On 07 Feb 2009, at 04:47, Kim Jones wrote:
> (see Broukčre 1982),
It is (see de Brouckčre 1982) Note the "c", and the "de".
>
> Phenomena of genetic regulation with regard to mechanism are
> eloquent [elegant?=poss. error:] Kim)
It is "eloquent" (indeed). Perhaps it would be clearer to say:
"Phenomena of genetic regulation are eloquent with regard to Mechanism".
Mechanism is "Mechanist Philosophy" and so a capital M is better
suited (I am afraid that you are not just translating my 1994 thesis,
but you are correcting it ! Well, don't worry, this can be done at a
second pass.
I have no other remark. Excellent job. I guess that now I have not
escape but to seriously introduce you to math for respecting the deal.
Good move Kim :)
This will be done asap, through little posts. The plan is: Numbers
==> functions ===> computable functions ===> computations ===> the
seventh step (of the UDA).
Best,
Bruno
> (Jacob and Monod 1961, Thomas 1978, Thomas and van Ham 1974).
>
> Here again is what Diderot said in his conversation with d'Alembert,
> in confronting Cartesian mechanism and the development of the embryo:
>
> "Do you see this egg? With this, one can upend every school of
> theology and every temple on Earth. What is this egg? Before the
> germ (of life) is introduced, no more than an insensate mass; and
> after it's introduction, what is it then? An insensate mass, since
> the germ itself is but an inert and coarse fluid. How might this
> mass progress to another form of organisation, toward the sensation
> of feeling, toward life itself? By warmth. What produces this
> warmth? Movement. What will be the successive effects of movements?
> Instead of my response, sit here and together we will follow these
> movements from moment to moment. Starting with a point that
> oscillates, a thread that extends and gathers colour, to the flesh
> which forms; a beak, tiny wing-ends, eyes, feet appear; a yellow-
> tinged matter that divides and which produces intestines; behold an
> animal. An animal that moves, becomes agitated, sounds its voice; I
> hear its squawking through the shell; it grows its downy coat; it
> sees. The weight of its head, which bobs back and forth, unceasingly
> brings its beak against the inner rampart of its prison; this now
> breaks; it leaves, it walks, it flies, it registers irritation, it
> flees, it returns, it complains, it suffers, it loves, it desires,
> it experiences joy; it possesses each of your affects; all of your
> actions, it can perform them all. Can you claim, with Descartes that
> it is no more than a purely imitative machine? In that case, tiny
> children laugh at you with derision and the philosophers' rejoinder
> is that if such is a machine, then you are but another." {footnote 6}
>
> (Footnote 6: We note here the essentially modernist mindset of
> Diderot who places the animal on the same rung as the human, thus
> rejecting Descartes' distinction. In general, with the notable
> exception of La Mettrie, mechanism will face a poor reception. This
> brings to mind Pascal's argument. This genre of "argument" is not
> all that far from what Turing called "head in the sand objection"
> qualifying more as "consolation" than refutation. (Turing 1950)
>
> The contemporary biologist may surmise that - relative to the laws
> of chemistry - the problem of biological reproduction is solved. The
> discovery by biochemists and molecular geneticists of the plan or
> description of the cell and the fashion by which this map is
> chemically represented, decoded and executed within the organism
> constitutes cause for the application of the Principle of Unique
> Reassembly, the Determining Principle and the Limiting Hierachical
> Principle (this last appearing already with classical genetics, see
> Cuny 1969). In the same way, the older discovery of the importance
> of particle exchanges with the surrounding environment or between
> organisms - as happens during breathing, during digestion, during
> conception, favours the application of the Locality Principle (Van
> Helmont, Mendel, Lavoisier, Vesale - to cite the more well known
> ones; see de Broukčre 1982, Ambroselli et al 1987, Vesale 1543).
>
> 1.1.5 Doubts Arising from Chemistry
>
> Watson has said "the cell obeys the laws of chemistry", and the
> preceding incentives perhaps justify a belief in indexical mechanism
> relative to those laws. If these laws prove themselves to be non-
> mechanisable, mechanism will thereby find itself weakened, perhaps
> even refuted but certainly relativised.
>
> This suggestion is all the more well-founded in that the laws of
> chemistry are captured by quantum mechanics. Despite its name
> ("mechanics" is here used in the Newtonian sense), philosophers and
> theologians are attracted to QM and see in the factual descriptions
> (up to here confirmed) of this theory an empirical justification of
> the non-mechanist nature of the world and/or of consciousness.
> {footnote 7}
>
> (Footnote 7: Letovski 1987 takes up a (too?) rare encounter between
> cognitivists open to computational approaches to consciousness and
> neuroscientists open to the use of QM to resolve the brain/mind gap.)
>
> Anti-mechanist arguments founded on QM are various. We shall briefly
> examine several:
>
> a) The oldest argument: QM provides evidence of an intrinsic
> indeterminism in the world (or more precisely concerning the
> relations between the observer and the world. Mechanism is
> determinist. Thus, our relation to the world is not mechanist.
>
> Those who use this argument are tempted to "explain" such a free
> interpretation by means of this indeterminism. This argument has
> already been refuted by Carnap or Mackay or Schroedinger. In
> addition, I will show that mechanism *is not* determinist.
>
> a) The most recent argument: QM makes possible very particular forms
> of material, for example the quasi-crystals of Penrose and Schectman
> (see Penrose 1989). Penrose suggests, though without any seeming
> conviction, that the brain could be a *sort* of quasi-crystal.
> Similarly, Margenau 1984 and Squires 1990 seek to utilise QM to
> develop a dualist and non-mechanist theory of the mind (see also
> Stapp 1993).
>
> The following arguments merit close and detailed examination since
> the (indexical) mechanist hypothesis considerably clarifies them. To
> this end, I will make use of a bare minimum of assumed quantum
> mechanical knowledge to allow the reader to follow the argument.
>
> Newton conceived of matter and light as constituted of particles
> interacting with one another. Huygens was more prepared to reserve
> this way of seeing things for matter alone. He develops a successful
> wave theory of light which takes account of a number of luminous
> phenomena. Einstein will provide evidence, in his work on the photo-
> electric effect, of the corpuscular aspect of light, without
> dethroning the wave theory in the process. He also arrives at the
> quantum theory of light. De Broglie extends the wave-particle aspect
> of light to matter. This permits the taking into account of the
> behaviour of electrons in Bohr's description of atoms and signals
> the birth of the quantum theory of matter.
>
> (to be cont.)
>
> K
>
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> Email:
>
> kimjones.domain.name.hidden
>
> Web:
> http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music
>
> Phone:
> (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001
>
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> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Mon Feb 09 2009 - 10:54:33 PST