Materialism, Idealism, Cartesian Dualism and the Crisis in Classical Physics…
Ontological Philosophical Errors
“What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal”…
— Werner Heisenberg
idealism
ahy-dee-uh-liz-uhm
any system or theory that maintains that the real is of the nature of thought or that the object of external perception consists of ideas
materialism
muh-teer-ee-uh-liz-uhm
the philosophical theory that regards matter and its motions as constituting the universe, and all phenomena, including those of mind, as due to material agencies
The 2022 and 2024 Nobel Prizes in Physics highlight the crisis in Physics, which can be extended more broadly into a crisis in Science, a crisis in Modernity and an erosion in our understanding of the nature of Reality.
“If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind”…
— Wilhelm von Humboldt
These two recent awards illuminate in different ways the growing cognitive dissonance.
Local realism is the philosophical worldview combining two assumptions:
- Locality: Objects are only directly influenced by their immediate surroundings — meaning that information or causal influences cannot travel faster than the speed of light (i.e. no superluminal effects); and
- Realism: Physical properties of a system exist with definite values independently of observation or measurement (i.e. a particle has a definite spin, position, etc., even if we don’t measure it).
This worldview is foundational to classical physics and is challenged by the implications of quantum entanglement and Bell’s Theorem, which demonstrate that quantum mechanics must violate at least one of these assumptions.
Their foundational research laid the groundwork for modern artificial intelligence applications, such as speech & image recognition, natural language processing, and autonomous systems.
By the application of concepts (e.g. system energy and thermodynamic principles) from physics to model complex information processing in neural networks, Hopfield and Hinton demonstrated how systems could identify patterns, effectively echoing certain aspects of human cognition.
How do these two Nobel Prizes highlight the crisis in Physics?
“Today’s historical situation should be described as the full revelation of the opposition between Christianity and Gnosticism”…
— Augusto del Noce
“In all its forms, the new Gnosticism must reject the universality of reason and its foundation in the theory of the λόγος”…
— Augusto del Noce
“Ancient Gnosticism atheises the World ( by denying its creation by God) on behalf of a Divine Transcendence, the post-Christian sort atheises it on behalf of radical immanentism”…
— Augusto del Noce
As outlined in Spirit Wars — Modern Gnosticism, to understand how a modern version of Gnosis emerged, it is important to understand how the arrival of Modernity represented a profound philosophical departure from the accumulated and refined ideas that provided the intellectual foundations for Western Civilisation’s understanding of the nature of Reality.
Ideas that began to decouple the triadic relationship between Conscious Man, the Natural World and God (e.g. Thomism — Saint Thomas Aquinas).
Given the :
- power and utility value of the Scientific Method to transform Society (i.e. transformation of scientific ideas into new technologies) that emerges from the ideas of Sir Francis Bacon outlined in Novum Organum — Materialism; and
- the confidence in a mental structure version of Reality that emerges from René Descartes’ Cartesianism and his distinction between res Cogitans & res Extensa (i.e. Cartesian Dualism) — Idealism & Materialism;
a new form of horizontal metaphysics emerges that combines Idealism with Materialism and yet treats these as separate substances rather than as separate properties (i.e. Cartesian Dualism — res Cogitans and res Extensa).
Literally, a Kantian Categories mind shaped Reality where everything in nature must be quantified, measured, calculated, and predicted.
It leads to a Theology of Marxism and a methodology (i.e. Dialectical Materialism) to transform the material nature of Reality.
A Primacy of Man viewed as Sensory Machines rather than a relationship between this Being (Dasein) and Being (Sein) (refer to Heidegger), viewed through Signs of Meaning (i.e. a World where we are Metaphysically and Physically Entangled ontologically through Being).
Ideas that apparently saw Man increasingly in control of his own destiny and creating his own history (i.e. Historical Materialism).
A World and Reality increasingly created by Man and enabled through attaining new knowledge (i.e. Gnosis) and the application of Technology (i.e. Technology Society & Technology System) via praxis and reflexivity.
Not only had Man apparently transcended God (i.e. Nietzsche Death of God), but Man was increasingly attempting to transcend Nature (e.g. Trans Humanism, Geo Engineering, Bio Engineering, Genetic Engineering, Artificial General Intelligence etc).
The crisis in Physics can be understood through reflecting upon our Modern & Post-Modern understanding of Reality.
Rather than Man participating in Reality, the advent of Modernity and Post-Modernity saw Reality increasingly anchored in the Primacy of Human Consciousness (e.g. Cartesianism, Gnosticism, Nietzschean Perspectivism, Nominalism, Umwelt) and the Primacy of Man (e.g. Theology of Marxism and Modern Gnosticism).
Man viewing Reality from a balcony of Cartesian Abstraction — a Mind Dependent Representation (i.e. Knowledge) that separates the Object from the World (i.e. apart from the World ).
2022 Nobel Prize for Physics — Challenges Materialism through Non-Locality and role of Observer — Challenges Cartesian Dualism by dissolving the strict boundaries between the Perceiving Subject & Object — Critique of Idealism & Materialism as independent Ontological Paradigms — Challenges a Sensory Machines World View
The 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics challenges the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy of physics (Sensory Machines ). The Cartesian**** Mechanistic World View — Newtonian Classical Physics: inert matter in motion governed by deterministic laws.
The 2022 Nobel Prize challenges this classical intellectual orthodoxy in Physics by its conclusion that local realism is false. In doing so, it raises foundational questions as to the 2 key axioms of local realism, namely:
- Locality: Objects are only directly influenced by their immediate surroundings — no faster-than-light (superluminal) effects; and
- Realism: Physical properties exist independently of observation (i.e. a particle has a definite spin, position, etc., even if we don’t measure it). Physical properties exist independently of observation (i.e. a particle has a definite spin, position, etc., even if we don’t measure it).
In other words, the Nobel Prize is challenging a Cartesian & Materialism Independent Objective Reality that exists absent an Observer.
The 2022 Nobel Prize confirms the robust predictive power of quantum mechanics, but at the same time undermines a classical metaphysical worldview based on local realism; it reinforces the non-classical structure of quantum theory, particularly the validity of entanglement as a real, physical phenomenon.
It invites rethinking the ontology of quantum systems, suggesting Reality may be fundamentally relational or dependent on observation. Please Read – Being as the Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation.
It is through Meaning (mediated via signs) that Human Being’s can couple the Subject (Observer) with the Object (Observed) – noting this coupling of res cogitans and res extensa mediated by signs is not some mysterious internal conceptual representation (e.g. a little man in our heads watching our eyes see – homunculus trap – homunculus fallacy) but rather a coupling of Being (Ontology) and Knowing (Epistemology).
Note: If the notion of Materialism is being challenged (i.e. critique of Local Realism) by the 2022 Nobel Prize Winners, is Idealism really the alternative? What if Man participates in Reality and there is a Monism in Being? Please Read — Being as the Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation
2024 Nobel Prize for Physics — Challenges an understanding of Physics based purely on Materialism and res Extensa — Introduces the Observer (res Cogitans) and Semiotics (Meaning) into Physics — Introduces a Signs of Meaning World View
The 2024 Nobel Prize for Physics challenges the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy in Physics in a fundamentally different way. By awarding the Nobel Prize to two researchers who have been instrumental in developing Artificial General Intelligence, it is implicitly recognising the role of the Observer & Meaning-Making in Physics. Why? — Because Artificial General Intelligence is anchored in Computation and Computation can be viewed as the input of semiotic signs, manipulation (i.e. processing) of semiotic signs based on syntax (i.e. rules of understanding), storage of semiotic signs (e.g. hard drive, cloud), output of semiotic signs (e.g. display on a monitor), and control of semiotic signs based on syntax (ie. rules of understanding). In other words, Computers, including Artificial General Intelligence, are Semiotic Sign Machines. Please read — 1992 Peter Bogh Andersen from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, published a paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems titled Computer Semiotics.
Thereby, the 2024 Nobel Prize for Physics could be viewed as an award for semiotics and technological developments (i.e. new types of Semiotic Sign Machines) in meaning-making rather than some independent objective material reality.
Note — the AGI Large Language Model is a dyadic Saussurean Model (i.e. Sign & Perceiving Subject) rather than a Peircian Triadic Model (i.e. Sign, Perceiving Subject and Object) hence it reflects an epistemological event (i.e. untangling the relational Meaning (Peirce) of the Object and bringing the concept to the Mind. The collapse is not simply physical, but semiotic (Peirce): it transforms ontological relational meaning into epistemological knowledge).
Both of these two recent Nobel Prizes challenge the prevailing orthodox understanding of Classical Physics.
A clear distinction needs to be made between Being which is pre-conceptual foundation — Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation — pre ontico-ontological understanding of Being, Meaning which is the ontological event of the potential disclosure of Being (i.e. this Beings (Dasein) relationship to Being (Sein)) and Knowledge is the epistemological event ( i.e. untangling the relational Meaning (Peirce) of the Object and bringing the concept to the Mind. The collapse is not simply physical, but semiotic (Peirce): it transforms ontological relational meaning into epistemological knowledge).
“Since we cannot change Reality, let us change the eyes which we see Reality” …
- Nikos Kazantzakis
It represents a paradigm shift from Cartesian Sensory Machines to Peircian Signs of Meaning.
“For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs”…
— Rupert Sheldrake
They challenge the notion of an independent Objective Material World — a Materialism.
“Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer”…
― Heinz von Foerster
They challenge the idea that the discipline of Physics can somehow be objectively separated from the Observer.
In other words, Idealism is as important to understanding Physics (refer to the 2024 Nobel Prize) as Materialism.
They implicitly challenge the notion of understanding Reality simply through the abstraction — bringing to the mind — scientific knowledge — noting Heidegger would describe this distinction as the difference between Present-at-Hand. (Vorhandenheit — The Alienation of Being, Mathematisation of Nature and Endemic Cartesian World View) and Being-Ready-to-Hand ( Zuhandenheit ).
In other words, as outlined in Being as the Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation, there is a clear distinction between the nature of Being, Meaning and Knowing.
- Being as pre-conceptual foundation — Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation — A pre ontico-ontological understanding of Being (Peirce — Heidegger);
- Meaning as the Ontological Event of Disclosure of Being (Heidegger);
- Knowing is the Epistemological Event (Kant) and imposition of conditions of Knowability (e.g. Kant’s Categories) through Abstraction and Conceptualisation. Untangling the relational Meaning (Peirce) of the Object and bringing the concept to the Mind. The collapse is not simply physical, but semiotic (Peirce): it transforms ontological meaning into epistemological knowledge;
- Being not as a static substance, but a dynamic process of becoming, meaning-making, and lawful mediation & habit formation;
- Reality is constituted by signs, and everything real is intelligible through its relation to signs; and
- The Universe itself is structured teleologically — it unfolds according to a logic of growth, habit-formation, and increasing generality, which Peirce calls the evolutionary love. His idea of Agapasm is inherently teleological, draws the Universe towards that esthetic goodness through its normative impulse — a selfless, unconditional love, benevolent, and generative force. An evolutionary fabric towards harmony, co-operation, complexity and order.
Note — Given the 2024 Nobel Prize could be viewed as an award for advancements in Semiotic Sign Machines, the Overton Window for the knowledge discipline of Physics can be viewed as being implicitly extended to the discipline of Semiotics (via the granting of the Award) and meaning-making — although the distinction between Meaning & Being in the World and Knowing & Bringing to the Mind is yet to be drawn — refer — Being as the Teological Ground of Divine and Natural Revelation.
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