James Barham 5 (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 19, 2015, 23:07 (3383 days ago) @ David Turell

In this essay he attempts to explain life as an emergent property run by intelligent agency:-http://jamesabarham.com/my-blog/38-seeing-past-darwin-v-life-and-emergence-"In contrast to what happens inside a machine, everything that goes on within a living being possesses an inherent purpose---namely, maintaining the organism in existence. That is the essential difference between living and nonliving things.-"And that, above all, is what requires scientific explanation.-"The pseudo-explanation of natural selection has blinded us to the importance of functional stability for too long. But the phenomenon is there, right in front of our eyes---both in the massive coherence and coordination of the biochemistry of life, and in the amazing adaptivity of living things to perturbation.-"All the empirical evidence points to the existence of a fundamental power of intelligent agency underlying life. All we have to do is throw aside our mental blinders and look.-"This does not mean that we currently possess the conceptual resources to explain intelligent agency as an emergent property of the living state of matter. It does mean that we need to start trying to develop such resources, if we ever wish to understand life and evolution in a fundamental way."