claims#wild-being-extends-to-physics

Late MP's "ontology of wild being" extends to philosophy of physics, not just to biology — a corrective claim against the standard reception that reads the late ontology as turned away from physical sciences

ID: wild-being-extends-to-physics Title: Late MP's "ontology of wild being" extends to philosophy of physics, not just to biology — a corrective claim against the standard reception that reads the late ontology as turned away from physical sciences Status: live Confidence: medium Claim type: corrective Created: 2026-05-05 Updated: 2026-05-05 Sources: morris-2024-wild-structure-melting-time, merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible Wiki homes: wild-being, melting-time, indirect-ontology

Claim

Late MP's "ontology of wild being" — currently treated by the standard reception as an ontology developed via biology and centered on living/animate phenomena — extends also to philosophy of physics. The unpublished MP working notes Morris 2024 reads (BNF Vol. VIII Notes 1958-1959) reveal MP pursuing ontology through quantum mechanics (Wheeler's delayed choice, time-crystals, Smolin's temporal naturalism) and relativity (Einstein, Whitehead), alongside biology. The Lefort folder title "Ontology of Wild Being (in particular life)" is the textual hinge: Morris reads the parenthetical "in particular life" as narrowing — life is the prime case, not the whole scope — rather than as defining the scope of wild being. The corrective claim is against readings that take the late ontology as turned away from physical sciences ("phenomenology gives up on physics"); the unpublished notes show MP working physics into the wild-being framework as one register among several.

Evidence

morris-2024-wild-structure-melting-time §§1–6 — the systematic articulation of wild being as physics-extending. Anchor: extraction-note Pass 2a items 1–10, 33, plus the temps fondant / ontogenesis-of-time material.
merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible — the surviving V&I notes that reference particle physics (V&I 33–34/16–17, V&I 235–236/185–186). These are in raw/ and provide the published-textual basis (separate from the BNF unpublished material).
The Lefort editorial decision to title the folder "Ontology of Wild Being (in particular life)" supplies the philological hinge: "in particular life" reads as narrowing, not defining.
Cross-source: the indirect-ontology page now treats MP's late ontology as physics-extending (the Morris 2024 §"Indirect Ontology and QBism" subsection at update 2026-05-05).

Counterpressure / Limits

The Lefort folder title's "in particular life" can also be read as defining scope rather than narrowing. The interpretation depends on the surrounding manuscript material the Lefort editorial decision reflects. Without direct access to the BNF folder contents, the philological claim is partly editorial-mediated.
The standard reception is not arbitrary. MP's published late corpus emphasizes biology (the Nature lectures, the flesh-as-element register, the chiasm as embodied perceptual structure). Reading the late ontology as physics-extending requires upgrading the unpublished BNF note + the V&I particle-physics notes from marginal to central. The corrective register acknowledges that this is a non-trivial reweighting.
The physics extension depends partly on Morris's bridge-constructions (e.g., the QBism-MP indirect ontology resonance, the cellular automata thought experiments). These are interpretive richenings rather than direct MP attestations.
The Nature lectures themselves engage Whitehead's philosophy of physics (in raw/), but the engagement is partial; whether MP's Nature-period engagement amounts to a physics extension of wild being requires careful reading.

Payoff

The claim:

Corrects an under-attribution in the wiki and standard reception: late MP's ontology is not turned away from physical sciences but actively engages them.
Anchors wild-being as a physics-applicable concept, not only a phenomenological-biological one.
Connects indirect-ontology to QBism (MP-side indirect ontology + QBism's philosophical anti-realism) as a contemporary philosophical-physical interlocutor, opening a cross-disciplinary direction the wiki has not previously charted.
Cross-references merleau-ponty-2003-nature Whitehead engagement with Morris's QM extension — providing the Nature lectures with a contemporary continuation through Morris's reading.
Strengthens the time-as-late-mp-privileged-ontological-clue (candidate, this run) by showing one of its major implications: if time is the privileged ontological clue, then MP's late ontology has built-in physics applicability.

Status History

2026-05-05 — created at live (Phase 8 seventh run) after the morris-2024-wild-structure-melting-time ingest. The 3-test gate is met: claim contestable (the standard-reception-centers-biology counterpressure is real; the Lefort editorial-decision dependency is registered; the physics-extension-depends-on-bridge-constructions caveat preserved), each evidence bullet anchored (Morris §§1–6 + V&I 33–34 / 235–236 + Lefort folder title + Nature Whitehead engagement), counterpressure recorded. Promotion at live rather than candidate because the V&I particle-physics notes are in raw/ and provide a published-textual basis independent of the BNF unpublished material; Morris's reading is the systematic articulation, but the fact of MP's physics engagement is documentable from raw/ materials. Promotion to supported would require sustained reading of MP's Nature lectures' Whitehead and Schelling engagement against the QM extension, plus engagement with Saint Aubert 2006 (not in raw/) which may corroborate or qualify the physics extension reading.