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Posted by Ramellini on November 30, 1999 at 11:06:27:
In Reply to: The genetic program: creator, demiurge, or neither? (Re: Program God) posted by Ramellini on November 01, 1999 at 04:41:55:
Before the idea that cells <
So, the genetic program is a biological analogue of psychological mind. From
this point of view, other ideas spring out as an unavoidable outcome of the
preliminary statement: the <
difficult to accept" (Sergei, message 229 on old HBG forum); it is a part
of a Weltanschauung dating back, for instance, to Diderot, who spoke, in his
"La reve de d'Alembert", about a general sensibility of matter and
universe, the only way to admit human sensibility without appealing to
immaterial entities; obviously, the presence of such an idea doesn't imply its
truthfulness; I think for instance that we know too little our mind to attempt
comparisons between mind and matter.
The alternative position is that there are only particles and their casual
movements, without any kind of abstract, immaterial mind, neither in cells, nor
in our brain; there are neither programs to perform nor instructions to be
followed. This is the end of Descartes' division of reality between a 'res
extensa' and a 'res cogitans'; as soon as the 'chose qui pense' was eliminated
as a troublesome residue of spiritualism, no programs were conceivable in a
totally mechanistical universe.