. . . .Linear causality excluded the possibility that there might be a conceptual determinant of the growth-event that is not merely the various extrinsic circumstances at any moment prior to the maturation of the organic being. Thus, we cannot sufficiently account for why a certain kind of plant repeatedly attains its generic form simply by pointing to such contingent facts as rich soil, ample rainfall, sunlight, etc. the enigma of organic life, Kant indicates, cannot be cleared by the available scientific method os explanation. Thus we have Kant’s celebrated remark that it is “absurd for men. . .to hope that another Newton will arise in the future who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of grass according to natural laws which no design has ordered. ~ Page 64
"No Newton for the blade of grass" became the slogan of those who drew a line in the sand of science and dared physics to cross it. What Kant meant was that when we get past physics and into biology, the physics of matter and fields was not going to be enough to explain things. Only purpose could do the job. As in so many other areas of science and philosophy, Kant managed to get this one badly wrong. Only about 20 years after he wrote those immortal words, the Newton on the blade of grass was born to the Darwin family in Shropshire, England.
Kant was not alone in making this mistake. It continues to be made right down to the present. Its source is people's love of stories with plots. That's how explanations that invoke purposes or designs work: they are stories with plots. Because only such explanations provide relief from the psychological discomfort of curiosity, we seek them elsewhere. But they are absent in physics, most people have very little interest in it. Now only is physics too hard -- too much math -- what it explains is either boringly obvious, absolutely scary, or completely unintelligible (quantum superpositions). Worst of all, it's not stories. What most people are really interested in is biology. And the reason biology is so interesting is how neatly and often how weirdly things are arranged to look like they happy ending of a story. Nature seems to show the obvious marks of purpose or hand of design everywhere. ~ Page 48
Loading
9 comments
Dinesh said:
Dinesh said:
Kant was not alone in making this mistake. It continues to be made right down to the present. Its source is people's love of stories with plots. That's how explanations that invoke purposes or designs work: they are stories with plots. Because only such explanations provide relief from the psychological discomfort of curiosity, we seek them elsewhere. But they are absent in physics, most people have very little interest in it. Now only is physics too hard -- too much math -- what it explains is either boringly obvious, absolutely scary, or completely unintelligible (quantum superpositions). Worst of all, it's not stories. What most people are really interested in is biology. And the reason biology is so interesting is how neatly and often how weirdly things are arranged to look like they happy ending of a story. Nature seems to show the obvious marks of purpose or hand of design everywhere. ~ Page 48
Jaap van 't Veen said:
Roger (Grisly) said:
Edna Edenkoben replied to Roger (Grisly):
Rosalyn Hilborne said:
Edna Edenkoben said:
John FitzGerald said:
Boarischa Krautmo said:
;-))))
have a good week!