Another view of Leonard Peikoff

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What do you mean by "seed of awareness?" Do you mean some sort of proto-awareness? Or do you mean particles with specific properties of action that have the potential to interact in such a way for awareness to emerge? It seems as though you are suggesting the former.

Paul,

I was not characterizing my views. I was describing the views of others.

If you start with the premise that new and complex things "emerge," such a thing has to emerge from something (or somethings) else that has a causal connection to it. Either that or it has to pop up out of itself (or out of nothing). Those are the only two alternatives I can see starting from that premise.

The second one's inconvenient because it's hard to pop up out of yourself when you didn't exist in the first place to pop up from. But there are those who propose this using lots of big words to make it sound better.

Sometimes they get clever and it gets murky because they try to make "complex interaction" be a causal agent in itself for popping up from nowhere. If things interact simply, no form emerges. If they get complex, this is the cause of the existence of form emerging. Essentially, "complex interaction" is used as the cause for the law of identity, replacing it as a fundamental axiom.

The logical inconsistency here is that the universe, which is all that exists, is capable of producing things that do not belong to the universe until they exist. This means the capacity for newness has to exist, and that being so, there must be some form for it to exist. Let's say the seed of newness is in complexity qua complexity according to that view.

My problem with this is that I consider complexity to be a description of interaction of existents, (a comparative ordinal-like measurement, to be exact) not an existent in its own right that produces causes or forms.

I use the word seed when discussing these matters because it is a good metaphor for the idea of something complex emerging from something (or somethings) simpler with a causal connection.

In my view, you can see from one perspective that the small stuff produces the big stuff, but from the other angle, the big stuff makes the small stuff do what it does. But one does not exist independently of the other. Both exist.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

But these morphic fields? Either (with Ellen S.) they are just mathematical expressions of the inherent developmental forces in things or....enter Tinker Belle. Identity or pixie dust, the ultimate dichotomy!

Confusion reigns. Roger, I'm not understanding how you got that description of my comment about "morphogenetic [not "morphic"] fields" as used in a section I posted from The Ghost in the Machine

He got that from me, in my misreading: The 'morphogenetic field,' noted by Ellen, is an abstraction of the constraints of development -- it is not the constraints itself. It is a mathematical rendering of the constraints, a map or graph. Do you follow that distinction?

Reading that now it seems translated to Slavonic and back. There are morphogenetic field models, and graphical representations, I understand, but I conflated them with the basic biological concept which does contain the concrete cells/area. The distinction I meant to make was between a field with actors (in this case cells) and a reified notion where the field itself is the actor (as in Sheldrake's wacky notion of something extrinsic). I should have underlined that, and not taken the 'rendering' idea so far. Thanks for picking up the error, Ellen, and for the extensive posts above.

Sheldrake says, "Most biologists still regard morphogenetic fields simply as a way of thinking about morphogenesis rather than something that really exists." [see note four on Wiki's 'morphic resonance' page]

Here is vintage Sheldrake to help us see what a morphogenetic field is not (from a great post at Pharyngula which does a good job of explaining the distinction:

The fields organizing the activity of the nervous system are likewise inherited through morphic resonance, conveying a collective, instinctive memory. Each individual both draws upon and contributes to the collective memory of the species. This means that new patterns of behaviour can spread more rapidly than would otherwise be possible. For example, if rats of a particular breed learn a new trick in Harvard, then rats of that breed should be able to learn the same trick faster all over the world, say in Edinburgh and Melbourne. There is already evidence from laboratory experiments (discussed in A NEW SCIENCE OF LIFE) that this actually happens.

The resonance of a brain with its own past states also helps to explain the memories of individual animals and humans. There is no need for all memories to be "stored" inside the brain.

William, thank you for clarifying my post -- and Ellen, apologies for over-simplifying William's earlier references in a way that made it look like your phraseology. :hug:

But no other comments on my post? I thought that it was actually one of the most logical posts I've ever made here on O-L. Did the reductio ad absurdum argument miss ~everyone~? :hmm:

Sure, it may be a little unusual to compare wetness to awareness, and a little tough to wrap your mind around the comparison -- but hey, they're both attributes. And either they both always existed, somewhere, somehow -- e.g., in Plato's eternal World of Forms, or smushed inside the Singularity before the Big Band -- or they ~begin~ to exist at some point in time. I opt for the latter. It makes perfect sense to me, not having existed before my parents conceived me sometime in the fall of 1947. :thumbsup:

Somehow, though, I think some people would object if I compared apples to oranges. I suppose that would be illogical, too. :logik:

reb

[Roger Bissell]

And that is philosophical vaporware.

Right. As is the concept "holon". Has it resulted in any new discovery, in any new scientific insight? The only applications I've seen are New-Age crap like Cosmic Consciousness and conscious atoms. Otherwise it's just a new word for well-known hierarchical relationships.

Actually, Dragonfly, that is a very astute comment. "Holon" is just another term for a node on a hierarchy that is not at the very bottom or the very top of the structure. Any node other than the top one or bottom ones acts as subordinate to, or a part of, the ones above it and superordinate to, or a whole to, the ones below it.

Hierarchical analysis of such things as musical structure has yielded insights about how we create and appreciate music, but that kind of analysis is certainly possible without the term "holon." I did a term paper in graduate school in which I used the concept of a "holon" in discussing a number of points Koestler made that were relevant to music theory and analysis, but I certainly didn't ~have~ to use the ~term~.

REB

[Paul Mawdsley]

Michael,

I've read your post 3 times now. Each time I think I am getting a little closer to forming images that resonate with what you say. I can't help but find myself drawing on my reading of David Bohm's implicate and explicate orders (see here) to try to understand what you are talking about. While an implicit form of top-down thinking exists in my own causal modeling, my categorical thought in general is not as well developed as my causal thinking, and I am definitely not well practiced in top-down categorical thinking.

I struggled with Bohm's ideas on implicate order in a way that I experience as similar to how I am struggling with what you are saying. My assumption with what you are saying is the same as it was with what Bohm was saying: there is intelligence and insight in your perspective that is worth the effort of trying to see through your lens. This is not to say that I will agree when I see it but I won't be able to judge until I can see it and place it in the context of my own views.

I think the two complementary ways of thinking, top-down and bottom-up, are connected to two complementary ways of conceiving the nature of causation. Causality can be conceived as a local, linear phenomenon or it can be conceived as a non-local, non-linear phenomenon. What a thing does can be viewed as being the result of the response of its identity to the individual local action of other things or it can be viewed as being the result of the response of its identity to the holistic form of the ordered systems of which it is a part. It can be viewed as an "atom" interacting with other "atoms" or as the node in a web of relationships that make up an interconnected system or field. Both types of causation are real. Both shape our world. The first is the causation of bottom-up processing. The second is the causation of top-down processing. They create a duality of perspectives, a duality of lenses. But reality cannot be fully understood without integrating the two perspective into a single worldview. I think this is what you are saying.

Could this second concept of causation possibly be part of the missing information necessary to shape the universe in your view? Is node-to-field non-linear, non-local causation the missing element in current models of existence that see only local, linear causation taken to complexity? I've talked about this before but found no interest from anyone in discussing it. Is this part of what is beneath your disturbance with exclusively bottom-up views?

Paul

[Paul Mawdsley]

"Holon" is just another term for a node on a hierarchy that is not at the very bottom or the very top of the structure. Any node other than the top one or bottom ones acts as subordinate to, or a part of, the ones above it and superordinate to, or a whole to, the ones below it.

Thanks for the "Aha!" moment Roger. It fits with my own language.

Paul

[Ellen Stuttle]

But these morphic fields? Either (with Ellen S.) they are just mathematical expressions of the inherent developmental forces in things or....enter Tinker Belle. Identity or pixie dust, the ultimate dichotomy!

Confusion reigns. Roger, I'm not understanding how you got that description of my comment about "morphogenetic [not "morphic"] fields" as used in a section I posted from The Ghost in the Machine

He got that from me, in my misreading: The 'morphogenetic field,' noted by Ellen, is an abstraction of the constraints of development -- it is not the constraints itself. It is a mathematical rendering of the constraints, a map or graph. Do you follow that distinction?

Reading that now it seems translated to Slavonic and back. There are morphogenetic field models, and graphical representations, I understand, but I conflated them with the basic biological concept which does contain the concrete cells/area. The distinction I meant to make was between a field with actors (in this case cells) and a reified notion where the field itself is the actor (as in Sheldrake's wacky notion of something extrinsic). I should have underlined that, and not taken the 'rendering' idea so far. Thanks for picking up the error, Ellen, and for the extensive posts above.

Ah. I didn't track the intervening stage, i.e., your post.

Correct, the "basic biological concept" refers to "the concrete cells/area," an area of cells which, during a certain stage of development, can be physically cut out from one place and transferred to another where it will develop into the organ it would have developed into in its original site. (There will be subsequent problems with the re-located organ's development because subsequent stages won't proceed and connect as they would have in the original locale, but the biological reality illustrated is the relative self-containment of embryonic areas which during a certain stage of embryogenesis proceed on their slated path wherever they're positioned in the "epigenetic landscape.")

Sheldrake says, "Most biologists still regard morphogenetic fields simply as a way of thinking about morphogenesis rather than something that really exists." [see note four on Wiki's 'morphic resonance' page]

Here is vintage Sheldrake to help us see what a morphogenetic field is not (from a great post at Pharyngula which does a good job of explaining the distinction:

Sheldrake's co-opting of the term and subsequent wafty confusing the meaning of an originally sensible and useful biological term...I find teeth-gnashingly irritating.

Ellen

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Edited August 17, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

William, thank you for clarifying my post -- and Ellen, apologies for over-simplifying William's earlier references in a way that made it look like your phraseology. :hug:

"All clear now." (An announcement I can't think of without remembering the sounds of how it's enunciated in the original movie of "The Time Machine.")

But no other comments on my post? I thought that it was actually one of the most logical posts I've ever made here on O-L. Did the reductio ad absurdum argument miss ~everyone~? :hmm:

It didn't miss me, but I didn't have time to say anything about it.

Sure, it may be a little unusual to compare wetness to awareness, and a little tough to wrap your mind around the comparison -- but hey, they're both attributes. And either they both always existed, somewhere, somehow -- e.g., in Plato's eternal World of Forms, or smushed inside the Singularity before the Big Band -- or they ~begin~ to exist at some point in time. I opt for the latter.

I likewise opt for the latter, in a way -- a way which is complicated by my being far from convinced that there was a Big Band [sic] ;-) But even on the assumption that there wasn't, I'd say that wetness developed -- many times many wheres -- and that awareness evolved at least once somewhere. Further complexifying, I don't think of "awareness" as a unitary attribute but as a range and amalgam of attributes, present in different degrees and forms in different animalian species (which is why I liked Michael's term "awarenesses" which he suggested earlier on a different thread.)

Ellen

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Edited August 17, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] "Holon" is just another term for a node on a hierarchy that is not at the very bottom or the very top of the structure. Any node other than the top one or bottom ones acts as subordinate to, or a part of, the ones above it and superordinate to, or a whole to, the ones below it.

That's what the term was as Koestler coined it. That's not all it's become, however, as Wilber elaborated it. Thus I think that today, whatever historic usefulness Koestler's usage had when he coined the term (1967), the term is no longer helpful to clarity; today it's too infused and fuzzed up with Wilber's New Age mysticism coloration to be useful (for scientific purposes; for vague, feel-enlightened purposes, it's a great candidate).

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Is node-to-field non-linear, non-local causation the missing element in current models of existence that see only local, linear causation taken to complexity? I've talked about this before but found no interest from anyone in discussing it. [....]

Paul

That post is the first I've felt a sense of really getting what you're talking about. I'm not sure if my usual problem following you is because of a substantive difference in what's being "visualized," or if instead the problem is because I don't, typically, "see" what you're talking about past your ways of description. This time I felt that I saw it. We'll see -- different meaning -- how things progress. ;-)

Ellen

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[kiaer.ts]

Having noticed the use of Rupert Sheldrake's name here (in which thread do we discuss Alistair Crowley?) I immediately thought of sympathetic magic. That subject and the "teaching" of Rupert Sheldrake overlaps so closely one might think they were governed by a common morphogenetic field. Yet, looking up Sheldrake and sympathetic magic, I see that they use entirely different terms to indicate the exact same concepts, and neither page references the other. It's almost as if the residents of Lucifer and of Venus each had their own web pages, yet never spoke of or linked to each other.

[Dragonfly]

But no other comments on my post? I thought that it was actually one of the most logical posts I've ever made here on O-L. Did the reductio ad absurdum argument miss ~everyone~? :hmm:

No, in fact I tried to elaborate on your comparison with wetness in my posts #289 and #295 to make it more clear for those who missed the point of your post.

Sure, it may be a little unusual to compare wetness to awareness, and a little tough to wrap your mind around the comparison -- but hey, they're both attributes. And either they both always existed, somewhere, somehow -- e.g., in Plato's eternal World of Forms, or smushed inside the Singularity before the Big Band -- or they ~begin~ to exist at some point in time. I opt for the latter. It makes perfect sense to me, not having existed before my parents conceived me sometime in the fall of 1947. :thumbsup:

Well, I think you could say that it always "existed" in a Platonic realm as an inherent potentiality, in the same way as the numbers in the decimal expansion of π exist in a Platonic realm: whenever someone will calculate those values, he'll always get the same result. So some superbrain who knew the fundamental physical laws of our universe could in principle deduce from those laws the possible existence of wetness or of awareness. However, this potentiality is of course not an actual existence of those attributes, atoms and molecules are not "a bit wet" or "a bit aware".

[tjohnson]

...in the same way as the numbers in the decimal expansion of π exist in a Platonic realm: whenever someone will calculate those values, he'll always get the same result.

Yes, the relationship between the circumference of a circle and it's diameter would seem to be timeless, for example. Similarly with the relation e.

[tjohnson]

But how can a concept have a referent? Isn't having referents something only words can have?

GS,

I suggest you consult any one of about 50 bazillion posts on threads you have participated in for the explanation of the difference between concept and word, and how referents relate to concepts. I don't feel like repeating something so elementary and so often explained. Please use the search function if you are confused, or you could read ITOE one day...

Michael

It was a rhetorical question. A concept cannot have a referent.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A concept cannot have a referent.

GS,

(sigh)

There you go again..

A concept is valid only if it has a referent. So there. Nyeh!

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] prehension can only exist in very complex structures as these are the basis of the necessary information processing. A brain can think, a single firing neuron cannot think. Complexity is the fundamental element in sentience and prehension.

I agree that a complex nervous system is required for "thinking" -- a term which I don't limit to human cognitive function. But I don't agree with the theory that "complexity" is the key to the emergence of awareness(es). I think that motility, with consequent action-alternatives, is. I'm working on a book presenting this thesis. I had the amused thought just last night, after I'd been reminded of Michael's "awarenesses," that Origin of Awarenesses would be a good title for the book. However, I already have a title which I like a lot and expect I'll use.

Ellen

PS: And, no, Mike Hardy, and others who might ask, I won't reveal the expected title at this time.

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[Dragonfly]

I agree that a complex nervous system is required for "thinking" -- a term which I don't limit to human cognitive function. But I don't agree with the theory that "complexity" is the key to the emergence of awareness(es).

Let's say it's a condicio sine qua non.

[Ellen Stuttle]

I agree that a complex nervous system is required for "thinking" -- a term which I don't limit to human cognitive function. But I don't agree with the theory that "complexity" is the key to the emergence of awareness(es).

Let's say it's a condicio sine qua non.

But if we did say that, wouldn't we have to say that a bacterium has no shred of awareness? Or a worm?

Another way of asking: Where, phylogenetically, would you say awareness (including just olfactory* and/or tactile awareness and/or dim discernment of light and dark) starts?

E-

* I'm not meaning by "olfactory" a full-blown sense of smell -- "chemical" would be the generic term for the sense modality; it includes "taste" and "olfaction" and with some creatures a skin sensitivity to chemical concentrations.

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Edited August 17, 2008 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] (in which thread do we discuss Alistair Crowley?) [...].

In whichever thread someone wants to start discussing him. ;-) (He's an interesting subject.)

Ellen

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[Roger Bissell]

But no other comments on my post? I thought that it was actually one of the most logical posts I've ever made here on O-L. Did the reductio ad absurdum argument miss ~everyone~? :hmm:

No, in fact I tried to elaborate on your comparison with wetness in my posts #289 and #295 to make it more clear for those who missed the point of your post.

Good. You didn't explicitly note the reductio (which I didn't either, of course), which was intended to argue that either ~all~ attributes always existed -- consciousness and wetness, alike -- or that all attributes existed only when entities existed that possessed them. It was inspired, I will admit, by Plato's attempt at a reductio of the Forms themselves when one of his characters argued that there must be a Form for dirt, and another character argued that there could only be Forms for good things. (I am the 21st century stand-in for the guy who argued that if there are Forms at all, dirt, too, must be a Form, as different and mundane as it is in comparison to noble things such as horseness or justice.

I ~did~ see and appreciate your attempts to clarify the comparison of wetness and consciousness, and I thank you for that effort. It made perfect sense to me.

Sure, it may be a little unusual to compare wetness to awareness, and a little tough to wrap your mind around the comparison -- but hey, they're both attributes. And either they both always existed, somewhere, somehow -- e.g., in Plato's eternal World of Forms, or smushed inside the Singularity before the Big Band -- or they ~begin~ to exist at some point in time. I opt for the latter. It makes perfect sense to me, not having existed before my parents conceived me sometime in the fall of 1947. :thumbsup:

Well, I think you could say that it always "existed" in a Platonic realm as an inherent potentiality, in the same way as the numbers in the decimal expansion of π exist in a Platonic realm: whenever someone will calculate those values, he'll always get the same result. So some superbrain who knew the fundamental physical laws of our universe could in principle deduce from those laws the possible existence of wetness or of awareness. However, this potentiality is of course not an actual existence of those attributes, atoms and molecules are not "a bit wet" or "a bit aware".

Yes, exactly. Again, thank you.

REB

[Dragonfly]

But if we did say that, wouldn't we have to say that a bacterium has no shred of awareness? Or a worm?

Do you realize what an incredibly complex machine a bacterium or a worm in fact is, even if they look rather simple? Sure, it doesn't seem to be much compared to the complexity of a human being, but then the level and range of its awareness aren't in the same ballpark either.

Another way of asking: Where, phylogenetically, would you say awareness (including just olfactory* and/or tactile awareness and/or dim discernment of light and dark) starts?

That kind of awareness you'll find already in bacteria, perhaps even in viruses, but a biologist will be better qualified to judge that.

[Paul Mawdsley]

Is node-to-field non-linear, non-local causation the missing element in current models of existence that see only local, linear causation taken to complexity? I've talked about this before but found no interest from anyone in discussing it. [....]

Paul

That post is the first I've felt a sense of really getting what you're talking about. I'm not sure if my usual problem following you is because of a substantive difference in what's being "visualized," or if instead the problem is because I don't, typically, "see" what you're talking about past your ways of description. This time I felt that I saw it. We'll see -- different meaning -- how things progress. ;-)

Ellen

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Ellen,

That's encouraging! From this end, I sense we are not too out of sync on the level of visualization. I am causal modeling strong but categorical thinking and communication challenged. My goal is to improve both of these weaknesses by reading more canonical works that have shaped the categories of our culture and the language people have come to connect to their images. To date, I have read surprisingly little.

Let's see how things go.

Paul

[william.scherk]

[in context, I spoke of the utility of Holonics as a form of pattern-seeking, as a guide to inquiry, as a recognition of the relationships and forces and interdependencies that wick and weave through our world.] I reject that holons are something apart in another realm from their constituents, existing timelessly, and exerting an independent force as holons. This is what Sheldrake and Wilber put forth, and which I reject.

I reject this too, just as I would reject (to paraphrase) that the nature of subparticles is something apart in another realm from the subparticles themselves, existing timelessly, and exerting an independent force as "will to emerge and bind or repel" once it attaches to them or something like that.

Fair enough, and glad to hear it!

Yet subparticles do have identifiable natures, they do bind and repel and forms do emerge from them, and likewise whole systems have their own nature and this nature causes things to happen, even to subparticles.

I agree with this in general terms . . . so, for example, a whole system like a embodied mind/brain can cause things to happen, like for example changes in electrical potential in neurons.

If you claim that something comes from nothing, like awareness did not exist until it "emerged" as some kind of miracle with no relation to the inanimate matter that engendered it, that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts just because the extra part springs into existence somehow, you step outside of causality.

I don't recognize the claim "something comes from nothing" in relation to 'awareness.' Who has made this claim -- that awareness (in living things) has no relation to the inanimate matter that engendered it? Is this from the 'emergence people'?

Using a very 'primitive,' simple form of life as an example, is there a continuum of 'awareness' to your mind? Does it do violence to your argument to use the primitive awareness of a bacteria as an illustration, or need we move up in terms of complexity to 'self-conscious awareness' in primates? Perhaps you could expand on your meaning of 'awareness' or let us know if you mean consciousness. I mention this distinction only because it could well be argued that simple animal life forms have developed an 'awareness' by way of neurons (I am thinking of the studies in Aplysia by Kandel) and it seems to me that this is far from miraculous in the sense of otherworldly.

[william.scherk]

... The only difference between that kind of thinking and Wilber's is that the emergence people consider the force to come from the bottom up and Wilber considers it to come from the top down.

... I said nothing about emergence, let alone 'emergence people,' and I have no idea who you mean . . .

"Emergence people" is merely a layman's way of saying people who think emergence is the sole cause of form on an ontological level—that all the variety of forms in the universe ultimately emerged from one tiny thing whose nature is unknown, so to speak.

Hmmm. There are a number of ideas to unpack here. First, establish the reference to "that kind of thinking." What was removed from the 'emergence people' line was this phrase upon which your remarks stand: "I find the whole concept of emergence to "imply a force, not merely a pattern. The only difference between . . . "

See, I was talking about the difference between a heuristic and a reification. You then appeared to see a difference between 'emergence people's thinking and Ken Wilber's. And where I further get caught in the net is where your remarks seem to imply that some unnamed people have stopped using 'emergence' as a heuristic, and reified it into an independent actor.

Perhaps you have misinterpreted emergence, or made some illicit inferences. That is why it would help if you could dig up some of these people so we can see if you have fairly characterized their thinking.

Anyway, on to parse the rest . . .

Form on an ontological level. Emergence posits a 'force from the bottom.' Emergence is the sole cause of form (ontological). Some people think emergence is the sole cause of form.

I can't imagine who these people are, or where they say such things. And I don't know where the force-from-bottom people conflict with Wilber's force-from-top. If I recall correctly, you were commenting on my qualification that holon is (in Wilber's cosmology) reified into a thing in and of itself -- "not merely as a pattern observed, but as an ineffable nudger of ever-present reality along proper grooves."

That is the force of the holon where I take issue -- existing independently of the part/whole organism. The point I further made, Michael that with Wilber the holon becomes a separable 'morphic field' not merely a heuristic.

I don't mean to be repetitive but it is important for me to lay out the points I put under discussion. Again, Wilber/Sheldrake agree on morphic fields, that this is how a separable 'force' builds holons. Not as a heuristic tool or an abstraction, as with Koestler and evo-devo, but as a thing in itself -- a field, a force, energy and information.

Thus my objections to Wilberian/Sheldrakian extensions of holon . . . here's Wilber describing what I reject:

Note that, in my view, these various fields include not only morphic or morphogenetic fields, as described by Sheldrake, but also various energy fields (gross energy, subtle energy, and causal energy, as we will see in Excerpt D, "Subtle Energy"--where I will further suggest that the various morphic fields are actually subtle energy fields. [link]

!!!

As for all forms having emerged from one tiny thing . . . what one tiny thing? If some people say that all forms emerged from one tiny thing, who are they? And if they think that the unnamed one tiny thing has an unknown nature, again, I want to see this laid out somewhere. I want to find out where an ineffable, extrinsic force is assumed to guide development -- in the thinking of the 'emergence people.'

Edited August 17, 2008 by william.scherk

[Ellen Stuttle]

But if we did say that [that complexity is "a condicio sine qua non" -- see], wouldn't we have to say that a bacterium has no shred of awareness? Or a worm?

Do you realize what an incredibly complex machine a bacterium or a worm in fact is, even if they look rather simple?

As a matter of fact, yes I do, but I would never have guessed that you were talking about complexity such as is found in a bacterium or a worm from your earlier comment to which I replied:

[...] prehension can only exist in very complex structures as these are the basis of the necessary information processing. A brain can think, a single firing neuron cannot think. Complexity is the fundamental element in sentience and prehension.

You sound there as if you're positing that a brain is required for any awareness to occur. Apparently this isn't what you meant, but I can't read your mind and figure out that you actually mean something different than you seem to be saying. Apparently -- if I interpret you correctly now -- you're only claiming that the complexity of being a life form (including, possibly, a viral form) is a requisite. I wouldn't disagree with that.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And where I further get caught in the net is where your remarks seem to imply that some unnamed people have stopped using 'emergence' as a heuristic, and reified it into an independent actor.

William,

They have. The say "complexity" is the fundamental driving force in emergence. Complexity is the cause of new forms in this vew, not a description of them. They don't use this language, but that's the gist.

I don't have time to read a whole lot of scientific stuff right now to dig up quotes, but they are abundant if you look for this view.

The point I further made, Michael that with Wilber the holon becomes a separable 'morphic field' not merely a heuristic.

I don't care for this term "heuristic." Why not just say speculation?

I don't care for terms like "morphic field" either. I personally consider holon to be axiomatic, like in fundamental axiom. It is related to the law of identity and confirmed by induction (which is the only way I have seen axioms ever confirmed). You see enough of 'em and you say they exist. Saying "morphic field" for holon is like saying identity is a field or existence is a field or even particle is a field.

Just as particle is what happens when things break apart, holon is what happens when they come together.

As for all forms having emerged from one tiny thing . . . what one tiny thg?

Most of the scientific literature I have read about it refers to a "singularity." That term is mostly used in cosmology, but the meaning is always clear in the works I have read. The all encompassing singularity is our ancestor according to this "heuristic." I thought you were familiar with this.

Michael