Hi William R. Buckley On one level, you're right, but I think biological causation is different from what we might think of in a physical or chemical sense.
For example, semen can unite with an egg to form (cause) a fetus, but that would be quite different from the collision of two billiard balls. In the semen/egg case, some (biological) intelligence is involved, whereas only physical momentum is transferred between the two billiard balls. IMHO biological causation involves mind, which has no first cause in the Aristotelian sense. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 8/31/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: William R. Buckley Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-31, 09:50:03 Subject: RE: Non-causal evolution and the innate intelligence of life. Roger: I rather think you can find many examples of causal, deterministic behavior in biological context. The behavior of ATP Synthase is a case in point. You humble opinion is true that, just an opinion. Observed behavior and good old fashioned measurements strongly suggest you are wrong. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger Clough Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 5:40 AM To: everything-list Subject: Non-causal evolution and the innate intelligence of life. Hi William R. Buckley IMHO, stemming from the absence of self from materialistic philosophy, the materialistic view of life is essentially causal, similar to the billiard ball example. This is nonsense. Life is not causal and is not deterministic any more than Congress is causal. Life is more accurately described as an infinite set of representative governments, (monads), each with a local representative and a constitution it is expected to obey. And plans and desires for the future. So IMHO evolution is not random, it is self-guided and goal-directed. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 8/31/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: William R. Buckley Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-30, 16:27:53 Subject: RE: Two reasons why computers IMHO cannot exhibit intelligence Bruno: I rather take issue with the notion that the living cell is not controlled by the genome. As biosemioticians (like Marcello Barbieri) teach us, there are a number of codes used in biological context, and each has a governing or controlling function within the corresponding context. The genome is clearly at the top of this hierarchy, with Natural Selection and mutational variation being higher-level controls on genome. Readability I think is well understood in terms of interactions between classes of molecules – ATP generation for one is rather well understood these days. Programmers (well experienced professionals) are especially sensitive to context issues. wrb From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:12 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Two reasons why computers IMHO cannot exhibit intelligence On 29 Aug 2012, at 20:09, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 1:22:38 PM UTC-4, William R. Buckley wrote: Cells are indeed controlled by software (as represented in wetware form – i.e. DNA). It isn't really clear exactly what controls what in a living cell. I can say that cars are controlled by traffic signals, clocks, and calendars. To whatever we ascribe control, we only open up another level of unexplained control beneath it. What makes DNA readable to a ribosome? What makes anything readable to anything? Encoding and decoding, or application and abstraction, or addition and multiplication, ... Sense is irreducible. >From the first person perspective. Yes. For machine's too. No software can control anything, even itself, unless something has the power to make sense of it as software and the power to execute that sense within itself as causally efficacious motive. This seems to me like justifying the persistence of the physical laws by invoking God. It is too quick gap filling for me, and does not explain anything, as relying on fuzzy vague use of words. I might find sense there, but in the context of criticizing mechanism, I find that suspicious, to be frank. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
