Brent/Gregg:

Fascinating project indeed . . . !!

I think that Gregg has correctly suggested that the "highest level"  
division between metaphysical systems is between "natural-only" and  
"supernatural."  And, he is also correct that in the "natural"  
category (minus the "supernatural") the current leader is "complexity  
science."

However, the challenge (which we've been discussing on this list for a  
while now) is whether the shift from "dead matter" to life (yes, I'd  
put the problem one level below where Gregg places it) can adequately  
be addressed by what is now "canonical" in complexity research?  Gregg  
says no and I think he's right about that.

I first encountered all this as an undergraduate in the late-60s,  
majoring in evolutionary genetics -- long before there was a field  
called "complexity."  Then it was a debate over the 2nd Law of  
Thermodynamics and how to account for life given these "iron-clad"  
material laws.  An "answer" was fudged but it never convinced me or  
many other people.

 From what I can tell, there was a "factional" fight at places like  
the Santa Fe Institute over some aspects of this around 2005 and those  
who wanted to deal with "levels" of complexity lost.  Gregg's  
"dimensions" would seem to fit in with that larger conflict in the  
field -- which isn't widely known outside of those directly involved.

Another version of this happened in the late 19th-century with Georg  
Cantor.  He proposed a "solution" by inventing Transfinite Numbers  
but, in the end, he went mad trying to get it acknowledged.  He failed  
and he cracked up.

Gregg has bravely entered into this fraught territory, perhaps with  
some of the naivety of an intrepid explorer making his own map, which  
is a quality I admire in him.

How does Canonizer deal with something fundamental that has a long  
history like this and how do you assemble a "panel of experts" with  
enough understanding and background to deal with the issues involved .  
. . ??

Mark

P.S. The removal of the "supernatural" from this discussion is a  
recent phenomenon.  It was just 100 years ago that Max Weber declared  
the "disenchantment of the world" in his "Science as a Vocation"  
Munich lecture.  Then it was called "positivism," from which "holism"  
developed as a counter-argument.  This has gotten pretty heated and  
many careers have been made and broken based on these conflicts.  So,  
the lines have been drawn and re-drawn -- with much passion involved.

More recently, many have proposed that we are headed back to  
re-including what "physics" cannot understand.  In particular, the  
"Marxist" Jurgen Habermas has declared that we are "post-secular."   
The "post-modernists," like Alain Badiou &al, have been debating  
various "theologies" for a decade or more.  Many are convinced that  
the simply "natural" approach has failed and doesn't cut it -- thus  
Gregg's valiant effort to build a successful "meta-theory."  Getting  
some experts to look at this could be very enlightening, if done well.

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