ABSTRACT
The philosophy of mechanism has been very successful in the study of the latter kind of things, especially for creating technology. Nevertheless, mechanism remains the reigning paradigm, especially in the guise of the computational metaphor. Whether the world is better viewed through the eyes of mechanism or through a more organic metaphor is tied to the question of the meaning of physical law. Mechanism views law as fundamental and transcendent, a creative force separate from the universe it rules. In contrast, organism views physical law as description of collective behavior that is immanent in matter. More accurately, everything must influence, and be influenced by, every other material thing. This interconnectedness makes the vision of organism far more plausible. Self-organization is key to further advances even in cosmology, and to the resolution of conundrums such as the apparent highly improbable fine-tuning of the universe to life.
