MINIMAL METAPHYSICAL PHYSICALISM vs. PANPSYCHISMS AND MONISMS: Beyond Mind-Body Dualism
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph. D., Dr. phil.
Any one kind of smallest substance cannot be fixed upon by any realistic theory or experiment. Everything is in process, in all its near-infinitesimal parts, none of the parts of which ever stops being bodily and hence further processual within. If not bodily, it can only be non-existent, vacuous.
Hence, I hold that physical and biologically physical causal effects are not reducible to any a-tomic or monadic substance, but instead, processual-structurally generalizable to the metaphysically minimally physical level of the processual structure of activity to be found in any existent and in any part of it.
This is to be so just because any physically bodied process should constitutionally and structurally be reducible to its Extension and Change, and because otherwise the process itself cannot exist. This is the basis of Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP). I shall explain this Extension-Change requirement here in just a few sentences.
Nothing can exist without obeying the physical-ontological conditions of existence, namely, that the entity should be extended (be in Extension), i.e., must have finite parts, and these entities and their parts must exert impacts outwards and inwards (be in Change). Otherwise, there will be only absolute vacuum, non-entity. Extension and Change are the minimal Categories of all existents. Extension-Change-wise existence is Causality, i.e., existent bodily parts constantly cause impacts on a finite number of other similar entities. Hence, all existents are universally causal. A unit of causation with a causal and an effect part is a Process.
Thus, we shift the concentration of physicalism beyond merely physical properties, onto the minimum necessary physical-ontological Categories. Categories are not properties. Properties are admixtures of many ontological universals (ways of being of processes), whereas Categories are the conditions for the possibility of existence.
Processual-constitutionally and structurally reducible but ever finitely novelty-contributive causal effects by both human consciousness and machine-driven intelligence too are physical in the broadly metaphysical sense of being existent in Extension and Change. Hence, there cannot be vacuously transmitted information; it must be based on and transmitted in terms of Extension-Change-wise causally and processual existent energy propagations.
Note also that MMP is not pure physicalism or materialism. It implies only that vacuous existence is impossible. Hence, it does not preclude the existence of the Divine or the development of the psyche into a future-eternal continuity of growth in whatever activity it is involved in. But MMP insists that the Divine cannot be a pure vacuum.
For the above reasons, I characterize as metaphysically less aware and scientistically overloaded all sorts of statements like in: (1) the theories of reduction of information into something mysterious, and (2) careless expressions about the constitution and structure of what is called information while terming information as something non-specific and as different from matter and energy.
Thus, by MMP, even information is based on something non-vacuously existing with finite Extension and Change. If the totality of some physical or biologically physical energy-communications is called information, information does not become something different from physical. But information is not a physical existent, it is just a connotative concatenation of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of energy propagations and material processes. Connotative concatenations of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of matter-energy is not only conceptual but also expressed in terms of symbolic languages. These media may be the various forms of language, including mathematics, computer algorithms, etc.
I argue that this is true of both biologically brain-based and merely physically machine-based information – otherwise, their physical base would have to be vacuously non-existent, after their other causally related components have been recognized as fully causal and physical. A transfer from causal physicality to non-causal non-physicality is impossible.
Anything extended and thus is non-vacuously in existence consists of matter-energy (or, if it is anything else, that too must be extended and active). Hence, the mind / spirit too must be out of something simultaneously extended and active – only that there are stages of differentiation between matter-energy as things and matter-energy as consciousness. In that case, why not we call it all as matter-energy, or at least as extended and changing? This is the version of physicalism that I call Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP).
MMP agrees with a minimum number of aspects (Extension, Change, and their togetherness as Causality) belongs to crass physicalism and aims to see that the conscious is a fully causal but mechanistically non-reductionist outgrowth that can continue with its own evolution in connection with its environment, whatever the environment is.
Panpsychisms:I discuss in this context also panpsychism in order to veer clear of the ‘non-physical ether’ sort of theories of the nature of information. Panpsychism in general is the school of thought that thinks that either (1) everything fundamentally is but mind / spirit, or (2) everything has a mental / spiritual aspect, or (3) everything will at some time become partially mental / spiritual, or (4) everything will at some time in the future become fully mental / spiritual.
Case (1), as in the previous paragraph, faces the question of why it need not be taken as matter-energy. Case (2) has at least empirical problems of evidence.
Cases (3) and (4) are suspect because no reason may be adduced as to why everything must be mental without the sustaining aspect as extended and active matter-energy. The question is as to why everything discontinues being physical matter-energy or becomes just mental energy, maybe at various levels, without material support to be in and to propagate from.
Note that in all these cases the word ‘everything’ is clearly to be used due to the ‘pan-’ of panpsychism. Moreover, if as in (4), everything evolves into being fully mental, there will then come a stage where nothing more is in the purely non-mental matter-energy form for them to evolve into the mental in a physical manner. The arguments get into an irresolvable vicious circle.
In all these cases, there is the tenable possibility of asking ironically whether there exists in panpsychism any metaphysically, physically, and biologically acceptable criterion by which the otherwise so-called non-mental is to be considered as at least elementarily conscious.
There is a further problem. If everything existent would ever become conscious, semi-conscious, or very partially conscious, it would take an infinite duration of time, (1) given the probable case that everything existed from all eternity, and (2) given the eventuality of the rationally more probable cosmological case that everything is being created in finite or infinite amounts into the mode of physical existence of finite causation. I do not discuss such question here, since the same will be treated in another book-length study. [Neelamkavil 2018 deals with related possibilities from the cosmological viewpoint.]
To put the matter short: Whatever the extent of absorption of everything in the cosmos is supposed be by the mental, the absorption cannot be absolute. The whole physical cannot be converted into mental energy, conscious subtle energy, etc. at any time. That is, the eternal recurrence theory has no basis. At any given time with respect to the local time of any part of the cosmos, the physical aspect will continue to exist, and of course also the mental. The latter will be only in those environments which physically evolve into becoming conducive to the evolution of physical elements into biologically physical beings.
Monisms: Monism is the theory that insists that everything existent must be either fully matter-energy or fully mind. The arguments in the case of absolutely reductionist physicalism and panpsychism apply also here without exception. This is not to speak of mystical monisms like some of the highpoints in Hindu philosophies (I am not speaking of the practice in the Hindu religion which consists of many religions, but of some philosophical trends), some Western philosophies, and above all, New Age religions of universal energy.
In the main versions of Hinduism, somehow the Other and the Self have to be one at the level of absolute truth and different at the level of relative truth. Such a discussion is beyond the purview of this discussion. The argument I suggest below is not so simple as to resist surprising details for further discussion.
If the cosmos and the Ātmán are identical with Bráhman at the level of absolute truth and are somehow different at the level of relative truth, there is much contradiction. If, as physical beings, we can even imagine the absolute truth, then we can have some access to it! In this case, the cosmos and the Ātmán need to be identical with Bráhman. But there are also the pragmatic-level differences, which are unthinkably different from the so-conceived identity!
In this case, in any sort of theory, monism does not work harmoniously with the physical nature of the cosmos.
In this case, in any sort of theory, monism does not work harmoniously with the physical nature of the cosmos.
This much for the time being!
(The section on Monisms and their interpretation in terms of MMP will continue to develop. I shall constantly update this part of the text and wherever it is deemed appropriate.)
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
Panexperiential materialism is very attractive. The only doubt is whether intentionality as aboutness has been resolved here. I have been trying to solve this problem by use of 3 types of universals and their connections. I need further to work on it a lot, may be for decades, to develop the system into a few separate books. I find some clarity there. At the present phase, this theory is part of one forthcoming book. That is all.
Any one kind of smallest substance cannot be fixed upon by any realistic theory or experiment. Everything is in process, in all its near-infinitesimal parts, none of the parts of which ever stops being bodily and hence further processual within. If not bodily, it can only be non-existent, vacuous.
What is your take on this?
I am conversant with both these thinkers. My opinion has always been that Whitehead does more justice to causality than Polanyi. What is the problem in including within the horizon of an actual entity / occasion all that may be thought to have gone to the whole past proper of that entity? Why remain restricted to just the immediate environment? If the biological practice (for that matter in all the sciences) is to restrict causes and evolution to the immediate environment, does that become science or crass pragmatism?
I began my serious reading in philosophy with Russell' Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, and then Whitehead's Process and Reality.
But such a concept of causality excludes not only in practice but also in theory the major portion of the causal horizon of the processes at issue! For immediate scientific success this is acceptable. But for theoretical purposes this sort of theoretical exclusion is silly!
Whitehead's reference-point for the evolution of the brain is not God. It is just biological evolution, whatever it is. He introduced God as the ultimate parallel-to-the-world explanation (1) for the teleological temper in actual entities at their own specific final realization as they themselves, and (2) as the receptacle of realization of the universals (which he called eternal objects after the platonic concept of them), more or less as perfections. There are other reasons too. But this sort of a God is not very important.
Forgetting this aspect, it is important to stress that Whitehead stressed the whole causal horizon, of course in terms of the ontological principle, category of Creativity, etc.
Note that MMP is not pure physicalism or materialism. It implies only that vacuous existence is impossible.
Thus, by MMP, even information is based on something non-vacuously existing with finite Extension and Change. If the totality of some physical or biologically physical energy-communications is called information, information does not become something different from physical. But information is not a physical existent, it is just a connotative concatenation of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of energy propagations and material processes. Connotative concatenations of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of matter-energy is not only conceptual but also expressed in terms of symbolic languages. These media may be the various forms of language, including mathematics, computer algorithms, etc.
Do Electromagnetic and Gravitational Quanta (EM Quanta and Gravitons) Gravitate from Within?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_Electromagnetic_and_Gravitational_Quanta_EM_Quanta_and_Gravitons_Gravitate_from_Within
I have been revising this short discussion paper of mine in RG. It is an attempt to correct some basic attitudes in physics. Just now I have written an introduction to it. Please read it here. In a few days I shall upload the whole lead-text of this discussion for your reading and comments. Here please find only the introduction:
FOUNDATIONS OF AXIOMATIC PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
1. INTRODUCTION
I get surprised each time when some physicists tell me that either the electromagnetic (EM) or the gravitational (G) or both the forms of energy do not exist, but are to be treated or expressed as waves or particles propagated from material objects that of course exist. Some of them put in all their energies to show that both EM and G are mere mathematical fields, and not physically existent fields of energy propagations from bodies.
This is similar in effect to Newton and his followers thinking honestly and religiously that gravitation and other energies are just miraculously non-bodily actions at a distance without any propagation particles / wavicles.
Even in the 21stcentury, we must be sharply aware that from the past more than 120 years the General Theory of Relativity and its various versions have succeeded in casting and maintaining the power of a terrifying veil of mathematical miracles on the minds of many scientists – miracles such as the mere spacetime curvature being the meaning of gravitation and all other sorts of fields.
A similar veil has been installed on the minds of many physicists by quantum physics too. We do not discuss it here. Hence, I have constructed in four published books a systemic manner of understanding these problems. I do not claim perfection in any of my attempts. Hence, I keep perfecting my efforts in the course of years. The following is a very short attempt to summarize in this effort one important point in physics and in the philosophy of physics.
Questioning the Foundations of Physical Constants, Properties, and Qualities
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Questioning_the_Foundations_of_Physical_Constants_Properties_and_Qualities
In my opinion, it is a philosophy without limits, without practical interest, which does not lead everywhere.
In my opinion, it is a philosophy of physics and cosmology with great practical interest, leads to a realistic manner of interpreting the results of both cosmology and microphysics, helps avoid fantastic and absurd conclusions, etc.
How to Ground Science and Philosophy Together Axiomatically?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_Ground_Science_and_Philosophy_Together_Axiomatically
Dr Raphael Neelamkavil, you are right if there are clear and useful results and deductions for the human kind in both, the metaphysical physicalism and the panpsychism.
Symmetry: A Subset of Universal Causality. The Difference between Cause and Reason
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Symmetry_A_Subset_of_Universal_Causality_The_Difference_between_Cause_and_Reason
This discussion-text is just 2.5 pages, but intense. Meant for those who are interested in a clear presentation of what symmetry and symmetry breaking are, and of how physicists and mathematicians tend to misunderstand and/or misuse these concepts.
The Universally Causal context of the concept of symmetry is explained in terms of a solidly founded system of differentiation between cause and reason.
The Fallacies of Space, Time, and Spacetime in Physics
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Fallacies_of_Space_Time_and_Spacetime_in_Physics
Physical and Exact Sciences and Axiomatic Philosophy: Introducing Grounding (long text)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Physical_and_Exact_Sciences_and_Axiomatic_Philosophy_Introducing_Grounding_long_text
Causality and Statistics: Their Levels of Effect and of Explanation
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Causality_and_Statistics_Their_Levels_of_Effect_and_of_Explanation
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox and Non-Locality: Is Einstein a Monist?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen_Paradox_and_Non-Locality_Is_Einstein_a_Monist
Spacetime Curvatures, Gravitational Waves, Gravitons, and Anti-Gravitons: Do They All Exist?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Spacetime_Curvatures_Gravitational_Waves_Gravitons_and_Anti-Gravitons_Do_They_All_Exist
The Fate of “Source-Independence” in Electromagnetism, Gravitation, and Monopoles
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Fate_of_Source-Independence_in_Electromagnetism_Gravitation_and_Monopoles
If anyone wants to read about a fantastic concept of the existence of consciousness and non-existence of the cosmos, see the comments till today here, by L Kurt Engelhart.......!!! Here you can learn the meaning of solipsism......
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_philosophize_How_to_philosophize_in_the_sciences
Essential Reason in Physicists’ Use of Logic: And in Other Sciences Too!
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Essential_Reason_in_Physicists_Use_of_Logic_And_in_Other_Sciences_Too
Preprint ESSENTIAL REASON IN PHYSICISTS' USE OF LOGIC: IN OTHER SCIENCES TOO
How Does Physics Know? The Epistemology Presupposed by Physics and Other Sciences
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_Does_Physics_Know_The_Epistemology_Presupposed_by_Physics_and_Other_Sciences
Preprint MATHEMATICAL SOURCE OF FLAWS IN COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES: MATHE...
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PHYSICAL-PROCESSUAL REPRESENTATION OF IRRATIONAL NUMBERS
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Physical-Processual_Representation_of_Irrational_Numbers
THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS
3.1. Traditional Physical Categories
https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_Ontology_behind_Physics
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Grounded_Physical-Ontological_Categories_behind_Physics
Grounded (New) Physical-Ontological Categories behind Physics
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https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_SIMPLE_GAME-CHANGER_CAUSALITY_FOR_PHYSICS_Beyond_the_Two_Millennia
https://www.researchgate.net/post/DEFINITION_OF_THE_ONTOLOGY_BEHIND_PHYSICS_5_Paragraphs
DEFINITION OF THE ONTOLOGY BEHIND PHYSICS (5 Paragraphs)
THE ANOMALY IN MATHEMATICAL / THEORETICAL PHYSICS (Short Text)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/THE_ANOMALY_IN_MATHEMATICAL_THEORETICAL_PHYSICS_Short_Text
Here a serious and somewhat complex matter to discuss:
NON-FOUNDATIONS OF ‘WAVICLES’ IN EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN PARADOX: Bases for Quantum Physics to Evolve (Maybe a physical-ontological Breakthrough)
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NON-FOUNDATIONS_OF_WAVICLES_IN_EINSTEIN-PODOLSKY-ROSEN_PARADOX_Bases_for_Quantum_Physics_to_Evolve_Maybe_a_physical-ontological_Breakthrough
AGAINST COSMIC ISOTROPY, CONFORMAL CYCLIC COSMOS, ETERNAL INFLATION, etc.: A Critique of Identity, Simultaneity, Cosmic Repetition / Recycling, etc.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/AGAINST_COSMIC_ISOTROPY_CONFORMAL_CYCLIC_COSMOS_ETERNAL_INFLATION_etc_A_Critique_of_Identity_Simultaneity_Cosmic_Repetition_Recycling_etc
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https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHAT_IS_THE_MYSTERIOUS_STUFF_OF_INFORMATION_A_Short_but_Clear_Definition
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Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted
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One problem with which I grapple in the present discussion is as to whether consciousness is simultaneously (1) completely physical (not meaning merely dependent on physical explanations, but also fully existent as a physical process) and (2) additionally also qualified by some specifically consciousness-type properties that are characterized biological causation that is far advanced from merely physical causation.
But how to reconcile them both together in one explanation?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/ONTOLOGICAL_DIFFERENCES_OF_CHARACTERISTICS_OF_ARTIFICIAL_AND_BIOLOGICAL_INTELLIGENCE_ALGORITHMS_AND_PROCEDURES_Against_Exaggerations
“If perception is input from the world to the mind and action is output from the mind to the world, then the mind as distinct from the world is what the input is to and what the output is from. So, despite the web of causal relations between organisms and environments, we suppose the mind must be in a separate place, within some boundary that sets it apart from the world.” [Susan L. Hurley, Consciousness in Action, 1998: 2]
And can consciousness / mind be of the same status as information? I doubt.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/WHY_EXACTLY_THE_WAVE-PARTICLE_DUALITY_Phenomenal_Ontological_Commitment_POC_as_the_Solution
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https://www.researchgate.net/post/DOES_CONSCIOUSNESS_EXIST_OR_IS_IT_LIKE_INFORMATION_A_Very_Short_Text_for_Discussion
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