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In Reply to: RE: interesting reading posted by unclestu on March 31, 2011 at 15:27:36
From a review of O.E Wilson's book, Consilience:"As to the logical error, even if a particular behavior were universal, there are alternative explanations to its having a genetic basis. In fact,even if a trait is biological it is not necessarily the result of direct lines of genetic inheritance. There is a phenomenon, well known to biologists, undoubtedly including Wilson, called evolutionary convergence."
"Convergence is illustrated, for example, by the variety of relatively unrelated species that can fly. These include birds, insects, and bats. Since these species do not have a common flying evolutionary ancestor, the fact that they all fly cannot be the result of common genetic inheritance, but rather that similar environmental conditions sometimes allow the evolution of similarly adapted features. And this evolution can happen independently many times in various evolutionary branches. Furthermore, on rare occasions even sheer coincidence can play a role, since chance and causality are both aspects of nature."
"Similarly for human behaviors, such as fear of snakes. This fear (wherever it exists) can just as easily be explained as a response learned as a result of repeated experience with harmful snakes in one society after another. It is logically flawed to imply, as Wilson does, that the only possible (or even most likely) explanation for a widespread (or even universal) human behavior is that it is genetically inherited. But this implication constitutes the main thrust of his speculative assertions and faulty logic throughout the book."
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It appears that many great thinkers, including E.O. Wilson, conclude human and animal behaviors can be explained by the simple sonclusion, "it's in the genes." Can I suggest this conclusion is simply a cop out; much deeper explanations for human and animal patterns of behavior, things that are usually referred to by biological scientists as "instinctive" or "inherited in the genes," can be found in the theories of Rupert Sheldrake, PhD Biology, Cambridge, the most controversial yet convincing layout of his theory of morphic resonance and the especially the influence of human evolution on the brain and behavior being, of course, The Presence of the Past. While pretending to be Unification Theory of multi scientific disciplines, the O.E. Wilson book actually gets us no further than what can best be described as the conventional wisdom, the explanation that is easily accepted by the ordinary man: "It's in the genes."
Better and deeper theses of the operation of the mind are also presented in Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and the works of David Bohm, a student of Oppenheimer.
University of London physicist David Bohm (1917-94) developed the theory that our universe consists of physical and metaphysical (= spiritual/divine/God/etheric/astral etc - whichever term you prefer) dimensions which are interwoven. This is hard enough to accept when we are accustomed to regarding our sensory physical experience of the world as being "it" i.e. being a complete and objective experience of reality.
However, Bohm went even further. He proposed that each small unit of the weave of the universe contains all the information possessed by the entire universe. This would be really hard to swallow except for what we know about holograms. If a hologram of a flower is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half still contains the entire image of the flower. If the cut halves are cut are cut up into smaller pieces, each tiny piece of the holographic film will always contain a smaller, but complete, version of the original whole flower image.
Edits: 04/02/11 04/02/11Follow Ups:
your opinion on a review of the book. rather than actually reading what Wilson wrote?
LOL!
Stu
Why not? Reviews save time. I got the picture, did you? LOL
That opinion, is indicative of your thinking. Ignore the original, read a review and base all your ideas on the review, which may not even be true or even simply taken out of context, as it obviously is, from what I have read thus far.
E.O. Wilson, BTW, is a far more eminent and respect "scientist" than you will ever be. His use of examples straddle many fields and thinking and, in some ways, would have supported some of your ideas and approaches.
Again you miss the boat. Too bad, but apparently that is a fairly accurate assessment of your mind, O Master of the fourth dimension.
Stu
When you get around to reading the entire review and the book get back to me. E.O. Wilson is just another "it''s all in the genes" defender, no great shakes, more like old and in the way. The only thing he's straddling is a fence.
You're beginning to sound like the Muslim who reviewed the New Testament. Bigoted and you haven't even bothered to read the book. If that is the reflection of your thinking, then you are no scientist.From his book, which I haven't finished yet: Impressive as universals may be, it is risky to use them as evidence between genes and culture": pg 149. Page 154: " As a cautionary prelude to an answer, let me again stress the limitations of the genetics of human behavior as a whole."
However, I can see how some religious fundamentalists would vehemently disagree. A number of years ago, some geneticists were exploring the idea that being homosexual may be genetically linked. Their entire funding was cut, not because the research was bad, but because, if that was found to be true, the anti gay stance by the church would have no foundation.
E.O. Wilson's book is subtitled the Unity of Knowledge. What I have read so far shows the thoughts of a man who is dedicated to a multidisciplinary approach to an understanding and making sense of the world around us. Human sensory perceptions, language, genes, environment, mathematics, physics, and then some are all an integral part of that understanding. In my reading thus far, he presents a balanced approach, advocating certain theories and presenting evidence to support his thesis, but at the same time presenting caveats.
When you write something better than the time conversion trash you post on the internet maybe you may approach 1% of Wilson's intellect. The man's no Velikosvky. At any rate, it is quite apparent that his ideas are too far above your level.
Stu
PS Wilson, BTW, does discus evolutionary convergence.
Edits: 04/05/11
"E.O. Wilson's book is subtitled the Unity of Knowledge."
Geez, that's kind of a pompous subtitle for a book, doncha think?. A Unified Field Theory for Philosphers.
"What I have read so far shows the thoughts of a man who is dedicated to a multidisciplinary approach to an understanding and making sense of the world around us."
I'm glad someone is.
"Human sensory perceptions, language, genes, environment, mathematics, physics, and then some are all an integral part of that understanding."
Oh, boy, that's kind of what I was afraid of. LOL
"In my reading thus far, he presents a balanced approach, advocating certain theories and presenting evidence to support his thesis, but at the same time presenting caveats."
I certainly hope he presents a balanced approach. After all, the subtitle of his book is The Unity of Knowledge. Let me know if you get to the parts about the theory of morphic resonance or Bohm's Implicate Order.
Caveats are OK, as long as they're not too pushy. LOL
Cheers, GK
I am reading the book and his original words and thoughts. You must have a subscription to Reader's Digest.
Stu
I'm so glad you are reading his original words and thoughts. I hope your head doesn' t explode from all those original words and thoughts. I'm waiting for the E.O. Wilson for Dummies to come out, myself.
Sidenote - am I seeing things or is Enophile out of rehab and stalking me again?
Allowing a book into his apartment would alter the information field and diminish the sound quality of his imaginary Hi Fi.
On the plus side, he saves lots of money on music and movies....he just reads the reviews and forms an opinion.
Winning!
Quotes from David Bohm, the eminent quantum physicist
> > “One of the early interpretations of the nquantum theory I developed was in terms of a partical moving in a field - the quantum potential . Now the quantum potential had many of the properties ascribed to morphogenetic fields and chreodes, that is, it guided the particle in some way. Now the interesting thing is that the quantum potential energy had the same effect regardless of it’s intensity, so that even far away it may produce a tremendous effect; this effect does not follow an inverse square law. Only the form of the potential has an effect, and not it’s amplitude or it’s magnitude. So we compared this to a ship being guided by radar; the radar is carrying form or information from all around. It doesn’t, within it’s limits, depend on how strong the radiowave is. So we could say that in that sense the quantum potential is acting as a formative field on the movement of the electrons........So there would be a wholeness about the system such that the formative field could not be attributed to that particle alone; it can be attributed only to the whole, and something happening to faraway particles can affect the formative field of other particles........So I think that if you attempt to understand what quantum mechanics means by such a model you get quite a strong analogy to a formative field.” < <
More from David Bohm on his vision of a world of “unbroken wholeness”:-
> > “The universe was a vast dynamic cobweb of energy exchange, with a basic substructure containing all possible versions of all possible forms of matter. Nature was not blind and mechanistic, but open-ended, intelligent and purposeful, making use of a cohesive learning feedback process of information being fed back and forth between organisms and their environment. Its unifying mechanism was not a fortunate mistake but information which had been encoded and transmitted everywhere at once.” < <
David Bohm has postulated that all information was present in some invisible domain, or higher reality (the implicate order) but active information could be called up, like a fire brigade, at time of need.
David Bohm’s last sentence is the one I really like – “that all information was present in some invisible domain, or higher reality (the implicate order) but active information could be called up, like a fire brigade, at time of need.” !!
David Bohm is not the ONLY scientist beginning to see that “the information is there, to be called up when needed” !!!! He is not the only scientist having to begin to realize that the world (Nature if you like) is not neatly packaged as 19th and 20th Century science would have you believe !! And, we (human beings) are in the middle of all this !!
Regards,
May Belt,
Manufacturer.
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