Help
Sign In
a n whitehead
November 2009 
Dennett, Dawkins, Metaphor, and Much More
Posted on May 24th, 2009
by 
buddhacious
buddhacious
Dawkins and Dennett
This is a video I posted that sparked a whole series of responses (from YouTube users Renshank and LordImmolation that you can follow if you go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv0so8rbwPA
I post it so you can better follow this textual exchange I had with another user, sdaciuk, about Dennett and Dawkins, as well as the nature of science and the place of human beings in the universe. It eventually became a discussion about panexperientialism, as well... enjoy!
First message from sdaciuk:
Honestly, its very hard to listen to these videos again. Ill give it a few minutes and let you do the rest, because honestly, your droning nonsense is terrible.
I fail to see how you come to any of your conclusions except by misinterpretation. For example: Dawkins. Dawkins does indeed boil down everything to genes. That those genes contain information, absolutely. His position is that those genes need to be good valuable replicators. What he has NEVER done is say that everything else is negligible. Indeed, those outside factors you mention are WHY genes matter as selfish information containing replicators. Become familiar with the term phenotype, I can assure you that Dawkins is and uses it often. Your claim that evolutionary biologists often disagree with Dawkins is rather bizarre since you dont seem to know what Dawkins view is. In fact it seem to be the opposite situation where the public does not understand evolution and posts ridiculous videos on youtube about it.
Dawkins and his readers are of course aware that there is more complicated things going on with traits and genes (again PHENOTYPE). The point of Dawkins view is that genes ultimately give us our possible abilities, drives, instincts and so on. Our capacity for communication, our capacity for intelligence is wrapped up in genes and DNA. By improving those things genes become better survivors (dependant upon situation of course). Ive never ever heard him say that DNA is independent of the organism. To argue against DNA as being self-replicating is moronic at best. Its a pointless statement since everyone knows that DNA alone is not self-replicating, that it occurs in certain conditions within the creature. What is being referred to is the entire process of reproduction including stages of reproduction, gestation, birth, and development. I should hope that would have been obvious. Did you read the whole book or just a page?
Dennett: He does not deny that you feel, he is absolutely not a dualist. Software is stored on hardware in an absolute material sense. This is NOT dualism. Dennetts position is entirely biological. In fact he is often criticized in an opposite fashion to your equally wrong points. Usually people claim he doesnt even believe in consciousness, only in biological machines. He does attribute much to unconscious processes, which you may be alluding to in a bit of your video. Seriously, Dennett is so against Descartes dualism he has spent the last 20 years trying to destroy anything remotely close to it. Dennett does not try to say that consciousness doesnt matter in evolution, but that it is a part of it. But he doesnt think it is a special magical thing that is unknowable.
What I truly find striking is that you critique the perspectives you think Dennett and Dawkins hold, but they dont hold them. Your statements about what you think are actually very close to what Dawkins and Dennett argue FOR. I honestly dont know how you got so mixed up.
The main thing I can see that Dennett, Dawkins and myself would laugh at you for is your position on atoms having feelings or having consciousness, that is most definitely from the shrooms.
I urge you to watch some of Dennetts videos on consciousness, they are absolutely excellent. I think you need to take a second read of the selfish gene as well. Somehow youve come to disagree with people you mostly agree with.
My response:
Thanks for the message. I have read Dawkins' Selfish Gene and several of Dennett's books (including Darwin's Dangerous Idea). I tend to prefer the paradigm offered by other biologists like Lynn Margulis, Francisco Varela, Richard Lewontin, and Stuart Kauffman. Dawkins is easy to caricature and I may have done so in my video, which is what has flustered you so. While I realize he obviously realizes all the other factors involved in getting the DNA to do its work, I think he over-emphasizes the selfish replicator idea to such an extent that it gives people a distorted idea of evolution, that it is all about random mutation of genes and selection by a pregiven environment. I think Developmental Systems Theory is shedding light on how important embryogenesis and environmental conditions are, so much light that the selfish gene theory no longer seems to have put the emphasis in the right place. Self-organization is the basic principle of life, in my opinion, not gene replication. The "gene," as I said in my video, is an abstract, artificial shorthand that doesn't exist in the complex physical reality of the genome. Of course much of what an organism does is wrapped up in its genome, but I think Dawkins' tends to lean too far toward genetic determinism. The environment and self-organizing tendencies of life play just as large a role in phenotype and behavior. Dawkins repeatedly uses the metaphor that genes are a program for making an organism, and then says that it is not a metaphor. Not only is it a metaphor, it is a poor metaphor, because as you admitted, the genes can't do a thing without the autopoiesis of the cell as a whole.
As for Dennett's view of consciousness, I know he was a student of Gilbert Ryle and prides himself on being anti-Cartesian. But nonetheless, I think he avoids dualism only nominally, while implicitly he is still employing the same basic principle that Descartes did separating mind from body when he separates information from its medium, or software from hardware. I absolutely love Dennett, however (can't say the same for Dawkins) and have written numerous papers making heavy use of his ideas about consciousness. I don't think consciousness is magical or unknowable, either. But I don't think it can be known reductively or empirically. I think phenomenology must be employed if we hope to understand consciousness on its own terms. This doesn't mean I am a substance dualist, but I think it is obvious that there is a hard problem of consciousness that requires fundamentally rethinking our approach to understanding the way the brain and consciousness are not ontologically separate. The are obviously distinct, but the challenge is to discover how this distinction is possible without substantial separation. Varela began a research program called neurophenomenology before he died that I think is very promising in terms of shedding light on this issue.
Yes, I am used to being laughed at for my panexperientialism, but I think it will prove to be the only solution to the mind/body problem once reductive materialism is no longer in vogue.
I've watched pretty much all Dennett's lectures on YouTube, unless there are new ones I haven't found yet.
I'd recommend a book to you, if you are at all interested in the perspectives I've offered: "Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind" by Evan Thompson.
-Matt
Second response from sdaciuk:
I've been debating with myself for an hour as to whether or not to respond. I wrote out a full page response before feeling that I was wasting my time and probably your own. I will instead respond shortly:
Thank you for admitting to misrepresenting Dawkins. I still think you are and will do so in the future as well, but I appreciate that you acknowledge the unfair treatment of his position.
I still don't think you understand Dawkins position for what it is. I suppose he can come across as narrowing it down to the gene alone, but he means that in context of the phenotype (his extended phenotype) and everything int he environment. I've never gotten the impression that you have from his work and I think you should recognize how much you are agreeing with him when you don't focus on the metaphor but what he is actually meaning.
The hard problem of consciousness is getting people to forget that they ever heard about a hard problem of consciousness. In its current form as "the hard problem" it is begging the question. What could anyone ever come up with to satisfy those terms? In your case it requires magic atoms. For other it requires matter that is unknown in the universe thus far. For some others they simply "know" that biology isn't the answer. The hard problem requires redefinition to something that makes sense, in its current form it is meaningless speculation for believers who crave mystery. What special answer would truly satisfy you as to why we have phenomenological experience? I was satisfied far before I even heard of the problem by the simple statement that it seems better than not having it at all. Or, if not better, than at least stable enough for reproduction to continue.
Good luck with your atoms,
-Stuart
My second response:
I think Chalmers formulated the hard problem for a very simple reason: if biological organization and evolution are entirely mechanical in nature, there is no reason for consciousness to ever have evolved and no role for it to play. So all a reductionist can say about it is that it is an epiphenomenal fluke. This doesn't satisfy me. When I hear a materialist say that interiority all the sudden appeared because of some special sort of material organization, I think "magic." Panexperientialism is an attempt to avoid such a magical leap from vacuous matter to conscious experience by explaining evolution as an increase in the experiential capacity of biological systems due to an increase in physiological complexity. It is quite reasonable if we are only able to free ourselves from a Newtonian metaphysical outlook.
Third response from sdaciuk:
Ah.
I wrote way too much again, and so, must trim it down to be reasonable.
Anyone who makes the conjecture that evolution needs a reason to occur is a quack. There is never a reason for something to evolve, why should there be? Consciousness doesn't need any more of a reason to evolve than a talon or long neck. It occurs because of mutation, natural selection, and all the other things that happen. Sometimes a little luck in the unpredictability of events (a lightning bolt, a fire, or a free meal) can make all the difference. To infer reason is to make a critical mistake in understanding evolution.
Allow a metaphor to deal with another of your points: If I wanted to go to the circus with my father, but the circus which was advertised goes bankrupt before coming to town, and my father explains this to me, does my dissatisfaction with the answer change the nature of existence? Mere dissatisfaction with existence and evidence does not infer some other answer like: "the circus will come later" or "consciousness must be still out there somewhere".
Panexperientialism is an attempt at begging the question. Without evidence it is not a theory nor of any use. You and I have the same access to atoms. I fail to see them as experiencing, yet you do (I presume). Whether they are or are not experiencing still tells us nothing in the long run. We still use a brain and it's structures to have consciousness, it is consciousness. Correlative evidence (lobotomy, lesions, head injuries, diseases, etc) all point to the structures as important, i believe you do not disagree with this. Why then does experience need to occur at the atomic level and then again at the structural level? It seems like a good time to use Ockham's razor.
One minute you put down matter as vacuous and unable to form consciousness by evolution, the next it has additional fundamental properties that make it far more magical than the materialist perspective. Perhaps I am misreading you.
"Panexperientialism is an attempt to avoid such a magical leap from vacuous matter to conscious experience by explaining evolution as an increase in the experiential capacity of biological systems due to an increase in physiological complexity." This does not sound like panexperientialism without adding in that matter has its own experiences regardless of structure. Whatever the hell that means. So maybe I am misunderstanding you.
-Stuart
My third response:
"Anyone who makes the conjecture that evolution needs a reason to occur is a quack."
Or a philosopher...
We cannot avoid doing metaphysics when we begin to investigate the biological world, because our understanding of life must include our own ability to know it. We are creatures trying to know the essence of our own existence.
I think you'd agree that there is a reason to do science, despite the fact that the beings doing it are biological organisms.
One of my basic metaphysical assumptions is that the mind that attempts to know the world and the world itself are not ontologically distinct. If you are an avowed anti-Cartesian, I assume you'd agree.
It follows that nature cannot be understood as a mere playing out of mechanistic parts driven by blind forces. If we do understand nature this way, as pure objective extension with only accidental motion, then either we have re-adopted Cartesian dualism, or we have concluded that human consciousness (and therefore all its ideals, including scientific knowledge) is a complete illusion.
Rather than separate rational knowing consciousness from nature, I'd rather see it as an extremely developed mode of experience and feeling that is present to some degree in all forms of matter (which even at the atomic and sub-atomic level, is highly complex and self-organizing).
If you think consciousness doesn't need any more reason than a long talon or a neck to evolve, then I don't think you've grasped the significance of consciousness. What we call 'consciousness' is really a rather well developed mode of experience that has only come very late in the trajectory of evolution, but its essential property is interiority. The question is why body parts like necks and talons should be capable of awareness of any kind at all if, mechanically speaking, they could perform their functions just as well without it. What is the survival value of a property (interiority) that adds nothing to the way forces are exchanged within a deterministic machine?
"Panexperientialism is an attempt at begging the question. Without evidence it is not a theory nor of any use."
Panexperientialism is not a scientific theory, but a metaphysical presupposition. Scientific theories about specific facts provide us with knowledge only within a metaphysical system of general reasons. Causality itself is a sort of "reason." If we haven't established metaphysically how causality works, we cannot do science (and as Hume brilliantly showed, based on empirical observation alone, there is no evidence for efficient causality).
It is my sense that, given the complete collapse of Newtonian cosmology over the course of the past century, reductionistic materialism no longer seems to be an especially elucidating metaphysical explanation for contemporary scientific findings (like that the entire universe is more of a process of becoming, a series of irreversible transformations, than a machine obeying fixed laws).
The experience occurring at the atomic level is intensified as atoms coalesce into more complex forms of organization over time. There are multiple levels of structural emergence nested in the brain's physiology (atoms, molecules, cells, etc.). Each increase in organized complexity produces an intensification in the experience associated with the body in question.
Fourth response from sdaciuk:
Or a philosopher
-One with a desperate need for more than evidence suggests.
We are creatures trying to know the essence of our own existence
-An essence? Im not sure which definition of the word youd like best. I assume you mean true substance. Again we get back to satisfaction, what satisfies some will not satisfy others on this matter. Again I am satisfied with evolution not requiring reason, but that it developed something capable of seeking reasons. That does not mean reasons exist in every place we look.
One of my basic metaphysical assumptions is that the mind that attempts to know the world and the world itself are not ontologically distinct. If you are an avowed anti-Cartesian, I assume you'd agree.
-Agreed, so long as mind means only the brain and no magic particles, no dualism, nothing beyond the simple interactions of specialized bits of brain doing brainy activities.
It follows that nature cannot be understood as a mere playing out of mechanistic parts driven by blind forces.
-Why? And which blind forces? I dont think evolution is a force at all in any way if that is what you meant. Id be ashamed to hear it described as a force. Although making up forces seems popular right now.
Calling consciousness as I see it an illusion is no insult to me, I prefer to think of it in perspective: its better than it could have been. At least from my tainted personal perspective it seems better than not having it or having a more limited form. Obviously this is a silly statement entirely as anyone can poke holes in it. However, it doesnt feel bad to think this way, it doesnt make me value my consciousness any less. I am still me despite the illusion (if you want to call it that). Frankly I dont consider it an illusion, it seems to me that when you start thinking about it as mere biological processes scattered round the brain with no special-ness that it stops being an illusion.
If we do understand nature this way, as pure objective extension with only accidental motion, then either we have re-adopted Cartesian dualism, or we have concluded that human consciousness (and therefore all its ideals, including scientific knowledge) is a complete illusion.
-uh huh. Ok. Weve got being objective turning into dualism for some reason, there is accidental motion instead of just regular motion (accidents must be caused accidentally by intentional movers yes?) Right, and I already agree with the end bit, except that science still makes sense since the things weve done with the scientific method seem valuable to me whether I am an illusion or not.
Rather than separate rational knowing consciousness from nature, I'd rather see it as an extremely developed mode of experience and feeling that is present to some degree in all forms of matter (which even at the atomic and sub-atomic level, is highly complex and self-organizing).
-Im with ya until you hit the bit about atoms having experience and feelings. But I suppose you know that. My point is that what youd rather doesnt really matter, what matters is what matter actually does. In your case, matter made your thinking matter think that matter has experience, I get that, but you have in no case made it clear as to WHY this should be the case.
If you think consciousness doesn't need any more reason than a long talon or a neck to evolve, then I don't think you've grasped the significance of consciousness.
-Again, there is no evidence for a reason in evolution. It happens because of the process of replication, genetic drift, phenotype/extended phenotype effects and all that environmental stuff with a big dash of natural selection. There is no more reason for consciousness than a long neck, a talon or a hairy chest. If the adaptation/mutation works than it goes on. Why add to that something which we have no evidence for? If consciousness aided in survival, communication, planning, understanding etc than it works. If it is a by-product of the better brain we have, why does it need more reason than that? If you cant think of one reason why consciousness is better than no consciousness than perhaps it is you that does not see the significance of consciousness. I would say that down to many life forms (Im thinking mammals, reptiles, fish and the like) that they all have consciousness at different levels of some yet-to-be-determined scale. Its going to be vastly inferior in computational power, I think that is obvious, but I see no reason to extend that bar down to things that lack a nervous system and brains. Unless those things have non-biological equivalents, such as a self-aware and much more advanced computer than todays technology. As for your final statement about the deterministic machine: The consciousness is a part of the deterministic machine why would it be anything else? Does that alone not increase the survival value? I dont want to discount other things like feelings and emotions, those are fun too. In fact I would suggest that they too add survival value and the subjective experience that consciousness offers gives us an interesting motivation for life that also boosts survival. But its not all pluses, certainly we can think of negatives too.
Causality itself is a sort of "reason." If we haven't established metaphysically how causality works, we cannot do science (and as Hume brilliantly showed, based on empirical observation alone, there is no evidence for efficient causality).
-In theory I agree with you, in practice I do not. Hume is absolutely brilliant, and you are absolutely correct in citing him for this occasion. But sometimes I will take correlative evidence when it seems useful enough, and while it is not proof positive, it is directional and persuasive. I will take it from your use of a computer that you believe in the benefits of technology and scientific exploration whether cause and effect is proven. So good point and I agree with you, but what of it? Using that as a reason to accept the invention of extra-atomic properties is rather weak. While cause and effect at least has correlative evidence there is really nothing to support atomic-level experience.
So long as we are invoking Hume let me pose this to you: Without cause and effect the effect of your magic experiencing particles would be irrelevant as their cause and effect relationship would be null and their properties irrelevant.
The experience occurring at the atomic level is intensified as atoms coalesce into more complex forms of organization over time. There are multiple levels of structural emergence nested in the brain's physiology (atoms, molecules, cells, etc.). Each increase in organized complexity produces an intensification in the experience associated with the body in question.
-again this just simply doesnt seem to be the case. The difference between these ideas and the model proposed by Dennett is that his model relies on scientific observations in various fields to back him up. His model is predictive, verifiable, and without extra magical explanations.
My fourth response:
I'll try to be more clear...
If the conscious human being (with all its purposeful cultural activities, like scientific knowledge-creation) is part of nature, nature can no longer be understood as Descartes did, as mere extension devoid of interiority and meaning. Either we are dualists and see consciousness and its scientific abilities as existing in another realm apart from the purposeless, mechanical nature which it comes to know objectively, or we see interiority as a fundamental property of nature itself that arises in varying intensities depending upon complexity of material embodiment. What motivates my philosophical approach is a desire to understand the universe as one within which the complexity of human consciousness is something that can be reasonably accounted for. A materialist cosmology does not allow for this, but makes of the human being an aberration and a improbable accident. Philosophically speaking, if your metaphysics does not account for the existence of the human being (or even organic life, for that matter, which materialism also can only say is a fluke accident in a predominantly dead and inert physical universe), then it has failed to meet the true potential of human reason.
Maybe you don't think we need a better explanation for how human consciousness or life came to be other than "it happened." I fortunately or unfortunately have an intense desire to answer such questions in a more reasonable way, and so I am lead to adopt a general metaphysical outlook that is entirely in line with all contemporary scientific findings. Materialism is itself a metaphysical perspective that is meant to interpret scientific facts. You can't prove materialism or panexperientialism with scientific experiment, you can only interpret the findings of experiments (facts) within the general context of a metaphysical system (reasons). Of course, specific facts derived from ongoing scientific experimentation can lead us to change our metaphysical generalities, so observation and speculation continually inform one another. I've adopted panexperientialism because I feel the facts discovered by physics in the past century no longer can be explained by a materialist metaphysics.
When it comes to consciousness and evolution, I think you are missing the point I am trying to make. You are suggesting that our consciousness (or experience/interiority) emerged suddenly due to some sort of mutation in our genes leading to a change in phenotype. Do you not see the miracle required here? You're suggesting that an entirely material system suddenly produces a completely new ontological domain (not just a new trait!). A new trait, like a talon or a longer neck, is entirely unlike a change brought about by the emergence of experience (and I'd include emotion and feeling as facets of experience) where before there had been only vacuous matter. You're saying that pure extension can suddenly produce interiority. That is magic.
It should go without saying that various sorts of experience (like emotion and feeling in lower animals, and reason in higher animals) aided life during the course of evolution. I hypothetically ask why such interiority should ever have evolved only because biological organization, at least in your (or Dawkin's) view, could have gotten along just fine without it (because all that matters is how the genes program the organism to behave)! If our metaphysics understands matter as essentially mechanical and lacking self-enjoyment, then we have left our own conscious experience entirely unaccounted for.
"So long as we are invoking Hume let me pose this to you: Without cause and effect the effect of your magic experiencing particles would be irrelevant as their cause and effect relationship would be null and their properties irrelevant."
Actually, I don't agree with Hume b/c I disagree with his reduction of experience to empiricism (ie, to the outward facing senses which perceive only bare universals). I think we can have direct experience of causality, but only via a non-sensory perception of our own body. This comes out of the work of A.N. Whitehead and was his attempt to show (contrary to Hume and Kant) how cause and effect can be conceived as features of reality itself, but only if we attribute experience to all material bodies. Cause and effect, for Whitehead, becomes more like cause and affect. Causality becomes a genuine feature of reality not just because our technologies work, but because the whole of nature literally feels the influences of causation.
Fifth response from sdaciuk:
It is rather bizarre that we can agree upon so much and yet come to vastly different conclusions.
or we see interiority as a fundamental property of nature itself that arises in varying intensities depending upon complexity of material embodiment.
-Of course I agree. Except about atoms.
A materialist cosmology does not allow for this, but makes of the human being an aberration and a improbable accident.
-This must be wrong since an accident can only be committed by intention gone wrong. For example, I am an accident because my parents forgot to use a condom and did not intend to get my mother pregnant. Being an accident in either the regard of evolution (which is more like a process that has no intention, perhaps akin to bureaucracy I joke) or the regard of my example is no shame and not something to reject if it is true. Nor is it something to be avoided at all costs by making up effects that we have no evidence to suggest.
Philosophically speaking, if your metaphysics does not account for the existence of the human being (or even organic life, for that matter, which materialism also can only say is a fluke accident in a predominantly dead and inert physical universe), then it has failed to meet the true potential of human reason.
-This, although eloquent, means nothing. Whether we use your magic atoms or my regular atoms, which happen to be the same atoms, we are still alive having a nonsense discussion that was never intended to be, rather, it evolved without reason since we both know that an internet battle changes no minds. But neither was it accident, it just sort of keeps on keeping on. Anyway, the metaphysics either of us choose to support does not have to account for human life, only that our versions do not negate human life. Neither of our versions are relevant in this context. However, I have a real pet peeve for spurious roots and unfounded claims about particles, as youve noticed. And again, that word accident should only be applied to intentional acts, not unintentional ones.
I fortunately or unfortunately have an intense desire to answer such questions in a more reasonable way, and so I am lead to adopt a general metaphysical outlook that is entirely in line with all contemporary scientific findings.
-Fine, until you assume particles as experiencing.
You can't prove materialism or panexperientialism with scientific experiment, you can only interpret the findings of experiments (facts) within the general context of a metaphysical system (reasons). Of course, specific facts derived from ongoing scientific experimentation can lead us to change our metaphysical generalities, so observation and speculation continually inform one another. I've adopted panexperientialism because I feel the facts discovered by physics in the past century no longer can be explained by a materialist metaphysics.
-Right, thats great, but where are the facts that even hint that particles are experiencing? Its fine to guess and its an interesting thought experiment, but without any evidence or predictive theory what is gained by the position? It does not add any more knowledge than me suggesting the moon has a core made of jelly, except that someone might find out I lied. Like I said before, you are no closer to atoms than I, but you claim special knowledge at this level. I know of no claim in physics that states a property of atoms is experience.
You are suggesting that our consciousness (or experience/interiority) emerged suddenly due to some sort of mutation in our genes leading to a change in phenotype. Do you not see the miracle required here? You're suggesting that an entirely material system suddenly produces a completely new ontological domain (not just a new trait!). A new trait, like a talon or a longer neck, is entirely unlike a change brought about by the emergence of experience (and I'd include emotion and feeling as facets of experience) where before there had been only vacuous matter. You're saying that pure extension can suddenly produce interiority. That is magic.
-Did it suddenly get Christian in here? This is the drivel that starts a creationism argument. A talon and a neck evolution can do, but consciousness! No way, its too complicated! Look weve already agreed that consciousness appears to come in levels of some kind, increasing in complexity up through the animal kingdom to us. I think were around the top out here on our rock, that sounds like a safe bet. However, is that increase magic or a result of more complexity, computing power, specialized cells and so on? I presume we both agree on the latter, even though you called it magic in your argument, I presume you did that for effect. Now why do your particles need to be special and mine do not? However unlikely it is to take the long long road from early life with basic sensory cells and a couple neurons up to the big bundle of neurons we have, why do your particles need to be more special to jump the gap?
It seems like youre saying that if someone (more likely a team) worked tirelessly to make a robot, one that thinks and feels and is self-aware and conscious and all the other descriptors we could use that you would not attribute the robots consciousness to the work of the team but to the property of consciousness in its atoms. Including the atoms in its foot. Perhaps that is a question for your metaphysics: what has more experience my foot or my passport? What about my foot and a cabbage? Does size matter?
I hypothetically ask why such interiority should ever have evolved only because biological organization, at least in your (or Dawkin's) view, could have gotten along just fine without it.
-I think youre smart enough to know why this is a poor question. But Ill do my best anyway. Lots of things could fit into the fine without it category, why limit it to consciousness? Why develop lungs? Why develop teeth? Hair? Eyes? A frontal lobe? A penis without a bone? Why didnt everything just stay as a single cell and forget about all this nonsense?
Again we go back to mutation and adaptation and natural selection, and then you say thats not good enough. So Ill pick up there: the organism doesnt choose the next evolutionary step, there is no guidance, it just tries to get along with what its got from its parents (provided its got the desire or programming to move it along). With this in mind why does it need a purpose? Fine with it, fine without it, so long as it works. If it happened as a by-product of getting smarter, more perceptive, more adapted to communities and socialization than why does it need more explanation? If you dont need cause and effect you certainly dont need more of an explanation than a by-product. But thats just one possibility. Regardless, the mutations which facilitate more consciousness must occur if consciousness increases. Likely that breeding encouraged consciousness in someway: perhaps there is a social link there both deep in the past and still current today. I believe that you agree with this, though I could be wrong, otherwise Im not sure what your stance is on evolution. Anyway, being fine without it, is not a criticism for something that does not decide anything at all. You are only in the position to hypothetically suggest being fine without it because it happened to work out. Basically that is true regardless of your special particles. I really dont understand at what point these things become necessary.
You are a passionate and eloquent debater. We have much in common on this topic. To narrow it down I see us only really conflicting in a few areas and even in some of those conflicted areas we have something in common. Neither of us wants to see evolution as an accident and we both believe that consciousness is a result of matter, an interaction of various bits of matter. I wont be able to concede that atoms have experience without any sort of proof, please provide any evidence of this or at the very least a decent metaphor to enlighten me. Without this I will probably drop the conversation, as I believe we are nearing a point where weve said enough. If you do provide something to back up the claim that atoms have some kind of experience I would be very excited to continue. I have appreciated, through my frustration, your contribution to my understanding of your position.
After watching your video on The Enjoyment of Matter I can see that it is a waste of time to speak with you further on anything without proof of these claims. Your presentation of evolution is not even remotely different from magic. And I wasted a few more minutes on your video God is Risen. Your statement that Atheism is a belief is rather ignorant of the plan ordinary fact that atheism means not theistic, and is defined today as not believing in a religion. Good luck with your silly videos, I think Im done. If I had spent anytime watching your other videos I dont think I would have bothered with this discussion. Originally I only intended to correct your presentation of Dawkins and Dennetts work which was woefully misrepresented.
Good night.
My fifth response:
You keep coming back to 'proof' that particles experience, so I'll just go into why this is totally beside the point.
I cannot even prove to you that I am not a zombie lacking all conscious experience and interiority (I assume you have not read Chalmers). I may just be a physical body with all its working parts that just so happen to lack the quality of conscious awareness or feeling. There is no empirical proof of experience of any sort, whether we are talking about atoms or about human beings. If you want to 'know' something is conscious, you can do so only via the causal efficacy of non-sensory perception, which I talked a little bit about at the end of my last message. We cannot see that other people (or animals, etc.) have internal experiential processes, but we can intuitively feel it through our interactions and meaningful communications with them. But if all you want to go on is empirical proof, you obviously will never be able to SEE or measure conscious experience by looking at the surfaces of a body. Experience is interior (not spatially, but qualitatively) to bodily surfaces.
This is why experience/interiority cannot be compared to lung, teeth, hair, eyes, etc., as just another evolutionarily acquired trait. But I think we actually agree on this, because we both recognize the gradual increase in experiential intensity as we move from single cells to animals with nervous systems (a cell's 'brain' is its selectively permeable membrane). The real issue then is the gap between non-life and life: how does experience emerge with cells if the molecules which compose it are entirely empty of experience?
The reason panexperientialism is gaining mainstream attention in the journals these days is because philosophers are recognizing that there really isn't any other way to solve the mind/body problem.
About atheism... there is no empirical proof for or against the existence of God, so whether you are atheist or theist, you are such based on belief.
Sixth response from sdaciuk:
You keep coming back to 'proof' that particles experience, so I'll just go into why this is totally beside the point."
-So this is besides the point; when someone suggests a fundamentally different property to the entire universe, something never recorded with no observable effects (you have not pointed to such) and it is "besides the point". Nonsense.
At this point you are telling me that your version of events does not require any evidence precisely because you cannot provide any. While at the same time you suggest that the massive amount of evidence building up an materialistic, non-magic particle view is not good enough. Rubbish. Your version requires no evidence, but other versions require some amazing piece of supernatural evidence to satisfy your desire to be more than you are.
Oh yes, the hard problem, which is again only hard if you want it to be. Otherwise it's just millions and millions of years and evolutionary steps later... which you agree on, sort of, just with magic properties of atoms instead of normal atoms. Seriously, Ockham's razor. If it's structure that improves consciousness why add magic atoms?
Your reason for avoiding that burden of proof is not acceptable. I didn't ask you to prove I was conscious, or you, or anyone else. I don't care about philosophical zombies, that is not a problem in my view of consciousness: they are the exactly same as regular people, they are people, whatever.
I agree that we can intuitively feel that people have consciousness, that this is shown in their actions. But it's guesswork, and that's acceptable to some degree. So long as we frame it right, such that we know that we don't know for sure, but that we're going with feeling. Besides that feeling we have correlative evidence like various brain scans, effects of brain damage, drug effects, lesions, lobotomies and so on. All of these can alter the processes of the brain, the behaviours of the person, and the reflective sense of consciousness they report. That's good enough for me to move on and not worry about zombies, except the kinds that eat brains. It's not a perfect argument, I agree,
but it didn't require any special magic to get there.
"how does experience emerge with cells if the molecules which compose it are entirely empty of experience?"
-How do colours appear from things which are all colourless? How does sound exist from things which never make any sound? It's all interpretation. The brain generates thoughts, attention moves around, chemical receptors go off increasing activity somewhere to feel something more intensely, what more does an explanation need than an exhaustive account of this activity if you agree that structure is key to consciousness?
As for atheism, wrong again. If a person has never been informed of anything to believe in, they are an atheist by birth. All babies are atheists by my count, not by belief but because they have never been informed of any magical beings or superstitions to believe in. Just to be very clear: you are not an atheist because you believe there is no god, you are an atheist because you do not have a belief in any god. You do not thus own a negative belief in your head, though people talk this way sometimes, what you have is an absence of a positive. There is quite an important distinction.
My final response:
Wouldn't the absence of a positive belief in God, if it is not a positive disbelief, be agnosticism rather than atheism?
I would like to know more about the massive amounts of evidence in support of materialistic metaphysics... because to my knowledge of contemporary scientific facts, you're making a massive overstatement. Just as an example, I beg of you, in light of quantum mechanics, to explain to me what matter even is. It certainly isn't a substance, as Newton supposed. I prefer to understand it by way of a process metaphysics (which is closely tied, if not wedded, to panexperientialism). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy
To my mind, there are plenty of observable effects that suggest that interiority and experience is fundamental to nature, first and foremost being the large scale evolution of the universe. To the best of our cosmological knowledge, the universe has been rushing toward greater complexity for its entire 14 billion year history. Despite the 2nd law of thermodynamics, some other principle must be at work thrusting this organizational momentum forward. I suggest it is the desire matter has to intensify experience via complexification. What is your explanation for the trend toward complexity evident in the transformations from light, to atoms, to stars, to galaxies, to solar systems, to cellular, animal, and intelligent life?
You can say that given enough time, anything is possible, but cosmologists estimate that it would require 100 times the life of our universe for a single amino acid to have formed by way of pure mechanical chance (ie, w/o some ingrained cosmic desire to self-organize).
Access: PublicTagged with: daniel dennett, richard dawkins, science, metaphysics, panexperientialism, A.N. Whitehead, biology, evolution
Hi Matt
Long time, no communication. Hope you are well and that your studies are going well too.
Thanks for the script here of your conversation with sdaciuk. I identified with his viewpoint and found his directness very refreshing. I also liked the way you clarified your own viewpoints.
I am very much in agreement when you say in your video above that, to paraphrase you roughly, “mind and matter are the same, or if not identical then two poles of the same existence”. And I also agree when you talk about “the gradual increase in experiential intensity as we move from single cells to animals with nervous systems”.
I am still left with one question which, despite my studies of Wilber and our long Symposium discussions on enactment via Julian's place, I keep coming back to. Maybe you can help to clarify:
What I still scratch my head about is why, given your statements quoted above, you and Wilber and others give “interiority” such a special category, as if interiority is made up of “other stuff” to use a phrase of Wilber's.
On the one hand it seems you are saying that experience, or awareness or consciousness, arises from, or goes hand in hand with, increased biological complexity. And at the same time you are saying that this interiority is somehow non-physical or has a non-material aspect to it? Is that a fair summary?
To be more specific about one of my own concerns when observing integral discussions, and which I sense in your own viewpoint to some extent, which is that for me Integral attributes interiority with a special status that it doesn't deserve.
For me, interiority can be explained by the increasing complexity you mentioned above. For you, it doesn't. Is that what any such apparent disagreements in these kinds of discussions really all comes down to I wonder? Or is there more Truth in what you are pointing out? I don't know, hence my continuing questions to you! :-)
I know you tried to argue with sdaciuk that “This is why experience/interiority cannot be compared to lung, teeth, hair, eyes, etc.” but I remained unconvinced. Would you be happy to try to explain it again to me in a different way? I'm keen to understand what may well be a huge issue that I still think I am missing.
For what it's worth, I have read some Chalmers and Dennett. My current thinking, such as it is, is that the so called hard problem is something made up in order to keep philosophers busy. ;-)
Some of my favourite parts of your discussion were here:
Matt: “Despite the 2nd law of thermodynamics, some other principle must be at work thrusting this organizational momentum forward.”
Really? Why do you say this?
Matt: “I suggest it is the desire matter has to intensify experience via complexification. What is your explanation for the trend toward complexity evident in the transformations from light, to atoms, to stars, to galaxies, to solar systems, to cellular, animal, and intelligent life?”
I suggest it is gravity and electromagnetic interaction.
Matt: “You can say that given enough time, anything is possible, but cosmologists estimate that it would require 100 times the life of our universe for a single amino acid to have formed by way of pure mechanical chance (ie, w/o some ingrained cosmic desire to self-organize).”
Really? Which cosmologists are these?
I tend to go along with the idea that as the much derided level of orange science continues with its research, we will find out more and more explanations that don't involve projecting onto matter a “desire…to intensify experience via complexification”.
For me, it is a case of an intensification of experience via complexification, which itself is brought about by gravity and electromagnetic interaction. We perhaps can simply switch “desire in matter” for “gravity and electromagnetic interaction”. Maybe they are one and the same thing! :-)
All The Best
James
Thanks for the feedback and questions, James! Let's get down to business…
Interiority… such a difficult thing to talk about! I don't like Wilber's phrase “other stuff,” because I think what really makes this issue such a conceptual hurdle is the so-called substance ontology we've inherited from the Greeks, and which was brought to an extreme in Descartes. Another word for substance would be “stuff,” and it is usually defined as “that which requires nothing but itself in order to exist.” So Descartes, after Galileo had decreed that anything real must be matematically measurable, felt compelled not only to prove why this was the case (about the external world), but to separate the soul from the body to protect it from such a reductionistic onslaught. So he broke reality down into two substances, two sorts of stuff, that had absolutely nothing to do with one another except for a divinely designed point of interaction in the pineal gland. Thinking stuff and extended stuff, mind and matter.
Now, we all know that this dualism is flatly rejected by almost every contemporary scientist and scientifically-minded philosopher. I reject it, as well. But I think many scientists and philosophers reject it in a different way than I do. Dennett, for example, prides himself on being anti-Cartesian, but instead of rejecting Descartes' whole framework (substance ontology), Dennett simply takes only one of the two substances as real: matter. So he is still within the Cartesian paradigm as regards his conception of the nature of matter.
As for myself (and Wilber, though I'm not sure why he still refers to interiorty as a sort of “stuff”), I've taken a liking to the notion of a process ontology, instead of substance. A.N. Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Bergson, and even Hegel could be considered process philosophers. The move, at least for Whitehead and Teilhard, from a process as opposed to a substance ontology was necessitated by the discoveries of quantum physics and cosmic evolution (within which I'd include biological evolution). Matter isn't a fixed substance, but more a dynamic flux of energy that is in no way separate from space-time and is capable of organizing in various ways. Further, in order to close the gap argued to exist by Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness, it is necessary to forgoe the idea that consciousness is some sort of substance that might be separated from the body, even just conceptually (as in the zombie thought experiment). I wouldn't say the hard problem is made up to provide jobs for philosophers, but I do think it misses the point. I must say, though, that it is important for people like Chalmers to counter the claims of functionalists like Dennett and eliminative materialists like Patricia and Paul Churchland. I enjoy reading Dennett because he takes reductionistic materialism about as far as it goes, and so offers me a wonderful source of material for my attempts to counter it. The Churchland's proposed research aims, on the other hand, don't even make sense to me. But all this is an aside… the point is that, though I disagree with the way Chalmers conceives of consciousness, I think he represents an important dissent to the reductionistic mainstream in American philosophy. The problem with all these thinkers is that they have not dispensed with substance-based thinking about these problems…
Mind isn't some special sort of stuff that can't be found anywhere in plain ol' matter. It is my opinion, based on my process orientation, that no such thing as pure extension lacking any sort of experience or interiority (Descartes' definition of matter) can be said to exist concretely. It's just an abstraction that is useful for scientists to assume is true when they procede with their method to measure the empirical world. The problem arises when science commits what Whitehead calls the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” by assuming matter really is just pure extension (they mistake a methodological conception for an ontological fact). As soon as this step is taken (as soon an abstraction is mistakenly concretized), we've got a dualism on our hands between the knowing consciousness of the scientist and the external world that is known. All the perplexing and frustrating problems about how consciousness is related to the brain follow from this mistake of misplacing concreteness. We know that matter is not pure extension devoid of interiority (or enjoyment of itself, as Whitehead might say) because of the example of our own bodies. We are matter with interiority. Obviously, our human interiority is highly sophisticated and extremely intense on acount of the complex organization of the nervous system which–I hesitate to say “supports” it, because that may lend itself to dualism or epiphenomenalism–but at any rate is correlated with it.
So I would argue that matter, from the beginning (contrary to Descartes definition of it), never existed without an interior aspect. I wouldn't want to call this interiority “immaterial” for the simple reason that it is always correlated with what from the outside appears as some physical surface. Interiority is matter when felt from another dimension (interiority instead of exteriority). I say “felt” instead of “seen,” because our eyes see only surfaces. To come into contact with the interior dimension of matter (its face, so to speak), we must get beyond our visuocentrism (gotta see it to believe it!) and allow empathy to take its rightful place along side sight as a valid source of knowledge about reality. So mind and matter are not two separate substances; they are two aspects, or dimensions, of the same process.
Now, I know you'd probably agree with this once we've reached the biological realm. What you seem to have trouble with is the idea that interiority extends even to molecules, atoms, electricity, and the non-organic world in general. You say interiority can be explain by increasing complexity, but this is no explanation (see below). I'd actually reverse this and say that increasing complexity can only be explained by interiority. Matter's interiority is that aspect providing it with the urge to complexify over time. If matter really was just pure extension lacking any experience (in other words, if it was entirely mechanical), there would be absolutely no reason to suspect it would ever begin to organize itself in all the staggeringly complex ways that it has over the course of our universe's first 13.7 billion years (by the way, my figure about the probability of an amino acid forming in a mechanical universe comes from Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's book “The Universe Story”). You say that gravity and electromagnetism explains all this, and in one sense I don't disagree. The question remains, though, why does gravitation work? I would offer that it is the primordial attraction (or love) that matter has for itself. Atoms may not experience much of a world, but perhaps what they do experience is this very simple longing to come together with other matter. Electromagnetism is how atoms communicate with one another. Nothing about such a panexperientialist approach denies the findings of modern physics. It just offers a metaphysical explanation for why (not just how) the various forces work the way they do.
The reason I'd argue that biological complexity does not explain interiority is that this implies some sort of miracle occured when molecular chemistry became trapped inside a membrane. All of the sudden, completely non-experiential matter came to life and gained sentience. Where the hell did that sentience come from!? I say it was there in primordial form in the molecules and atoms themselves, and that this material interiority explains the urge to self-organize and complexify into living forms. This way of understanding things allows us to avoid the impossible leap from a complete lack of interiority to sentience.
sdaciuk was arguing that sentience could be understood as just another trait selected for as life evolved, but this puts the cart before the horse. Life is sentient from the beginning. We both seem to agree on this. What evolves over time is the intensity and sophistication of this sentience (or more specifically, as the nervous system complexifies, the time between perception and motor response spreads out, allowing more room for anticipation, decision making, conceptual thought, etc.). Based on a perspective like the Churchland's (who I think sdaciuk would be much in agreement with), I fail to see how sentience could ever have evolved, as it is simply an epiphenomenon with no causal influence over the body's behavior so far as they are concerned. Without causal influence, there is no way for it to be naturally selected, as it serves absolutely no function for the organism to be aware of what it could just as well do as blind mechanism.
If you're interested in a counter argument to the RNA world hypothesis for the origin of life, check out Stuart Kauffman's book “At Home in the Universe,” or read a summary of it under the “emergence” section of this webpage: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman06/kauffman06_index.html
You said it rigth at the end there, “We perhaps can simply switch “desire in matter” for “gravity and electromagnetic interaction”. Maybe they are one and the same thing! :-)”
Panexperientialism is about metaphysics. It is trying to do more than science, which is after the how. It is trying to explain why.
Hope this made some sense!
Yours,
Matt
Hi Matt
Thanks for the immediate and in-depth response.
Here's where we agree:
“Matter isn't a fixed substance, but more a dynamic flux of energy that is in no way separate from space-time and is capable of organizing in various ways.”
Yes!
” (the)“fallacy of misplaced concreteness” by assuming matter really is just pure extension (they mistake a methodological conception for an ontological fact). As soon as this step is taken (as soon an abstraction is mistakenly concretized), we've got a dualism on our hands between the knowing consciousness of the scientist and the external world that is known”
Yes!
Although I do think this kind of total concretism is an exaggeration or stereotype of current scientific circles. I mean, which scientists worth their salt have not heard of the uncertainties that quantum physic throws upon conventional newtonian or cartesian thought? I also think those who study philosophies and the histories of different schools of thought tend to see -isms and counter arguments everywhere. They then concretise these stereotypes to fit their learned descriptions of these schools of thought, rather than allow each individual scientist the flexibility to shift their stance or to hold multiple perspectives. I think you do this to some extent. Are you sure Dennett views matter like Descartes did?
Re. process ontology, I'm keen to find out more, thanks for the links.
I'll also check out Kauffman's book again in relation to my point about RNA, thanks for that link too.
Here's where we disagree, kind of.
“We know that matter is not pure extension devoid of interiority (or enjoyment of itself, as Whitehead might say) because of the example of our own bodies. We are matter with interiority” .
I would say we are matter with interiority because of our degree of complexity, not because interiority goes all the way down to our atoms. So to use human bodies as an example of “matter with interiority” doesn't cut it for me. We are matter with a high degree of complexification and (therefore) with interiority.
Further, you said:
“You say that gravity and electromagnetism explains all this, and in one sense I don't disagree. The question remains, though, why does gravitation work? I would offer that it is the primordial attraction (or love) that matter has for itself.”
I can relate very much to this concept. When I was in Japan I released a record with a friend on a label we called “Spirit Loves Matter”! :-) However, in terms of discovering more Truthful understandings of the universe, I now see this as a beautiful, poetic perspective and also a fanciful anthropomorphic projection.
I also disagree with your logic and conclusions here: “The reason I'd argue that biological complexity does not explain interiority is that this implies some sort of miracle occured when molecular chemistry became trapped inside a membrane. All of the sudden, completely non-experiential matter came to life and gained sentience. Where the hell did that sentience come from!?”
There is no need to claim about miracles here. I think that's an unnecessary addition of yours. The sentience arises from the complexity. Just like Wilber points out on the first page of H 2 of BHoE:
KW: “This is the whole point of systems theory and holism in general, that new levels of organization come into being, and these new levels cannot be reduced in all ways to their junior dimensions….”
Q: “So the higher has the essentials of the lower, plus something extra.”
KW:”Yes, that's another way of putting it….”
And for me that something extra is “sentience”. Following Wilber's explanation here, human awareness doesn't need sentience to go all the way down.
Matt: “Panexperientialism is about metaphysics. It is trying to do more than science, which is after the how. It is trying to explain why.”
Thanks for this clarification.
If one is going to ask the why questions, one should be prepared for the answer “no particular reason”, and not insist that there be more than this.
Also, it is worth looking at the human tendency to look for answers to why questions and where this tendency comes from. Just because we are driven to ask these kinds of questions doesn't mean that there are always answers that will satisfy where this need comes from.
Best wishes
james
Hey James,
A few things stuck out in your response that I'll respond to in turn:
Are you sure Dennett views matter like Descartes did?
Yes, I think he does. Matter for Dennett is an extended substance that can be entirely understood without remainder based on mechanical laws. He seems to be aware of quantum physics and relativistic/inflationary cosmology, but from what I can tell, he does not think these discoveries have any metaphysical implications in regards to how science explains biological organization. Dennett is very critical of metaphysics in general, even while he fails to recognize the assumptions hidden in his own reductionism. One of these assumptions is that time has no formative influence on matter, that it is nothing more than a name we give to the continuous undirected motion of particles through space. Time is given no ontological status for most materialists. But if the big bang theory is right, then the passage of time most definitely does have a formative influence on matter, first creating it, and then directing it toward greather global entropy, while at the same time higher local order. In the biological realm, the effect of time becomes even more apparent in the evolution of simple non-nucleated cells, to eukaryotes, to metazoans, to amphibians, reptiles, mammals, to primates, to astronauts, etc. Dennett, because of his reductionistic materialism, can offer no explanation for this trend other than “it happened”: organisms are alive today because their ancestors survived. Darwin's theory of random variation under natural selection shows us how species can change over time, but it offers no explanation for the direction toward complexity evident in our biosphere. Dennett might counter by pointing to increasing fittness, but if fitting into a pre-given niche were all evolution was about, we'd still be algae. Anyways, I've gone somewhat astray from Dennett's conception of matter, but suffice it to say that, at least in my opinion (and I've read a lot of his work), he has not fully adapted himself to the implications of 20th century physics (not only quantum mechanics and relativity, but self-organization and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, something Kauffman has written quite a bit about).
I now see this [gravity as love] as a beautiful, poetic perspective and also a fanciful anthropomorphic projection.
Anthropomorphism is something we should watch out for, but so is anthropocentrism. Not that you implied this, but often those who level the charge of anthropomorphism to panexperientialists could themselves be accused of anthropocentrism for believing that the only meaning and purpose in the universe is contained within human skulls. From my point of view, intelligent life is not a fluke in this universe, but an inevitability. This is a human universe, in that sense, and so I am not afraid to see nature's behavior as purposeful, so long as it is within reason.
The sentience arises from the complexity. Just like Wilber points out- : This is the whole point of systems theory and holism in general, that new levels of organization come into being, and these new levels cannot be reduced in all ways to their junior dimensions….” -And for me that something extra is “sentience”.
Sentience is a type of experience I'd also only want to attribute to cellular levels of complexity and higher. Sentience implies that the being in question exhibits some sort of irritability, it responds to its environment in terms of likes (food) and dislikes (toxins), as bacterial cells can. I would not attribute this to atoms; atoms are not sentient. But I do think they possess a simpler form of experience, or interiority that Whitehead calls prehension. One way of understanding what he means by prehension is to put it in the context of time as a formative influence as I discussed above: an atom 'prehends' its immediate past, and based on this feeling, advances into the future. Prehension is basically equivalent to efficient causation; it is the inheritance of past influence. Atoms are almost entirely determined by their past because their experiential world is extremely minimal; nonetheless, I think gravity is evidence of the sense of urgency –present even at this level of organization– that matter has to complexify. (Don't forget that the process of organization going on between protons, neutrons, and electrons is already extremely complex and dynamic). So while we could say that sentience is the result of a new level of organization (cells), I don't think the same can be said of interiority in general. What emerges at each level is more complexly organized modes of experience, not experience itself.
If one is going to ask the why questions, one should be prepared for the answer “no particular reason”, and not insist that there be more than this.
Well, reading what I wrote again, I feel like I should qualify it a bit. The how and the why cannot be so neatly separated. We cannot even begin doing science until we've constructed a theory, and all theories are based upon certain metaphysical principles. Scientific investigation can only provide us with knowledge if the universe is reasonable. If nature is completely unreasonable, science is impossible. Even to answer what seems like a “how” question, like 'how does evolution happen?', science has to project some sort of telos onto nature. Darwin does this with his analogy between human and natural selection, metaphorically giving Nature agency. The theory only does explanatory work if this metaphor is taken literally, as otherwise his theory becomes a tautology: those species exist that have survived. This isn't an explanation of the evolutionary process, just a statement of something that was already obvious. Nature must be understood to be an agency picking the fittest organisms. But even granted this, as I said above, I don't think it explains the tendency toward complexity, nor does it explain the self-organization of individual organisms. Darwin's theory assumes self-organizing beings that can reproduce. This is where abiogenesis comes in, the RNA world hypothesis being an attempt to extend Darwin's metaphor beyond the realm of cellular life into molecular reproduction. I'll leave this issue aside, though (you can read Kauffman's argument against RNA world at that link if you're interested).
I suppose I'm too philosophically inclinded to accept the answer “no particular reason” to a question like 'why does cosmic evolution have a direction?'. There are certainly some poorly worded why questions that indeed have no answers, but there are some why questions I just can't avoid searching for reasonable answers to.
Hope you're enjoying this as much as I am ; ), I really can't get my fill of discussions about these issues.
Take care,
Matt
Hi Matt
Glad you're enjoying the discussion. Thanks for initiating it!
I'm currently reading up on Kauffman and also on process ontology.
Hopefully back later with some more questions.
James