An inventive mechanism; Read this essay (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 07, 2014, 01:46 (3699 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 
> “If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering.”
> 
> No divine preprogramming, and no dabbling/tinkering, but something working from within. He calls it the “logos informing all things”. The panpsychist hypothesis asserts that all things have a mental or inner aspect, with varying degrees of subjectivity and quasi-consciousness.-Another thought. If you look at glucose in the dry form it just sits there and nothing happens. In the blood it supplies energy to the body. The amlyase in your siliva does nothing until starch appears and then it acts to begin digestion of starch. When fat hits the small intestine lipase in bile begins tio break down the fat. The pancreas produces trypsin when it recognizes protein coming its way.If you put together all the biochemicals of the human body (many thousands) in a pot some enzymes will automatically act on some of the chemicals. That is their nature. But really nothing at all will happen. In the body, when a chemical meets another that requires some activity, it generally knows exactly what to do, amd will do it automatically or under direction. What is the 'logos', the 'mental or inner aspects', the elan vital of organisms? If the chemicals I've mentioned are under a central direction then the 'logos' appears. The central directing conductor of the living orchestra is the genome, reading all the feedback loops from the cell communities. -I view Talbott like I view Nagel and his problem with consciousness. They are struggling because they cannot let a divine foot in the door, a la Lewonton. All that panting over how vital the living body is. Of course it is, and too complex for chance to develop it. Each of the proteins have to have a very specific form to function. There are literally millions of organic protein molecules possible to employ in life. Each living being has exactly the right ones working together in concert. How did chance find them in just the right proportions and arrangements? Talbott and Nagel ignore this. They step in after the fact and look at the marvel of life and wonder. They can't get from inorganic 'no life' forms to living forms. They can only start their analysis after life has started. Too bad they avoid that gap in their thinking. Just as forceful an argument as Darwin's gaps seem to me. -Your intellectual battle with me has been of great help to me. I've come to a concept of an inventive mechanism I can live with. It has to be nebulous at this stage, because we don't know enough to go further. I'm still betting on something like an IM is present and will be found as part of the genome.