On the Place of Life in the Cosmos: Whitehead and Contemporary Theoretical Biology

This is an excerpt from the final session of our “Intuiting Life” Seminar Series hosted by the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee last month. You can find the full playlist here.

Outline of lecture:

Introduction to Participatory Cosmology

• Emphasis on an “endo-methodology” for studying life and the physical world.
• Challenge to Cartesian dualism and its impact on scientific understanding.

Critique of Mechanistic Explanations

• Inadequacy of mechanistic models in physics and biology.
• The necessity for explanations that accommodate the existence of life and consciousness.

The Philosophical Shift from Life to Death

• Historical inversion in the perception of life and death post-Scientific Revolution.
• Rekindling of philosophical interest in panpsychism in response to ecological crises.

Organic Ontology in Biology and Physics

• The need for an organic understanding of life and matter.
• Resonance with Whitehead’s process-relational ontology.

Influences of Friedrich Schelling and Robert Rosen

• Schelling’s critique of mechanistic views and his organic philosophy.
• Rosen’s emphasis on self-organization and its implications for physics.

Autopoiesis in Contemporary Theoretical Biology

• Overview of autopoiesis as developed by Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana, and Evan Thompson.
• Autopoiesis as a counter to reductionism in life sciences.

The Limitations of Autopoietic Biology

• Introduction of a new dualism between life and matter.
• Evan Thompson’s shift towards a panexperientialist perspective.

Whitehead’s Process Relational Ontology

• Organisms as fundamental entities in Whitehead’s cosmology.
• The concept of “organisms all the way down” and internal relations.

Autopoiesis and Process Relational Ontology

• Contrast between autopoietic biology and Whitehead’s ontology.
• Segall’s proposition for integrating autopoiesis with process-relational thought.

Concluding Thoughts

• The significance of Whitehead’s philosophy in providing an ontological foundation for autopoietic biology.
• The holistic and inclusive understanding of life and matter in Whitehead’s cosmology.
• Implications for ecological responsibility and the interpretation of the natural world.