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.

0283 At the risk of repeating myself, allow me to recount points 0155-0165.

0284 When science looks in the mirror, it sees the following.

The model is the illumination.  The noumenon is its lackluster reflection.

Disciplinary language is the continuity between a mathematical and mechanical model and its supporting observations and measurements of phenomena.  Phenomena are relevant only because they are the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon.

0285 Another way to say this?

A model is objectified as observations and measurements according to the disciplinary language of a specialized scientific field.

The reflection in the mirror of theology displays a lack of disciplinary language.  This is appropriate, because the science-agent uses explicit abstraction, hence the need for precisely defined spoken terms.  The reflection in the mirror involves implicit abstraction.  The human capacity for implicit abstraction evolves in the milieu of hand-talk and hand-speech talk.  These ways of talking do not permit explicit abstractions because hand-talk words are icons and indexes of their referents.  Indeed, many hand-talk words image or point to their referent by imitating or indicating a… um… phenomenon of the noumenon.  The part represents the whole.

0286 Another way to say this?

The way of thinking on the model side belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

The way of thinking on the noumenal side reflects the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Of course, this touches base with Razie Mah’s e-article, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0287 So, what happens when the mirror called “philosophy” turns into a mirror called “theology”?

Well, two substitutions are obvious.

0288 Well, monotheists do not have much of a problem with this.  There is an entire specialized language devoted to the apophatic notion that God cannot be objectified as the world.

At the same time, there is a problem.  In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates the world.  So, the world objectifies God.  Are technical corrections required to approach this issue? After all, how can God actually accomplish the tasks described in the Creation Story?

So, maybe God is not really creating our world.

Maybe, God creates the Temple of the Heavens and the Earth. 

But, isn’t our world the Temple of the Heavens and the Earth?

Or is this another language game?

0289 Other issues include signs (which I will get to later) and emergence (which concerns Tabaczek).  I already know that the model side has significant difficulty reducing emergent phenomena to models based on truncated material and efficient causalities.  I also know that Tabaczek offers a helping hand with the suggestion that science should stop truncating their causalities and return to a full helping of Aristotle.  Deacon agrees, but wants to reformulate Aristotelian terminology in order to wash away the stain of metaphysics.  But, the stain will not wash away!

0290 So, when the empirio-schematic side projects itself into the mirror of theology, it wants to construct a disciplinary language in the mirror that, at least technically, allows the world to objectify its Creator.  And, what better metaphor to choose than “containment”.

0291 This brutal derivation of panentheism (the label for “the world in God”) does not appear in Tabaczek’s text. Nevertheless, this approach accounts for Tabaczek’s concern about theological reflections from philosophers standing on the agent-science side of the mirror.  Panentheism is incense offered to the ghost of the positivist intellect.

0292 What about agent-metaphysicians?

0293 What do they regard when looking at their own reflections in the mirror of science?

In chapter 3, Tabaczek offer a brief history of what philosophers see in the mirror of the world.

Well, Aristotle sees everyday people going about their business. The folk are not really engaged in looking in the mirror of philosophy.

0294 Plato offers a more spectacular vision.  Plato’s World-Soul strikes many contemporary agent-science theologians as an analogy of the God-World relationship.  The World-Soul₂ arises from the potential of matter entering into forms₁ in the normal context of a cosmos-creating demiurge₃.  So, the World-Soul₂ is like an Idea₂ (with a capital “I”) or a Principle of Divine Reason₂.

Do I have that correct?

0295 Let me try this again.

The World-Soul_2c is a God created by a demiurge_3c and expressing the principles of divine reason_2c that emerge from (and situate) the potential of Good_1c. 

In the normal context of the cosmos_3b, the world soul [informs] world bodies_2b based on the potential of Ideas in the celestial realm_1b.

In the normal context of our world of living and nonliving_3a, being and matter [substantiates] mundane forms_2a emerges from (and situates) the potential of the ideas of being and matter_1a.

0296 The resulting diagram does not precisely follow Plato or Plotinus or Proclus, but it does capture some of their notions and stuffs them into slots of a three-level interscope.

0297 Does this look like a three-level interscope for emergent phenomena?

If so, then the emergent is World-Soul [informs] world bodies_2b, which is contextualized by the perspective-level possibility inherent in Good_1b.

How obvious is that?

Is this why Plato considers the world of forms as more real than everyday life?

0298 Next, the reader should know the drill.  Consider the virtual nested forms.

Here is the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

0299 The “downward causation” and the “dynamical depth” of Plato’s interscope is apparent in passage from perspective to content level actualities.  The virtual nested form in the category of secondness descends from transcendent_2c to celestial_2b (or, at least big-picture) to mundane_2a (or little picture).  The transcendent_2c sets the normal context.  The celestial_2b characterizes the actuality.  The mundane_2a associates to possibility.

Perhaps, one of the reasons why Christian theologians find Plato is so attractive rests in certain relational (or metaphysical) similarities.  Unlike other deities, the Christian God spans all three of Peirce’s categories.  Expressions of the Christian God are diverse.  Many of the expressions fit category-based nested forms.  The following diagram shows the Trinity as portrayed in the first chapter of Genesis, corresponding to a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

0300 An item by item comparison of these two virtual nested forms proves interesting.

For example, [informs] compares to [speaks].

To me, a comparison implies that world bodies_2b do not indicate things_2a, but rather the formulation of things_2a, just as the Word_2b is not creation, but the way that creation dynamically brings itself forth_2a.

Of course, the fact that this example is interesting is a bit of a distraction.  The big question is how one arrives at the virtual nested form in the category of secondess from the Creation Story in the first place.

Say what?

0301 Oh look, here is the virtual nested form in the realm of normal context!

0302 The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  One demiurge_3c excludes all other demiurges.  This implies that there is only one universe.  Plus, the ruler of that one universe is responsible (puts into perspective) the celestial created order, the cosmos_3b.

For the past century, the cosmos is “outer space”, a world that no one really worries about.  Today, we know that the sun can launch a coronal mass-ejection capable of toasting modern electrical grids.  So, the boundary between the cosmos and the mundane becomes more like the boundary between situation and content.

On top of that, our solar system has orbited the center of our galaxy only 18 times.  Every orbit last several hundred million years.  Every orbit is a blessing.

With that in mind, most everything that we worry about is on the mundane level.  Plato wants us to broaden our view beyond our fixations on the living and the nonliving_3a in order to come into harmony (or alignment) with the cosmos_3band the creating demiurge_3c.

Here is the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility.

0303 Needless to say, every one of these “words” are sites of contention in our current Lebenswelt.  They are labels for entities that cannot be named in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, yet nevertheless are real, because they are relational beings_3a that we innately anticipate and seek_1b because they are good_1c.  What glucose is to honey, good ideas are to our living being.

0304 Of course, Plato and Neoplatonism come long before the Age of Ideas.  So, this general schema cannot be projected from one side of Tabaczek’s mirror to the other.  The mirror has not yet differentiated.

One can say that Plato and the Neoplatonics are natural philosophers, so they represent what science-lovers might see in the mirror of theology, over two thousand years later.

0305 With this jump in mind, it is no surprise that Tabaczek next mentions German Idealism, a philosophical movement that blossoms a century after the mechanical philosophers wind up the alarm clock for the Age of Ideas and set the alarm for 400 years.

They set the alarm around 7400 U0′.  The alarm goes off around 7800 U0′.  See point 0231.

0306 German idealism is routinely blamed on the late medieval Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (7432-7477 U0′ AD).  Many commentators regard Spinoza as the enemy of religion, morality and civil order.  But, from what I hear, there is one other thing that everyone says about this philosopher.  He made devilishly fine optical instruments.  Perhaps, he designed the architecture of Tabaczek’s mirror, a most ingenious apparatus.

What does Spinoza do besides grind lenses?

0307 To me, Spinoza flips Plato’s top-down emanations into bottom-up contemplations.

How does Plato’s perspective-level Absolute Reason_2c appear to its content-level subjects_2a looking up from below?

Start with God’s creatures, impressed into matter [substantiates] form_2a, expressing their soul [informed] bodies_2b and glorifying the universality and the intelligibility of divine reason_2c.

End with a night-time Renaissance party looking through a telescope at the moons around Jupiter.

0308 I suppose that it does matter what I think, as long as it gets me to German Idealism, which seems to stand between the content-level deep, dark well of immanence_1a and the perspective-level star-studded sky of transcendence_1c.

Here is a picture.

Yes, those German Idealists find themselves in quite the situation.

0309 Tabaczek uses the term, “subjectivity_1a” for the content-level potential and, well, I can’t find the term for the perspective-level potential.  But, it must be “suprasubjectivity_1c“.  We are subjective.  God is above all our subjectivities. This introduces a finer division than immanence and transcendence.

Here is a diagram.

Hmmm. “Transcendent” becomes “suprasubjective”.  “Immanent” becomes “subjective”.

Plus, “suprasubjective” faces “analytic” and “subjective” faces “synthetic”.

What are these German Idealists up to?

0310 Imagine that I am a German philosopher looking from the edge, into the deep well of subjectivity_1a in order to catch, in the water’s reflection, a glimmer of the suprasubjective Absolute I_1c.  I rush to report the phenomenon to my friend, also a German philosopher, who says, “Hey, I saw the same Absolute I in my well of reflection.”

To which I reply, “How do we know that It is the same Absolute I?”

0311 Uh-oh.

My thesis confronts an antithesis.

0312 After a few mugs of beer, my friend offers a synthesis, saying, “Perhaps, the Absolute I_2c posits multiple relative I(s)_2b and that is what each one of us sees_2a.”

The term, “pan-en-theism” (“all in God”) applies.

And, so does the term, “suprasubjective”.

0313 Tabaczek recounts the works of Karl Krause (7581-7632 U0′), who transfers the positing of an Absolute Ego (or “I”) into the philosophy of science.  Krauss writes about two centuries after Galileo (7364-7442) and a century after Isaac Newton (7442-7526) but before Charles Darwin (7609-7682) and James Clark Maxwell (7631-7679).  Kant (7524-7604) is an older contemporary of Krause.

0314 Krause wants science to have an Absolute I.  He calls the intuitive principle, “Orwesen”.  This term can be loosely translated into English as “Or what?”  To me, “Or what?” sounds far superior to “the god of all philosophers”.

Each scientific discipline serves a relative I, an explicit principle called, “Urwesen”, loosely translated as “That’s what”, which is easier to say than “My narrow specialized discipline is better than yours.”  Also, “That’s what” sounds more tractable than “the god of all religions”.

0315 Krause distinguishes two movements to science.  One is analytic-ascending.  The other is synthetic-descending.

No, don’t say “transcendent” or “immanent”!

Those words are not scientific!

Now, I refer to the prior diagram.

0316 On the ascending motion, if I associate the subject of a scientific discipline_1a with phenomena, then observations and measurements may be labeled, “objective_1b“ and the subsequent model goes with “analytic_1c“. 

This sequence may be confusing, especially when modernists use the word, “objective_1c” instead of “analytic_1c“.   The confusion is cemented in modern terminology, which defines “objective” as “irrespective of what any person thinks of it”, rather than “pertaining to sign-objects, as opposed to sign-vehicles”.  Yes, sign-objects are “objective”, one way or the other.

On the descending motion, if I associate suprasubjective_1c (which would otherwise associate to God’s point of view) to scientific disciplinary language_1c.  Intersubjective_1b goes with the operation of defining the meanings, presences and messages intrinsic to observations and measurements_1b.  Without proper definitions, then researchers are not talking the same language. Finally, synthesis_1a goes with the resulting model_1a.

0317 What does this imply?

Clearly, Krause operates on the agent-science side of Tabaczek’s mirror and constructs an image (say, a reflection at the bottom of the well of immanence) that is supposed to belong to the… um… agent-theology side (the transcendent Absolute I in the sky).

Please note, the words, “immanent” and “transcendent” do not appear in the previous paragraph, because this is all about science.

0318 Let me start with God… I mean to say… the Orwesen, the “Or what?” that inspires us to recognize a noumenon when we encounter one… or maybe… recognize the whole as a noumenon.

Here is a picture, similar to figure 3.1 in Tabaczek’s text.

0319 This diagram defines the perspective level of a three-level interscope.

0320 One imagines that the Orwesen is an actuality₂ subject to the laws of contradiction and noncontradiction.  It_2c is, but it is also an actuality₂ on the perspective_c level, implying that it excludes (or forces into alignment) all other candidates for that slot_2c.  Even more intriguing, this actuality_2c unites (or synthesizes) contradictions (or theses and antitheses) within its domain (which must be the situation and content levels).

0321 Klause picks a good example.  Consider the distinction between “reason” and “nature”.  Two centuries after Klause, I shall use the words, “model” and “noumenon”, the two illuminations in the Positivist’s judgment.

For any given science, the elaborate structure of the Positivist’s judgment occupies the overlap… or perhaps the gap (a)… between model (i) and noumenon (e).  Humans stand in the gap (a).  Humans stand on either side of the gap.

0322 Here, I roughly associate Klause’s variables with elements of the ongoing three-level interscope.

0323 The distinction between the model (i) and the noumenon (e) supports the machinations of a scientific discipline, equivalent to Urwesen (u), loosely defined.  The Urwesen (u) orders experience within its domain. But, there are aspects to the model (i) and the noumenon (e) that extend beyond the perimeter of each scientific discipline (u).  While both i and e emerge from (and situate) the possibilities of the world as existent, a scientific discipline (u) is the unity where the model (u(i)) stands in mutual gaze (a) with its noumenon (u(i)).

Yes, a mutual gaze (a) emerges from (and situates) the potential of situating the overall contrast between the model (i) and the noumenon (e).

Here is a picture.

0324 Okay, let me try those last sentences again, but with subscripts.

The Urwesen (u)_3a orders experience within its domain_2a, but there are aspects to the model (i) and the noumenon (e)_2athat extend beyond the perimeter of each scientific discipline (u)_3a.  While both i and e_2a emerge from (and situate) the possibilities of the world as existent_1a, the scientist_3b works with an actuality where the model u(i)_2b stands in mutual gaze (a)_2b with its noumenon u(i)_2b, as they emerge from the potential of situating the overall contrast between the model (i) and the noumenon (e)_1b.

0325 Here is a picture of the Krause’s three-level interscope.

0326 Does the reader notice any subtle changes?

On the content level, the model (i) contrasts with the noumenon (e)_2a.

On the situation level, the scientist_3b regarding the model u(i)_2b gazes (a)_2b at the noumenon u(e)_2b and sees a reflection of his own image.

On the perspective level, a science-agent regards his own image in the noumenal side Tabaczek’s mirror_1c, instead of a theology-agent.  At the same time, a theology-agent sees his own image on the empirio-schematic side of the mirror_1c, instead of a science-agent.

So maybe, instead of “o_2c“, the perspective-level actuality should be designated “o-o_2c“.

0327 Oh-oh, indeed.

0328 Let me replace terms in the Positivist’s judgment with terms that might come from Aristotle’s toolkit.  Instead of model (i) let me substitute “useful form” (thereby introducing final and formal causalities).  Also, instead of noumenon (2), I will write “the thing itself”.

Here are the previous statements, once again.

On the content level, a useful form (i) contrasts with the thing itself (e).

On the situation level, an artisan regards the thing itself according to his aims for utility (useful form, u(i), gazes (a) at the thing itself, (u(e)) and sees a reflection of the artisan’s capabilities.

On the perspective level, the artisan regards his own image in the thing-itself side of Tabaczek’s mirror, instead of the One who Signifies.

At the same time, the One Who Signifies sees His own image on the artisan’s side of the mirror, along with the material that may be fashioned into a useful form.

In the significant vision_2c, both the originating material (e) and the useful form (i) are embodied as content_a.

It is as if an idea in the mind of the One Who Signifies_3c emanates a sign-vehicle that creates the artisan_3a (as a normal context) and the useful potential of the thing itself_1a as a sign-interpretant.

0329 Here is a picture of how that looks for Klause’s interscope.

0330 This particular sign-relation is called “the interventional sign”.

The interventional sign is discussed in Razie Mah’s October 2023 blog titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”.

Here is how the triadic sign-relation is stated.

The Orwesen_2c (interventional sign-vehicle, SV_i) stands stands for the model [contrasts with] the noumenon_2a(interventional sign-object, SO_i) in regards to the Urwesen (scientific discipline)_3a operating on the potential of ‘a topic of science’_1a (interventional sign-interpretant, SI_i).

0008 In 2019 AD, Mariusz Tabaczek publishes the book before me, titled Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science (University of Notre Dame Press).  He aims to counter the fact that philosophers of science, and maybe a few scientists, struggle to account for emergent phenomena.

0009 What are emergent phenomena?

They range from galaxies to dust devils, from micelles to bacteria, and from bacteria to um… Bach.  (See Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria to Bach and Back”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023).  Emergent phenomena, on one level, resist reduction to truncated material and efficient causalities on lower levels.  Societies are more than interacting individuals.  Individuals are more than the cells that compose them.  Cells are more than micelles containing biochemicals.  Biochemicals are more than atoms.  If any of these statements are not so, then sociology reduces to anthropology and anthropology reduces to biology and biology reduces to biochemistry and biochemistry reduces to physics.

Emergent phenomena are everywhere, yet cannot be readily modeled using lower-level principles, even though some computer simulations come close to success.

0010 Such is the Positivist’s dilemma.

0011 Note the overlap within the applied distinction.  Both sides consider material and efficient causation.  So, why the qualifier, “truncated”?

Consider the following figure.

0012 Do scientists “reduce” Aristotle’s four causes into the two that yield mathematical and mechanical models?

Or do they select out, through controlled observations and measurements, those phenomena that may be treated using only material and efficient causes?

If either answer is “yes”, then phenomena that might be attributed to formal or final causation in Aristotle’s schema end up being treated as if they are produced only by material and efficient causations, because these two causalities enable mathematical and mechanical models.

0013 So, maybe the word, “truncated”, itself is misleading.

But, it sounds so much better than the more accurate qualifier, “nominally divorced”.

Plus, it is so much shorter than “modern terms that pretend to be the same as Aristotle’s”.

On top of that, it is way easier than “modern terms that may actually manifest Aristotle’s formal and final causations under the guise of being the same as Aristotle’s material and efficient causations.”

0014 Here is a picture.

0015 In comedies and in tragedies, the audience always knows something that the characters on stage do not.  I do not know whether Tabaczek’s enormous and grueling efforts are funny or futile in the eyes of God.  But no matter how God views the author’s long and arduous studies, I know this.

Tabaczek does not employ, analyze or justify the distinction between philosophers of science (who are concerned about models) and analytical metaphysicians (who are concerned about noumena).

Tabaczek does analyze and review a massive amount of academic material in his effort to show that a revised “neo-Aristotelianism” is available to contemporary philosophers of science.  Aristotle’s four causes should assist philosophers of science who wrestle with the question of emergence.  His academic work is diligent and earnest.

0016 I see what Tabaczek is trying to do.

I conclude that his demonstration will inevitably fail.

0017 How so?

My answer relies on Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, as well as the commentaries listed in the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect.  These are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

The following argument complements Tabaczek’s brief history of causality from the middle ages to the present (sections 1.3 to 1.5).

0018 I start with the question, “What is judgment?”

A judgment is a triadic relation consisting of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  When each of these elements is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories, then the judgment becomes actionable.  Actionable judgments “unfold” into category-based nested forms.

Here is a picture of the general form of judgment.

In judgment, a relation (category) brings what ought to be (category) into relation with what is (category).

0019 I already stated the empirio-schematic judgment.  Let me say it again.  Disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).

Here is a picture.

0020 The empirio-schematic judgment occupies the slot for what ought to be for the Positivist’s judgment.  The fact that the Positivist’s judgment contains the empirio-schematic judgment is confusing.  Plus, the positivist intellect has a rule saying, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”

Here is a simplified picture.

0021 Simplified?

The Positivist’s judgment is initially formulated, in the early 1700s, as provincial mechanical philosophers (in northern Protestant Europe) reject the universal Latin-Age scholastics (in all of Europe, but mainly southern and Catholic Europe). These mechanical philosophers aim to narrow inquiry to the observations and measurements of phenomena.

The relation in the Positivist’s judgment is the positivist intellect, who enforces only one rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.  This rule dooms Tabaczek’s quest from the start.  Aristotle’s four causes allow the inquirer to understand the noumenon.  Modern science in the Age of Ideas wants to mathematically and mechanically model observations and measurements of phenomena.

0022 The [and], the contiguity between a noumenon and its phenomena, becomes a point of contention.  The argument ends up in a truce, of sorts.  Casual readers of Kant come up with a slogan to replace the [and], at least for advocates of science.  The substitute is [cannot be objectified as].  A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

0023 To me, the what-is-ness of a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena dooms Tabaczek’s quest.

However, Tabaczek is rewarded his doctorate and his impossible project is written up and published by University of Notre Dame Press.

What does this indicate?

Is the Positivist’s judgment in trouble?