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Author
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Topic: Purpose, design, and designers
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 26. May 2002 10:32
Why does there appear to be design, purpose, intelligence and possibly external designers associated with biological systems when there is no indication of such phenomena in the physical, non-biological universe? The view of ‘traditional science’ is that there is no answer to this type of question. Since there is no explanation, the argument goes, these phenomena, or at least some of them, can not be used, or do not apply to scientific analysis. As Sunday morning food for thought, I suggest that there is a perfectly sound logical answer to the question posed. This answer suggests that design, purpose, intelligence and possible designers are not only permitted, but required for the scientific analysis of biological system.
The answer to the above question involves the ‘most convenient format for expressing the "laws of nature" governing biological systems’. We start with the assumption that the ‘laws of nature’ are permanent and universal causal relationships. It is known, although apparently not widely known, that mathematical/logical models or permanent and universal causal relationships can be transformed into many different formats. Most people are familiar with the stochastic form of causal relationship, but there are many, many others.
Scientific theories are mathematical/logical models of ‘laws of nature’ or ‘permanent and universal causal relationships’. It is at times easier or more practical to express or model a law of nature in one form rather than another. In analyzing biological systems, it is generally more convenient to express the laws of nature as dynamic, changeable or programmable. [Although beyond the scope of a Sunday morning discussion, the mathematics of transforming permanent and universal laws into dynamic or programmable laws is not particularly complex.]
When the laws governing biological systems are viewed as, or analyzed as dynamic, concepts like purpose, design, intelligence, and sources of intelligence become both useful and necessary. This conclusion, it will be noted, is not new. These concepts are routinely used in scientific engineering where the ‘laws of nature’ are manipulated to produce designs that perform functions.
The answer to purpose, design, intelligence and designers in biological systems is therefore rather obvious. These concepts are useful in the scientific analysis of biological systems because it is useful to view and analyze the laws governing biological systems as dynamic, changeable, or programmable.
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 27. May 2002 11:21
I agree with Warren about the possibility of describing teleological action in logical terms. However, I want to stress that we need in inquire into the deeper causal, and even metaphysical, roots of such action.
I know I have already said much of this elsewhere on Brainstorms, but here is a new attempt to state the "neo-vitalist" perspective as lucidly as I can, that I recently made over on the FIS [Foundations of Information Science] listserver. I think it adds a necessary dimension to Warren's discussion.
"Last week, Pedro [Marijuan] expressed a reservation about my realism in the following terms:
"The way natural Law is handled by realists implies for me a dualistic-Platonic scheme..."
Now, I agree that reductionists are guilty of dualism in this sense, and I further agree with Pedro (and with Howard Pattee, Robert Rosen, and many others) that this is a fundamental mistake. That is, the teleological (normative, semantic) aspect of life processes is definitely NOT reducible to mechanistic interactions.
But the question I would ask is, must "natural law" be equivalent to mechanism? Here, I think we must really engage in what Ted [Goranson] felicitously called "engineering of the metaphysic." Namely, we must reject the reductionist temptation of identifying the "laws of nature" with mechanistic interactions only.
What is the alternative? A robust (ontological, not just epistemic) emergentism. What might this mean?
If the high-energy physicists are right, then all that matters is getting the Theory of Everything pinned down. Once we have that, then everything else follows by deduction. There will be one equation that we can put on our T-shirts that will explain everything, including the origin and evolution of life, human nature and history, and even the brand name on the T-shirt itself. However, if one finds this super-Laplacian worldview absurd (as I do, and I assume most here at FIS do, as well), then it is possible to conceive of "natural law" as having a different significance.
I have the impression that some of the subjectivist and idealist flavor of much of our discussion derives from a tacit acceptance of the TOE picture for the inorganic world, together with the realization that the normative character of cognition nevertheless cannot be fit into this picture. So, instead, some of us retreat to idealism (pan-informationism) or to dualism (Pattee's "complementarity"). However, I believe there is a viable realist alternative---namely, rejecting the TOE picture altogether as a misguided fantasy.
If the condensed-matter physicists are right (e.g., Laughlin & Pines, PNAS, 2000, 97: 28--31; P.W. Anderson, Science, 2000, 288: 480--482), then new kinds of structures with qualitatively novel causal powers have emerged over the course of cosmic evolution, and these novel causal powers will require sui generis "effective" theories---unique to each level and irreducible to laws at lower levels---to descibe them adequately (see, also, W. Thirring, "Do the Laws of Nature Evolve?," in M.P. Murphy and L.A.J. O'Neill, What Is Life? The Next Fifty Years [Cambridge UP, 1995, pp. 131--136]).
In that case, there is indeed hope that we can someday discover emergent "laws of nature" (in a broad sense) that adequately describe the causal powers distinctive of life (R.B. Laughlin et al., PNAS, 2000, 97: 32--37). Most distinctive of all those powers is intrinsic normative functionality, by which I mean low-energy (i.e., information)-guided purposive action, where the "success" of such action consists in the preservation of the dynamical stability of the nonlinear oscillator carrying out the action (F.E. Yates, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 1994, 19: 49--74; J. Barham, BioSystems, 1996, 38: 235--241).
The crucial metaphysical point to take away from this "neo-vitalist" view is that the material constitution of a system does matter for the causal powers of the system, after all. That is, we have simply been mistaken in accepting the multiple realizability thesis all these years. This means that living things are not machines at all, and that the derivative, externally-imposed functionality of machines and the intrinsic, spontaneous intelligent striving of organisms belong to two entirely distinct causal categories. In other words, intrinsic functionality and intrinsic normativity can only arise out of the sui generis dynamics of the living state (specifically, that of the protein-ordered water-phosphate gel), never out of an artificially engineered set of boundary conditions externally imposed upon intrinsically inert matter.
Note that this does not mean that the artificial construction of living systems with intrinsic functionality is inherently impossible; it just means that it will require the use of organic materials with the correct causal powers.
James
P.S. Anyone interested in further elaboration of these ideas might like to consult my "Biofunctional Realism and the Problem of Teleology," Evolution and Cognition, 2000, 6: 2--34; and "Theses on Darwin," Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum, 2002, 95: 101--133."
[ 27 May 2002, 11:22: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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charlie d.
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Member # 159
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posted 27. May 2002 15:20
quote:
Warren:
Why does there appear to be design, purpose, intelligence and possibly external designers associated with biological systems when there is no indication of such phenomena in the physical, non-biological universe? The view of ‘traditional science’ is that there is no answer to this type of question.
It seems to me it's quite the opposite, actually: design, purpose, intelligence and external designers have been used to explain physical phenomena for millennia. Weather manifestations, eruptions, earthquakes, spooky night sounds, chemical reactions all have been attributed to gods, fairies, banshees, spirits within objects and substances, and assorted supernatural entities. Disease was largely explained in supernatural terms until just a couple of centuries ago; the power to make people sick through witchcraft and the "bad-eye" is still regarded as an everyday reality in much of the world, including some very civilized countries. Here in the US, New Age theories often merge the physical and the spiritual, ascribing purposeful power to objects such as crystals or even to geographical locations.
So, the question is, why is the attribution of super- or preter-natural design, purpose, intelligence to be rejected when it concerns the physical world, but not for the biological world? Where's the difference between the "purpose" of a river to reach the sea (or of the Nile to fertilize Egypt every year) vs the "purpose" of an organism to evolve?
I think if one can first answer that question, perhaps some boundaries, some fundamental rules could be established that would permit an objective, non-arbitrary evaluation of the concept of "purpose".
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 27. May 2002 16:25
James,
JB: I agree with Warren about the possibility of describing teleological action in logical terms. However, I want to stress that we need in inquire into the deeper causal, and even metaphysical, roots of such action.
There is a basic ‘mechanistic’ explanation of teleological causation which has been around for at least a couple of thousand years. You can demonstrate mathematically that this teleological causation is logically equivalent to, or a logical transformation of the standard ‘permanent and universal’ causal relationship or law of nature. It seems likely that it will be possible shortly to demonstrate that all teleological causation associated with life forms does, or at least could, fit the standard mechanistic form of teleological causation.
I don’t know what ‘deeper causal and even metaphysical roots of action’ refers to, but I am not aware of any ‘missing component’ in my mechanistic interpretation of teleological causation. Maybe I am missing something in your concept or definition of teleological causation and very likely I have not defined my concepts clearly enough.
There is obviously a significant difference between ‘all teleological causation associated with life forms can be explained in terms of deterministic, mechanistic causal relationships’ and ‘teleological causation can not be explained in terms of deterministic, mechanistic causal relationships’. Since this is a major difference, it might be useful to attempt to resolve it.
To begin, it might be useful to review the mechanistic concept of teleological causation which begins with a relationship of the form
"response R occurs in order to, or for the purpose of achieving goal G".
For the discussion here, this is translated in ‘stimulus S causes R which increases the likelihood of goal G’ "f(S)=R increases the likelihood of G".
In order to be part of a teleological relationship, 1) f(S)=R must be part of a dynamic or programmable causal relationship- in other words f must be part of some set F involving f1,f2,…fn possible relationships between S and R. 2)for any fx and fy a part of F, at any point in time, there will be different ‘expectations’ that ‘fx(S)=R will result in achieving goal G’ than that ‘fy(S)=R will result in achieving goal G’ and finally 3)there must be a process for selecting f from F based on expectation of achieving G.
I know this is a very sketchy description of deterministic teleological causation, but hopefully you can use it to identify what or where you see the incompleteness.
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 27. May 2002 18:22
Charlie D. asks an important question that deserves an answer, and I hope that my answer (such as it is) will address Warren's concerns about what I think is missing from the mechanistic metaphysics, as well.
Charlie D. asks: What is the difference between a river flowing down a slope toward the sea, and a species evolving (which may be modeled as a "flow" through a "morphospace")?
There are a couple of significant differences. The first, and most signficant, is that the river is merely minimizing an energy potential. Thus, its behavior is completely describable without remainder by the ordinary well-known laws of physics.
A living thing cannot be completely described by the laws of physics in the same way. Even though every individual chemical reaction taking place inside a cell may be a matter of minimizing energy in the same sense as the river, the overall coordination of the various individual reactions cannot be so described. On the contrary, the actions of organisms are often aimed at working against local energy gradients (i.e., they speed up their activity when starved, they don't slow down).
In short, the teleological organization of the behavior of an organism eludes explanation according to the known laws of physics. Some believe natural selection gets around this, some believe outside intelligent intervention is required to explain it, and some (including me) believe that a presently unknown form of quantum coherence is required to explain it.
So that is one big difference between the cell and the river.
The only other thing I want to do for now is to make clear that I do not believe that species are pulled forward through morphospace by an external attractor. So the analogy Charlie D. drew between the river and a species breaks down for this reason, as well. That would constitute transcendent teleology. What I am arguing for, rather, is internal or immanent teleology. I say that organisms have internal attractors that constitute goal states for them, which they actively strive to preserve, using information about their environments (which is tantamount to acting intelligently).
How do I explain evolution, then? In nonlinear dynamics, goal-directed ("equifinal") behavior is complementary to adaptive ("bifurcation") behavior. They are two sides of the same coin (the fomer is a many-to-one mapping of initial states onto final state, while the latter is a one-to-many mapping). Nonlinear systems are inherently capable of both types of behavior.
So, evolution (which is a form of learning) should be viewed as the outcome of the metastability of living systems and their inherent tendency to undergo bifurcation events and to fall into new basins of attraction. But undergoing a bifurcation event like this is very different from being pulled forward by an attractor lying outside the organism. It is the difference between being drawn passively forward as though by a magentic force, versus groping your way forward a step at a time. The basins are already there, in some sense, but the forward propulsion derives from the intelligent agency of the organism itself.
I like to use the analogy of the periodic table. There is a morphospace of possible chemical elements, and as they get cooked in the interior of stars, they bifurcate into the new, higher-dimensional basins of attraction, hydrogen being transformed into helium, helium into lithium, and so forth, all the way up to gold and beyond.
But we do not say that there is a transcendent attractor pulling the elements up toward element 79 (gold). Rather, we say that the elements build themselves up step by step by undergoing a series of bifurcation events. Similarly, according to the dynamical model I favor, species undergo adaptive changes through just such a series of bifurcation events.
[ 27 May 2002, 18:40: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 28. May 2002 14:10
Charlie and James,
First, I agree that Charlie D’s question was a good one and deserves to be addressed, and I agree it is a good jumping off point for the discussion. I do not agree with James’ claim that ‘teleological causation eludes explanation by the known laws of physics and chemistry’.
Second, it is useful to repeat(as James knows) that my comments are based on what I call the ‘adaptive approach’ to analyzing life forms. The adaptive approach which I developed, and am still developing, may involve concepts, techniques, findings and points of view which are unfamiliar. Disagreements arising because of these unfamiliar features may be due to 1)my failure to properly communicate the unfamiliar features, or 2)flaws in the approach which I failed to recognize. However slight the probability, it is useful to consider the possibility that my novel perspective may produce some useful results.
WHAT IS TELEOLOGICAL CAUSATION
The mechanistic adaptive approach asserts that in order to have teleological causation three conditions must be present:
1. A purpose or goal (for more complex examples this translates into a set of goals or a goal hierarchy).
2. A dynamic or programmable causal relationship (for more complex examples this involves sets of programmable causal relationships.) and finally
3. A set of processes which can select from the set of possible ‘programs’, programs that increase the likelihood of achieving the identified purpose or goal.
[My terminology is somewhat different, but this is basically the ancient Greek explanation of purpose in nature.]
Based on the above definition, a river flowing to the sea is not purposeful because there are no alternatives. There is nothing which, without external assistance, can make the river flow anywhere but downhill.
Evolving is generally not considered a goal or purpose of life forms. It is most useful to define the purpose or goal of life in terms of ‘survival and reproduction’ or ‘continued existence in some form’. Evolutionary change is best viewed as an incidental side effect of pursuing the goal of survival.
It is important to note the ‘goals or purpose’ are concepts introduced by scientists in an effort to model and explain teleological causation. Defining the ‘goal or purpose of life’ is not defining the center of the universe. There is nothing logically wrong with claiming the universe revolves around Fargo, ND. However, the mathematics gets pretty complex if you attempt to model the movements of planets using such an assumption. While it might not be logically incorrect to say that the purpose of life is to evolve man or increase complexity, the mathematics gets rather messy. It is simply more useful or practical to analyze life or biological systems using the assumption that purpose of life is survival.
I would agree with the need for a precise definition of purposeful or teleological causation. I would hope the criteria listed above will provide a useful starting point.
TELEOLOGICAL CAUSATION AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
James,
As stated above, I disagree with your claim that ‘the teleological organization of the behavior of an organism eludes explanation according to the known laws of physics’. I would assert as a counter claim that ‘it is theoretically possible to 1)define any occurrence of teleological behavior or teleological causation in a biological system in terms of elementary teleological causal processes, 2)identify and define the elementary causal processes in a biological system, 3)demonstrate that each of the elementary causal processes operates in accordance with know physical and chemical laws, 4)identify and define the sets of processes responsible for making these causal relationships teleological and finally 5)demonstrate that each of the components of this complex set of processes operates in accordance with known physical and chemical laws’.
A few comments and qualifiers on my counter claim.
First, although biological systems are incredibly complex, far more complex than suggested by most existing theories, the adaptive approach suggests this complexity is the result of a relatively small number of different logical processes or ‘complex causal relationships’. Although even simple organism involve very large numbers of occurrences of these logical processes, there are only a relatively small number of different types or manifestations of each logical process. It is therefore possible, maybe even practical, to identify all or most of the different types of physical manifestations of logical processes and demonstrate that the physical manifestations involve standard physical and chemical laws.
Second, I have a model which appears to contain all the logical operations, processes, or causal relationships necessary to create a biological system. I have a identified a number of the physical manifestations of these logical processes, and those identified to date all explainable in terms of standard physical/chemical laws.
Third, current knowledge is obviously far from complete. There are a number of physical manifestations suggest by my model which have not yet been identified and analyzed. I am obviously ‘predicting’ that these manifestations will be identified and that they will involved known physical/chemical laws. [This gets into a lot of detail, but I will be glad to go through what I have to date with anyone interested.]
Fourth, the models I have developed provide a model or simulation of how teleological causation could occur. Obviously the possibility exists that there is a ‘better model or theory’. Although the model explains, or attempts to explain teleological causation and how it develops, there is always the possibility of unexplained discontinuities due to ‘non-material’ factors.
My comments obviously only represent a counter claim to your claim of ‘eluding explanation’. I am claiming not only that teleological causation involves ‘normal’ physical laws, but that there is, or may be a systematic and practical method to test my claim.
In looking at your explanation of how evolution operates, I don’t think our views are very far apart. Our main difference seems to be ‘intelligence as some unknown physical force’ and ‘intelligence as the result of the interaction of sets of known forces’.
Where next?
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 28. May 2002 19:16
Warren:
Reading your most recent presentation of your ideas, I had the feeling that we are not that far apart. Where next? is a good question, since we have both tried to explain ourselves (I hope not quite ad nauseam in the eyes of others looking on, but probably not far from it).
I just have one question for you: You say that teleological coherence (goal-seeking behavior) is reducible to physics. What physics do you have in mind? I am unaware that any physicist would countenance such an idea for a single moment, apart from the handful of renegades whom I am constantly citing.
Here is an interesting quote for us all to meditate on. The authors are explaining spin-glass models of proteins, and are beginning to discuss Hans Frauenfelder's idea of "functionally important motions" (ones that constitute a condensation within their phase space that cannot be explained in statistical-mechanical terms):
"The next step removes us far from any idea in spin glasses and separates the physicists from the biophysicists. No one has ever spoken about a functionally important motion in a spin glass, and probably would be driven from the high holy temple of condensed matter physics if they did" (R.H. Austin & C.M. Chen, "The Spin Glass Analogy in Protein Dynamics," in D.L. Stein (ed.), Spin Glasses and Biology, Singapore: World Scientific, 1992, pp. 179--223---the quote is on p. 214).
So, you see, Warren, the problem is not to give a mathematical description of the LOGIC of protein function. The problem is to give a PHYSICAL account of the phase-space condensation describable by that logic. I submit that for that we need to extend quantum field theory to proteins (there are some ideas out there on how to do this, but it is certainly not standard physics).
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warren_bergerson
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Member # 262
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posted 29. May 2002 08:55
James,
JB:I just have one question for you: You say that teleological coherence (goal-seeking behavior) is reducible to physics. What physics do you have in mind? I am unaware that any physicist would countenance such an idea for a single moment, apart from the handful of renegades whom I am constantly citing.
The central feature of the adaptive approach is the ‘adaptive reaction’ or ‘dynamic causal relationship’ or ‘programmable causal relationship’. In simple terms, adaptive reaction can change from ‘s1 causes r1’ to ‘s1 causes r2’ or ‘s2 causes r1’. The rule or causal relationship that determines what r is produced by what s is referred as a program. A programmable causal relationship is one where the input-output rule or program can be changed. An ‘adaptive reaction’ is a programmable causal relationship where the change process or programming process produces programs that promote a goal or purpose. As discussed earlier, in biological systems, it is useful to define goals in terms of survival.
We know that there are physical manifestations of ‘programmable causal relationships’. Every time we reprogram a computer, we produce a physical change that changes the causal relationship between input and output. The adaptive approach is based on the assumption that physical manifestations of programmable causal relationships exist in biological systems. My analysis suggests there are only a very limited number of different types of these programmable causal relationships in biological systems. I have identified two clear examples, one associated with human decision making and one associated with neurons. There is one, and possibly more than one, programmable causal relationships associated with genetic materials and cells.
I will be glad to discuss in more detail the physical mechanisms underlying programmable causal relationships, but as you suggest, the topic is better handled off line.
I will just mention that the physical mechanisms underlying programmable causal relationships at the cell level are particularly interesting. My analysis, which is far from complete, suggests that DNA either is or codes for "input-output relationships" or "S-R relationships" or "programs for programmable causal relationships".
It may or may not be obvious, but this ‘interpretation’ of genetics would make it possible to model or simulate the wide range of teleological functions performed by cells. It would also make it possible to explain the physical/chemical laws associated with these teleological functions.
It is well established that there are teleological causal relationships in cells. These have the general form "chemical or force A causes reaction B". Series or sets of such causal relationships are responsible for constructing proteins and organelles in cells. Again, the existence of sets of causal relationships which produce ‘useful features’ in cells is readily recognized.
What I am suggesting, is that cells contain mechanisms for changing or reprogramming and storing which causes are associated with which effects. Given such a capacity, combined with 1)an array of potential causes or stimuli and 2) an array of potential effects or responses, it is possible to construct a wide range of different cause and effect relationships. Combining these simple cause and effect relationships in different ways can produce very complex processes such as ‘constructing a bacterial flagellum’.
Again, it seems fairly ‘obvious’ to me that given the capacity to mix and match or reprogram causes and effects, it is possible to ‘create’ any of the complex teleological processes or operations observed in cells using ‘standard’ physical/chemical processes.
If you accept that complex teleological process could be constructed by programming simple cause and effect relationships, then you need to address the question of how the programming occurs. Clearly the neo-Darwinian mutate-select won’t do it. My LFS model was developed as an alternative explanation for how ‘programmable causal relationships’ are programmed to achieve the purpose of survival. It might, however, be better to first concentrate on understanding the physical manifestations of programmable causal relationships. I will be glad to pursue this either here or privately.
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Zia H. Shah
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Member # 284
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posted 29. May 2002 11:39
Dear Warren
You wrote:
"Why does there appear to be design, purpose, intelligence and possibly external designers associated with biological systems when there is no indication of such phenomena in the physical, non-biological universe?"
My humble thoughts in this regards are that this distinction between biological versus non-biological sciences is created by the way of our current thinking and is not inherent in the objects that we study in these respective fields.
If there is an ultimate intelligence or a "God", then he is the ultimate cause of all causes be they animate or inanimate. If we keep such a model in mind then this distinction may disappear.
Another reason for distinction in present day physics and biology may lie in the fact that we may be further down (advanced) in deciphering the causes of events in physics then in biology.
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