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This description would apply to literally any complex system, living or not. And besides, to repeat for the third time, the question is not whether or...

But this would include say, ecosystems and river catchments. In any case I'm not arguing that we can't distinguish between biotic and abiotic processe...

But I'm talking about a process: the process of gene expression, and the question of how this process, which necessarily traverses both biotic and abi...

Ah fair enough, that makes more sense. Heh, that's fine too, and despite my critical take on Henry, I still think he's an absolutely incredible philos...

Bhahah, this is so fcuked up, no wonder the US is so fucked,

Among my favorite passages on this subject: " the death that approaches ... singles me out, singularizes me, posits my being on its own, delivers me o...

Because the topology between 'inside' and 'outside' at stake here is different: it's not just that there are 'organisms' on the one side and 'oxygen' ...

It's not so much the goal to 'dissolve' the distinction as to 'denaturalize' it, to make it an object less of scientific analysis than political and e...

Sure, sure, but the question is what kind of licence developmental biology allows us when it comes to speaking about life in the terms it provides. Th...

Hm, there's a bit of an ambiguity here, I think, already at the level of formulation: any genomic network is already a space of possibilities, such th...

:D Awesome! Should be a pretty quick and fun read, alot of it is very 'practical' kind of advice where you'll be left wondering how political theory e...

Ahaha, love it. Also because the book of Rosen's that I took that from has an entire chapter devoted to explaining just how limiting state variables a...

One super interesting thing to bring up in relation to this - I might start another thread on this down the line - is in following Robert Rosen's cont...

May I introduce you to genetic redundency and genetic robustness, or more specifically canalisation, if we're talking about genes alone. They're dear ...

I agree! I spoke of 'biology alone' precisely in order to render the notion a bit ridiculous; that was the point of the expanded Waddington diagram, t...

Yep, these are supremely important questions, and what I'm trying to argue is that they cannot be answered in the abstract - one can only follow the d...

Awesome reply. Yeah, you're totally right that I've almost entirely ignored the cytoplasmic and intercellular contribution to the processes of gene ex...

The problem is that negentropy defines any type of organization, from whirlpools to star systems. That is, negentropy isn't specific to life, even as ...

The OP is mostly concerned with developmental dynamics rather than evolutionary dynamics (despite the thread title!), so at this point the 'scale' of ...

Yep, the less sociobiological pseudoscience, the better.

Yeah, biosemiosis fits into this insofar as signs serve to regulate the dynamics of both development and evolution and helps us to speak of 'directedn...

Come now! Philosophy is no more or less rich than the 'real world' of which it speaks - you give it too little credit! Yeah, Gould was among the great...

Scotus is my favourite all of the mediaevals <3

Lol, you're unfortunately unfamiliar with the entire point of the shoutbox, which is a random thread to say pretty much whatever in. It's a throwback ...

I think you should start a thread on this : )

Yeah, have to agree, it's a very weird bit of armchair psychobabble as far as I can tell.

Their God given right to die at extraordinarily disproportionate rates despite clear life saving-solutions, no doubt.

Hmm, I have in mind other criteria though, such as declining family welfare support, deepening asset debt lubricated by low interest rates (particular...

Mmm, and the fucking liberals here - the party - actually believe it; hence their slow but obvious uptake of cancerous American political values into ...

Twas me indeed! The history of the public support arm of the US government makes for inordinately depressing reading. Not only because - despite the r...

From what I can piece together, the main issue was that the societal bottom was essentially kicked away after the economic miracle of the post-war boo...

This, as we like to say these days, is fake news. As the NYT article I linked to notes, one of the easiest ways to change the suicide rate is to alter...

When 60% of US gun related deaths - 60% of an already ludicrously disproportionate rate of gun related deaths - are suicides, the polarization of the ...

There's something both hilarious and pathetic about the language of 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in American discussions of gun regulation; as if their ...

Ahhh, there's something so intellectually satisfying about the fact that Niels Bohr once wrote of a kind of duality between 'light and life', insofar ...

Giorgio Agamben - The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI and the End of Days Eva Jablonka & Marion Lamb - Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic...

Speaking for myself, I do find the OP hard to follow. Without necessarily commenting on it's substance - which is obscure to me - it does seem to rely...

Haha, if you're referring to that blank book that dude published, I think that was so brilliant. A second-hand out of print one D:

Current first world dilemma: to buy the $250 book, or not to buy the $250 book.

Haha, no, not mate as in partner, mate as in friend. Sorry, it's my Australianess coming through, where all friends are referred to as mate. With resp...

I don't disagree with this, but on the other hand, I think this is largely a matter of habit and habit formation. I can only in truth speak anecdotall...

Prodding seems like the gentler option, but it can be somewhat of an editorial headache that also tends to drag a thread down: what if the discussion ...

Yeah, the exchange itself is fascinating - the honesty and openess of it. I suppose what I was trying to get at - having read again some of the exchan...

Of course 'man' has an essence: man is essentially destined to the accidents that befall him, of necessity.

It was two lines, one of which was the thread title. Had it had a minimum of content like even your post just then fish, I'd have been fine with it. B...

If it's such an important question then there should be plenty for you to say about it beyond the two lines that was your thread. Feel free to try aga...

I deleted it because it lacked any substantive content for discussion.

Without commenting on transgenderism per se, I think it's too narrow to see gender as only oppressive. I think gender itself can be a vector of self-e...

I think that the comparison is unfair is exactly the point! Remember that Chu is writing in response to a piece by another person who is not complaini...

Yeah, this is a nice distinction actually, a refinement that you're right, is probably more useful in thinking about this. It does make me think thoug...