Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 107.March 08, 2020 continued . . .
The God Problem
The Purpose of Evolution
Bloom admits that another implication of law-like behaviors in Nature is that they may be signs of Teleology. He notes that the inference of purpose is hard to miss. “Formally, the idea that the future pulls us toward itself is called ‘teleology’. . . . but, “the idea of the future as a cause, the idea of teleology, was banished from science.” That was a deliberate attempt to weed-out the Aristotelian notion of First Cause, which the Catholic Church identified with Jehovah. So, scientists began to create a new myth of a self-organizing universe. And the latest variations of the godless world myth are called the “Multiverse” or “Many Worlds” theory. They assume as an axiom that our local universe is just one of an infinite array of real-but-invisible and undetectable ‘verses. Therefore, like G*D, the Multiverse system must be self-existent. What’s missing in these altern-ative creation myths is the intent to create, and a purpose for the creation. Without a conscious mind involved in the design of the world though, the emergence of mental properties from physical evolution is left unexplained.
Ironically, Bloom seems to be fascinated by the seemingly intentional qualities of the natural world. Historian Herbert Spencer, who coined the term “theory of evolution”, gave a new meaning to the word “Emergence”16, to explain the appearance of new species. And modern science has expanded Darwin’s theory to explain how novelties appear as-if from nowhere due to unknown mysterious mechanisms. But now, some theorists are finding challenges to the doctrine of Reductionism in cutting edge Physics. “According to this new theory, natural history reveals the continuous emergence of novel phenomena: new structures and new organisms with new causal powers. Consciousness is yet one more emergent level in the natural hierarchy.”17 According to my own little theory, the emergence of Self Awareness is not so mysterious if you define “emergence” as a natural phase change from one stable state to another. Just as water can exist as solid, liquid & gas, Information can exist as Energy, Matter, & Mind. This analogy assumes that the Potential for many states is inherent in the fundamental Forms of Reality18. Emergence is what happens when a collection of parts becomes a single Whole.
Evolution is natural progression — but toward what end? Progression is the emergence of novelty, in stages, in phases. Bloom notes that “it has been traditional to regard human societies as perpetually decaying”. But philosopher Auguste Comte “reperceived history as a series of self-generated steps up. . . passage from the simple to the complex.” Obviously, this is no accident. So, J. S. Mill was impressed by “this ability of two things to make more than one plus one equals two”. He called it “Heteropathic causation”19, but another term for that kind of emergence is Holism20. And Bloom even asserts that “the big bang is an emergent property . . . Nearly all of the cosmos’ supersized surprises are emergent properties.” Emergent properties are not mathematical sums though, but the results of multiplication : a creative leap. In human culture anything truly new is emergent, intentional, and unpredictable. Likewise, the novelties of Nature may also be presumed to be not accidental, but purposeful. Which is why ancient people logically concluded that invisible intelligent agents were responsible for the vagaries and caprices of the natural world. Post 107 continued . . . click Next
Emergence of Creativity
19. Heteropathic Causation Literally, “different feeling”. But in this case, refers to a cause that results in a new direction of evolution. It may be a Phase Change, a new animal species, or a whole new kind of thing, as in Creation or Holism.
20. Holism : Philosophically, a “whole system” is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. The some-thing extra is an Emergent quality, which was latent (unmanifest) in the parts. For example, when atoms of hydrogen & oxygen gases combine in a specific ratio, the molecule has properties of water, such as wetness, that are not found in the gases. http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
16. Emergence : Emergence is a continuous process that appears to be sudden only because the mind reaches a tipping-point of understanding between an old meaning and a new meaning, causing a phase-change from one logical category to another. http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
18. Phase Change : When matter absorbs or emits energy, it sometimes suddenly changes from one stable form to another, and new properties emerge. Could Mind also be an emergent quality of Matter? http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
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