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Author: David Blitz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401580421
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Emergent evolution combines three separate but related claims, whose background, origin, and development I trace in this work: firstly, that evolution is a universal process of change, one which is productive of qualitative novelties; secondly, that qualitative novelty is the emergence in a system of a property not possessed by any of its parts; and thirdly, that reality can be analyzed into levels, each consisting of systems characterized by significant emergent properties. In part one I consider the background to emergence in the 19th century discussion of the philosophy of evolution among its leading exponents in England - Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, T. H. Huxley, Alfred Russel Wallace, and G. J. Romanes. Unlike the scientific aspect of the debate which aimed to determine the factors and causal mechanism of biological evolution, this aspect of the debate centered on more general problems which form what I call the "philosophical framework for evolutionary theory." This considers the status of continuity and discontinuity in evolution, the role of qualitative and quantitative factors in change, the relation between the organic and the inorganic, the relation between the natural and the supernatural, the mind-body problem, and the scope of evolution, including its extension to ethics and morals.
Author: David Blitz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401580421
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Get Book Here
Book Description
Emergent evolution combines three separate but related claims, whose background, origin, and development I trace in this work: firstly, that evolution is a universal process of change, one which is productive of qualitative novelties; secondly, that qualitative novelty is the emergence in a system of a property not possessed by any of its parts; and thirdly, that reality can be analyzed into levels, each consisting of systems characterized by significant emergent properties. In part one I consider the background to emergence in the 19th century discussion of the philosophy of evolution among its leading exponents in England - Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, T. H. Huxley, Alfred Russel Wallace, and G. J. Romanes. Unlike the scientific aspect of the debate which aimed to determine the factors and causal mechanism of biological evolution, this aspect of the debate centered on more general problems which form what I call the "philosophical framework for evolutionary theory." This considers the status of continuity and discontinuity in evolution, the role of qualitative and quantitative factors in change, the relation between the organic and the inorganic, the relation between the natural and the supernatural, the mind-body problem, and the scope of evolution, including its extension to ethics and morals.
Author: C. Lloyd Morgan
Publisher: READ BOOKS
ISBN: 9781443720670
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
EMERGENT EVOLUTION- THE GIFFORD LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS IN THE YEAR 1922 by C. LLOYD MORGAN. Originally published in 1923. PREFACE: HALF a century ago, as years run, a student was called on to take the chair at a dinner in connection with the Royal School of Mines. Members of the staff were present. And the fortunate youth was honoured by the support of Professor Huxley. Which of the lines of science you have followed has chiefly engaged your interest Following up the thread of my reply, he drew from me the confession that an interest in philosophy, and in the general scheme of things, lay deeper than my interest in the practical applications of science to what then purported to be my bread-and butter training. With sympathetic kindliness that soon dispelled my fear of him he led me to speak more freely, to tell him how this came about, what J had read, and so on. That such a man should care to know what Berkeley and Hume had done for me what I had got from Descartes Discourse how I was just then embrangled in difficulties over Spinoza filled me with glad surprise. His comments were so ripe and they were made to help me Whatever else you may do, he said, keep that light burning. But remember that biology has supplied a new and powerful illuminant. Then speeches began. His parting words were When you have reached the goal of your course, why not come and spend a year with us at South Kensington So when I had gained the diploma of which so little direct use was to be made, and when my need of the illuminant, and my lack of intimate acquaintance with the facts on which the new lamp shed light, had been duly impressed on me during a visit to North America and Brazil, I followed his advice, attended his lectures, and worked in his laboratory. On one of the memorable occasions when he beckoned me to come to his private room he spoke of St. George Mivart s Genesis of Species. I had asked him some questions thereon a few days before to which he was then too busy to reply and he gave me this opportunity of repeating them. Mivart had said If then such innate powers must be attributed to chemical atoms, to mineral species, to gemmules, and to physiological units, it is only reasonable to attribute such to each individual organism p. 260, I asked on what grounds this line of approach was unreasonable for even then there was lurking within me some touch of Pelagian heresy in matters evolutionary. Far from snub bing a youthful heretic he dealt kindly with him. The question, he said, was open to discussion but he thought Mivarts position was based on considerations other than scientific. Any analogy between the growth of a crystal and the development of an organism was of very doubtful validity. Yes, Sir 1 I said, save in this that both invite us to distinguish between an internal factor and the incidence of external conditions He then asked what I under stood by innate powers, saying that for Mivart they were the substantial forms of scholastic tradition. I ventured to suggest that the School men and their modern disciples were trying to explain what men of science must perhaps just accept on the evidence. And I asked whether for an innate power in the organism one might substitute what he had taught us to call an internal metamorphic tendency which must be as distinctly recognised as that of an internal conservative tendency H. E. ii. p. 116. Of course you may so long as you regard this merely as an ex pression of certain facts at present unexplained. n I then asked whether it was in this sense one should accept his statement that nature does make leaps ii. pp. 77, 97 and, if this were so, whether the difference on which Mivart laid so much stress that between the mental capacities of animals and of men might not be regarded as a natural leap in evolutionary progress. This was the point to which I was leading up...
Author: William McDougall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317275101
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
Originally published in 1929, McDougall examines the pertinent conflict between religion and science. His work exhibits the failure of scientists to explain human action mechanistically (the essence of modern materialism), establishes purposive action as a type of event radically different from all mechanistic events, and justifies the belief in teleological causation without which there can be neither religion nor morals. This title will be of interest to students of both the Humanities and Sciences, particularly those studying psychology and philosophy.
Author: Jacob Klapwijk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521493406
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
Jacob Klapwijk considers the stark choice many believers and non-believers face between religious notions concerning the origins of life and the contemporary findings of evolutionary science. He offers an alternative to both and an attempt to bridge the gap between them, via the idea of 'emergent evolution'.
Author: Raymond L. Neubauer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231521685
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Evolution and the Emergent Self is an eloquent and evocative new synthesis that explores how the human species emerged from the cosmic dust. Lucidly presenting ideas about the rise of complexity in our genetic, neuronal, ecological, and ultimately cosmological settings, the author takes readers on a provocative tour of modern science's quest to understand our place in nature and in our universe. Readers fascinated with "Big History" and drawn to examine big ideas will be challenged and enthralled by Raymond L. Neubauer's ambitious narrative. How did humans emerge from the cosmos and the pre-biotic Earth, and what mechanisms of biological, chemical, and physical sciences drove this increasingly complex process? Neubauer presents a view of nature that describes the rising complexity of life in terms of increasing information content, first in genes and then in brains. The evolution of the nervous system expanded the capacity of organisms to store information, making learning possible. In key chapters, the author portrays four species with high brain:body ratios—chimpanzees, elephants, ravens, and dolphins—showing how each species shares with humans the capacity for complex communication, elaborate social relationships, flexible behavior, tool use, and powers of abstraction. A large brain can have a hierarchical arrangement of circuits that facilitates higher levels of abstraction. Neubauer describes this constellation of qualities as an emergent self, arguing that self-awareness is nascent in several species besides humans and that potential human characteristics are embedded in the evolutionary process and have emerged repeatedly in a variety of lineages on our planet. He ultimately demonstrates that human culture is not a unique offshoot of a language-specialized primate, but an analogue of fundamental mechanisms that organisms have used since the beginning of life on Earth to gather and process information in order to buffer themselves from fluctuations in the environment. Neubauer also views these developments in a cosmic setting, detailing open thermodynamic systems that grow more complex as the energy flowing through them increases. Similar processes of increasing complexity can be found in the "self-organizing" structures of both living and nonliving forms. Recent evidence from astronomy indicates that planet formation may be nearly as frequent as star formation. Since life makes use of the elements commonly seeded into space by burning and expiring stars, it is reasonable to speculate that the evolution of life and intelligence that happened on our planet may be found across the universe.
Author: Conwy Lloyd Morgan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Author: Robert G. B. Reid
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262264420
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 536
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Book Description
A critique of selectionism and the proposal of an alternate theory of emergent evolution that is causally sufficient for evolutionary biology. Natural selection is commonly interpreted as the fundamental mechanism of evolution. Questions about how selection theory can claim to be the all-sufficient explanation of evolution often go unanswered by today's neo-Darwinists, perhaps for fear that any criticism of the evolutionary paradigm will encourage creationists and proponents of intelligent design. In Biological Emergences, Robert Reid argues that natural selection is not the cause of evolution. He writes that the causes of variations, which he refers to as natural experiments, are independent of natural selection; indeed, he suggests, natural selection may get in the way of evolution. Reid proposes an alternative theory to explain how emergent novelties are generated and under what conditions they can overcome the resistance of natural selection. He suggests that what causes innovative variation causes evolution, and that these phenomena are environmental as well as organismal. After an extended critique of selectionism, Reid constructs an emergence theory of evolution, first examining the evidence in three causal arenas of emergent evolution: symbiosis/association, evolutionary physiology/behavior, and developmental evolution. Based on this evidence of causation, he proposes some working hypotheses, examining mechanisms and processes common to all three arenas, and arrives at a theoretical framework that accounts for generative mechanisms and emergent qualities. Without selectionism, Reid argues, evolutionary innovation can more easily be integrated into a general thesis. Finally, Reid proposes a biological synthesis of rapid emergent evolutionary phases and the prolonged, dynamically stable, non-evolutionary phases imposed by natural selection.
Author: adrienne maree brown
Publisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849352615
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
In the tradition of Octavia Butler, here is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. Change is constant. The world, our bodies, and our minds are in a constant state of flux. They are a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy teaches us to map and assess the swirling structures and to read them as they happen, all the better to shape that which ultimately shapes us, personally and politically. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride! adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.
Author: Henri Bergson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 444
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Book Description
Author: Jim Macnamara
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781433109362
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 428
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Book Description
The emergence of 'new media' and social media is widely discussed in contemporary society. However, media and public communication are mostly analyzed within particular theoretical frameworks and within specific disciplinary fields. Such approaches have created polarized views on media and communication, and fail to create an understanding of the interdependencies between these fields. This book expertly synthesizes competing theories and disciplinary viewpoints, integrates scholarly and cutting edge research, and examines international data from fast-growing markets including China, to provide a comprehensive, holistic view of the twenty-first century (r)evolution in media and public communication. The book identifies how the changes are located in practices rather than technologies and that these practices are emergent in highly significant ways. Engaging and accessible, the book is essential reading for media scholars and communication professionals, and a valuable text for courses in media studies, journalism, advertising, public relations, and organisational and political communication.
