Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 113.January 8, 2021 continued . . . .
Aristotle and Einstein
Efficient vs Final Causation
The reason many post-enlightenment scientists abandoned Aristotle’s definition of intentional Causation, in favor of Hume’s accidental causation, is that it assumes, as an axiom, the exist-ence of an eternal First Cause, who stands outside the created world, like a pool-shooter aiming his cue-stick toward a particular pocket. The technical term for a world with First & Final Causality is “Teleology” (end + to know). But that notion also implies Determinism or Predestination11. Which raises the old & perennial problem of FreeWill. Feser gets into that philosophical conundrum in a later chapter. For now, he focuses on making a distinction of Teleology from Intelligent Design. But that’s a long & winding argument, so basically he differentiates natural “Intrinsic Teleology” (which is generally compatible with natural Darwinian evolution), from super-natural “Extrinsic Teleology” – which is the theological notion of God reaching down into the world to interfere with on-going events via divine interventions. The latter is necessary to account for biblical miracles.
The Aristotelian notion of “intrinsic teleology” also implies that natural causes are intentional, in the sense of being goal-directed, like a computer program. Feser further defines that appearance of purpose in nature with, “Intentionality is the “aboutness” or “directedness” toward an object”. We are all familiar with Aboutness12 as the aiming function of human Consciousness. But how could such a far-sighted trait arise from blindly groping random Evolution? And, if some long-range goal is somehow programmed into the natural world, who is the prescient Programmer? Those are irrelevant questions for atheists, but repeated attempts have been made to explain the “manifest appearance” of teleology & intentionality in nature13, as an unspecified “something else”. Feser responds to those purpose deniers with “Yet we are told by the eliminativist sort that there are no purposes, meanings, representations, aims, etc. of any sort whatever. So, how can there be illusions, falsehoods, and mistakes?” He later notes that “final causality was banished by the mechanical philosophy . . . . But determinism was in turn overthrown by quantum mechanics”. And that same insight was responsible for setting me on the path to Enformationism.
In so-called quantum “mechanics”, the postulated machine of nature has faded-away into a Cheshire Cat smile. And Physics crossed over into the forbidden zone of Metaphysics. Hence, the necessity for re-examining the primitive pre-scientific speculations of Aristotle. Thus began another of Thomas Kuhn’s scientific paradigm shifts, which is still in the process of unfolding. Feser though, makes a distinction between Natural Science and the Philosophy of Nature : “That certain aspects of Aristotelian physics have been falsified is not in dispute. However, . . . . The moderns have been too quick to throw the Aristotelian metaphysical baby out with the physical bath-water”. He quotes Colin McGinn, “Physics . . . deals with operational definitions, and these precisely involve what matter does, not what it is intrinsically. . . . physics is not a complete science . . . of matter : to complete it we need to do meta-physics”. With that shortcoming in mind, Feser proceeds to interpret modern physical concepts in terms of ancient meta-physical principles.
Post 113 continued . . . click Next
Edward Feser: The return of final causality
13. Teleology in Biology : The manifest appearance of function and purpose in living systems is responsible for the prevalence of apparent-ly teleological explanations of organismic structure and behavior in biology. Although the attribution of function and purpose to living systems is an ancient practice, teleo-logical notions are largely considered ineliminable from modern biological sciences, such as evolutionary biology, genetics, medicine, ethology, and psychiatry, because they play an important explanatory role https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleology-biology/.
14. Mechanical Materialism The physicists kept dividing, and in the end found nothing at all.” Mass, and so matter, are derived aspects of an insubstantial process of reality. In fact, they’re also products of aspects of reality that are immaterial, ie not material at all. However, this conclusion should not come as a shock, for if there is one thing that has been established by the science of quantum mechanics, it is the fact that ‘materialism’ must be abandoned as a viable metaphysical position. https://philosophynow.org/issues/93/On_Known-To-Be-False_Materialist_Philosophies_of_Mind
11. Predestination : in Christian theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the "paradox of free will", whereby God's omni-science seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination
12. Aboutness : Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter is a 2011 book by biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon. . . . the book seeks to naturalistically explain "aboutness", that is, concepts like intentionality, meaning, normativity, purpose, and function; which Deacon groups together and labels as ententional phenomena. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
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