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Evolutionary Theory A Natural Hierarchy of Dispositions and Nondual Co-Emergence
According to Deacon, the key question is how the earth emerged and evolved semiotic relationships out of merely physical and energetic ones. The property or ability of semiosis involves the quality or state of being "for" or "about" something. Semiosis is intrinsically relational. It is always "to," "for," or "about" something else. Making a slight twist upon a line from biologist Ursula Goodenough ("how does something more come from nothing but"), Deacon said that at the center of his presentation is the phrase "something else from nothing more." How does something else (namely semiosis and meaning) arise from nothing more than matter? Deacon stated that his recipe for the emergence of semiosis is to "add a dash of nothing by taking away something to make what’s left something more." Or, posed as a question: how does something get its existence conditioned on something it is not? What is the constitutive absence that makes something what it is? Deacon answered these seemingly enigmatic questions by describing a three-tiered journey of natural "dispositions" from: 1) Thermodynamics (efficient causes) to 2) Morphodynamics (formal causes) to 3) Semiodynamics (final causes). These three levels of dispositions can also be thought of as: First-Order: Entropic, thermodynamic, simple dissipative processes (Entropic) Second-Order: Complementary and convoluted thermodynamic regimes (Self-organizing) Third-Order: Semio-dynamics (selection of representational beings) (Evolving) First-order dispositions arise when relational properties amplify and dominate over material properties. Deacon thinks a canceling or evening out dynamic is the key to all first-order dispositions. A couple examples of first-order dispositions are surface tension in liquids and stars. Diverse liquids, such as water, mercury, and alcohol, are composed of different molecules, but collectively any set of such molecules can realize the emergent dynamic of surface tension (such as the bubble that forms on your coffee mug if you pour it too high). Stars are first-order dispositions as well because they come into existence by a similar canceling out dynamic between outward pressure and inward pressure. The heat created by nuclear fusion pressing outward is perfectly balanced by the inward pressure of gravity. This canceling out dynamic enables stars to burn for millions of years. The jump to second-order dispositions involves history over time and a form of amplifying or compounding circular causality. A particular constraint or initial condition will get amplified because its effect matches so well with the external environment. Deacon noted that most examples cited by complexity theorists fall into this category, such as hypercycles (Manfred Eigen), autocatalytic sets (Stuart Kauffman), or dissipative structures (Ilya Prigogine). Second-order dispositions also involve the linkage of two reciprocally reinforcing effects, which helps drive the amplification that happens through continuous iteration. Albert Einstein called this "compound interest," and he quipped that it was the most powerful force in the universe. Deacon described in detail two examples of second-order emergence: snow crystals and laser light. Both involve the continuous amplification of some feature or constraint until that constraint becomes more coherently and dominantly expressed in the environment. This way snow crystals become beautifully and precisely symmetric and laser light becomes extremely coherent (same frequency and phase of light). Deacon suggested that the amplification of coherent behavior is a core part of second-order dispositions. A good image for second-order dispositions is tuggers who coordinate their pulls in a game of tug-of-war. Coordinated pulls get the best net effect because they amplify each other. The jump to third-order dispositions occurs when some process spontaneously captures two linked second-order dispositions. A third-order disposition can thus be described as an autocatalytic system of autocatalytic subsystems. A third-order disposition is, in a sense, a higher-order catalyst of second-order dispositions. But a third-order disposition can catalyze in a unique way: it can catalyze over great stretches of time and space. How can it do this? It does this because a key "epistemic cut" (from Howard Pattee) has occurred between second-order and third-order dispositions. Unlike anything else leading up to it, a third-order disposition can re-present a feature of itself. Third-order dynamics are semiotic: they have discovered the ability to represent a small feature of the architecture or topology of their own being. That representation can then be "chosen" for its selective advantage in an environment. Deacon emphasized that the key to understanding third-order dispositions is the break between dynamics and representation. A third-order disposition has emerged when some chunk (perhaps a small group of associated molecules) of a second-order life-like system (for example, a collective autocatalytic system of molecules in the early earth’s chemical soup) breaks off and becomes the seed for the rebuilding of another new system. When the new system is being configured it will not start from scratch (back at second-order or even first-) but will have an advantage due to the information that carried over from the previous system. This carrying-over of represented information is the proto-form of evolutionary heritability: some type of information about the topology or architecture of the system is being used in a second-generation system. Deacon emphasized again that the key factor in third-order systems is the creation (accidentally or not) of some type of proxy (a smaller chunk that represents the architectural dynamics of some larger whole system of molecules) that is capable of seeding a new or second-generation system. By virtue of the fact that the proxy re-presents information about how to re-create a larger system, it is representational in the most basic sense. According to Deacon, this is the core of all later complex semiotic processes of symbolic communication. To be semiotic is to be about something. Thus, Deacon thinks the spontaneous (non-planned) emergence of third-order dispositions is the very origin of meaning: the origin of being about something else. With Deacon’s notion of third-order representation in mind, DNA can be understood as simply a more intricate form of proxy. DNA has a simple semiotic function: it represents the form of a protein. Thus, DNA has achieved the "epistemic cut" between dynamics (physical and energetic processes) and representation or semiosis. In short, Deacon thinks that biology is primarily a semiotic science. Deacon concluded his presentation by noting just a few examples in which third-order dispositions—that is, living beings that can represent (semiosis)—capture and use second-order and first-order dispositions and make use of them. Deacon calls this a "tail wagging the dog effect," because the tail of the process (third-order dispositions) have through the course of millions of years of evolution captured and used the dogs (the first- and second-order dispositions) that they originally came from. In this manner, Deacon suggested that when evolution is properly understood as an emergent third-order disposition that is based on semiotic and representational properties, then we can see and understand evolution for what it really is: the origin of something from nothing. Evolution is the fecund source of newly emergent information. Deacon ended with a quotation from the Chinese Taoist Chuang Tzu that captures the essence of the emergence of meaning from nothing:
The fish trap exists because of the fish After a series of comments and questions, Michael Lissack clarified for the group a series of points about the presence of semiosis in evolutionary selection dynamics. Lissack noted that for any unit of selection to be "selected for" in an environment (to favorably propagate relative to others), it must be represented. The very ability to make a distinction—to recognize a unit in an environment as an autonomous unit—presupposes a representational relationship. Likewise, a "representational template" is also a unit that must be broken off from the larger dynamics of a system in order to represent something (carry useful information about those dynamics). Once it has done so, that template can then be selected for (or not selected for) its advantages in a given environment. This key representational step has not yet happened for simple collective auto-catalytic sets (second-order dispositions). It only starts afterward in what Deacon is calling third-order or semiotic dispositions. Nondual or Dynamic Co-emergence Evan Thompson made a number of comments about the nature of emergent systems during his own presentation on Monday night [which is described starting on page 24] that bear upon Deacon’s proposal and the discussion of emergence. Thompson argued that progress can only be made in the debate about ontological and epistemological emergence if there is clarity about the hidden metaphysical and philosophical issues that inform it. According to Thompson’s Buddhist perspective (influenced largely by the 2nd century deconstructive philosopher Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika school of Buddhism), one of the key assumptions that underlies the ongoing debate is the West’s substance metaphysics. This metaphysical framework dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, particularly to Democritus’s atomism and Aristotle’s distinction between substance and form. At the dawn of modern science, Descartes reinforced the ideas of Democritus and Aristotle with his famous ontological separation of mind and matter: res extensa (extended substance) and res cogitans (thinking substance). Thompson pointed out that the Western search for a solid metaphysical grounding point is intertwined with its attachment to a substance metaphysics. Atomic bits of substance serve as the basis from which wholes can emerge. In this view, the notion of emergence always presupposes that the world is grounded in stable, solid stuff—atomic bits of isolated matter. Thompson also brought attention to the conceptual structure and way of languaging used in the emergence debate. Thompson thinks that the terms "part vs. whole" or "part and whole" are at the core of the problem. By couching the conversation in those terms, the question of where wholes and parts come from is not raised. This convenient conceptual structure is still rooted in the notion of "things" called "parts" and "wholes." And yet, this is exactly what needs to be challenged. Thompson suggested that we need to understand the mutual dependency (or mutual specification) between these terms. Parts presuppose wholes and vice versa; they can only arise together. Thompson suggested that we need to see that atomism and holism ultimately co-define one another. With this in mind, the debate about ontological emergence always involves a see-sawing back-and-forth between prioritizing the relative importance of one side or the other. For example, a holist sees the whole as ontologically prior to the parts and thus all parts are merely differentiations within a prior wholeness. This assumption informs the belief in ontological emergence. While atomism underlies the reductionistic view that all emergence is merely descriptive or epistemological. Thompson thinks that one helpful conceptual shift would be to realize that the observer (the scientist, philosopher, metaphysician, etc.) creates a convenient conception of these terms whenever observing the world or thinking about these issues. For example, if we choose to call an electron a part, then we have already committed to a metaphysical position that will necessitate the co-arising of an emergent whole (quantum wholeness or entanglement, e.g.). Ultimately, whole and part are determined by how we intervene experimentally and conceptually with the world. The observer’s mode of consciousness, method of observation, and type of conceptualization are intimately involved in the co-construction of what is observed. "Whole" and "part" are thus convenient abstractions used by scientists and philosophers to describe and parse the world in a particular way. Some further comments from the Buddhist perspective by Richard Baker Roshi supported the general point Thompson was making about the importance of bringing a more sophisticated attention to our habitual ways of perceiving the world—and thus our way of conceptualizing about terms like emergence, parts, and wholes. Baker said most Westerners cognize the world from the perspective of a separative mode of mind. We habitually think the outside world is separate from us, and we observe it, study it, and categorize it accordingly. This mode of mind informs most (if not all) of the West’s tradition of empirical science. Those who look through microscopes and telescopes need to bring a more sophisticated and self-reflective awareness to the conceptual structures that inform their very way of looking and perceiving. In recent decades, Western philosophers and psychologists have begun using terms like "inter-dependence" and "inter-subjectivity." Ecologists and politicians now speak of an inter-dependent ecosystem or an inter-dependent world. But Baker emphasized that "inter-dependence" is not just a new idea. Instead, it is a real phenomenological experience that one can have. And if this experience becomes stabilized through years of meditative practice, then it becomes a regular mode of mind—or a mode of seeing and experiencing the world. In a broad sense, both Thompson and Baker were suggesting that it is crucial to challenge commonly accepted Western modes of perception and thought that still inform most scientific discourse and philosophical debate. Thompson suggested that the origin of life is a good example where the common conceptual structure of part and whole is apparent. In this conference most participants have assented to Deamer’s account of the origin of life by thinking that there are autonomous parts called lipids that can self-assemble to make lipid sacs. But two questions arise from this. The first is: where do the autonomous parts come from that then self-assemble? This line of thinking can go all the way to the quantum level and below to quarks and strings. Thompson argued that there will never be a bedrock level of core parts, or a fundamental place of substance from which all emergent wholes come from. A new non-parts-based thinking is needed to account for how aspects or dispositions in the universe self-assemble themselves. The second question is: what is wholeness? Both Stuart Kauffman and Terrence Deacon brought attention to what they call the "engineering mentality," in which the origin of life is viewed as an engineering problem. Engineers act like top-down gods who know how to put parts together to make functioning wholes. But Deacon said that what stands out about the emergence of life is that functioning wholes must precede the functioning parts. Deacon suggested that the really difficult question about third-order dispositions (emergent life) is: how does something living put itself together? Kauffman added that the real gap in Western science is the lack of a theory of wholeness. How is it that functional wholes with properly interacting parts can arise spontaneously in the universe and biosphere? Kauffman’s own work on collectively auto-catalytic sets of molecules is an attempt to wrestle with the spontaneous origin of integrated and functioning wholeness. When asked for an example that illustrates his idea, Thompson pointed out that an organism’s metabolism displays the co-emergence of part and whole. A novel topological and causal circularity arises in functioning metabolic systems, whereby the functioning wholeness of metabolism is co-defined by the parts in the system. They co-arise together as an emergent phenomenon we call metabolism. If we deconstruct the West’s procrustean bed of substance metaphysics, can we still describe something as emergent? Thompson thinks the answer is yes. The key is to note that what is emergent needs to be defined by the time in which it arises, and its display of novelty and development relative to what came before. The lack of a substance metaphysics does not preclude a rigorous description of emergent features in the universe. In response to Thompson’s nondual description of parts and wholes, Ogilvy and Clayton both emphasized that Deacon’s hierarchy of emergent dispositions is not stuck in the dualism of the holism vs. atomism debate. What they both like about Deacon’s system is that it provides an alternative topology of causality. This topology is not focused so much on the issue of parts, wholes, and emergence, but rather looks at the actual organizational topology of any given disposition (whether a snow flake or a cell). For clarity, Deacon asked Thompson to describe what is meant by the Buddhist notion of groundlessness. Thompson responded that the key is the move away from a habitual clinging to an ultimate foundation. String theory, for example, is the attempt to find the ultimate ground of physical reality in the form of yet to be observed strings. Even though the West discovered roughly eighty years ago that matter is comprised of wavelets at the sub-atomic level, most scientists are still looking for a solid ground on which to rest the universe. The emergence vs. reductionism debate too rarely points out the extent of this search for a ground. The Buddhist approach, in contrast, starts with the cultivation of a first-person interior inquiry into the groundlessness of all inner and exterior phenomena. Metaphysics then proceeds from the recognition that the human ego is what clings to the search for an ontological ground. In response to the claim that the notion of groundlessness has no empirical payoff, Thompson responded that the embrace of a groundless approach to emergence would give great empirical payoff by providing a way beyond the lingering mysteries of quantum mechanics, such as non-locality. Thompson thinks most physicists are still trying to find a ground-point by assigning hard-and-fast "properties" to quantum states that elude such description. Thompson thinks that properties are a holdover from Cartesian metaphysics, which attributes properties to all substances. This just doesn’t work for quantum states of entanglement. Thompson thinks that Immanuel Kant’s descriptions of purposive organisms in his Third Critique (originally published in 1790) is a better starting point for contemporary descriptions of emergence than Descartes’s substance metaphysics. Overall, Thompson suggested that Western science needs to move toward a non-substantial metaphysics of fields, processes, events, and patterns. The long-standing failure to interpret quantum mechanics properly is pointing to the need to embrace a different way of conceptualizing reality. But the concept of emergence would still be retained in a process metaphysics, because it describes the qualitative and quantitative developments of increased organization and intricacy that occur over time and evolution. The description of "nondual emergence" or "dynamic co-emergence" signifies that there is no hard ontological duality between parts and wholes, substances and emergent phenomena. All emergence is the co-emergence of newly co-defined parts and wholes, in which there is a global-to-local structuring influence that is irreducible to atomistic parts. What is new in emergence is the type of organization, or emergent topology of causal relationships. Further Questions for Emergent Dispositions and Nondual Co-Emergence The universe we live in harbors the capacity to self-organize into purposeful and functioning wholes at different levels of complex organization. How can we better theorize about a whole medium—the universe—which can self-organize? How is the subject of "downward causation" regarded in Deacon’s and Thompson’s accounts? Does the so-called problem of downward causation miss the fact the emergent system causation is causally efficacious by virtue of the fact that the entire emergent system starts to operate according to a novel systemic-causation? In other words, is the new causal power fully inherent in the emergent systemic re-ordering of the relationships? Is it possible that there is nothing "downward" about it: it is just a new state of systemic and thus causal organization? How does the "nothing" of a third-order semiotic disposition become causally efficacious (purpose, intention, will)? Does Ken Wilber’s nondual proposal of "holons" and "holarchy" (every thing or process is simultaneously a whole and a part) from his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (Shambhala, 1995) adequately address Thompson’s call for a nondual or dynamic theory of co-emergence?
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