Did Stuart Kauffman argue that case about evolution as an algorithm, before Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea?
If you're saying that evolution is intelligent in a human sense, I think you're getting into collective mind theory. It's intriguing, but the kind of pantheism I explore goes in a different direction (based on cosmicist naturalism, existentialism, and neo-Kantianism).
I'd also question the metaphysical kind of information theory that makes for the talk of natural algorithms. I suspect this is an overextended metaphor that turns into a secular myth. The analogy will have some strengths and weaknesses, so the question is how strong the similarities are between natural and artificial algorithms. Aristotelian teleology could make sense of natural algorithms, but the kind of naturalism I think has prevailed leaves out the needed value-laden causality.
The difference here is about how pantheism might best make sense of modern problems. You're talking like there's only one valid account and as if it's more "sophisticated" than my philosophical reflections. I'd beg to differ. But we also seem to be talking past each other. You (and Kauffman and Smolin) are talking about the science behind the mechanisms of how nature develops. I'm talking about the philosophical implications of any such picture. Neo-animism is a way of highlighting the historic irony of this re-enchantment of nature. See also my recent article that goes into this further:
