Message-Id: <v03102804b0badac9a48f@[194.109.13.153]>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.96.971214130629.2914A-100000@emerald.tufts.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 14:13:48 +0100
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Ton Maas <tonmaas@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: poor transmittion
Val Pishva wrote:
>the same conclusion. We could start a whole discussion group on this, but
>let's just say that his work is tremendously engaging, if nothing else (he
>also holds that the laws of physics have actually "evolved" this way). So
>there you have it.
My main problem with the likes of Sheldrake (learning at the "billiard
ball" level of physics) and Teilhard (who attributed mental capabilities to
fundamental particles) is that if their flagrant denial of an Eternal
Verity (to freely quote Saint Augustine), namely the fundamental
distinction between Creatura and Pleroma, happens to be true, we might as
well close shop and go fishing, because in that world anything would
explain everything. It was the original genius of Lamarck - who once
remarked that we should not attribute mental characteristics to an organism
if it doesn't feature sufficient internal complexity (properly formulated
more than a century-and-a-half later by cyberneticians) - that gave us the
notion of emergence and the relation between "matter" and "mind".
Ton
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