I commend to you a 2003 article by Ursula Goodenough and Terrence W. Deacon: �From Biology to Consciousness to Morality�, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 38 (4):801-819. I know that just its title has the potential to give many folks an immediate visceral reaction, alternately positive or negative depending on one�s hermeneutical predilections, but without discussing the specific content of the article let me just preemptively point out to those who think the authors will be overreaching in their claims that they do acknowledge the speculative nature of their propositions and let me then further suggest, as I also describe the general nature of such speculation, that such speculation should be encouraged .

In the article, Goodenough and Deacon do admit:

quote:

�The scenario [for the coevolution of language, culture and human minds] is by definition a speculation (what actually happened may never be fully known), but we find the scenario heuristic, helping us to focus in on what is distinctive about human mentality, and some of its propositions should eventually be amenable to empirical evaluation.�

The above sentence strikes me as somewhat paradigmatic for any situation wherein we are dealing with a series of unknown causes, causes that are, so to speak, veiled, whether systematically (in principle and forever) or methodologically (but perhaps not for long). In such situations, we typically attempt to make such causes more intelligible, even as they remain incomprehensible, by analyzing their observable effects. We then, typically, draw analogies between the effects of these so-called veiled causes and the effects of such other causes that are unveiled, or, in other words, such causes that are already both intelligible and comprehensible to us.

The analogical information derived from our comparison of the effects of veiled versus unveiled causes, while it can not give us any information about the essential nature of the veiled cause, can make the veiled cause more intelligible in terms of its attributes, �helping us to focus on what is distinctive� about the veiled cause, thereby apophatically gaining some descriptive accuracy through a process of negation, which sets forth what the cause is definitely not (not this cause or that), while also kataphatically gaining some descriptive accuracy through a process of affirmation, which sets forth what the cause is like (this cause or that). Such scenarios, then, as get proposed from our analogical imaginations at work, are clearly heuristic, and some of their propositions may �eventually be amenable to empirical evaluation.�

Even for those causes as may be veiled, in principle, which is to say systematically occulted, some of their propositions should be amenable to empirical evaluation through increasingly rigorous statistical analysis of indirect evidence, making their associated �scenarios� and �speculations� ever more compelling and increasingly intelligible, thereby gifting us with indispensable explanatory ideas, again, even for such causes as may remain otherwise incomprehensible. Such an approach will likely be required for the indefinite future in speculative cognitive science and in speculative scientific cosmology.

In all of this consideration of the Goodenough-Deacon article, specifically, but also of all such informed speculation, in general, I am reminded of a comment by John Polkinghorne as elicited by a question regarding the work of Hawking-Hartle and Max Tegmark. [ See http://www.starcourse.org/jcp/qanda1.htm#hawking ] Polkinghorne writes:

quote:

�This proposal seems interesting but there are significant difficulties and it is all pretty speculative. It is (of course) an abuse of language to suggest that this proposal does away with the boundary conditions or with anthropic fine-tuning. But it's not just Mathematical Legerdemain either - it's as testable as most theories of basic cosmology.�

He then discusses some defects of H-H and concludes:

quote:

�But as Turok says �Daring is called for .. Disasters are instructive� and these highly speculative flights of fancy are not in any sense scientific results, just work in progress.�

I would submit that while the Goodenough-Deacon proposal is indeed highly speculative and not in any sense scientific results but just a work in progress, it is a very good work and a very fine heuristic.

For further reading, in addition to commending the above-cited Goodenough-Deacon article in Zygon, I also recommend the Visions of Nature website at http://www.newvisions.ucsb.edu/visions/index.html , where there is an exciting program, �New Visions of Nature, Science and Religion� at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

pax,
jb

Such an approach will likely be required for the indefinite future in speculative cognitive science and in speculative scientific cosmology.

So the parallel will not be lost on anyone, such an approach as described in my post, above, is precisely one of the methods common to both speculative metaphysics and speculative natural theology. A question might thus arise: Why is such an approach greeted with acclaim when employed by scientists in speculative cognitive science and consciousness studies or in theoretical physics and scientific cosmology, but treated with derision when employed in metaphysics and natural theology? That is precisely how we proceed from our knowledge of effects to some knowledge of the Divine Attributes, even as God's essential nature remains veiled. That is precisely how we speculate regarding putative aspects of nonenergetic causation and formal causality. This is precisely what is taking place in speculative fancies regarding emergentist accounts of consciousness, in theories of supervenience, supersymmetry, superluminality and superstrings and is no less coherent or compelling when applied to the supernatural.

pax,
jb

quote:

"With real things, he has the relationship of cause. We know this because we know the effects of God, as we call this thing unknown to us. It is true
that the effects do not reveal the cause itself, which remains veiled, as it
were. But it is also true that these effects are so proper to this cause
that they are impossible to any other. Consequently, through them, as
through a sure sign, we have delineated the cause in such a way that we
cannot mistake or confuse it with any other."

from Antonio Rosmini's "Knowledge of Essences"

I think that quote above is a good statement of a basic intuition in natural theology. Only, JB, when speaking of effects indicating something about causes, it seems that there are numerous layers of causes and effects that are within the realm of creation itself (creatures' actions producing effects in the natural order). Seeing this as the "effects of God" implies an attunement to primary causes, does it not?

I think that quote above is a good statement of a basic intuition in natural theology. Only, JB, when speaking of effects indicating something about causes, it seems that there are numerous layers of causes and effects that are within the realm of creation itself (creatures' actions producing effects in the natural order). Seeing this as the "effects of God" implies an attunement to primary causes, does it not?

Right, there can be numerous layers of causes and effects in the created realm. So, too, there is the classical distinction between primary and secondary causality. I take Antonio Rosmini's quote as mostly pertaining to the Ipsum Esse Subsistens, a manner of essence existing that belongs to God alone as Primal Origin, Primal Being, Primal Support, etc, Who cannot, in principle, be known in His Essence, but only analogically through His attributes. So, when we speak of formal, efficient, material and final causation in metaphysics as pertaining to created substances, both material and immaterial, those forms of causation are analogues to God as Unmoved Mover, a term that makes God somewhat intelligible while remaining utterly incomprehensible. It is as if Rosmini is saying, I don't know The Cause of existence (cosmologically) but Whoever It Is ain't anything known to this world of experience, even though it somewhat reminds me of efficient causality. One could construct the same statement re: The Cause of being (ontologically) or of meaning/information (epistemologically) or of purpose/direction (teleologically) or of order/morality (axiologically) and say that their Ultimate Source (nature) is unknowable, but that, clearly, S/he is not the material, formal, final or instrumental causalities that we are familiar with from metaphysics, even if S/he is somewhat like them.

Then, on a whole other level, we are forced to again use analogies when talking about metaphysical versus physical realities. Those analogies are stronger because physical and metaphysical realities share the circumstance of being created substances, thus sharing a logical genus even as they differ re: natural genera. Where God is concerned, there is no shared natural or logical genera, but we do assign to Him such effects (as Creation) as could only be proper to Her and no other type of cause (and even here we use the word cause as a weak analogy, knowing that God is transcategorical to all of our pigeonholes). Many people ask why bother with such analogies inasmuch as they tell us so little but I can only counter that they are telling us very little about VERY MUCH and the info, to me, is indispensable and fosters my relational approach to God.

I do agree that there can be an attunement up the causal chain and a lubricating of causal joints and that such might be considered the goal of formative spirituality, n'est pas?

pax,
jb

JB, that Newvisions link is proving to be a good one. (Where's the link to the article by Ursula Goodenough?) Coincidentally, I was think about a subject the other day which, I guess, turns out to be what they call Emergent Nature.

Any tutoring or in-a-nutshell examples and descriptions that you can supply to sort of bring us along on this subject would be greatly and toadily appreciated.

Brad et al - you can grab the Goodenough article by clicking here.

My discussion re: using analogies to make incomprehensible causes at least intelligible does lend itself to examples and nutshell sketches and I was contemplating how I might go about coming up with same. The Goodenough article is loaded with analogies, particularly re: biological traits such as motility. A naive reader of an article like that could come away thinking that Deacon & Goodenough had just explained away the hard problem of consciousness, the same way that so many seem to think that Dennett has done so in his own way. What they are doing is using analogies of evolutionary causes that we do understand and fully comprehend to speculate on causes that we cannot presently fathom by comparing effects of the veiled vs unveiled causes. Emergentist dynamics in biological evolution are fairly well understood and make for good explanations of the role that pure chance can play in speciation. Those dynamics are less understood in stellar nucleosyntheisis and protein biosynthesis and even less understood re: the "emergence" of consciousness.

Let's think of some other examples.

Take superstring theory for example. We all are familiar with space, time, matter and energy as four dimensions. We can speculate about additional dimensions but can we go very far in talking meaningfully about what those might be? Using the term "dimension" makes the discussion somewhat intelligible through analogy but going beyond space, time, mass and charge is not really something I can comprehend.

Take supervenience. Can artificial intelligence really supervene on computers? Can mental states really supervene on physical states, on material states? We can speak intelligently about computational and algorithmic operations of computers but does that mean we can use such analogies to fully comprehend human consciousness?

Take superluminality and nonlocality. We can conceive of events taking place instantaneously and simultaneously but can we really speak with a full understanding of information communication that is apparently nonspatial and nontemporal?

Take Hawkings' use of imaginary numbers (based on the square root of -1) and imaginary time to spatialize time , can anyone really take such mathematical modeling and map it onto physical reality with comprehension? What about pre-BigBang conditions when time didn't even exist? What about multiverses and many world theories that are totally outside of space and time and mass and energy? They have no comprehensibility for us even if they are partly intelligible mathematically because we are bound in the space-time plenum and can only use terms like multiverse as analogues to the universe, analogies always invoking more dissimilarities than they do similarities.

Take quantum mechanics and virtual particles and eigenstates and wave functions ... those are just mathematical formulae assigned terms that are analogous to other physical states that are both intelligible and comprehensible to us, but quantum theory is replete, as you know, with paradox.

There are other more mundane examples in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, etc where we invoke analogies to explain causes that we don't fully understand. Pharmacology is a good example. There are many drugs that are efficacious, especially of the psychoactive variety, but we can only speculate on why and how. We can only look at their effects and then compare them to other drugs that have similar effects and for which we understand the mechanism/cause and then, by analogy, speculate on their possible cause.

Also, convergent evolution, wherein different species develop similar traits and adaptations, provides many examples of effects for which causes are sometimes known, sometimes unknown. For those unknown, we invoke analogies to other effects for which the causes are known in order to make that particular selection process more intelligible even while remaining unknown (or almost unknowable).

Finally, whenever we abstract from physical reality to the level of formal logic and to mathematics, we are modeling reality. Here we encounter double jeopardy. First, there is the danger of reifying our abstractions. Also, there is the danger of supposing that by discovering analogues (logically and/or mathematically) between effects of certain causes (veiled vs unveiled) that we have somehow thereby satisfactorily explained the unveiled cause.

Analogies are useful and instructive but they don't gift us with explanatory adequacy, not in physics, not in metaphysics, not in natural theology. Hence our emphasis on apophatic theology or the via negativa vis a vis God-talk. We don't therefore dispense with them, however, because they may indeed provide indispensable explanatory ideas and very useful heuristics. My beef is the epistemological inconsistency of those who claim that the analogical imagination is valid in speculative cognitive science and speculative scientific cosmology but invalid in metaphysics and natural theology. What's up with that?

Hope this helps.

pax,
jb

quote:

Take supervenience. Can artificial intelligence really supervene on computers? Can mental states really supervene on physical states, on material states? We can speak intelligently about computational and algorithmic operations of computers but does that mean we can use such analogies to fully comprehend human consciousness?

Great explanations, JB, particularly that one. Thanks. Rivet.

Brad et al - you can grab the Goodenough article by clicking here.
.
Thanks for the link. That's good enough for me.

Analogies are useful and instructive but they don't gift us with explanatory adequacy, not in physics, not in metaphysics, not in natural theology.

If I think hard about this (and believe me, it hurts), it would seem that we sort of "freeze" explanations, analogous or otherwise, into facts when they look good enough at some point, but in fact they are just very very precise and tight analogies with very little gap between observation and explanation. But isn't everything just an analogy? Could we be living in a universe that is inherently and unavoidably analogous? Should we really be talking about the limits of analogies and instead be talking about better and better analogies?

My beef is the epistemological inconsistency of those who claim that the analogical imagination is valid in speculative cognitive science and speculative scientific cosmology but invalid in metaphysics and natural theology. What's up with that?

Not getting enough bran, I guess.

Whereas human transcendence is commonly configured as a from-to trajectory toward the beyond, we suggest that much of human transcendence entails a circling back to the from dimension and transfiguring it with our symbolic minds.

I'm not quite sure what "transfiguring it with our symbolic minds" means, unless that's a fancy way of saying "thinking", but that quote, at least for me, gives me the gist of what y'all are talking about.

Thinking of adaptation (which is prompted by that article), could you say it's true that the dinosaurs died out (let's forget the physical effects of a comet for the moment), not because they weren't well adapted (which seems to be a common perception), but because they were too well adapted? If an environment is stable over a long period of time, that environment will naturally choose those species who are able to take advantage of what it has to offer. That would seem to naturally draw animals into a very cozy and potentially fatal embrace should that environment drastically and suddenly change.

But there's little short-term advantage for a species to sort of hang back on the margins and not jump in with both feet and go through a lot of adaptation lest the environment change. They'll get beat out by some other species that is "willing" to make changes to suit the environment. After all, adaptation is something that is working now, this moment, not in the future. There is no, as far as I know, natural selection element that rewards planning for the future.

Are we humans around now simply because the environment, for some reason, has been more chaotic the last few tens of millions of years? It that the reason there are really few large land animals and certainly no land animals of the size they once were? Or was it all just a bit of luck, the normal outcome of chaos when mixed with natural selection?

But isn't everything just an analogy? Could we be living in a universe that is inherently and unavoidably analogous? Should we really be talking about the limits of analogies and instead be talking about better and better analogies?

Jack Haught reminded me recently that we should be careful about saying only an analogy.

Speaking of Jack, in one of his earliest books he criticized what he calls the epistemology of control and I think it is that particular attitude that results in the inconsistency in one's validating physics, including speculative cosmology, while invalidating metaphysics. The epistemology of control eschews speculation that is not falsifiable or directly verifiable by empirical science but that posture is no more viable in the long run than logical positivism/radical empiricism. But that's just one problem. It is a bigger problem of inconsistency when those who embrace scientism get positively excited about the speculative cosmology of Hawkings et al regarding pre-BigBang conditions that transcend the space-time plenum while deriding such a speculative metaphysics as is actually even more circumspect in making its propositions in proposing merely what an unknown cause is like while explicitly acknowledging that its essence is, in principle, unknowable. [I italicize "merely" because there we go again saying only an analogy ] I characterize this epistemology of control as an attitude because there is no compelling rational justification for embracing the approach of a Dennett or Dawkins and I have witnessed enough self-described agnostics who betray their practical atheism with an undeniable derision of metaphysics by criticizing, for example, Jack Haught, while having nothing to say about those who similarly overreach in their propositions regarding speculative cognitive science and speculative scientific cosmology (which IS metaphysics). [Personally, I don't think the theoretical physicists or the metaphysicians are overreaching, as long as they meet a string of other epistemological criteria for coherence, consistency, congruence etc when the evidence, however direct or indirect, is taken as a whole ; I'm just pointing out the tu quoque fallacy when one invokes the charge of overreaching inconsistently.]

So, yes, you are absolutely correct. And just because some analogies are going to be weaker because of the very nature of the types of causes, from which certain effects must necessarily derive, does not mean that they are invalid. There is no defect in the subject or observer or her methods that causes a metaphysical analogy to be weaker than a physical analogy; rather, the relative weakness in the analogy inheres in the nature of the object. It doesn't translate into a weakness in the logic. IOW, systematic constraints shouldn't be construed as methodological weaknesses and that is one of the basic misconstructions being made by the epistemological control freaks.

pax,
jb

I'm sort of struggling with this passage:

quote:

In the same way, natural selection "sees" an organism's motility and not the contractile and regulatory proteins that together allow that motility to develop. Instructions for a less adaptive metabolism or motility are less likely to spread through a population than instruction for a more adaptive metabolism or motility, with the wild-card word adaptive having everything to do with the match between an organism's genomic expectations and the niche wherein it in fact finds itself.

How is a "more adaptive" underlying structure (things not directly selected for such as enzymes and such) going to be selected for if the selection process itself deals with individuals (that is, organisms one at a time), and more importantly, with external elements (like long arms)? I'm not talking about the underlying structure being able to be chosen sort of second hand, but of a more adaptable underlying system being chosen. It would seem the process of natural selection is a force that tends to cut away, pare down, make leaner. It doesn't seem to be a process for adding things. Just how then is a more adaptable metabolism going to develop if the environment is selecting, more or less, for good matches for what it already has to offer, not what it might be offering in the future?

I mean, this leads me to believe either that life is working in concert on levels that I don't understand, or I'm misunderstanding something basic.

I mean, this leads me to believe either that life is working in concert on levels that I don't understand, or I'm misunderstanding something basic.

First, I am no wizkid re: evolution, but there is indeed much more taking place on different levels, for instance, where coevolution is concerned. Check out The Bacterial Flagellum: A Response to Goodenough by John Bracht and the other responses referenced there. It is a rather lively debate that still rages! This should speak directly to the same issues you raise and in a more coherent manner than I could ever pull off.

pax,
jb

p.s. I am not smart enough to take sides in the irreducible complexity debate, but I did want to provide yet another side: Answering the Biochemical Argument from Design by Kenneth Miller . Believers don't need to prove such as irreducible complexity precisely because our metaphysics is robust enough to accomodate many alternate explanations for life's origins. Materialists, however, well ... they get all bent out of shape with these ID theorists (as does Ken Miller, who is Catholic). If someone put a gun to my head, knowing the little I know, I'd give the nod to Goodenough and Miller on this one (but I don't get passionate about the origin of bacterial flagella).

It is a bigger problem of inconsistency when those who embrace scientism get positively excited about the speculative cosmology of Hawkings et al regarding pre-BigBang conditions that transcend the space-time plenum while deriding such a speculative metaphysics as is actually even more circumspect in making its propositions in proposing merely what an unknown cause is like while explicitly acknowledging that its essence is, in principle, unknowable.

I suppose sometimes it all depends on what title one holds, what school one has gone to, and what style of clothing one wears as to whether something is worthy of investigation or not. I would suggest that if one had a Cambridge pedigree then one might be able to seriously speculate about the dairy-product nature of the moon.

I would suggest that if one had a Cambridge pedigree then one might be able to seriously speculate about the dairy-product nature of the moon.

One must admit that the Oxford gang of Chesterton, CS Lewis and Tolkien have gained a much wider audience than the Cambridge infidels while being no less intellectual? Or not? Hmmmm

jb

Interesting if you think about it, all these principles and theories (emergence and such) could apply to our political and economic systems. They emerge from simpler parts (us) and compete with each other Darwin-style. The difference is, democracy goes for the kindler, gentler approach of natural selection. (A few of our elected representatives are definitely mutants, which proves the point. And some are so well adapted you can't get them out of office. They simply won't go extinct.)

Communism and other autocratic forms of government attempt the Frankenstein approach: they try to forcible combine parts that don't naturally belong together. It works for a while but soon deteriorates and collapses like any other abomination.

Interesting if you think about it, all these principles and theories (emergence and such) could apply to our political and economic systems. They emerge from simpler parts (us) and compete with each other Darwin-style. The difference is, democracy goes for the kindler, gentler approach of natural selection. (A few of our elected representatives are definitely mutants, which proves the point. And some are so well adapted you can't get them out of office. They simply won't go extinct.)Communism and other autocratic forms of government attempt the Frankenstein approach: they try to forcible combine parts that don't naturally belong together. It works for a while but soon deteriorates and collapses like any other abomination.

Very well said, even if it is only an analogy

I wuz thinking, with a thread entitled �From Biology to Consciousness to Morality�, heck, that's a pretty darned broad set of categories ... One almost couldn't get off-topic ...

This one's fair game folks.

Contribute whatever.

Maybe we could even write our 2nd Collaborative Shalomplace Novel using this title

Maybe we could even write our 2nd Collaborative Shalomplace Novel using this title

Well, as you say, from biology to consciousness to morality is a broad subject. Biology makes me think of broads and thus they're nearly always in my consciousness. This can also lead to all sorts of morality problems. On your marks�

Well, as you say, from biology to consciousness to morality is a broad subject. Biology makes me think of broads and thus they're nearly always in my consciousness. This can also lead to all sorts of morality problems. On your marks�

Excellent idea.

I suggest we start off, graphically, with an attractive jpeg file of some sort, which might eventually be the cover of our paperback.

I'll submit the 5th jpeg. Four others of you can go first

pax,
jb

p.s. Keep on topic: broad .

This is a broad leaf hygro rosanervis; an aquatic plant. It is one of those rare plants that is conscious of its own biological morality. Needless to say, it has a lot of time to think. What it thinks about is a bit embarrassing to say.

By the way. That is a male specimen of the plant.

Yes, that's right. It's pistil whipped.

This is Broad Street in Chattanooga:



This is Broad Street in Oxford:




Hmmmm - think this is a sublimation of my predilection toward old broads? I'd deny it. Meanwhile, I anxiously await w.c.'s contribution, which will surely be a Freudian Slip involving Halle Berry or her ilk. (I have seen her ilk, btw.)

So you might ask what a hygro rosanervis might think about considering it has so much time to think? It's a natural question (and thank goodness for those nearby schools of fish or it wouldn't have much knowledge to fill its head with). Because it's aware of its own biological urges (unlike other terrestrial plants which have never learned about the birds and the bees � which is particularly strange since you can hardly swing a dead aphid without hitting a bee), the aquatic broad leaf hygro rosanervis is faced with many moral questions. Should it reproduce? If so, how? Asexually? But isn't that frowned on by certain religions? And cloning is becoming a delicate topic. It's even outlawed on some reefs (the true cause of the deterioration of some coral reefs). These are not simple questions.

I don't have a picture for this one, JB. It's more a concept than a tangible object. It's called Broad Way.

Now don't confuse that with the "give my regards" variety. This is totally different. The Broad Way (or The Bray for short) is a philosophy, a small offshoot of Buddhism's "The Way." This small male-only sect originated in, and is confined to, Bremerton (it's just a coincidence, I assure you). It has one basic tenet: Marriage is suffering.

According to The Bray, life is governed by the turning of the Dharma and Greg wheel. The head of this relig�I mean philosophy�is known as the Jolly Clammer. (It's common for adherents of the philosophy to sit by the seaside in the McLaren postion and contemplate geoducks and complain about broads.)