Ententional

From the Glossary

Ententional: A generic adjective coined in this book for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic. This includes function, information, meaning, reference, representation, agency, purpose, sentience, and value

Constitutive absence: A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.

Emergent dynamics: A theory developed in this book which explains how homeodynamic (e.g., thermodynamic) processes can give rise to morphodynamic (e.g., self-organizing) processes, which can give rise to teleodynamic (e.g., living and mental) processes. Intended to legitimize scientific uses of ententional (intentional, purposeful, normative) concepts by demonstrating the way that processes at a higher level in this hierarchy emerge from, and are grounded in, simpler physical processes, but exhibit reversals of the otherwise ubiquitous tendencies of these lower-level processes

Intentional: In common usage, an adjective describing an act that is performed on purpose. Technically, in twentieth-century philosophy of mind, it is a term deriving from the medieval Scholastics, reintroduced by the German philosopher Brentano, to designate a characteristic common to all sensations, ideas, thoughts, and desires: the fact that they are 'about' something other than themselves

Preformationism: Narrowly, the assumption that the human physique was preformed from conception. More broadly as used here, the assumption that ententional phenomena were performed in antecedent phenomena - that, for example, language is preformed in a universal grammar module, information is preformed in DNA, or that consciousness is preformed in the mind of God

Ententional

• existing with-respect-to, for-the-sake-of, or in-order-to-generate something that is absent - p26
  
• includes a function at one extreme and value at the other - p26
  
• generic term/adjective - p26
  
• phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic - p26
  
• a fundemental relationship to something absent - p26
  

Ententional phenomena include functions that have

• satisfaction conditions,
  
• adaptations that have environmental correlates,
  
• thoughts that have contents,
  
• purposes that have goals,
  
• subjective experiences that have a self/other perspective
  
• values that have a self that benefits or is harmed. -p27
  

Although functions, adaptations, thoughts, purposes, subjective experiences, and values each have distinct attributes that distinguish them, they all also have an orientation to a specific constitutive absence, a particular and precise missing something that is their critical defining attribute - p27

>> extrinsic?

>> If intentional is the ground, ententional is the background?

Ententional ~ Absential

• Currently, we lack a single term in the English language (or others that I know of) that captures this more generic sense of existing with-respect-to, for-the-sake-of, or in-order-to-generate something that is absent that also includes function at one extreme and value at the other. The recognition that there is a common core property characterizing how each of these involves a necessary linkage with, and inclination toward, something absent argues for finding a term to refer to it - p26
  
• Ententional phenomena include functions that have satisfaction conditions, adaptations that have environmental correlates, thoughts that have contents, purposes that have goals, subjective experiences that have a self/other perspective, and values that have a self that benefits or is harmed. Although functions, adaptations, thoughts, purposes, subjective experiences, and values each have distinct attributes that distinguish them, they all also have an orientation to a specific constitutive absence, a particular and precise missing something that is their critical defining attribute - p 26
  
• Ententional processes and relationships can best be classed as expressions of final causality in Aristotle's terms. Their absential character is determined by the end toward which they tend, or the represented concept for the sake of which they were created. But with this erosion of the plurality of causal concepts, a place for a form of causal influence derived from something absent was no longer acceptable - p35-42 << much discussion on the absential follows.
  
• When a system exhibits ententional properties, it is because something physical is missing, not added - p42
  
• By examining this model system more closely, we will be able to demonstrate how ententional processes acquire this seemingly paradoxical character of efficacious absence - p311
  

Ententional ~ Causality

• If ententionally phenomena are causally import then types of things can have real physical consequences - p29
  
• Ententional processes and relationships can best be classed as expressions of final causality in Aristotle's terms - p35
  
• Their absential character is determined by the end toward which they tend, or the represented concept for the sake of which they were created - p35
  

Ententional ~ Conscious

• Conscious experience - most commonplace phenomenon of everyday life - is quintessence of an ententional phenomenon - p33-34
  

Ententional ~ Emergence

• ententional and emergence subtly tangled - p32
  

Ententional ~ figure / background

• Inversion of perspective to pay attention to what is missing resolves dilemma of ententional. A counterintuitive figure/background reversal, focusing on what is absent rather than present, offers a means to repair some of the serious inadequacies in our conceptions of matter, order, life, work, information, representation, and even consciousness and conceptions of value - p44
  

Ententional ~ Functionalism / Multiple Realizability

• All ententional phenomena have multiple realizability - p30
  

Ententional ~ Reduction

• ententional phenomena often particular in embidiment - causal consequences irreeducibly depend on some general type - p42
  

Ententional ~ Science

• from physical-chemistry point of view, ententional appears like magic - p3
  
• science ignores or bans ententional - p31
  
• to science, ententional phenomena appear invisible - p32
  
• ententional phenomena are a basic universal property like mas or charge. Everything is ententional in some respect - p39
  
• wherever we place the fence between ententional and physical, we need instructions as how to pass through the fence - p40
  

some of the below may also be above...

Entention to characterize an internal relationship to a telosean end, or otherwise displaced - p27

Ententional phenomena

• asymmetrical
  
• hierarchical

Scholars and scientists differ on meaning of intention and purpose. - p27

Ententional phenomena

• multiple realizability
  
• can be embodied in highly diverse physical-chemical processes and substrates
  
• have real physical consequences
  
• thus realist as opposed to nominalist - p29
  
• see also functionalism, but:
  
• interchangeability of consequences even more important
  
• potential consequences also generals - as well as virtual and absent