Steven, Thanks for this pointer: http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/religion-06.pdf
As expected, Koch here admits that his neuroscientific theories are inconsistent with the beliefs of his religious tradition, that he still feels sentimentally attached to that tradition, and that he nevertheless feels bound to "explain away" miracle stories because he assigns greater truth value to the scientific view. Of course Koch is by no means a deep philosophical thinker, especially compared to Peirce ... The upshot is that i still have no idea what you could mean by "the magic of today's emergence and identity theories." Apparently it's *not* a joke on your part ... could you perhaps explain why you think Koch's sympathy with a religious orientation predisposes him to accept a theory which he declares to be inconsistent with that orientation? I must confess that the logic of this escapes me. Perhaps your own sympathies lie more with the "quantum consciousness" camp (the original subject of this thread)? And since Koch is completely opposed to that, you are moved to dismiss his views as "magical"? -- But that still wouldn't explain why you describe Koch's anti-holistic view as an "emergence and identity theory", or indeed what that term is supposed to signify. gary }Judge people by truth, not truth by people. [Al-Ghazali]{ gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson & Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University }{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{ --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com