The art of making sense

James Lovelock. Note Gaia statue (?) in the background.

"Metanoia" is a DVD presentation and extended teaser trailer to the book "Darwin's Unfinished Business" by Simon G Powell. The presentation features Powell himself, and has some pretty good footage, almost like a real documentary. I haven't read the actual book (yet), but I might consider it. From the top of my head, I agreed with most points made by "Metanoia". Indeed, I considered it somewhat boring!

The main idea of "Metanoia" is something Powell dubs "natural intelligence". Evolution is all about "the art of making sense" or "bio-logic". Reductionism makes science obsess about the seemingly mechanical or chance-driven processes of individual genes or organisms, but if the system is looked upon as a whole, it's clearly intelligently designed. Evolution "makes sense" only against a backdrop of natural laws, which themselves are sensible and rational. Gaia theory is appealed to at several points in the presentation. Intelligence and creativity are part of the deep structures of the universe, and were always "poised to emerge". The second half of the presentation contains Kulturkritik of our overcrowded cities and isolation from Nature, "our forsaken birthright".

Powell attacks creationism at the beginning of "Metanoia", claims that his theory is 100% natural, and that the concept of natural intelligence can't be found in any religion. This is surely a tactic of some kind. If the universe is intelligently designed, who designed it? If it designed itself (so to speak), in what sense is that different from pantheism? Indeed, "Metanoia" seems to be calling for a "new" pantheist religion at the very end, even quoting Carl Sagan on the subject. At Youtube, Powell is asked whether he believes in process philosophy, and responds, somewhat tongue-in-cheek that he does...on week days! Process philosophy believes in a kind of deistic-pantheistic god, which in some sense is also "personal".

While it doesn't prove much, I noticed that Amazon has paired "Darwin's Unfinished Business" with books by Rupert Sheldrake, Lynn Margulis and Thomas Berry, but also some more "far out" material which could be based on Steiner and Findhorn.

Everything is well with the world. ;-)