Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 25 No. 1, 2005.
Pregledni rad
Activity, Causality, and Reality
Matija Bistrović-Darvaš
Sažetak
Contemporary investigators of perception tend to concentrate their efforts on visual perception considering it to be best representative of human experience of reality. Challenging this approach, the author finds that visual perception is only receptive and, therefore, not satisfyingly reliable. He claims that no reality can be experienced without a possibility of change. Therefore, the perception of touch is regarded to be better representative of human being, being both receptive and responsive. Human is not only able to perceive, but can willingly change his own perception. Indeed, there is no need to separate the two aspects and, therefore, Max Sheller’s concept of kinaesthetic perception is suggested as a unique term for both. Figure 1 shows an intuitive model of human activity - let's call it subject's system, where the subject dispatches into its surroundings products, traces and signals of its presence. In search of similar structures, we find this to be the property of what is known as thing and the allied structures will be generally named causal systems. In fact, this scheme can be conceived as Aristotle’s causa efficiens. An example of an extended causal system is shown in Figure la.
The structures of the causal system are identical to the structure of diffusion, one of the most typical dissipative (irreversible) processes in nature. According to the third law of thermodynamics, the dissipatedness means an inevitable loss of order and of free energy in a closed system. Therefore, every causal system can be taken as being essentially dissipative. Causality and dissipation differ only in viewpoints. Causality’s viewpoint is cause producing consequences. Dissipation viewpoint is a field of consequences searching for common cause close to the centre of the field. Therefore, a modified version of the subject’s system is proposed as shown in Figure 2. Subject A engages various causal systems in order to achieve product structure converging toward B is obtained. Considering only the environment of B, this converging structure will be observed as Aristotle’s causa finalis. However, considering the entire structure, an actual engraved program will be found in the brain of subject A, the causa efficiens responsible for product B.
The effort of this engagement requires disposal of sufficient supplies of order. The amount of total order spontaneously decreases, and the amount of new order can be created only at the expense of the existing one, plus its additional loss. There- fore, our universe must start with an initial amount of free energy, sufficient for evolution to emerge and for one to observe it. This requirement, known as anthropic principle, is in a way the comeback of Anthropos into the modern cosmology, after Copernicus has exiled all anthropocentric and anthropomorphic concepts from natural philosophy. With the anthropic principle, in fact, we figuratively exclaim: 'Here we are, the observers! At last, a universe one can live in!’
Ključne riječi
activity, causality, reality; order; change
Hrčak ID:
202556
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.3.2005.
Posjeta: 1.916 *