[MD] atomic preferences and panexperientialism (panpyschism)

[Ian Glendinning]

Hi dmb, I'm afraid I don't see the category error.

Birch says
"But how mentality can be derived from something which totally lacks
it cannot be so explained. It is to believe in miracles .... The
doctrine that mind emerges from no mind implies that there was a stage
in biological evolution when mind appeared for the first time."

The error here is the same as the intelligent design argument for the
eye being an argument against evolution. There is no one point in time
when "the eye" appears any more than there is for mind or
consciousness. Any lines being drawn are purely definitional.

In fact I suspect the category error here is the basic SOMist one of
objectifying the emergent features ... scales, feathers, eyes, minds
or consciousness .... object is the wrong category for all of them.

However, he's just making rhetorical assertions in this quoted extract.
Could you point me back at the whole article, so I can take a look at
any arguments.
Ian