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

   Post 107.  March 08, 2020 continued . . .

  The God Problem

   Is G*D Metaphor or Creator?

 Back to the “beginning of things”, Bloom introduces one of his favorite axioms : “Everything begins with togetherness and separation. Everything begins with differentiation and integration.” Such creative oppositions were developed by Aristotle into the “ten first principles”— including, odd/even, one/many, good/bad, and so forth. However, “to Aristotle, the idea that opposites coexist is irrational”7. And yet, contrast is the essence of creativity. Competition & Cooperation is how progressive evolution works. Moreover, he boldly challenges Ari’s either/or dichotomy of dialectical reasoning. Instead, his holistic approach seems to be closer to my own BothAnd 8 philosophy, in which polar opposites are united into a functional whole as in the Yin Yang principle .

Bloom notes that the “demonstrative science” of Aristotle was an ideal, even though the science of his day was mostly metaphorical and analogical. And some modern scientists still scorn any attempts to popularize technical concepts with colorful metaphors. But even Aristotle admitted that “it is from metaphor that we can best get ahold of something fresh”. We can more easily see similar patterns in different forms when the imagery is familiar. “Thus, metaphor is not purely ornamental, but is functional in a more fundamental way. It is what primarily discovers. . . . This fundamental discovery is how metaphor gets at the essence of a thing.”X Since his aim in this book is to get down to the root of reality, Bloom’s figurative style of writing about technical philosophical and scientific concepts is appropriate. He puts the reader in his place as he discovers each element of his novel worldview.  

This whimsical writer often speaks of Nature poetically, as-if it was a person — or a god. For example. he says “Nature has an aesthetic sensibility”. And he reminds us that “Plato was a creationist”. Hence, in the Timaeus dialogue, Socrates described his notion of the act of creation, “the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God”.9 Obviously, Bloom seems to be OK with the metaphor of a “world soul” as the creative aspect of reality. Yet he leaves the notion of a Creator God on the foggy sidelines of his argument. And he is discussing the origin of essential axioms that create reality. Those rational rules of Nature may be analogous to Socrates’ world-building “Craftsman” following a divine blueprint. But, is the concept of a world soul merely a figure of speech or a self-evident truth upon which to base your argument about the seemingly intentional creativity of the universe? Is the traditional concept of God, merely a literary metaphor for Nature, or the literal power behind the Big Bang?

After a discussion of the non-Euclidean (open-ended) geometry of the universe, Bloom introduces the concept of a creative “group mind”, implying that Gaia is essentially creating herself. “What . . . is a group mind? It’s a tool that the cosmos uses to feel out her implicit possibilities. It’s a tool the cosmos uses to probe for potential. It’s a tool the cosmos uses to create.” Perhaps anticipating the “something from nothing” counter-argument, he immediately turns to the strange concept of nothingness. “Axiom number one — zero is a number — an idea that would have startled Pythagoras and Plato. . . . So how does nothing become a number?”

                   Post 107 continued . . . click Next

God imagined as a Hebrew Patriarch

 The GAIA hypothesis

A theory, put forward by James Lovelock, that living matter on the earth collectively defines and regulates the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life. The planet, or rather the biosphere, is thus likened to a vast self-regulating organism.

7. Aristotle’s a priori Metaphor :
   “While tropes such as analogy, metaphor, and simile are regarded as valu-able for colorful writing, they are dismissed as inappropriate for scientific discourse. “
http://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/driscoll-aristotles_apriori_metaphor.pdf

8. BothAnd Philosophy :
    My name for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or con-trasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

9. Socrates’ Creation :
   “The universe, he proposes, is the product of rational, purposive, and beneficent agency.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/

The God Problem

How a Godless Cosmos Creates

Howard Bloom

Psychology; Sociology; Political Science

The Problem of Existence

God is a metaphor
__Joseph Campbell

Opposites Attract