Critique of TSW Part 23a Heredity-Environment Muddle

Blog 20141029 

Bill’s belief in finity and quest for definition prevents him from considering the interaction between heredity and environment as a unity.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

Heredity-Environment Muddle (Part 1 of 2)

TSW: "By defining needs as univironments - that is, relations between the microcosm and the macrocosm rather than as properties of either one - ..."

BW: If a Univironment is all things and "needs" are just relations between different sizes, ignoring all other properties, then there isn't anything more to say: one is big, the other small.

[GB: Huh? Bill, where did you ever get that idea? Looks like you just won the championship for over-reduction. Remember the Second Assumption of Science, causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes). Where do you see anything about “ignoring all other properties” in that assumption?

TSW: "Arrayed on one side of the muddle were the hereditarians ... environmentalists ... believing that [one] is far more important than [the other]."

BW: Perhaps, but neither side claimed the other was unimportant. The general reader might be better able to identify the views as "Nature v. Nurture", but it's actually an issue of causation: "what motivates human action?"

TSW:  "The conservative view can be traced at least as far back as social Darwinist Herbert Spencer ..."

BW: Essentially a Lamarckian (not sure how you can characterize him as a conservative), who believed thoughts and behaviors were inherited by offspring. However, you've taken a big leap from determining what are human "needs" to the political question of how they are satisfied. You've entirely skipped over any analysis of what IS a "need", whether a particular "need" motivates human action, and whether or not it is logically or evidently
"legitimate" to act on that need. Politics is not a good substitute for philosophy.

[GB: There really is only one question that needs to be answered in politics, and it is a univironmental one: Should we do it together or apart? This question permeates all relationships, whether for a couple or a species. The answer continually changes as both the microcosm and macrocosm change. Each answer amounts to an experiment. It applies to all political systems for all time. You are correct that politics is not a substitute for philosophy. While the answer to the political question must continually change, the correct answer to the philosophical question remains unchanged, although the struggle between determinism and indeterminism likewise is interminable.

BTW: I have already explained how we use univironmental determinism to discover needs. Like the political question, these are continually in flux. For the most part, we must observe behavior before we can, after the fact, claim that a need has been met. Thus, I need food, but do I need it right this second, or later today, or after a week? I sense that, like Freud and many others, you would like to reduce the millions of human needs to one or a few so you could make your explanations fit your particular politics and ethics. Good luck with that.]

TSW:  "Spencer ... failed to see the attempt to eradicate poverty as part of the evolutionary process."

BW: You're simply assuming that there is a legitimate human "need" to eradicate poverty. You might make the case that every human has a "need" to acquire resources, or that relative wealth is a bad condition, but you haven't
done that: you've simply assumed it.

[GB: I think that concern for others is univironmental. From birth, we are social beings who reach out to others as “part of the evolutionary process.” The rejection of others is also “part of the evolutionary process.” From early on, our species found it necessary to distinguish between friend and foe. The tribe of one’s birth was the friend and the neighboring trespasser was the foe. Overtime, of course, we have changed that assessment from tribal to nation state, and now to a global state as we inevitably widen our acquaintanceship. Malthus’s analysis, like Spencer’s, was from a conservative, myopic point of view. Both could dismiss all those millions of starving people only because they did not consider them friends. In this case, their microcosmic mistake must be considered one of great failures of systems philosophy, second only to the Big Bang Theory itself.

Whether extreme wealth or extreme poverty is bad or good is merely a political question. Like all political questions, it will be handled in political ways. Wealth, like power, is neither good nor bad, its effect simply depends on who has it. Even bourgeois economists worry about what will happen as global wealth becomes ever-more concentrated (Thomas Piketty, 2014, Capital in the twenty-first century: Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 685 p.).]

BW: Politics is not a good substitute for philosophy.

TSW:  "... whenever different races are compared, the investigator’s own race does best of all."

BW: Is race consciousness or preference an illegitimate "need" of humans? Maybe, maybe not. You haven't made the argument, you've simply assumed that it was a "bad" need, entirely jumping over the discussion of whether race is a *fundamental characteristic* of homo sapiens ... because that would require defining your terms, establishing identities, and arguing that racial views are logically inconsistent with the evidence. Apparently, you don't want to talk about human "needs", just means to satisfy what you assert to be legitimate needs.

[GB: Huh? The quoted statement is correct. I thought that Gould did a good job in backing that up in his book (Gould, S.J., 1981, The mismeasure of man: New York, Norton, 352 p.). It is fact, not opinion. In science, we try to avoid political statements, such as those about what is good or bad, legitimate or illegitimate. Maybe you are thinking of some other book.]

TSW:  "Racists, by anyone’s definition, are to be found on the hereditarian, microcosmic, side of the argument."

BW: Racism is the belief that incidental physical attributes are the *fundamental criterion" for deciding whether one human's "needs" are more legitimate than another's. That's ridiculous, but entirely posterior to the question
of what generic human "needs" are, whether they are proper, and how they might be satisfied. Simply saying that it's a "microcosmic" view is superfluous: genomes are small, individual genes are smaller; some are critical and
others are not. An analysis of "needs" has nothing to do with arbitrary divisions based on size.

[GB: Remember that the discussion here involves the relation between microcosm and macrocosm (heredity and environment)—nothing to do with size. Univironmental analysis is useful because it emphasizes the microcosm and macrocosm equally. When an investigator fails to do this by overemphasizing either the microcosm or the macrocosm, the analysis is sure to be incorrect.]

BW: Moreover, race isn't any more or less "hereditarian" than nose size. One can acknowledge the role of hereditary genetic characteristics without being a racist. Nor is racism "one side of the argument" about whether Nature or
Nurture is more influential: it's just a false claim about what IS the "Nature" of human beings. So, your characterization of the "sides" is almost entirely false.

[GB: Disagree. As I have been stressing all along, we must not view the microcosm as being estranged from its macrocosm. The point in this chapter is show that univironmental determinism applies to humans as well. The Heredity-Environment Muddle was just a handy example of what can go wrong in the analysis when the proper univironmental balance is not honored, whether for overt political reasons or not. Again, I do not think of humans as having a “nature” independent of their environments.]

Next: Heredity-Environment Muddle (Part 2 of 2)

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Critique of TSW Part 22b The Human Microcosm

Blog 20141022 

Bill’s belief in free will prevents him from understanding human behavior.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

The Human Microcosm (Part 2 of 2)

TSW:  "... views each act, each motion, of the human microcosm as a means to satisfy some human need."

BW: We assume there is a motive: a cause for the act that is believed to produce some desired effect. But, there may be no conscious motive at all, or the actual effects may be detrimental ... sometimes repeatedly self-destructive. I don't think "satisfy needs" covers the full gamut of human motives, from biological requirements to casual whims.

For example, I jvst substituted the letter 'u' with a 'v'. Certainly, not because I "needed" to do that, since I could have made the point in a
hundred other ways. A "need" to be cute? Just a mistake that I decided to exploit, after the fact? So, I don't think it's accurate to ascribe every human act as motivated by need, nor even motivated - in the sense of rationally intended - at all.

[GB: Your view is typical of those who believe in free will. That is why psychologists need to discard the idea of free will and its assertion that it is futile to look for motives. Because there are material causes for all effects, it is “accurate to ascribe every human act as motivated by need.” All human acts are “motivated - in the sense of rationally intended.” Just because we may not know the rationality behind a particular act, does not mean that it was not rational or that it was illogical. Differing beginning assumptions lead to differing logical conclusions. All acts follow from previous causal acts.]

TSW:  "... needs are particular univironments resulting in particular kinds of behavior."

BW: I realize that you're trying to make the case for your own form of "mechanism", but this isn't a definition. There are five different meanings of the word "need" that have nothing to do with environments motivating behavior. I prefer "a lack of something required", but your assertion doesn't even state the meaning you intend.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/need

[GB: Sorry, but that is a definition. Too bad that it isn’t conventional.]

TSW:  "... all behavior must be seen as liberal action toward a conservative end."

BW: Again, you don't define terms. Do you mean to say that all human acts are "marked by generosity", with the objective of "maintaining existing conditions"? Benevolent slavery? Productive altruism? Or, just an "equilibrium" of opportunities for action?

[GB: Like many of my generalizations, that one was designed to get the reader to think univironmentally. The conservative ends that you mentioned are a few of the thousands that might come to mind. In each case, you would have some “splaining to do,” involving endless detail appropriate to each of them.

Your confusion is akin to that of the Kirkus reviewer who wrote: “Some of Borchardt’s particulars are not as universal as he implies—for instance, ‘all our planning is motivated by the desire to minimize human effort’…’

Unfortunately, with that sentence, that reviewer showed that he missed a major point of the book. In response, I wrote: “Univironmental determinism concludes that “all our planning is motivated by the desire to minimize human effort" by including both the microcosm (the individual) and the macrocosm (the environment) in the analysis. The well-known Principle of Least Effort, like Newton's First Law of Motion, assumes that microcosms, like Newton's inertial objects, cannot, by themselves, increase their motion beyond that which they already possess. That also would be a violation of Conservation, the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that matter and the motion of matter neither can be created nor destroyed. Thus, whenever human effort does not appear to be minimized, one can be sure that important factors have been ignored. I may not take the shortest path to the store because my brain contains the idea (matter in motion) that some extra exercise is good for me.”]

TSW:  "Needs imply imminent behavior ..."

BW: Not necessarily. I have a "need" to write my Unimid Theory. That isn't imminent and it certainly won't result in any kind of "equilibrium". If you define need as a "lack of something imminently required", then my only need is to inhale the next breath. By another meaning, I only need to eat and defecate. By another, I have a need to overcome gravity or achieve peace on Earth. To my mind, you need to distinguish between "need", desire, preference, and whim. Otherwise, it's hard to tell what you're talking about.

[GB: That is easy. I define everything you mentioned as a need. The upshot is that if all those needs were satisfied, you would not do anything at all.]

TSW:  "The most important point through all of this is to maintain sight of what it is that we study: the main features of the microcosm in relation to the main features of the macrocosm."

BW: I think you just dropped your insistence on *universal* causation by adding the prefix "main features", which implies that whatever objects you're talking about have a unique identity, characterized by their features and essential characteristics.

[GB: Not true. Remember that, theoretically, the Second Assumption of Science, causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes) obtains in all cases. Practically, however, we can only discover a few of those causes. Whether we could discover an infinite number or only a few, each microcosm still would have a unique identity, as reiterated in the Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism (All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things).]

TSW:  "... we cannot have definite knowledge of a person’s needs until they have been met."

BW: So, your prior assertion of the need to predict has just disappeared, since you now assert that we can never know any motive prior to the act.

[GB: Remember the word “definite.” As per uncertainty, we can predict even though none of our predictions can be absolutely accurate. It is the difference between these two statements: 1) Will the chicken cross the road? 2) Did the chicken cross the road? The answers: 1) Maybe 2) Definitely yes or no.]

TSW:  "The so-called 'need' of the microcosm is met only through a complementary 'need' of the macrocosm."

BW: Now, you're converting to a euphemistic "need", embodied in two arbitrary, subjective domains. You're making a flat assertion about vague abstracts. Why is not the inverse true: that the "need" of the macrocosm is met only through the "need" of the microcosm? Does an atom of carbon in my body "need" my next breath? I don't think so.

[GB: You missed the univironmental point again. A microcosm cannot exist without its macrocosm. An atom of carbon does not exist all alone in the universe. It may not need your breath, but it sure could not exist for long if the macrocosm became antagonistic to it (extremely high temperature and pressure, for instance).]

TSW:  "Each tiny submicrocosm within the microcosm of Huck’s body moves toward univironmental equilibrium."

BW: Huck may "need" to adapt to the macrocosmic meteorite that will shortly destroy Huck, the apple, the tree and everything else in his microcosm. Or, the macrocosmic Huck may never eat the apple at all ... because his perceived hunger pains might actually be the microcosm of a burst appendix, seeking "equilibrium". The example is meaningless IF you're simply asserting that the universe is far too complex to ever identify the cause of Huck's act, much less predict it, then you're asserting that you have nothing relevant to say.

[GB: Missed again. That example shows how each microcosm in the universe, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, responds to its macrocosm.]

TSW:  "Needs typically are seen by [systems philosophers] as internally derived, inborn, instinctive, and, above all, static."

BW: So, you are a systems philosopher: Huck's hunger is internally derived, inborn in his nature, his act is naturally instinctive, and his desire for
apples is static. It's strange how you bounce around from one paragraph to the next. Either you *hate* system philosophy, or you use it to explain
"needs".

[GB: Remember that systems philosophy, by definition, overemphasizes the microcosm. With univironmental determinism, we assume that the microcosm and macrocosm play equal parts in determining what can happen. Our analysis must necessarily consider submicrocosms as well as supermicrocosms in any particular interaction. I suppose you could say that we were being systems philosophers any time we devote a few microseconds to submicrocosms without devoting the same few microseconds to supermicrocosms. Sobeit. How could it be done any other way?]

TSW:  "... the god-given needs of the indeterminists ..."

BW: More hyperbole. System philosophers are almost universally atheists and determinists, not theists.

[GB: Huh? How do you know any of that? Folks who overemphasize the system are not even good classical determinists.]

TSW:  "Any human behavior obviously not linked to what indeterminists regard as a legitimate need is considered irrational and uncaused."

BW: So, you would consider all human needs to be legitimate, rational, and determined? I need to jump tall buildings in a single bound. Legitimate? If not, why? Rational? By what standard? Determined? By what, other than my "need" to supersede my nature and the existence of gravity? Your statement is just hyperbole.

[GB: That statement is correct. Again, that is why folks who study human behavior try to discover the logic and the causes involved. What is logical or rational for one person may not be logical or rational for another. You will never understand the crazy things people do without tracing the causal chain back to its roots. Jihadists, for instance, may appear to be irrational to those who have not read the same books.]

BW: I'll divide this chapter into several sections, which all deal with different causes of "needs".

Next: Heredity-Environment Muddle

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Critique of TSW Part 22a The Human Microcosm

Blog 20141015 

Bill’s belief in finity gives him fits when he tries to support his idea that there are finite, definite boundaries that he thinks he needs for understanding the universe.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

The Human Microcosm (Part 1 of 2)

"Man is a microcosm."

BW: I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with the micro/inside vs. macro/outside theme. For any arbitrary set of objects, (or the entire universe) there is something of average size. Anything smaller is micro, larger is macro. That subjective characterization is entirely irrelevant to understanding anything about any of the objects.

Human beings are distinct animated objects in the universe. I see no value in calling them "portions" of the universe, or labeling them as
"microcosms". The bifurcation is purely subjective and arbitrary. From the viewpoint of our resident bacteria, WE are the "macrocosm". Relative to atoms, bacteria are the "macrocosm". Relative to electrons, atoms are the "macrocosm". So what? The only content is that they're different sizes.

If we want to understand the universe, we have to identify the boundaries that give individual things their identity. Otherwise, there are no
"things" to discuss. Throughout your commentary, there is no *definition* of the boundaries that make a distinct object what it is. It's just implied that there are real differences in reality and faults others for ignoring "bigger/outside" or "smaller/inside" things.

[GB: Sorry, Bill, but, as mentioned previously, scientists have no problem discussing things that necessarily do not have finite boundaries. You are right that the distinction between microcosm and macrocosm must always be somewhat subjective. Nonetheless, it is most important to understand what is going on across that boundary, the essence of univironmental determinism.”

TSW:  "... this perception [of being a microcosm] ... brings a challenge to our own estimate of our place in the universe."

BW: That humans are one distinct portion of the universe doesn't produce any "feelings" about our place, solipsistic or fatalistic. The sentiment of
"superiority" or "inferiority" is purely a state of mind. Whether we are smaller (micro) or bigger (macro) than any other portion says nothing about
whether we are "masters" or "slaves" of any other parts. It's simply a fabricated and subjective psychological dualism: we have control over some things and not others. If your point is simply that some fools believe we control *everything* and others believe we control *nothing*, you're only pointing out what is obvious: they're fools.

[GB: Now, now, Bill, let’s not be so harsh. Everyone makes microcosmic and macrocosmic mistakes all the time. No one can know all the causes for any microcosmic-macrocosmic interaction to produce a perfect univironmental analysis even though that is our intention. Univironmental determinism does not see humans as either masters or slaves. The correct philosophy must avoid both solipsism and fatalism.]

TSW:  "The indeterministic response was the Cartesian accord."

BW: It might have been useful to explain the Cartesian Accord (Compromise/Dualism) and then argue against it. You sort of characterize the issue, but cast it in your own dualism:

TSW:  "We need not treat animals - or people - as though they were Newtonian objects - things with nothing inside them except pure, finite, inert matter. We need not treat animals - or people - as though they were systems – things with nothing outside them except an immaterial void."

BW: Cartesian Dualism says nothing about internal/external: both the brain and the mind are internal (Descartes thought the Pineal Gland was the "seat of the soul" or mind). Nor is it about mechanics versus systems, nor materialism versus immaterialism (even if Descartes conformed with the mystic belief that God gave Man his Pineal Gland). The issue is fairly simple: humans change, even when there is no evident internal or external cause for the change.

[GB: Descartes’ accord was his way of moderating the determinism-indeterminism struggle. Science was successfully explaining the universe in terms of matter, but was having difficulty (as always) with motion. That was, of course, because matter exists, but that motion does not. This afforded him the opportunity to hypothesize a separate “existence” for motion, either as the mind or as the soul. You can see his attempt at objectifying motion in the Pineal Gland example you mentioned. The soul, of course, is the quintessential example of the idea of matterless motion. Although no one has succeeded in objectifying the soul, there are remnants of that idea when regressive physicists consider “dark energy” as a kind of matterless motion. Dissidents, such as our good friends Captain Bligh and Paul Schroeder, sometimes try to use the matterless motion concept to turn waves into matter.

I do take issue with your statement: “humans change, even when there is no evident internal or external cause for the change.” This is false. Evident or not, all changes follow Newton’s Second Law of Motion (F=ma). All change involves acceleration.]

TSW:  "We no longer need consider ourselves isolated from the macrocosm, foolishly grasping for a nonexistent, unprecedented freedom."

BW: It's an issue of cause and effect. With no notable change in the environment/macro/external causes, we change our minds. With no notable change in our consciousness/micro/internal state of health or knowledge, we change our minds. It isn't a matter of utter isolation or complete freedom, but a question of how that effect is caused.

[GB: I agree, of course, with your implied view that there are mechanical causes for all effects. True to form, however, you have shown your hand as a believer in free will, which seems dependent on the idea that when a cause is not evident, there isn’t one. That is why I included the Third Assumption of Science, uncertainty (It is impossible to know everything about anything, but it is possible to know more about anything) in the philosophical foundation of “The Scientific Worldview.”]   

TSW:  "To survive mentally, as well as physically, we must be able to predict human behavior."

BW: Even if we know the generic cause for "changing our minds", it doesn't necessarily mean that we can predict how, when, or whether any individual will change ... much less whether we can control their choices. Of course, we assume that all humans have similar motives: to survive and pursue happiness. But, we can't know in advance what choices any individual will make, even if that's a consequence of a different sort of "Uncertainty Principle": that trying to discover precise individual motives can change those motives and the resulting action.

[GB: Right, uncertainty and infinity always means that none of our predictions can be perfect. However, that does not stop us from making predictions, does it? For instance, I predict that when I hit the brakes, my brake lights will flash, and the driver behind me will slow down. So far, that prediction has worked for me, although I also can predict that it may not work at sometime in the future. So it is not generically true that “we can't know in advance what choices any individual will make.” We can know what those choices will be, but only to the degree that we have knowledge about that individual and their previous responses to the changes in a particular macrocosm. Thus, I can predict with quite a bit of success that if I say something positive, certain pessimistic folks are sure to respond with something negative. I stand by the quote above.]

TSW:  "If we are honest and educated we admit that we try to influence others to serve what we judge are our best interests."

BW: Usually true, but not necessarily. Hermits can be honest and educated, with no desire to even contact others, much less influence them. We may pursue our own happiness for our own satisfaction, not to influence others.

For example, I'm writing these emails because I want to clarify the issues you address in my own mind. Just thinking about them and writing them out gives me satisfaction ... totally irrespective of whether or not I change your mind. If you responded "You're Right!", I might be pleased at the affirmation. If you respond "You're Wrong!", it won't diminish what I've already accomplished, for my own purposes.

[GB: You’re Right, we often do not try to influence others. Sometimes we just delete those emails (which BTW might be an error of omission that contributes to the next pogrom). On the other hand, we are quintessential social beings who did not just pop out of nowhere and certainly did not get to where we are without being social, even if we end up being hermits. Hermits also must learn the tools of influence. After all, without language, a hermit could not influence others with the “No Trespassing” signs he might consider necessary for his desired isolation.]   


Next: The Human Microcosm (Part 2 of 2)

cotsw 046

Critique of TSW Part 21 The Biological Microcosm

Blog 20141008 

Bill shows a bit of “yesbutitis” as he resists new words that do not fit his world view.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

The Biological Microcosm

BW: The chapter is a muddle of jargon, with no point except that some processes are analogous to others. That there are equilibrium conditions for both chemicals and species in an environment is a mundane observation.

TSW:  "... the motion called life has changed little since biopoesis."

BW: The change from plant to animal was huge. The change from instinct to sentience, and then to sapience, were enormous modifications to the characteristics of animal life. Are humans just pond scum?

[GB: One can think of all changes as either significant or insignificant. That judgment is purely subjective. It all depends on your emphasis and the story you are trying to tell. After all, according to the Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism, all things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things. As I was careful to point out in discussing that assumption, one can reason either by analogy or by disparity. In this case, you have chosen disparity, presumably just to pose a disagreement—the sort of “yesbutitis” that afflicts most folks, particularly academics. In the quoted discussion, I was emphasizing similarities, which is what we do when we say “all motions are similar.”]  

TSW:  "All dissimilarities are relative dissimilarities and all similarities are relative similarities."

BW: I don't understand the point. Similarity is a comparison of two things. Of course it's relative. However, that doesn't in any way mitigate the value of identifying or forming distinct identities for things with similar characteristics, on the basis of those comparisons.

[GB: Sorry, but there are no identities. Those only exist in the mind of the idealist. Reread my section on classification.]

TSW:  "The imagined absolute disconnection between the physicochemical and biological models is widely and uncritically accepted today."

BW: What "absolute disconnection"? Have you ever heard of something called a pharmaceutical company? I've never heard of any biologist that didn't depend heavily on chemical processes to study and characterize biological processes. I don't see any disconnection whatever.

[GB: This goes back to our discussion of neo-Darwinism, the mechanism of evolution that requires genes for its operation. At the time, you thought that univironmental determinism was redundant and unnecessary even though abiogenesis or “biogenesis” (the transformation of inorganic chemicals into living organisms) cannot possibly be explained by neo-Darwinism because there are no genes involved during the early stages.]

TSW:  "... that organisms, like all other microcosms, respond equally to what is inside them and to what is outside them."

BW: An artificial construct. If you define boundary conditions, the internal and external influences are never equal.

[GB: False. Remember that a cause can involve an absence just as much as a presence. Newton’s object does not travel in a straight line unless there is “nothing” or at least very little in the way to stop it.]

TSW:  "All microcosms have a univironmental boundary, the place where the macrocosm exerts its influence ..."

BW: This is like saying "distinct parts of a distinct thing influence other distinct parts of a distinct thing". It's just a bunch of words strung together that contain no information beyond "things interact."

[GB: You missed the point. The “other distinct parts” are not parts of “a distinct thing.” They are parts of the macrocosm, otherwise known as the environment.]

TSW:  "Biological and chemical 'refugia' have many important dissimilarities."

BW: The ONLY similarity is analogical: chemicals change configurations when exposed to other chemicals and species change in response to changing environments. The analogy of one to the other doesn't provide us with any new information or better knowledge of either one.

[GB: This was simply contextual. Both types of refugia have many similar properties as well as many properties that are dissimilar. Reread the discussion.]

TSW:  "The universe consists of two parts: microcosm and macrocosm ...

BW: The universe is ALL things. Nature doesn't divide them into two parts, ever. Conceptualization requires that we identify the natural boundaries of distinct things, based on their characteristics. That's the only way that we acquire knowledge of how nature produces those things and how those things interact with other things. There is no "dialectic" in nature. Artificial "divisions" into two parts teaches us nothing about how nature works.

[GB: False. Nature may be “all things,” but it also has an infinity of divisions. One can always take any one of those xyz portions of the universe and observe its interactions with the rest of the universe. Your last four sentences contradict each other: “identify boundaries of distinct things” and “artificial ‘divisions’ into two parts teaches us nothing.” Which is it?

Next: The Human Microcosm

cotsw 045

Critique of TSW Part 20b Origin of Life

Blog 20141001 

Bill holds steadfast to systems theory while his belief in free will shows through when the subject of vitalism comes up.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are marked "BW: ". The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview" and my comments are marked "[GB: ".

The Origin of Life (Part 2 of 2)

TSW:  "For decades it has been fashionable to apply the prefix 'self' to convergent reactions ascribed to living systems ... For the systems philosopher-neovitalist, it is a no-brainer: 'the complex molecule assembles itself.'"

BW: The prefix was used by Oparin, Wöhler, Ivanovsky, and Engels. I'm not sure whether they were "neovitalists".

[GB: As you should know by now, the current scientific world view is systems philosophy, characterized by its overemphasis on the system and its tendency to ignore the environment of the system. Any use of the word “self” reflects that inclination—univironmental determinism was not invented until 1984. Some have used “self” to emphasize that particular reactions were natural processes not needing any extra help from some imaginary friend. One also could think of the entire universe as “self-organizing,” particularly if one assumed it was finite. The quote was from a particularly pernicious book written by Joel de Rosnay, which purported to be “A New World Scientific System.”]

TSW:  "Ignorance of the macrocosm is transformed into a modern but still uncaused 'vitality'..."

BW: I don't think any scientist or natural philosopher has ever considered life (vitality) to be uncaused. Nor did any of them ignore or deny any "macrocosm" as significant environmental factors.

[GB: You should read it and weep. Later in the book, I gave numerous examples. Perhaps you pooh pooh its significance because of its link to your cherished belief in free will.]

TSW:  "Life as we know it arose through a specific chain of events that will never be repeated exactly nor documented with perfect precision."

BW: Maybe not *exactly*, but there's no reason to believe that it hasn't occurred - naturally - many times over the past several million years, maybe even today. I think it will be done - artificially - within the next 10 years. As for documentation, there are no fossils of living matter, so history is only what we can impute from the process.

[GB: Glad you agree.]

TSW:  "These are all hypothetical, but they demonstrate the basic principles."

BW: Pretty vague speculation. And, it includes a lot of "chance" events that you deride. My own speculation is that the chemical building blocks formed on ice asteroids that subsequently "watered" the planet. Basic cell structures were formed by millions of deep ocean vents, whose cyclical motion of sediment and wet chemicals formed cells. The persistent heating and cooling prompted chemical reactions that produced elementary RNA or DNA, which produced proteins. That environment also facilitated growth, bifurcation, and basic reproduction. At least, that's the scientific "state of the art" in terms of understanding the process that would lead to living cells. Evolution of the most successful forms proceeds from there.

[GB: Sorry but there are no “chance” events involved, even in the simple equations I used to demonstrate abiogenesis. Again, those are the basics. The details you present, though specific, may or may not turn out to be correct. I have not heard about asteroid ice being very significant in producing the oceans. We generally consider the oceans to be a result of outgassing during volcanic eruptions, with a bit thrown in by comets, which are mostly ice. I do like your inclusion of temperature fluctuations, although I would not have used the word “persistent,” which implies a kind of equilibrium or stasis inimical to abiogenesis. Perfectly reversible reactions would not have produced life.]

TSW:  "Indeterminists might consider the convergence of AB and X as a sort of predetermined or predestined event, or even as a matter of absolute chance."

BW: I think a determinist can reasonably assume that, given proper conditions, the creation of living cells was either necessary or probable. It was certainly possible, since it did occur. The evidence and logic also suggests that it's possible on other planets, though only a few "Goldilocks Planets" have so far been detected:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_planet

TSW:  "The reactions above are typical of those producing animate as well as inanimate matter by means of Univironmental Determinism."

BW: Perhaps, but I think it's important to define living matter as an independent animated *process*, quite distinct from the indiscriminate chemical *events* that modify inanimate matter. The *boundary conditions* are real and deserve primary focus, as discussed previously.

[GB: The thinking expressed in those sentences obviously would be anathema to those studying abiogenesis. When we study transformation of one thing into another, we need to emphasize the similarities, not the dissimilarities. For example, in pedogenesis (soil formation) we need to know the composition of the initial material in order to understand the final product and the rate at which it formed. Thus granite of the Sierra Nevada contains biotite (black platy flakes), which oxidizes to vermiculite (the shiny, platy “fools gold” seen in streams), which eventually forms smectite (an expansive clay). Anyone studying soils knows that the “boundary conditions” are real, but that they are seldom distinct. Specialists not involved in the study of pedogenesis may choose to focus exclusively on the rock (geologists) or on the soil (farmers). Incidentally, each will have a tendency to overemphasize the part that is their primary focus. Some might even denigrate the chemical events outside their bailiwick as being “indiscriminate.”]

TSW:  "If one wishes, one may see competition and cooperation, even the survival of the fittest individual or group in these reactions."

BW: Anything can be anthropomorphized, but those characteristics are acts of *conscious* beings, not inanimate matter. It doesn't add to our understanding of nature, anymore than the inverse: "I am a rock!"

[GB: You really do have a problem with the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things). That is a fact of life (and nonlife), whether you anthropomorphize it or not. Looks like your compartmentalization may get the better of you.]     

TSW:  "The complexity of the reactions will be so great that from thenceforth it will be nearly impossible for all but the most naïve to view biopoesis as a 'self-assembly' process."

BW: I get your point, but this sentence seems to imply "other-assembly", which suggests a mystical conscious intervention or teleology. One of the features of life is that it's primary processes are contained within itself, not that those processes are isolated from its environment. Nature "selected" living things (animals) that could seek out a favorable environment by "intentional" motion (consciously or not). Humans are capable of creating their own environments, so they are even less dependent on favorable conditions.

[GB: A bit out of context. That discussion was about creating life in a test tube, which obviously needs a person to do it, or at least to plan the process. The scientist becomes an undeniable part of the macrocosm. I do not think that the scientist necessarily will be mystical or prone to think that teleology has merit. It is not true that life’s “primary processes are contained within itself.” Life cannot exist without the macrocosm. As a believer in free will, you have missed the whole point of univironmental determinism. Perhaps your understanding would improve if you turned your idea of natural selection on its head. Instead of “survival of the fittest,” think of it as “destruction of the least fit.” What is left over, we deem to have been fit—for at least a few microseconds. No microcosm survives forever, fit or not. There is no grand “purpose” to any of this, and none of it occurs by chance. It just is what it is.]

TSW:  "Today some people already accept the production of live viruses from inanimate matter as sufficient proof of the creation of life in the laboratory."

BW: See the first 'virology' link above for discussion of whether viruses are "living" and the errors in the early assumptions about viruses being precursors to life.

TSW:  "Miss one turn in the road, goes the logic, and there goes a planet’s chances for verdancy."

BW: To some degree, that's true, reflected in the search for Goldilocks Planets (conditions which an overwhelming number of planets - even in our solar system - fail). It isn't *necessary* to nature that there be other planets with life, but there's no reason to believe that Earth is exceptional in a universe with trillions of planets.

TSW:  "... every organism, if it lives long enough, eventually becomes cancerous."

BW: I don't think that's true, but I love the "probably maybe" from this expert geneticist:
http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask136

[GB: Of course, the point of that statement was to reiterate that all organisms contain the substrate for abiogenesis, which in this case occurs as cancer. The macrocosm is always present and always changing, introducing new supermicrocosms whose matter or motion interact with the pre-cancerous microcosm. That is why cancer is not a single disease affecting only one organ. It must affect all organs, though it may be possible that some have such latency that we have no record of cancer ever occurring in them.]

BW: Since cancer is a destructive genetic mutation, sufficient knowledge will certainly allow humans to mitigate - if not eliminate - its effects. The bigger "threat" to seeking immortality is the exact inverse: the method nature selected to *constrain* runaway tissue reproduction were DNA telomeres:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

[GB: Agree, although I would refrain from emphasizing mutation. Even if organisms had no genes as we know they must, cancer would still occur because the chemical elements required for abiogenesis obviously do not have to be in DNA form.]   

BW: It isn't directly related to my Unimid Theory, but I do have an idea for an electronic "Variable Inference Processor" (VIP Chip) that can emulate the human abstraction process. It probably can't be realized before we die, but sometime in the future, sapients will be able to download their consciousness into an android and have a better chance of surviving whatever challenges nature dispenses (including The End of The World).

Next: The Biological Microcosm

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