Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA01058 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 9 Feb 2002 01:51:38 GMT Message-ID: <20020209014629.68055.qmail@web12308.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 01:46:29 +0000 (GMT) From: John Croft <jdcroft@yahoo.com> Subject: Huxley, Teilhard and other matters To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <200202081515.PAA29819@alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Regarding Teilhard
> > I'm not too keen on Teilhardian omegoid noospheric
> > orthogenesis adherents either, though there could
> > be some memeticists who like some of his ideas.
> > Wasn't Julian Huxley a proto-memeticist of sorts
> > with his noetic allusions to noogenetics?
John wrote
> According to Mayr, yes, but when we tried to track
> this down, we couldn't find it - Mayr's ref was
> incorrect (he cited _The Modern Synthesis_). It may
> have been in a non-science piece Huxley wrote in
> 1940 or so.
Yes, I have just gone to check and Julian Huxley was
very impressed with Teilhardian thinking. He even
wrote the introduction on the English Translation of
the "Phenomenon of Man", Teilhard's magnum opus (which
unfortunately has dated somewhat - although Teilhard's
use of the three phaes of evolution -"cosmogenesis",
"biogenesis" and "noogenesis" amke sense in terms of
the "three replicators" (Lee Smolin's "Life in the
Cosmos", the origins of the gene and mimetic theory a
la Blackmore.
It is interesting that the best part of Teilhardian
thought has been saved by Thomas Berry, who for many
years was president of the International Teilhard
Society, and wrote a lovely monograph of "Teilhard in
the Ecological Age" which looks at the strengths and
weaknesses of his thinking. Thomas Berry's "New
Story" of using cosmology as an underpinning for a
scientifically verifiable "creation story" is
attracting considerable interest in certain locales.
The other interesting threat is the direction
Teilhardian omega point theory has taken under the
hands of Vernor Vinge. Fascinating stuff.
Regards
John
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