[PRE-NOTE: As of 24 February 2017 I've done another significant rewrite of what is now an "Introduction" (it has previously been both Part I and Prologue...) by taking out parts that might be construed as anti-science and making my position much more explicit. I think this version is a considerably stronger and clearer beginning. It's much changed.]
This is part one (out of 30-plus) of a manuscript I’ve been researching and writing over the last five years, a work that would be found on a bookshop shelf under “philosophy of science.” I’ve been referring to it as “my treatifesto.” What’s it “about”? Well…nothing less than the “meaning” of life. A tall order, yes, but the subject matter is at the core of questions I’ve tussled with since becoming immersed in my life-long study of nature. ◦◦◦◦◦ This is admittedly a risky undertaking, fraught with perils, and I’m well aware that the blogosphere is loaded with missives by people with wacky “theories of everything.” Nonetheless: there are important questions pertaining to “how life works” that few people are presently asking, due to the prevailing climate in every field of biology, each of which insists that all life processes are the result of chemistry and physics—nothing more. I believe that nature continuously demonstrates that this is not the case. There’s something more behind it all. ◦◦◦◦◦ These matters are important enough that I’m going to try and change a few minds…including my own; not surprisingly, in the course of my research, some things have been demystified. Others, clarified. My thesis remains the same. ◦◦◦◦◦ So this draft is a continually evolving work-in-progress. I’ll be posting sections that are mostly “done” and welcome comments…criticism, especially—I’m trying to “get it right.”
All advances of scientific understanding, at every level, begin with a speculative adventure, an imaginative preconception of what might be true—a preconception that always and necessarily goes a little way (sometimes a long way) beyond anything which we have logical or factual authority to believe in…. Scientific reasoning is therefore…a dialogue between two voices, the one imaginative and the other critical.
Peter Medewar, Pluto’s Republic
Now
one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally
two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the
world, to know nature; the others, much more frequent, wish to explain it. The
first are searching for truth, often with the knowledge that they will not
attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an
intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world. To the
ones, nature reveals itself in lyrical intensity, to the others in logical
clarity, and they are the masters of the world.
Erwin Chargaff, Preface to a Grammar of Biology (1971)
After only four centuries of dedicated and
painstaking scientific enterprise, humans have probed the far reaches of space
and time. We have. I am often struck by how seldom people take time to reflect
on how utterly remarkable this is, and marvel commensurately. Consider these
items: a telescope orbiting Earth beams back images of galaxies dotting a
primeval sky like stars, but so distant they appear to us as they would have
not long after the Big Bang. At the other end of the spectrum, physicists have
so far identified dozens of ephemeral subatomic particles, with no end in
sight. The largest, most expensive machine ever created recently detected that
elusive entity, the Higgs boson. And this
monumental discovery will likely cause a revision of the Standard Model of
particle physics…and thus, how we picture our greater home—the universe.
Modern
humans, former hunter-gatherers who appeared on scene a geological moment ago,
know precise details about the interiors of stars in distant galaxies…have
learned how black holes are born, live, and die. We can now offer diabetics
low-cost insulin by splicing a human gene responsible for synthesizing the
hormone onto bacterial DNA and cultivating these modified microbes in vats, in
essence turning single-celled organisms into chemical factories. And we have accurate seven-day weather forecasts,
available any time thanks to the pocket-sized computer that is always within
reach.
All
our current knowledge about the world has been painstakingly gained over the
course of mere centuries through the efforts of countless determined
individuals, each of them driven by simple inquisitiveness and a powerful need
to know. And in just the last few
decades, astonishingly sophisticated technologies have been conceived,
developed, and made widely available—thus bringing to pass things our forbears
would have never even imagined possible. How difficult it is for modern people
to fully grasp how far we have traveled since that first small band of bipedal
primates warily emerged from a forest somewhere in East Africa. What were those
vaguely familiar creatures thinking as they stood squinting in the harsh light,
there at the edge of humankind’s first New World? And how is it that in only
about two million years—a couple of minutes in geologic time—we have progressed
from crafting the crudest of stone implements to fabricating microchips and
rocket ships? Amazing.
On the other hand, together with all
this technological advancement and proliferation of knowledge, certain aspects
of what we know about our world stand out by way of a stubborn resistance to
scientific enquiry. (Such as the fact that only 5% of the universe is made up
of atomic matter and we have yet to identify what the other 95% consists of.) A
few other prominent examples:
Life’s
inception continues to be the most inscrutable of riddles (notwithstanding
cavalier claims to the contrary made by optimistic researchers, science
writers, and reporters). Consciousness remains a baffling enigma despite steady
progress made with mapping neural pathways and identifying mechanisms of memory
storage. The fields of embryology and genetics share ongoing challenges even as
we tease out the subtlest nuances of how bio-information is manipulated by
living things and expressed in their myriad forms. A great deal remains to be
learned, in a general sense, about the emergence of biologic forms. And how
species diverge…or what exactly constitutes a species; even now, there is no
common consensus. Indeed, evolutionary processes overall still hold many
unanswered questions.
Those
who are at least moderately conversant in such matters believe our overall
knowledge to be much more extensive than is actually the case; this goes for experts
and authorities as well. Few people seem to be aware that our current level of
understanding in these independent fields might be substantially lacking. Even
fewer comprehend that this state of affairs could actually have critical
implications, science-wise.
But
there is a pattern here: the issues
just referred to share a common thread—a quality that is seldom (if ever)
considered a feature of their narratives: the “problem” of biological
complexity. Problem? What problem? Thanks
to a continuous flood of progressively more technical findings, contemporary
biosciences reveal that life at the cell level is far more involved than was
imagined just decades ago. (For a compelling demonstration of this claim’s legitimacy,
try reading a technical scientific journal article about, say, some arcane
facet of cellular metabolic regulation.) How cells interact with their
immediate neighbors, how they coordinate their roles in organs and tissues,
even their most elementary properties: all of these matters continue to present
explanatory challenges. At the other end of life’s broad continuum, ecologists
find the same, seemingly bottomless well of complexity. While progress
continues unabated, researchers in many disciplines (at times unable to keep up
with the “data avalanche”) habitually find that their latest discoveries reveal
unanticipated connections within systems or between ostensibly unrelated
organisms. Oftentimes, new data exposes new riddles. It never ends.
Indeed,
there appears to be no end in sight to a downright weird quality of practically boundless intricacy exhibited
throughout the natural world—at all scales. Physicists accept this disquieting
notion: that subatomic particles may not be the ultimate material
division…that, to paraphrase Jonathon Swift, “the quarks’ quarks may have
quarks.”[1]
And that whatever matter itself consists of will likely remain forever beyond
comprehension (not to mention experimentation). Likewise, biologists may never
establish a definitive foundation for their field—a precise point where
chemistry, physics, and the enigmatic spark of life converge. One thing is
assured: whenever some scientific matter is clarified, new questions emerge.
And so has it been from the outset.
It
may be in some wise reassuring to think of living things as machines—we have
made use of this characterization for centuries now. If not a perfect analogue
(though many believe it is) “organisms-as-machines” is still an apt and
effective metaphor. However, thinking in such terms devalues the level of
integrated complexity and functionality we observe in all life forms; the most
advanced machinery ever created pales in comparison to a primitive microbe.
Many well-understood but staggeringly intricate biological processes—marvels of
parsimonious efficiency—not only fail to elicit unfeigned awe but are
continually taken for granted. This, of course, is a result of little more than
a lack of awareness caused by the need to carry on with our busy everyday
lives. Thus, vital processes such as the ceaseless, rhythmic beating of our
hearts are paid but little notice (in much the same way that we reflexively
tune out distracting noises).
The
truth is this: We have a seriously
limited view of what life, as a phenomenon, actually is. Through science, we have reached an understanding of how living
things function, down to the most minute details. And yet, despite all we have
learned after roughly four centuries of scientific investigation, we still do
not even know precisely what life is.
Pause for a moment and think about the implications of this statement.
Contemporary scientists,
long accustomed to assuming that material entities can be understood through
conventional approaches that have passed the test of time, steadfastly resist
considering possible inferences to be made from observing the workings of
life’s systems-within-systems-within-systems. Still, why should it be virtually
unthinkable for those who spend entire careers studying such things to confess
that nature operates on levels we have not yet fathomed? That there might be biological
laws whose subtle influences, leaving behind no observable evidence to weigh,
measure, chart, and graph have thus far eluded discovery? These would be laws
of physics pertaining only to living things—principles that would finally
account for a sophistication that beggars understanding, which nonetheless we
have been led to believe arose through an accident. To voice such heretical
notions is not beyond reason; a number of
illustrious scientists have entertained similar musings. Chilean
biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela put into words an idea
expressed by many others: “We do not see what we do not see and what we do not
see does not exist.” This observation will stike some as being a clichéd
tautology but it speaks of a deep truth. An unwillingness to acknowledge
not-knowing is indicative of a lack of imagination—imagination sorely needed to
fill some conspicuous gaps in our body of scientific knowledge.
Biology
is predicated on these underlying truths: As a phenomenon, life is essentially
a matter of organization based on the
interaction of large and small molecules.
Living matter initially arose by way of fortuitous but chance events.
Its basis is strictly material; there
are no underlying governing principles lending any kind of direction or overall
purpose. Life processes and structures are shaped by physical law,
circumstance, and random events. Living things, being subject to the laws of
chemistry and physics, may be highly complex but their workings are predictable
in detail.
In
opposition to this mechanistic view, the main thrust of this work will be to
demonstrate that the almost limitless biological complexity found in all forms
of living matter relies on nested organizational systems that cannot possibly
have arisen solely by way of slow, incremental changes. (These specifically
include matters pertaining to both cells and organisms, genetics, developmental
biology and the origin of life itself.) Also: that this unbounded intricacy is
a fundamental quality of life, an objective fact in and of itself with enormous
implications.
To
consider living organisms as nothing more than machines is a misleading
metaphor at best. Machines do not build themselves or replicate. The
fantastically elaborate systems of development, regulation, communication, and
maintenance common to all life forms could not exist without some form of
coordinating intelligence—call it what you may. Nature’s hyper-complexity
(along with a number of other related matters I will delve into) exposes major
conceptual flaws in our basic understanding of how the living world functions.
The central theme of this work, then, is spelling out how and why scientists have
been so amiss in viewing the phenomenon of
life (from here on to be italicized: life)
as an “ordinary” physical and chemical process.[2]
Life’s essence has no parallel, no counterpart. And to speak of an
“intelligence” does not of necessity imply some sort of non-material entity or
omniscient deity; it merely bespeaks some form of abstract organizing principle
that is inherent to nature.
Unfortunately,
the word “intelligence,” when used as an attribute of life, inescapably bears
the insinuation of some kind of willful outside agency lending purposeful
direction. To be sure, scientists have long shied away from the use of such
words, finding them categorically at odds with the spirit of science. I aim to
show how simple deficiencies of language have contributed to a sadly limited
view of what life is. Here then is
the crux of the matter: words can create serious impediments to understanding.
In the not-too-distant future it will be recognized that 20th
century science was hobbled by conceptual limitations and these will be traced,
in many cases, to nothing more than imprecise descriptive terminology.
Understanding the true character of life
itself and the workings of its most basic attributes will require new words.
And new concepts. These concepts will, unavoidably, be somewhat nebulous or
seem paradoxical…less concrete, less coherent than we are accustomed to—because
life is less than “comprehensible.”
Take
physicists, whose work proceeds unhindered by their inability to fully grasp
the fundamental nature of mass, time, and force. Physics is considered the
purest of the so-called “hard” sciences but its primary tool, mathematics, is a
system based on abstractions that (for reasons we may never fully comprehend)
successfully describes how nature operates. Nonetheless, physicists carry on in
the face of dealing with such glaring unknowns by recognizing the scope of the
explanatory powers of mathematics. They understand the basic qualities of mass,
time, and force as “brute facts.”
Biologists,
however, cannot make quite the same claims regarding the very root of their chief focus. In truth, our limited
but tacitly accepted notions fall far short of accounting for the seemingly
boundless capabilities exhibited by each and every living organism. In making
this claim, it is not to contend that living matter exhibits indescribable
attributes or that it possesses some mystical quintessence—only that we do not
fully understand what we are dealing with. But I do hold that all along, and for a variety of reasons, we have
misread data gathered by means of scientific inquiry (and cloaked messages
hidden behind all that data) and
thereby have reached faulty conclusions.
The practice of science entails attempting to find
a set of information that most accurately describes some feature of our
universe. Remember: in this arena, by
definition, there are no unassailable
or inerrant facts. From the outset, therefore, it is crucial for readers to
bear in mind that scientific thought requires a relentless questioning of assumptions plus a willingness to
continually modify those assumptions as new information presents itself. While
these things may seem self-evident, many people (professional scientists
included) are, by their very nature, unwilling to look at new or unconventional
ideas with the truly open mind that scientific thinking demands.
In the same sense that we intellectually know but (for example) tend to “forget” that birds are latter-day dinosaurs
and camels are distant relatives of starfish, an endocrinologist might lose
sight of their work being in any way connected to that of a paleontologist. But
they are linked, however tenuously.
In less than a century, cutting-edge scientists have largely become specialists
in a single (often quite esoteric) aspect of some advanced, technology-driven
field. Gone are the days of simply cataloguing new species. The ever-swelling
flood of new information makes it difficult to keep up with the latest in one’s
own area of expertise, not to mention cultivating a sense of the overall state
of scientific advancement. Those experts’ vision has been encumbered by being
overly focused on an overabundance of data and glut of new discoveries—an
unanticipated consequence of the extreme specialization now equated with
“doing“ science.
There could be real value in attempting to
formulate a comprehensive view of our world based on the sum total of findings
from all scientific fields, inclusive
of culture and the arts. In his 1998 book,
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, E.O. Wilson made just such a spirited
attempt. Consilience? The antiquated
word was essentially given new life by the renowned biologist. Wilson,
explaining his choice for a title:
Consilience is the key to unification. I prefer
this word over “coherence” because its rarity has preserved its precision,
whereas coherence has several possible meanings…. William Whewell, in his 1840 synthesis The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,
was the first to speak of consilience, literally a “jumping together” of
knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to
create a common groundwork of explanation. He said, “The Consilience of
Inductions takes place when an Induction, obtained from one class of facts,
coincides with an Induction, obtained from another different class. This
Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs.”[3]
The
work in hand aspires to a consilience of ideas from a number of seemingly
disparate biological fields. Primarily philosophical and speculative, its
objective is no less than to fashion an alternative picture of the natural
world, one based on a different way of looking, collectively, at recent
advances in biologic sciences. The various strands will be woven together,
creating a surprising tapestry—a fresh portrayal of life itself. I will offer
novel perspectives on matters that have become entrenched in what are
demonstrably outdated viewpoints. What we know has changed so quickly and each of us has some catching up to do in sorting out
what all these changes mean. Many will be resistant to this idea but I feel
confident of the evidence showing how much we have yet to learn about life. This will become ever more
apparent with the passage of time.
Philosopher Thomas Nagel neatly expresses my
own position when he writes, “there may be a completely different type of
systematic account of nature, one that makes [use of] neither brute facts that
are beyond explanation nor the products of divine intervention. That, at any
rate, is my ungrounded intellectual preference.” I have a similarly “ungrounded
intellectual preference.” With no ideological axe to grind and no prevailing
philosophy or religion to uphold, I simply wish to know, insofar as my limited
capacities will permit, why our world is the way it is.
Copyright 2017 by Tim Forsell 24 Feb 2017
[1] A quark is a type of subatomic particle, one of
the building blocks of other subatomic
particles such as neutrons and protons. This, an allusion to a famous stanza
from a satirical poem by Jonathon Swift: So,
naturalists observe, a flea—Has smaller fleas that on him prey;—And these have
smaller still to bite ‘em,—And so proceed ad infinitum.
[2] I will use “life”
(capitalized only at the beginning of sentences) to designate the phenomenon—at its core, mysterious and
perhaps even unknowable –and “life” to refer collectively to living things in a
broad sense. Also: while many of the issues being considered apply to all life
forms, to avoid excessive qualification I will by and large be referring to
non-plant organisms.
[3] Though virtually unheard of today, the polymath
William Whewell (1794–1866) was an extremely influential scientist and
philosopher in his time. He authored several important books and, in fact,
coined the term scientist, in 1840.
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