Hi Jim more on evolution?

[neo]

Ciao I hope you are doing well

I looked at the Visser froum and there is your article mentioned by Frank.
Now, you kow perhaps that even Karl Popper wrote than Darwin´s research project was a metaphysical one, becasue it couldn´t be refuted (according to his methodological canon of hypothesis-deductive process in research). So calling KW metaphysician is of course not mistake , but we also should include nobel Prize in medecine 1965, Jacques Monod´s book "Hazard and necessity", the classical apology of randomness and reductionism as well, because his position is not based on a rigorous scientifical claim but a political one - but more like a scientistic and atheistic credo which has obviously reached world domination today.

Up to today, nobody in hard sciences can show up the mechanism (if we have to use such boring a term) explaining the passage (processes) from non-living to living organisms. There are only metaphysical speculations.

That doesn´t mean either qualifying the intelligent design freaks to bullshit around.

[Broken Yogi]

"Up to today, nobody in hard sciences can show up the mechanism (if we have to use such boring a term) explaining the passage (processes) from non-living to living organisms. There are only metaphysical speculations."

Sorry, this is bs. There are plenty of purely scientific speculations about how non-living dirt became self-organizing organisms. No proof, but lots of straight scientific support for the idea. The fact that scientists don't yet have proof doesn't make such speculation metaphysical. Before we discovered how to fly, there was lots of speculation about how, mechanically, it could be done, and many said it wasn't possible. There was also lots of metaphysical speculaiton about how to fly, and none of it bore out. The scientists and mechics figured it out, and have been improving it. We haven't yet flown to other planets either, but speculation about that isn't metaphysical, it's scientific, unless of course you want to use Integral Theory to fly to the next galaxy.

THere's a lot of great research in the field of life-origins, none of it anywhere near conclusive, but scientifically interesting nonetheless. There's some biologist out there who is trying to create life from purely non-living materials right now. He's trying to use raw inorganic chemicals and reverse engineer a very primitive cell, and see if he can make it come alive. Dr. Frankenstein, that would be.

Now you are right that when scientists begin using their scientific findings to draw larger conclusions about the universe, they are telling metaphysical stories. This is boundary crossing. They are enititled to do so, but we can also tell them they are full of shit when they do it, that science isn't sufficient grounds upon which to make metaphysical conclusions. Still, they have a point that metaphysics should at least be consistent with science in some respects. So religions that are based on mythological origins of the earth and physical life need to re-examine their metaphysics and keep it consistent with science. Most western religions have a hard time with that. Many eastern religions wouldn't.

[Susan]

Nice site on Evolution...

Darwin/\Wallace

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_14

To follow the $money$ trail....

See their inspiration...

or so they say in Berkley!

From 1798---- http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/history_07

Man... could we have saved ourSelves???

man

Ova Population!

Stepping on over....................

the stained glass table

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_________________
"It's all Ati. Now, let's be practical."
Chogyam Trungpa

[neo]

well

you speak of scientifical speculations?
well taking the middle range aspect. Ok, then it is mainly about alternative hypotheses or something alike. No problem with that as long as they do not claim to have solved the issue, which remains to see.

I recall at a conference at the Institut Pasteur of Parist last year, Francois Jacob, the other nobel prize winner 1965, telling us that we will have to wait quite a period of time in order to understand the weird world of Embryology. And that is far from claiming we know so much now.

Actually we are unable to repair a spinal disease, and how are we to claim to have achieve a thoroughful understanding of the passage from non-living to living organisms?

Biologists - and I´ve been involved myself in research in molecular biology 20 years ago after my MD exam, I am i psychology today) still have a cradle like understanding about the gene regulation among eucaryotics, so mañana about that point.

As Freud said so well it is an illusion to believe to reach knowledge without science. But what sort of science? only that flatty scientistic empiricism?

And tell me these sources about the complete explanation of the passage other than speculations, I am eager to see it.

[neo]

well

you speak of scientifical speculations?
well taking the middle range aspect. Ok, then it is mainly about alternative hypotheses or something alike. No problem with that as long as they do not claim to have solved the issue, which remains to see.

I recall at a conference at the Institut Pasteur of Parist last year, Francois Jacob, the other nobel prize winner 1965, telling us that we will have to wait quite a period of time in order to understand the weird world of Embryology. And that is far from claiming we know so much now.

Actually we are unable to repair a spinal disease, and how are we to claim to have achieve a thoroughful understanding of the passage from non-living to living organisms?

Biologists - and I´ve been involved myself in research in molecular biology 20 years ago after my MD exam, I am i psychology today) still have a cradle like understanding about the gene regulation among eucaryotics, so mañana about that point.

As Freud said so well it is an illusion to believe to reach knowledge without science. But what sort of science? only that flatty scientistic empiricism?

And tell me these sources about the complete explanation of the passage other than speculations, I am eager to see it.

[Bright_Abyss]

I'll have to go with the Yogi on this one Neo.

First off, "dirt"??? No one ever said that organisms, single celled or what have you, emerged from dirt. Even my 7 year old knows that life began in water… ~lol~

Now, the notion that something “alive” came out of something “not alive” is a non starter: based on arbitrary distinctions made with weak metaphysical assumptions.

Everything – and I mean everything nigga – is part of the Grand Show, with bits and superbits connecting here and there, with dissipations, structurations, cohabitations, and symbiotic fabrications to riff on just some of the themes.

There are a handful of theories about ‘how’ it happened, and hopefully someday the ‘how’ will be all quite clear. The important thing for me is that it DID happen. Which right away gets my noodle thinking that there is some kind of deep continuity between matter and life, which effectively pre-empts the sort of boundary-making activities that some of my hominid brethren are so fond of…

Living? Non-living? Yeah right!

How about “complex”, “less complex” for starters?

Not that big of a stretch to think about cool stuff emerging out of a seamless natural universe…

Holla at me~
_________________
The Artist Formerly Known As PATHOS ~
http://integralpraxis.blogspot.com

[Broken Yogi]

Yes, scientiifc speculations is the name of the game. That's how science started out, and how it will always progress. You speculate based on the evidence, then look for the evidence the speculations says should be there. If it is, you build a theory, if not, you start speculating again.

Sure, if you don't understand embryology fully, you speculate as to how it works. That doesn't mean the whole stork theory should be re-examined and made to seem more reasonable. Nor does it mean you posit some magical force that comes in and creates life deus ex machina. What a cheap way of getting around difficulties.

What you call "flatland" is just keeping integrity in the scientific process, and not confusing it with magical explanations. Scientific speculations may not be verified, they may not even be true, but they can be verified, or falsified, based on new evidence. Magic doesn't need either verification or falsification.

Is science the final answer to all questions? No, course not. It's only the answer to scientific questions about the material world. You want more, fine. Don't expect science to come up with those answers, and don't berate science for not having them. That's like beating a horse because it can't go as fast as a racecar.

[Charles]

e-word-xactly, word games. just what i was getting at with my drunk rant below. Wilber is great at dismissing something by applying a label to it. i've always thought it interesting how powerful the "trans" of trans-rational is (of course this isn't Wilber's creation). automatically it takes on a certain superiority of being "beyond" the rational. let's get rid of the word trans-rational. i think it's safer for now to place spiritual experience along side the rational, which I thought that was what AQAL did. trans-rational (or UL) is given a, perhaps unintentional, elevation over the other quadrants.

i like bright abyss' (hey mike) perspective on wilber and his defending of AQAL's model as a valuable map to create simple boundaries and organize various modes of knowledge. i thought this has always been one of Wilber's most worthwhile contributions as a thinker.

Wilber has a great affinity with the interior quadrant and it seems to be driving his philosphical and metaphysical view points. now could somone also be a Wilberite but favor the LL, UR, or LR in deriving philosophical and metaphysical view points without being termed flatland or reductionist? i would think Wilber could be criticized as a reductionist: UL or trans-rational reductionist. i think this is called quadrant reductionism right? Does UL have to rule the roost?

[Jim]

Hi Charles. I wrote up some stuff on Wilber's use of the term "reductionism," so, since you mention his use of that term, I'll paste it in here.

In his blog post response to one of my posts, Wilber says:

I am simply saying that most mainstream biologists accept that there are problems and issues at the leading edge of their science, and I am saying that I recognize the same leading-edge problems that they do, but at that point we quickly part ways—virtually all of them believe those issues can be fully solved using scientific materialism, and I of course do not accept that quadrant absolutism and gross reductionism, but rather introduce a transcendent-immanent principle that is quite similar to Erich Jantsch’s idea, which he states as “evolution is self-organization through self-transcendence.” Of course, you find some daring scientists who go in that non-reductionistic direction, such as Erich Jantsch and, more recently, James Gardner’s Biocosm and Michael Ruse’s The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debate, with a foreword by Edward O. Wilson. But not mainstream biology.

Michael Ruse (who is a philosopher, not a scientist) describes himself as a "hard-line Darwinian," a naturalist, and an agnostic who has "no more belief" in God than Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. The primary difference between Ruse's position and the positions of Dawkins and Dennett is that Ruse, though a hard-line Darwinian, tries to avoid turning Darwinism into a "secular religion" (he accuses Dawkins and Dennett of doing just that), and he realizes that polarizing anti-Darwinian religious believers by attacking religion does more harm than good for Darwinism. Ruse says that he, Dawkins, Dennett, and other Darwinians, "need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."

Ruse rejects intelligent design and says:

I think that any supposed science that appeals to causes that are non-natural is not a science as we understand the concept today.

Natural here is as in naturalism, as in physicalism and materialism. Ruse is no less a materialist than Dawkins, Dennett, Kaufman, Lewontin, and Mayr.

Ruse also says:

There is nothing in modern evolutionary theory which stands in the way of a deep sense of religion or of a morally worthwhile life.

Regarding a book he wrote about the “evolution wars” after the one Wilber references, Ruse says:

In The Evolution-Creation Struggle I try to give the creationists' positions fairly and with historical sympathy. That, I think, is the obligation of the scholar.

Wilber refers to himself as a scholar, but does he meet this obligation?

Does Wilber present naturalistic positions fairly?

No, he doesn't. For one thing, he abuses the word "reductionism," and he does so in the above when he says, "virtually all of them believe those issues can be fully solved using scientific materialism, and I of course do not accept that quadrant absolutism and gross reductionism." Here Wilber begs the question that naturalism is automatically quadrant absolutism and gross reductionism.

In his entry for "reductionism" in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Michael Ruse notes that reductionism is "One of the most used and abused terms in the philosophical lexicon..." (my italics).

“It is not clear when ‘reductionist’ became a term of abuse,” write Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl in The Philospher’s Toolkit, “but, in general discourse, at least, that seems to be where it has ended up.”

Baggini and Fosl say it would be “wildly unfair” to dismiss reductionism on the basis of caricatures of reductionists, e.g., “someone who takes what is complex, nuanced and sophisticated and breaks it down into something simplistic, sterile and empty.”

Reductionism is a much more respectable process than many of its critics maintain. Reductionism is simply the process of explaining one kind of phenomenon in terms of the simpler, more fundamental phenomena that underlie both it and other phenomena.

Physicist Steven Weinberg distinguishes between compromising reductionism (good), and uncompromising reductionism (bad).

Daniel Dennett distinguishes between reductionism (good) and greedy reductionism (bad).

Dennett says that a "reasonable and realistic fear is that the greedy abuse of Darwinian reasoning might lead us to deny the existence of real levels, real complexities, real phenomena. By our own misguided efforts, we might indeed come to discard or destroy something valuable."

Michael Farraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Heinrich Hertz showed that electricity, magnetism and light can be given a reductionistic explanation (as the unification of electromagnetism and light). The notion of an all-pervading ether was done away with in the process. Electromagnetic theory gives us a physicalist reduction of light as a non-mechanical, entirely physical phenomenon (EM waves).

Is the physicalist reduction of light and the elimination of ether an example of quadrant absolutism and gross reductionism?

It was once believed that all combustible substances contain a hypothetical substance called phlogiston and that the process of combustion is essentially the process of losing phlogiston. Antoine Lavoisier demonstrated through quantitative experiments that combustion is a process in which oxygen combines with another substance, and the theory of phlogiston was disproved.

Is the elimination of phlogiston from the theory of combustion an example of gross reductionism and quadrant absolutism?

Wilber is quoted at IN and at his blog as saying that the idea found in the movie What the Bleep?! that human intentionality creates reality at a quantum level is "bad physics and bad mysticism." Is Wilber guilty of quadrant absolutism and gross reductionism for discarding that idea? Surely not, and unless someone can offer good reasons why the proposition that human intentionality creates reality at a quantum level should be kept on the table, there is no reason not to discard it.

The fact that scientific reductions leave things aside doesn't necessarily have any metaphysical significance. The kinetic theory of heat leaves aside many things, such as heat's effect on the conscious states of humans, heat's effect on the Gross National Product of Peru, heat's effect on bluebird-egg cholesterol levels, and heat's effect on pneumonial infections. This does not make the kinetic theory of heat a form of gross reductionism or quadrant absolutism.

In his conversation with Alan Wallace, Wilber says:

John Searle gives a convincing argument that the first-person is irreducible. And then he simply proceeds to reduce it.

Here is an accurate statement about Searle’s views on consciousness:

The first basic principle grounding Searle's theory of consciousness is that consciousness is irreducible. For Searle, consciousness is essentially a first-person, subjective phenomenon, and thus talk of conscious states cannot be reduced or eliminated in favor of third-person, objective talk about neural events. Any such attempt at reduction, Searle argues, simply misses the essential features of conscious states -- that is, their subjective qualities. - Daniel Barbiero

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/searle.html

Wilber apparently just likes to toss the term "reductionism" around like rice at a wedding (his proposed marriage of science and religion, of course).

In the MP3 audio that Dashh recently linked to, Wilber says that Jeff Meyerhoff asks "What about accounts [of evolution] lacking these ingredients," where one of the ingredients is Wilber's telos, "such as Daniel Dennett?"

Wilber says:

Well Daniel Dennett's a reductionist, of course he lacks those ingredients! ... We don't take reductionists, that's true. We try to take the true aspects from theorists; reductionism is not one...

Here again, Wilber simply begs the question that reductionism cannot be a "true aspect" of evolutionary biology, and he once again uses the term "reductionism" as if all reductionism is by definition greedy or gross reductionism.

I don't say any of this in defense of Searle and Dennett, by the way, as I disagree with both on various things. I say this in defense of what Ruse calls the scholar's obligation to represent competing views fairly.

[jimsun]

Not to defend the usage, but my guess is Wilber uses 'reductionist' specifically to refer to folks who present their view of life mostly in scientific terms.
Ie, someone who is mainly into science, may present a scientific description, and acknowledge holes or present limits to the theories.
A non-reductionist, in KW's usage, would make this a bigger issue, and proceed to talk about life from other, non-scientific perspectives, to flesh things out.
A reductionist would stay only in the science perspective, and thus their view of life, and capacity to discuss and engage life via inquiry, overall would appear to be reduced.

Wilber likes to have conversations with people which flow between perspectives, including science and philosophy, but also almost always including more 'subjective' areas, poetic, mystical, intuitive; and also some kind of systems theory.
He experiences that sort of conversation as natural and normal, that it represents a broad, balanced view and experience of what it is like to be alive.

People who don't converse in that way, but stay mostly in evidence-based science and related philosophical areas, feels artificially constricted or reduced as a life-view, to him, imho.
He feels such folks are trying to fit too much of the view into too narrow of a telescope, and that whether you can gradually get this to work or not, in the sense of accumulating more and more scientific discoveries, still leaves you as a person using a narrow, reduced band of perspectives.

When he says that many scientists acknowledge limits and privately agree that there must be more out there, he's perhaps just extrapolating from the fact that many people who do science professionally, do indeed rely on other perspectives in their larger life.
They acknowledge other perspectives and perhaps few actually live inside a Darwinian world-view 24/7.
The fact that the person doesn't really only live and breathe Darwinianism is used as an argument to support the importance of metaphysical interpretations, to show that science is indeed limited, and flawed if used as a primary or final perspective.
In short, if your scientific argument claims physicalism, but you yourself don't actually live that way, your scientific argument is flawed.

Others would dispute this sort of extrapolation.
Because the subtle tendency is to undermine a scientific argument whenever one wants, based on the logic that the scientist is not, in their private and interior life, consistently scientific.

Science is really just a mode of inquiry and discourse.
Any mode is just that, a mode.
Life obviously includes all modes.
The point of doing good science is that when you are doing it, you honor the rules of it.
Then, when you go and do croquet, you follow those rules.

I think this bugs Wilber.
It can feel disorienting to strictly follow one mode at a time, while in one's life overall, doing many modes sequentially.
Where is the connecting glue?
How does one form a coherent, stable, viable subjectivity if one's life is a series of boxes which don't and can't talk to each other?
How can one be a person, a human, in such a world?
Wilber-integral is simply an attempt to answer such questions.

Because it has a fair amount of passion behind it, because it inspires those who use it, there is a subtle message that those who don't appear to have clearly, consciously formed some kind of integral subjective mode for themselves, are '1st tier.'
Meaning they are still living in boxes; they are human, but haven't consciously acknowledged and addressed and integrated the multi-modality of being human.
This however, feels like an attack, both on the person, and on the value of doing any one mode properly and passionately.
Although it is not meant primarily to be attacking the value and potential of any given mode, like science, the style of argument makes it sound that way.

[neo]

ciao bro

Well do not mistaken me. "dirt" that´s KW`s hyperbolic shit. Actually and you have to agree with me on that, most of the mainstream research done in colleges and in private i ndustry is basically "narrow" science, which means that they still haven´t develop research designs beyond the linear causation models.

And worst, look at the state of the art in social sciences - economics, psychology, sociology, etc..- it is really a mess. Pay a sicgle look at their quantitative studies and you see how primitive their design is, when you bring complexity theories, etc...,, in the map. Autopoesis is still at the level of speculation, there are no given spectographical, cristallographical, biochemical methods to descrive these sel-emergent processes in technical terms yet. EVen Niklas Luhman using the term social autopoesis is far from given us a stingent method to uncover such macroprocesses.

How amazing for example, psychology dudes like Beck or Combs are still using mainstream reserach methods based on old stuff like general linear modelling, while pretending describing spiral like phenomena, Don Beck´s Ad Hoc simulacra.

Where are these nonlinear models to use in practice we are to expect for the advancement of science when everyone seems to theoretically agree on that?

And in terms of evolution it is not that cognitivist Daniel Dennett who is going to make me change my mind about the complexity of evolutionary jumps.

[Jim]

Hi Neo, I am doing well, and I hope you are doing well too.

[Jim]

Hi Bright Abyss.

Just a comment on distinctions between life and non-life.

For purposes of space exploration, NASA needs a working definition of life. Here is one such working definition, from Gerald Joyce of the NASA Exobiology panel:

Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.

According to this definition, life must combine the following characteristics: Any form of life must be a chemical system which grows and sustains itself by gathering energy and atoms from its surroundings (metabolism). Living systems must display variation. And natural selection of the more fit individuals will lead to the evolution and emergence of more complex living entities.

If we ever hear an announcement from NASA that a space probe has discovered life on another planet, this is what they mean by "life."

Such a working definition of life also guides some origin of life researchers.

If we follow this working definition of life, the first living system on Earth may have been an extremely thin molecular coating on rock surfaces. Only a few billionths of a meter thick, this "flat life" would have exploited energy-rich mineral surfaces while spreading slowly from rock to rock.

Just to follow up further in response to Neo's post, I'll add this to this post:

I'm not aware of anyone who claims to have solved the problem of how life emerges from non-living chemicals. Only if someone made such a claim would that be an issue.

I've referred in several posts to Robert Hazen's book Genesis, which is an up to date account of origin of life research that involves the actual testing of several hypotheses.

Some of the most promising research in this area of scientific inquiry takes place in geneticist Jack Szostak's lab at Harvard. http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/index.html

Three plausible, testable scenarios for the origin of life are that: (1) life began with metabolism; (2) life began with a self-replicating strand of some genetic molecule; (3) life began as a cooperative chemical coupling of metabolism and genetics.

The test for the first scenario involves the subjecting of simple molecules and common minerals to prebiotic conditions. "A key missing experiment," writes Hazen, "is the synthesis of 4-carbon oxaloacetate from 3-carbon pyruvate, perhaps using sulfur analogs in an environment rich in hydrogen sulfide. If that step can be demonstrated, and a self-sustaining cycle of reactions maintained, then metabolism-first will be the model to beat."

The test for the second scenario "lacks only the crucial support of an experiment that demonstrates the plausible prebiotic synthesis of a genetic polymer - RNA or its precursor."

The test for the third scenario would involve experiments wherein researchers try to establish "easy synthetic pathways to both a simple metabolic cycle and to an RNA-like genetic polymer."

Actual research and experiments are going on in many labs in addition to the Szostak Lab, and this is all accounted for in Hazen's book.

Wilber apparently believes that something beyond chemistry and physics must be included in an adequate exlanatory account of how life emerged from non-living chemicals on the barren face of primitive Earth. In reference to "daring scientists" who go in the same "non-reductionistic direction" that Wilber says he goes in where problems at the leading-edge of evolutionary biology are concerned, Wilber mentions James Gardner and his book Biocosm, the full title of which is Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe.

This is from the Publishers Weekly description/review of Biocosm:

Science has yet to find a way of knowing what, if anything, existed before the Big Bang that created our universe. Further, how can we account for physical laws that are so finely tuned for the creation of carbon-based life? Science writer and amateur cosmologist Gardner proposes a startling theory: that a pre-existing superintelligent race that inhabited a "mother universe" created this one and tweaked the physical laws in its baby universe to ensure the continuity of intelligent life and of the cosmos itself; this universe, then, will foster the growth of a new superintelligence eons from now with complete command over the laws of nature and the ability to create yet more universes with inheritable characteristics.

If someone expresses healthy skepticism about this hypothesis and is more disposed to think that the origin of life can and will eventually be explained in one of the ways discussed by Hazen, does that alone tell us anything about how spiritual or developed they are? Does their healthy skepticism (as opposed to closed-minded hardcore skepticism) automatically make them a flatland gross reductionist quadrant absolutist?

[Bright_Abyss]

Hey Jim,

Do you think you could take Wilber in a fight? I'd have yer back bra... LOL. I know I'd kick his lanky ass, but I'm trained (ahahahahha)...

Anyhow, for the record, Ken did go too far calling you a liar. You slipped up on the quote, yeah, but you are one of the baddest mofo citation wizards out there.

What was I going to say? Oh, yeah: NASA's definition is a heuristic one, and fine by me, but framing our deepest understandings, assumptions and questions about how complexity and organic life emerged in terms of the simple life/non-life binary, to me, seems inappropriate at a certain level of description and investigation. But in other (communicative) contexts, I fully accept NASA's definition.

That's all.

So I recant: it's not arbitrary, it's just heuristic -- weak ontology, but useful for general human purposes...

And:

[Broken Yogi]

Most of this is just common sense, of course. As I've said, the posiitve thing about Wilber is that he tries to apply common sense to things that some people have made into narrow-minded nonsensicality for a long time. But this is not new. People have been striving to live outside the box, in a multi-dimensional understanding, for many centuries, milennia, etc. It's nice that Wilber tries to have a full range of interests and views. If this is "integral', then the integral movement isn't Wilberism, anymore than the non-dual movement is Daism.

The problem comes in when Wilber claims that his view of multidimensionality is the true one, the fullest one, etc. Then it really does begin to resemble Daism. As Jim points out, too much reductionism of alternative views to reductionism. And too much disrespect for the integrity of other views. As with science.

Now it's fine for Wilber to say that science isn't a total world view. Not very many people in the world would disagree. It's hardly a new or bold insight. But it's also silly to suggest that scientific conclusions about the origins of life, or the process of evolution, say, should be informed by other perspectives. Of what possible help is it to science to hypothesize a supernatural force in consciousness which orders the physical world and produces the mutations which propel evolution "forward"? What good is it to suggest, like Lamark, that this force wishes to create greater and greater complexity, human beings, etc.? Is this really going to produce better science? Sure, scientists who see a wider perspective than the physical world would benefit from such views, as many do who are Christians, Jews, or some other religious persuasion, but how does that actually help their science? Not at all, as far as anyone can tell.

Einstein, Plank, Dirac, Heisenberg, and the other creators of the great revolutions in Relativigty and Quantum Mechanics did not sit around a table with a bunch of new age metaphysicians trying to think of how to make science more in line with higher level thinking. They simply tried to solve purely scientific questions in the way they saw the evidence pointing, being original and creative to be sure, but not imposing some metaphysical view on the world. Others can look at their work and draw metaphysical implications from it, but that's no different from drawing metaphysical implications from Newtonian science. It's a failed boundary crossing.

So when Wilber throws up the challenge of showing us how dirt can get up and write poetry, he's trying to suggest that it can't. But the evidence is, that it can, without any other force of nature involved. The mechanisms by which it does this are not fully understood, but not even poets fully understand how they write poetry. Nothing in the universe is fully understood, on any level, nor are the relationships between levels fully understood, not even close.