KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA63 (Leslie / Rees)

Commentary 35 (to Muller, C26)

A CONCEPTUAL PROBLEM
by Joseph Johnson
21 February 2004, posted 28 February 2004

<1>
HJFM{5} A conceptual problem here is that the subjective, individual and collective <18>, and divine, purposefulness and design do not translate easily into a God- and mind-free agency like "nature".

JJ: If I understand correctly, the physical sciences define "nature" as the content of the physical world, and that "natural order" refers to the scientific description of the innumerable levels of complexity of that content.

<2>
PROCESS VS. CONTENT

Abstraction theory, (AT) takes a different perspective. While inclusive of the content of the sciences, AT is primarily the science of cosmos as a "process" of the integral and coherent whole. It is all the same "reality" but viewed in terms of process rather than content.

<3>
Because AT is a science of process rather than content, it is less confused by the parsing of "IS-ness" that is emphasized in the perspective of content. From the perspective of AT, we don't need words like God, divine, sacred, etc., or the notion that design is "by someone." There is only what "IS" appears to be doing. "Appearance" is adequate because it is only through such metaphor that we comprehend and find meaning.

<4>
Process is a much more meaningful perspective than content. It implies an implicit necessity given explicit expression. It implies cause and direction, with the possibility of purpose and meaning - subjective qualities that suggest explanations of our first-person experience without the need to invoke explicit phantoms like god, divine intervention, design-by, etc.

<5>
SUBJECTIVITY

One may ask, "Where in physical order do we find subjectivity? We already KNOW that physical order is entirely objective." Wrong. We find the constraint of subjectivity right at the top of physical order, straight out of creation. When physics explored up the energy scale it found that each of the forces of nature were subsumed at different levels, each giving way to a simpler structure. Unfortunately, quantum theory and its mathematic provided numerous plausible alternatives that might describe the simpler structure at the higher energy at each level, but could not point to the correct one.

<6>
It turns out that "there are symmetry principles that dictate the very existence of all the known forces of nature." (Weinberg) Only when the symmetry rule was applied was the correct path found. In other words, particulars of symmetry are explicit in all conservation law, and obviously constrain the kind of universe that can exist. Symmetry is a subjective quality, primarily aesthetic, that essentially defines the coherence of natural order, both in content and in process. No small thing, symmetry.

<7>
AT tells us that if symmetry has objective particulars that make coherent all the forces and so laws of nature, then it must also have subjective abstracts relating to harmony, beauty, etc.; qualities that obviously appeal to our emotions and give direction to our creativity.

<8>
Of all possible random universes, upon ours has been imposed the subjective design constraint of symmetry. With this in mind, it is not clear that symmetry would not be imposed upon any universe, so that ours is really the only possible kind. In other words symmetry is an attribute of ground; a subjective imperative of natural order: what "IS."

<9>
We find that the lack or presence of the qualities of symmetry and its abstracts in our experience translates into the quality and direction of our objective and subjective creativity. This is because our emotions were selected, along with our analytic faculties, all to the same purpose. The objective footprint of that purpose is to sustain the indefinite evolution of system complexity as our level of learning (or lack thereof) directs. If we confine our learning and our perspective to the meaningless content and deny the meaningful process, we have lost our way.

<10>
AT says that symmetry and its higher abstracts define the qualities of "what IS." This seems to translate quite well into the metaphors of human experience and intuition over the ages, however burdened with mythology.

<11>
Again, the materialist view of "nature" is one of content (MIR). Science is flawed in that it denies the relevance of the process view, totally ignoring its own utter dependence upon the subjective constraint of symmetry without which it could never complete its cosmology.

<12>
Ground, Natural order, is fundamentally subjective. Its potential becomes objective only with the imposition of dimensional constraints that give form to its energy and the appearance of differences. Because of these constraints, the process of expression of the implicit imperative can never be complete, but the qualities of ground can be learned, approached asymptotically through the first-person perspective of AT.

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Joseph Johnson