”. In my thesis, I call that directional “Force” : EnFormAction 13 — an acronym for physical “Energy” plus Platonic “Form” plus the dynamic “Action” of Computation, Complexification, and Integration — that we know as Evolution. However, the conventional four forces14 of Darwinian evolution omitted the “guiding force”, implying that any direction to evolution was due only to fortuitous random accidents. Despite his summary of the evolved world as a, “clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!”, Darwin later admitted that “I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God”. Instead, he called himself an Agnostic, in view of his belief that unguided “blind chance” could never produce “this wonderful universe”. (See quote at right)
Apparently, the author of this “new paradigm” of evolution reached a similar conclusion, in view of the creative power of Generic Information15. And, like Darwin, he does not accept the traditional notions of a humanoid deity, with a fragile ego and emotional outbursts. Instead, his god-model is more like a dis-passionate master mathematician. However, in addition to Intelligence & Reason, his Cosmic Cause must be intentional & aware in order to create conscious beings. “Consciousness is seen as primal and universal — a fundamental building block of the cosmos”. So, he later addresses the age-old Mind-Body problem, although it is not subject to the empirical proofs of Science. “Overall, consciousness seems to be an ironic anomaly which cannot be integrated into the scientific world-view it created itself”. Therefore, despite the negative aspects of this world — the Problem of Evil — he remains optimistic : “Self-organization appears like a fundamental force guiding cosmic evolution” — presumably in a positive direction of self-improvement.
Perhaps his primary contribution to Cosmology is to describe, in some detail, the paradigm shift in favor of “a universe built of information”, rather than of atoms. He describes “the many faces of information”, which I like to summarize as “shape-shifting” : “Information is hard to grasp. It appears ethereal and intangible, somehow detached from the physical”. Yet, he goes on to say that, “information is remarkably physical”. That view was expressed by physicist John A. Wheeler in his epigram : “it from bit”, meaning that Real things (Its) are derived from Ideal forms (Bits) — the basic unit of Information. The point being that “information is fundamental”. Although “Its” are physical, “Bits” are metaphysical, in the sense that they are nothing but Ideas. Likewise, Its are material, while Bits are immaterial (e.g. Energy). Hence, Information is both Mind & Matter, Subjective & Objective. This is a Platonic notion, that everything in the world has a formal precedent in the Ideal world. Those ideal things, he called Forms : ideas of things that actually exist. Another way to look at Forms is as the design of a thing, or the recipe for a meal, or the Potential for the Actual.
Post 117 continued . . . . Click Next
13. EnFormAction : En- means to cause something to change state. Form- is the structure of a thing that makes it what it is. Action- the suffix “-ation” denotes the product or result of an action. http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html
14. Forces of Evolution : “So what are these mysterious four forces of evolution? They include mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, and natural selection.” https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-four-forces-of-evolution.html But the commonality of all those elements of evolution is Information : the power to Transform, to cause change in a positive direction. Mutation alone has no direction. Genetic drift is erratic. But Natural Selection acts like the goal-directed Rules of a computer program. Some general rules (operating system) are like natural laws that limit the boundaries of experimentation. More specific rules are those that select from either-or options those that point in the direction of the Programmer’s Intention : the Goal or Purpose.
EnFormAction The power to organize isolated individuals into integrated whole systems.
To observers, this invisible self-organizing force seems more like magic than science.
Yet, highly organized systems (organisms) with specialized organs, such as brains, became sentient, and have a unique perspective on the world : The Self.
And, some of them are the scientists who want to know how this magic happens.
Information
Consciousness
Reality James Glattfelter
2019 “How a new understanding of the Universe can help answer age-old questions of existence”
“Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.”
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