Howard, How about the process metaphor? I argue that one cannot move from "objects moving according to unchanging laws" to life in any meaningful way. The notion of life as "a configuration of processes" seems to attract some attention, however.
Here's my latest paper on the subject: <https://www.cbl.umces.edu/~ulan/pubs/ProcStud.pdf> Cheers, Bob P.S. As for consciousness, the image of a neural coherence domain seems to me to roughly approximate the phenomenon. > > brilliant summation, Pedro. > > we are missing the metaphors with which to explain the difference between > death and life or between smart communities like bacterial colonies and > consciousness. > > in The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, i tell the tale of the > origin of the term "emergent property." But, alas, over 140 years after > the > concept's introduction, we still lack the tools that would help us > understand life and consciousness in scientific ways. > > i suspect the key will come from adding to the bottom up vocabulary of > reductionism by looking at top down approaches. and i suspect that > certain > emergent properties are possibilities of the cosmos waiting for matter to > find them. very a la wagner in his Arrival of the Fittest. > > but if emergent properties exist in an implicit future, in possibility > space, how did they get there? a hint: god is not the answer. god is a > way > of dodging the question. > > i've hit all these issues in The God Problem. and i ache for the new > metaphors. > > with warmth and oomph--howard > ---------- > Howard Bloom _______________________________________________ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
