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In this age of the hegemony of the empiricist, materialist sciences, the collapse of the mind into the brain has long since happened without ever being noticed. To be intelligent was long ago deemed to be synonymous with being ‘brainy’. It was a ‘natural’ process of degeneration from the beginning of the First Philosophy, i.e. the πρώτη φιλοσοφία of Aristotle. This First Philosophy deals with first things first, defined by Aristotle to be the investigation of τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὄν, i.e. “the being as being”, where the second “being” is best interpreted as a present participle. The first kinds of participation of beings in being are categorial, comprising the being in question’s whatness (not whoness), its howness (quality), its how-muchness (quantity), its whereness (location), etc. The degeneration of even traditional metaphysical philosophical thinking in the age of the hegemony of analytic-language philosophy is indicated already by the entry in the prestigious Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that characterizes Aristotle’s Metaphysics as ‘the study of being qua being’, amounting to a nonsensical translation of τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὄν. Never mind.

It is well known that Aristotle conceptualizes physical beings as a synthesis of εἶδος (_eidos_) and ὕλη (_hylae_), i.e. of eidetic look and matter. The eidetic look captures the being’s whatness; it has the look of what it is, which is always an interpretation of its phenomenal look. A physical being’s matter renders it material, and matter can assume different eidetic looks, such as that of a flower or a house. Flowers reproduce of themselves owing to their having within themselves a principle or capability (δύναμις _dynamis_) of self-movement, whereas houses require an external builder with the know-how of building, who knows how to manipulate timber, bricks, tiles, glass, etc. in order to realize the end-product of a finished house. Productive know-how is also the paradigm for science, which becomes technology insofar as technological know-how enables the manipulation of matter to attain a foreseen end. The core of Western science is manipulative of matter, inspired as it is with the endless will to power over all kinds of movement (aka the March of Progress). The endlessness of this will seduces it to attempt to control even immaterial kinds of movement.

Matter enables a firm, manipulative grip. That is the power of τέχνη ποιητική (_technae poiaetikae_). The technique of rhetoric, by contrast, is an art of persuasion whose immaterial ‘material’ to be manipulated is the mooded psyche of an audience. Owing to the non-material nature of the psyche, such manipulation is anything but sure-fire. It may amount to telling an audience lies it likes to hear. When it comes to exercising power over humans, it seems advantageous to seek a material basis for what and how the psyche thinks and feels. An obvious candidate for this manipulable material basis is the corporeal brain.

In Aristotle’s metaphysical thinking, the immaterial psyche is endowed with the capacity to think, called νοῦς (_nous_, mind). For today’s scientific thinking, the mind is a function of the brain. Various kinds of thinking (aka cognition) are said to take place in various definite parts of the brain, such as the frontal lobe. A major task of neuroscience is to investigate the supposed correspondences between various kinds of ostensible cognitive functions, such as memory, and parts of the brain. The mind thus becomes (interpreted, conceived as) an epiphenomenon of material brain function, rather than the mind’s being conceived as employing the brain and parts thereof as its organ, i.e. tool, for its various mental functions, such as remembering or planning or contemplating. This collapse of the mind into the brain is necessary for the progress of material-technological science. Medical science, in particular, focuses on cerebral dysfunction as the material cause of impairments in cognition and dysphoric psychic mood. This could be called deleterious material causality, which is far removed from what conversely could be termed beneficial material causality amounting to attributing to parts of the brain the power to generate certain thoughts or moods. This is the way modern science, to no avail, would like things to be.

The term ‘psyche’ is replaced by ‘consciousness’ in order to exclude (religious, metaphysical) connotations of ’soul’. The immaterial is anathema to modern science (even though, paradoxically, modern physics countenances light to be immaterial). ‘Thinking’ becomes brain-based ‘cognition’. Mainstream philosophical thinking offers no resistance to this degeneration, but rather enthusiastically embraces the dissolution of mental activity into the firing of cerebral neurons. The general public remains clueless and goes along with this degenerative ‘progress’, whose veracity is ostensibly affirmed by employing the empiricist methodology of ‘evidence-based’ science. Modern science suppresses any suspicion that there could be any kind of truth other than the facticity of correct facts.

Further reading: Social Ontology of Whoness: Rethinking core phenomena of political philosophy De Gruyter, Berlin 2019.

Michael Eldred on the Digital Age: Challenges for Today’s Thinking An interview with M.G. Michael and Katina Michael, M&K Press, Wollongong 2021.

Our Brains, Our Selves by Masud Husain.

Whereless mind & soul?.

On Human Temporality: Recasting Whoness Da Capo (OHT) De Gruyter, Berlin 2024.

Life’s but a gainful game for players
Who wend and weave their moves upon the field,
And either win or lose. It is a game
Played by suckers, full of false promise,
Bamboozling all.

Further reading: An Invisible Global Social Value.

Cf. William Shakespeare Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5.

Modern mathematized physics postulates the principle of the universality of its laws. They are postulated to be the same throughout the universe, even though we humans only observe movements of the cosmos from Earth with various sorts of antennae or ‘telescopes’ in the broadest sense, from binoculars through to the very large antenna, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, spread out in outer space to catch what physicists theorize to be gravitational waves corresponding to curved space-time in Einsteinian general relativity theory.

Since Newton at the latest, the laws of physics are expressed in equations in which the variables stand for physical quantities. Physical phenomena become mathematical symbols and quantitative empirical data become crucial for testing theoretical models. Initially these equations focused on formulating the law-like cosmological motion of physical celestial bodies, especially of the planets in our solar system. Einsteinian relativity theory radically altered Newtonian mechanics by postulating the relativity of all cosmological phenomena relative to an observer’s apparatus receiving signals from a cosmological event of any kind at the absolute speed of light, c. Henceforth time itself is interpreted as the path taken by electromagnetic radiation (light) from a physical event to an observer subject’s apparatus, incorporating a clock to register the signal’s time of arrival. Time in Einsteinian relativity is clock-time, the most superficial conception of time we humans have, as counted off physical movement. This seems not to worry physicists. It never crosses a physicist’s mind that time may not be a physical phenomenon.

Einstein’s brilliance in formulating his relativity theories included his seeking the equivalence of Newtonian principles when switching to relativistic space-time, perhaps the most important of these being the principles of conservation of energy and of momentum in physical collisions. Whereas in Newtonian physics, mass m is (axiomatically postulated to be) conserved in any collision, the relativistically transferred principle of conservation of momentum forces mass itself to be proportional to the velocity at which a physical entity is travelling. Hence rest mass, m0, differs from relativistic mass, m. Consequently, in hypothesized 4-dimensional space-time, conservation of momentum in the fourth temporal dimension enforces an equivalence of mass with kinetic energy, whereas in Newtonian 3-dimensional space it is implicitly assumed that the speed of light is infinite, so that the time variable is not relativistic at all, but universal. Hence there is no fourth temporal dimension at all.

The most famous consequence of the relativistic principle of conservation of momentum and thus the equivalence of mass and energy, is formulated in the equation E=m.c^2 or, in words, energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared. This astonishingly elegant result bequeaths us nuclear energy, including nuclear bombs. The mathematical model works.

Today’s mathematized physics presents itself as the foundational science for the theoretical explanation of ‘everything’ (despite the persisting stumbling block of a lack of theory of quantum gravity). This hubristic claim is pretty much accepted throughout the scientific community, including even the social sciences, since they do not have the methodological wherewithal to critique the claim. Today’s sciences are also conveniently separated into multiple silos called disciplines that defy unification, except that they are all methodologically empiricist. Empiricist thinking renders them all impotent to dig any deeper than facts.

Physics’ pretension to be foundational for all science is contradicted from the start by pointing out that there are kinds of movement that are not physical, and, in particular, not physical (loco)motion, which is the kind of physical movement amenable to mathematization. This kind of thinking is out of its depth when trying to interpret and conceptualize other kinds of movement including, besides mental movement, especially social interplay. Exchanging greetings or goods cannot be reduced to a physical movement, since such movements rely of mutual esteem and estimation between a plurality, i.e. at least a dyad, of players. Physical efficient causality admits of interaction between different causal forces, but not of interplay. Economic life requires exchanges of various sorts negotiated among among a plurality of players, even for indigenous peoples. Moreover, even their kind of economic life within ancient customs does not remain unaffected by today’s global capitalist economy. Their entire way of life may be destroyed by capitalism. Witness the history of European colonialism.

But what is capitalism? And what is its own law of movement? The movement of a capitalist economy cannot be somehow reduced to physical movement. The truth of capitalism and its law of movement is ugly rather than fair, and is therefore suppressed and covered up by deceptive ideologies. The simplest, and therefore deficient, schematic formula (not equation) for capital is:
M — C — M+ΔM,
where M and C stand for the money and commodity forms or ‘looks’ of thingified value, respectively, and ΔM stands for the ‘look’ of surplus thingified value. Thingified value itself is a phenomenon that remains invisible on the empirical surface; it requires a deeper kind of thinking (which may be called phenomenological or socio-ontological or speculative, among other terms) to be brought to light. The medium of thingified value is today the universal Medium of sociation, irreducible to the physical. So much for the pretensions of physics to lay down the laws of movement for ‘everything’. The global law of movement is the limitless valorization, i.e. augmentation and accumulation, of thingified value moving circularly through its intermeshing, complementary forms or ‘looks’ (comprising also labour power, raw materials, products, landed property, interest-bearing capital, investment capital, among others). Thingified value as this ubiquitous Medium of sociation remains invisible to today’s (’evidence-based’) scientific thinking, even in the social science of economics which, properly speaking, can ill afford this blindness.

The Medium seeps everywhere, affecting, for better or worse, every aspect of sociation from intimate privacy to the political to the geopolitical. For example, the modern state struggles to govern its populace within the strictures and constraints of the hitherto unknown, invisible Medium (in its value-forms of taxes, duties, fees, budgets, welfare benefits, environmental protection schemes, etc. etc.). Valorization of the Medium cannot be steered by the capitalist enterprises, nor by the state, nor by anything resembling a world government. Whether and the extent to which the Medium valorizes turns out as a retrospective (not a prospectively foreseen) result of the more or less ruthlessly competitive gainful game. Hence the economists, central banks, investors et al. are all continually waiting for the latest data on how the economy is doing.

Successful valorization is the (unreliable) precondition also for strength in today’s ruthless geopolitical power plays that, more often than not, are over commodity resources ripped from the Earth to feed the Medium’s unceasing valorization. Geopolitical hegemony of a nation requires the Medium’s superior valorization for that nation. And yet political scientists, political analysts, historians, journalists and politicians weighing in on debates over geopolitics have no inkling, let alone knowledge, of the global law of thingified value’s valorization. The same holds true for the social sciences in general.

Further reading: Wolfgang Rindler Relativity: Special, General and Cosmological 2nd. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006 Chapter 6 Relativistic particle mechanics.

On Human Temporality: Recasting Whoness Da Capo De Gruyter, Berlin 2024.

Capitalocene & The global law of movement.

An Invisible Global Social Value.

Three laws of movement (again).

Plato’s highest idea is that of the Good, one could say, a positive value. The Idea of the Good has had its long, historical career, especially via the Neoplatonism that was absorbed and adapted by Christianity.

The highest idea in our present age of nihilism is that of thingified value, an ambiguous value which as yet remains unknown, obfuscated.

The god of this age is Pleon Exia.

Pleon Exia is slyer and more seductive than Mephisto, and more ruthless. His Medium, thingified value, is destined to grow endlessly by circuiting through its set of intermeshing ‘looks’ or forms of thingified value. Its principle of movement — valorization — is exploitative of human labour power and destructive of the Earth. It stands for inexorable devastation and exhaustion of the Earth that has been reduced in today’s mind to mere necessary, exploitable, income-generating factor of production (with or without so-called environmental guard-rails). The principle is senseless, leading to nothing other than more senseless destruction, more senseless consumption, more senseless, unending, bitter competition.

And yet Pleon is supremely seductive, since he promises reward to the players in the Gainful Game. He urges continual enhancement of productivity for the sake of valorization which, as such, remains under wraps. Instead, the dictates of endless ‘economic growth’ fallaciously promise ‘continually improving standards of living’. The successful players see no reason to question, let alone curtail, Pleon’s gainful game; some — inevitably — even eye the prospects of roping the Moon and Mars into his game.

The unsuccessful players fall for the empty promise of reward through the pursuit of happiness. They have fallen for the ideology of individual freedom as booby-prize for losers who, in turn, take their resentment out on those fellow humans deemed to be inferior and a threat.

Seems we are all suckers for Pleon’s siren calls, flying blind through the night of nihilism, since we haven’t fathomed and prodded the underbelly of the individualized freedom enabled by his Medium.

Further reading: Tale of the Qua: A Philosophical Comedy arte-fact.org, Cologne 2024, an Aristophanic replay of On Human Temporality: Recasting Whoness Da Capo De Gruyter, Berlin 2024.

Social Ontology of Whoness: Rethinking core phenomena of political philosophy De Gruyter, Berlin 2019.

Pleon Exia Philorock song featuring Jeff Todd on saxophone.

Uncovering the unbridled will to valorization, once it is seen explicitly as such and the blindness alleviated through long philosophical controversy and struggle, enables the sociating power interplay among the players to be seen for the first time, in another light, for what it is, thus exposing the lie of liberal ideology. The immense dilemma confronting today’s globalized humankind becomes visible; the deceptive ideology of individual freedom played out in ideally fair, competitive interplay under the rule of law is unmasked as illusory.

By deciphering the inherent one-dimensional bias toward limitless accumulation hidden beneath the bland, indistinctive rubric of ‘economic growth’, the mutually estimative power interplays can be seen to be played out — properly speaking — in existential, three-dimensional time with its three degrees of freedom of movement.

In this sense, with deconcealing insight enabling a step back, the sociating power interplays at least essence more clearly. Without the imposition and encumbrance of thingified value’s temporally one-dimensional valorization movement that systematically undermines any possibility of genuine fairness in sociating power interplays, the mutual estimation performed in sociating interplay can be seen — in thoughtful imagination — to be one of mutually estimating what we as players can do for each other. This beneficent for-each-otherness may be regarded as a synonym in the economic realm for what has traditionally been called ἀγάπη, i.e. love of one’s fellow.

The deconcealment of thingified value as endlessly accumulating medium of sociation — the ugly truth of capitalism — provides at least a diagnosis of one the impediments to such loving interplay, but certainly not a political panacea, if only because politics always remain on the surface, without interrogating deeply enough who we are. Its coming to light through our learning to see — the core mission of philosophy — the very idea of thingified value and its pernicious principle of movement amounts to a change of mind in the Platonic sense of a περιαγωγὴ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς, i.e. a “turning around of the entire soul” (cf. Politeia 518d/e, 521c).

It requires courage.

Excerpt from 9.3 Fairness as criterion of justice (revised) of my On Human Temporality: Recasting Whoness Da Capo De Gruyter, Berlin 2024.