Structation

Thought I'd start posting YouTube videos here so I don't have to write out all my thoughts.  Here I address a conflict between process philosophy and object-oriented ontology, and my attempted synthesis between the two camps.




For those who want a visual representation of what I'm talking about:

The Mythology of the Modern World

I'd like to explore the mythology behind what we call the "scientific worldview." Just to clarify, when I speak of "mythology" here, I don't necessarily mean something that is false. Myths are rather metaphorical motifs by which we make sense of the world around us. Many people today imagine that what is propagated as the "scientific worldview" is based purely on empirical research, and has no untested assumptions or metaphorical ideas behind it. In response to this, I would like to give a genealogy of the modern worldview known as "scientific materialism."

We begin with Thales, the earliest recognized Greek philosopher. He was the first to try to explain the world without reference to traditional mythological explanations. He developed an alternative mythology which did not appeal to personal deities, but instead involved a theory of matter and form. Next, we come to Pythagoras, who saw all the world as an expression of mathematical equations. Many physicists today, when you scratch the surface, are still essentially Pythagoreans.

We then skip to Parmenides, who used logic to try to prove that change is an illusion, and that the one true reality is eternal and unchanging. His followers were impressed with his logic, but couldn't quite accept his conclusion. Instead, they all tried to figure out which aspect of reality was eternal and unchanging. For Plato, it was the eternal forms. Plato's allegory of the cave suggests that there is a reality hidden to the senses but accessible to reason, of which the world of appearances are like shadows on a cave. It is from this idea that we get the idea of eternal, unchanging laws of nature.

Cosmic Creativity

Previously, I mentioned my long-standing enthusiasm for Whitehead, and the compelling critique of his ideas presented by Graham Harman.  I must say that I am in broad agreement with much of Harman's thought, and cannot continue to identify myself as essentially Whiteheadian.  However, if there is one thing I take away from Whitehead's work, and wish to preserve, it is this fundamental polarity between habit and novelty.  It seems to me that these two components are the only necessary ingredients to have any kind of creativity.  I think Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance is about the best theory of habit I've encountered.  Novelty is a more subtle problem that I think needs a bit more unpacking.

I think Whitehead had the right idea, but ultimately I find his system a little too Platonic.  Whitehead's idea is that every occasion is mediated by eternal objects(essentially Platonic forms) that are narrowed into a set of probabilities by God and selected by each actual occasion in its act of becoming.  First of all, I don't like this atomistic account of becoming.  I'm much more keen on Bergson's idea of duration.  Second and more importantly, I have trouble believing that every form or type of experience existed in this potential realm for billions of years before there were lifeforms that were able to prehend them.  Yes, I realize that Whitehead's system is panpsychist(or to use David Griffin's term, panexperientialist), and I'm very sympathetic to that idea.  But there are different types of experience that different entities are capable of.  Vision, for example, is a type of experience that was not available until the evolution of eyes.  The qualia associated with the color red could not have predated vision, even if the part of the light spectrum we associate with red may have existed and made a difference for photons bouncing off of surfaces we would perceive as red.  The kind of universal forms we experience visually are very different from the ones we encounter through auditory or tactile sensations.  If these forms are indeed eternal, we'd have to believe that the universals available to sight were just sitting in the ether waiting for a creature that is able to prehend them.

What I think Whitehead is getting at, though -- and I very much agree with this -- is that creativity is archetypal.  There is a sense in which creative acts of novelty are moving toward something virtual that has not yet been actualized.  It is moving toward a form.  In this way, final cause can be considered to be simply a broader variety of formal causation.  So where do the forms come from if they aren't eternal?

Object-Oriented Ontology

I find the most interesting philosophers are ones that make me rethink my previous ideas while still not quite sitting well enough with me to fully sign on to their philosophy, thus forcing me to develop my own ideas in response.  Such is the case with Graham Harman and his object-oriented ontology.

I've long been fascinated by Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy(a fascination that runs in the family).  Actually, it would better be described as "process-relational philosophy," as Whitehead, like Wittgenstein and a few other philosophers of his day, took relations as the fundamental building blocks of reality.  Reality, for him, is constructed of single "actual occasions" which are relational in nature, and which form complex occasions called "societies" or "actual entities."  Some of these actual entities form what are called "enduring objects," which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  But the enduring objects have to recreate themselves at every moment to maintain their identity.  Thus, instead of a continuity of becoming, what you have is a becoming of continuity.  I won't yet go into the role that God plays in Whitehead's system, because that's not really important for the point at hand.  The point is that in his system, objects are defined by their relations, and maintain their identity through a process of inheritance from the past.

Harman, starting from a Heideggerian perspective comes to a very different view.  Heidegger famously spoke about the use of a hammer.  While you're using a hammer, its status as an object is invisible to you.  It exists purely as a tool that is "ready-to-hand."  We can use it with theorizing about it.  Only when it breaks does it become "present-at-hand" -- that is to say, present as a real object.  But whereas this analysis has traditionally been interpreted from a phenomenological angle, in terms of what tools are "for us," Harman offers the more radical suggestion that whether he knew it or not, Heidegger is actually giving us an ontology of objects.  Using the example of a hammer is a bit deceiving, since hammers have to be wielded by the person using them.  But the ready-to-hand can be found all around us at any moment.  As I speak, there are wood beams holding up the roof over my head, which in turn are held together by nails.  Solar radiation is penetrating the Earth's atmosphere and warming up the planet to a temperature at which I am able to survive.  Plants are producing oxygen I require to breathe.  Electricity is being supplied to my house, thus allowing me to type this sentence on the keyboard and have it show up on the internet.  Objects all around me are exerting a real force upon the world to form a background of order that is invisible because it functions so perfectly.  Only when these things break down do they become present to me.  These objects don't exist the way they do for me.  They exist in their own right, and they exert a real force upon the world because of some inner quality that gives them the capacity to relate to other objects.