HOW Mental Purposes can be Powerful in the World

We want to believe that purpose is powerful in human lives and probably in nature, but many of us also believe in a science which knows nothing about purposes, and which leaves little elbow room for purposes to have any effect!  We want to believe that purposes are powerful, but we do not really see how this can be so. What is really going on when purposes influence the world? What is the truth here?

We have deep problems as we try to form our sciences. We believe and intend that purposes are effective, but we do not really know how to connect this insight with our theoretical and empirical knowledge in the sciences. We may have a good idea how purpose makes its mark in the religious, social and psychological realms, but as yet we have no good idea how purpose can be effective in biology and physics. These two sciences are concerned with detail, and our details so far are missing. Here I seek first to justify this summary of our current predicament, and then to convey a new vision of how purposes may be powerful, and become real causes, in both the human and the natural worlds.

What does not exist cannot have any power. So, if a purpose is to have power, it must exist, or it must be related to a causal aspect of what does exist. Otherwise it would be a powerless epiphenomenon. Let us consider the preliminary possibility that only natural things exist, so that powerful purposes might be discoverable as aspects of natural causes.

Does nature itself act with a purpose? To form a precise question, consider nature according to accepted physical laws. Some physical laws portray something like ‘purpose’. There are laws of conservation of energy, laws of thermodynamics, and variational principles. All these laws appear to describe the reasons for the actual operation of nature.  Physicists say that ‘entropy must never decrease’, and that ‘nature seeks the least action’, because of laws like these. However, physicists have looked at the above laws, such as the variational principle, and emphasize that it is not the case that nature explores possibilities like humans do when thinking. In all cases, to ask for the power of purpose according to the physical sciences is a tall order, since physics knows little or nothing of those purposes we hold dear.

In another approach, many people believe that modern physics leaves small gaps through which purposes may yet creep in, by means of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the indeterminism of quantum physics. Physicists from Eugene Wigner¹ to Henry Stapp² have suggested that mind can influence nature at the point of measurement, by means of choosing some preferred outcome. Others, such as John Polkinghorne³, suggest that indeterminism inherent in chaotic systems allows a similar process.

However, while quantum physics may be indeterministic about the detailed outcomes for some classes of microscopic events, namely decoherent measurements, it is not completely arbitrary. Rather, it makes very precise predictions for the probabilities of those outcomes, and, furthermore, the time evolution of these probabilities is completely deterministic. Purposes might allegedly choose when decohering measurements occur (as Stapp suggests), or perhaps change the probabilities of different outcomes. In the first case, the scope of influence is extremely limited, and hardly plausible as a means of expressing powerful purposes. In the second case, purposes would change the probability rules of quantum physics, in just the same way that they would have to change Newton's laws of motion if they were to influence classical systems. The long-term conservation of energy and momentum remains just as constraining as before. Modern quantum physics by itself, therefore, leaves only miniscule and insufficient gaps through which purposes may be effective.

So let us for a while suspend science’s natural cautiousness and its ‘methodological naturalism’, and consider the possibility of a new ‘science of purposes’: a new programme of research that includes and builds on modern science, though without its monist prejudices. We should not be timid or ashamed about this, or feel that we lose the ground we stand on. Perhaps scientists might worry that ‘anything goes’ if we do not stick with the foundations we know, so we will need an extended view with definite structural principles, and these should include (something like) current physics as a limiting case. We seek an account that allows purposes to be causes, while agreeing with the structures, events and processes that make up physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology. There may possibly be disagreement only about the underlying causes.

This is of course, to start with, an intellectual exercise, but such an exercise has its uses. Many of us have seen evidence for powerful purposes: in ourselves, and elsewhere. But evidence for what, exactly? We need a detailed theory here, one that could be verified or refuted like other scientific theories, and fail or prevail. A theory would link disparate pieces of evidence together, and then we think we begin to properly understand. Parapsychology, for example, has stagnated from the lack of such a theory. A new theory would make predictions. In fact, many experiments only suggest themselves after a theory is under scrutiny. What is shameful is that we do not yet have even a possible such theory. This portrays a serious lack of imagination on the part of us theorists!  Let me tell you, therefore, what my vision suggests for such a theory. Then let us, like good scientists, judge by the results.

☼

 This new account is based on several principles taken to be universal, some of which exist already in today’s science. Since I must be brief, consider the following points:

1. Particular objects in the world exist, and all are composed of some substance in some form. Pure forms without substance cannot exist, whether they be information, mathematics or functions.
2. All existing things have irreducible causal powers: probabilistic dispositions or propensities are an essential part of the nature of everything existing.
3. For simplicity, take the substance of a thing not as something unknowable, but as the underlying disposition or propensity from which, according local structures, all its other dispositions and causal properties may be derived.
4. Every microscopic operation consists of generative ‘discrete degrees’ (read à as ‘gives’):
    propensity itself à propensity in a distributed form à event.
5. Each stage or degree is like a ‘part,’ and exists in its own manner.

The above principles are arguably the foundation of a realist interpretation of quantum physics, as discussed further below. The essential dispositions of an elementary particle are the propensities characterised by the charges, masses and other quantum numbers that determine its capacities and probabilities for interaction. Now for what is new:

6. Each stage of a generative triple is itself composed of parts with this three-fold structure. Thus we have a recursive structure of embedded details like a fractal. The next level of detail, for example, would be an ennead of nine sub-degrees.
7. Physics and nature as we know them are not the whole picture, but are in fact ‘merely’ the ‘event stage’ of a bigger picture operating with the same structural principles.
8. The ‘big picture’ has a triple that is more commonly known as:
   ‘soul’ (propensity itself) à ‘mind’ (propensity in a form) à ‘body’ (visible events).
9. At this global level, the ‘propensity’ should, if you are happy with this terminology, be more accurately termed ‘spirit’ or ‘love’, and only the ‘body’ stage regarded as ‘natural’ and visible to physics.

Perhaps scientists imagine that there is no need for this kind of scheme, but we are already suffering from a lack of precisely such universal ideas from philosophy. This so far is a relatively simple vision that, like a fractal, points to expanding vistas of complexity on closer examination. Unlike a fractal, this scheme points to expanding ranges of quality within. Let us see some details.

All stages are individually objects composed of some propensity (substance) in some form. This applies to ‘soul’ and ‘mind’ as well as to the natural world. Each is a really existing object (by principle 5) with causal powers (by principles 1 and 2), at one of the following stages:

• The soul itself (by principle 6) has itself three ‘heavenly’ sub-degrees:
  ‘spiritual love’ à ‘wisdom’ à ‘faithfulness in action’.
• The mind itself (similarly) has three ‘mental’ sub-degrees:
  ‘interior mind’ à ‘scientific discursive mind’ à sensorimotor mind.
  • Each of these has three parts, very probably as Jean Piaget⁴ and Erik Eriksson⁵ have begun to describe in their stages of cognitive and affective development.
• The natural body itself has three ‘physical’ sub-degrees:
  pre-geometric processes à virtual processes à actual processes.
  • ‘Pre-geometric processes’ have themselves three parts:
    but as yet only speculation, in for example loop theories of quantum gravity.
  • ‘Virtual processes’ have themselves three parts:
    Lagrangian variational à virtual fields à coherent virtual events.
  • ‘Actual processes’ have themselves three parts:
    Energy operator (Hamiltonian) à wave function à decoherent actual events.

The above is a structure of recursively embedded discrete degrees that could be expanded upon in much more detail. Consider some degrees as examples.

The final triple for ‘actual processes’ shows the operation of the Schrödinger equation and decoherence, the most basic dynamism of quantum physics. Physical energy is active, so is represented as a mathematical operator which generates the space and time distribution of the wave function as constrained by initial conditions. This distributed wave function, after some finite time, produces actual events as the selection of one outcome among many ‘decoherent alternatives,’ as constrained by previous selections. The precise nature of these selection events is so far only known in rather extreme cases involving medium and large objects, so there is new physics to be discovered here. 

The overall structure of the ‘physical degree’ is currently much debated among physicists. There is general agreement that the energy and wave functions appearing in the ‘actual process’ degree are not simple, because kinetic energy from mass and potential energy from interactions are both dynamically generated by the virtual processes of quantum field theories. However, there is no good agreement about the most fundamental stage of what gives rise to these virtual processes, and, especially, what gives rise to the space-time background for virtual events. I mention loop quantum gravity, as one attempt to explain how space-time areas and volumes might be produced. There are many speculations about quantum gravity, and how space-time might be dynamically generated, but there is little agreement even about what such a theory should look like. I hope that my present scheme would enable some general principles to be elucidated that might guide theory formation, and enable eventually a realistic interpretation to be found.

The triple for ‘mental sub-degrees’ shows the steps by which deep motivational principles in the interior mind – purposes – lead to action. These purposes come to fruition by means of discursive investigation of ideas, plans and alternatives in the more exterior ‘scientific discursive mind’, as constrained by existing intellectual abilities. The actions by the sensorimotor mind select one outcome among many, as constrained by bodily conditions. Moreover, psychologists who have investigated perceptive and executive processes within the sensorimotor stage realise that these are far from simple. What we see, for example, is very much influenced by our expectations and desires, as well as being constrained, of course, by what is in front of our eyes. They would agree that there are subsidiary degrees of expectation, presentation of alternatives and resolution even during ‘simple’ sensations.
In order to encompass the above examples of operation in both physics and psychology, let me postulate the following dynamical principle to apply universally at all levels.  The basic principle could be called ‘conditional generative causation’, according to which:

10. Changed propensities in each degree are generated by prior propensities that act according to what is already actual in both the current and subsequent degrees.

Each degree is therefore activated by ‘influx’ from prior stages, while the present range of actualities constrains what influx is possible, and also how propensities change at those prior degrees. The new science of purposes sees, therefore, a whole multi-level structure linked everywhere together asymmetrically: by influx from ‘above’, and by constraints from ‘below’. The propensities (loves) of the very first degree are constant. The final degree of actual selections in nature has no potentialities for changes to itself, so it is the cumulative ‘bottom line’ that is fixed and permanent as history, and therefore acts as kind of ultimate container to all previous degrees.

Note that there are detailed constituent events in both of any pair of prior and produced degrees. Because of all these microscopic events, there will be successive influx from the prior degree reciprocating with sequential constraints by the produced degree, and this alternation will repeat itself longest if the patterns of the constituent events are most similar in the two degrees, and they do not get out of step. By a sort of survival of the fittest, this in the long term gives rise tocorrespondences of function between adjacent degrees. We may conversely say that the functions in distinct degrees sustain each other in a kind of resonance when they are most similar in the patterns of their constituent events. Our minds and brains sustain each other by influx and constraint, for example, when psychological and neural processes are most nearly isomorphic to each other in their functional description. There is much detail here to be learned by derivation and observation, not just in mind-brain functioning but throughout living organisms. Discrete degrees are not of a continuous substance with each other, but, we see, have functional relations that make them ‘contiguously intertwined’ at all stages, and at all levels of detail at each stage.

How, in this vision, do we link with the physical degrees, and how do purposes work in the apparent face of physical laws? Here, they do not squeeze through any gaps in our explanations, but work through the normal processes by means of which physical propensities are all originally generated from prior loves. They follow this flow of influx, modifying it as allowed by the constraints of what is already fixed at each stage.

For physics, this means that the ‘deepest principles’, such as the Lagrangian subject to variations, and presumably the even deeper theories of quantum gravity, will have certain parameters that depend on prior discrete degrees in the rational and sensory minds.  This is a new result in our science of purposes. Does it break physical laws? First note that, on the realist position here of objects being composed of all their propensities, physical laws are identical with the description of how these propensities in fact operate. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, describes how electrons of certain masses and charges interact with each other and with photons. We need another law to say how the propensities may themselves vary, or not vary. The details are part of the general theory, still to be found, of pre-geometric processes. Do we know for sure that the electron charge is constant? Physicists have in fact imagined slow variations of this (the fine structure constant), but are we allowed to speculate about local more rapid variations on neurological time scales? The meaning of the laws of conservation of energy and momentum would have to be reconsidered in such a situation. Presumably, physicists would conclude that the system in question could not be considered sufficiently isolated.

A good new theory must allow a natural world that is not an illusion, nor just the product of human minds. It should also be consonant with our best accounts of psychology and theology. The power of purpose is not omnipotent, as in some New Age stories, for in fact there is often resistance to the elaboration of purposes. A good theory must explain the phenomenon of ‘contrary tendencies’: of limitations as well as of empowerments, and of bitterness as well as love.

Purposes, in this vision, are produced by particular forms of love – particular affections – as these generate the next stage of thought, and begin to be worked out in particular forms or ideas in the mind.  We would thus distinguish the loves of good things from the purpose or intention that works towards achieving them.

Purposes therefore become powerful by working through, and modifying, the normal routes by which loves and thoughts work through all of the pre-geometric and virtual stages towards actual effects. Depending on what has already actually happened in ourselves and in nature, purposes generate thoughts and plans, and then also physical potentialities for the desired actual outcomes. Sometimes historical actualities facilitate purposes by providing the materials for the accomplishment of the end. At other times, they may slightly (or sharply) limit the range of possible actions, and thwart the working out of prior purposes. Such frustrating situations must be worked around, or limited cooperation sought, since history cannot be abolished. That is the deepest challenge for those being led by good purposes.
A theistic theory may possibly be based on the above scheme. This would take all of the above, but now, as activated by an ‘influx of propensities’ from the Divine Source in a manner similar to the way that discrete degrees sustain each other. This would also explain how to sustain inanimate nature apart from living creatures. The whole soul/mind/nature ‘created structure’ would not be self-sustaining, but all its processes and sub-processes would come themselves to have eventually a functional form that is an image and likeness of the details of the Source. The Divine would presumably be a unity that has infinite and perfect details. It (He) would again not be of a continuous substance with creation, but of a distinct discrete degree that is yet intertwined and ultimately sustaining at all stages of every particular finite object, “rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds”⁶. He “sends rain on the just and on the unjust”⁷, and we only vary in our reception depending on how our historical actions give present constraints. This may be already known to many of us – the challenge is to enable connections with the rest of our knowledge about nature as well as about people.

☼

 Maybe it is too soon for these kinds of ideas to be accepted in science, since not all the simpler options have been examined and found wanting.  My aim here, therefore, is to demonstrate in a sort of existence proof that it is possible to have a scientific theory of mind and purposes which is coherent with good physics and good psychology, while also being spiritually plausible. This is not a mathematical theory, but is more an elucidation of what general ideas could replace those of ‘particle’, ‘wave’ and ‘field’ to describe the substances by means of which we interpret our equations, and what kinds of structural and dynamical relations the new substances should have.

Where do we have to search in history for a vision along these lines? Antonio Damasio⁸ recently found fruitful similarities with the works of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) for his vision of unified mind and body. I do not need to go back that far, as I find the essentials of the above ideas already in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). With Swedenborg⁹, the ideas are firmly embedded in a radical reworking of Christian theology, philosophy and psychology, and we need now at least similar concepts to help form new scientific theories.

The ideas discussed here should not just remain in books long ago published, in our imaginations, or in short essays of today, but must be expanded and examined for explanatory and predictive power, to enable the development of a new science of purposes. Empirical testing then becomes practicable. Then, and only then, will we have demonstrated how purpose in a vision has power in a life, to struggle against (and with) the limitations of what already exists and who we already are. Then, to the benefit of all society, we will know for sure how purposes in our lives have power within both our human and our natural worlds.

 For more detail, see my book introduced at www.beginningtheisticscience.com

1. E. Wigner, “Remarks on the Mind-Body Question,” pp. 284-302 in The Scientist Speculates, I.J. Good (ed) Basic Books, 1962.
2. H. Stapp, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Springer-Verlag, 1993.
3. J. Polkinghorne,  “Chaos Theory and Divine Action,” In Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue, ed. W. M. Richardson and W. J. Wildman, Routledge, 1996
4. J. Piaget. The Language and Thought of the Child, Harcourt, Brace & World. 1926;
   J. Piaget, Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood, Norton, 1962.
5. E. Erikson. Childhood and Society, Norton, 1963.
6. Jeremiah 32:19
7. Matthew 5:45
8. A. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Harvest Books, 2003.
9. E. Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763: Swedenborg Foundation, 2003

Chapter Synopsis of the new book "Starting Science From God"

 Brief outline of the structure of the book and its arguments:

Preface

The status of theism, and current debates
Acknowledgements

I. Preliminaries

1. Introduction
General discussion about the possibility of scientific theism today.


2. History
Brief(!) discussions of historical philosophical treatments of theism, and of theories of connection between God and the world, and between mind and nature.


3. A Way Forward
Describing the 'minor' changes necessary for science for science and for religion, in order to form together a way forward.

II. Ontology

4. Power and Substance
We must distinguish between form, substance and potentiality (like Aristotle), in order to make a realist ontology based on process logic. I give a general introduction to the realist ontology that will be used throughout this book. The ontology of form and substance, united in nature and distinguishable only by the mind, is one that dates from Aristotle and was still held by Descartes and Leibniz.


5. Multiple Generative Levels
Exposition concerning multiple generative levels, based on the asymmetric processes of generation from cause to effect, and selection from previous effects to future causes. Simple examples from classical & quantum physics and psychology.


6. A Dynamic Ontology
Summary of philosophical viewpoint of Part II, where substances are defined in terms of underlying dispositions, and also exist and operate within a generative structure of levels.

III. A Scientific Theism

7. Plan of Approach
Start from specific postulates of theism (just as physics theories start from their own a-theistic postulates), and see what can be deduced concerning minds and nature that is consistent with those postulates, as listed within Chapters 8-19.


8. The ‘I am’
That God exists, and that God is One, are the basic starting postulates of any theism.


9. God is Not Us
Nor are we part of God. To be loved, we must be other from God. The most distinctive feature of theism is that God is distinct from the world, in particular that there is something essential to humans that is distinct from God. The reason for this is that God’s love is unselfish, and unselfish love cannot love itself.


10. Images of God
In the Genesis story, man was made ‘in his image, according to his likeness’. The creation story leading up to this suggests that plants and animals were partial contributions to this making, and from biology we know that there are a great many internal similarities of plants and animals with humans. Although somewhat controversial, this implies that plants and animals are also in the image and likeness of God, but to a lesser extent.


11. God is Love
That God is love, as asserted by most traditional and modern theisms, has rarely been understood properly from the philosophical point of view. The nature of love is to want and then to achieve more than what is already obtained. God as Love wants to share its own with all of creation for the longest time possible, so all objects in creation are given the capacity to make something different in their future. Since God is Love, according to theism, divine love is the substance or being of which God is formed. Then, because created objects are a kind of image of God, we can conclude that something like love is the substance of all things in the world.


12. God is Life Itself
All our life is provided by God, and there is no life apart from God. If we could use the principle that ‘one is at least where one acts’, God would be immanent in His creation. Being eternal Life Itself, He is also transcendent of His creation.


13. God is both Simple and Complex
God is a unity in which there is no limit to the infinity of what may be intellectually distinguished, but what is not in fact separated.


14. God is Wisdom, and Action
That God is also Wisdom itself, and proceeding Action, so we have triad within God. This wisdom is the source of our own wisdom, understanding & knowledge.


15. God is Transcendent and Immanent
The distinction between the transcendent God and the finite creation depends on the distinction between the actual forms of created things and their received life. Thus we have neither pantheism nor deism, but what is a thorough-going theism: ‘God in everything, but distinct from everything’. Note that the ‘in’ here is not that of constitution, but of being hidden from the outside.


16. We Act Sequentially
That, in us, love and wisdom choose when to act. God may have foreknowledge of our free decisions, but time exists for us, and we still must will our own actions according to our understanding: with our own freedom.


17. We are Composite, as Spiritual, Mental and Physical
That God is Love, is Wisdom, and is also Life or Action in himself are what we can intellectually distinguish. Because what is unified and continuous in God is imaged in creation with what are distributed discretely, and these distributions function similarly by images of the God-world relation, we conclude that creation must have three realms, the first a reduced and distributed image of divine love, the second a reduced and distributed image of divine wisdom, and the third a reduced and distributed image of divine power and action.
The spiritual realm contains the separate loves in creation, including desires, loves, affections, motivations, purposes, dispositions, etc. The mental realm contains the separate carriers of wisdom, namely thoughts, ideas, understandings, rationality, plans, ideologies, beliefs, etc. The physical realm deals with all the separate final actions and effects, including the entire sets of things we know from external observations and physics.


18. We are Sustained by Influx From God, Directly and Indirectly
The traditional view of God creating the world is by fiat, taking literally the commands ‘fiat lux: let there be light’ and so on. The creation of substantial objects, still, involves God giving them their being (since he is being itself). Furthermore, in process logic, there is no power without substance. Or without (some kind) of presence.


19. God is Equally Present in All Subparts
Thus God must be immanent in every part of creation, and in every part of that part. And in every realm that influences each part and each sub-part. God must therefore be imaged (in some way) in each thing of love, and each thing of thought, and each physical thing, as well as in the interior realms of all of these.


20. The Theistic Universe
Taking an overall view of the universe from the above theistic principles.　

IV. Theistic Science

21. Methods
The previous Part III outlined an abstract structure of degrees and sub-degrees. Now in Part IV is the time to work out what these are in terms of the language and sciences that we already know, if possible. I call this the process of ‘identification.’ This is now longer deduction from theistic premises, not the least because now I call on meanings in ordinary languages and in the sciences, and these will have historical and contemporary overtones that certainly cannot be called deductive conclusions!


22. Discrete Degrees in the Mind
Discuss generic operation of sub-degrees in the mind, namely thought of loves, thought about thoughts, and thought about sensations & actions. These are identified as ‘higher rational’, ‘scientific rational’ and ‘external mind’ respectively. The sub-sub-degrees within these, and relation to the levels of cognition and affection discussed by Piaget, Gowan and Erikson.


23. Spiritual Discrete Degrees
When identifying the three main degrees of spiritual, mental and physical, I deliberately placed a spiritual degree above that of our normal mental life. That is because I read a great many reports of ‘peak experiences’, including those called visionary, mystical, out-of-body, near-death and spiritual, and I am convinced that there does indeed exist a realm about which we are normally unaware. I claim that this is the spiritual realm, and I have therefore identified this as ‘love’, the principal degree 1 of the three degrees. These must constitute some kind of heavenly states. An extensive discussion of misconceptions concerning the nature of the spiritual.


24. Discrete Degrees in Nature
The divine source does not produce all physical effects directly, but it produces via spiritual and natural stages what we see as natural dispositions or natural propensities. It is these dispositions or propensities, also known as causes, forces, potentials, quantum propensities) which lead to the ultimate physical interactions and events. The physical dispositions are a very limited ‘remnant' of Divine Power, and they operate in a way which corresponds to the characteristic operation of the Divine.
The stages and substages are directly related to problems in pregeometric gravity, quantum field theory, and in ordinary quantum mechanics. Prediction that there exists some actual selection processes in nature, in order to solve the (generalized) measurement problem.


25. Mind-body Connections
We derive a theory of mind and brain connection that establishes in intimate relation between them. It is not a relation of identity, or a relation of aspects or points of view. It is more a relation of inner and outer, or cause and effect: propensities in the brain are the causal product of mental actions. The mind and brain fit together by approximate analogy with hand and glove, or, better, with tissue and skin. The analogy is most precisely with thefunctions of tissue & skin, and not so much with their material shape. The mind provides all the directed activity of the brain, just as the tissue of the hand provides all the directed activity of the skin of the hand.
There are continual relations between minds generating brain dispositions, and brain events selecting which mental powers can act. This reciprocity means that the longest-lasting psychophysical structures have similar functional patterns in the mind and they body, and these similar functions we call 'correspondences’.

V. Applications

26. Evolution
That God cannot create self-sustaining organisms immediately, and neither can God instantaneously create robust receivers of divine love, since they need a history of their own actions in order to live as if from themselves. This implies that God needs evolution: descent by modification. Argue that this essentially the same as for mental and for spiritual (re)generation. That is, God has to manage external and internal changes in a gradualist manner: ab initio creationism is impossible. There is ‘theistic selection’ in addition to Darwinist natural selection.


27. Consciousness
In this framework, we are conscious of our actions when love and wisdom come together to make those actions. We are not directly conscious of our loves, and we are conscious of our thoughts only by reflective awareness at some upstream level.


28. Spiritual Growth
That we want permanent spiritual growth, and that this does not come quickly, but by cumulative joint actions of our own loves and wisdom. Not from one by itself, or from suffering alone, or from ‘elevated consciousness’. Look at stages of spiritual growth that starts in our higher rational, and continues in with our spiritual loves, especially in relation the sequence described in Genesis chap. 1.


29. Errors and Evils
What can we say about the problem of evil? Only some preliminaries: that Divine omnipotence is not absolute (since persons have love as their being, so cannot be arbitrarily remade): love always overrules omnipotence. That God can indeed create a stone he cannot (in practice) lift: that stone is us! Preliminary discussion of the real questions concerning freedom and evil.

VI. Discussion

30. Metaphysics
Responses, in the light of this book, to the philosophers and their queries as discussed in Chapter 2. Discussing in particular relations to ideas of Aquinas, Descartes and Whitehead (the leading ontologists who include mind and God in their theories).


31. Formal Modeling
The possibility of formal modeling of physical structures, and of limited modeling of mental structures. Dispositions can be partially modeled as procedures or functions, but not every aspect of them.


32. Possible Objections
Collection of frequently asked objections, and my responses.


33. Conclusions
Brief summary.


A. Theistic Postulates
A convenient summary


B. Further Resources
  Some relevant websites.

Bibliography
Index

Can we conceive of mind-body dualism?

In trying to understand the nature of the connections between mind and body, or between ordinary and spiritual minds, many different ideas have been proposed to explain how they are different. Only if we have a serious scientific proposal for this can we give proper evidence for the fact of a difference, as (almost always in science) new kinds of evidence need a related theory in order to justify taking them seriously.
Many people have realized that there are some differences here, but are reluctant to call that a 'dualism', and so produce many analogies for understanding those differences.  Let us, nevertheless, call the relation between minds and body 'a dualism', and then simply seek to understand its nature.

One way to answer the question of dualism is if we have a clear idea about what have been called 'discrete degrees'. Emanuel Swedenborg wrote in his 1763 book Divine Love and Wisdom that this concept is central to answering many questions:

"Without a concept of discrete degrees ... one can know nothing of the difference between the interior faculties in people which are those of the mind, thus nothing of their state in regard to reformation and regeneration; ... and nothing at all of the difference between something spiritual and something natural." [1]

In everyday life, we have formed our own ideas about these discrete degrees, by means of which we attempt to understand what Swedenborg is suggesting here, especially about what is mental, or spiritual, in comparison with what is natural. However, many people have rather individual ideas about the nature of discrete degrees, and some have ideas that are not in fact dual or discrete.
My purpose here is to look at some common suggestions, to challenge various motives that favour some particular misconceptions, and to try to demonstrate some more realistic (and fruitful) ways of thinking about discrete degrees. This should give us a clearer formulation about how to conceive dualism. In the process we will compare and contrast them with continuous degrees of various kinds, such as occur within a monistic framework.
Our need to think in discrete or continuous degrees touches on some broader desires for certain kinds of explanation. We are much more satisfied, for example, by an integrated view of all the natural and spiritual worlds, compared, say, with a fragmented account. Similarly, scientists and philosophers are much happier with a unified theory which sees everything as part of some continuous whole, compared, say, with a theory with unexplained gaps. We might favor an integrated ‘nondual’ world view compared with an account with dual substances whose relation is more hierarchical and somehow less ‘democratic’.
Our initial desires and kinds of knowledge we can accept are typically based on ideas that we can obtain from our senses, and from logical reasoning from sensual ideas. Contemporary science is a rather full development starting from this approach. However, from our senses and logic, it is rather difficult to have a proper idea of discrete degrees. This is our problem! Most of our starting ideas are based on images obtained from sensations of space and time, and Swedenborg tries to persuade us how our these spatial and temporal images ‘attach’ themselves to many of our attempts to think about discrete degrees. One aim here is to help see how spatial ideas attach themselves to our ideas of discrete degrees, and hence of our ideas of what is (or should be) dual. We will see how spatial images (may) correspond, or be analogous, to discrete degrees, but are not identical with them.
Let us look at some ideas that have been used to describe discrete degrees, and examine each in turn to see whether it is discrete or continuous, and whether it is a means for understanding any dualism about what is mental or spiritual:

Space

1. We may imagine as discrete degrees those natural things with discrete units, such as a ladder, as a multi-storied house, even as earth + plants/animals + the heavens, etc. Religious and spiritual literature often uses such images. We may use the body, with head+neck+body+legs +feet to represent different discrete degrees, but from looking at human bodies, as from biology alone, we do not thereby understand what are mental or spiritual degrees.
2. Similarly, the whole and its parts may be imagined as discrete degrees and in a relation of duality. The cells, nerves, muscles, skin and whole body of a person may be called discrete degrees. However, the whole body, however it may be controlled by a mental degree, is itself an aggregation of its parts. It is therefore not itself of a different degree to its parts.
3. We may think of discrete degrees as another dimension, even the fourth (or fifth) dimension of space and time. It is true that dimensions can be counted, and so are discrete in some sense, but they can still be continuously transformed into each other, for example by rotations. It is clear that rotating or expanding does not, by that fact, take you to a new spiritual discrete degree.
4. Infinite space, or Space Itself. Spinoza, for example, saw matter and space as the twin aspects of an infinite divinity, from which matter and space are themselves infinite in their details and in their extents. However, space is not mental, but is in a discrete degree distinct from all mental and spiritual degrees.
   Time
5. We may think of discrete degrees as new frequencies of vibration. Entering the mental realm has been called, for example,  ‘entering a new vibrational level’. However, frequencies can also be continuously transformed into each other, since time in nature is on a continuous numerical scale. It is clear that vibrating faster does not, by that fact, take us to a new discrete degree, and does not describe a dualist ontology.
6. Some natural objects have discrete harmonic modes of operation. A guitar or cello string, for example, has fundamental and harmonic vibrational modes, and these resonate among themselves. Electrons in atoms have discrete levels of different energies. However, if we look in detail, we see that all intermediate vibrations and energies are still possible, but just do not last very long. I have above mentioned the possible roles of different frequencies, and in physics, vibrational energy is proportional to frequency.
7. Series of successive processes, such as waterfalls or other emanations, or the stages of a person's life, are often used to represent ‘successive discrete degrees’. We may often represent discrete degrees as ‘successive’, but we should be aware that this is another representation using ‘time’. Discrete degrees (such as mental/spiritual and natural) are still ‘simultaneous’ in many important senses!
8. Infinite time, or the denial of time, as being eternity. Encompassing all time is sometimes seen as a degree above all us ‘time bound’ individuals. However, any mind or spirit is presumed to be the source of life and activity, and certainly not the freezing of time. We may imagine that Divine Wisdom does see all time together (past, present and future) in an eternity, but note that the accomplishment of Divine Love still requires enacting that time successively.
Natural States

9. Solids, liquids and gases are discrete phases of many substances in nature. Ice, water and steam are discrete manifestations of the one chemical H₂O. However, these multiple phases of water can be continuously transformed one into another, and back again, so not describe dualities in a sense from which we can learn about mind and nature.
10. A related suggestion is to use the classic quartet of earth, water, air and fire, especially to identify a mental or spiritual degree as fire.
11. Sometimes we imagine mind or spirit as a fine or subtle substance that pervades and influences ‘coarse matter’. This may be true, but unless we have an independent idea of the mental or spiritual degrees, we cannot properly describe it merely from the idea of ‘fineness’ or ‘subtlety’.
12. Various polarities in nature, such as positive and negative electric charge, or male and female in biology. Opposite electric charges, such as of electrons and its antiparticle the positron, however, are exact mirror images at exactly the same natural level. Male and female organisms, by contrast, have internal complexities that are very similar, differing in particular in the way some of these are ordered. Furthermore, we cannot say that only positive charges, or only females, are connected to (or are) a dual degree.
    Inside and Outside
13. We may think of discrete degrees as the internal and the external of bodies, or of persons. The  words inmost, inner, and outer may be often used to describe discrete degrees in practice, and many of us use these adjectives to contrast spiritual with natural things. However, if we examine the specific meanings of these words, we see that they are essentially spatial images that must be interpreted metaphorically if they are to indicate spiritual and natural as distinct discrete degrees.
14. Connected with the previous suggestion, sometimes the mental or spiritual degree is seen as the ‘first person’ inside view of nature, so physical matter is the ‘outside’ or ‘third person’ view. This is a popular belief among those trying to reconcile science and spirituality, but it does not help, for example, in trying to understand the possibility of life after separation from the physical body. How can there be a life from a coherent inside view if the outside view is of matter broken into pieces?
15. A recent suggestion is based on chaos theory, where we see self-similarity: a similarity of behavior patterns when we compare the whole and the parts. But the whole and the parts, again, are not ontologically dual.

Many of the above distinctions have been adopted in popular culture as sufficient for defining the distinctness of degrees that lead to the mental or spiritual, and there is some satisfaction, for example, with imagining the spiritual as 'higher resonant states in higher dimensions' of reality as yet undiscovered by physics. However, all the above classifications are continuous, not discrete or dual. The desires for continuous spiritual degrees, though widespread in many contemporary and Eastern philosophies today, are what we should call ‘natural’ or even ‘sensual’.
We need to separate our understanding, in some way, from natural and sensual images. This separation may never be complete on earth, but let us at least be aware of the way we presently think.
But let us try to form some more positive accounts. My immediate problem here is that you may be most happy if I produce a new picture which I claim shows discrete degrees most accurately. However, we have just seen that all pictures are based on spatial and temporal images, and by that fact should be called into question! What can we do?
This is a problem that modern quantum physics has faced for much of the last century. Modern physicists have realized that pictures based on ‘particles’, or on ‘waves’, are no longer satisfactory, but have nothing satisfactory to replace them with. Some among them have (wisely) said that ‘we can no longer rely on naive pictorial thinking’. Thus, for minds as well as for physics, we have to rely on some different kind of thinking. Quantum physics can use its mathematical equations, but what can we use?
To understand in a specific way discrete degrees, and the possibility of a real dualism, we can either

1. build on and extrapolate whatever discrete degrees physics and philosophy have discovered, or
2. rely on our own intuitive understandings of causes and effects in ourselves.

A description of those discrete degrees that physics has discovered is given separately, so I will merely mention some of the more obvious discoveries here. Let me first describe some of the discrete degrees and dualities that Swedenborg has described: two from general philosophy, and one from simple physics:
Degrees in Philosophy and Simple Physics

16. Form and substance are a pair of discrete degrees. For a given thing, such as this chair, the form is its position, orientation and shape. And not just the overall shape, but also the shapes and arrangements of all its constituent parts. The substance of the chair is that of which the constituent parts are forms of, are made of. This physics can give us some idea of, namely some kind of energy or propensity to interact. Form and substance cannot be continuously transformed into each other.  Yet they are not ontological dual, in the sense of independently existing.
17. End, cause and effect are a triplet of discrete degrees. The end is the original principle according to which a process starts, the cause is the formulation of means that is poised to act, and the effect is the resulting action. End, cause and effect produce each other in sequence, but cannot be reversibly transformed.
18. Heat and Light, strictly, are radiation in the same electromagnetic spectrum: making them a pair of continuous rather discrete degrees. However, ‘heat’ has a more general meaning: that of energy in general, and light has a more specific meaning: as a form of radiation that can be encoded with very much information. Energy and information do form a discrete pair of degrees, but similar therefore to 'form and substance' above. Thus ‘light’ is a particular form of energy, so light is like form and heat is like substance.
    Other discrete degrees, even within nature, have been discovered by science:
    Degrees in Modern Physics
19. Force and motion are discrete degrees. This was in fact realised in the 18th century by Boscovich and by Kant, Forces may be present even if no movement of matter occurs.
20. Potential energy and force are discrete degrees. This was made clear with the discovery of electromagnetic fields by Faraday and Maxwell. Electric energy fields, for example, only produce forces if a charged particle is present within the field. Similarly, the gravitational fields of the earth and sun are not themselves forces, but only produce forces on planets and satellites should these be present. Physicists often conflate potential energy and force, by saying that forces are simply a description of the gradient of the potential energy surface, but the 'force' here is the force actually operating, not that of a 'force field' that is still waiting to have any effect.
21. Waves and particles, or (better) waves and events are discrete degrees. This is the best way of understanding quantum physics: waves are a description of causes, and specific particle positions (or events) are the actual effects of those causes.
22. Virtual and actual processes are discrete degrees. Electric fields, for example, are generated by a prior degree of virtual photons. I discuss this a little more separately.These dualisms within physics are described elsewhere in more detail.
    Other discrete degrees are seen by our intuitive understanding of causes and effects, for example within ourselves, within our own minds.
    Degrees as suggested by Swedenborg
23. End, cause and effect are a triplet of discrete degrees. The end is the original impetus which motivates us, the cause is that motivation when it has formulated the means and is poised to act, and the effect is the resulting action. End, cause and effect produce each other in sequence, but cannot be reversibly transformed.
24. Affection, understanding and action are discrete degrees. These are analogous to the previous set, but generalised os as to be applicable to processes also of the mind.
25. Soul, mind and nature, are the three discrete degrees, according to Swedenborg [1], describing the production of creation via affections and thoughts to nature.
26. Love, Wisdom and Use are, according to Swedenborg [1], again analogous to discrete degrees, and are applicable even to the Divine.

The classifications 19-22 do describe discrete degrees, but only in nature. By themselves they do not indicate any spirituality, but nevertheless they reflect the true spiritual discrete degrees (23-26) more accurately than the continuous degrees (1-15) since they are themselves discrete and not continuous.
Trying to understand any kind of discrete degree is a useful education toward understanding dualism, and hence to begin to understand what is mind, and what is spiritual.

References
[1] Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom, 1763. (online)

Preparatory articles on ontology: form, substance, propensity and multiple levels

Preparatory articles written for my book Starting Science From God:


Ontology at www.GenerativeScience.org

What does the Wave Function Describe? 

A physics talk about understanding the wave function of quantum mechanics: distinguishing form, substance and propensity.

Power and Substance

An ontological extension of dispositional essentialism is proposed, whereby what is necessary and sufficient for the dispositional causation of events is interpreted realistically, and postulated to exist. This ‘generative realism’ leads to a general concept of ‘substance’ as constituted by its more fundamental powers or propensities appearing in the form of some structure or field. This neo-Aristotelian view is reviewed historically, and in respect to quantum physics.

Derivative Dispositions and Multiple Generative Levels

The analysis of dispositions is used to consider cases where the effect of one disposition operating is the existence of another disposition. This may arise from rearrangements within aggregated structures of dispositional parts, or, it is argued, also as stages of derivative dispositions within a set of multiple generative levels. Inspection of examples in both classical and quantum physics suggests a general principle of `Conditional Forward Causation': that dispositions act 'forwards' in a way conditional on certain circumstances or occasions already existing at the `later' levels.

Discrete Degrees Within and Between Nature and Mind

Examining the role of dispositions  (potentials and propensities) in both physics and psychology reveals that they are commonly derivative dispositions, so called because they derive from other dispositions. Furthermore, when they act, they produce further propensities. Together, therefore, they appear to form discrete degrees within a structure of multiple generative levels. It is then constructively hypothesized that minds and physical nature are themselves discrete degrees within some more universal structure. This gives rise to an effective dualism of mind and nature, but one according to which they are still constantly related by causal connections. I suggest a few of the unified principles of operation of this more complicated but universal structure.

Layered Cognitive Networks

An architecture is proposed in which connectionist links and pattern-directed rules are combined in a unified framework, involving the combination of distinct networks in layers. Piaget's developmental psychology is used to suggest specific semantic contents for the individual layers.

How can we distinguish between divine and human actions in the world?

Let me give a short answer presupposing the ontological framework of theistic science described in my book: it does not stand alone. I will also try to answer the question without using the word 'good' (though, if I could, the answer would be a little simpler). I will take the question as referring mainly to our own actions: trying to separate what is from ourselves from what comes from God.


There are 4 kinds of actions that should be distinguished here:

1. actions by God directly, such as creating, visiting, etc
2. actions done by God, by means of us.
3. actions done by us, with concurrence by God.
4. actions done by us, with permission from God but not initiation.

One purpose of my book is to show how the kind 4 can exist: we can redirect loves and dispositions from God to our own purposes quite distinct from his.
The challenge is to distinguish kinds 2 and 3. In general we only begin to distinguish them after the fact. That is because, during their operation, we tend to interfere if we see what is really happening.


The kind 2 requires no interference: we have to be almost distracted or looking the other way; at least with no self-consciousness. We still feel the delights soon afterwards, though. If we interpose our own ego, then actions get contaminated to some extent. For this kind, we will have to have previously 'cleaned the inside of the cup' by avoiding temptations and the later the desire for what was tempting.


Kind 3 is when our egos are still partially involved. That is the case for most of us on the path. In this case we ask for grace, and try to make way for it when it arrives. The actions will still be ego-connected, but, we pray, not too much.


This is necessarily a very brief summary of some different kinds of spiritual development, as we learn to turn away from selfishness. Some people, of course, would deny the very existence of these things. That is why my book deals mostly with ontology--what exists--rather than what we should be doing. In practice, of course, there are in us many desires pointing in various directions, and many partial insights that inform us of some of these directions. When it comes to actions by other people, it is more difficult again to tell.


As we all realize, distinguishing these aspects should be part of ongoing reflection about our own lives. For both theoretical and practical reasons.