Panpsychism and vitalism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 11, 2013, 01:35 (4245 days ago)

Organisms appear to have thought at the cellular level. 'Appear' is the key word. Cells do not think. Here is Talbott:-"But this entire discussion of ideas and meaning in the world brings us face to face with a haunting specter we need to exorcise once for all: the specter of vitalism. The accusation of vitalism seems inevitably to arise whenever someone points to the being of the organism as a maker of meaning. This is owing to a legacy of dualism that makes it almost impossible for people today to imagine idea, meaning, and thought as anything other than ghostly epiphenomena within human skulls. So the suggestion that ideas and meaning are "out there" in the world of cells and organisms immediately provokes the assumption that one is really talking about some special sort of physical causation rather than about a content of thought intrinsic to organic phenomena. That is, ideas and meanings are taken to imply a vital force or energy or substance somehow distinct from the forces, energies, and substances referenced in our formulations of physical law. Such an entity or power would indeed be a spectral addition to the world — an addition for which no one has ever managed to identify a physical basis.
 
"But ideas, meanings, and thoughts are not material things, and they are not forces. Nor need they be to have their place in the world. After all, when we discover ideal mathematical relationships "governing" phenomena, we do not worry about how mathematical concepts can knock billiard balls around. If we did, we would have made our equations into occult or vital causes. But instead we simply recognize that, whatever else we might say about them, physical processes exhibit a conceptual or thought-like character. And so, too: the meanings that give expression to the because of reason do not knock biomolecules around, but — like mathematical relations — are discovered in the patterns we see. The thought-relations we discover in the world, whether in the mathematical demonstrations of the physicist or the various living forms of the biologist, need to be genuinely and faithfully and reproducibly observed, but must not be turned into mystical forces." (my bold)-http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/what-do-organisms-mean-Let's not quote Talbott out of context. Talbott has not taken his observations in his essays to my conclusion, which is God's DNA and the rest of the genome does it. It creates this appearence while going about its planned business. If you take the next step to recognizing God's efforts, Talbott's confusion disappears. Like Nagel, not willing to take the next logical step.