Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Allegory, Metaphor, Divine Communique, Transposition, And The Heavy-Meta-Bible

MetaChristianity

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. A brief example of what and how it is that “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind, and how that actually necessitates Transposition with reach, and how that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

These first few sentences up to this point are a brief excerpt from a section further down and it is placed here at the top because it zeroes in on the question at hand, namely what exactly *is* the Bible’s “Genre”? What is the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“? More to the point – why did Omnipotence Decree and Create the Imago Dei? Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon a Divine Communique which never changes from start to finish, which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation. We will break off from this brief excerpt from a section further down in order now to begin looking at HOW and WHY it is the case that Genesis Arrives In Divine Communique And The Heavy-Meta Bible even as Non-Theism is left in the turbulence of Metaphor And Allegory. As per the following ~

WHENCE TIME & TIMELESSNESS?

Whence Timeless Procession ↔ Timed/Tensed Motion? Whence the B-Theory of Time ↔ A-Theory of Time? Whence all such vectors given the relentless force of logic which reminds us that there are no such things as “ontological cul-de-sacs”? The interface amid the A Theory and B Theory of Time forces absurdity if one holds to either A Full Stop or else B Full Stop as one must expunge far too much in either case. Whereas, in and by Logos we expunge neither as we set sail and traverse that which in fact owns and also drives both. The Christian is not choosing between a. Presentism and b. Eternalism and for all the same reasons the Christian is not choosing between a. God In Time and b. God Outside of Time. Instead, the Christian is (…as per https://strangenotions.com/why-an-infinite-regress-among-proper-causes-is-metaphysically-impossible/#comment-3646646137 …) choosing from among the four following options and note that “Theistic” there is in reference to the Trinitarian metaphysic afforded by Christianity and, so, in fact the Christian affirms both “c” and “d” as per:

A—Non-Theistic Presentism
B—Non-Theistic Eternalism
C— Theistic Presentism
D— Theistic Eternalism

**Along the way one can add Perdurantism and/or Endurantism if so inclined.

According to the A-theorist, temporal becoming is a real and objective feature of the universe; transience is essential to the nature of time, a truth expressed metaphorically by saying that time “flows.” Temporal properties of events cannot be adequately analyzed in terms of earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than alone, but must include reference to past, present, and future, which are not merely indexical expressions but are irreducibly tensed. The present represents the edge of becoming, and future events do not merely not yet exist, rather they do not exist at all. ((…see https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/divine-eternity/god-and-real-time/ …))

According to the B-theorist, temporal becoming is mind-dependent and purely subjective. Time neither flows nor do things come to be except in the sense that we at one moment are conscious of them after not having been conscious of them at an earlier moment. Things simultaneous with different moments on the time-line are equally existent and are tenselessly related to each other by the relations of earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than, to which past, present, and future can be reduced. Anything that from our perspective has, does, or will exist in the universe in fact simply exists (tenselessly). ((…see https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/divine-eternity/god-and-real-time/ …))

SPACE-TIME is emergent, and, also, emergence does not mean “timelessness becoming time”. There is no actual becoming/changing — and so to conflate Emergence with Becoming is to falter – which is to say that to conflate Emergence with Change/Changing is to falter. Emergence reduces to entanglement/superposition and not to “becoming” / “change” / “changing”. Time/Change/Becoming ((per the weight of physics)) reduces to Non-Being and is illusory vis-à-vis ALL “fundamental natures” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. It can’t retain both Timelessness and Time as one must reduce to illusion. More detail will come later in the section titled “Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3” which explores ((…in all three parts)) several excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Richard Dawkins complained that “Philosophy failed to predict Darwin”. That is an uninformed complaint as there’s no need to think anyone would begin or end with evolution. The ontological history in question is one of becoming with respect to Cosmos and Conscious Observer. But Space-Time isn’t ontologically basic ((irreducible)) and we find that Temporal-Becoming/Change/Changing ((evolution)) arrives only in Metaphor/Allegory via Non-Theism’s attempt at Transposition at first and, as we push into Entanglement and Superposition, we find that Temporal Becoming ((and thereby all semantic intent embedded in Change/Changing/Evolution)) descends out of Metaphor/Allegory and fades into Non-Being all together.

The [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change]. Yet we find that “Time” never does BEGIN because it never does BECOME and that is so because we find that “Changing” never does BEGIN because in fact it never does EXIST ANYWHERE and so of course it never does BECOME. The ontological history of the becoming of Cosmos & Conscious Observer cannot be a narrative of Time/Space. It is unavoidably a Metanarrative populated with ontic referents landing in the Eternal/Immutable/Timeless as, again, Space-Time is “emergent” as the required entanglements & superposition testify. We arrive at the logical impossibilities of trying to equate “A” to “Non-A” as we discover that neither Logic nor Modernity’s semantic intent cannot transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 ((…given Non-Theism that is…)). Physics demonstrates this as it isn’t new information that the Map cannot be a narrative of Temporal Becoming Full Stop — of Years & Space & Time Full Stop *IF* it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call [Cosmos] & [Conscious Observer]. Entanglement and Superposition cannot provide any such Ontic Hard Stop – any such Ontic Map.

The nature of the problem is that Modernity’s most precise “semantic intent” cannot even in principle transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 in and in fact in ANY “Circa” ((so to speak)). Physics demonstrates this and Scripture predicted this from the get-go even as Sean Carroll ((and others)) speaks of “language” in “layers” as the truth value of all language fails to traverse from layer to layer to layer through to the End/Terminus while keeping all Reference Frames intact/coherent. This isn’t new information of course and we find again that Genesis 1/2/3 CANNOT be a narrative of Temporal Becoming IF it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call Cosmos and Conscious Observer. And of course “that” is exactly the Genre of Genesis 1-3.

We cannot shoehorn the Emergent: Physics and the Christian metaphysic tell us why we simply cannot shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Reality. Modernity is catching up as physics testifies that such is the case with respect to any possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat. The Non-Theist’s common error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction.

The Past Eternal Universe

While Physics forces the Emergence of Space-Time and so leaves the Past Eternal Universe ((Eternal Presentism / Eternal Temporal Becoming)) behind we can pause here to make a few brief comments.

Despite the problem of Science ((Physics/Emergence)) the proverbial Hold-Outs For Past Eternal Temporal Becoming here also have to face the fact that, say, non-accelerating reference frames and Special Relativity and so on are by no means anywhere close to a ToE or T.O.E or Theory Of Everything, just as the B-Theory of Time is not itself, by any metric, an explanatory terminus. Nor is Hawking’s South Pole nor the 4D block universe and so on.

From E. Feser, perhaps http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/07/carroll-on-laws-and-causation.html context with this:

“…..what allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time. Here again Carroll is just begging the question. On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence or nature on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent. The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it — even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe — will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.). And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it. And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary — only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be…”

Past Eternal Universe: Infinite Time Sums To The Infinite Contingency

One must follow through. Granting “Time” in “weee-little-bits” or granting “Time” as the “eternal contingency” both fail as a rational terminus as we find that in all cases and in all “Degrees” we are left either with “weee-little-bits” of various Contingencies or else with an Eternal Contingency and that is why Theologians in various times and places did not find it problematic to either Defend or else Grant the Past Eternal Universe.

“….But the catch is that the causality of each intermediate is *not* fulfilled in its prior cause, since that cause, too, is dependent on yet a prior cause to fulfill its causality. Regression to infinity means that the causality never gets completely fulfilled, and thus, the chain fails for want of an uncaused first caused….” ((..by Dr. Bonnette))

That quote of Bonnette alludes to the fact that Physics-full-stop, rationally followed, leads one beyond physics-full-stop. What typically follows is a. various sorts of category errors related to some flavor of the fallacy of composition / god-of-gaps, b. the pains of brute fact, and, c. at some ontological seam somewhere, Non-Theism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] in ANY “Fundamental Nature of X” forces the end of reason itself which lands not in the convertibility of the necessary transcendentals with respect to being but, rather, in the illusory shadows of non-being. Which is to say that reason, rationally followed, leads one beyond one’s own unavoidably contingent reason and into the Necessary & Irreducible vis-à-vis Reason Itself. The Divine Mind presses in. From there, well, the nature of the entire discussion ((given Non-Theism)) immediately hits a hard “Y” in the road, wherein on one arm the Non-Theist is eager to abort lucidity’s necessary means and ends, while the Theist refuses such reductions to absurdity.

**Again more detail will come later in the section titled “Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3” which explores ((…in all three parts)) several excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Past Eternal Universe: Intermediates Between T1 & T2 (Part 1 of 2)

This section is NOT looking at reasons that the Past Eternal Temporal Becoming is a problem, but rather it is to look at just a few reasons why “Time With No Change” is a problem and that may seem odd – because it is odd and that is why we must think about “T1 or T2 Yet No Change” and so avoid a subtle error.

The following is false:

“X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is sufficient for us to say “change” is “real”

Why is it false? Well first the Christian is not discussing two options but four options and of the four the Christian Metaphysic fully funds both C. and D as per:

A—Non-Theistic Presentism
B—Non-Theistic Eternalism
C— Theistic Presentism
D— Theistic Eternalism

**Along the way one can add Perdurantism and/or Endurantism if so inclined.

Regarding “X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is sufficient for us to say “change” is “real” we have to be specific with what we are referring to because what either IS or IS NOT missing in the “Intermediates” is Being-In-Continuum.

“Is change real“? Too often on the content of “our perception changes” the replies that are given tend to skip right over the change ITSELF, or over the intermediates THEMSELVES ((…there are no intermediates as we’ll see…)). If change is actual then Time must be akin to a “solid” when it comes to reality’s concrete furniture in that it is actual, seamless, gap-less such that between T1 and T2 there is not non-being, but, instead, there is being.

Let’s take the verb “learning” as an example. [Knowledge-AB] exits at T1 and [Knowledge-ABCD] exits at T2. However, too often our Non-Theist friends pretend that the interim, the transition, can be ignored. But of course the change itself just is the whole discussion, just is the interim, the intermediates. If the claim is that scientific realism is valid on Non-Theism and that said realism is telling us change is real well then change is real – because science – because perception. But then so too it is the interim itself, the transition itself which is actual, seamless, gap-less and [T1][T2] are not sufficient.

To achieve the Necessary/Sufficient we must reject “gaps-in-being” in totality. In fact the very concept there of “intermediates” or “gap” between T1 and T2 is an absurdity in the form of [T1 being] [gap in being – which is non-being] [T2 being]. The mere fact that [Knowledge-AB] exits at T1 and [Knowledge-ABCD] exists at T2 is not sufficient to account for Real Change. It is the syntax of continuum / seamlessness or else it is Sean Carroll’s (Etc.) fateful syntax of illusion and/or “useful but not true”.

If our Non-Theist friends wish to foist what amounts to a fallacious brand of scientific realism (… http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html…) well then “X1 exists at T1” + “X2 exists at T2” is necessary but not sufficient. What is needed is being in continuum.

What that means for Reason Itself is catastrophic for Non-Theism. “I think therefore I am” runs into the following:

My Past-Self…. real?
My Present-Self….real?
My Future-Self….real?

Intermediates Between T1 & T2 (Part 2 of 2)

Again here as in Part 1 of 2 the section is NOT looking at reasons that the Past Eternal Temporal Becoming is a problem, but rather it is to look at just a few reasons why “Time With No Change” is a problem and that may seem odd – because it is odd and that is why we must think about “T1 or T2 Yet No Change” and so avoid a subtle error.

From https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/tenseless-time-and-identity-over-time/

Begin Excerpt (…bold mine…)

Your perceptive question, Daniel, is one which I’ve addressed in my essay “McTaggart’s Paradox and the Problem of Temporary Intrinsics,” Analysis 58 (1998): 122-127. For those who are unfamiliar with the background of Daniel’s question, let me explain that, broadly speaking, there are two competing views of the nature of time: the tensed view, which holds that temporal becoming is a real, objective feature of the world, and the tenseless view, which holds that all moments of time, whether past, present, or future, are equally real and existent, so that temporal becoming is an illusion of human consciousness…. Now what Daniel has noticed is that the tenseless view has a very strange implication. Consider some entity x that exists at two different moments of time. Rather than an electron, let x be you yourself, to sharpen the paradox. It follows from the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals that you are not the same person who existed just one minute ago! For on the tenseless theory of time, these are two distinct objects occupying different locations in spacetime. Moreover, they have different properties: the later person may have a slightly different shape or a few less molecules. So they cannot be identical, since they have discernible properties.

What this implies is not that the tenseless time theorist must abandon the principle of identity, since that is a necessary truth of logic, but rather that the tenseless time theorist must hold that intrinsic change is impossible and that nothing actually endures through time! These consequences are generally acknowledged by tenseless time theorists. They hold that what we call persons are just three-dimensional slices of four-dimensional spacetime “worms”. The various slices are different objects, just as the different slices of a loaf of bread are. One slice does not turn into another, nor does any undergo intrinsic change. The appearance of change arises because the various temporal slices have different intrinsic properties. There is no more intrinsic change in objects over time than in a loaf of bread which tapers from large slices at one end to small slices at the other.

I agree with you, Daniel, that this seems really crazy. I have every reason to believe that there is at least one thing which endures through intrinsic change, namely, I myself. I existed a second ago, and despite the changes which have taken place in me, I still exist now. No sane person really believes that he is not the same person who existed a minute ago. Moreover, the tenseless view is incompatible with moral responsibility, praise, and blame. The non-conscious, four-dimensional object of which I am a part cannot be regarded as a moral agent and is therefore not morally responsible for anything. One might say that the spatio-temporal slices or parts of such objects are moral agents. But then it becomes impossible to hold one slice responsible for what another slice has done. How can one person be blamed and punished for what an entirely distinct, different person did? Why should I be punished for his crimes? By the same token, how can moral praise be given to a person for what some other, no longer existent person did? Why should I, who have done nothing, get the credit for the heroism of some other person? This argument has serious theological ramifications, for Christian theism affirms not only that people are responsible moral agents but also that God is just in holding them responsible for their deeds.

Your second objection about the explanation of the illusion of temporal becoming is also a pressing problem. On the tenseless view mental events themselves are strung out in a tenseless series just as physical events are and are all equally real. My now-awareness of tomorrow is just as real as my now-awareness of today. The experience of the successive becoming of experiences is illusory. Experiences do not really come to be and pass away. But that flies in the face of the phenomenology of time consciousness. It denies that we experience the becoming of our experiences. For if we do have such an experience, then we must ask all over again whether that experience is mind-dependent or not, and so on. To halt a vicious infinite regress, the tenseless time theorist must deny that we do experience the becoming of experiences. But such a phenomenology is obviously inaccurate.

I’m not sure why you say that the tenseless view implies materialism with respect to human beings; but tenseless time theorists are for the most part wedded to naturalistic epistemology and so would in any case be ill-disposed to any mind-body dualism.

So why does someone like Stephen Hawking espouse a tenseless view of time? I think that the main reason is that physics finds it useful to treat time and space as a four-dimensional entity called spacetime in which temporal becoming plays no part. Relativity Theory in particular becomes perspicuous in such a context. Unfortunately, far too many physicists, having never studied philosophy, naively take this geometrical representation as a piece of metaphysics rather than as a merely heuristic device. One therefore has to be very cautious about the statements of physicists when it comes to the nature of time.

End Excerpt (…bold mine…)

Feser makes the following observation regarding the notion that ALL change is illusion as the Self comes into focus:

Quote:

“First, what we would have in this case is one more instance of the common strategy whereby science (as the moderns have defined “science”) attempts to unify phenomena by relativizing the apparent differences between them to the observer. Hence “heat,” “sound,” “red,” “green,” etc. are redefined so that what common sense means by these terms (features which are irreducibly qualitative rather than quantitative, and which can vary from perceiver to perceiver) is relativized to the “mental” or “subjective” point of view of the observer, and what is allowed to count as “objective” or “physical” heat, sound, or color is only what can be captured in a quantitative model – the motions of particles, compression waves, surface reflectance properties, and the like. So too, time and change, when treated as if they do not really exist in the external world, are relativized to the mind of the observer as mere projections onto external reality. But the observer himself remains. And as Popper pointed out, there is no getting around the fact that change really occurs at least within the observer’s consciousness itself. To deny this is implicitly to deny the very empirical evidential base on which physical theory is supposed to rest [….in the blog itself there is a link here to Democritus’ Paradox….]. Hence if Einstein really were Parmenides redevivus, his position would face incoherence just as the Eleatic philosopher’s did, at least if the Minkowskian interpretation is correct and if we want to say that the conscious subject is a part of a natural world that is purportedly free of change. Alternatively, we could adopt a dualist view according to which the conscious subject is not a part of that world. That will save the Minkowskian view from incoherence, but at the cost of merely relocating change rather than eliminating it…..”

End Quote.

While the topic here is not specifically centered in the philosophy of mind, the problem which arises from the fact that one’s ontology fails to actually value Becoming/Experiencing/Changing there is of course far more with respect to that same deflationary truth value in and of all First Person Data such as Intentionality and the Experienced Self as per “i-think” / “i-am” and so on. For content and segues into those “Maps” as it were see “Consciousness, Emergence, Intentionality, Searle, Reason Atop The Irrational, And Naturalism’s Egregious Deficiency” at https://metachristianity.com/consciousness-emergence-intentionality-searle-reason-atop-the-irrational/

TIME IS REAL ON ETERNALISM

Time is real in Eternalism ((as it is in Presentism)) and as we say there are problems if we want “Change” ((temporal becoming)) to be “Ontologically Solid” within Eternalism’s Map. Time is real BUT NOT IN THE SENSE OF “FLOW” / “BECOMING”. Sean Carroll describes Change in terms of the Magic of Entanglement / Superposition and as we will see Time/Change thereby is not ontologically real. It’s an entirely illusory construct and an entirely mental construct which the mind takes as reality. Recall that said “Conscious Observer” must itself be “one-with” the 4D Block or whatever “Map” we use here.

Time via the past is real in that it is on ontological par with the present and with the future. Time is “real” because all events past and current and future are eternally real, right now. We begin to discover that said Map abolishes Temporal Becoming/Change. Yesterday and Tomorrow are “as real as today” and this is where Causality as we know it is abolished.

There is NOT “something” “causing” the cup to shatter. The “cup sitting there” is eternally real just like the “1/3 shattered cup” sitting here, just like the “1/2 shattered cup” sitting here just like the “fully shattered” cup sitting here. And so “Time is real” in the Block Universe ((in Eternalism)) but it is Real in THAT sense and NOT in the “tensed/becoming” sense.

Discovery of what isn’t at each step helps clarify: Recall earlier the problem of “T1” and “T2” and Dr. Craig’s problem of Temporary Intrinsics and Dr. Craig’s Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals and the problem of the missing “Intermediates” which turned out to be Missing Being – as in holes caused by Non-Being. All of that is what carries us to the loss of “Tensed” where we find the loss of “Temporal Becoming” and that is then where we find the loss of Change which is then where we discover the loss of Causation.

So we see then the fact that “Nothing Changes” and “Nothing is Caused” and “Nothing Causes”. It’s a “Static” Block — as in “Stasis” or “Stagnation”. That is “Timelessness” ((…given Non-Theism…)). The trick is to realize that the phrase “there is a past” regarding Time is true but it’s wholly irrelevant. The Key is NOT the eternally real Past/Now/Future because that’s all a wash, all are eternal and all actual. The Key is that both Change & Causation are ontologically expunged. The Non-Theist is slowly closed in upon by subtle hints of semantic intent faintly reminiscent of Pure Act. Recall that BOTH Timelessness AND Time/Tense are fully funded vis-à-vis the Christian Metaphysic. Recall from earlier:

Genesis Arrives In Divine Communique And The Heavy-Meta Bible

Non-Theism Arrives In Metaphor And Allegory

A brief example of what and how it is that “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind, and how that actually necessitates Transposition with reach, and how that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

What exactly *is* the Bible’s “Genre”? What is the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“? More to the point – why did Omnipotence Decree and Create the Imago Dei? Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon a Divine Communique which never changes from start to finish, which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation.

We land – there – in the irreducible at some ontological seam somewhere – in the interface of the Immaterial God with the Immaterial Adamic. There – and nowhere else – we find the end of the matter. It is not merely about “Go out and subdue physicality…” – and all that comes with that. No. Rather, it is about Transposition across Time and Circumstance, it is about “Come in and know – Taste and see – Behold and become….” – and all that comes with that.

The irreducible interface of Immaterial God / Immaterial Adamic houses all Sub-narratives and the entire Meta-narrative – it is about that which now does in fact out-distance Cosmology just as it is about that which will then outlast Cosmology – even as it is about that which now does in fact out-distance Physics just as it is about that which will then outlast Physics. It is about that which will outlast the gift of Prophecy – and the gift of Knowledge – and the gift of Healing – and all that goes with such temporal vectors. It is about the ontological real estate which saturates the agenda of Omnipotence in employing that mode of Story and of Narrative – in giving that form of a Divine Communique given the reality of the many pains of Man in “Privation“.

The A – Z of the Meta-narrative: Infinite Consciousness transposes into Frail and Mutable Consciousness and we arrive – there – and nowhere else – upon the unchanging Divine Communique which transposes through all Time and all Circumstance whether such transposes through the written or through the spoken or through – in all worlds – Incarnation. It is about the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis reality’s only full-on Blueprint of Love’s Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving termed Imago Dei.

It also about the free and informed and willful rejection of all Necessary Transcendentals which stream from the metaphysical wellspring of all ontological possibility – from the Trinitarian Life vis-à-vis reality’s only full-on Blueprint of Love’s Timeless Reciprocity and Ceaseless Self-Giving termed Imago Dei. By that we mean the knowing and intentional conflation of Timelessness for Time, the knowing and intentional conflation of Emergence for Becoming, the knowing and intentional conflation of Entanglement for Change, the knowing and intentional conflation of Superposition for Causing/Caused, the knowing and intentional conflation of Mind for Non-Mind, the knowing and intentional conflation of Irreducible Reciprocity/Self-Giving for Irreducible Indifference such as, say, something akin to the following:

“…the people who wrote the Psalms had no clue what space was…. what part of that is entertaining…. So that is my point. There is no reasonable excuse for the laughably bad cosmology….”

All of that is fairly common and amounts to our Non-Theist friend’s demanding the proverbial Billion Page Bible to cover all the bases and all cultural margins from ten thousand years of ten thousand conceptual ceilings and ten thousand reference frames.

It is inevitable of course that “Raqia & God hammering out the stuff up there” is all just too cryptic for such folks as they would need to drop their Cosmology and bring in what Scripture is actually discussing:

The “ontological history of becoming” with respect to Cosmos and with respect to the Conscious Observer in the Adamic, the reality of Self/Other with respect to God/ The-Good as such relates to the Trinitarian Life, the Necessary, the Contingent, and far, far more. That secondary portion which speaks to Man of going out and subduing physicality is merely the Book’s end-band and turn-in, its inner-hinge and spine, its board attachments and liners – all of which can be any of a thousand different colors and a thousand different forms – and as any first grader knows – that is neither the Sub-narrative nor the Meta-narrative as the Book’s Content is elsewhere – only millimeters away – on the flip-side of such colors and forms – in the transposition of irreducible interfaces vis-à-vis Communique.

The Divine Communique will – given the Christian metaphysic with respect to Privation, Knowledge, Perception, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil – in fact reach into the consciousness of mankind throughout all of the following:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

From A to Z our Non-Theist friends will have to put their money where their proverbial mouth is and go into any grade-school class room and, while staying within their conceptual ceilings afforded them, transpose/communicate not Time and Years and Days and Space-Time but instead Timelessness and Eternalism and Entanglement and Superposition.

As we move forward and find that it is odd how everyone knows that neither Physics nor Cosmology are convertible with Ontology and yet our Non-Theist friends expect to find in Scripture the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming regarding both Cosmos and Conscious Observer populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology.

Even worse, they do NOT expect said Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures. Such wrongheaded thinking perhaps explains their own befuddlement when it comes to that actual Nature of and Function of Speech.

Is physics ontology?
Is cosmology ontology?
Is Mathematics ontology?

Of course not. Neither is convertible with ontology and yet our Non-Theist friends insist the ontic referents populating Genesis’ ontological history of becoming with respect to Cosmos & Conscious Observer ought to land in physics, cosmology, or mathematics.

The intriguing part is that there is no such thing there as “Allegory” or as “Metaphor” on the Christian’s part and yet there is just that landscape of the illusory within the Non-Theist’s attempt to locate such ontic referents in physics / cosmology.

Think that through: given the non-convertibility of that which is Physics/Cosmology (…and QM / mathematics ….see http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html …) for that which is Ontology we find that ANY so-called Meta-Narative which is in fact constituted of ontological referents which land within Physics / Cosmology is in the end all the stuff of Allegory and of Metaphor, WHEREAS, any Meta-Narrative which is in fact constituted of ontic-referents which land in that which is actually Ontic as per Being & Existence & Reason & (Etc.) is in the end a Communique which is anything but Allegory or Metaphor.

“Scripture” *is* “Metanarrative” *is* “Communique” *is* “Transposition” *is* as per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Our Non-Theist friends expect to find in Scripture the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology even as they expect Scripture’s Divine Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures.

Why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology? Why would the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all be populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology? Why would Scripture’s Divine Communique NOT be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures?

Everyone knows that Physics and Cosmology are not convertible with Ontology and while Non-Theists have various ways of expressing that we can say that what that “looks like” in the syntax of the Christian Metaphysic is something akin to the following:

Pure Act ((Being Itself)) Creates and we have there the Self-Outpouring of Logos and, so, Logos there in what is always the Downhill Ontic references all things “Adamic” and of course all things Adamic are World-Contingent ((not Necessary)). As for God/Logos we find Being Itself and of course such ipso-facto cannot be World-Contingent. Therefore it is Logos which supersedes all things Adamic and not the other way around. Therefore to land in the World-Contingent just is to land outside of Ontology vis-à-vis “ontological history of becoming” and for all the same reasons to land within Physics or Cosmology or Space-Time ((with one’s ontic referents as beginning/ending said narrative)) just is, again, to land outside of Ontology. The category of Description is not the category of Explanation.

So, when our Non-Theist friends insist that Ontology is ad-hoc to Cosmology we must remind them that in their treatment of Genesis and of Science they are actually building an upside-down edifice. They pretend and speak “As-If” Cosmology is convertible with ontology and “As-If” Physics is convertible with ontology.

So we ask: does one “Explanatory Terminus” equate to another “Explanatory Terminus”? Do we find the Terms and Syntax within Cosmology/Physics to be convertible with the Terms and Syntax within Ontology? Of course not. But then why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology?

The ontological history of becoming vis-a-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-a-vis the Conscious Observer speaks to the immutable and timeless referents vis-à-vis Being and Existence vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Life – and they haven’t changed – and they continue to populate the ancient Hebrew’s conceptual ceiling.

That brings us again, from another direction, to the same questions for our Non-Theist friends: Why would Scripture conflate physics and/or cosmology for ontology? Why would the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Conscious Observer all be populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology? Why would Scripture’s Divine Communique NOT be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures?

In the same way: The “Divine Communique” v. “Genesis” is entirely populated with terms & syntax which land within and upon ontological termini all of which specifically referent the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer.

In the same way: The conceptual mindsets and ceilings of ALL Times and ALL Cultures are included — EVEN those of Modernity. Multiple times we’ve challenged our Non-Theist friends to ALSO INCLUDE Modernity’s conceptual ceiling with respect to what Physics gives us regarding its dissolution of Presentism and its demands for Eternalism and all of that with respect to Ontology. The result is that they merely opine about Genesis all while evading the problem of compatibility of Modernity’s Conceptional Ceiling as it relates to what physics is telling us vis-à-vis Emergent Time and not Fundamental Time and vis-à-vis the 4D Block Universe as Change (Time) ultimately lands in the illusory shadows of non-being.

Modernity’s conceptual ceiling cannot even in principle avoid logical reductio’s both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction as Physics chases our entire epistemology out of Change and out of Scientific Realism. The “Conscious Observer” itself is there as the embedded unintelligibility in all available termini. Yet God in His current interaction with us speaks Coherently and Lucidly to us in and by Transposition as described earlier in per https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Genesis all over again:

The challenge our Non-Theist friends face is to justify why they actually believe that [A] Scripture’s Divine Communique in Genesis 1 and [B] God’s Divine Communique now in Modernity is any DIFFERENT with respect to the testimony of PHYSICS. Their accusation of “ad hoc” only works if they expunge modern physics from THEIR analytic whereas the Christian’s analytic is, from A to Z, all-inclusive with respect to 1. all possible reference frames and 2. all possible levels of knowledge and 3. all possible cultures in 4. all historical times.

The Non-Theist will need to point to something in Cosmology void of Change/Time which captures the origin of all things and then juxtapose that alongside of “Conscious Observer” void of Change/Time which captures the origin of all things. They will then have to justify the absurd premise of [Physics = Ontology].

‪That will unmask several errors in their analytic where they are working off the premise that Ontology is ad-hoc to Cosmology as we discover that bizarre reality that our Non-Theist friends expect to find (in Scripture) the Divine Communique of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis both Cosmos and Conscious Observer populated by Metrics and Referents which land in Physics and Cosmology. That leaves them as the only members sitting at the table who are actually drawing a Map which sums to an inexplicable Upside Down Edifice. Just as bad is the bizarre fact that THEY do NOT expect Scripture’s Divine Communique to be able to linguistically fit beneath every and all conceptual ceilings in all times and in all cultures ((…the Christian DOES expect that…)). Such wrongheaded thinking perhaps explains their own befuddlement when it comes to that actual Nature of and Function of Speech.

It’s not impossible to knowingly embrace the reduction ad absurdum ((…and so reject “Proofs of God” as per Retorsion https://randalrauser.com/2018/09/does-christianity-need-the-homoousion/#comment-4117374727 …)) and, yes, our Non-Theist friends must do so either in their syntax with respect to their own landing zones and metrics and referents or in the landing zones and metrics and referents which they fallaciously shoe-horn into Strawman-Narratives in order that they can then foist them as Scripture’s “real” Meta-Narrative.

The error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both on Identity and on Non-Contradiction. Even MORE than “just” “that” there is still the whole problem of Writing Structure, Literary Device, Genre, Semantic Intent, and so on. Typology may in fact show that entire swaths of scripture are not so much “Newspaper Narrative” as they are large replaying thematic melodies:

Genesis, Matrix, And Typology:

Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Divine Communique, Transposition, & Heavy-Meta-Bible

Recall: SPACE-TIME is emergent, and, also, emergence does not mean “timelessness becoming time”. There is no actual becoming/changing — and so to conflate Emergence with Becoming is to falter – which is to say that to conflate Emergence with Change/Changing is to falter. Emergence reduces to entanglement/superposition and not to “becoming” / “change” / “changing”. Time/Change/Becoming ((per the weight of physics)) reduces to Non-Being and is illusory vis-à-vis ALL “fundamental natures” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. It can’t retain both Timelessness and Time as one must reduce to illusion. Recall that entanglement/superposition reduce to unchanging layers viewed from different perspectives ((…the problem of the Conscious Observer isn’t the topic here but of course the Non-Theist cannot salvage coherence in that arena, unlike the Christian Metaphysic wherein Being Itself as Reason Itself as Absolute Consciousness Itself deliver reality’s concrete furniture…)).

For the Christian Metaphysic we predict that physics will lead the rational mind to the awareness that something “Timeless” & “Unchanging” and “Invisible” and “Everywhere” and which is in fact Actual. The Non-Theist can get there but unfortunately he hits a dead end in not only one avenue but multiple. Thus Presentism (Temporal Becoming is ontologically real — contra Eternalism) is for the Non-Theist an ontological anathema while in the Christian Metaphysic both Presentism and Eternalism are fully accounted for.

The evidence weights heavily towards [Eternalism] over [Presentism] such that Time is ontologically emergent — it is not an irreducible feature of reality’s fundamental nature. No longer is “Contingency Or Not” the question as Non-Theism’s “Time” vis-à-vis “Change” becomes a Currency devoid of value such that Metaphysical Naturalism becomes a Narrative found only through what must be no more than the Allegorical and the Metaphorical.

Again the [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change] and of course there is no “Beginning” for there is no “Change” and that is true from A to Z given the Non-Theist’s Toolbox. Non-Theism’s scramble to embrace the full-on Reductio of Brute Fact is predictably placed in this discussion as whichever way Non-Theism runs we find that BOTH Eternalism/Presentism force reductions to absurdity within Metaphysical Naturalism while BOTH comport with the Christian Metaphysic. It is elegant to observe Modernity converging with the Christian’s syntax and all of that funds predictive power and thereby Explanatory Power.

Helpful insights into the why’s and how’s are in Dr. Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime” which is at both A— https://www.amazon.com/Something-Deeply-Hidden-Emergence-Spacetime-ebook/dp/B07NTYJJDX/ and also B— https://strangenotions.com/is-the-passage-of-time-real-or-just-an-illusion/

Any metanarrative which seeks to communicate the facts surrounding the ontological history of becoming of the universe — but then tries to speak “as-if” Time (Change) is a Metric of actual value — and then stops “there” — ipso facto fails. Then, Metaphysical Naturalism embraces the peculiar and painful circularity in the Conscious Observer’s attempt to describe his own ontological history of becoming as a narrative encased in or bracketed by Time/Change. We find then a Narrative which is — at bottom — Allegory/Metaphor.

1— What do Scripture & Physics Both tell us about Time (Change) as a metric regarding the actual ontology behind the universe?

2— Is Time (Change) the metric/source which God is communicating into the consciousness of Man according to the Christian’s body of premises?

The term “Metanarrative” is helpful and both Physics & the Christian Metaphysic converge. God isn’t communicating an ontological narrative of Time in Genesis. Our Non-Theist friends unknowingly agree with the Christian’s body of premises regarding the fact that old documents were written by folks way-back-when and that same Narrative populates man’s consciousness through history’s array of conceptual ceilings as the Narrative of Time & Ontology affirms Christianity.

Transposing “Metaphysical Wellspring” down into “The Contingent Abstractions Of Contingent Minds” involves both [A] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html and [B] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

Time is neither the Absolute nor the Absolute’s Reference Frame and therein ALL syntax which sums to something less than the Absolute’s Own Frame of Reference is irreducibly contingent. Notice that for any Metaphysical Wellspring applying for the job of CEO the Absolute Reference Frame cannot be less than Self-Reference ((…that is not the focus here but vectors vis-à-vis the Trinitarian Metaphysic converge there…)).

From Non-Being Into Being: God vis-à-vis Existence Itself vis-à-vis Being Itself reveals the Christian Metaphysic’s “Metaphysical Wellspring Of All Ontological Possibility” and fully funds any voyage from non-being to being. Regarding the term “God” our Non-Theist friends out to avoid fallacious “straw-men” terms as described at https://metachristianity.com/god-vs-a-god-vs-gods-vs-the-gods-vs-sky-daddy-vs-santa-clause/ In the Christian metaphysic we find the “Principal of Proportionate Causality” as defined in https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-without-second.html when we discuss The Free Act of Being Itself (God) in Creating Ex Nihilo. We find there a journey into the irreducible constitutions within the voyage from non-being traversing an ocean of proportionate causality and crossing into being. That voyage will always end in a cheat and an equivocation for our Non-Theist friends. Whereas, such cheating is not the case with reality’s ontological history of becoming in and by the final ontic-referent in the Christian term “GOD / Being Itself“. It’s not hard. There’s God. There’s non-being. Then there’s causality proportionate to the effect as per the previously described “Principal of Proportionate Causality“. Then there’s being. One can swap “nothing” for “non-being” given the Philosophical Nothing under review.

Briefly: Blind Faith & Nothing

A faith in the potential for a metaphysic somewhere / somehow in which nothing or non-being births universes or being is fine – it just isn’t evidence based. Regarding the term “irreducible”, that’s just pointing to non-being or nothing as terms which are not reducible to an equivocation such as being or such as something. A small but fundamental key: Should one think to appeal to the conceivability of and/or sight of the “in principle possibility” in some world somewhere of Round-Squares vis-a-vis [A = Non-A] well then one must claim to see what actually ends up as Non-Being – as described in https://metachristianity.com/logic-itself-is-being-itself-contra-the-fallacy-of-presuppositionalism/

Briefly before continuing with Quantum Wave Functions:

Divine Freedom In Creating And Does God Change If He Creates? https://metachristianity.com/divine-freedom-in-creating-and-does-god-change-if-he-creates/

Creation Ex Nihilo, The Principle Of Proportionate Causality, Seamelessness In Being From Pure Act To The Contingent And From I Am To Imago Dei https://metachristianity.com/creation-ex-nihilo-the-principle-of-proportionate-causality-seamelessness-in-being-from-pure-act-to-the-contingent-and-from-i-am-to-imago-dei/

Emergence And Formation by David B. Hart https://metachristianity.blogspot.com/2020/01/consciousness-and-emergence-and-formation.html

The Illusionist ~ On Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back ~The Evolution of Minds ~ By David Bentley Hart https://metachristianity.com/the-illusionist-on-daniel-dennetts-from-bacteria-to-bach-and-back-the-evolution-of-minds-by-david-bentley-hart/

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 1 of 3

Simply as a matter of giving context the following is a brief list of a few excerpts from Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds And The Emergence Of Spacetime“.

Quote: “In other words, there’s not “really” time in the superposition state, which is completely static. But entanglement generates a relationship between what the clock reads and what the rest of the universe is doing. And the state of the rest of the universe is precisely what it would be if it were evolving as the original state did over time. We have replaced “time” as a fundamental notion with “what the clock reads in this part of the overall quantum superposition.” In that way, time has emerged from a static state, thanks to the magic of entanglement.” End quote.

From that quote notice the TRIO of “Static” ((what IS vis-à-vis Being as opposed to Non-Being)) and the ((supposed)) verb “Doing” and the ((supposed)) verb “Emerge” and notice that all three are used “as a set” ((and therefore incoherently)). Notice that “Real” is “No-Do-“ing“” and “Emerge” then gives birth to “Not-Real-Do-“ing“” which is what is called Change ((Time)). “Emerge” does not equate to “Evolve Into Existence” but instead it is about perception vis-a-vis relations among different perspectives via the entanglement (QM) and juxtaposition (QM) of “layers”. Each layer is itself void of change and so shifting how they are “viewed” is where “emergence” happens “thanks to the magic of entanglement”. But there is no “change” in any each layer itself and there is no “evolving of real/ontological Time from Non-Time“. Instead, the mathematical equations are just being written out longhand from different “angles” along different “layers” and those “DIFFERENCES” create the illusion we perceive as “CHANGE”.

Continuing/Excerpts:

1— “….the right way to think about the causality is “some microscopic process happened that caused branching, and on different branches you ended up making different decisions,” rather than “you made a decision, which caused the wave function of the universe to branch”….”

2— “….First, “free will” versus “determinism” isn’t the right distinction to draw. Determinism should be opposed to “indeterminism,” and free will should be opposed to “no free will”….”

3— “….Even in textbook quantum mechanics, human beings are still collections of particles and fields obeying the laws of physics. For that matter, quantum mechanics is not necessarily indeterministic. Many-Worlds is a counterexample. You evolve, perfectly deterministically, from a single person now into multiple persons at a future time. No choices come into the matter anywhere…..“

4— “….As far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether you are a compatibilist or an incompatibilist concerning free will. In neither case should quantum uncertainty affect your stance; even if you can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement, that outcome stems from the laws of physics, not any personal choices made by you. We don’t create the world by our actions, our actions are part of the world….”

5— “….Maybe quantum mechanics and consciousness are somehow interconnected; it’s a hypothesis we’re welcome to contemplate. But according to everything we currently know, there is no good evidence this is actually the case….”

6— “….though far from certain — that the rates of various neural processes in your brain depend on quantum entanglement in an interesting way, so that they cannot be understood by classical reasoning alone. But accounting for consciousness, as we traditionally think about it, isn’t a straightforward matter of the rates of neural processes. Philosophers distinguish between the “easy problem” of consciousness — figuring out how we sense things, react to them, think about them—and the “hard problem”— our subjective, first-person experience of the world; what it is like to be us, rather than someone else. Quantum mechanics doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the hard problem….”

7— “….It’s perfectly conceivable that some subtle quantum processes in the brain, involving microtubules or something completely different, affect the rate at which our neurons fire. But this is of no help whatsoever in bridging the gap between “the firing of our neurons” and “our subjective, self-aware experience.” Many scientists and philosophers, myself included, have no trouble believing that this gap is very bridgeable. But a tiny change in the rate of this or that neurochemical process doesn’t seem to be relevant to understanding how. (And if it were, there’s no reason the effect couldn’t be repeated in nonhuman computers.). — Everettian quantum mechanics has nothing specific to say about the hard problem of consciousness that wouldn’t be shared by any other view in which the world is entirely physical. In such a view, the relevant facts about consciousness include these: Consciousness arises from brains. Brains are coherent physical systems. That’s all. (“ Coherent” here means “made of mutually interacting parts”; two collections of neurons on two non-interacting branches of the wave function are two distinct brains.) You can extend “brains” to “nervous systems” or “organisms” or “information-processing systems” if you like. The point is that we aren’t making extra assumptions about consciousness or personal identity in order to discuss Many-Worlds quantum mechanics; it is a quintessentially mechanistic theory, with no special role for observers or experiences. Conscious observers branch along with the rest of the wave function, of course, but so do rocks and rivers and clouds. The challenge of understanding consciousness is as difficult, no more and no less, in Many-Worlds as it would have been without quantum mechanics at all….”

[8/Eight is a bit long and is then followed by one segue before moving to 9/nine…]

Begin Excerpt 8

“…It’s only when the outcome of a measurement is perceived by a human being that (in this way of thinking) the wave function absolutely has to collapse, because no human being has ever reported being in a superposition of different measurement outcomes. So the last possible place we can draw the cut is between “observers who can testify as to whether they are in a superposition” and “everything else.” Since the perception of not being in a superposition is part of our consciousness, it’s not crazy to ask whether it’s actually consciousness that causes the collapse. — This idea was put forward as early as 1939, by Fritz London and Edmond Bauer, and later gained favor with Eugene Wigner, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on symmetries. In Wigner’s words:

“All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions (also called “apperceptions”) of the consciousness, and even though the dividing line between the observer, whose consciousness is being affected, and the observed physical object can be shifted towards the one or the other to a considerable degree, it cannot be eliminated. It may be premature to believe that the present philosophy of quantum mechanics will remain a permanent feature of future physical theories; it will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.”

Wigner himself later changed his mind about the role of consciousness in quantum theory, but others have taken up the torch. It’s not generally a view you will hear spoken of approvingly at physics conferences, but there are some scientists out there who continue to take it seriously. —— If consciousness did play a role in the quantum measurement process, what exactly would that mean? The most straightforward approach would be to posit a dualist theory of consciousness, according to which “mind” and “matter” are two distinct, interacting categories. The general idea would be that our physical bodies are made of particles with a wave function that obeys the Schrödinger equation, but that consciousness resides in a separate immaterial mind, whose influence causes wave functions to collapse upon being perceived. Dualism has waned in popularity since its heyday in the time of René Descartes. The basic conundrum is the “interaction problem”: How do mind and matter interact with each other? In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

End Excerpt 8.

A brief segue off of 8 before moving to 9/nine:

In number eight there is a question, “In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

First recall that extension into time and space is merely a useful description of one particular slice of the much larger Quantum Wave Function, or even of Many Worlds and as such is not binding at all with respect to larger [fields / waves / branches / whatever]. Second, again regarding extension into space as it relates to Mind, the following four are comments near the end of a discussion in which that very problem presents its own problem for this or that [QM-Full-Stop] Non-Theism (Etc.).

End segue off of eight.

9— “….There is another strategy, however, that seems at once less clunky and considerably more dramatic. This is idealism, in the philosophical sense of the word. It doesn’t mean “pursuing lofty ideals,” but rather that the fundamental essence of reality is mental, rather than physical, in character. Idealism can be contrasted with physicalism or materialism, which suggest that reality is fundamentally made of physical stuff, and minds and consciousness arise out of that as collective phenomena. If physicalism claims that there is only the physical world, and dualism claims that there are both physical and mental realms, idealism claims that there is only the mental realm. (There is not a lot of support on the ground for the remaining logical possibility, that neither the physical nor the mental exists.)….”

10— “….For an idealist, mind comes first, and what we think of as “matter” is a reflection of our thoughts about the world. In some versions of the story, reality emerges from the collective effort of all the individual minds, whereas in others, a single concept of “the mental” underlies both individual minds and the reality they bring to be. Some of history’s greatest philosophical minds, including many in various Eastern traditions but also Westerners such as Immanuel Kant, have been sympathetic to some version of idealism. — It’s not hard to see how quantum mechanics and idealism might seem like a good fit. Idealism says that mind is the ultimate foundation of reality, and quantum mechanics (in its textbook formulation) says that properties like position and momentum don’t exist until they are observed, presumably by someone with a mind….”

11— “….If it weren’t for quantum mechanics and the measurement problem, all of our experience of reality would speak to the wisdom of putting matter first and mind emergent from it, rather than the other way around. So, is the weirdness of the quantum measurement process sufficiently intractable that we should discard physicalism itself, in favor of an idealistic philosophy that takes mind as the primary ground of reality? Does quantum mechanics necessarily imply the centrality of the mental? No. We don’t need to invoke any special role for consciousness in order to address the quantum measurement problem. We’ve seen several counterexamples. Many-Worlds is an explicit example, accounting for the apparent collapse of the wave function using the purely mechanistic process of decoherence and branching. We’re allowed to contemplate the possibility that consciousness is somehow involved, but it’s just as certainly not forced on us by anything we currently understand. Of course, we will often talk about conscious experiences in our attempts to map the quantum formalism onto the world as we see it, but only when the things we’re trying to explain are those experiences themselves. Otherwise, minds have nothing to do with it….”

12—“….Idealism isn’t something that’s easy to disprove; if someone is convinced it’s right, it’s hard to point to anything that would obviously change their mind (or Mind). But what they can’t do is claim that quantum mechanics forces us into such a position. We have very straightforward and compelling models of the world in which reality exists independently of us; there’s no need to think we bring reality into existence by observing or thinking about it….”

End excerpts.

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 2 of 3

Brief primer:

While I’m not a big fan of straight up Hylemorphism, the following is helpful in discovering where it is that there is no such thing as a “GAP” but rather there is either being or else non-being with respect to the concrete rock-bottom which is the referent of our semantic intent. A few years ago S. Carroll’s The Big Picture was helpful in similar areas as it helped reveal the illusory ends of the concept of “….our term X is useful but not true….”. What is Ontic, Real, Actual, Irreducible is the Elementary Particles (in that book) and now what is Real, Ontic, Actual, Irreducible is the Singularity that is “The Quantum Wave Function” (in this new book about to be quoted). And, so, as we explore “….the fundamental nature of X….” we observe that there are no Gaps. There is only being and non-being. The Self (…i-am…) and the Act of Choosing (…i-choose….) are, in the end, non-being as our Epistemic/Perceptual Duo is finally deflationary in total. Why? Well because when we arrive at reality’s concrete furniture we discover (….given the tools of Non-Theism….) that the Epistemic/Perceptual Duo trades on non-being in order to claim, emerge into, arrive at, being (…a metaphysical impossibility…. hence the phraseology of “useful but not true”….). Recall “I choose but I do not choose what I choose….” (S. Harris) and so on.

End brief primer.

So now a brief discussion/observation:

“In a classical universe, identifying a single individual as a person aging through time is generally unproblematic. At any moment a person is a certain arrangement of atoms, but it’s not the individual atoms that matter; to a large extent our atoms are replaced over time. What matters is the pattern we form, and the continuity of that pattern, especially in the memories of the person under consideration. The new feature of QM is the duplication of that pattern when the wave function branches….. We just have to adjust our notion of personal identity through time to account for a situation that we never had reason to contemplate over the millennia of pre-scientific human evolution….” (…Sean Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime”…)

It seemed odd to find such an appeal to “Form” via “Pattern”. In a manner of speaking. It seems Form may have something to offer after all. As for the rock-bottom of “Identity” we can’t go so fast. But that is okay. The reason is that all branching wave-functions are superseded by, subsumed, by the Singularity that is The-Wave-Function. In ad odd way that is as predicted given the Christian Metaphysic, however, some such as Carroll (Etc.) may not be aware of that. Obviously the realism with respect to identity vis-à-vis the self/”I” summing to something other than atoms and/or elementary particles isn’t NEW. In fact it’s actually OLD.

What becomes of the Conscious Observer, not behind/ahead, not eventually, but Always & Already, is where, in fact, wave-function and illusion and realism actually “speak”. The trouble with the irreducible any-thing, such as Carroll’s Singularity that is “The-Wave-Function” as the explanatory terminus, the Source of All, and so on, is the following:

The claim that such a Singularity gives rise to All Natures (plural) followed by the claim of being able to locate non-illusory v. irreducible distinctions among the fundamental natures (plural) of many things (plural).

Well why is that a problem? Well notice what the Reducible & Mutable “therein” actually is as opposed to the Irreducible & Immutable “therein” – which is to say notice (therein) that which is, and is not, the concrete, the Always & Already, the Explanatory Terminus, the Source of All.

It is there within the contours of Reducible/Irreducible where we begin to discover what is and is not coherent with respect to ANY vector tagged with “the fundamental nature of X – namely ANY/ALL X’s.

What is the fundamental nature of X? It’s unavoidable and to see why we only have to point out that there is no such thing as “immunity” in this or that “metaphysical cul-de-sac” (so to speak) where “some nature x” can “hide” from the metaphysical wellspring of all ontic-possibility and, thereby, we discover that all syntax – all semantic intent – must – at some ontological seam somewhere – Begin & End with a totality of indifference to all but One Fundamental Nature – and that One is the fundamental nature “The-Wave-Function“.

Form seems retained or important by QM. That’s odd but not entirely unexpected. However, we seem to find “here” the very same problem of “the illusory” which we found in Carroll’s “The Big Picture” when we begin to look for actual / ontic distinctions between the fundamental nature of Mind/Self and that of Non-Mind/Non-Self.

Again that is as predicted. The Conscious Observer as per the Always & Already is the only distinction that matters and it seems the predictive power of the Christian Metaphysic finds two data points here converging with it’s topographical map with respect to the nature of both being and self.

Briefly to close, one further observation on the above topic:

That there is something more than Form-Full-Stop is looked at by E. Feser in his discussions of Survivalism vs. Corruptionism and isn’t problematic. QM takes it pretty far, but when it counts it has to give-way to Being Itself as Mind Itself. The ONLY way for QM to sum to the whole show is to remove all transcendentals such that “in-fact” we find only Non-Distinction between the fundamental nature of Self & Non-Self // Mind & Non-Mind. The illusion of Self (there) presses in, though not in the Christian’s paradigm:

A— Non-Theism / Metaphysical Naturalism: The Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] vis-à-vis [Reality’s Fundamental Nature] from the Top Down, or from the Bottom Up, and all vis-à-vis the fundamental nature of Reason vis-à-vis Being vis-à-vis Mind vis-à-vis Intention vis-à-vis Self.

B— Theism / Divine Mind v. The Christian Metaphysic: The Necessary Conservation of [The-Great-I-AM] vis-à-vis [Reality’s Fundamental Nature] from the Top Down and all vis-à-vis the fundamental nature of Reason vis-à-vis Being vis-à-vis Mind vis-à-vis Intention vis-à-vis Self.

As it turns out those are the only two options. There just are no other options. Again I am NOT a fan of straight up Hylemorphic (Hylomorphic) Dualism. That said, a few items for context:

A— http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08/vallicella-on-hylemorphic-dualism.html

B— https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08/vallicella-on-hylemorphic-dualism-part.html

C— Corruptionism & Survivalism: IF “form” was “ALL” or the WHOLE SHOW (so to speak) then of course we’d have to expunge too much and so there is https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/03/so-what-are-you-doing-after-your-funeral.html

Hylemorphism In The Quantum Wave Part 3 of 3

Is Dualism In The Quantum Wave? Sorry. No.

Dr. Bonnette makes the following observation:

“My whole point is that an act of perception does what it does precisely because it is NOT extended in space. Saying that an extended representation somehow produces a perception, and then, that the rules of extension do not apply to that perception is to grant that the perception is NOT extended in space, which is exactly my point. As to whether an extended in space representation (or neural pattern) can generate a perception that is not extended in space is a distinct question. The answer to that is “no,” for the simple reason that the perception is doing something that no physical thing can do (as per the argument), and hence, does not have the quality of “existence without extension” needed to give it to the perception. This pertains to a secondary issue, known as emergent materialism. That is, can material bodies make things that do not have physical characteristics. But, by definition, things that lack physical characteristics do not belong in the space-time continuum, and hence, materialism is defeated again.” (Dr. Bonnette)

Dualism Entails Two Irreducibly Distinct Natures such that ontic referents within the syntax of Rolling Stones (…rocks rolling downhill…) are irreducibly (ontic) distinct from the ontic referents within the syntax of “X Designed Y” (…Mr. So-And-So designed that laptop…). Notice the multiple excerpts of Dr. Carroll listed earlier in this essay ((…and earlier, less edited version is at https://randalrauser.com/2013/04/substance-dualism-as-atheistic-heresy/#comment-4611673645 FWIW…)) and how they relate to that question of Irreducible Distinction vis-à-vis Nominalism vs. Actuality (Realism Etc.). Intentional, Volitional, and so on come to the forefront.

So then we arrive at extension into space which is interesting in this context of Mind and Naturalism. In Sean Carroll’s new book “Something Deeply Hidden” where he is discussing a problem regarding Mind / Matter interaction he comments as follows:

“In the present context, how is an immaterial mind, lacking extent in space and time, supposed to cause wave functions to collapse?….”

That’s interesting and seems to imply that Dr. Bonnette has hit the nail on the head (…for context regarding that and the Self and Choice (and Mind by default etc.) see the twelve excerpts of Dr. Carroll listed in the above hyperlink…).

The problem here is that Dr. Carroll’s discussion of extension into space seems to turn upon itself. How so? Well because when it comes to “extension into space” we must account for “space” and for “extension”. And Dr. Carroll does so in other places in the book wherein he describes space/time as emerging out of [bracketed mapped layers] created by observation/mapping or, more specifically, by superimposing different quantum states.

Two questions arise:

Question 1 of 2: Regarding observation and perception and mapping (…superimposing different quantum states…) actually “creating” anything, we have Dr. Carroll’s thoughts:

“…..The point is that we aren’t making extra assumptions about consciousness or personal identity in order to discuss Many-Worlds quantum mechanics; it is a quintessentially mechanistic theory, with no special role for observers or experiences. Conscious observers branch along with the rest of the wave function, of course, but so do rocks and rivers and clouds….. even if you can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement, that outcome stems from the laws of physics, not any personal choices made by you. We don’t create the world by our actions, our actions are part of the world……”

When we “map” this or that “layer”, nothing is being created and in fact we are not actually observing the show but are “the-show” in singularity with the Rolling Stones and Waving Tree-Branches-In-The-Wind (etc.). So far we’ve not found the “generation of / emergence of space-time” located within the “observing/mapping” which “happens” by superimposing several layers or several quantum states.

Question 2 of 2: Once the Observer is removed from the equation we must still account for the Emergence of Spacetime. The question now becomes this — Is [emerge] a verb as Carroll means it? At first we thought that it seems to arrive as a function of which layer is observed, described, & mapped in a [useful] fashion — but observation creates nothing, as we just…observed… (….yeah…) …and, for context on that:

“….the right way to think about the causality is “some microscopic process happened that caused branching, and on different branches you ended up making different decisions,” rather than “you made a decision, which caused the wave function of the universe to branch”….”(S. Carroll)

Now, recall that THOSE “microscopic processes” are THEMSELVES an “emergent layer” but we must leave that problem of “Whence Those Layers?” to the side because we are still looking for the “Whence” of the “emergent layer” that is Spacetime.

So far, in general, as we look for whether or not “Emerge” is a VERB wherein Cause/Effect or wherein Actual Change “happens”, we are still left in a place where the layers and/or branches seem to “already be there”. Then, without pausing, Dr. Carroll tells us that as we pan the viewing lens “X-ward”, the “X” “emerges” as we map this or that “layer”. Did we just go in a Circular journey in our description of the “emergence” of Spacetime?

A Brief Quote:

“One way that might work was suggested by Don Page and William Wootters in 1983. Imagine a quantum system consisting of two parts: a clock, and everything else in the universe. Imagine that both the clock and the rest of the system evolve in time as usual. Now take snapshots of the quantum state at regular intervals, perhaps once per second or once per Planck time. In any particular snapshot, the quantum state describes the clock reading some particular time, and the rest of the system in whatever configuration it was in at that time. That gives us a collection of instantaneous quantum states of the system.

The great thing about quantum states is that we can simply add them together (superposing them) to make a new state. So let’s make a new quantum state by adding together all of our snapshots. This new quantum state doesn’t evolve over time; it just exists, as we constructed it by hand. And there is no specific time reading on the clock; the clock subsystem is in a superposition of all the times at which we took snapshots. It doesn’t sound much like our world. But here’s the thing: within that superposition of all the snapshots, the state of the clock is entangled with the state of the rest of the system. If we measure the clock and see that it reads some particular time, then the rest of the universe is in whatever state our original evolving system was caught in at precisely that time.

In other words, there’s not “really” time in the superposition state, which is completely static. But entanglement generates a relationship between what the clock reads and what the rest of the universe is doing. And the state of the rest of the universe is precisely what it would be if it were evolving as the original state did over time. We have replaced “time” as a fundamental notion with “what the clock reads in this part of the overall quantum superposition.” In that way, time has emerged from a static state, thanks to the magic of entanglement.”

End Quote.

Prior to that quote we left off with the sentence – Did we just go in a Circular journey in our description of the “emergence” of Spacetime? Apparently so because Dr. Carroll seems to infer that Space (and so extension into space) is a useful way to describe an observed “layer” which is itself one of our superimposed series of quantum states superimposed upon other superimposed quantum states, the Whole-Of-Which houses no Evolution / no Change. Here we come to the question of Dr. Carroll’s nominalism vs. realism when it comes to Time / Change. Dualism permits more than One Irreducible Fundamental Nature vis-à-vis “Reality’s Fundamental Nature” and notice that the Irreducibility of Time has ALREADY been sacrificed by Dr. Carroll vis-à-vis The-Whole ITSELF housing any such Fundamental Nature. “IT” “begets” entanglement but THAT “begetting” must ITSELF be void of Change, void of Cause-Effect, void of Evolution, void of Time. So, then, we arrive at the following:

“…The jury remains out on whether the energy of the universe actually is zero, and therefore time is emergent, or it is any other number, such that time is fundamental….”

Keep that quote in mind as we move forward here. Recall that we are looking for the “Whence” of the “VERB” that is “The-Emergence-Of” Spacetime and so far we have the Singularity that is the Quantum Wave Function Full-Stop, and, then, we have THAT singularity ITSELF Begetting Entanglement. The Quantum Wave Function accounts for All Possible Worlds and “ITSELF” is void of Change, Time, Evolution (…and cause/effect…). That is the Fundamental Singularity which begets to All Worlds the Fundamental Nature which IT irreducibly “houses”.

Now, any possible world which is thusly begotten cannot ITSELF house a Fundamental Nature which is In Excess Of or which is in fact A Logical Contradiction Of all which we find housed within The-Whole which is Begett—ing, such as….oh…say… Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. So, gain, we recall the last quote:

“…The jury remains out on whether the energy of the universe actually is zero, and therefore time is emergent, or it is any other number, such that time is fundamental….”

When we speak of Open and Closed and of Energy summing to Zero vs. Non-Zero, and so on, we find all of that ALREADY made of no account whatsoever by Dr. Carroll’s commitment vis-à-vis Begetter / Begotten. All which is Begotten finds Dr. Carroll’s nominalistic touch, while the “Singularity” that sources all possible worlds (….the Quantum Wave Function…), which is the Begetter, attracts his Realist touch. The fate of the Embedded Conscious Observer is forever sealed within the illusory shadows of non-being and we find that we MUST make the following observation, or perception, or map:

Naturalism’s brand of extension into space is itself coherent within a discrete layer or cul-de-sac where it is neatly tucked in and surrounded by soft bundles of nominalistic padding. But wait…..

There’s only room for One Nature. Apologies but one of the two will have to leave. Will it be the Fundamental X that is THE Quantum Wave Function or will it be THE cul-de-sac? Recall again that The Quantum Wave Function accounts for All Possible Worlds and “ITSELF” is void of Change, Time, Evolution (…and cause/effect…). That is the Fundamental Singularity which begets to All Worlds the Fundamental Nature which IT irreducibly “houses” and ANY possible world which is thusly begotten cannot ITSELF house a Fundamental Nature which is In Excess Of or which is in fact A Logical Contradiction Of all which we find housed within The-Whole which is “doing” the Begett—ing, such as….oh…say… Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. So, again, we arrive at Nominalism within the illusory shadows of Non-Being vis-à-vis the following question:

There’s only room for One Nature. Apologies but one of the two will have to leave. Will it be the Fundamental X that is THE Quantum Wave Function or will it be THE cul-de-sac?

Regarding that concept of a cul-de-sac in ANY Possible World, we find in any appeal to a cul-de-sac an appeal which cannot actually “Stop There” because to Start/Stop “there” (….in/at said cul-de-sac…) just is to trade upon non-being in order to obtain being when it comes to Self / Intention / Volition / i-am / Self-Giving / i-think / Choice / and Etc. vis-à-vis the First Person Experience of being vis-à-vis “I” vis-à-vis i-am. It’s obvious that the rock-bottom “there” cannot RETAIN TWO IRREDUCIBLE “Fundamental Natures” because that attempt is accounting, or banking-on, a logically impossible state of affairs – namely a metaphysical cul-de-sac wherein the INSIDE houses ONE Metaphysic which is some IMMUNE TO a SECOND Metaphysic which is OUTSIDE of said cul-de-sac vis-à-vis Begetting & Begotten.

Conclusion:

The attempt at the metaphysical cul-de-sac always and already and necessarily collapses into a reductio ad absurdum. We find only Two Possibilities with respect to the Embedded Conscious Observer and that is Metaphysical Naturalism’s Necessary Conservation of [No-I-AM] from the Top Down / Bottom Up – or else – that which is found in all of the Great Metaphysical Systems of the world, namely, the Necessary Conservation of [The-Great-I-AM] from the Top Down / Bottom Up.

There is no third option. Notice too that Eternal Time (…no T-zero anywhere…) or Beginning of Time (…T-zero somewhere…) changes none of it. Quote:

“….the concept of being is one of power: the power of actuality, the capacity to affect or to be affected. To be is to act. This definition already implies that, in its fullness, being must also be consciousness, because the highest power to act — and hence the most unconditioned and unconstrained reality of being — is rational mind. Absolute being, therefore, must be absolute mind. Or, in simpler terms, the greater the degree of something’s actuality, the greater the degree of its consciousness, and so infinite actuality is necessarily infinite consciousness. That, at least, is one way of trying to describe another essential logical intuition that recurs in various forms throughout the great theistic metaphysical systems. It is the conviction that in God lies at once the deepest truth of mind and the most universal truth of existence, and that for this reason the world can truly be known by us. Whatever else one might call this vision of things, it is most certainly, in a very real sense, a kind of “total rationalism….”

End Quote ((—by David Bentley Hart))

In Closing: Genesis, Quantum Worlds, Divine Communique, Transposition, & Heavy-Meta-Bible

Describing Covalent-Bonds cannot address Scripture’s claims on the ontology of the Adamic for two reasons. First, Scripture’s narrative is not one of Physicalism and so any Map of Man which begins/ends “there” is not addressing the Christian Metaphysic vis-v-vis “The Adamic”. Secondly, all discussions of [Covalent Bonds] reduces the ontological history of becoming surrounding the Conscious Observer to a Map which terminates in Space-Time ((Years, Days, Temporal Becoming)). But neither Physics nor the Christian Metaphysic testify of any such Map as the wellspring of the reality we perceive.

SPACE-TIME is emergent but that does NOT bring us to “becoming time” because remember there is no actual Changing and thereby no actual becoming/changing. So we do not have a situation where “No-Time” as in “Non-Being” undergoes “emergence” and then, on the other side of “emergence” there is Space-Time. What we perceive as Change/Space/Time ((Etc.)) goes back and reduces first to Emergence and Emergence goes back and reduces to Entanglement/Superposition and NOT to Changing and so not to “becoming”. Superposition/Entanglement is not “becoming”/“changing” and if one is not careful one will gently slide into using language for one when one is actually speaking of the other.

Time/Change/Becoming reduces to Non-Being in the sense that it does not exist – which is to say that it is illusory in and of and at ALL “Fundamental Natures Of X” anywhere. This is why Non-Theism is hopelessly committed to changing metrics. The ontological history of the becoming of the Cosmos and the Conscious Observer CAN’T be a narrative of Time/Space/Days/Years and if one is left with or given Non-Theism vis-à-vis the Experienced Self and all First Person Data vis-à-vis Mind/Perception then there is no Syntax/Narrative which can even in principle fit beneath All Conceptual Ceilings In All Cultures In All Times (Etc.) as it is, rather, a narrative of Entanglement/Superposition. We have what is necessarily a Heavy-Meta-Narrative populated with ontic referents landing in the Eternal/Immutable/Timeless.

When we say that Space-Time is emergent we mean that Spacetime is not “ontologically irreducible” or it is not “ontologically basic” or it is not “fundamental reality”. Notice that this is not a problem with respect to “Reading Genesis” because Genesis is about an ontological history of becoming (Cosmos & Conscious Observer) and so all we need to do is follow the science. That means Genesis CANNOT be a narrative of Space & Time & Years & Days & Physical/Temporal Becoming. The irreducible “Ontic Referents” which we find in Genesis do not “land at” or “terminate in” any of those Metrics but instead we find a Narrative in which Timelessness Begets Time and “Space-less-ness” ((Etc.)) Begets Space ((…and time / temporal becoming and so on….))

The uncanny Category of Termini we find populating Genesis are placed there Intentionally ((by God)) to fit seamlessly beneath all possible reference frames and traverses all possible levels of knowledge throughout all possible cultures amid all conceptual ceilings. Philosophically that “Communique” of the More-Complex/Higher down into the Less-Complex-Simpler with respect to Conceptual Ceilings is equivalent to “Transposition” akin to the following: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html

The nature of the problem is that Modernity’s most precise “semantic intent” cannot even in principle transpose the Irreducible & Immutable into the space beneath our conceptual ceiling circa 2020 in and in fact in ANY “Circa” ((so to speak)). Physics demonstrates this and Scripture predicted this from the get-go even as Sean Carroll ((and others)) speaks of “language” in “layers” as the truth value of all language fails to traverse from layer to layer to layer through to the End/Terminus while keeping all Reference Frames intact/coherent.

This isn’t new information of course and we find again that Genesis 1/2/3 CANNOT be a narrative of Temporal Becoming IF it is a Communique regarding the ontological history of becoming of what we call Cosmos and Conscious Observer. And of course “that” is exactly the Genre of Genesis 1-3. It IS just that Communique and both Physics and the Christian metaphysic tell us why we simply cannot shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Genesis 1/2/3 ((…and Reality…)). Modernity is catching up to the Christian Metaphysic as physics testifies that such is the case with respect to ANY possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat. Therefore: The veracity of Genesis 1—3 stands intact ((…without any need to affirm YEC and so on….)).

Shall we preach with terminology fit for Year 2050 BCE? The year 2050 CE? Shall we preach with terminology fit for Year 3000 BCE? The year 3000 CE?

Allegory?
Metaphor?
Literalism via Scripture?
Literalism via Physics?

Shall we preach with terminology fit for [1] all possible reference frames and fit for [2] all possible levels of knowledge and fit for [3] all possible cultures and fit for [4] all historical times? Is there ANY conceptual ceiling which does not “GET” Genesis 1? WOULD “God” in fact “Thusly Speak” so diffusely to a “World” especially given the Hard Ontic Fractures of Privation ((…whether it is Privation via a Fall and then an Incline Godward or whether it is Privation via a Perpetual Incline Godward from the get-go does not change such metrics…)).

Modernity’s conceptual ceiling has no syntax which survives the ascent out of Presentism and into Eternalism and yet our Non-Theist friends opine about conceptual ceilings with respect to Genesis – and thereby reveal a complete unawareness and disconnect from the whole of Physics and Theology. There’s no evidence that Time is ontologically irreducible and in fact all available evidence leads us to conclude that it is not ontologically irreducible. Therefore “our” “universe” requires the ontic equivalent of T0 ((T-Zero)). Once we exit Presentism and interface with Eternalism the sort of metaphysically-heavy termini required are simply not available in any Non-Theistic topography. Whereas, that is not the case given the Christian’s unique peculiarities vis-à-vis Pure Act, Logos, and Ontological Possibility.

The Non-Theist should opt for the Non-Metaphorical and Non-Allegorical which the Christian Metanarrative affords us. Instead the Non-Theist embraces what is forced into pure Metaphor and pure Allegory vis-a-vis his Non-Theism. The Christian agrees with Hawking with respect to other ontological possibilities but not in the sense of Hawking’s full-on Ontological Pluralism, which is really just an extreme version of Antirealism. That said, the Christian and Scripture and Science all obviously agree that “Our Current Map Called Physics” is not the only Possible World ((….and therefore….wait for it… not the only possible physics….)).

Recall from earlier the fact that Richard Dawkins complained that “Philosophy failed to predict Darwin”. That is an uninformed complaint as there’s no need to think anyone would begin or end with evolution. The ontological history in question is one of becoming with respect to Cosmos and Conscious Observer. Space-Time isn’t ontologically basic ((irreducible)) and we find Temporal-Becoming/Change ((evolution)) only in Transposition as Metaphor/Allegory at first and, as we push into entanglement and superposition, we descend out of Metaphor/Allegory and fall into Non-Being all together. The error with respect to the nature of emergence vis-à-vis space-time is the fixed, false belief that the genesis of space-time ((emergence)) is a narrative reducing to metrics of space-time. That’s anti-scientific given all available data, and it is logically impossible both with respect to Identity and with respect to Non-Contradiction.

Notice that we have yet another demonstration as to why and how it is that contingencies such as Time/Circumstance fail as “explanatory termini”. What we have is the state of affairs in which there is no available syntax for Non-Theism to use in communicating Reality’s Concrete Furniture via Transposition. To “speak of” “real cosmology” and to “speak of” “real physics” vis-à-vis Scientific Realism ((…see both [A] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/01/maudlin-on-philosophy-of-cosmology.html and also [B] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/07/fallacies-physicists-fall-for.html …)) is something that Non-Theism cannot coherently “do” and that is true “Here Inside The Metaphor” as well as “There Outside of the Allegory”. Modernity’s conceptual ceiling cannot contain “Actual” Cosmology nor “Actual’ Physics as all the Non-Theist has available to him hits a brick wall and he is done: Reductio/Absurdity.

We arrive at that which forces a seamless convergence of facts which press inward regarding Genesis. God’s Communique will be a Transposition ((…https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/05/lewis-on-transposition.html…)) of the ontological history of becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos & Conscious Observer and THAT cannot reduce to Cosmology / Physics Full-Stop. Genesis need not and will not “Cram” the Emergent Anything into the space beneath the conceptual ceiling of the ancient Hebrew – and in fact our syntax cannot even in principle “Cram” the Emergent Anything into the space beneath the conceptual ceiling of Modernity. We cannot in principle or otherwise shoehorn the Emergent-Anything into the Terminus/Driver’s Seat of Reality and any possible occupant of said Driver’s Seat.

Lastly: Given all of the above and keeping all of it in mind…. the following excerpt from a Twitter Thread adds layers. It’s from a discussion so some of the “your/you/I/my” lingers with some editing and because of its length its start/stop is demarcated here with “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”.

As follows, recalling that we must keep the previous content in mind as we read it:

Start “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”

Author’s Intent & God As Author

That which we call “Man” or “The Adamic” is not ((in the Christian Metaphysic)) a physicalist’s terminus so physical measures such as days/years/material/molecules can’t capture the whole ontology of “the-becoming-of-the-Adamic”. Even worse for Non-Theism is that Space-Time is emergent ((and therefore NOT ontologically irreducible)) so ANY narrative that starts/stops in “Years” and “Days” ((Etc.)) is already in trouble. Physics & Scripture converge as Space-Time just is Contingent/Reducible ((*Emergent*/Etc.)) and yet the Non-Theist still believes that both 1. the opening chapters of Genesis and 2. our own First Person Experiences are both constituted entirely of Ontic Referents that actually land in “Days” and “Years” as if Days and Years and First Person Experiences of Temporal Becoming ((…and Self and “i-am” and Etc.)) are just “somehow” Irreducible or that the Fateful Equivocations needed are of no consequence to veracity.

The question for the Non-Theist is this: “Do you understand the narrative in Genesis? Do you understand that God is revealing an ontological history of becoming regarding the material universe and the material/immaterial Adam? Given what we know from Physics, do you believe reality begins & ends with the ontological hard stops of “Days” and “Years” and “Becoming” ((temporal becoming))? Physics & Christianity both say “No”. You?”

A Christian objection to Non-Literalism: “The human author cannot mean something, be wrong, and still be inerrant. Authorial intent is the final authority and the primary objective of all hermeneutics.”

We must be careful here because it is easy to miss the fact that that objection is based a misunderstanding – namely the assumption that “Day” is being used here to mean something other than “Day” when in fact it CAN be a 24 hour period OR NOT because EITHER WAY what the objection misses is the fact that EVEN ON Non-Theism the vast weight of evidence from Physics is that Space-Time is, at bottom, *Emergent* – meaning Space-Time ((Day, Year, Temporal Becoming)) is not ontologically irreducible and so “Day” and “Year” and “Space-Time” can never be convertible with the REAL “Start/Stop” “Point” of the TRUE Metanarrative about “the source and history of all things”.

A reply of sorts to that Christian Objection to Non-Literalism went as follows:

The Human author wasn’t wrong though, just as we in Modernity are not wrong to employ 1. terms of Days and Years and 2. terms of Entanglement & Superposition by which Physics reveals that Space-Time is emergent — as in not ontologically irreducible. Moses means what God means — and God is the author. The Author’s Intent is to Speak of the Ontological History of Becoming ((how things came to be)) vis-à-vis both Cosmos ((the material universe)) and Conscious Observer ((the Material/Immaterial “Adamic”)). Surely we agree.

But to be sure we can ask the question: DO YOU ((as a Christian)) AGREE that the Author’s Intent is to Speak of the Ontological History of Becoming ((how things came to be)) vis-à-vis both Cosmos ((the material universe)) and Conscious Observer ((the Material/Immaterial “Adamic”))?

Non-Theism/Atheism seems to posit ((…is forever forced into…)) measures of physical reality such as Days/Years ((Time, Temporal Becoming)) as being either Inexplicable or else just seem to “somehow” reduce to “something-else-entirely”. We avoid the term “Magic” on charity as no one believes in Magic but “illusion” and “illusory” and “Useful But Not True” are all totally deflationary vis-à-vis truth-value and too often Non-Theism seems “content” with such explanatory termini in this or that Reductio Ad Absurdum. The “Reason” they do that is because they HAVE TO ((…else Theism creeps in…)). Physics forces them to that Reductio because Physics reveals what Scripture affirms and what the Christian has always known — that Space-Time is not irreducible. But the Christian has at his disposal a far more robust ontology regarding the Metaphysical Wellspring of all Ontological Possibility.

The Christian objecting to taking A. “Space-Time Is Emergent” and applying it to the ontological weight of B. terms like “Day” and “Year” end up trying to get Scripture to contradict itself — How? Well because they have God confused on their read of Scripture because in Genesis God pretends Space-Time is ontologically irreducible and in fact is the Start/Stop of The Source Of All whereas in the REST of Scripture God speaks as if Space-Time is a mere Vapor — wholly insignificant regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All. That is Double-Talk in their read of Scripture. But God is the Author and God is revealing ONE Metanarrative to Mankind — and in fact to all of Mankind regardless of Mankind’s ever shifting Conceptual Ceilings.

The Christian who thereby refuses to fuse all of Scripture into ONE Metanarrative ((and who ends up rejecting Physics by his refusal to do so)) insists on a “One-Chapter” exegesis and so expunges both 1. the REST of Scripture regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All and 2. the testimony of Physics regarding the Start/Stop of The Source Of All ((which agrees with Scripture’s Metanarrative)). So again in Genesis the Human author wasn’t wrong just as we in Modernity are not wrong to employ A. terms of Days & Years and B. terms of Entanglement & Superposition by which Physics reveals that Space-Time is emergent — as in *not* *ontologically* *irreducible*.

Also: Notice that the Christian objecting to taking A. “Space-Time Is Emergent” and applying it to the ontological weight of B. terms like “Day” and “Year” NOT ONLY ends up trying to get Scripture to contradict itself BUT ALSO ends up foisting a “Source Of All” which agrees with Atheists who believe measures of physical reality like Days/Years ((Time, Temporal Becoming)) just seem to “somehow” reduce to “something-else-entirely” ((…which the Atheist must do because Physics forces them into that Reductio…else God…)).

Question: How is “Day” or “Year” relevant to “The Source Of All” when the “The Source Of All” is Timeless and Spaceless? The REST of Scripture informs us of the Author’s Intent because 99 Chapters by One Author outweighs 1 Chapter by that Same Author. Hermeneutics – Yes – and also Physics reveals what Scripture affirms – that Space-Time is not irreducible. That is the Narrative the Author is Speaking/Writing. The 99 Chapters OUTSIDE of Genesis reveal the SAME Metanarrative by the SAME Author vis-à-vis the TIMELESS & SPACELESS.

JUST AS the Non-Theist/Atheist cannot fashion his Map of Ontic History by referring to Days/Years SO ALSO the Christian cannot fashion his Map of Ontic History by referring to Days/Years. Note that as Christians we needn’t fear because Theists & Non-Theists *agree* that Time is not ontologically irreducible. The difficulties surrounding Mind, the First Person Experience, Illusion, & Veracity is wholly Non-Theism’s forced Reductio Ad Absurdum. The Christians Metaphysic encounters no such forced Reductio. Recall again the following question: What contradiction are you speaking of ((complaining about)) when the Christian agrees with Sean Carroll regarding the fact that Temporal Becoming (Day, Hour, Year) carries us into the semantic intent of Entanglement||Superposition? You keep saying there is a contradiction. Where? What is Time? Is it Ontologically Irreducible? Is it a contradiction to refer to H20 as Oxygen & Hydrogen?

Any One-Chapter Hermeneutic isn’t sound and it is forcing folks to ignore/expunge/evade/avoid both 1. the REST of Scripture and 2. Physics which converges with Scripture’s Metanarrative. ANY One-Chapter Hermeneutic is rationally rejected. WHY reject any One-Chapter Hermeneutic? Well it’s simple: Because if we believe “it” we must force ourselves to ignore/expunge/evade/avoid both 1. the REST of Scripture and 2. Physics which converges with Scripture’s Metanarrative. One-Chapter Hermeneutics are rationally rejected. The ontological irreducibility of Day & Year & Space-Time is fiction for Atheism – but we are not Atheists and so the Christian errors in expunging so much Scripture ((and Physics)) as doing so forces the Christian to knowingly Start and Stop his History of the Universe and of Man at the same location as the Atheist. His One-Chapter Hermeneutic rejects 99 Chapters written by the same Author and, so, why believe in it? A Hermeneutic in which 99 Chapters informs 1 Chapter is a proper hermeneutic and we are doubly reassured because we find — as predicted — that the Author’s Intent is held firm.

From others, a few segues looking at “THE AUHTOR’S INTENT” and how to weigh that. Brandon Smith makes the following observation:

Quote: “Authorial intent is important and historical/social background studies help us understand certain things. But it’s short-sighted at best and dangerous at worst to place “reading like a first-century person” at the center of interpretation for two main reasons:

First: Scripture is the very revelation of God. It’s not a mere historical artifact of its time with meaning only rooted in its context. Of course, importance should be placed there, but not *solely* there. And unless you have a time machine, that’s not fully possible anyway.

Second: Scripture is a 66-book canon. As such, even the authors/audiences didn’t fully grasp the full telos of progressive revelation right in front of them. Imagine John saying, “Welp, I doubt these prophecies are about Jesus since Isaiah’s audience didn’t know who he was.”

Again, authorial intent is vital to interpretation. But if we say, “if the original audience must be able to understand any interpretation of the text,” we deny basic orthodox affirmations about Scripture’s ongoing application and reception across time and space. This is not even to say there are “multiple meanings.” Rather, a *Christian* reading of the text requires an affirmation of progressive revelation, the Spirit’s work in church history, and rejects a kenotic hermeneutic that empties the text of God’s revelation then and now. It’s worth noting, too, that nothing I said above has been remotely controversial in church history aside from a few sporadic/isolated periods e.g. some late medieval allegory and recent hyper-“literal” historical-criticism.” End quote.

Tim Bertolet adds to Brandon Smith’s observation, “….especially the use of OT in the NT, the original context is not the final context or the ultimate telos…”

Again recall the following question: What contradiction are you speaking of ((complaining about)) when the Christian agrees with Sean Carroll regarding the fact that Temporal Becoming (Day, Hour, Year) carries us into the semantic intent of Entanglement||Superposition? You keep saying there is a contradiction. Where? What is Time? Is it Ontologically Irreducible? Is it a contradiction to refer to H20 as Oxygen & Hydrogen? Note that as Christians we needn’t fear because Theists & Non-Theists *agree* that Time is not ontologically irreducible. The difficulties surrounding Mind, the First Person Experience, Illusion, & Veracity is wholly Non-Theism’s forced Reductio Ad Absurdum. The Christians Metaphysic encounters no such forced Reductio.

End “Twitter Conversation Excerpt”

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind and that necessitates Transposition with reach, and that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible

Nominalism & Realism

A review of Sean Carroll’s book The Big Picture was done by William E. Carroll https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/09/17886/

It is copy/pasted here:

Poetic Naturalism and the Way Things Are

By William Carroll

Can one find a way to describe the world in all its features—including references to consciousness, thinking, purpose, meaning, and morality—while maintaining that there is nothing more to the fundamental constitution of the universe than what the contemporary natural sciences tell us? Sean Carroll, the distinguished theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, thinks the answer is yes. His new book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, offers a defense of what he terms “poetic naturalism.”

A distant anticipation of Carroll’s approach is the famous materialist epic of Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), written in the first century B.C. To those who find the implications of a universal materialism especially grim, Lucretius tells us that he will:

“….rim the lesson, as it were, with honey,

Hoping, this way, to hold your mind with verses

While you are learning all that form, that pattern

Of the way things are….” [I. 947-50 ]

Although Carroll’s defense of materialism is in prose, he, like Lucretius, hopes to persuade us of the “big picture” that contemporary science unfolds. Carroll also wishes to offer “existential therapy” for those who would doubt there can be meaning in the universe he describes.

Carroll’s commitment to a materialist philosophy of nature is unwavering. He tells us that science provides an “indisputably accurate” Core Theory, according to which everything about the world is reducible to its quantum wave function, which is comprised of the interaction of fermion and boson fields. In their various instantiations, fermions are subatomic particles that account for the solidity of matter; bosons are force-bearing particles that are the source of macroscopic fields such as gravity and electromagnetism. In an appendix, Carroll provides an elaborate analysis of the Feynman path integral, a single mathematical formula that “encapsulates all that we know about the quantum dynamics of this model.” The Core Theory is not a complete account since it has yet to include dark matter, but the theory does necessarily exclude any immaterial things.

Poetic Naturalism

The details of Carroll’s description of the quantum mechanics of the “big picture” are not so important as the broader philosophical claims that he makes. His “big picture” is ultimately a philosophical narrative that incorporates the insights of contemporary science. It is a narrative that seeks to plumb the “deepest layer of reality,” at which level there are no oceans, mountains, living organisms, or anything else we experience in the macroscopic world. There are not even electrons and photons: it is just quantum wave function. “Everything else,” Carroll observes, “is just a convenient way of talking.”

Carroll wants to avoid the conclusion of eliminative materialists who, accepting the materialism thought to be required by contemporary science, argue that purported non-material realities (consciousness, mind, free will, purpose, morality, and the like) are illusory. He also rejects the views of those who add immaterial features to reality, such as the claim that mental states are real and distinct from physical states. In rejecting both views, Carroll offers an alternative:

“Poetic naturalism sits in between: there is only one, unified, physical world, but many ways of talking about it, each of which captures an element of reality. Poetic naturalism is at least consistent with its own standards: it tries to provide the most useful way of talking about the world we have.”

These different ways of talking contain vocabularies created for specific purposes, and we need to be careful that they do not contradict the fundamental thesis that there is only one world and that at its deepest level it is only a physical reality. Carroll describes three interrelated types of stories that together offer an account of the “big picture.” The first and most fundamental is the scientific description of the particles and forces that account for the universe at the microscopic level. The second is made up of what he calls “emergent” or “effective” descriptions about macroscopic “collections of stuff that we group into individual entities: from ships to living organisms, including human beings.” The third is discourse about values, “concepts of rights and wrongs, purpose and duty, beauty or ugliness.”

At what Carroll calls the deepest level of reality, there are neither “purposes” nor “natures,” only patterns that operate in purely impersonal ways. It is from these operations that the macroscopic world emerges. One aim of his narrative is to offer an explanation of how a “purely physical universe made of interacting quantum fields is actually able to account for the macroscopic world of our experience.” How is it that order and complexity “arise in a world without transcendent purpose?” How do we make sense of consciousness and subjective experience “without appealing to substances and properties beyond the purely physical?” In a universe that at its core is without purpose, can we have meaning and moral rectitude in our lives? Answers to these questions are the burden of the final three parts of Carroll’s book.

One example of how Carroll thinks we need to understand the foundational role of the primary narrative—especially that of quantum mechanics—is evident in his discussion of discourse about body and soul. He rejects any account of the mind and soul as separate substances, since there is no place for such substances within the Core Theory. Indeed, for a poetic naturalist, “mind” is “simply a way of talking about the behavior of certain collections of physical matter.” To speak of life after death is meaningless. “Life is a way of talking about a particular sequence of events taking place among atoms and molecules arranged in the right way.” “Life” is only a label we use to describe certain kinds of processes.

Even a key notion like causality does not fall within the fundamental features of reality; causality is a way of thinking that functions within certain individual theories about the world. Cause, Carroll tells us, is a term “that we invent in order to provide useful descriptions of the macroscopic world.” Cause and effect relations flow from the temporal character of our universe—the arrow of time; these notions emerge as we move from the microscopic level to that of everyday experience. “Different moments in time in the history of the universe follow each other, according to some pattern, but no one moment causes any other.” This view of causality is heavily influenced by David Hume and narrowly restricts it to temporal sequence.

Emergence of Complex Structures

To explain the relationship between the elements of the Core Theory and the macroscopic world, Carroll employs a broad notion of emergence. This concept traditionally refers to the ways in which higher level properties (e.g., those of water) emerge from the combination of more elementary constituents (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen). He claims that as time passes and entropy increases,

“…the configuration of matter in the universe takes on different forms, enabling the emergence of different higher-level ways of talking. The appearance of something like “purpose” simply comes down to the question: “Is purpose a useful concept when developing an effective theory of this part of reality in this particular domain of applicability?”

“Consciousness” and “understanding” are concepts “we invent in order to give ourselves more useful and efficient descriptions of the world.” These concepts are not illusions, but accepting their reality does not mean a rejection of the laws of physics. All such concepts “are part of a higher-level vocabulary we use to talk about the emergent behavior of the underlying physical system, [they are] not something separate from the physical system.” This general mode of explanation allows the poetic naturalist to argue the following:

“….we are collections of vibrating quantum fields held together in persistent patterns by feeding off of ambient free energy according to impersonal and uncaring laws of nature, and we are also human beings who make choices and care about what happens to ourselves and others….”

Realism and Nominalism

If materialism is true, what is the “element of reality” that trees, persons, causes, consciousness, thinking, and moral judgments all share? This element, Carroll says, is the result of a certain way of talking about the macroscopic world. These concepts emerge as we move from the world of the quantum wave function to that of our ordinary experience. Is there a new reality to which these concepts refer, or is the only reality the concepts themselves and the way we use them? In the end, are the various sciences of the macroscopic world only concerned with terms and concepts? This is a kind of nominalism that is radically different from the realism that Carroll grants to the scientific study of the microscopic world. That study, which is expressed in the Core Theory, is concerned with the way things really are.

For poetic naturalism, the reality of concepts like consciousness, causality, and organism is only linguistic; they perform functions in particular narratives. The discussion is thus a nominalist discussion about concepts, not a realist discussion of what is true about nature. Yet, when Carroll turns to fermions, bosons, and the quantum wave function, he does think that these terms refer to the fundamental furniture of the universe. At this level of discourse, he is a realist; whereas in other areas he is a nominalist. For Carroll, what emerge from the microscopic world are concepts, not things. Is the science of biology, that studies cells and organisms, for example, only a convenient “way of talking”? Thus, in discussing our knowledge of the way things are, he seems to be at once both a realist (when referring to particle physics) and a nominalist (with respect to other natural sciences). Eliminative materialism (which Carroll rejects) seems more coherent than poetic naturalism.

Carroll presupposes that particle physics and quantum mechanics concern the deepest level of reality. Employing an epistemology based in the probabilistic methodology of Thomas Bayes (1702-1761), Carroll argues that all claims to knowledge and belief begin with “prior credences” that we “apply to every factual proposition that may or may not be true about the world.” Beginning with these prior credences, we reason to the likelihood of what will happen or be the case, and then “update our credences on the basis of what we observe.” Following this process, and employing the information provided by contemporary science, Carroll thinks that we ought to reject claims for the existence of immaterial entities (such as the soul), for God, and for the view that the universe is created.

Deeper Than the Core

For Carroll, the Core Theory is in a sense prior to our particular prior credences. It contains the information that we must use to “update” all other credences. This judgment of priority is in the philosophy of nature and metaphysics concerning what is the deepest or most profound approach to the world. It is also a judgment that presupposes that there are only two basic options in our approach to the world: an empirical, materialist view that the physical world is all there is, or a dualist view that affirms the existence of both physical and non-physical substances. We might, however, in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, entertain a third possibility: that the world the natural sciences study embraces matter and form, not as separate substances but rather as co-principles of all things in the world.

We come to study nature first through those sciences based on sense experience. Yet this temporal priority in our knowing the world, including knowledge of microscopic quantum processes, ought not to be confused with an ontological priority. More fundamental for any grasping of the way things are is the analysis that is properly carried out in the philosophy of nature and metaphysics: an analysis in terms of the very principles of natural things, including what motion, change, and causes are. We should judge claims about the broad implications of the Core Theory, as well as a more general commitment to materialism, in the deeper discourse of philosophy of nature and metaphysics. In this sense, Carroll’s big picture is not big enough.

We may very well find the impressive scope and details of Carroll’s Big Picture to be compelling. The book is a significant achievement in describing the current natural sciences and how they can be employed in realms beyond what are traditionally those of these sciences. Furthermore, Carroll eschews the more vulgar atheism of other famous scientists, such as Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. Yet, in a culture so pervasively informed by the allure and authority of science, we need to be aware of the honey with which Carroll, like Lucretius, rims his account.

About the Author: William Carroll https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/william-carroll/ is Research Fellow in Theology and Science at the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford.

End Postscript / End copy/paste of W.E.C’s book review.

Segues: “The Spiritual Was More Substantial Than the Material for the Ancients” by David Bentley Hart https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-spiritual-was-more-substantial-than-the-material-for-the-ancients/

Segues: Necessitarianism, Unintelligibility, PSR//Principle of Sufficient Reason, Necessary Being, Contingent Being, Brute Fact, Intelligibility, Reductio, and the PSR-Free World — note that the first few paragraphs are borrowing in part from https://twitter.com/TDisputations and from https://twitter.com/AleMartnezR1

“To deny the principle of sufficient reason is to affirm that a contingent being which exists, though not by itself, can be uncaused or unconditioned. “Now, what is uncaused or unconditioned exists by itself. Therefore, an uncaused contingent being would at the same time exist by itself and not by itself—which is absurd.” (Garrigou-Lagrange)

Question: “Is there a world where there were only contingent entities even possible? Is there an atheist willing to concede this much, to keep his atheism alive?”

Reply/Answer: “A brute fact, properly considered, wouldn’t be contingent or necessary (those are sufficient reasons). In fact, if reality were built on brute facts, everything would be a brute fact because something without intelligibility can’t impart intelligibility to anything else. We couldn’t even say this ends up in necessitarianism, since that would imply necessary connections between events that aren’t justified in a PSR-free world. In reality, it would be most absolutely radical form of indeterminism.”

Appeals to Brute Fact are invariably followed by appeals to still more bizarre linguistic games as if absurdity is softened by equivocation. As E. Feser observes supposing the set of IOU’s counts as real money as long as you stack them high enough expunges *Explanation in full. One’s Chain of IOU’s has now expunged *Explanation not merely *by* our syntax but also *from* our syntax (wait for it) and the chain of IOU’s has no ceiling — finding nothing but the Inexplicable as its fruit – meaning that even just the [*not *even *in *principle] syntax is not available to it – at all – in the full-on ontic sense of Unavailable and therefore in the full-on ontic sense of Unintelligibility.

Non-Theism has to face Contingency and her hand is forced by “physics’ testimony” weighted heavily in the affirmation that Time is neither an Absolute Reference Frame nor the Absolute’s Own Frame of Reference. The evidence weights heavily towards [Eternalism] over [Presentism] such that Time is ontologically emergent — it is not an irreducible feature of reality’s fundamental nature. Contingency-Or-Not isn’t the question as (Non-Theism’s) “Time” v. “Change” becomes a Currency devoid of value & Metaphysical Naturalism becomes Allegorical//Metaphorical. The [Beginning Of Time] just is the [Beginning of Change] and Non-Theism’s scramble to embrace the full-on Reductio of Brute Fact is predictably placed in this discussion because whichever way Non-Theism runs we find that BOTH Eternalism AND Presentism force reductions to absurdity within Metaphysical Naturalism while BOTH comport with the Christian Metaphysic. Dr. Carroll’s “Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime” is helpful. Many Christians DO defend Presentism and yet Christians do NOT affirm [PRESENTISM FULL-STOP] but — rather — the ontological means to BOTH concrete Presentism AND concrete Timelessness ~~ and so on regarding Necessitarianism, Unintelligibility, PSR//Principle of Sufficient Reason, Necessary Being, Contingent Being, Brute Fact, Intelligibility, Reductio, and the PSR-Free World.

Segues regarding Metaphor and Allegory and Semantic Intent are found in the following:

Summary:

What has come into the consciousness of Mankind in and by and through the uncanny Metanarratives of the Ancient Hebrew are without comparison as we approach the Story or Meta-Narrative of A. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis Cosmos and B. the Ontological History of Becoming vis-à-vis the Conscious Observer. “God” and “Truth” comes into the Consciousness of Mankind and that necessitates Transposition with reach, and that reach subsumes nothing less than all four of the following with respect to this contingent world:

A— all possible reference frames and
B— all possible levels of knowledge and
C— all possible cultures in
D— all historical times

Meta-Christianity ↔ The Heavy Meta Bible