Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Creating Reality one thing at a time
Post 28. 04/10/2018 continued . . .
EnFormAction & Enformation
Review of Philosophy That Works by David M. Wolf
More quotes and comments :
9. “I wanted to name this something by a new word of my own devising, 'enformation'.” My own thesis was inspired by the implications of Shannon's theory that everything in the world was a form of mathematical information. I coined the neologism “Enformationism” because the word, spelled with an "I" was already in use with a different meaning. Making up your own words though, can allow hidebound critics to dismiss your technical contextual meanings as egoisms. In any case, I have provided a glossary to explain my idiosyncratic terminology.
10. “Parmenides taught a static One which is being itself. Being is truth, and truth is being. . . . It was, and always has been – it is whole and entirely beyond growth or decay in time.”In my Enformationism thesis, G*D is taken as a necessary axiom by which all other aspects of our world can be explained. But that hypothetical deity, which I label as not a being but BEING itself, is eternal, hence static & unchanging. Some people can't conceive of such a thing, or how an unchanging entity can cause change. But BEING6 is presumed to be omnipotential, in that all things are possible, but only some things are actual. Some say that truth is what's Real, but comprehensive Truth7 must include all that exists, both physical & meta-physical (ideas, math), both actual & potential (virtual particles). The all-encompassing notion of BEING subsumes all of existence, including that which is only ideal or potential, as in Plato's Forms. The quality of perfect completion implies change-lessness, which means that G*D must be eternal & super-natural, but the property of inclusiveness also means that G*D is evolving space-time Nature. That diversity-within-unity concept is expressed in the term PanEnDeism, "all in God". G*D is the ONE, the ALL, BEING itself, complete, perfect, beyond the cycles of space-time, un-defined, and undefinable. Hence, our words are only metaphors attempting to express the incomprehensible in terms of things we know from the experience of our space-time bound being.
11. “The Way of Seeming . . . yielding to the necessity of providing an account of things in the actual world”.This is analogous to the Buddha's “appearances” or “illusions”. It's also parallel to Plato's 'shadows in the cave', from which earth-bound beings create religious myths about a heavenly realm (super-reality) that they only dimly understand.
12. “I define 'enformation' as the patterns that energy form of itself. . . . Energy is our way of defining 'enformation'.” Shannon information is patterns of relationships that we interpret as meaningful things in reality. Matter is one form of information, but energy is also a form of EnFormAction. In physics, information and energy are mathematically equivalent.
13. “Order is itself a universal form of enformation and is inherent in all that exists.”In the Enformationism thesis, order is that which is enformed. In physical structures, and in meaningful patterns of information, we see hints of the power to enform.
Post 28 continued . . . click Next
Quantum theory is relativistic & probabilistic, whereas Newton's theories were absolute & predictable. Newton's worldview was on the macro scale of the naked eye, assisted by weak technologies. QT goes beyond the limitations of human senses, into the micro and cosmic scales of reality. There, we see intimations of ultimate reality, but only via mentally constructed models (theories).
Observing a quantum system requires acting upon it, which triggers a reaction. Hence, observation is inter-action, a new relationship. Quantum systems interact with each other randomly, hence the total system is neutralized, canceled out, for the moment. But human probes come from outside the system in question. So the observation is intentional, and the reaction is meaningful.
6. BEING : Real & Ideal are modes of being. BEING, the power to exist, is the source & cause of Reality and Ideality. BEING is eternal, undivided and static, but once divided into Real/Ideal, it becomes our dynamic Reality.
7. Truth : Parmenides' Way of Truth is singular, timeless, changeless & holistic. The way of human opinion is dualistic, time-bound, ever-changing & particular. The Way of Truth is G*D's opinion. Science is pragmatic opinion. Religion & Politics is propaganda.
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