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""Self organizing" is the kicker, ain't it?"

"Self-organizing" seems to imply consciousness acting to organize the development of a species. If so, then the principle places "being" over "becoming" and is therefore metaphysical rather than scientific. No explanation or discounting of evolution that follows from this line of reasoning can be accepted as scientifically valid. As an exercise in metaphysics it may work, but not as an exercise in science.

No explanation or discounting of evolution that follows from this line of reasoning can be accepted as scientifically valid. As an exercise in metaphysics it may work, but not as an exercise in science.

By means of metaphysics we may know all of science.

By means of science we may not know all of metaphysics.

What does that say to you?

See "subsume."

It is not science that can tell us of origins, nor of what creativity may or may not be applied. Therefore, science cannot tell us just how it was that species have come about.

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Heartlander acknowldegement.

Thank you for your replies, unspun!

Unspun: "Self organizing" is the kicker, ain't it?"

Indeed, it is. Happenstance is "out", autonomous biological self-organizing complexity is "in".

StJacques: Self-organizing" seems to imply consciousness acting to organize the development of a species. If so, then the principle places "being" over "becoming" and is therefore metaphysical rather than scientific.

Self organizing complexity is science not metaphysics. For more information on the subject:

The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut

Syntactic Autonomy: Or Why There is no Autonomy Without Symbols and how Self-Organizing Systems Might Evolve Them

IMHO, such theories are the outcome of mathematicians and physicists being invited to the "evolution" table. These disciplines concern themselves with such questions as "what is life?" which strangely is not a question biology tries to answer. Likewise, the disciplines are keenly interested in the rise of functional complexity and information in biological systems (Shannon paraphrased: successful communication).