Nathaniel Lawrence sees this interconnected social fabric of Whitehead» s philosophy
of organism as forming the base for his beliefs about education (NES).
The doctrine thus cries aloud for a conception
of organism as fundamental for nature.
To underpin this realistic interpretation, one may refer to Whitehead's magnum opus, Process and Reality, where, on several occasions, he explicitly objects to a Kantian epistemology, presenting his philosophy
of organism as a return to a pre-Kantian mode of thought.22
Science also studies living organisms, but this is almost exclusively a study
of organisms as objects and not as subjects.
The question now arises as to whether this highly organized and active psyche performs any of its actions for its own enjoyment or enhancement and independent of its contribution to the welfare
of the organism as a whole.
Second, successive occasions build upon the achievements of their predecessors, in this respect, in such a way as significantly to modify the behavior
of the organism as a whole.
It is doubtful that this states that there is in each organism The doctrine thus cries aloud for a conception
of organism as fundamental to nature.
With the value - laden concept
of organism as our starting point, there is a hope of having a single set of principles which encompass all forms of experience, physiology and psychology, including morals, politics and aesthetics.
The building block electronic and protonic actual occasions are, in the case of human beings, swept into vastly more complex, Chinese box - like sets of containing societies within which there are social levels that can be identified with cells, others which answer to Aristotle's levels of tissues and organs, and which finally are presided over by what Whitehead refers to as the regnant nexus, a social thread of complex temporal inheritance which, Whitehead suggests, wanders from part to part of the brain, is the seat of conscious direction
of the organism as a whole, and answers to what in Plato and Aristotle is called the soul.
Wherever it is reasonable to posit a single center of experience playing a decisive role in the functioning
of the organism as a whole, there it is reasonable to posit a soul.
In both cases, however, the dominance of similar means of understanding is unmistakable, as both are based on biocentricity; in this perspective it appears then completely valid to look at Whitehead's philosophy
of organism as a purified and newly founded resumption of that which appeared previously as animism, before being overlaid by thing - ification.
In the organic responses of the adverbial level, selective processes operate according to what is relevant to the fulfilment
of the organism as a whole.12 At the same time, although some selectivity may occur, adverbial responses tend to take the character of «total assertions» of the whole organism about the whole object it confronts.13 At the accusative level, or level of conscious symbolization, whole masses of irrelevant detail are excluded according to some principle of relevance operating in consciousness at the time.
There can merely be change, purposeless and unprogressive... The doctrine thus cries aloud for a conception
of organism as fundamental for nature.
The conception
of organism as fundamental for nature involves a radical break with a mechanistic or substance concept of nature.
The notion
of organisms as carriers of form — or rather, as only existing in patterned processes — was a preoccupation of the participants in the Dialogues, largely because of Rupert Sheldrake's book.
It exists in any enduring object where there is a single center of experience that coordinates the functioning
of the organism as a whole.
In what way, if any, does the concept of subjective aim help us to understand the organization
of organisms as we find them today and their evolution in time?
All biologists agree that the behavior
of organisms as a whole is directive, in the sense that in the course of evolution some at least of it has been modified by selection so as to lead with greater or less certainty towards states which favour the survival and reproduction of the individual.
Researchers are documenting more and more examples of interbreeding influencing evolution
of organisms as diverse as butterflies and humans (SN: 3/5/16, p. 18), she says.
So over time, changes in the cytoskeleton form the shape and behavior of cells and, ultimately, the structure and function
of the organism as a whole.
The transcription factor Gcn4 is conserved in over 50 different organisms, including mammals, and it likely play a significant role in the aging
of these organisms as well.
The granted projects focus on several human diseases including leukemia and Alzheimer's disease as well as the study of biodiversity
of organisms as diverse as barnacles, mycorrhiza and rabbits.
Additionally, aging
of the organism as a whole is modulated by hormonal signals produced by neurons and other tissues.
Explain to students that they will be going into part of their local ecosystem to look at its biodiversity by observing as many different types
of organisms as they can find.
Not exact matches
But its involvement shouldn't blind us to the fact that GMO's (genetically modified
organisms) are,
as a category, no less safe than any other kind
of food.
«Rome is burning at the moment,» Christopher Page, a biologist who oversees production and growth
of new coral seeds at Mote, told me
as he pointed to a tank full
of polyps, the name for individual coral
organisms.
In reality, the lifeform belongs to a separate class
of life known
as Archaea, a type
of single - celled
organism that typically thrives in harsh environments.
It turns out the microscopic
organisms are correlated with dozens
of health conditions — everything from irritable bowel syndrome and acne to mental health conditions such
as depression and anxiety.
You have to think
of yourself
as an
organism competing with other
organisms in an ecosystem.
They're hoping to find out what controls the size
of the nucleus, the central compartment
of a cell that contains the DNA, and other components
of the cell
as it develops into a many - celled
organism.
I regard the way it manipulates and controls our access to information
as dangerous to the health
of the social
organism.
Bitcoin serves
as a great example
of what Garzik terms a «decentralized autonomous
organism.»
One thing that many Christians get hung up on is the idea
of evolution
as a belief that we all developed from single celled
organisms and that our genetic map split from apes and etc..
I think if we create a biological intelligence that's full
of suffering, we have the same moral obligation to protect it from suffering
as we have any other living
organism, especially in a sentient
organism.
A quote... / «Insofar
as the team created an
organism capable
of thriving and self - replicating, Venter and his colleagues created life.
The fossil record which shows millions
of years
of stable species, then an explosion
of necessarily mutations, all occurring at the precise necessary time required for complex
organisms to develop, and ALL escaping fossilization «the sudden appearance
of most species in the geologic record and the lack
of evidence
of substantial gradual change in most species — from their initial appearance until their extinction — has long been noted, including by Charles Darwin who appealed to the imperfection
of the record
as the favored explanation» — Wikipedia
It allows cloning for the purpose
of treating created human
organism as a corn crop.
That is, if Wilson's purely functionalist explanation
of religion were to become widely accepted by religious people, it would then be rendered false» for the adaptive features
of religions depend, on Wilson's account, upon religious people thinking it false that their religions are best understood
as adaptive social
organisms.
How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that,
as some
of the lowest
organisms in which nerves can not be detected, are capable
of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.»
Equivalently, then, that successor presiding occasion prehends the mentality
of its predecessor (s) in the dominant subsociety, not directly through spatial contiguity, but through the patterns
of activity already present both in the brain
as its immediate environment and in the entire
organism as its overall field
of activity.
It abounds in unique conceptions and undergoes considerable metamorphosis, starting
as an epistemological realism and culminating in a philosophy
of organism.
Then,
as a result
of genetic duplication, random selection and the environment, those simple life forms * evolved * into slightly more complex
organisms.
But it is the
organism itself
as a unified field
of activity which thereby continues to exist and undergo various changes.
How else, you may ask, is one to understand the unitary reality
of a Whiteheadian structured society so that it corresponds to what common sense understands
as an
organism or compound individual?
As the very title
of the essay makes clear, his problematic is how to justify the existence
of compound individual entities (e.g.,
organisms) when the ultimate entities are microscopic (cells) or submicroscopic (atoms).
Since the philosophy
of organism is a study based on general experience, it should come
as no surprise that the realization
of creativity has not been considered.
The various metaphors from nature, on the other hand —
organism, process, body, ground
of being — tend to rule out full explication
of the historical dimension
as it is attested by the biblical writers.
The only answer which is plausible can be given by the biological theory
of knowledge: in the same way
as our perception carves Out
of the whole physical reality only that zone which has practical importance for our
organism, only those recollections which are relevant to our present situation are transmitted into our present moment.
Just
as a mountain climber can not jump to the top
of the Matterhorn, a (relatively) simple
organism like a bacterium can not even conceivably become a complex plant or animal except in very gradual stages.
Sometimes this state has been out
of kilter,
as any growing
organism is apt to be.