This podcast will be a shocking experience for anyone who still holds reductionist views on life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8iFtaltX-s
Michael Levin's channel: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+levin+a...
His blog: https://thoughtforms.life/
> a shocking experience for anyone who still holds reductionist views on life.
As far as I understood he doesn't state that life cannot be explained by physics. But that it might be more productive to choose a more high level view.
Makes sense. If a set of physical laws allows life at all, life will maintain its own set of rules (related to reproduction, goal-directed behavior and so on) regardless of low level "implementation details" that are dependent on particulars of the physical laws.
Please read this essay and make your own conclusions. (He rejects physicalism in no uncertain terms). https://thoughtforms.life/platonic-space-where-cognitive-and...
I don't think that there's a contradiction. "Ingress of platonic forms" is observationally indistinguishable from a selection effect: "Universes that don't admit realization of certain platonic forms are unobservable because they have no observers."
For example, a static zero-dimensional universe. There's no pi, no Chaitin's constant, no nothing. Or, in other words, there's no processes or objects in there that we can describe as "ingress of platonic forms" (and no observers to notice that).
I do like his ideas (and I wrote similar things about platonic forms elsewhere), but it's not a solid refutation of physicalism. It's an attractive framework, but as almost everything in philosophy it can easily be challenged.
A physicalist can say "Physical processes that follow a certain equation trivially have properties corresponding to the properties of the equation. So what? I can measure physical process and I can think about the equation (thinking is a physical process too), but why should I postulate independent existence of a/the platonic form of the equation?"
The fact that my subjective experiences undeniably exist makes me reject physicalism, but I can't prove their existence to anyone else and I can't use their existence as a solid basis for some philosophical view. After all it's just one bit of information. Or zero bits? I wouldn't have noticed my own absence.
But the equation is a platonic form! Otherwise, you will be introducing a third concept, which is unnecessary b/c it has no advantage over the traditional notion of "platonic form".
> It's an attractive framework, but as almost everything in philosophy it can easily be challenged.
Michael is aware of it. He insists that every speculation has to be experimentally tested. But no experiment of this kind will constitute a "proof" - someone can always "challenge" it. This is no different from a physical theory: every interpretation of QM is challenged by someone. :-)
Interpretations of QM are philosophy. That's why there's no consensus regarding them, unlike the underlying equations.
The ontological status of the equations is still unclear. BTW, if you can provide a link to your own essay, I would be interested :-)
Why assume that someone has written their own essay on such a topic?
After this commemt chain it comes across as both dismissive and arrogant.
Why did I assume someone has written an essay? Because he said so! Quoting:
> I do like his ideas (and I wrote similar things about platonic forms elsewhere)
What is dismissive about my interest to his write-up? (I'm sure it was a misunderstanding on your part, you don't need to apologize :-))
The reasoning in the essay seems a bit iffy.
He goes from:
>patterns that are useful and guide events in the physical world but are not themselves explained, set, or modifiable by the laws of physics. This includes things like facts about prime numbers...
which if fair enough. Prime numbers exist and you find them by doing calculations but he goes on to:
>...this position is unpopular with philosophers of mind because it is fundamentally a dualist theory (by emphasizing causes that are not to be found in physical events)
which seems iffy. As mentioned we find primes by calculation which can be done by physical events.
I think human reasoning tends to get in a bit of a muddle with this because the idea of "non-physical space of truths which we discover" is not an especially good mental model for stuff we could in principle calculate.
That said I figure stuff we could calculates exists even if we haven't done the calculations yet because someone else could have done so, and stuff that could be calculated includes simulations of other worlds.
Reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Anathem with the higher plane of truth. Neat! I mean, I figured Neal Stephenson got his ideas from somewhere.
"The Matter with Things" by Iain McGilchrist has the same effect. Highly recommend it.
By any chance, have you watched the videos from the recent conference? https://ctr4process.org/conference/metaphysics-and-the-matte...
No, but I will. Thanks.
(link isn’t loading for me on mobile, will try again later)