0277 The book, Divine Action and Emergence, is divided into two parts.  Part one covers the first third.  Part two covers the second two-thirds.  Part two is titled, “God’s Action In Emergence”.

From part one, I gain a sense of how Tabaczek’s mirror operates.  The model side sees its own reflection on the noumenal side.  The noumenal side views its own reflection on the empirio-schematic side.  Plus, the noumenal side can see what is reflecting in the mirror of theology. The empirio-schematic side can see what is reflecting in the mirror of science.  The mismatches become quite interesting when each side engages the topic of emergence.

0278 Why?

Emergent phenomena are natural and are subject to empirio-schematic and natural philosophical inquiry.

On the empirio-schematic side, truncated material and efficient causes, shorn of any associations with formal and final causes, appear inadequate.  Inadequate?  Yes, scientists have difficulties producing models of emergent phenomena because one cannot predict them without knowing their underlying… um… mathematics and mechanics.  Reductionists game the problem by exposing emergent phenomena to varying conditions, then building models of the responses, and pretending that the model is… well… just as real as… um… okay… this may be a stretch… the thing itself.

Natural philosophers chuckle, because humans are adapted to recognize things themselves, especially when emergent phenomena are signs of a noumenon.  Unfortunately, no natural philosopher has applied for a grant to investigate the evolution of this adaptation.  What would go into the material and methods section?

0279 Well, Tabaczek has inadvertently constructed an instrument exploring this particular dilemma.

I call it a “mirror”.

0280 On one hand, Tabaczek’s mirror present an awkward analogy.  This mirror reflects what one side sees as if that one side is the only side looking into the mirror, and without realizing that the other side is looking back, as if it is the only side looking into the mirror.

Of course, Tabaczek’s mirror testifies to the fact that the Positivist’s judgment contains two illuminations: the model and the noumenon.  Triumphalist scientists would have us believe that the model should be the only illumination and the noumenon should serve as the thing that the model overlays.

Yes, forget about orbiting moons and falling apples, think about gravity!

Once the model covers over the thing itself, then the so-called “noumenon” [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

0281 On the other hand, Tabaczek’s mirror is a wonderful analogy because the metaphysician looks into science and sees a reflection of theology, just as the scientist looks into theology and sees a reflection of science.

Of course, this comedy of mismatching projections overlooks the tragic emptiness that accounts for Tabaczek’s mirror in the first place.  The positivist intellect is dead.  Now, I won’t say that Tabaczek killed him, because Tabaczek never regarded him as living in the first place.  While scientists look into a mirror that is fogged by the specter of the positivist intellect, insisting that a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena, the neo-Aristotelian knows that a noumenon is like a whole and its phenomena are like parts.  The noumenon [and] its phenomena is really the noumenon [and] its dispositions {properties} powers.

0282 Here is a diagram of Tabaczek’s mirror, once again.