As an aside, one area I think Kauffman needs to give attention to is Cooperation (with a big C, a technical term). There are two dynamics which give rise to emergence, one being cooperation (think multicellular organisms) and the other being autocatalysis. Kauffman reveres the latter but mostly ignores the former. (Forgive me and enlighten me if he’s changed his tune since At Home in the Universe).

I’m looking forward to reading Mind of the Market. In this vein, I can recommend highly Beinhocker’s “The Origin of Wealth”:http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=777X which outlines a new basis for economic theory that he calls “complexity economics”. Not surprisingly, it stands in stark contrast to most economic theory. He subtitled the book “Evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics.”

For those looking for hardcore evidence that the efficient market hypothesis (both strong and weak forms) is dead, I recommend “The Story of Behavioral Finance”:http://www.amazon.com/Story-Behavioral-Finance-Brandon-Adams/dp/0595396909 I’m guessing it dovetails with Mind of the Market and draws from some of the same primary sources.

As nature’s magic tricks are exposed one by one, our efforts to find an explanation-defying-illusion are beginning to cast a shadow of existential despair. How do we resolve this? Is consciousness itself going to prove to be the infinite frontier we long for? WIll each personal interpretation of the world come to be regarded as the ultimate prestidigitation, a final, unscalable rampart against the onslaughts of totalitarian, all-knowing science? Or will that veil be lifted too, leaving us naked and adrift before the unceasing number-crunch of natural law.

If we mean the first, any physicalist version of reductionism is inconsistent with spiritualism (and physicalist versions are the only ones people take seriously nowadays). This is because reductionism holds that higher level things really are nothing more than collections of lower level things. Water really is just collections of particles—so are money, Supreme Court Justices, and the set of all real numbers. All of them really nothing but clusters of ever changing subatomic particles wending and popping their ways through and about space-time. If that staggeringly hypothesis is true, then either 1) mind and spirit really are just collections of subatomic particles (like everything else) or 2) the words ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’ are just empty noises to which there corresponds nothing real. In either case, “spiritual” has no rightful place in the vocabularies of enlightened people. Also, since reductionism has this consequence and versions of emergentism denies it, reductionism is inconsistent with those versions of emergentism (the most popular versions).

But spiritualism of the second kind–spirituality as an attitude of awe, gratitude and appreciation—has nothing to fear from reductionism. That form of spirituality—that attitude—requires no metaphysical underpinnings. Who is to say which kind of universe is more awe-inspiring and deserving of our gratitude and respect? Isn’t this more a personal matter? Would the things of the world that actually inspire awe, gratitude and respect in those who are so inspired—for example, the transforming power of love, the diversity of life forms, the ancient redwoods, the way we can be penetrated to our depths by beauty—be any less deserving of our awe, gratitude and respect if we were reductionists rather than emergentists? The rather abstract “realization” that higher level systems emerge out of lower level systems and liberate themselves from the causal laws governing those lower level systems may be rather thrilling to some of us, but so may the rather abstract “realization” that those lower level systems have within them the power to produce and to govern every higher level one. Are we really back to the good old days when deep metaphysical thinkers debated about the best of all possible standards for judging the best of all possible worlds (the one most worthy of our awe, respect, and gratitude)? Or is the more sensible attitude different strokes for different folks? It’s worth noting that spirituality in the attitudinal sense has happily survived in the age of reductionism and there is no reason to believe it’s prospects will brighten further with the emergence of emergentism. Actually, the greatest threat to spirituality in the attitudinal sense are certain philosophical and religious traditions that embrace spirituality of the metaphysical kind; traditions which devalue this world and it’s beauty and regard all bodily pleasures with suspicion or outright hostility (for example, Platonism and all Augustinian-inspired versions of Christianity).

From my website: http://www.666ismoney.com/RareEarth.html