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Author
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Topic: Vertosick's "The Genius Within"
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James A. Barham
Member
Member # 50
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posted 12. June 2002 08:17
It seems that third-force "neo-vitalism" has gone mainstream!
I wanted to draw everyone's attention to a new book by Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., called "The Genius Within: Discovering the Intelligence of Every Living Thing" (Harcourt, 2002).
Vertosick is a neurosurgeon, and the book has no scholarly apparatus, but he has clearly read widely and his argument is grounded in empirical facts all along the way. Here is his main thesis, in a nutshell:
"Scientists must either accept the genius [i.e., intelligence] of the living world or attribute the existence of life entirely to Divine Design. There is no middle ground. Mainstream evolutionists give us a false choice: the world was created either by an intelligent God or by unintelligent Chance. I would offer a third alternative: life was indeed created by intelligent design, but the design is entirely of earthly origin." (p. 8).
I have only skimmed the book so far, but it seems to be mainly based on network concepts, that we were recently discussing on another thread.
It appears quite shallow philosophically, with the author sometimes making strong critiques of the mainstream Darwinian position, and sometimes embracing it uncritically. Likewise, with respect to mutliple realizability.
Nevertheless, I believe it is significant that the basic idea that Life = Intelligence is now out there in the mainstream pop science literature. This is certainly a positive development.
[ 12 June 2002, 08:18: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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molad
Member
Member # 957
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posted 24. October 2003 19:15
?The common Amoeba has a naked cell surface, but a variety of shelled forms exists; the genus Difflugia, for example, constructs a case from minute grains of sand, whereas other amebae secrete intricate shells of calcium carbonate and silica. These shells contain holes through which the pseudopodium can be extruded to collect food particles.?
Another author: ?In Diflugia, the shell is made of tiny sand grains cemented together in a kind of miniature upside-down vase. In Arcella, the shell is constructed from a protein-sugar compound called chitin.?
The same scheme carried out by a variety of methods in a variety of materials. It sure looks like pre-cranial brain intelligence. I seem to have arrived at Vertosick?s conclusion (in an even smaller nutshell: ?... life and intelligence ... aren?t separable entities, in my opinion?) from a different point.
What is ?multiple realiizability??
Tim Reynolds
Long Beach CA
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