Summary of Chapter 6
Physics and Neutral Monism -a
New perspective
My approach to physics has been dominated, naturally enough, by what I take to
be the nature of the larger reality. The mind-set that it engenders leads
to completely different anticipations of what's probably 'out there' awaiting discovery.
I will do no more in this introduction than present a simple listing. The
reader wishing to learn more about the kind of neutral monism I have in mind
will find it in Neutral_Monism
A thorough treatment of the subject will be presented in a separate website
currently in course of preparation.
O A
replacement of the current Irrealist overview with a Neorealism -of somewhat
Bohmian character.
O
Second is a sea change in ontology -that from the present-day proclaimed self-sufficiency
to one of an ongoing Platonic dependence. This leads to some quite
specific notions about how wave functions, particles and the space (conceived an
a neo-aether) in which they reside are interrelated.
O
Fulfilling the requirements of a strong version of the Anthropic Principle that
my Neutral Monism calls for, very strongly urges the adoption of a progressive
change in the value of the velocity of light -the 'constant' c- as a way of
interpreting the super novae type 1a observations. This dispels the
otherwise coincidental nature of the observation that at the present time, omega has a value
of unity. In its absence, or of some other adequate interpretation, the eschatology that I have in mind could never reach fulfillment. (It also allows us to dodge
the currently accepted 'inflationary' phase of cosmic expansion conceived to account for
the otherwise mysterious macro uniformity of the cosmos)
O
The progressive take over of the cosmos by organic forms, terminating in a
convergence to a single living being- has led me to make some suggestions about the contrasting roles of leptonic and hadronic matter
in the real of cosmic existence
The neorealism I am proposing, though necessarily unlike that of the classical realism of the nineteenth
century, is yet something to which an enlightened commonsense can accommodate
itself, and feel comfortable with. Specifically, Copenhagen quantum physics
has been replaced by something resembling what David Bohm had in mind. And
the very simple act of lowering the status of the Minkowski manifold from ontic
to epistemic status does wonders in restoring sanity -for the way in which it purges
physics from the contamination of science fiction. Physics is currently
about physics, not about physical reality..
In a completely separate category are my very specific suggestions about how the
corpus of the lex naturalis should be extended in specific support of the
manifest performance of life in general and the mind in particular. This
calls for both an extension of classical matter into an exotic form; and a set
of rules for the kind of field domains to which they give rise. Nothing
resembling any kind of Cartesian disjunction is being proposed; rather,
the exotic forms are seen as arising from the classical through an analogue of
the kind of phase changes with which we are all familiar -as when we boil a
kettle of water. In other words, the two comprise a single continuum with respect
to all aspects of matter, field forms and the principles of logic/mathematics
under which they operate. In particular I postulate a theory of 'sub
resonance' in which π- and lone pair electrons, as found in
both the protein molecule backbone and the four bases of DNA, pass into a
confluence to produce a novel, cortex-wide field. The theory
is open to empirical interrogation; I describe one such powerful enough to
be considered an experimentum
crucis. Though involving Karlovian surgery of a kind
which no one would want to undertake, it points the way towards alternative
modes of confirmation. For a great deal more on this, go to
Psyche.pdf (Page 24 onwards) on my companion
"Personhood" website in course of construction
It is of interest to note that this proposed extension is pure science,
having little to do either with metaphysical or ontological presuppositions.
That it is being ignored by the pace-setters of the present paradigm is
something of an open scandal. Their refusal to acknowledge the bankruptcy
of both the Artificial Intelligence movement, and of Neo-Darwinism as a theory
sufficient to account for evolution leaves them with the quite hopeless
task of making do with the meager resources at their disposal. Their
attempts of demonstrating the possibility of the impossible has called for a
combination of dubious strategies. We may list domain theft (stealing
the middle ground); their appeal to a gaggle of catachreses, panchrestons
and at times, just plain mantras; Among these may be listed: Memes, Anastomotic Networks, Cellular Automata, Chaos,
Fractals, Holograms, Heuristics, Complex Adaptive Systems, Fuzzy Logic, Ilya
Prigogine's 'New Thermodynamics' -and above all, that infinitely malleable
concept -'Emergence'. And finally are their abuses of modal logic.
Taken together, they are disarming for the way in which they are proclaimed by
those who take themselves to be the paragons of open-minded rationality. I hope the reader will forgive me when I open a
companion page set -The Intellectual Scrutinized- with this quotation form Voltaire: "A
fool who thinks himself wise is a fool indeed".
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