KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA 63 (Leslie / Rees)

Commentary 36 (to C35, Johnson)

FEARFUL SYMMETRY ?
by Herbert FJ Müller
21 February 2004, posted 13 March 2004

Just a few notes on your interesting comment.

Your distinction of process and content <2> is helpful. Can one say that the contents are the product of the process ? As I understand it, the contents are (in principle temporary) fixations, needed for structure and stability. The next question is then : whose process ? It has to be a personal process, but with feedback constraints during use of the created contents.

<5> We find "subjectivity right at the top of physical order" - agreed. Another way of putting that is to say that the subject-object split is pragmatic and secondary rather than given and primary, and the subject is therefore an aspect of all reality.

Symmetry (Weinberg) <6> seems to refer to quantum processes, e.g., concerning particles and anti-particles. As I understand it this is based on an assumption of mind-independent nature. In case that leads to a theory of everything, it would implicitly exclude the subject - i.e., a theory of everything except the mind.

I agree that symmetry has implications for esthetics, etc., but so far as I can see the physical theories must be judged by how well they work. If they are also beautiful, so much the better, but one should not jump to conclusions.

For instance <8> our lives would seem to depend on asymmetry : if we came in contact with a sufficient amount of anti-matter, that would be the end of the earth and of us.

I agree with your formulation in <11>. But I would say that one should see natural order as subject-inclusive rather than subjective <12>, which sounds solipsistic. This distinction is clear if one understands the subject-object split as secondary (pragmatic).

Your vocabulary is reminiscent of Whitehead's, could you comment on that ?

The assumption of a mind-independent nature leads to intractable complications. A good example of that is I think the recent paper and book by Metzinger (TA67) who has invested an enormous amount of work in trying to deal with that. Could you give your opinion on it ?

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Herbert FJ Müller