http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zv0wk/metamorphosis-the-science-of-change

http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/04/mutual-aid-factor-of-evolution.html

re Dennett

I’m partial to a bit of panpsychism. This need not be incompatible with a more nuanced physicalism than Dennett’s. As I mentioned on a previous thread, there is a paper by Galen Strawson in the Journal of Consciousness Studies entitled ‘Does physicalism entail panpsychism?’ which also includes replies to his critics individually.

For those more inclined to the quantum side of things, I would recommend checking out the ideas of Henry Stapp as well as Stuart Kauffman’s. I find both of these more promising and better thought out than the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR theory – from a layman’s perspective, that is.

This is relevant and worth a read. I find Dennett’s reduction of the manifest image to the scientific one incomplete and falls short of being convincing, but he is clear and sets out a vision worth understanding. For me it assumes too sharp a subject-object dualism, and an animate-inanimate one too, matter, I suspect, is even more complex than our current theories allow, more active and open to possibility than mechanistic and deterministic concepts recognise, more tied to past necessities as particulars than simple universals suggest, more open to particular possibilities that are often unique and never repeated.

Hi David,

A free offer for you. I will update your Twitter feed and be your social media manager free of charge. drop me a line at billriley77@hotmail.co.uk if you are interested in discussing it further.

Perhaps it is in some ways a work of science fiction, like the book I read many years ago which apparently took Stanley G. Weinbaum fifteen years to write. It is called ” The New Adam “, & tells the tale of a sudden jump in evolution which produces a cerebral superman. The thing that intrigued me about it was that eventually the guy was hunted down & I think condemned to death, which led him to tell the woman he loved that the universe is infinite & that someday everything would happen again, but slightly differently & they would once again be together, while in the meantime being dead, time would have no meaning.

Buddhist re-birth & Neitzsche’s eternal recurrence are also perhaps part of an effort to cheat death as would be the whole Multiverse theory. The thought that there are trillions of us out there is troubling, especially when thinking about Tony Blair, but it might make more sense if they were stretched out through infinity as different versions of this universe.

Anyhow, as usual as they say over here, I am probably losing the run of myself. I do like the musical aspect of String theory – the whole universe being some kind of unbelievably complex symphony. Hugh Everett of the Many World’s theory had a son named Mark who until educated by Max Tegmark, had no idea of his father’s work & had no aptitude to follow him. He is actually the leader of a successful rock band who composed this short piece, which I think kind of fits with the spirit of ” Why are we here “.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOu5R6FOzS4

So much going on, that Time Flies, truly.

I was thinking about your Pop on the 13th
saying how fast the last two years have gone by.

Cheers,

S. Rex