Introduction
You won’t have read a book like this before. It comprises the second half of research notes for the project entitled ‘The Reunification of Science and Philosophy’. In this volume we deal not with world-stage, an inanimate universe, but the actor on it. An actor’s body is, of course, composed of atoms but is the player only physical? You carelessly without a second thought construe yourself as your body because, after all, your body is your most obvious, well-known identity. Is this, materialism’s conflation, the whole story? In this case brain is mind is meat. Mind, experiences and soul are simply figments of ‘non-scientific’ imagination. Mind is caged then executed by a species of (ir)rationality.
What, though, if mind and consciousness were actually metaphysical? And, as your body is composed of non-conscious energy, individual mind is composed of an equally minuscule fraction of a natural, immaterial element, information? This metaphysical component is, of course, physically untouched and unobserved. It is a factor hidden in plain sight! Mind, whether subconsciously in the form of a data bank called memory or in the light of conscious experience, is an information centre.
Materialism’s is a flat-earth, one-dimensional universe. Blind forces of energy and matter make up everything including stories of the way they do it. You might indeed imagine that non-conscious matter makes up mind but this story is, it may be demonstrated from a different angle, modern myth. So, if we need to think outside materialism’s box, how can we proceed? Which guardians at the gate might try to stop us? And when we’re out what will we find?
This book coordinates the major scientific disciplines of physics, psychology, biology and information technology. It employs a simple, polar framework called Natural Dialectic into which to load facts and philosophy and find answers that, for now and for a century or too, have lain dormant. If you are interested to know how you were made and work, read on!
Thrust
Psychology, biology and sociology are this book’s remit. Its thrust is life. What is the substrate of your mind? What is the basis of biology. In both cases it is information. Codes, signals and communications. In an information age it must be time to focus on the immaterial side of things – the programs, plans and purposes that are behind our wonderful and not-so-wonderful creations. Can purpose really have arisen out of aimlessness and chance? Blind material nature couldn’t, even in a billion years, produce a cup of sweet tea let alone its maker and its drinker. Even mind-machines, computers, cannot make themselves. What is it you possess that they do not?
Of three great scientific issues – the origins of physicality, of life on earth and of consciousness, this section addresses those last two. We may need to change perspective when the answers do not roll accustomed ways but, in this quest, will we ever reach the end?
Contents
Volume 1: Playtime
Book 0: A Player’s Mind
Part 0: Active Information (Psychological)
13. Consciousness
Psyche and Psychology
Soul to Sell?
The Neurological Delusion
Line of Mind
Does Brain Originate or Mediate?
Consciousness
Physical and Metaphysical
Open Up the Brainbox!
Doubting Thomas
Towards a Unified Theory of Science and Psychology
The Ingredients of Psychology
To Build a Brain
14. Hierarchical Psychology
Top-down, Hierarchical Psychology
First State of Consciousness –
The Psychology of Transcendence
Second State of Consciousness –
The Psychology of Normalcy
(Sat) Higher Normality
(Raj) Intermediate Normality
(Tam) Lower Normality
Homeostatic Psychology
The Basis of Exchange is Code
Upper, Metaphysical Loop
Lower, Physical Loop
Quality of Mind
Quality of Information
The Ascent of Man
Volume 1: Playtime
Book 0: A Player’s Mind
Part 1: Passive Information (Psychological)
15. Subconsciousness
A Black Box 134
Sleepy Head 137
The Third State of Consciousness –
The Psychology of Dreaming
The Fourth State of Consciousness –
The Psychology of Deep Sleep
Frozen Time
Psychosomatic Linkage
Synchromesh 1 – Awareness and Memory
The Personal Mnemone
16. Natural Memory
The Typical Mnemone
H. archetypalis, the Image of Man
Signal Translation
Instinct
Morphogene 1
Synchromesh 2 – Psychosomasis
How Does the Connection Work?
H. electromagneticus
17. The Logic of Embodiment
The Logic of Embodiment
Core Principles
The Whole Works
Philosophical Pin Pricks
Morphogene 2
The Logic of Development
Caduceus: the Human Morphogene
The Informative Domain
The Informed, Energetic Domain
18. The Logic of Disembodiment
One Thing Is Certain…
Life Cycles
D-Day
Towards a Unified Theory of Life and Death
Post-mortem Psychology
Anathema
Immortalities
High-level Death
Ante-natal Psychology
Volume 1: Playtime
Book 1: A Player’s Body
Part 0: Passive Information (Biological)
19. Principles of a Unified Theory of Biology
The Basis of Biology is Information
The (Sat) Central Instrument of Biology is Homeostasis
Biology is Hierarchical and Cyclical
Mechanism and Machine
DNA Computing
Government and Industry
Archetype
(Sat) Informative Hierarchy
(raj) Functional and (tam) Structural Hierarchies
20. Chemical Evolution
Chemical Evolution?
Darwin: Half Right, Wholly Wrong?
Modern Alchemy
Not a Great Start
Atmospherics
Unnatural Interference
Evaporated Soup
Chained Up Unchained
Not So Sweet
Bags of Life
Reflections
Join Up, Fold Up
Number Games
Pristine Instruction
DNA
Supreme Elegance
Supreme Density of Data Storage
Supreme Operation
Supreme Flexibility
Code Rules Supreme
Perplexity
R not DNA?
Raw Energy Destroys
Topsy-turvy Logic
Noise, Monkeys and Catalysis
21. Origins
Catalytic Philosophy
Energy Metabolism Perchance?
Natural Nanotechnology
Minimal Functionality
Biosynthesis
In Extremis
Galilean Correction
Tick Tock
A Definite Flight from Science
22. The Origins of Species and of Type
The Light Through a Lens
As You Like It: Scientific Animism
What You Will
Upright Logic
The Embodiment of Inverted Logic
First Stage: The Judge (Natural Selection)
The Origin of Species
Galapagos and All That
Are Bushes, Trees and Forests Just the Same?
Homology: Common Descent or Common Design?
The Origin of Type
Types of Fossil
Taking a Flier
Mosaic Subroutines
The Origin of Irreducibly Complex Mechanisms
Seeing is Believing What?
Look Further, Penetrate Deeper
23. Part Right, Overall Wrong
Language of the Genes
Second Stage: The Creator (Mutation)
Entropy of Information
Evolution in Action?
Non-Protein-Coding DNA
Super-codes and Adaptive Potential
Third Stage: Natural Genetic Engineering
24. Twists and Turns
A Twist in the Head-to-Tail
A Suggested Geometry of How the World’s Informed
Twists that Entwine
Twists in the Bio-logical Tale
The Reproductive Archetype
The Origin of Asex
The Origin of Sex
Archetypal Sex
Archetypal Sex Expressed
What’s True Love?
25. The Origin of Growth and Development
The Origin of Growth and Development
Bio-logic
Logically Expressed
Subset of Stage 3: Evo-devo
Did an Egg Precede its Adult?
Did an Adult Precede its Egg?
Egg and Adult Together
Which End Is Bio-logic’s Head?
Growing Up
A Clap of Fragile Wings
Coming of Age
A Mutant Ape?
The Third and Final Flight from Science
Has Darwin Had His Day?
Theories of Accommodation
Volume 1: Playtime
Book 1: A Player’s Body
Part 1a: Biological Society/ Ecology
26. Towards a Unified Theory of Community
Towards a Unified Theory of Community
Points of Return
Towards a Unified Theory of Ecology: Abiotic Part
Towards a Unified Theory of Ecology: Biotic Part
Is there a Perfect World?
Nature’s Negativity
A Continual Fight
Volume 1: Playtime
Book 1: A Player’s Body
Part 1b: Human Society
27. Sociobiology/ Sociology
Selfish Genes
Exclusive Fitness
Psychological Ecology
The Nature of Evil
Risk
Free Will and Determinism
Solubility and Solution
Towards a Unified Theory of Religion, Politics and Law
Peripheral Religion
Nuclear Religion
Corruption: Fall
Politics
The Law
Self-Government
Individual Association
28. Where Does the Data Lead?
Where Does the Data Actually Lead?
Bottom Line, Top Conclusion
Lux et Veritas
Glossary
Index
Bibliography