The Paradoxes of Darwinian Disorder. Towards an Ontological Reaffirmation of Order and Transcendence

[muriel_volestrangler]

In the Darwinian perspective, order is not immanent in reality, but it is a self-affirming aspect of reality in so far as it is experienced by situated subjects. However, it is not so much reality that is self-affirming, but the creative order structuring reality which manifests itself to us. Being-whole, as opposed to being-one, underwrites our fundamental sense of locatedness and particularity in the universe. The valuation of order qua meaningful order, rather than order-in-itself, has been thoroughly objectified in the Darwinian worldview. This process of de-contextualization and reification of meaning has ultimately led to the establishment of ‘dis-order’ rather than ‘this-order’. As a result, Darwinian materialism confronts us with an eradication of meaning from the phenomenological experience of reality. Negative theology however suggests a revaluation of disorder as a necessary precondition of order, as that without which order could not be thought of in an orderly fashion. In that sense, dis-order dissolves into the manifestations of order transcending the materialist realm. Indeed, order becomes only transparent qua order in so far as it is situated against a background of chaos and meaninglessness. This binary opposition between order and dis-order, or between order and that which disrupts order, embodies a central paradox of Darwinian thinking. As Whitehead suggests, reality is not composed of disordered material substances, but as serially-ordered events that are experienced in a subjectively meaningful way. The question is not what structures order, but what structure is imposed on our transcendent conception of order. By narrowly focusing on the disorderly state of present-being, or the “incoherence of a primordial multiplicity”, as John Haught put it, Darwinian materialists lose sense of the ultimate order unfolding in the not-yet-being. Contrary to what Dawkins asserts, if we reframe our sense of locatedness of existence within a the space of radical contingency of spiritual destiny, then absolute order reemerges as an ontological possibility. The discourse of dis-order always already incorporates a creative moment that allows the self to transcend the context in which it finds itself, but also to find solace and responsiveness in an absolute Order which both engenders and withholds meaning. Creation is the condition of possibility of discourse which, in turn, evokes itself as presenting creation itself. Darwinian discourse is therefore just an emanation of the absolute discourse of dis-order, and not the other way around, as crude materialists such as Dawkins suggest.

The above was accepted, as an abstract, as the basis for a workshop at an international conference marking the 75th anniversary of the Association for Reformational Philosophy ('reformational' meaning 'neo-Calvinistic') - "The Future of Creation Order". It is, as you'll have worked out pretty quickly, meaningless gibberish - a hoax by a Belgian philosopher, using a made-up name, and a made-up institution. The 'Scientific Committee' of the conference included 3 PhDs working at the Faculty of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam (a 132 year old institution) (plus a couple of people from 'Christian' institutions that may be fly-by-night places, for all I know - I wouldn't expect them to know shit from shinola). Another theological conference accepted it, but they don't say which (it seems they didn't get as far as publishing it online).

Theology, it seems, is desperate for anything to talk about. While I think the idea that climate scientists just do it for the university positions, salary and grants is absurd and insulting, I'm far more prepared to believe it of these people. If only because I suspect they might not get decent jobs anywhere else.

[Warpy]

1. The abstract looks like it was produced by LISP

which was a program I ran across in the 80s wherein you could insert a few discipline centered sesquipedalianisms and the program would generate ream after ream of dense prose that used the buzzwords and didn't make a lick of sense.

I was always tempted to use it for one of my case study papers but I'm too honest. Dammit.

I was always convinced Milton Friedman won the Nobel more for the density of his prose than the soundness of his ideas, something borne out in practice. I suppose the same density of largely meaningless prose is still appealing to a lot of dunderheads who go from bogus conference to bogus conference hoping to find the wisdom of the ages there eventually.

[dimbear]

2. The original article needs more German words. n/t

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. I read the subject line and came to complain that it's a bunch of horseshit

Then I realized that it was intended to be written as horseshit.

[frogmarch]

4. I laughed aloud, even before I

realized it was intentional gibberish.

It was accepted as the basis for a philosophy workshop? Apparently those who gave it a thumbs up didn't want to look stupid by admitting they didn't understand it. "The Emperor's New Clothes" strikes again.

[MineralMan]

5. Nice piece of gibberish, academia style.

I love that stuff.

[Shagman]

6. It's like a politician

The more you try to pin it down and get some sense out of it, the less sense it makes. It sounds like it ought to be reasonable, the words hang together, but you eventually realize there's no there there.

[Odin2005]

7. This reminds me of the Sokal Affair, LOL!