One of the human conundrums is character. There does seem to be a P vs J divide in Jungian terms. As both James and Nietzsche pointed out, a person’s character influences their taste in metaphysics. Some want a bow tie and firm boundaries and feel comfortable living in a gated community. Others have a love for an eternal mystery. I recently read Stephen Hawking’s “Gödel and the End of Physics” https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics where he ends with the endless mystery might not be so bad after all. In the beginning of that article he says
“Will we ever find a complete form of the laws of nature? By a complete form, I mean a set of rules that in principle at least enable us to predict the future to an arbitrary accuracy, knowing the state of the universe at one time. A qualitative understanding of the laws has been the aim of philosophers and scientists, from Aristotle onwards. But it was Newton's Principia Mathematica in 1687, containing his theory of universal gravitation that made the laws quantitative and precise. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been expressed by Laplace.”
He seems to have had a hard hanker after the hardening of his categories. All my life I have spoken with scientists and there are two holy of holies. One is reductionism and the other is some form of foundationalism to avoid turtles all the way down. I see panpsychism and supervenience to be more recent examples to avoid the horror of mysterianism not to mention the unmentionable, panentheism, which I find somewhat attractive. My main motivation is the desire for humans to survive without becoming cyborgs or whatever the creatures were in Steven Spielberg’s movie “AI”. I’m talking near (next one or two hundred years) future because of the incredible complexity of the “material” constraints on life itself. Maybe building our own evolutionary pathway is inevitable but we are too ignorant to be doing that now. Right now, finding a peaceful way or at least minimally destructive path forward seems much more important. There is a deep need for science that can actually help in that regard. More WMDs and poisons to kill the undesirables is literally a dead end.
I saw two videos on quantum gravity, few days back. On TOE Curt Jaimangal's channel he talked to Carlo Rovelli about loop quantum, and on Anton Petrov channel he descibed a now 'cubit' or popcorn theory of quantum theory. Visualsxwere great.
Both made quantum gravity so easy to understand that I just thought, well PREHENSION must start even at quantum level AS GRAVITY itself. The entanglement of loops or cubits rolling towards each other...isnt that a kind of prehension. The ideal-lure of ultimate consciousness, or the creative principle, do these show it begins at quantum level.?
If that is the case it reminds me Bruce Damers theory of how life originated in hot springs. The dried mats of chemical life start interacting to produce proteins.
Well I do love making connections across disciplines. Synchronicity... yes... Bruce was on my radar years ago. And now, studying Whitehead through you is deepening my journey profoundly. Its just lovely you are teamed up together.
There is a brain that modulates the physical and the metaphysical. If your brain has been fed, watered, and sheltered and you have access to social media platforms like Substack, your brain begins to get positive reinforcement bathed in neurochemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and if you indulge yourself in a daily exercise routine, endorphins.
In contrast, if your family does not have proper nutrition, water every day, safe shelter from nature and other desperate men without access to social media platforms like Substack, your brain becomes foggy, angry, and violent…not because this is who you are but because society has neglected you and the ones you love.
I am a population scientist trained based upon the teachings of Hippocrates, Florence Nightingale, and Jonas Salk:
One of the human conundrums is character. There does seem to be a P vs J divide in Jungian terms. As both James and Nietzsche pointed out, a person’s character influences their taste in metaphysics. Some want a bow tie and firm boundaries and feel comfortable living in a gated community. Others have a love for an eternal mystery. I recently read Stephen Hawking’s “Gödel and the End of Physics” https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/godel-and-the-end-of-physics where he ends with the endless mystery might not be so bad after all. In the beginning of that article he says
“Will we ever find a complete form of the laws of nature? By a complete form, I mean a set of rules that in principle at least enable us to predict the future to an arbitrary accuracy, knowing the state of the universe at one time. A qualitative understanding of the laws has been the aim of philosophers and scientists, from Aristotle onwards. But it was Newton's Principia Mathematica in 1687, containing his theory of universal gravitation that made the laws quantitative and precise. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been expressed by Laplace.”
He seems to have had a hard hanker after the hardening of his categories. All my life I have spoken with scientists and there are two holy of holies. One is reductionism and the other is some form of foundationalism to avoid turtles all the way down. I see panpsychism and supervenience to be more recent examples to avoid the horror of mysterianism not to mention the unmentionable, panentheism, which I find somewhat attractive. My main motivation is the desire for humans to survive without becoming cyborgs or whatever the creatures were in Steven Spielberg’s movie “AI”. I’m talking near (next one or two hundred years) future because of the incredible complexity of the “material” constraints on life itself. Maybe building our own evolutionary pathway is inevitable but we are too ignorant to be doing that now. Right now, finding a peaceful way or at least minimally destructive path forward seems much more important. There is a deep need for science that can actually help in that regard. More WMDs and poisons to kill the undesirables is literally a dead end.
I saw two videos on quantum gravity, few days back. On TOE Curt Jaimangal's channel he talked to Carlo Rovelli about loop quantum, and on Anton Petrov channel he descibed a now 'cubit' or popcorn theory of quantum theory. Visualsxwere great.
Both made quantum gravity so easy to understand that I just thought, well PREHENSION must start even at quantum level AS GRAVITY itself. The entanglement of loops or cubits rolling towards each other...isnt that a kind of prehension. The ideal-lure of ultimate consciousness, or the creative principle, do these show it begins at quantum level.?
Yes exactly! I’ve published a chapter on Whitehead and Rovelli in this open-access book, “Time and Experience in Physics and Philosophy”: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110753707-016/html
Omg Matt... thats brilliant...serendipity working.
And the prehensile ‘feeling’ attraction of reconciling opposites responsible for the creation of hydrogen.
If that is the case it reminds me Bruce Damers theory of how life originated in hot springs. The dried mats of chemical life start interacting to produce proteins.
Well I do love making connections across disciplines. Synchronicity... yes... Bruce was on my radar years ago. And now, studying Whitehead through you is deepening my journey profoundly. Its just lovely you are teamed up together.
Surely you must also know about my coauthored chapter with Bruce?
Sorry, I did not know….so glad you know the work of Bruce.
I just love studying…I do so through YouTube, and found your work.
I’m just surprised you keep making connections without realizing I’ve written on precisely that! The synchronicities continue. https://footnotes2plato.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/segall-damer-the-cosmological-context-of-the-origin-of-life.pdf
There is a brain that modulates the physical and the metaphysical. If your brain has been fed, watered, and sheltered and you have access to social media platforms like Substack, your brain begins to get positive reinforcement bathed in neurochemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and if you indulge yourself in a daily exercise routine, endorphins.
In contrast, if your family does not have proper nutrition, water every day, safe shelter from nature and other desperate men without access to social media platforms like Substack, your brain becomes foggy, angry, and violent…not because this is who you are but because society has neglected you and the ones you love.
I am a population scientist trained based upon the teachings of Hippocrates, Florence Nightingale, and Jonas Salk:
1. DO NO HARM
2. Wash your hands.
3. Be fully vaccinated.
Everything else is your opinion.
“Life cannot be opposed to death; death must be another phase of life.”
I think you mean well Matt, but I see something sinister in this. I guess it begs the question
“Why can life not be opposed to death?”
Because death is an essential part of the whole which is Life.
What would you say death is?
Or perhaps there are particles of consciousness that have experiences through the paths of relations