Post 27 4/01/2018

 Quantum  Idealism

The Enformationism thesis is based on a special kind of Idealistic worldview. This is not the old-fashioned denial of physical reality that can be easily refuted by kicking a stone. Instead, it is the scientific kind of Idealism that is inherent in the quantum physics . . . .

Post 34  5/01/2018

The Brain/Mind

Paradox

This is my understanding of how the physical Brain produces the meta-physical noumena we know as Mind & Consciousness. We'll begin by reviewing some theories of what the mind is, and what it does. In the 17th century, Descartes decided that the Mind is a spiritual analog to the brain . . . . .  

Post 31  4/20/2018

Progresso- phobia

In his latest book, Enlightenment Now!, Steven Pinker . . .  Michael Shermer, just published his own assess-ment of cultural progress in The Moral Arc. Both works are talking about positive trends in human culture, as judged by the standard of human needs & desires. . . .

Post 28 4/10/2018

Enformation &
EnFormAction

I was attracted to this book when I saw the unique term “enformation” in a review of it. That sounded like it might be related to my own made-up word : EnFormAction. I coined it as a way to summarize the basic concept of my personal philosophical worldview : Enformationism . . .

Post 32  4/24/2018

Deistic Theodicy

Medieval Theologians were faced with a paradox : how could an all-good & all-loving God allow bad things to happen to good people? Their rationalization concluded that a perfect world was logically impossible, even for an omnipotent deity. . . .

 Post 26  3/30/2018

The Post- Modern Critique

The Enlightenment Now book-review, in Post 24, had much to say about the recent academic critiques of Enlightenment and Modern paradigms of religion, politics and philosophy. . . . Postmodernists typically asso-ciate Modernism with capitalist imperialism and colonialism . . .

Post 25  3/30/2018

BothAnd
Buddhism         

The BothAnd principle is similar to several ancient philosophical schemes for living a good life in the Goldilocks Zone. . . . Other early ethical systems that emphasized moderation were Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. . . .

Post 29 4/15/2018

BothAnd Morality

For centuries, philosophers have debated whether morality is innate in humans, or a cultural construct, or a divine gift. Those who believe a moral sense is divine, also think that people cannot be good without faith in God. Like Adam & Eve, they would lack the unique human ability to discern good from evil

Post 30  3/30/2018

Enformation Engines

Philosopher David Wolf coined the term "enformation" as a combination of "energy" and "information" [see Post 28]. Even pragmatic quantum physicists have concluded that physical Energy and meta-physical Information are equivalent. . . .

Post 33  4/26/2018

What is EnFormAction?

The BothAnd Principle is a corollary to the thesis of Enformationism, in that it is a mashup of both Materialism and Spiritualism, of both Science and Religion, of both Empirical and Theoretical methods. The novel concept of Enformation is also a synthesis of both Energy and Information. . . .

Post 35  5/10/2018

Consciousness & Freewill

Many modern scientists and philosophers have come to reject certain traditional beliefs that were taken for granted by earlier generations. . . . But as Neuroscience reveals the mechanics of the brain, the Mind and the Self/Soul are now described as nothing more than phantoms of the imagination.

Post 36  5/15/2018

The God
Concept

The Enformationism thesis imagines our world as a Great Idea, composed primarily of Information  and evolving via a process of EnformAction . All things in the real world are products  of that cosmic inform-ation processing, imagined metaphorically as a computer program. . . .

Post 37  5/25/2018

 Another
 Theory Of
 Everything

In blog post 11, Theory of Everything, I briefly reviewed Christopher Langan's CTMU theory, which has some similari-ties to the Enformationism thesis – in particular, a key role for Information. Here, I'll note a few significant points where we agree or disagree. . .

Post 38  6/05/18

Enlightenment Now!
Again

In this sequel to The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker continues his quest to change the common mis-perception that the modern world is on a slippery slope toward some kind of religious, political or environmental apocalypse. . . .

Post 39  6/05/18

 Enlightenment
 versus
 Occultism

Throughout his new book, Enlightenment Now!, Steven Pinker contrasts the progressive power of human reason, as exemplified in Science, against the regressive forces of unreason, typified by Religion, Romanticism, and Post-modernism. . . .