Philosophers
Mortimer Adler Rogers Albritton Alexander of Aphrodisias Samuel Alexander William Alston Anaximander G.E.M.Anscombe Anselm Louise Antony Thomas Aquinas Aristotle David Armstrong Harald Atmanspacher Robert Audi Augustine J.L.Austin A.J.Ayer Alexander Bain Mark Balaguer Jeffrey Barrett William Barrett William Belsham Henri Bergson George Berkeley Isaiah Berlin Richard J. Bernstein Bernard Berofsky Robert Bishop Max Black Susanne Bobzien Emil du Bois-Reymond Hilary Bok Laurence BonJour George Boole Émile Boutroux Daniel Boyd F.H.Bradley C.D.Broad Michael Burke Lawrence Cahoone C.A.Campbell Joseph Keim Campbell Rudolf Carnap Carneades Nancy Cartwright Gregg Caruso Ernst Cassirer David Chalmers Roderick Chisholm Chrysippus Cicero Tom Clark Randolph Clarke Samuel Clarke Anthony Collins Antonella Corradini Diodorus Cronus Jonathan Dancy Donald Davidson Mario De Caro Democritus Daniel Dennett Jacques Derrida René Descartes Richard Double Fred Dretske John Dupré John Earman Laura Waddell Ekstrom Epictetus Epicurus Austin Farrer Herbert Feigl Arthur Fine John Martin Fischer Frederic Fitch Owen Flanagan Luciano Floridi Philippa Foot Alfred Fouilleé Harry Frankfurt Richard L. Franklin Bas van Fraassen Michael Frede Gottlob Frege Peter Geach Edmund Gettier Carl Ginet Alvin Goldman Gorgias Nicholas St. John Green H.Paul Grice Ian Hacking Ishtiyaque Haji Stuart Hampshire W.F.R.Hardie Sam Harris William Hasker R.M.Hare Georg W.F. Hegel Martin Heidegger Heraclitus R.E.Hobart Thomas Hobbes David Hodgson Shadsworth Hodgson Baron d'Holbach Ted Honderich Pamela Huby David Hume Ferenc Huoranszki Frank Jackson William James Lord Kames Robert Kane Immanuel Kant Tomis Kapitan Walter Kaufmann Jaegwon Kim William King Hilary Kornblith Christine Korsgaard Saul Kripke Thomas Kuhn Andrea Lavazza Christoph Lehner Keith Lehrer Gottfried Leibniz Jules Lequyer Leucippus Michael Levin Joseph Levine George Henry Lewes C.I.Lewis David Lewis Peter Lipton C. Lloyd Morgan John Locke Michael Lockwood Arthur O. Lovejoy E. Jonathan Lowe John R. Lucas Lucretius Alasdair MacIntyre Ruth Barcan Marcus Tim Maudlin James Martineau Nicholas Maxwell Storrs McCall Hugh McCann Colin McGinn Michael McKenna Brian McLaughlin John McTaggart Paul E. Meehl Uwe Meixner Alfred Mele Trenton Merricks John Stuart Mill Dickinson Miller G.E.Moore Thomas Nagel Otto Neurath Friedrich Nietzsche John Norton P.H.Nowell-Smith Robert Nozick William of Ockham Timothy O'Connor Parmenides David F. Pears Charles Sanders Peirce Derk Pereboom Steven Pinker Plato Karl Popper Porphyry Huw Price H.A.Prichard Protagoras Hilary Putnam Willard van Orman Quine Frank Ramsey Ayn Rand Michael Rea Thomas Reid Charles Renouvier Nicholas Rescher C.W.Rietdijk Richard Rorty Josiah Royce Bertrand Russell Paul Russell Gilbert Ryle Jean-Paul Sartre Kenneth Sayre T.M.Scanlon Moritz Schlick Arthur Schopenhauer John Searle Wilfrid Sellars Alan Sidelle Ted Sider Henry Sidgwick Walter Sinnott-Armstrong J.J.C.Smart Saul Smilansky Michael Smith Baruch Spinoza L. Susan Stebbing Isabelle Stengers George F. Stout Galen Strawson Peter Strawson Eleonore Stump Francisco Suárez Richard Taylor Kevin Timpe Mark Twain Peter Unger Peter van Inwagen Manuel Vargas John Venn Kadri Vihvelin Voltaire G.H. von Wright David Foster Wallace R. Jay Wallace W.G.Ward Ted Warfield Roy Weatherford C.F. von Weizsäcker William Whewell Alfred North Whitehead David Widerker David Wiggins Bernard Williams Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Susan Wolf Scientists David Albert Michael Arbib Walter Baade Bernard Baars Jeffrey Bada Leslie Ballentine Marcello Barbieri Gregory Bateson Horace Barlow John S. Bell Mara Beller Charles Bennett Ludwig von Bertalanffy Susan Blackmore Margaret Boden David Bohm Niels Bohr Ludwig Boltzmann Emile Borel Max Born Satyendra Nath Bose Walther Bothe Jean Bricmont Hans Briegel Leon Brillouin Stephen Brush Henry Thomas Buckle S. H. Burbury Melvin Calvin Donald Campbell Sadi Carnot Anthony Cashmore Eric Chaisson Gregory Chaitin Jean-Pierre Changeux Rudolf Clausius Arthur Holly Compton John Conway Jerry Coyne John Cramer Francis Crick E. P. Culverwell Antonio Damasio Olivier Darrigol Charles Darwin Richard Dawkins Terrence Deacon Lüder Deecke Richard Dedekind Louis de Broglie Stanislas Dehaene Max Delbrück Abraham de Moivre Bernard d'Espagnat Paul Dirac Hans Driesch John Eccles Arthur Stanley Eddington Gerald Edelman Paul Ehrenfest Manfred Eigen Albert Einstein George F. R. Ellis Hugh Everett, III Franz Exner Richard Feynman R. A. Fisher David Foster Joseph Fourier Philipp Frank Steven Frautschi Edward Fredkin Benjamin Gal-Or Howard Gardner Lila Gatlin Michael Gazzaniga Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen GianCarlo Ghirardi J. Willard Gibbs James J. Gibson Nicolas Gisin Paul Glimcher Thomas Gold A. O. Gomes Brian Goodwin Joshua Greene Dirk ter Haar Jacques Hadamard Mark Hadley Patrick Haggard J. B. S. Haldane Stuart Hameroff Augustin Hamon Sam Harris Ralph Hartley Hyman Hartman Jeff Hawkins John-Dylan Haynes Donald Hebb Martin Heisenberg Werner Heisenberg John Herschel Basil Hiley Art Hobson Jesper Hoffmeyer Don Howard John H. Jackson William Stanley Jevons Roman Jakobson E. T. Jaynes Pascual Jordan Eric Kandel Ruth E. Kastner Stuart Kauffman Martin J. Klein William R. Klemm Christof Koch Simon Kochen Hans Kornhuber Stephen Kosslyn Daniel Koshland Ladislav Kovàč Leopold Kronecker Rolf Landauer Alfred Landé Pierre-Simon Laplace Karl Lashley David Layzer Joseph LeDoux Gerald Lettvin Gilbert Lewis Benjamin Libet David Lindley Seth Lloyd Werner Loewenstein Hendrik Lorentz Josef Loschmidt Alfred Lotka Ernst Mach Donald MacKay Henry Margenau Owen Maroney David Marr Humberto Maturana James Clerk Maxwell Ernst Mayr John McCarthy Warren McCulloch N. David Mermin George Miller Stanley Miller Ulrich Mohrhoff Jacques Monod Vernon Mountcastle Emmy Noether Donald Norman Alexander Oparin Abraham Pais Howard Pattee Wolfgang Pauli Massimo Pauri Wilder Penfield Roger Penrose Steven Pinker Colin Pittendrigh Walter Pitts Max Planck Susan Pockett Henri Poincaré Daniel Pollen Ilya Prigogine Hans Primas Zenon Pylyshyn Henry Quastler Adolphe Quételet Pasco Rakic Nicolas Rashevsky Lord Rayleigh Frederick Reif Jürgen Renn Giacomo Rizzolati A.A. Roback Emil Roduner Juan Roederer Jerome Rothstein David Ruelle David Rumelhart Robert Sapolsky Tilman Sauer Ferdinand de Saussure Jürgen Schmidhuber Erwin Schrödinger Aaron Schurger Sebastian Seung Thomas Sebeok Franco Selleri Claude Shannon Charles Sherrington David Shiang Abner Shimony Herbert Simon Dean Keith Simonton Edmund Sinnott B. F. Skinner Lee Smolin Ray Solomonoff Roger Sperry John Stachel Henry Stapp Tom Stonier Antoine Suarez Leo Szilard Max Tegmark Teilhard de Chardin Libb Thims William Thomson (Kelvin) Richard Tolman Giulio Tononi Peter Tse Alan Turing C. S. Unnikrishnan Francisco Varela Vlatko Vedral Vladimir Vernadsky Mikhail Volkenstein Heinz von Foerster Richard von Mises John von Neumann Jakob von Uexküll C. H. Waddington John B. Watson Daniel Wegner Steven Weinberg Paul A. Weiss Herman Weyl John Wheeler Jeffrey Wicken Wilhelm Wien Norbert Wiener Eugene Wigner E. O. Wilson Günther Witzany Stephen Wolfram H. Dieter Zeh Semir Zeki Ernst Zermelo Wojciech Zurek Konrad Zuse Fritz Zwicky Presentations Biosemiotics Free Will Mental Causation James Symposium |
Brian Goodwin
Brian Goodwin was a mathematician and biologist who helped found the field of mathematical and theoretical biology, which includes modeling, complex systems biology, bioinformatics, and computational biology. He was a co-founder of the Santa Fe Institute, where the emphasis was on deterministic chaos and the self-organization of complex adaptive systems as the model for biology.
But Goodwin did not like the prevalent opinion that biology can be "reduced" to chemistry and physics. Like Ernst Mayr and others who called for a new philosophy of biology, Goodwin emphasized that biological systems have a history, unlike anything in physics. He liked the "philosophy of organism" proposed by Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy and disliked René Descartes' dualism of mind and body.
He was a bit skeptical about Darwinism, arguing that genes cannot fully explain the complexity of biological systems. He thought that nonlinear phenomena and perhaps even new fundamental laws were needed to understand evolutionary biology. Complex patterns observed in nature might result from constraints imposed by complexity, with natural selection in a secondary role.
Perhaps Goodwin's greatest contribution to biology was the suggestion that biological systems, and subsystems down to the proteins (Jacques Monod thought proteins were purposeful - "teleonomic"), should be regarded as creative cognitive systems, using their knowledge to decide on actions and behaviors. He named this idea cognitive biology.
He described what he meant by knowledge, and how knowledge (and a knowing system) can give "meaning" to information.
I have defined knowledge as a useful description of some aspect of the world, giving the possessor the competence to behave in a manner which contributes to its survival and reproduction. The fact that we are dealing with descriptions means that there are codes or sets of codes which relate them to that which is described. The unravelling of such codes, which is the equivalent of learning to read an unknown language, together with the solution of the problem how the knowledge is transmitted reliably from generation to generation, has been a major preoccupation of contemporary biology: coded knowledge is located largely in the DNA, which acts as a primary memory store for the organism, this knowledge being in the form of hypotheses which need to be translated into active form for testing. However, there is a great deal of 'tacit' knowledge in other structures. The elucidation of the translation and assembly process from the coded linear sequences in the DNA to active three-dimensional proteins, which function as tests of genetic hypotheses by revealing their meaning, constitutes one of the triumphs of twentieth-century biology. I used the term 'meaning' above in relation to the translation and testing of genetic hypotheses and it needs some clarification in this context. In coded form as it occurs in the DNA, the information for a particular protein such as the enzyme β-galactosidase (required for the catabolism of the nutrient lactose in micro-organisms) or a crystallin (a protein which forms the transparent lens of the eye) cannot be tested because it exerts no action upon the organism or its environment. Before it can be tested, the information in the DNA must be translated into a form in which it exerts a particular type of force and acts within a particular context. Thus the β-galactosidase converts lactose into glucose and galactose when it operates within the context of the bacterial cell (which defines particular conditions of pH, osmotic concentration, substrate level, etc.); while a crystallin transmits light rays in a particular way within the context of the eye. These activities may be said to constitute tests of meaning of the coded hypotheses in the hereditary material, involving the interpretation of the information. This interpretation takes place within a particular context, which in part determines the pattern of forces which operate during the testing operation. We then arrive at a distinction between information and knowledge. The technical definition of information involves only selection (e.g. specifying one out of a set of possibilities), but says nothing about meaning, which I take always to involve activity in real space-time. Thus knowledge differs from information in that it not only involves selection of alternative possibilities, but also includes instruction for action which, operating in a particular context, conveys meaning.Goodwin marks the "discontinuity" between the human and the biological spheres as the use of symbols (abstract thought like his mathematics), a view shared by many theoretical scientists. Information philosophy focuses on the creation of abstract, symbolic information by humans, its communication, and its external storage for use by future humans (the Sum). My own definition of knowledge as a useful description of an aspect of the world has itself dualistic overtones, since it can be taken to mean that the description need not reproduce the essence of that described, but only represent it in some formal sense. My meaning is that knowledge is manifest when there is a re-enactment of the process which is described, as the biological clock re-enacts the cyclic process of the night-day-night transition. The evolutionary history of the organism, which includes the experience of these day-night cycles, is embodied in the organism's activity. Therefore its knowledge is in its process; it is not something static, set aside from this process. Thus instead of a description of the organism's world emerging from the organism as subject, which is the Cartesian or the Kantian way of looking at knowledge, we have the organism emerging from the world as an organised, coherent whole in which knowledge is a constituent of activity: a constraining, ordering constituent, as described above. As Whitehead (Process and Reality) has put it: 'Descartes in his philosophy conceives the thinker as creating the occasional thought. The philosophy of organism inverts the order, and conceives the thought as a constituent operation in the creation of the occasional thinker . . . . In this inversion we have the final contrast between a philosophy of substance and a philosophy of organism.' The creative process thus realises itself through the organised activities of beings. For Whitehead this description applies not only to organisms, but to Nature in general, thus avoiding a physical-biological dualism. But we then find ourselves in the position of asking what is the nature of these beings if they are other than biological organisms; i.e. how are we to recognise other 'actual entities' apart from ourselves and other organisms? We are faced with some kind of distinction between the organic and the inorganic, between animate and inanimate. Whitehead regards this distinction as fictitious, arising from an abstraction. He also appears to deny that there is any significant distinction between organic order and mind. This denial results in the important assertion of continuity, of a basic unity in the world; but it fails to recognise different levels of creative organisation, and to distinguish between them. I have suggested a distinction between biological and physical process in terms of the concept of a cognitive system; but a distinction between organisms and minds requires, I believe, a theory of symbolic and moral processes which characterises human intelligence and contrasts it sharply with the constrained knowledge which operates in organisms. Symbolic thought has degrees of freedom not available to processes which employ fixed relationships of interpretation and meaning between structures and their descriptions (reproductions or re-enactments). However, despite the necessity for clear distinctions between levels of organisational complexity in Nature, I believe that a major consequence of Whitehead's philosophy of organism is the resolution of the Cartesian duality in his vision of the world as creative process. The fundamental category of being is activity, creative activity. In relation to organismic process, knowledge is an essential ordering ingredient. Man as an actual entity interacts with every other actual entity, i.e. the rest of the universe, and this is how the world can be known, why it is intelligible. Knowledge cannot be obtained without this union and the way of science is the way of experience. Knowledge comes through the resolution of complication into greater and greater simplicity and the art of resolution is the art of life. A cognitive biology seeks to bring this vision into clearer perspective. The way is made infinitely easier by the extraordinarily penetrating insights of Whitehead. For Teachers
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