Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

I have read a nice paper

Jordi Cat
Into the ‘regions of physical and metaphysical chaos’: Maxwell’s
scientific metaphysics and natural philosophy of action (agency,
determinacy and necessity from theology, moral philosophy and history to
mathematics, theory and experiment)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 91–104

It was interesting to see how questions discussed at this list (physics,
theology, mind and body) have been answered by Maxwell.

The abstract of the paper:

"Maxwell’s writings exhibit an enduring preoccupation with the role of
metaphysics in the advancement of science, especially the progress of
physics. I examine the question of the distinction and the proper
relation between physics and metaphysics and the way in which the
question relies on key notions that bring together much of Maxwell’s
natural philosophy, theoretical and experimental. Previous discussions
of his attention to metaphysics have been confined to specific issues
and polemics such as conceptions of matter and the problem of free will.
I suggest a unifying pattern based on a generalized philosophical
perspective and varying expressions, although never a systematic or
articulated philosophical doctrine, but at least a theme of action and
active powers, natural and human, intellectual and material, with
sources and grounds in theology, moral philosophy and historical
argument. While science was developing in the direction of professional
specialization and alongside the rise of materialism, Maxwell held on to
conservative intellectual outlook, but one that included a rich
scientific life and held science as part of a rich intellectual,
cultural and material life. His philosophical outlook integrated his
science with and captured the new Victorian culture of construction and
work, political, economic, artistic and engineering."

Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/10/maxwell-on-metaphysics-and-theology.html

[Roger Clough]

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi

 

 

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net

10/7/2012

"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

 

 

----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Evgenii Rudnyi

Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-10-06, 13:25:53

Subject: Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

I have read a nice paper

Jordi Cat

Into the 憆egions of physical and metaphysical chaos�: Maxwell抯

scientific metaphysics and natural philosophy of action (agency,
determinacy and necessity from theology, moral philosophy and history to
mathematics, theory and experiment)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 91�104

It was interesting to see how questions discussed at this list (physics,
theology, mind and body) have been answered by Maxwell.

The abstract of the paper:

"Maxwell抯 writings exhibit an enduring preoccupation with the role of

metaphysics in the advancement of science, especially the progress of
physics. I examine the question of the distinction and the proper
relation between physics and metaphysics and the way in which the

question relies on key notions that bring together much of Maxwell抯

natural philosophy, theoretical and experimental. Previous discussions
of his attention to metaphysics have been confined to specific issues
and polemics such as conceptions of matter and the problem of free will.
I suggest a unifying pattern based on a generalized philosophical
perspective and varying expressions, although never a systematic or
articulated philosophical doctrine, but at least a theme of action and
active powers, natural and human, intellectual and material, with
sources and grounds in theology, moral philosophy and historical
argument. While science was developing in the direction of professional
specialization and alongside the rise of materialism, Maxwell held on to
conservative intellectual outlook, but one that included a rich
scientific life and held science as part of a rich intellectual,
cultural and material life. His philosophical outlook integrated his
science with and captured the new Victorian culture of construction and
work, political, economic, artistic and engineering."

Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/10/maxwell-on-metaphysics-and-theology.html

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.

[Roger Clough]

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi

He's got it all mixed up.

Physics deals with objects extended in space. Things.
Metaphysics deals with inextended objects. Ideas.

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/7/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Evgenii Rudnyi
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-06, 13:25:53
Subject: Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

I have read a nice paper

Jordi Cat

Into the ?egions of physical and metaphysical chaos?: Maxwell?

scientific metaphysics and natural philosophy of action (agency,
determinacy and necessity from theology, moral philosophy and history to
mathematics, theory and experiment)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 91?104

It was interesting to see how questions discussed at this list (physics,
theology, mind and body) have been answered by Maxwell.

The abstract of the paper:

"Maxwell? writings exhibit an enduring preoccupation with the role of

metaphysics in the advancement of science, especially the progress of
physics. I examine the question of the distinction and the proper
relation between physics and metaphysics and the way in which the

question relies on key notions that bring together much of Maxwell?

natural philosophy, theoretical and experimental. Previous discussions
of his attention to metaphysics have been confined to specific issues
and polemics such as conceptions of matter and the problem of free will.
I suggest a unifying pattern based on a generalized philosophical
perspective and varying expressions, although never a systematic or
articulated philosophical doctrine, but at least a theme of action and
active powers, natural and human, intellectual and material, with
sources and grounds in theology, moral philosophy and historical
argument. While science was developing in the direction of professional
specialization and alongside the rise of materialism, Maxwell held on to
conservative intellectual outlook, but one that included a rich
scientific life and held science as part of a rich intellectual,
cultural and material life. His philosophical outlook integrated his
science with and captured the new Victorian culture of construction and
work, political, economic, artistic and engineering."

Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/10/maxwell-on-metaphysics-and-theology.html

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 07.10.2012 14:04 Roger Clough said the following:

> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>
> He's got it all mixed up.
>
> Physics deals with objects extended in space. Things. Metaphysics
> deals with inextended objects. Ideas.
>

Yet, he was able to develop the theory of electromagnetism.

Evgenii

[Roger Clough]

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi

I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical theory,
even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.

Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or God,
since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/7/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Evgenii Rudnyi
Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-10-07, 08:38:14
Subject: Re: Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:44 PM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>
> I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical theory,
> even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.
>
> Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or God,
> since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

You are ideologically committed to say this. Another position is that
physics is the source of mind and hence all meaning.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

On 07.10.2012 14:44 Roger Clough said the following:
> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>

> I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical
> theory, even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.
>
> Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or
> God, since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

I am working with engineers and they simulate Maxwell equations to
develop even better products. Hence physics brings meaning to minds of
engineers.

Evgenii

[Bruno Marchal]

On 07 Oct 2012, at 14:44, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>
> I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical theory,
> even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.
>
> Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or God,
> since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

This is not necessarily the case, as physics is Turing universal. The
problem is that physics has to be derived from comp.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

Come on! Then you can say that porn gives mind to sex amateur. It was
clearly not the sense asked by Roger. The question is how physics can
explain the mind. A priori, with comp, physics can do that, as physics
can explain the Turing universality of some system, and so can use the
comp explanation for the mind.
But then such an explanation prevent physics to explain matter, and it
is matter which becomes the complex problem, as we have to justify the
laws of physics by the statistic on the dreams in arithmetic.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Roger Clough]

On 07 Oct 2012, at 14:44, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>
> I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical theory,
> even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.
>
> Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or God,
> since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

BRUNO: This is not necessarily the case, as physics is Turing universal. The

problem is that physics has to be derived from comp.

Bruno

<SNIP>

ROGER: You might be able to derive physics from comp. But physics
can only deal with the extended (objects in spacetime) and anything
extended cannot deal with meaning, mind or philosophy or thought,
since these are outside of spacetime, because inextended.

Anything extended is an object, can only be treated objectively.
Because anything extended is in spacetime, while consciousnes and mind,
being inextended must be subjective (are outside of spacetime),
.In short:

extended= objective = in spacetime= contingent= cannot be necessary
inextended = subjective = outside of spacetime= can be sometimes necessary, sometimes contingent



Also, however, now I see that Universal Turing machines can simulate consciousness--
which all that you want. But it is impossible to prove that anything that
simulates consciousness is actually conscious. ignorance.

- Roger

[Roger Clough]

Hi Evgenii Rudnyi

Yes. But alone, the equations have no human meaning.

Each individual will invent that for himself.



Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/8/2012

"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Evgenii Rudnyi
Receiver: everything-list

Time: 2012-10-07, 09:14:18

Subject: Re: Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

[Roger Clough]

Hi Stathis Papaioannou

An atheist with any intelligence would agree with me because
it's just logic.

Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/8/2012

"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----

From: Stathis Papaioannou
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-07, 08:58:22
Subject: Re: Re: Maxwell on Metaphysics and Theology

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 11:44 PM, Roger Clough wrote:
> Hi Evgenii Rudnyi
>
> I know that, but his theory of electromagnetism is a physical theory,
> even if it's hard to pin down the extension property.
>
> Physical theories can tell us nothing about philosophy or mind or God,
> since they cannot deal with meaning. Physics is meaningless.

You are ideologically committed to say this. Another position is that
physics is the source of mind and hence all meaning.


--
Stathis Papaioannou

[Craig Weinberg]

To me the obvious solution is that the capacity to discern between subjective and objective sense is clearly more primitive than either physics or God. Physics or Arithmetic alone has no reason to make a mind, and God alone has no manifestation without some manner of experiencing his own awareness and will.

Maxwell was right, he just was ahead of his time. His quote "‘There is action and reaction between body and soul, but it is not of a kind in which energy passes from the one to the other,—as when a man pulls a trigger it is the gunpowder that projects the bullet, or when a pointsman shunts a train it is the rails that bear the thrust.’" Is precisely, and I mean exactly what my model suggests. "not of a kind in which energy passes from the one to the other". What he was reaching for here, I am certain, is what I have found in the anomalous symmetry of sense modalities. Electromagnetism is the extended view from the outside in - public orientation which is indirect, while sensorimotor phenomenology is the intended view from the inside out - private orientation which is direct.

To understand how subjectivity and objectivity work together, we have to work both from the outside in and the inside out, starting from the middle, which is the event horizon where time 'folds' into space and the personal folds into the impersonal. Perception.

The obstacles to this are that we mistake the impersonal (functions of bodies in space, cells, molecules) for the personal (feelings, experiences, qualia) so that we are compelled to explain one in terms of the other rather than seeing them as the simultaneous juxtapositions of each other. We conflate our lack of awareness of sub-personal experiences with the complexity of micro-impersonal functions. We think that the cell is producing the qualia that we see, or that the ideal of the qualia is meaninglessly represented by the functions of the cell, but the truth is that qualia is not produced, it is experienced. We aren't the experience of our brain any more than these words are the experience of your screen pixels. We are the experience through the human brain, body, family, species, planet, cells, molecules, etc. It's a completely other side of the universe and it works in exactly the opposite way of 'physics' or mathematics but at the same time physics and mathematics are only the impersonal, extended version of it. Physics and mathematics are logical, generic, universal, mechanistic, public, spatiotemporal. Subjectivity is trans-rational, signifying, proprietary, animistic, private. Can't anyone see that they are clearly juxtaposed as perpendicular conjugates?

Craig
 

--
Stathis Papaioannou