Re: Elan Vital, Explanation and "Pan"-theory

I think the comparison between 'elan vital' and the experience of panexperientialism is spurious, because the 'life force' is conceived of as a substance which gives matter its form, whereas panexperientialism (as a component of a process ontology) rejects substance all together (whether mental or material).

As far as circular reasoning goes, I could just as easily say that the materialist attempts to explain experience by saying it is material. This can never be proven empirically, of course (because the outward facing senses can only presuppose experience in their evaluation of the exterior world). Also, if you watched my last video (The Enjoyment of Matter), you'll hear my argument for why materialist explanations of biological evolution are circular: they claim that the motivation for life is 'survival,' when survival is simply a synonym for life. Life is survival. No explanation here. If we want to explain why organisms survive (and why evolution can take place), I suggest we consider: because they enjoy life.

About the question concerning green, Evan Thompson and Alva Noe have written beautifully on how to navigate the terrain between objectivist theories (color is wavelength) and subjectivist theories (color is neural pattern) by pointing to the co-evolutionary emergence of the color of various features of the biosphere and the participatory (or enactive) way in which color arises. See: http://books.google.com/books?id=r70IEreOL-wC&pg=PA402&lpg=PA402&...

Concerning interaction between material and mental aspects, consider matter to be equivalent to the past and mind to be equivalent to the future. For a panexperientialist, every organized body (from atoms to organisms) experiences a present equally (though differently) influenced by the past and the future. The past is already actual, while the future is merely possible. So the past is given as efficient causality; its influence is determinate. But the future provides freedom by offering certain possibilities left open by the actuality of the past. The mental aspect of a body provides it with its purposefulness, its ability to invent, while the material aspect provides it with its inherited habits and is the ground from which it leaps.

Experience is indeed, therefore, part of the causal nexus. But in a process ontology, this nexus is not only driven by efficient causes from the past, but attracted by final causes in the future (though again, past and future are both immanent in the present, so it is not as though the future reaches back to cause the past).

Category:

Education

Tags:

• philosophy
• ontology
• metaphysics
• consciousness
• theism
• mind

[ruralbornvoteagainer]

If materialism is flawed because it spatializes time in order to conceptualize reality, how then could panexperientialism be right by avoiding to do so ?

Isn't it thinking itself that cannot do other then create dualistic, conceptual, spatial models ?

Maybe philosophy is just another attempt to represent what can never be represented but experienced through enjoyment ?

[0ThouArtThat0]

Bergson argued that the intellect necessarily spatializes whatever it tries to understand, and I would agree. But I think we have access to other, less restrictive organs of perception enabling us to integrate time into our thoughts. I don't think the task of philosophy is to 'represent' truth, but to seek wisdom and understanding directly.

[JohananRaatz]

@0ThouArtThat0 "I could just as easily say that the materialist attempts to explain experience by saying it is material." This is very true, might we say that LordImmolation is a pan-materialist?

[MrElan99]

my name is Elan...

[pacoy9]

geek

[RealPinkDreams]

''''SOME OF WRONG THEORMES'''' -Big breasts = more milk -Big head = more intelligence -All white hair ppl are weak memory -Giant body is better 4 fight -Very slim = faster in running -Tomato is 4 increasing blood bcz its red color - Blue eyes = better sight - Blonde hair + blue eyes = more lust - Eternity is possible - Anal sex making big ass - Sucking ( deep throt ) giving good breathing - Drinking blood of young kids giving youth - More tall = more living

[emblemOFbeing]

About the elan vital, Bergson writes that is is just a reminder, not a substance: "There lies the stumbling-block of the vitalistic theories. We shall not reproach them, as is ordinarily done, with replying to the question by the question itself: the 'vital principle' may indeed not explain much, but it is at least a sort of label affixed to our ignorance, so as to remind us of this occasionally, while mechanism invites us to ignore that ignorance."

Creative Evolution, 1907 p. 42

[otonanoC]

I agree with you on that particular point. There is a sense that the Theory of Evolution is merely saying "..whatever happens is what happens..." This was expressed very well in a televised debate about Darwinian evolution in the 1990s. One of the speakers was William F Buckley. I agree with the speakers there that this does not count as a scientific theory. I don't care how "upset" this made the scientists. Being upset in a debate is not a valid counter.

watch?v=k7gZhksK9Sw

[cranwellgirls1]

I agree with what you 've said here. What you said about the majority of the human race trying to over come death these days, its completly true. With young girls and women having surgery to look younger, or wearing lots of make-up. Its rediculous. I'm 15 and almost everyone i know is like this. But like you say, we can't beat death and the harder we try, the less human we become. :)

[WarzSchoolchild]

Great post! Thanks again.

You might like to explore the connection between time and vibrations/oscillations.

[1PostPoMoMaN1]

*brillante*

[0ThouArtThat0]

I do think that technology has become the savior of our materialist culture. We assume that death is a disease and are working tirelessly to 'conquer' it with some medical fix. If we succeed, we will no longer be human. I don't think we can succeed, however. Life and death go together like earth and sky. You can't have one without the other.