Stuart Kauffman (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, February 06, 2015, 18:33 (3577 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I've always been sympathetic to Spinoza's ideas, as it is from his thinking that I first came up with the idea of a universal consciousness affecting everything as Kauffman expresses below:-Horgan: Are science and religion compatible?-Kauffman: Maybe, in some sense, if Penrose-Hameroff Orchestrated Objective Reduction or my “Beyond the Stalemate” ideas are right, we get a wildly panpsychist participatory universe. In such a view, measurement anywhere is associated with consciousness and responsible will, and for entangled particles a coordinated version of the above, a kind of “mind of God.” but not an omnipotent, omniscient, kind God in monotheistic sense at all. I wrote Reinventing the Sacred, Basic Books 2008, in part to find a sense of God as the natural creativity of universe.-I have added in bold the section of the Kauffman quote that you left out, as it is the crucial difference between your concept and his.-Dhw: The question still remains as to the origin of awareness - whether in your monotheistic scenario or my evolution through interacting energy and matter, but clearly Kauffman takes the atheistic panpsychist hypothesis seriously. That gives some comfort to an agnostic non-scientist who until now has felt all alone while exploring this particular avenue! -DAVID: And his interest in Rupert Sheldrake, who believes in species consciousness, fits in with this discussion. The origin of consciousness is a supreme mystery. I don't believe an inorganic universe can self-invent consciousness.

But you do believe in a disembodied consciousness that just is, and knew all about inorganic and organic bodies before they even existed. What is always surprising is your rational scepticism towards one unlikelihood set against your irrational faith in another. In the Kingdom of the Blind (I admit to being one of them), the one-eyed man is King...You and George will have to fight for the crown!