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

   Post 113.  January 8, 2021 continued  . . . .

  Aristotle and Einstein

   Neo-Aristotelian Quantum Theory

 After a long discussion of modern notions of Time and Change, Feser attempts to reconcile Einstein’s Relativity with Aristotle’s more commonsense reality. He says, “Again, though, it might seem that dynamic change and temporal passage have been banished from nature by Einstein . . .” For example, his theory of Relativity required a patternless back-ground of Block Time, sometimes referred to as “Eternalism”, which freezes our perception of dynamic space & time into a static universe where all things & events exist simultaneously. Nevertheless, that timeless-spaceless “ice-cube” universe may be true mathematically (i.e. abstractly), but not true physically (concretely), because Eternity & Infinity are excluded from our Reality — yet remain like ghosts in human in imagination, in metaphysical mathematics, in Ideality. Minkowski’s space-time manifold can only be viewed from G*D’s all-knowing vantage, but not from mankind’s ego-restricted frame of reference, which reveals to us mere glimpses of Reality. For the purposes of the Enformationism thesis, I call that all-at-once perspective “Enfernity”.

The dramatic difference between the old and new worldviews became obvious after those shocking revelations of the shakey foundation of Physics, in the queerness of Quantum Theory. Besides making a mockery of traditional notions of a contin-uous unbroken chain of Causation15, it blurred our distinctions between Potentiality and Actuality. For example, Feser uses Aristotelian language to explain that, “substantial form is what actualizes that potential, and makes of otherwise indeterminate prime matter a substance of some determinate kind”. In my own thesis, I coined an information-based term for that Prime Matter, or Prime Substance, or Essential Form : EnFormAction – the power to enform abstract relationships (designs) into concrete Matter. Its most obvious manifestation is what we know as Energy. The material forms we know via physical senses, are the effects of what Aristotle called “accidental causation” by outside forces. But Matter, in a general sense, is substantial, in the sense that it has the inherent potential to become actual.

Aristotle’s application of that Potential/Actual distinction was illustrated in his theory of Hylemorphism (matter + form). Feser notes that it is a kind of holism, hence “it is therefore anti-reductionist”. He also says that, “the neo-Aristotelian character of quantum physics was recognized by Heisenberg”. His quote from that pioneer of Quantum Theory, is reminiscent of my own Enformationism thesis : “All the elementary particles are made of the same substance, which we may call energy or universal matter, they are just different forms in which matter can appear”. What Aristotle named “Potential Substance”, and Heisenberg called “Universal Matter”, is what I have labeled “Generic Information”16 – one form of which is dynamic causal Energy. Feser goes on to make another distinction between “energy as having no ‘determinate form in itself’”, yet “energy is quantifiable, whereas prime matter, being wholly indeterminate, is not”. That’s why I feel the need to clarify, that stored energy is measurable only in terms of its Potential (voltage ; form), while flowing energy is measured in terms of Actual motivating power (amperage ; matter).

                     Post 113 continued . . . click Next

Ice Cube Universe
with
Block Time

15. Quantum Causation :
   “Recent research reveals that causal relationships can be placed in quantum superposition states in which A influences B and B influences A. In other words, one cannot say if the toppling of the last quantum domino is either the result of the first domino's fall or its cause.”
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.1.20180328a/full/

16. Generic Information :
    Information is Generic in the sense of generating all forms from a formless pool of possibility : the Platonic Forms.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

Aristotle’s Revenge
The Metaphysical Foundations  of Physical and Biological Science

Edward Feser
Philosopher of
Metaphysics & Natural Theology

“Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science.”