Contextualizing Dr. B.M. Puri's Idols of the Mind (2020) in 21st-Century Biology’s Paradigm Shift

The current paradigm shift in 21st-century biology demonstrates the relevance for this book’s topics and the ongoing work of the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute. Progress in biology is developing beyond a merely reductionist and mechanistic view of living entities and processes to a holistic, organismic, and systems perspective. This is represented by the ongoing public debate between biologists Richard Dawkins and Denis Noble, as will be seen.
In summary, Denis Noble’s pioneering work in systems biology shows that future progress in 21st-century biology - which is essential for innovation in medicine, ecology, and other fields - must address:
🔹The purposeful behavior of living entities
🔹The capacity for and consequences of choice i.e. decision making
🔹Properly discriminating between bottom-up phenomena (where lower levels of organization like molecules or cells effect higher levels like the organism) and top-down phenomena where the organism determines cellular or molecular activity
🔹The complementarity of science and philosophy
These principles nicely correspond with the work that B Madhava Puri, PhD, has been involved in since the mid-1970s, as introduced in Idols of the Mind vs. True Reality (2020).
More about Stockton University's Science of Life Club: stockton.campu...
The purpose of this student organization is to consider, promote, and contribute to the synthesis of the sciences and humanities, focusing on the role that life plays within these diverse fields of study. This includes consideration of the emerging multidisciplinary field of consciousness studies. Various educational activities will be organized in line with this purpose, facilitating respectful and thoughtful interdisciplinary dialogue. The Science of Life Club has been organized as a part of the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute’s Circles of Life community initiative. The BVI’s focus centers on the rational implications of the empirically observable law of biogenesis, and the evolution of consciousness, or the stepwise development from states of consciousness with a limited scope of cognitive capacities like cells, plants, and insects, to higher organisms up to the human form of life. Here, the standard for high/low level of consciousness refers to a spectrum of sophistication for capacities like decision-making, cooperation, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and inquiring about identity, origin, and purpose, as expressed through humanistic disciplines like art, science, philosophy, and religion.
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