KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA60 (Grandpierre)

Commentary 2

LET US UNDO DESCARTES' SUBJECT/OBJECT SPLIT
Physics With Subjects Versus MIR-Pan-Psychism
by Herbert FJ Müller
10 June 2003, posted 1 July 2003

<1>
ABSTRACT

This commentary looks at your proposal from a working-ontology point of view. I agree that materialism poses problems of understanding, but the main reason is that it excludes the subject (the observer), and only secondarily, as a consequence of this, that it generalizes a principle of inert matter. It is suggested that subject-inclusive physical laws are more to the point for dealing with the problems posed by materialism than is a hylozoism which tries to compensate for the missing subject by attributing instincts to mind-independent atoms, particles, and other natural entities. (A subject-inclusive reality might also be seen as a pan-psychism, but then the subject provides the pan-psyche.)

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<2>
My main response to your thesis, which deals with the ontological structure of reality and the origin of physical laws, is the question : what happens to it if the traditional ontology notion (which you use) is replaced by working ontology ?

<3>
As I have suggested on earlier occasions (see for instance TA57), the traditional metaphysics (ontology) concept - basically the assumption of a mind-independently pre-structured reality (MIR) - is useful only as a conceptual shortcut procedure, and without special provisions it can produce problems when used to deal with certain questions. In working ontology the MIR-ontological structure of reality [1] is replaced by pragmatic structuring (as in epistemological or radical constructivism*). This does not change much for many practical purposes, but it eliminates the possibility of claims of fundamental (MIR) validity for ontological assertions.

<4>
In the following I will apply this working ontology (or zero-derivation, 0-D, which means that we structure everything from no given ready-made structures) to some of the points which you discuss in your paper. Many aspects of your proposal too are not, or only slightly, affected by this change, but a few are greatly changed. Evidently we are in that view more responsible for what we think, do and believe, and this fits with your alpha viewpoint [4] but since we don't live in isolation, the social aspect is important as well [5-6]. (I am not sure whether you mean these two views to be opposed to each other, and if so why.)

<5>
Materialism [7-8] (natural philosophy [33]) is usually a naive MIR-view, and leads into Cartesian blind alleys. More explicitly, it is impossible to know about anything other than one's own subjective mind-and-nature experience (SE) - this implies not solipsism, but that the subject is always involved, together with others and the world. The beliefs in a mind-independent nature work to some degree for many purposes, but are (or should be) "as-if" in type. They are extrapolations from the working structures we have created inside ongoing experience. For instance we extrapolate toward the past and future, assuming that what works for us now also did or will do then. Or : many events, e.g, in physics [9], can be treated as-if they were mind-independent (but this can create problems in particle physics, for instance).

<6>
The central problem posed by materialism and similar views is thus not a principle of inert matter [42], but an implication that subject and object are primarily separated (the notion of inert matter as being primordial is one of its consequences). This produces an amputation of subjectivity (or of what you call spirituality) in the MIR-view. The result is, as you point out [43], self-contradictory. But we ought to acknowledge that subject and object are only secondarily split, for practical reasons. A correction requires not that MIR-matter is alive (hylozoism, including the sun, etc., as a living system [31-32]), but rather a recognition that, from beginning to end, we subjects are always in the picture, even in case we (as scientists in particular) think and act as-if we were not. It is the extirpation of the subject which leads, as you put it [20], to "a huge and uncontrolled extrapolation of the properties of [supposedly mind-independent] matter", obscuring the main questions.

<7>
The development of life [10-12] I would say does not present particular conceptual problems. The difference between inanimate and life events can actually be described in MIR-objective terms. To my knowledge the origin of life is mainly tied to the occurrence of favorable circumstances : suitable temperatures, presence of water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, electrolytes, magnesium, etc., which allowed the formation of complex molecules (specifically those of formation of chlorophyll, which strongly absorbs sunlight, and thus makes life less dependent on local energy sources) and then mechanisms for self-reproduction.

<8>
This development of life has a chance aspect (as does everything else), but it is less clear to me that the chances were very small [14,30] - it might even have been almost inevitable. (For a review of Hoyle's panspermia theory [14] see Korthof.) Aromatic compounds have been found in some asteroids, and seem to have formed under much less favorable conditions than on earth. Perhaps we will hear more about this in the coming decades. The life principles [41] are self-organization and self-reproduction (what you call [52], with Bauer, a deeper organizing principle), but powered by energy flow from the sun.

<9>
It seems to me that it is neither helpful nor possible to conclude on the basis of statistical reasoning that the appearance of life is a miracle [12]. To do so introduces an unnecessary mystification, which among other things might discourage pertinent studies. Life processes do not contradict physical laws; all living systems on earth depend on the flow of energy from the sun's radiation, including their "free energy" [34], which consists of temporary energy stores in the form of carbo-hydrates, fat, etc. The stores are built up in the living system - somewhat similar to the effect of hydro-power dams across a river - and can be used (to perform work [36]) when needed, according to various organizing principles [39]. But the stores will need to be re-filled from outside the system if life is to continue. The difference between a waterfall and (human or other) life [35-36] is self-organization within the flow of the energy stream.

<10>
Subjective experience, in contrast, can not be described MIR-objectively, and this impossibility defeats attempts to "explain" consciousness, etc. To think that this is possible means - unlikely as such a proposition may appear - the assumption of a mind-independent mind. (Of course no one says that explicitly, but it is implied in many assertions; other materialists make astonishing announcements, such as that the subject does not exist, or is identical with the brain, etc.) SE is first, and cannot be a consequence of, or reduced to, mind-independent entities or processes, which themselves are created within SE. If this situation is ignored, stalemate will always result. One has to distinguish clearly between human reasoning and life processes more generally, which start very much earlier, e.g., chlorophyll action.

<11>
"How can a spiritual principle exert a material effect ?" [45] Physical laws are mental mind-and-nature structures we create inside SE in order to deal with regularities in ongoing experience - which agrees with Eddington's view [50]. This is fundamentally not different from taste or Gestalt perception; one might see it as its extension, and they all imply the subject. They work within limits that need to be determined. The scientific principles try to describe (or maybe we better say to structure) the physical experiences, but they do not cause them [46] (see TA57[72]). "Cause" itself is such a principle of description.

<12>
The statement concerning Feynman's paths [47] is somewhat puzzling. I do not understand the mathematics of this, but it seems to deal with the probability for a particle to go from one place to, or rather to be found at, another one. So it is about probability of experience, as specified by Feynman's formula. But why does one need the particle's "virtual going over all possible routes" - and what is that intended to mean in the first place ? The mind-independent particle is as-if fiction. The problem with physical laws only comes in when you try [51] to go beyond "phenomena" (i.e., structures within SE) to a fictitious MIR-particle world.

<13>
I agree with the contiguity of natural (animal) consciousness and human self-consciousness [53]. Human function is, as you say, less rigidly determined on biological grounds than the instinctual function of animals, but this added freedom calls for guidelines, such as provided for instance by religion, by customs, etc. To ascribe instinctual functions to atoms and to nature in general is, in contrast, not warranted. In your proposal it serves to compensate for the missing subject in physical MIR-theory. The latter problem I would think can be more suitably dealt with by changing from MIR-ontology to working ontology.

<14>
In other words, I suggest the cure for materialism is not : to attribute spirituality or consciousness to fictitious mind-independent atomic particles, or to a fictitious MIR-nature-in-general, in a sort of MIR-pan-psychism. That is a manifestation of a recent trend toward implausibility that can be found in proposals by a variety of authors - likely in reaction to the demise of the exclusive objectivity view - who nevertheless want to avoid starting from subject-inclusive mind-and-nature experience.

<15>
A better way is not to amputate (or more accurately : to re-insert) the subject at the beginning of the irreducible SE, where it (she, he) always is and belongs. A hidden obstacle to this change - aside from the wish for an outside authority as a source of stability and certainty - might be that this answer appears too simple for many philosophers as well as scientists (the Cartesian subject/object split is a bit like the weather : everybody talks about it, but no one does anything about it). But one should also add that epistemological constructivism, which can deal with this point in principle, is still in a fledgling state, and will need more study concerning many of its conceptual aspects.

<16>
The omni-presence of the subject could perhaps be said to result in another kind of pan-psychism. But in that case it will have to be a 0-D-pan-psychism in which the subject provides the pan-psyche, and from which the notion of mind-independent reality is banned except as a temporary conceptual (as-if) shortcut. Let us not forget that we are talking here about a mind-and-nature-experience that is undivided to start with. That is to say, nature is separated from the subject only in a pragmatic fashion - we are always talking about the whole, any compartments are secondary and pragmatic.

I would be much interested in your response to these remarks.

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REFERENCES

* For instance, TAs 17 and 43 by E von Glasersfeld

Korthof Gert, A Knighted Astronomer's Fight Against Neo-Darwinism, Using Mathematics As His Weapon (Review of F. Hoyle, Mathematics of Evolution, 1999)

http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho46.htm

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Herbert FJ Muller