Tag: biology
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Michael Levin’s Latent Space of Biological Form
Iain McGilchrist mentions my dialogue with Michael Levin a few weeks ago at the start of this video, before proceeding into an inquiry concerning the whereabouts of ideal form: Where are the forms in the ‘latent space’ of biological possibility? I think everyone in the conversation, including Iain, senses that asking “where”–while essential for noting…
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Platonizing Biology: a dialogue with Michael Levin
Thanks to Karen for hosting this conversation on The Meaning Code. We started with a high level issue: the relationship between metaphysics and/or (philosophical) cosmology and the special sciences. I wanted to be sure he understood that I as a philosopher am in no way trying to tell scientists how to define or understand their…
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Mind and Life in the Cosmos
I’m sharing a version of a lecture I delivered for the Pari Center earlier this morning.
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“Modes of Thought” (1938) by Alfred North Whitehead
I was re-reading Whitehead’s final book, Modes of Thought (1938), and decided I may as well record an audiobook version. Below is the YouTube playlist with all 9 lectures/chapters (click the menu button in the upper right corner to expand the playlist).
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Goethe and Whitehead article in “In Dialogue: Journal for Holistic Science”
In Dialogue: Journal for Holistic Science, Vol 2 is available as a PDF here. My contribution is titled “Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism”
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Evolutionary Thinking with Timothy Jackson
Below are parts 1 and 2 of my dialogue with toxinologist and evolutionary philosopher Timothy Jackson. We discuss everything from the philosophy of science and evolutionary epistemology, to the social and cultural impact of evolution, to the full-blown evolutionary cosmologies of thinkers like Whitehead and Peirce.
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Dialogues with Scientists of Matter, Life, and Mind
Figured I should collect these dialogues in one place. They range from the last year or two up through earlier this afternoon. Timothy Jackson (Biologist and Toxinologist) John Pohl (Physician and Gastroenterologist) John Torday (Physician and Cellular Biologist) Greg Henriques (Psychologist) Praful Gagrani (Physicist and Origin of Life Scientist) John Vervaeke (Cognitive Scientist) Rupert Sheldrake…
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Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot: Complete Seminar (Sessions 1-9)
Above is an embedded playlist featuring all 9 of the Eastman Seminars that I facilitated for the Science Advisory Committee of the Cobb Institute from June 2021 through February 2022. Tim Eastman, a plasma physicist and philosopher, is the author of Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context (2020). These seminars invited other scholars…
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Returning to Cassette Tapes to dialogue with Will July about abiogenesis, the afterlife, and everything in between
It was great to chat with Will again on his podcast Cassette Tapes. Check it out here: https://www.cassettespodcast.com/episodes/30-matt-segall
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The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis
I just sent a draft of this coauthored essay off to the editors. Astrobiologist Bruce Damer and I have been building toward this for a few years. I’m thrilled to have gotten it to this point, and looking forward to peer review! The essay will be featured in a book coming out of this conference…
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Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism
This essay was slated to be published in the Holistic Science Journal, but it looks like it will end up somewhere else later this year. I’ve been sitting on it for a while, though, and wanted to share it here. Feedback welcome. “Goethe and Whitehead: Steps to a Science of Organism” (2021):
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Towards a Mycological Metaphysics
The mycologist Merlin Sheldrake recently published Entangled Life (2020). The book revels in the power of fungi to “make us question our categories,” thereby “[changing] the way we think and imagine” (14, 214). A few pages in, Merlin defines mycelium as a process, rather than a thing (6). I am inclined to agree. As a…
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Dialoging with John Torday about Cellular Evolution
Dr. Torday is Professor of Evolutionary Medicine at UCLA: https://www.evmed.ucla.edu/torday/ For more on the cellular theory of evolution: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4447538/ More about the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee: https://cobb.institute/science-advisory-committee/
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Theology of Nature Templeton research proposal, shelved : (
Several weeks ago, I submitted a proposal for a Templeton Foundation research fellowship called “God and the Book of Nature: Science-engaged Theology of Nature.” I just heard back from the review committee that my proposal was not selected. : ( Oh well. I thought I’d share my cover letter and shelved (for now) research proposal.…
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Genes v. Organisms in Biological Explanation (responding to the Dawkins v. Weinstein debate)
Here’s the recent debate between Richard Dawkins and Bret Weinstein on the relationship between cultural and biological evolution: Here are two response videos from me arguing for the relevance of Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson et al.’s theory of autopoiesis and Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: Some relevant essays that expand on the…
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Schumacher College summer course update: “Physics of the World-Soul”
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/physics-of-the-world-soul Schumacher College has decided to make my week on Schelling and Whitehead a stand alone course called “Physics of the World-Soul.” It will take place June 18-22. More information available at the link above.
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The Place of Life in the Cosmos (draft of 11th International Whitehead Conference paper)
Below is the draft of a paper I’ll present at next week’s International Whitehead Conference in the Azores. Feedback appreciated! 2017 International Whitehead Conference Matthew T. Segall The Place of Life in the Cosmos: Feeling the Origin of Organism “A philosophic outlook is the very foundation of thought and of life. The…
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Towards a new root image in natural science…
Here is anthropologist Anne Buchanan on the post-truth era in natural science. I was reminded of my post on the federally-funded Brain Initiative a few years ago. Buchanan includes geneticist Ken Weiss’ list of facts that do not fit the reductionistic paradigm of “normal science” in biology at the end of her post. Weiss and Buchanan…
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Video of my presentations at the 10th International Whitehead Conference on Friday (6/5) and Saturday (6/6)
Conference website. Friday, June 5th at 4:45pm: Whitehead’s Non-Modern Philosophy: Cosmos and Polis in the Pluriverse Saturday June 6th at 2:30pm: Religion in Human and Cosmic Evolution: Whitehead’s Alternative Vision I have a lot to say about some of the questions that came up during the discussion (~58 minutes into the video), especially the issues…
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Eric Smith on the geochemical inevitability of life on earth
For more from Smith, see this co-authored essay “The Origin of Life”: “As we see it, the early steps on the way to life are an inevitable, incremental result of the operation of the laws of chemistry and physics operating under the conditions that existed on the early Earth, a result that can be understood…
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Religion in Human and Cosmic Evolution: Whitehead’s Alternative Vision
This was an early draft of a paper I presented at the 10th International Whitehead Conference. For video of the actual presentation, click HERE. ——————————— Abstract: This talk compares several approaches to the emergence of religion in human evolution. I contrast Robert Bellah’s and Alfred North Whitehead’s pluralistic, cosmologically oriented accounts to Daniel Dennett’s reductionistic,…
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