Howard,
These quotes you sent below are excellent. They came just as I
was going to write to say the two best things I got/learned from
your posts on the other Rosen list some years back were:
1) quote from Niebuhr (sp?) about (paraphrased) "grant me the
serenity to accept those things I cannot change, the courage to
change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
2) your mention that it was von Neumann who identified and
described open-ended evolution as a/the crucial issue.
In a post from yesterday you said something to the effect that
we Rosenites (half-jesting acceptance of such a moniker from a
would-be disciple) say that Rosennean complexity is required to
"fix" or make mechanistic science OK, yet we do not say the
converse - that mechanistic science/models are likewise *required*
to complete Rosen's non-fractionable, time-less approach. I am
willing to admit this (but I think others may disagree), and in
some earlier threads sparked by Jack Park we got into similar
issues, namely that mechanistic models and science/technology
are great for solving local problems and "doing things". In this
sense I think mechanisms/mech. models are required and that we
and all life forms do indeed "use" others as tools in mechanistic
fashion (as in the Spinoza quote below) and will always have to,
to some degree.
The main complementary perspective I see as required to balance
this and prevent extremism/abuse/corruption and too much of a
good thing (and this is also in your Spinoza quote) is that we and
all life also must submit to being used as a tool - to being an
object or "mechanism" in some other subject's purpose and plan.
Whether that "other" be God or some ecological other as in some
larger purposes and functions of the biosphere (known to some
as Gaia) doesn't seem to me to matter, as long as there is a true
reciprocity, openness, willingness, submission to some "higher" or
other purpose/function. With this level playing field or fairness of
valuation and utility - subjectification and objectification - I think
"things will work out" as Spinoza suggests below. It is like a system
of checks and balances able to prevent corruption due to "absolute
power" of a single worldview tending in a single "direction". I think
life's mechanisms are of this type - balanced and reciprocated - and
that this quality is why life's local solutions (brains, cells, other
life
controls and machine-like, feedback systems) scale up or integrate
over time and space to be beneficial (oxygen atmosphere, soils,
biodiversity, etc. etc.) rather than detrimental as we see for human
mechanisms (systemic pollution and toxicity, break down of
fundamental life-support systems, decay of soils, loss of biodiversity,
etc. etc.)
I wonder if you could comment on any of these - open-ended
evolution, complementarity as synergy between mechanistic and
non-mechanistic perspectives, Niebuhr, co-arising and perpetual
entanglement of the object and subject, the mechanism and the
function, or any other related topics? This may get back to another
issue you raised before - the necessity of the epistemic cut and
Descartes starting point of "not doubting the doubter/thinker or
subject". These are two topics I seek alternatives to - bridging the
epistemic cut and always doubting the doubter/thinker/subject,
but I know I have lots more to learn on these topics...
Dan
Howard Pattee wrote:
Bob and I never talked too personally about religion, but once, I
think over Manhattans before dinner, we agreed that Spinoza’s
pantheism (or panentheism) was the only concept that would fit well
with our concept of truth. I also believe Bob was instinctively a
synchronic thinker as are many mathematicians (not the same as
Platonism). I remember Bob using the Spinozan phrase "sub specie
aeternitatis" (under the aspect of eternity)
Here are a few of my favorite quotes that I am sure Bob did or would
enjoy.
ON SYNCHRONICITY
Boethius (~480~524)
Since God hath always an eternal and present state, His knowledge,
surpassing time's notions, remaineth in the simplicity of his
presence and, comprehending the infinite of what is past and to come,
considereth all things as though they were in the act of being
accomplished.
Meister Eckhart (~1260-1327)
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater
obstacle to God than time. And not only time but temporalities, not
only temporal things but temporal affections; not only temporal
affections but the very taint and smell of time.
ON TRUTH
Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677)
But human power is very limited and infinitely surpassed by the power
of external causes. So we do not have an absolute power to adapt
things outside us to our use. Nevertheless, we shall bear calmly
those things which happen to us contrary to what the principle of our
advantage demands, if we are conscious that we have done our duty,
that the power we have could not have extended itself to the point
where we could have avoided those things, and that we are part of the
whole of Nature, whose order we follow. If we understand this clearly
and distinctly, that part of us that is defined by understanding,
that is, the better part of us, will be entirely satisfied by this,
and will strive to persevere in that satisfaction. For insofar as we
understand, we can want nothing except what is necessary, nor
absolutely be satisfied with anything except what is true (The
Ethics, last pgph. Of Human Bondage).
Eckhart: What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God
could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.
Howard