In the simplest organisms the mechanisms are clear (tropisms, etc); no fields are required. In more complex organisms the full details may be obscure, but enough is known to see that they are elaborated versions of the simple mechanisms. In organisms with nervous systems, it's the same story at a higher level of abstraction.
Also, there is no mechanism, no suitable 'field'. When you suggest that some 'field' affects the behaviour of organisms, you're suggesting that something interacts with the protons, neutrons, and electrons they're made of; at the relevant scale (biochemistry), the only significant field is electromagnetism, and it simply isn't suitable - even assuming we could suspend the laws of thermodynamics, and account for whatever else is required to generate, maintain, focus, and guide such a field. It's
magical thinking.
At *least* the EM field is involved in intelligence, even if nothing more elaborate is required to explain it. Even the proposal for a "field of soul" (ORCH-OR?) would be no more "magical" than proposing a hypothetical graviton, or an inflaton field, or any undefined "space" that does magic tricks for breakfast. Your definition of 'magical' is a bit, um "one sided" shall we say? Where do we cross the line from "hypothetical" to 'magical' in the realm in physics?
Every population produces variations on which natural selection acts, and variations on which it doesn't (e.g. genetic drift). Some variations result in large phenotypic differences, some small. Some result in major selective advantages, some in minor. The scale of phenotypic change and the scale of selective advantage are not necessarily correlated; likewise for the timescales. Once you start trying to define which creatures are 'more evolved' than other creatures, you have to decide on your criteria, and you'll find you need to reconcile multiple independent - and often conflicting - measures. I suggest you don't go there. Also, your suggestion has an implicit teleology, as if evolution is a story of 'progress', but that's a privileged viewpoint; for example, does the loss of a feature (e.g. a tail) make a creature more evolved or less evolved than those that retain the feature? or more evolved or less evolved than those that never evolved that feature? and what about all the other features those creatures have?
I think we're splitting hairs on this topic somewhere and feels like a distraction. Suffice to say a "classic" design may not need much "evolution" to continue to exist over time.
I see; "a 'sliding scale' of some sort" - could you be more vague?
Maybe.
You have to admit it's a bit like trying to nail jello to wall when defining a scale of inter-species "intelligence". It's not my fault the whole field is a little vague.
Good grief, no. An outline of the major principles and how they contribute to his ideas would be plenty.
That NYT article was as good an introduction as any. It was short and concise.
If the gist of his work is an explanation for auroras, I've been familiar with his work for years.
Are you familiar with his solar theories too? Birkeland didn't just write about aurora.
How on Earth do you construct your bizarre ideas of purposeful universal interconnectedness from the excitation of atoms in the magnetosphere by the solar wind? Seriously?
Well, you begin by noting that solar system and larger universe are literally "wired together" electrically in ways that we never imagined, and still don't fully "realize".
Looks like some good experimental work on measuring the magnetic disturbances of the auroras and magnetic storms near the poles; pioneering work for the turn of the last century. Some 'exciting' rugged explorer interludes on the rigours of polar exploration; and some brief speculation about the mechanisms powering the sun. Illuminating at the time; useful background data today. So what?
So his work demonstrates that suns act as cathodes with respect to 'space', which by the way bombards the sun with high speed protons called 'cosmic rays'. If you're going to understand anything about EU/PC theory, his works would be your best choice. The mainstream is still playing catch up in solar physics, and they're definitely ignorant of Alfven's work on cosmology theory in my experience.
Modern studies of the sun and the magnetic fields of the Earth, and their interactions, have progressed considerably in the last 115 years, not least because we have satellites studying them, and some major breakthroughs in fundamental physics that opened whole new vistas unavailable to Birkeland.
True, but they all verified his models, starting with the "magnetic ropes" that connect the sun to the various planets. They demonstrated he was right about every aspect of solar physic he wrote about too, not that anyone has given him any credit in solar physics.
In terms of what the mainstream can do in a lab, they still haven't been able to create a full sphere sustained "corona" around the sun, over a century after Birkeland demonstrate that it's a *discharge* related phenomenon.
If you think the mainstream has learned something special about the sun in 100 years that Birkeland didn't already know, or at least suspect, point it out. He even predicted that a "transmutation of elements" was responsible for generating solar energy, and he correctly predicted very modern satellite image of the sun, including coronal loops, polar jets, high speed solar wind, etc.
You'd think we'd have learned a lot about the sun in 100 years, but in terms of theory, not so much. We've learned a few practical things about it, all of which Birkeland already predicted with his cathode solar model, right down to the positive nature of 'space' (cosmic rays).
Any first impression you may have about the 'dated' nature of his work is actually dead wrong. Not only was Birkeland *more than* a century ahead of his time, it's taken nearly a full century to produce the equipment that can verify it, like SDO, ACE, etc.
