Evolutionary Systems: Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on Selection and Self-OrganizationGertrudis van de Vijver, G. Vijver, Stanley N. Salthe, M. Delpos The three well known revolutions of the past centuries - the Copernican, the Darwinian and the Freudian - each in their own way had a deflating and mechanizing effect on the position of humans in nature. They opened up a richness of disillusion: earth acquired a more modest place in the universe, the human body and mind became products of a long material evolutionary history, and human reason, instead of being the central, immaterial, locus of understanding, was admitted into the theater of discourse only as a materialized and frequently out-of-control actor. Is there something objectionable to this picture? Formulated as such, probably not. Why should we resist the idea that we are in certain ways, and to some degree, physically, biologically or psychically determined? Why refuse to acknowledge the fact that we are materially situated in an ever evolving world? Why deny that the ways of inscription (traces of past events and processes) are co-determinative of further "evolutionary pathways"? Why minimize the idea that each intervention, of each natural being, is temporally and materially situated, and has, as such, the inevitable consequence of changing the world? The point is, however, that there are many, more or less radically different, ways to consider the "mechanization" of man and nature. There are, in particular, many ways to get the message of "material and evolutionary determination", as well as many levels at which this determination can be thought of as relevant or irrelevant. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 68
Page 182
... context of a well defined system - system interaction . This meaning seems to " emerge " from the system , but it seems that this concept of emergence is a misleading one . This is one reason why this contribution has been written ...
... context of a well defined system - system interaction . This meaning seems to " emerge " from the system , but it seems that this concept of emergence is a misleading one . This is one reason why this contribution has been written ...
Page 236
... context - free constraints mentioned earlier ( which make the letters of the language in any alphabet no longer equiprobable ) . Gatlin calls this type of constraint " context - sensitive " constraints . There can be a series of such ...
... context - free constraints mentioned earlier ( which make the letters of the language in any alphabet no longer equiprobable ) . Gatlin calls this type of constraint " context - sensitive " constraints . There can be a series of such ...
Page 300
... context dependence in the fullest sense . Nonetheless , observing the principle of the excluded middle is not ... context among the participating internal descriptive agents . Context searching and making capability is primary to ...
... context dependence in the fullest sense . Nonetheless , observing the principle of the excluded middle is not ... context among the participating internal descriptive agents . Context searching and making capability is primary to ...
Contents
Prospects for conver | 21 |
MICHAEL CONRAD Towards high evolvability dynamics | 33 |
On the origin of final cause | 45 |
Copyright | |
23 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Evolutionary Systems: Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on ... G. Vijver,Stanley N. Salthe,M. Delpos No preview available - 2010 |
Evolutionary Systems: Biological and Epistemological Perspectives on ... G. Vijver,Stanley N. Salthe,M. Delpos No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
adaptation adaptationism adaptationist alleles Aristotle attractors Autopoiesis behavior Bénard cells biological systems Buddhist Callebaut Cambridge Cartesian circle causal cells cognitive complex systems components concept constraints construction context Csányi Darwinian Darwinism defined Depew described developmental dynamics ecological effects emergence energy entities environment epigenetic epistemic equation evolution evolutionary epistemology Evolutionary Systems evolving example explain external final cause formal formal cause function genes genetic genotypic hierarchical human idea identity interactions internal descriptive internal measurement interpretation Kampis Kornwachs laws Lewontin lineage living systems material mathematical Maynard Smith means mechanisms molecules mutation natural selection neo-Darwinism objects observer operators optimality organization origin Pattee perception perspective phenomena phenotype Philosophy physical pleiotropic population possible potential pragmatic information principle problem properties relation replication Salthe self-organization semantic semiotic sense species Spinoza structure Swenson symbols syntactic thermodynamic traits University Press Vijver Weber Wimsatt