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

   Post 109.   August 23, 2020

  Theory of Enformed Systems

   Enformy, Enformation, Pre-physical  

 In my own 2008 thesis of Enformationism, I coined the term “Enformy” from scratch, as a reference to the creative power of generative Information. Then, I recently found this paper on Hilgartner's Enformy webpage, after I came across that novel word in a Google search.  I was not completely surprised though, to find that someone else had independently coined the same neologism, to describe “the capacity to organize”1, as a counter to the disorganizing power of Entropy in Physics. But that 1993 essay by Kapnick & Kelly didn't seem to have much impact on Science or Philosophy, beyond the International Society For Philosophical Enquiry (SPE). I had even posted an abstract from their paper on my website, noting that I agreed with the general concept, but was skeptical of some of its proposed implications in the realm of Para-psychology2. I haven't been able to trace a connection between that essay and Watson's new theory. Yet, since Watson is a Mensa member, and the SPE is a high-IQ society, I must assume some cross-fertilization.

I was intrigued by this 1997 article, which gave a detailed summary of Watson's proposed new theory (TES) for both Physics & Psychology. Just as I did in my website, it defined “Enformy” as the “organizing principle” of our universe. Like my own hypothesis, it also based its conclusion on evidence from Systems Theory (Systematics – the science of holistic systems), and from Quantum Theory (entanglement). However, it doesn't seem to include an expanded Theory of Information3, as my thesis did. Its primary application seems to be in the study of Consciousness and its correlates, including the fringe theories of Parapsychology. Both of these papers apply their Enformy theory to support such non-mainstream notions as : ESP, precognition, telepathy, and psychokinesis. These are the very ideas that are typically dismissed by orthodox empirical scientists as Pseudo-Science4. And they were specifically excluded from my own thesis on the grounds that they are un-grounded in hard, practical evidence. But, since they are some-what plausible, I have remained open-minded, yet provisionally skeptical. The only evidence I’m aware of for such phenomena today is Anecdotal and Statistical, with no practical applications, so far.

The TES article focuses on a wide range of phenomena that are generally related to Cognition, and that its claims are “invisible to prevailing paradigms, e.g. memory, self-awareness, telepathy, quantum entanglement, morphogenesis, and the evolution of species”. Again, many of those were discussed in my own thesis, and in its subsequent blog, with the exception of “telepathy”. I avoided most of the “fringe science” topics, not due to bias against ideas that challenge the current dominant paradigm of reductive Science, but because I haven't seen any evidence of their practical applications, except for fleecing sentimental and gullible people. My own philosophical thesis is clearly off the mainstream, and is not physically provable. But it attempts to stay as close as possible to prag-matic Empirical evidence, and as far away as possible from Magical5 beliefs6. Any concepts that are hidden from the uninitiated, or so arcane that only a cabal of adepts are allowed access,  are not appropriate for my layman’s thesis about the natural phenomenon of causal Information.
                       Post 108 continued . . . click Next

Don Watson

THEORY OF ENFORMED SYSTEMS
Don Watson & Andy Hilgartner
http://www.hilgart.org/enformy/$wsr02.html

Don Watson, MD, Psychiatry and Neurology
• Member, American Mensa, Ltd.
• Senior Research Fellow, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry
• Member of Board, International Academy of Philosophy

ENFORMY :
The Capacity to Organize

Chapter 19 in Thinking on the Edge,
R. A. Kapnick and A. A. Kelly, eds.
Burbank, CA: Agamemnon Press 1993.

ENFORMATIONISM

Personal Website

http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

1. Enformy : A hypo-thetical, holistic, meta-physical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress.

2. Parapsychology : the study of mental phenomena which are excluded from or inexplicable by orthodox scientific psychology (such as hypnosis, telepathy, etc.).

3. Information is :
    See glossary sidebar note
   http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

4. Pseudoscience : Literally – bogus science; a derogatory label for hetero-dox or non-mainstream theories; a collection of beliefs or practices loosely based on scientific method.

5. Magical : supernatural, mystical, occult, paranormal, uncanny, otherworldly, miraculous

6. Mundane :  I make one exception to that rule against super-natural notions, in order to discuss the non-scientific, but validly philosophical implications of Ontology, Epistemology, and the various notions of a First Cause : “G*D.”

Theory of Enformed Systems  
Comprehensive theory of Consciousness

Don Watson
Psychiatrist, Neurologist

“A hypothetico-deductive paradigm of holistic systems”