Wound repair (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, April 20, 2015, 22:23 (3504 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:It seems to me that Talbott is heading very precisely in the direction of organic panpsychism, and I would like to know how he ties it in with evolutionary innovation. You may interpret the article as a pointer to God, though if I remember rightly from our last discussion about his work, Talbott doesn't mention God anywhere. - I know. It is just like I favor Nagel's writings. Talbott and Nagel raise the very issues that bring me to my conclusions, but they have none, only very important observations.-> dhw quote: Distinguishing this knowing from our own is an important task for the biologist4. There can be no thought of our sort of consciousness in the cell, or in the crab, lizard, mouse, or redwood. And yet there clearly is a form of knowledgeable behavior in the cell. [...].”[/i]-I agree. "A form of knowledgeable behaviour" may simply be following detailed knowledgeable instructions.
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> dhw: [I think this is a very important observation, in the light of the sceptic's refusal to accept terms like cognition, thought, decision-making, which we inevitably equate with our own thought systems. Some people simply cannot conceive that there might be other ways of autonomous thinking and communicating and planning and decision-making, and so they embrace the increasingly discredited mechanistic interpretation of organic behaviour.]-And I've shown you the answer which supports my position.
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> dhw: Now the relevant quotes from a different article:-> •	Organisms Are Not Machines | Philosophy for Real Life - Bill Meacham 
> http://www.bmeacham.com/blog/?p=1171
> 
> QUOTE: “I cannot do justice to Talbott's article in this short summary. I urge you to read it yourself. The upshot is that organisms are not machines and it is a mistake to think of them as if they were. But if they are not machine-like, what are they? How do they function?-> Talbott's account of organisms contains themes remarkably similar to the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, which asserts that (a) process is better taken than substance as the most fundamental concept pertaining to all of reality and (b) everything has an aspect of mind as well as matter.”-> 
> dhw: You could hardly have a clearer exposition of how intelligent cells cooperate to create an organism or organism that unifies their intelligences. I'm glad Talbott is one of your favourite authors.-I've explained why above. He asks questions to which I have answers satisfactory to me. I have the right to my own interpretations of the evidence.