Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Post 38. 06/01/2018 continued  . . .

Enlightenment Now again!

Human Progress or Divine Program?

   The theory of Enformy assumes that Energy is not a physical fluid as some imagine, but a meta-physical process of Enformation (positive change). Noticeable differences in the world are observed when they go from one distinct state to another, as water absorbs heat to “phase change” from solid ice to liquid water to gaseous vapor. Heat energy is the direct cause of those quantum jumps, but  mathematically the “difference that makes a difference” is statistics. According to the Law of Thermodynamics, Probability favors disorder, so any positive change must defy the odds. As Pinker notes, “when things change without a human agent directing the change, they are likely to change for the worse.” That's because random change, Entropy, like repeated rolls of dice, form no meaningful patterns and no useful structures. So any observed signals in the noise are usually attributed to Luck, or divine intervention, or to human agency. But my theory lays the blame on a non-human agent, who thinks like a mathematician.

Pinker consistently finds obvious patterns of progress in both physical & historical evolution. But he doesn't believe in God, so his explanation for those eons of exceptions to natural law must be something equivalent to superstitious Luck, or to the hitherto nameless enforming force of Enformy. So, the Enformationism theory has a more scientific explanation for those improbable patterns. And yet, it is based on the unprovable axiom of a Great Mind, that “designed” a world system with both accidental disorder, and creative order, as many random possibilities are narrowed down to one actuality by Natural Selection. Thus, its not luck at all, but meta-physical mathematical statistics allowing order within disorder.

What's meaningful about our universe is that, despite the inherent randomness, we can perceive & understand its organized enformed patterns. Aware of something crudely equivalent to “natural laws”, the ancients concluded that a super-mind, a law-giver, was necessary to create orderly Cosmos from disorderly Chaos. In any case, Entropy is what's common & ordinary in the universe – such as rust & dust – while Enformy is what's unique & extraordinary –  such as Life & Mind, and you & me.

Faced with the evidence for some kind of enforming agent, Pinker says that “it was reasonable to think they were the handiwork of a divine designer – one of the reasons, I suspect, that so many Enlightenment thinkers were deists rather than outright atheists.” Early observations of mathematical order in the stars, and evidence for progressive evolution made Design a plausible inference, and the Big Bang theory revived the ancient notion of Creation . Yet, he assumes that with our more complete modern understanding of how the world works, a preter-natural agent is no longer a viable explanation.

He brings up the subject of Cybernetics and Systems Theory to explain the “appearance” of goal-directed changes. “The idea explains how a physical system can appear teleological . . . ” But it doesn't reveal how the initial Singularity could convey any systematic tendencies, unless via encoded programming. Thus the inference of a First Cause of some kind is necessary to account for the subsequent chain of directional causes & effects in evolution. So, does the “appearance” of purpose deceive or reveal? If it quacks like a duck, why assume it's a decoy4?

Post 38 continued . . . click Next

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Natural
versus
Cultural

evolution
versus
progression

4. Duck or Decoy? :
That’s a rhetorical question. A long history of theories for humanoid agents in temple idols, on mountaintops, or in the clouds, were dis-proven by reason or by the lack of empirical evidence.
   That’s why the ancient Hebrews rejected idolatry & polytheism in favor of a more abstract universal deity in Heaven, which is accessible only by faith. But their religious purity was soon tainted by repeated returns to worship of realistic symbols of their unreal deities.
   The cave-man mind is not well-equipped to deal with abstractions and statistics. So, post-enlightenment scientists turned to mathe-matics to represent the true nature of Reality. But what they found on the Quantum foundation was not concrete atoms, but virtual particles that are unreal symbols.
   So, which is real, the thing or the idea of the thing? In the chain of causation, what is the ultimate cause : a fluctuation or an intention?