All,
I would like to appeal for some help from The List with the chapter we are
reading this week in the Emergence Seminar. One of the central assertions of
the author is that quantum mechanics put the British Emergentists out of
business by making "configurational" forces seem unlikely. He goes on to say
that "the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA ... make[s] the main
doctrines of Britsh emergentism, so far as ...the biological [is] concerned,
seem enormously implausible." (McLaughlin, 2009, p. 23).
Now here is my problem: everything that I understand about contemporary
Evo/devo seems to make the structure of biological molecules (DNA, RNA, and
proteins) central to our understanding of biological development. Thus, to me,
these discoveries make emergentism (if not the British kind) seem dramatically
MORE plausible. If all the consequences of the folding and unfolding of
proteins, etc., do not constitute effects of "configurational forces" then what
the dickens are they?
Can anybody help me with this paradox????
I have forwarded this comment to the Author and, if he doesn't object, will
forward any remarks he may have back to you.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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