RM: By the way, I had a look at your site (www.postdigital.org). Very nice. Nevertheless I think we could have something to argue about what is the basic stuff of reality. I think that if you start with energy in the classical sense then you cannot produce anything like 'aboutness', 'representation', 'quality' and so forth. But maybe you mean something different with the word 'energy' than what I refer to. I should read something of you before attempting to draw any conclusion or to make any meaningful remarks. I look forward to know more about your point of view.

RM: I was reading the review of your book on Leonardo, when I got to the following quotation from you: "My awareness extends to, and consist in, those things of which I am aware." Although this sentence has been reported as an example of not scientific sentence (I do not see why), I must say that is one perfect explanation of what I mean with what I call (with less linguistic skill) an 'Enlarged Mind". The boundary between the mind and the external world is a product of our obsolete categories and can be removed. Such a boundary has produced, from Descartes to the XX centuries, all kind of paradoxes and problems, and it is time to question it. Nevertheless if we remove the boundary a new ontology is needed since all current ontologies (materialism, idealism, dualism, etc.) are built in such a way as to need something that must be inside or outside of the head (therefore on one side of the aforementioned boundary). But the boundary is not necessary neither from the point of view of the mind nor of the external world. My proposal of the onphene, a unit of pure intentionality, is to remove any necessity of creating boundaries of any kind.

RP: I think your comments are interesting. Just briefly, I agree with you that a view of the universe premised on energy does not necessarily explain complexities like 'aboutness', 'representation'and 'quality'. It merely states that any comprehensive explanation of these will inevitably be based on some energistic process insofar as the same is true of all processes in the universe. I agree this does not tell you very much, except perhaps that which is obvious, although (I think) it is often overlooked. There is another review I did of a book called "Cosmic Evolution" by a scientist on the Leonardo site which is the first I've come across to explicitly propose an "energistic" view of natural phenomena. The value of an energistic view in theoretical terms is that it provides a unity between those things some people try to keep apart, e.g. the mental and the physical, the brain and the body, the body and the world, etc. By recognising their energetic continuity one cannot keep things essentially separate. I completely agree with your other point about the age old boundaries imposed by philosophy and science. I am less clear what a 'unit of pure intentionality' is, although I might get this from your book. I understand the notion of intentionality as representation and the consequent problem of how one can represent a physical form in a mental substrate. In our book you will see we have tried to argue that a representation is entirely continuous with its object (hence, a picture of a pipe is also a pipe). I have tried to summarise this idea as follows: Insofar as things share perceptual attributes they are identical. Therefore a picture of a pipe is not so much a reference to another object, but an extension of the pipe itself, just as the photos of Daisy and Giulio are extensions of them. The problem of mental representation is not then 'how does one refer to an object outside oneself?' but 'how does an object extend itself into our being?' so that we and it become identical.I think this turns the problem of representation upside-down (or inside-out).

RM: let me say that I will wait to say more after reading your book. Nevertheless I'd like to add a few comments to your interesting last mail. First, let me say to be careful with the use of a word like 'energy' that although it could sound physical or scientific, it could expose your work to critics from hard scientis who could say that you misuse objective concepts. This is not my view, but I can imagine the rationale. Secondly, let me say that I like very much the identity between representation and the object represented. This standpoint should produce a sort of extreme realism, I'd say. Yet I do not see, in your description, how can we get to the underlying object? In other words, how do we know that a series of extensions belong to the same source? and that is the relation between the object and its extension? Are the same stuff? or are they different? If they are different then there is no difference with the classic model of world/representation. Yet if they are the same you should explain what is there in common among different extensions. I think the onphene could offer a suitable solution to this problem. Let me know.

RP: Thanks for the mail. I agree with you about the need for caution with the word energy... I get told off for that quite a lot. I really like the phrase "extreme realism", can I use it? In response to your other point, I'd say the various extensions of a certain object could be *distinquished* but not *separated*, so I would oppose the classical model, i.e. they are really the same. Also we may never know that a series of extensions (or effects) of an object always belong to the same source, or even that a source is unique. In other words there is not necessarily an "underlying" object to be revealed - instead there is simply the accumulation of a series of effects or extensions which we clump together as a single object for convenience. This often leads us to disregard the less tangible effects of an object for the sake of comprehension of simplicity. For example when looking at a clock I conveniently forget about the human construction of the concept of time, the mechanical intricacy of the clock's production process, the activity of light and its reception in my eyes, the economics of clock manufacture and sale, and so on. Yet sometimes the poets, artists and philosophers remind us of these things. In fact there can be no single or isolated objects at all. I have started reading your book to see more clearly what you mean by the onphene.