The Reunification of Science and Philosophy

By Michael Pitman

A good vehicle for a whole philosophical adventure turns out to be a Theory of Opposites called Natural Dialectic. 'Dialectic' involves to-fro interaction between opposing poles of either thought or things; 'Natural' means associated with no particular social, religious or

• Language: English
• Publisher: hoopoe publications
• Release date: May 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838061821

Michael Pitman

see www.scienceandphilosophy.co.uk

Book preview

Preface

Introducing a simple structure within which to generate

an internally self-consistent philosophy regarding information, physics, psychology, biology and community.

This book derives from an aspiration to reconcile different interpretations of the way the world works. Natural truth, we might agree, was here well before pragmatic science, logical philosophy or any other system of belief. Now, in a world of squabbling, clashing creeds what principles can best describe the way things fully are? And can they, rinsing clean our man-made muddle, show what constitutes the ultimate ideal? A person’s truth is, whether clearly cut or vague, the creed whence his or her behaviours flow. And ideals colour humans; voluntarily upheld or else compelled, they are what drive men and women on. Therefore an understanding that can clarify and unify perspectives is required. It is a priority. It might bring harmony.

For this you need a mechanism to transcend particular expressions of belief. To this end what follows introduces the format and implications of aforesaid fresh, reasonable and simple structure - Natural Dialectic.

Dialectic (or dialectical method) is to-fro discourse between opposing views in order to establish reasonable truth. You might start poles apart but, at length, agree to only partly disagree!

Natural is commonly construed as a characteristic of any material item not devised by the mind or produced by the hand of man.

Their combination, Natural Dialectic is, effectively, a Theory of Complementary Opposites. It is one of different models seekers use to try and understand the universe into which each one of us is, without asking, born. Variously expressed at different times and places, the Dialectic’s ‘philosophical machine’ reflects a binary, oscillatory framework within which nature seems to operate.

Any philosophical infrastructure, whether mathematical or verbal, is built of symbols, that is, of code or language. Language, involving a specific assignment and coherent arrangement of symbols, is the way that meaning is organised and information conveyed. In this case, could the binary structure of Natural Dialectical Philosophy accurately describe the modus operandi of cosmos? Could its spine of complementary opposites reflect the way our universe is built?

We’ll see. To help, you can exploit extensive Connections/ Endnotes (indicated on the Contents page). These branch to companion volumes which can answer questions this primer’s considerable abbreviation is almost bound to raise (www.scienceandphilosophy.co.uk or www.cosmicconnections.co.uk). Also, navigate the Index like a reference map. Finally, don’t forget to use the Glossary.

For easy skimming the devices of bold, underlines, italics and red script simply draw attention to main points.

The front-cover illustration is Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (see Glossary). Interior illustrations have, for ease of subject grouping, been coloured according to the following themes:

blue                      universal/ cosmic

buff                      informative

orange & red        axioms

purple                  first causes

yellow                  developmental

violet                    human

red-brown            unconscious region

green                    biological

silver                    morality

This book is, as regards its metaphysic, scrupulously, religiously non-religious.

Finally, after careful and perhaps exciting inspection you may better judge whether Natural Dialectic’s grammar well interprets nature’s text and thereby accurately reflects the logic of creation. So jump aboard and ride this streamlined ‘thought machine’. Intellectual seat-belt fastened, we shall travel far and fast from here…

Chapter 1:    Introduction

This course is a slim abbreviation - as the section called Connections that expands it demonstrates. It has two aims. The first involves,

Indeed. To introduce a simple structure within which to generate an internally self-consistent philosophy regarding information, physics, psychology, biology and community. At root, the idea is

The second, correlated aim is to compare, as if through different angles of a prism, the logic of our material world (as explored by scientific study) with the perspective that snaps into view if a single immaterial element is added. What is this metaphysical addition, one very well-known and, indeed, forming the basis of our current age? As the industrial age was based on the energy of steam, electricity and, finally, nuclear power so ours is based on information. Information is the immaterial element, that is, the metaphysical addition.

Overleaf we’ll methodically compare two perspectives¹ - call them materialism and holism - and the logic of interpretations that derive from them using three simple models of a balance, that is, a scale along with concentric rings and a stepped pyramid called Mount Universe.

Models are non-verbal descriptions. They are pictures to hang concepts on. To work successfully their underlying ‘grammar’, that is, mode of operation must be clear. We shall spend time this first lesson exploring the conceptual vehicle or ‘cosmic language’ which they help illustrate. If we want a fresh perspective we will need to understand this language, its mode of expression.

If correct, such language should generate an abstract, metaphysical machine, tight-knit, well-riveted by bolt and counter-bolt, the simplest working model of the universe. But what is such a vehicle called? How does this philosophical mould work? Its perspective is not mathematical; equations of a physicist may well describe the music of a song but numbers miss the whole point. Science has derived an objective, mathematical and entirely materialistic interpretation of events. How are facts poured into our ‘dynamic’ so that we add the immaterialistic part of our comparison and again make whole?

At this point I should straightaway scotch the notion that any considerations concerning mind, the origins of the universe or life that are not entirely materialistic are somehow ‘anti-science’. If I offer a holistic interpretation of this wall, door or the air am I ‘anti-scientific’? Am I ‘anti’ non-conscious matter or energy - the preserve of scientific study? Holism deals with both material and immaterial elements but to say it is ‘anti’ one of them is absurd.

Finally, let’s recall that all of science and philosophy is concerned to address the most natural questions of a being that finds him or herself as a body on earth, a planet in space, for a brief spell of time.

Such enquiry needs answers reasonably argued within one of two possible frameworks - either materialism with its sub-creeds of humanism, scientific atheism and so on; or holism (see Glossary), as old as thought including metaphysic and a science of material reality, with its sub-creeds and various forms of faith as well. Since nature is pre-religious neither science nor Natural Dialectic, a holistic Theory of Complementary Opposites, is religious. Within a neutral, natural framework we’ll ask:

Now let’s take a look at the Primary Assumptions² of materialism and holism. Natural Dialectic systematically compares the implications of each mind-set. Which assumption, aimed towards full truth and understanding, does the evidence best brace? What are the basic axioms and corollaries of the pair?

Materialism’s Primary Axiom is that cosmos issued out of nothing; therefore, beyond this realm of physics there is only void; and life is an inconsequent coincidence, electric flickers of illusion in a lifeless, dark eternity.

Although the universe appears to work by rules and to have been established in a very particular way, this appearance of order is in fact unplanned. Materialism’s cosmic reason is, thereby, its own antithesis - unreason. Rules by chance, events by reflex. Oblivious matter is an aimless actor whence, by accident, all life rose. Life has, hasn’t it, to be the offspring of non-conscious particles and forces?

Chance is the creator of diversity. Its scientific aide-de-camp is probability. No matter what the odds against, the universe and life must have appeared by chance. Order came about by, basically, chance. Without reason. No telling how exactly, just vague imprecation. Nothing is, perchance, impossible; the sole impossibility is that such a story of creation is impossible. This implacably materialistic, possibly nonsensical, narrative is rehashed in every modern textbook, journal and broadcast.

A caveat. To materialistically presume that what is not material is not natural and, therefore, does not exist is a first order, pseudoscientific error. On the other hand, to ‘pretend’ metaphysic does exist is prejudiciously judged, by that same materialistic rationale, ‘pseudoscience’. If, however, the basic nature of information is immaterial/ metaphysical then isn’t to construe every IT program, engineering blueprint, artistic design, theory and even your own thoughts as an irrational, ‘pseudoscientific’ exercise? In which case, could our scientific outlook be lop-sided? Isn’t balance needed? Is a fresh perspective possible?

Holism’s Primary Axiom is, on the other hand, that realistic comprehension of the world includes two primary components - immaterial and material or, as commonly perceived, mind and matter.

Holism, therefore, simply adds immaterial, as a second fundamental ingredient, to material. Or, conversely, it adds material to immaterial. Since immaterial is not material it adds nothing physical at all. But hence follows, it is argued, holism’s powerful and impregnable validity.

Holistic logic must also apply to bio-logical life. In this respect its Primary Corollary states that the origin of irreducible, codified (or highly informed) biological complexity is not an accumulation of ‘lucky’ accidents constrained by natural law and death. Forms of life are programmed, purposive and wholly dependent on an inherently immaterial element - information.

Such assertion is, in the face of materialism, absolute anathema. Yet, if materialism’s first axiom is actually incomplete then every step that follows will lead further from full truth. An axiom that discounts the force of information may well be largely incomplete.

Furthermore, let us at the outset be completely clear - the basic assertions of both materialism and holism are philosophical; neither party is a scientific one. Holism includes metaphysic; materialism of necessity excludes it. Material science can never prove holism’s metaphysic, based on mind and information, is untrue. In this case, if the holistic axiom that mind and matter are two different kinds of element is true then holistic logic in its entirety is unassailable.

Three main points arise.

Holistic axiom exacts a toll. We need answers about:³

We need to nail down the language (one not exclusively materialistic) in which holistic answers and arguments can be included - in this case holistic Natural Dialectic.

Some find learning a new language onerous. Grammar, let alone a philosophical type of grammar, lacks appeal. Why, therefore, bother?

Because the structure of Natural Dialectic is a simple, orderly and efficient vehicle in which to marshal facts, in terms of opposites, into a binary framework. This framework, being verbal (in the line of Lao Tse, the I Ching’s Pa Kua and others) and not base 2 (in the line of Liebniz, Boole, Braille or ASCII code), is imprecise compared to scientific formulae. Rather, it builds relationships, connections and equivalences in a way that is logical and self-consistent. These can sometimes trigger fresh realisations and perspectives, that is, eureka moments.

Why does this matter?Firstly, because it includes both physical and, inaccessible to mathematics, metaphysical components. The latter, including subjective experience, purpose and so forth, are central to us. They are our life. Nor can any scientific or other explanation that fails to explain consciousness be complete.

Secondly, it can therefore be used to systematically compare the implications of materialism as opposed to supra-materialism (holism).

Thirdly, its binary, oscillatory logic may well turn out to reflect the way nature works. If so its columns, called stacks, are the backbone of this Theory of Complementary Opposites. Its polarities represent not only human but the cosmic spine; or, if you like, the system generates a robust body of philosophy that accurately reflects the order of the cosmos. It generates an abstract, metaphysical machine, tight-knit, well riveted by bolt and counter-bolt, the simplest working model of the universe.

It may, therefore, pay dividends to understand the very simple way it works. Let’s try. Let’s start with three pictorial models.

Using these three universal models of creation:⁴

Now inspect this triplex ‘stack’:

Does this triplex, formed by pivot and two linked arms represented as vectors (up (↑) and (↓) down), constitute a trinary or binary system? In universal terms, the Motionless Centre-point represents Essence and the two antagonistic yet complementary vectors represent ever-changing existence.

If this Essential Axis is itself antagonistic yet complementary to peripheral existence then this pair compose the primary pair of opposites; and, although non-vectored Essence is singular, existence is dual, split by its vectors.

b)  You can think of cosmos in dynamic terms of concentric rings.