Beyond Reductionism Twice: No Laws Entail Biosphere Evolution, Formal Cause Laws Beyond Efficient Cause Laws
Stuart Kauffman

TL;DR
This paper challenges the dominance of the Newtonian Paradigm in science, arguing that formal cause laws, unlike efficient cause laws, are essential for understanding biosphere evolution and other complex systems, indicating a need for new scientific frameworks.
Contribution
It introduces the concept of formal cause laws as a novel scientific approach that complements and extends beyond traditional efficient cause laws, especially in complex systems like biosphere evolution.
Findings
Efficient cause laws cannot explain biosphere evolution beyond life.
Formal cause laws are independent of material substrates.
Formal cause laws are already influencing biology and economics.
Abstract
Newton set the stage for our view of how science should be done. We remain in what I will call the `Newtonian Paradigm' in all of physics, including Newton, Einstein, and Schrodinger. As I will show shortly, Newton invented and bequeathed to us `efficient cause entailing laws' for the entire becoming of the universe. With Laplace this became the foundation of contemporary reductionism in which all that can happen in the world is due to efficient cause entailing laws. More this framework stands as our dominant way to do science. The Newtonian Paradigm has done enormous work in science, and helped lead to the Industrial Revolution, and even our entry into Modernity. In this paper I propose to challenge the adequacy of the Newtonian Paradigm on two ground: 1) For the evolution of the biosphere beyond the watershed of life, we can formulate no efficient cause entailing laws that allow us…
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Taxonomy
TopicsOrigins and Evolution of Life · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
