Stuart Kauffman

Posted by Olly Robinson on 3 August 2009 | 2 Comments

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The below link takes you to a 40 minute talk by Stuart Kauffman, author of 'Reinventing the Sacred'.

http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0/stuart-kauffman

He discusses the origins of the reductionist worldview, and how it reduces all things to value-less and meaningless happenings. This view says that organisms, life and love are nothing but particles-in-motion. He points out that there are extremely eminent physicists who find reductionism inadequate. One of the things that he says you can't reduce is the idea of FUNCTION, which is essential in biology and psychology. We explain the heart by its function as pumping blood, but there are no functions in physics. This does not abrogate the laws of physics, but it is not reducible to physics. Another emergence is agency. He also says - "we all are in fact agents - we are acting for our own benefit. Agency is real - with agency, all sorts of things happen. Doing happens. In physics, there is no doing. Things are incidental. What happens, happens. Doing, meaning, value enter with agency."

He also quotes a great quote by Hume: "You can't deduce ought from is."

There are other talks by some top scientists and philosophers at:
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment
http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-candles-in-the-dark


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  • Thanks for the link. Very interesting to get an informed view of Kauffman's ideas.

    "Without sufficient law, without central direction, the biosphere literally constructs itself and evolves. . . . Such a self-organized, but partially lawless, set of coupled processes stands unrecognized, and thus unseen, right before our eyes."

    "Creativity existed before the universe emerged from it. The natural laws are constraints, precisely as Kauffman says. Creativity subjects itself to these constraints and thereby produces the material...."

    "It is, in fact, eminently plausible that the well-established laws of physics — the Standard Model and General Relativity — are precisely the constraints needed to set the stage for the drama of evolution."

    The above are extracts from the review and in various ways connect with a problem which could perhaps be given some insight by the members.

    If time is considered to be a linear concept, what comes first: the laws of physics e.g. thermodynamics, positive/negative charge or the perceivable material states such as physical sub-atomic structure?

    Posted by Robert de Vos, 20/08/2009 4:45pm (2 years ago)

  • Don't get carried away by this latest attempt at physicalism without physicalism. You might want to take a look at this review of Reinventing the Sacred. http://anti-matters.org/ojs/index.php?journal=am&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=83&path%5B%5D=76

    Posted by antimatterstheblog, 05/08/2009 3:06pm (3 years ago)

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