Finally had a chance to have long conversations with a remarkable scientist and bon vivant Stuart Kauffman, — one of the most prominent and acute anglo scientists coming around
to process philosophy. (Interesting parallel to Rene Thom discovering Aristotle’s Physics late in his life.)
“Res Extensa, Res Potentia and the Poised Realm”
NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/08/17/129250892/res-extensa-res-potentia-and-the-poised-realm#more
I’m beginning, to my surprise to think Aristotle and Whitehead may have been right.
If so, the implications are radical.
NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/08/17/129250892/res-extensa-res-potentia-and-the-poised-realm#more
Santa Fe Institute brief:
http://www.sfcomplex.org/2010/08/stuart-kauffman-res-extensa-res-potentia-and-the-poised-realm
http://www.sfcomplex.org/2010/08/stuart-kauffman-res-extensa-res-potentia-and-the-poised-realm
Kauffman writes:
We have lived with scientific “monism” since Newton. Monism is the view, shared by virtually all scientists, that the world is made of one kind of “stuff,” the Actual world of matter and energy and with some question marks, space and
time and information.
There are very good grounds to accept monism, and it has an ancient history. No less an ancient philosopher Empedocles said, “What is real in the universe is what is actual.”
Aristotle was less sure, he toyed with the idea that both the Actual and the Possible were “Real.” He called the Possible “potentia” and meant a variety of things by Potentia. And no less a mathematician and philosopher than Alfred North Whitehead, he of Principia Mathematica in the early 20th Century, written with Bertrand Russell, moved on to think of both Actuals and Possibles as “real”, or “ontologically real”, meaning two kinds of “stuff,” Actuals and Possibles in the universe.
There are very good grounds to accept monism, and it has an ancient history. No less an ancient philosopher Empedocles said, “What is real in the universe is what is actual.”
Aristotle was less sure, he toyed with the idea that both the Actual and the Possible were “Real.” He called the Possible “potentia” and meant a variety of things by Potentia. And no less a mathematician and philosopher than Alfred North Whitehead, he of Principia Mathematica in the early 20th Century, written with Bertrand Russell, moved on to think of both Actuals and Possibles as “real”, or “ontologically real”, meaning two kinds of “stuff,” Actuals and Possibles in the universe.
I’m beginning, to my surprise to think Aristotle and Whitehead may have been right.
If so, the implications are radical.
In his article “ Free Will: There Are No Easy Answers” Kauffman argues cogently from quantum mechanics that
the human mind cannot be algorithmic: