Why Philosophy Matters More Than Ever in the Age of Entanglement?…
The Triadic of Being — Mind, Body and Spirit
“Truth in philosophy means that concept and external reality correspond”…
— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[1]
“Every man is fully satisfied that there is such thing as truth, or he would not ask the question”…
— Charles Sanders Peirce
Philosophy [2] is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.
The Western philosophical [3] tradition dates back to around the 6th Century BC when various Greek Philosophers such as Pittacus [4], Pythagoras [5] and Thales [6] practised a love of wisdom [7] ( Philosophy) — an exploration of the fundamental questions of existence, values, reason, knowledge, mind, and language.
By the third Century AD, the first historian of philosophy, established the traditional division of philosophical inquiry into three parts:
- Natural philosophy (i.e. physics, from Greek: ta physika, “things having to do with physis [nature]”) was the study of the constitution and processes of transformation in the physical world;
- Moral philosophy (i.e. ethics, from êthika, “having to do with character, disposition, manners”) was the study of goodness, right and wrong, justice and virtue; and
- Metaphysical philosophy (i.e. logic, from logikós, “of reason or speech”) was the study of existence, causation, God, logic, forms, and other abstract objects (meta ta physika, “after the Physics”) [8].
A Theory of Human Consciousness
More recently, 20th Century Philosopher Linguist and Poet — Jean Gebser [9] — provided a different perspective on how Humans make sense of reality.
A theory [10] of human consciousness that is built on the traditions of Philosophy and all other areas of human endeavour.
An emergent phenomenon that sees our consciousness go through major periods of evolutionary transition via “jump” states (i.e. mutations).
Prior consciousness structures operate in parallel with emergent structures.
Essentially, the evolutionary perception [11] of reality by Humans as they responded to shifts in the Fitness Landscape — agency, context and the complexity of their environment.
An evolutionary interplay between the mind, body and the world.
“So we must start from this dual nature of intelligence as something both biological and logical”…
— Jean Piaget
A form of embodied intelligence [12].
“Gebser understood the term, “conscious” was neither knowledge nor conscience but should be understood in the broadest sense as wakeful presence [9]”…
Gebser identified 6 structures of consciousness being :
The archaic structure
The magic structure
The mythical structure
The mental structure
The integral structure
His idea and thesis around these “jump state” transitions in Human Consciousness led him to explore history across almost every major domain of human endeavour where he saw patterns of emergence and collapse in how humans perceived and were present in reality.
It culminated in a major work published between 1949 to 1953 titled – Ursprung und Gegenwart [13] – which can be translated into – The Ever-Present Origin.
Gebser’s major thesis was that human consciousness is in transition (a series of liminal states) and that these transitions are mutations and not continuous.
These jumps or transformations involve structural changes in both mind and body.
Gebser held that previous consciousness structures continue to operate in parallel to emergent structures.
According to Gebser for the last +2,000 years, Humans have largely exhibited a mental structure form of consciousness.
This mental structure view of consciousness can be traced back to Greek Philosopher Aristotle [14] and his discovery of the concept of Logic which was outlined in his 6-part book, The Organon [15].
Its core idea was that arguments (truth claims) could be valid or true [15][16] based on their abstract logical structure that was independent of the words involved.
He also outlined a set of foundational axioms [15][17] — statements or propositions that were regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true — from which his logical system could be developed.
“That Logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest times, is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been unable to advance a step, and thus to all appearance has reached its completion”…
- Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) [18]
This powerful idea became the burning flame for human progress and prosperity for over 2 millennia.
It was the catalyst for the Age of Enlightenment [19] & Reason [20] and the Industrial [21] & Digital Revolutions [22] that followed.
It provided the foundations for modern-day mathematics [23], boolean algebra [24], the Scientific Method [25], Newtonian Physics [26] and Quantum Mechanics [27], Information Theory, [28] Genetics [29], the Turing Machine [30], Computation [31], Finance and Economics.
It elevated the Natural Sciences [32] to the centre of our modern-day Society including our economy, education system and social power structures.
Experts [33] and technocrats [32] were now the managerial class in the pursuit of a techno-utopia [34].
From an Age of Reason to an Age of Entanglement
By the later part of the 20th Century and early part of the 21st Century, something was amiss (a gap — [61]) with the prevailing metaphysical philosophical framework of reality [35]
“Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind”…
- Plato
The emergence of theories of Quantum Mechanics [36] was one of the first signs of a growing cognitive dissonance.
Mathematical equations such as the Schrödinger Equation [37] were highly effective in being able to measure the state of quantum mechanical systems.
However, despite these powerful prediction capabilities there remains until this day conjecture [38] and debate as to whether there is a Universal Theory of Quantum Reality — A Theory of Everything.
Or were there limits to Reductionism in an emergent complex Material World?
A World with as many Clouds as Clocks
The second profound shift was the rapid globalisation of economies and the emergence of networks [39] – shipping, travel, energy, telecommunications, trade, and finance culminating in the emergence of the Internet in the second half of the 20th Century. Ultimately resulting in the creation of The Mesh [40] and the increasing collision of a Digital Virtual World with a Physical Real World [41]— A 21st Century Public Sphere [42].
The third was the increasing recognition of the finite capacity of our Planet, the Anthropocene [43] and the recognition of the planet as a complex self-regulating system — Gaia [44].
The fourth was the emergence of the Knowledge Age [45] and the internet becoming a form of global Collective Sensemaking [46] and a dynamic non-linear complex evolutionary computational brain [47]. An extension of the Mind beyond our physical bodies [48] aided by technology tools such as the mobile phone[49], the digital cloud, digital computation [50] and a ubiquitous Internet – The Third Wave [51]. A form of Collective Intelligence [52].
The fifth was the emergence of bottom-up powerful computation based on large volumes of data and examples using advanced statistics to derive patterns [50] and correlations. Deep Learning & Machine Learning systems where cause-effect could not be explained because of the System Complexity [53] but at the same time these AI systems were increasingly being used as powerful computational tools in prediction and perception. This resulted in the emergence of the Intelligent & Knowledge Organisation [45] which generates new knowledge and learns how to learn [45].
The sixth was the development of new decision-making frameworks and ideas for making sense of the complexity of reality including Reflexivity, Sensemaking [55], Collective Sensemaking [46], Semantic Languages [56], The Public Sphere [42] — together with advances in foundational knowledge for a complex uncertain world including the Free Energy Principle [56], Non-Ergodicity [57], Simplicity Theory [58], Theory of Reflexivity [59], The Adjacent Possible [60] and even the OODA Loop [61].
The seventh has been the emergence of Information Theory [28] and the rapid integration of this theory into increasing parts of our Life [62] including evolutionary biology, computation, neuroscience, identity, physics, innovation, genetics, bioengineering, economics intelligence and even our understanding of What is an Individual [63]?
The eighth has been an increasing recognition of the limitations of current risk models [64] in being able to quantify the uncertainty [66] of reality in decision-making – Fat Tails, Black Swans & Knightian Uncertainty [65].
All of these highlighted a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty & interdependencies and the increasing limitations of a Society that had become largely anchored in the Algorithmic Mind — resulting in an ongoing clash of Two Cultures [32] and the reluctance to embrace an emergent Third [32].
A shift from an Age of Reason to the Age of Entanglement [67][68].
“Complexity is the increasing Dimensionality of our Interrelationships and Interdependencies from which arise nested patterns of adaptive order in an emergent World” …
- The Complexity Void
From a Cartesian Mechanical World View to a World of Complexity, Emergence & Entanglement
“I think the next [21st] century will be the century of complexity”…
— Stephen Hawking
Our prism of reality has literally moved from perceiving reality as mechanical deterministic linear systems from the Industrial Age to dynamic non-linear stochastic and non-ergodic emergent systems of the Quantum Age.
A dawn of a third transition in Science that highlights the limits of determinism, reductionism, and cause-effect in complexity [69]
Just like Gödel proved in his Theorem of Incompleteness [70] when he demonstrated the Limits of Logic via the underlying implicit assumptions resulting from the foundational axioms (premises) [15] [17].
The same analogy can be applied to Science.
A quote from a recent 2019 Paper — Philosophy of Biology: Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid [71]:
“Scientists seek to eliminate all forms of bias from their research. However, all scientists also make assumptions of a non-empirical nature about topics such as causality, determinism and reductionism when conducting research. Since these ‘philosophical biases’ cannot be avoided, they need to be debated critically by scientists and the philosophers of science”…
Philosophy matters more than ever in the Age of Entanglement.
By changing the axioms we change our perception of reality.
“How one encounters reality is a choice”…
- Martin Heidegger
What if we moved beyond the foundational axioms of Aristotelian term logic [15] [17] (classical binary abstract truths) to a new integral form of reasoning?
What if the new fundamental axioms of reality were a recognition of our entanglement in the World including the complexity, uncertainty and our Human Condition?
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced”…
- Soren Kierkegaard
Understanding Reality as an emergent phenomenon.
A Triadic of Reason and a dyadic symbiotic relationship — an entanglement — between the :
A process philosophy of learning, contemplation, discovery and creation.
Footnotes:
[1] Hegel — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/
[2] Philosophy — https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/philosophy
[3] Western Philosophy — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy
[4] Seven Sages— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sages_of_Greece — and — Pittacus — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittacus_of_Mytilene
[5] Pythagoras — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
[6]Thales — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus
[7] Wisdom — wisdom
[8] Traditional Division of Philosophy — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
[9] Jean Gebser — http://www.gaiamind.org/Gebser.html
[10] Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness — https://revelore.press/product/seeing-through-the-world/
[11] The Stages of Life According to Jean Gebser — https://www.institute4learning.com/2020/02/12/the-stages-of-life-according-to-jean-gebser/
[12] The implausibility of intelligence explosion — https://medium.com/@francois.chollet/the-impossibility-of-intelligence-explosion-5be4a9eda6ec — and — We are building a theoretical framework that will guide the creation of artificial agents that adjust their neural networks (brains) to feedback from their bodies and surroundings — in essence to learn how to navigate their surroundings — https://www.santafe.edu/research/projects/theory-of-embodied-intelligence
[13] Ursprung und Gegenwart — https://www.amazon.com/Gesamtausgabe-02-Ursprung-Gegenwart-Teil/dp/3907160029
[14]Aristotle — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/
[15] Aristotles Logic — The Organon — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/
[16] The Public Sphere — Plato — Truths — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-public-sphere-ff07f74d7f22
[17] Aristotle and Mathematics — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-mathematics/
[18] Immanuel Kant — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/
[19] The Age of Enlightenment — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
[20] The Age of Reason — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Reason
[21] Industrial Revolution — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
[22] Digital Revolution — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Revolution
[23]What is Modern Mathematics? — https://medium.com/thesociablesolipsist/what-is-modern-mathematics-for-the-non-mathematician-4c59981de487
[24] Boolean Algebra — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra
[25] Scientific Method — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
[26] Newtonian Physics — https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/newtonian-physic
[27] Quantum Mechanics —qm
[28] Information Theory —https://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2001/Shannon2.pdf
[29] Genetics —https://www.britannica.com/science/genetics
[30] Turing Machine —https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-machine/
[31] What is Computation? — https://youtu.be/nykOeWgQcHM
[32] Synthesis… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-synthesis-of-two-cultures-90989cfb462e
[33] The Survival Instinct… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-survival-instinct-21054abdff7
[34] Modern Utopia — modernutopia.html
[35] Australia is living through a ‘time between times’ — https://www.afr.com/technology/australia-is-living-through-a-time-between-times-20200730-p55gz6
[36] When two worlds collide… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/when-two-worlds-collide-645e95bbfba7
[37] Schrödinger Equation — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation
[38]The Nature of Quantum Reality — HAPP Centre — Dr Jim Baggott — https://youtu.be/VGR68Zl1k8w
[39] The Seventh Sense — Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks — https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/joshua-cooper-ramo/the-seventh-sense/9781478909101/
[40] The Mesh… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-mesh-5db1311fd139
[41]The collapse of context and the elimination of friction… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-collapse-of-context-and-the-elimination-of-friction-eb1780e50d65
[42] The Public Sphere —https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-public-sphere-ff07f74d7f22
[43]Anthropocene — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene
[44] Gaia —gaia — being-of-a-living-earth
[45]Re-Imagining Organisations for the 21st Century… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/re-imagining-organisations-for-the-21st-century-94d32e4e7e91
[46] Collective Sensemaking — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/collective-sensemaking-90826d1cb007
[47]The Internet Is a Brain — https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-internet-is-a-brain.html — and — How the Internet is Shaping Our “Global Brain” — https://hbr.org/2012/11/how-the-internet-is-shaping-our
[48]The Mind-Expanding Ideas of Andy Clark — The tools we use to help us think — from language to smartphones — may be part of thought itself — https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/the-mind-expanding-ideas-of-andy-clark
[49]Steve Jobs on Why Computers Are Like a Bicycle for the Mind (1990) — https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/
[50] The Power of Patterns… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-power-of-patterns-e1dc4c2352aa
[51]The Third Wave —A Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future — https://www.thirdwavebook.com
[52] The emergence of Collective Intelligence… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-emergence-of-collective-intelligence-1bd3f2e7a7c4
[53] The Complexity Void — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/unbundling-complexity-503c77f0b261
[54] Sensemaking, the core skill for the 21st Century… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/sensemaking-the-core-skill-for-the-21st-century-ebc8c679cfe8
[55]A conversation with Noam Chomsky: Liguistics, Seti, Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence — — http://imagination.ucsd.edu/_wp/podcast/a-conversation-with-noam-chomsky-linguistics-seti-cognitive-science-artificial-intelligence/
[56] Free Energy Principle — https://youtu.be/NIu_dJGyIQI
[57] Erdogocity — Ergodicity
[58] Simplicity Theory — https://simplicitytheory.telecom-paris.fr
[59] Theory of Reflexivity— 0ca06172-bfe9–11de-aed2–00144feab49a
[60]The Adjacent Possible — https://youtu.be/GJwoHyJDVLk
[61] OODA Loop —OODA_loop — and — The Reality Gap —the-reality-gap-74da0e5e869a
[62] Redux… — Knowledge flows for a world of Complexity — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/redux-3efa43c1bb3e
[62a] Beyond Maths to Meaning — https://physicsworld.com/a/beyond-maths-to-meaning/
[63]The information theory of individuality — https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00313-7
[64] Against the Gods… — against-the-gods-958f510c082e
[65] The Survival Instinct…https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-survival-instinct-21054abdff7
[66] The Survival Instinct — Part 2 …https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-survival-instinct-part-2-e1c2782daae6
[67] The Age of Entanglement… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-age-of-entanglement-556de9318378…
[68] If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/if-you-dont-become-the-ocean-you-ll-be-seasick-every-day-25034bfa44ac
[69] The Limits of Logic… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-limits-of-logic-e6c27daf7687
[70]Theorem of Incompleteness — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems
[71] Philosophy of Biology: Philosophical bias is the one bias that science cannot avoid — 44929 — and — PMC6415937
[72]The urgent shift required towards Ecosystem Leadership… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/the-urgent-shift-required-towards-ecosystem-leadership-cc4a9f57f050
[73]Some thoughts on the knowledge age, leadership, management & skills ….. — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/some-thoughts-on-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-leadership-management-skills-f8abab420929
[73]Humility is truth and the sea of ignorance… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/humility-is-truth-and-the-sea-of-ignorance-c289112cbd57
[74] In search of wisdom in the information and knowledge age… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/in-search-of-wisdom-in-the-information-and-knowledge-age-ccb20f8b6d79
[75] Negative Capability… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/negative-capability-f3bf749a87ec
[76] Emergence …— https://medium.com/@rlschutte/emergence-936c096422a5
[77] To Live is to Flow… — https://medium.com/@rlschutte/to-live-is-to-flow-eaf8ad4ccec
