Science for Humans : Mind, Life, The Formal-&-Natural Sciences, and A New Concept of Nature

This book presents and defends an original and paradigm-shifting conception of formal science, natural science, and the natural universe alike, that’s fully pro-science, but at the same time neither theological or God-centered, nor solipsistic or self-centered, nor communitarian or social-institution-centered, nor scientistic or science-valorizing, nor materialist/physicalist or reductive, nor―above all―mechanistic. It does this by presenting and defending what Robert Hanna calls the neo-organicist turn , including manifest realism and the three sub-parts of metaphysical organicism: liberal naturalism, mind-life continuity, and explanatory inversion, whereby mechanical systems are explained by grounding them in organic systems, and not the other way around. Or more briefly and simply put, the purpose of this book is to present and defend science for humans. As such, it will be highly interesting and profoundly relevant to graduate students and specialist researchers in philosophy and the formal-&-natural sciences. A Note on References to Kant’s Works Acknowledgments Contents Chapter 1: Introduction References Chapter 2: Mind Is a Form of Animal Life: The Essential Embodiment Theory Now 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Essential Embodiment Theory Briefly and Compactly Re-presented and Re-motivated 2.3 Three Later Significant Elaborations and Extensions of the Essential Embodiment Theory: Natural Libertarianism, the Neo-Organicist Worldview, and the Metaphysics of Liberal Naturalism 2.4 One Cheer, But Only One, for Analytic Panpsychism 2.5 Concluding Semi-autobiographical Quasi-Whiteheadian Postscript References Chapter 3: Physics for Humans: Kant, Physics, and the Neo-Aristotelian Natural Power Grid 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Kant’s Theory of Physics Revisited 3.3 Kant’s Neo-Aristotelian Natural Power Grid 3.3.1 Kant’s Neo-Aristotelian Natural Power Grid 3.4 Conclusion References Chapter 4: The Incompleteness of Logic, The Incompleteness of Physics, and The Primitive Sourcehood of Rational Human Animals 4.1 Introduction 4.2 From Gödel to Physics 1: Definitions 4.3 From Gödel to Physics 2: Logico-Mechanical Incompleteness and Physico-Mechanical Incompleteness 4.4 From Incompleteness to Creativity 4.5 Conclusion References Chapter 5: Frame-by-Frame: How Early Twentieth Century Physics Was Shaped by Brownie Cameras and Early Cinema 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Special and General Theories of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and The Representation→Represented Fallacy 5.3 John Locke’s Big Idea 5.4 The Cosmic Moviola and The Representation➔Represented Fallacy 5.5 Conclusion References Chapter 6: How to Complete Quantum Mechanics, Or, What It’s Like To Be a Naturally Creative Bohmian Beable 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Some Definitions 6.3 A “New Idea” About Quantum Mechanics 6.4 An Experimental Argument Using My “New Idea” About Quantum Mechanics 6.5 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Can Physics Explain Physics? Anthropic Principles and Transcendental Idealism 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Some Definitions and Glosses 7.3 The Moderate Anthropic Principle 7.4 Conclusion References Chapter 8: A Neo-Organicist Approach to Formal Science: The Case of Mathematical Logic 8.1 Introduction 8.2 What Is Strong Supervenience? 8.3 Formal Systems and Rational Human Mindedness 8.4 Computability and Uncomputability 8.5 The Hierarchy of Formal Systems 8.6 Conclusion References Chapter 9: A Neo-Organicist Approach to the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem and “Skolem’s Paradox” 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem 9.3 Explaining Away “Skolem’s Paradox” 9.4 Conclusion References Chapter 10: How to Solve Zeno’s Paradox of Motion Without Supertasks 10.1 Introduction 10.2 The Problem of the Continuum and the Neo-Organicist Worldview 10.3 A Neo-Organicist Theory of Real Motion 10.4 A Derivation of Motion in the Parasitic Sense 10.5 Conclusion References Chapter 11: Sensible Set Theory 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Kant’s Theory of Sensibility in Nutshell, and Manifest Realism 11.3 An Argument for the Core Thesis of Sensible Set Theory 11.4 Conclusion References Chapter 12: Neo-Organicism and the Rubber-Sheet Cosmos 12.1 Introduction: From the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to the No-Leveled Scalar Dynamic World Picture 12.2 From the No-Layered Scalar Dynamic World Picture to the Rubber Sheet Cosmos 12.3 The Rubber Sheet Cosmos 12.4 Partners of Gravity: How We Move Our Own Bodies 12.5 Conclusion: A Plea for Speculative and Value-Laden Philosophy of Science References Chapter 13: A Philosophical Case for Holding That the Second Law of Thermodynamics Is Only a Special Law of Nature, and Not a Universal Law 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Entropy and Negentropy, with a Dash of Isentropy 13.3 Schrödinger’s Two-Part Explanatory Hard Problem, and a Six-Part Counterproposal 13.4 An Illuminatingly Different and Highly Compact Five-Step Argument That the Second Law of Thermodynamics Is Not a Universal Law of Nature 13.5 Conclusion References Chapter 14: The Epiphenomenality of Natural Mechanical Systems and the Salvation of Everyday Objects 14.1 Introduction: The Epiphenomenality of Natural Mechanical Systems 14.2 My Answer to Q1, in a Nutshell 14.3 A Real-World Example: How a Steam Engine Works 14.4 Proving My View 14.5 Another Real-World Example: Eddington’s Three Tables 14.6 Conclusion: The Salvation of Everyday Objects References Chapter 15: The Attunement Thesis and Cosmic Dignitarianism 15.1 Introduction 15.2 Manifest Realism and the Non-Isomorphism Problem 15.3 How to Solve the Non-Isomorphism Problem: The Attunement Thesis 15.4 The Incredible Shrinking Thinking Man, Or, Cosmic Dignitarianism 15.5 Conclusion References Chapter 16: Human Rationality, Consciousness, and Cosmology 16.1 Introduction 16.2 The Circularity of Human Rationality 16.2.1 Human Rationality and Its Problems 16.2.2 The Fully Generalized and Strengthened Logocentric Predicament, and What to Do About It 16.2.3 The Axiocentric Predicament, and What to Do About It 16.2.4 The Good or Virtuous Circularity of Human Rationality 16.3 The Psychocentric Predicament, the Impossibility of Any and Every Hard Science of Consciousness, and Soft Sciences of the Mind 16.3.1 The Ratiocentric Predicament and the Psychocentric Predicament 16.3.2 Cognitive Neuroscience and Pseudoscience 16.3.3 On the Impossibility of Any and Every Hard Science of Consciousness 16.3.4 Cognitive Neuroscience Within Its Proper Bounds 16.3.5 On Soft Sciences of the Mind 16.4 Is Consciousness a Fifth Fundamental Force? 16.5 Consciousness and Top-Down Cosmology 16.6 A Brief History of the Discovery that Consciousness Is the Fifth Fundamental Force 16.7 Conclusion References Index