510. Relational ontology

Having spent much reading and writing on relations between people, in cognition, organisation, language and morality, I recently became acqainted with Garlo Rovelli’s view of relational quantum mechanics (RQM) (Rovelli; 2021). Rovelli claims that empirical evidence in physics indicates that elementary particles do not exist in isolation, moving in space independently, and have properties not by themselves but by interaction with other particles, and that the property from interaction with one thing does not yield the same properties as from interaction with another. He applied this to things in general. If A and B both interact with X, they will not develop the same properties from that interaction. A and B will perceive X differently. I had claimed that for people, identity is not a fixed property but a process of development by interaction, and I was thrilled to find that it also applies to elementary particles.

However, clearly things do have an identity in the sense of a given state of properties. Those arise from previous interactions, stored in memory, embodied in the biochemical metabolism of the body, neuronal circuits in the body and brain, and DNA. Those properties are potentials for further interaction, inside the body and outside, with others. For example, organisms need to take in foods and excrete waste. These potentials include many largely unconscious routines or mind frames. Their potential is triggered by interaction, first in an attempt to assimilate perceptions of other things in those frames, and when that fails, by adapting those frames, in accommodation, adopting elements from the routines perceived in the things related to (Nooteboom; 2000).

According to Damasio (2003) feelings and ideas arise in the brain as reflections, representations in neural cicuits, of bodily processes. Damasio claims that this idea of the mind being an idea of the body, is found in the work of Spinoza.( the Ethics). Spinoza based his ideas of the relation between mind and body on his notion of conatus, the irrepressible urge of things to survive and maintain themselves. Now we can see that reflexes and routines built into body and mind arise from evolution, from what helped survival These include emotional reflexes such as those of withdrawal, aggression, fear, revulsion, shame, empathy and love.

According to Damasio, these emotions and other bodily processes are reflected in feelings. in body-sensing areas of the brain, yielding a sense of wellbeing, unease or discomfort or distress, and beyond that rational thought by which actions become based on reasoning, to consciously enhance, produce or avoid what causes the emotions. I propose that virtues develop similarly, as character traits that are similar to emotions in being routines, but also have rational content, developed in phronesis, practical wisdom. They become part of the process of avoiding what feels bad and enhancing what feels good.

Like things in general, people are embedded in more or less extended networks of other people. When those people interact with each other under shared conditions, such as habits or institutions, this results in culture, in cultural routines that shape further interactions, which effect changes of routines and yield new ones.

A puzzle remains. how on the level of elementary particles there are uncertainties and fluctuations, while on the macroscopic level they disappear. I suspect this is an aggregation effect of fluctuations cancelling out when on multiple levels many things interact with other, similar things.

What properties survive and replicate in evolution depends on the selection environment. Since there have been different such environments, there is a variety of traits (body properties, metabolism, reflexes, emotion, virtues, feelings and thoughts).

Damasio, Antonio (2003), Looking for Spinoza; Joy, sorrow and the feeling brain, Orlando, Florida: Harcourt.

Rovelli, Carlo (2021), Helgoland,In (Dutch translation), Amsterdam: Prometheus.

Nooteboom, Bart (2000), Learning and innovation in organisations and economies, Oxford UK: Oxford. University Press.