If we should pause for a moment to consider what we refer to as physical existence… the appearance and concreteness of physical phenomenon… and, of course, our experiences with them — these imply (perhaps as a result of the conceptual models that emerge from and dominate our ‘traditional’ thought and language) a rather fundamental polarity-set which can be exemplified in different ways for different purposes.

A simple illustration, however, may resemble this:

Either:

A: The physical / material universe »is the real; material and its relations are ‘all there is’. The universe is fundamentally devoid of indwelling intelligences other than those we are and may find embodied. Even these are to be seen as ‘simply the result of material interactions’, if not overtly mechanical.

One common result of this view resembles: ‘Beings are simply special (soft) machines’, devoid of meaningful interiority.

B: The physical is a layered expression of the nonphysical (interesting implications here for the role(s) of time and ‘intelligence’) — and the nonphysical is intrinsically alive, more-than-alive, and/or inhabited by other forms of intelligence.

Both tend to view the macro-level world (human experience) as the result of or emergent from invisible universes. Most adherents of B admit the findings of science as regards classical mechanics, relativity, QM, and so on.

I can add members to this polarity, nuance them, or claim continua between them (degrees of precedence or importance in a nuanced model of ‘both’ or ‘both and more’)… I can also add C: Our current models, for all their apparent sophistication, are naive compared to that which they model. Neither case obtains, or is primarily relevant … because a ‘more truthful’ description would focus our attention on a different root concern (i.e. physical/nonphysical).

Of course, ‘materialists’ generally prefer something resembling A. Those with beliefs or concerns often called ‘metaphysical’, will have a world view that resembles B.

But these positions share something in common: they both assert that the visible universe is an expression of the activities of invisible universes and forces. So they both have a position ‘above’ or ‘below’ or ‘encompassing’ the physical universe that generates its forms and appearances. In A, the invisible is

Even classical mechanics and relativity (we will leave QM alone here) in modern interpretation entail that the visible world is composed of agents and situations whose nature, activity and relationships are nearly always completely inaccessible to our ordinary consideration. We can experience macro-events, but not micro-events. With a few unusual exceptions, no one has experience of molecules. Or atoms.

Thus there is an invisible universe in both stories. Followers of A believe this universe to be fundamentally mechanical; neither alive nor more-than-alive. Stuff and things.

Those whose stand closer to B differ; the existence of life (beings) in the physical layer… implies to them a downstream resemblance to (or expression of) »something in the nonphysical. This something is generally understood to be both progenerative of physical forms and beings… and »beyond them in category (i.e: more-than-merely-alive / divine / nonordinary).

For me, there are all sorts of fascinating questions here, and many of them are exotic and not merely theoretical. If B, the universe may be fundamentally meta-intelligent. This is pragmatically interesting because we may already be intimately participating in vast fields of nonlocal intellligence without being aware of it. It occurs to me that of all the animals on the planet, ours is uniquely equipped for »direct contact with nonhuman intelligences in a way analogous to the existence of wings on birds equipping them for flight. No one mentions this when noting our peculiar specializations…

Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover that we were like birds who forgot what wings were for and started using them to make machines about what we forgot the wings were for (AI)? Perhaps the strange quest for ‘artificial intelligence’ arises in the wake of the loss, compounded over time, of our native inclination and desire for gregarious relations with nonhuman intelligences such as those universally present in our stories, but furiously rejected by our ‘well-informed’ ‘modern’ minds.

The endless variety and compelling emotional power of such stories attests to something fundamental about being human… and being alive… and even being somehow meta-alive.

None of B invalidates science or its discoveries. The mechanics we have derived for physics and biological evolution are reliable and appropriate to our present stage of understanding. It was scientific pursuit that revealed and formalized the (invisible) universes of the molecule, atom, and quanta. Yet somehow, one result of this was the capacity to imagine a universe that was ‘dead’; without native interiority, awareness, consciousness… intelligences… In the eliminative rush to evict mystery and nonphysical entities, to overcome the strange Gods of the Books… perhaps it was unwise to dismiss entire the possibility of a universe of familiar intelligences… without which, our minds and concerns incline themselves toward self-destructive relations with Techne. Including their simulation…

Of course, if the universe is ‘merely’ a mechanical accident, then so, too, is everything within it. A has gravity for left-hemispheric styles of mind that seek unlimited power and or/control. And computation is fundamental to this quest. A entails the possibility of dismissing all feeling, sense, and interiority as mere mechanism — potentially rendering ethics disposable at will. Here dwells the shadow of embodied beings and their origins, for A is not satisfied until ‘magic’ is absolutely evicted, because that which it cannot explain, dominate and control… is fundamentally Other to its nature and purposes.

Whether or not one of these positions is more truthful, it may be that only one of them is … survivable…