Reality vs physicality

[Magical Realist]

I have of late been haunted by a distinction that I need to finally articulate. Think of everything that we say exists as physical. Atoms, planets, people, mountains, buildings, stars, toasters, spoons, doorknobs, etc. All these "things" that we picture standing out there alone and discrete from their moment of happening. Just so many remembered images. Things that persist but only as past objects. We like to refer to this whole panoply as the universe.

But there is another level of being. Not just of past things, but of present events. Events cohering out of clusters of microevents or interactions of these things. Events made NOT of matter or physical substances but of time itself.

We then have two scenarios before us: the one of past objects discretely and spatially being objects, and which we call the universe, and the one of present events being events, occurring all together in the present moment, and which we call reality. A distinction then between physicality and reality. The former being the accumulation of past things into a static scenario of all that ex-ists or "stands out", and the latter being the cutting edge of the happening now, of events that transpire out of the interaction of these things with each other. The former being an abstraction called matter/space, and the latter being an experience called time/energy. The physical universe an abstraction, and the multiverse of its events an experienced reality. One sealed up in pastness, and the other emergent in the present happening moment. One described in terms of cause and effect, and the other in terms of emergence and symmetry.

[Image: syn.jpg]

[C C]

[...] We then have two scenarios before us: the one of past objects discretely and spatially being objects, and which we call the universe, and the one of present events being events, occurring all together in the present moment, and which we call reality. A distinction then between physicality and reality. The former being the accumulation of past things into a static scenario of all that ex-ists or "stands out", and the latter being the cutting edge of the happening now, of events that transpire out of the interaction of these things with each other. The former being an abstraction called matter/space, and the latter being an experience called time/energy. The physical universe an abstraction, and the multiverse of its events an experienced reality. One sealed up in pastness, and the other emergent in the present happening moment. One described in terms of cause and effect, and the other in terms of emergence and symmetry.

Concerning one of the distinctions, there's this Maddona-esque [Ciccone] result from a bland lexicon: physicality - preoccupation with satisfaction of physical drives and appetites.

But a wikipedia search engine otherwise conventionally goes solely to the entry on "physicalism". So assuming [wink] this is a better example of consanguinity with the intended meaning of physicality... Then as supplemental background, we might ask: Just what the devil is physicalism from the POV of its devoted fans out there? Well, there's this first-hand observation:

Johnny-Dee (to Victor Reppert, on a blog): I like your way of characterizing physicalism. Unfortunately, physicalists themselves have a hard time coming up with a definition of physicalism. When I attended Bowling Green University's conference on physicalism this past spring, the speakers couldn't agree on what "physicalism" was. The best definitions were "negative" (e.g., physicalism is not dualism). Many of the papers that didn't want to get entangled in the definition debate would say things like, "we can't agree on a philosophical definition of physicalism, but we all know what we mean by it." I thought it was very humorous. Although, I agreed with Sara Worley's definition of physicalism as non-teleological. She seemed unconcerned that her conception of physicalism seems self-refuting along the lines that have been sketched by Norman Malcolm, William Hasker, and yourself.

Confusion is rampant, huh? Perhaps physicalism was inspired by "physical" [wink], so let's explore...

physical - pertaining to physics.

The problem with this analysis of the adjective is that physics is not an ontological enterprise, and its affairs are not part of an ontological thesis. Whereas physicalism is.

physical - bodily, corporeal; material, tangible; natural.

The problem with that analysis of the adjective is that those properties are featured as part of the mental. Or has as its source that, via being abstracted from such originally (which is to say, our extrospective manifestations and somatic sensations).

For instance, the image of oak bark feels rough if the image of my hand touches it. The tree feels tangible and solid, resisting ordinary efforts at penetration. It's a member of the natural world exhibited in the public half of consciousness, which our bodies -- also presented as organizations of assorted material phenomena and feelings -- interacts with. In addition, experience conforms to space and time, which was surely the original inspiration for their abstract versions in this/that discipline (that is, it seems unlikely that space and time were dreamed-up by imaginative reasoning alone).

Yet we might have expected what is supposed to be distinct from and prior to mental (as the cause of the latter emergent classification) to be alien and exotic. But what physical references instead seems to be smotheringly familiar, traditional "stuff". So what's the point of distinguishing between mental and physical? In a homunculus fallacy sort of way, positing physical as the predecessor of mental could even [at first] appear like trying to explain _X_ with a repeat of _X_.

Hey, these insightful ditties finally clarify what the "physical" of physicalism is: "Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical". Or as an alternative: "Everything supervenes on the physical". Maybe that quaintly circular explication and its non-enlightening companion sort of sum-up a concept that has become the marklar of metaphysics. IOW, for every instance where a person has to unavoidably refer to a distinct ontological scheme instead of using the generalization of "existence", just substitute "physicalism" or its applicable grammatical variation to navigate safely through the waters of scientism forums.

Sometimes one also hears this, which is like a faint echo of methodological naturalism rather than an ontological doctrine: "Oh, if it comes down to that, then physicalism won't have difficulty assimilating those new facts or revising itself in a major way."

But a view that has become so mutable that it can escape Houdini-like from whatever corner it is backed-up into, appears to then be no specifically meaningful idea anymore. Since it thereby lacks a fixed boundary and identity for defining and defending itself as something more specific than the generalization "existence".

If it has become so neutered into ambiguity that it even lacks the capacity to offend, then little wonder physicalism is the ideologically correct choice for this era, ontology-wise. We can chalk-up the complaints of some Abrahamic folk about physicalism to their still clinging to outdated meanings (like their 19th century version of evolution), or conflating "physicalism" with classical concoctions of "materialism". The latter possibly suffering fewer identity problems or having fewer qualms about being quite dogmatic in regard to its restrictions.