John:
> I have had some preeminent people tell me that I am basically full
> of shit....You?
I'm mostly interested in "outlying thinkers," so what would matter is
what your *cell biology* colleagues think of your work. From what I
can tell, you don't profess any particular "expertise" outside of that
area -- so speculations about "Gaia" &c are just that (and, from what
I can tell, quite conventional).
By using terms like "entropy," you have placed yourself in an earlier
*paradigm* (i.e. the PRINT world), which hasn't dominated human life
for a long time, having been superseded by ELECTRICITY in the
19th-century. My guess is that your science is "old-fashioned" in
that respect and I'd be interested in how that plays with your
colleagues. Nothing in the universe is "deterministic" (i.e.
*efficient* causality) anymore for physicists, for instance. Maybe
biology never made that leap.
Gregg, on the other hand, professes expertise in Psychology and, in
fact, is explicitly trying to upend that entire field. He is so
outrageous that he claims that he has "solved the problem of
Psychology" . . . !!
That is a different kind of "outsider" from the sort you present --
albeit no doubt the basis for friendship and collaboration.
Is your 16th/17th-century paradigmatic approach, with its
*determinism*, likely to come back under DIGITAL conditions? I sorta
doubt it but look forward to exploring that possibility once Gregg
returns and we pick up some of the underlying issues . . . <g>
Mark
P.S. The "Dark Ages" is a slander (and a stupid one at that). My
guess is that you didn't mean to insult anyone but are just repeating
what you have heard. No offense but until you know more about
history, it might make sense to "curb your enthusiasm."
P.P.S. The relationship between culture and technology (indeed, also
psychology) remains to be discussed on this list. I appreciate that
-- in the context of your understanding of *causality* -- "facilitate"
seems reasonable. However, the question whether that "context" is
itself reasonable remains to be seen, as we will discuss over time.
P.P.P.S. The question of whether *anything* is "infinite" in this
world would also be an interesting topic to discuss. Georg Cantor was
told in no uncertain terms by Cardinal Franzelin, who he deliberately
sought out, that there is no "actual infinite" in this life. I would
tend to agree. The notion of an "actual infinite" is, of course, a
theological question, which requires some expertise in that area to
even discuss competently.
P.P.P.P.S. No one believes (or should believe) that "science" can
*ever* explain everything (even asymptotically) anymore -- once again
pointing to your old-time PRINT approach to these things. "Logical
positivism" was the refuge of *print* under *electric* conditions and
its attempt to "unify science" clearly failed. It won't work for
social science, in particular, so, to the extent we're talking
Psychology hereabouts, I suspect that other approaches will be required.
Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>:
> Mark: I will attempt to navigate through your last reply by interjecting in
> brackets....
>
> Thanks! In Gregg's "dimensions of complexity" hierarchy the highest-level
> is "culture" -- which I'm suggesting is *caused* by our technological
> inventions (acting as forms) -- so I suspect that the topic of
> "physiological stress" and why it is caused now needs to be explored.
>
> [I have a different take on culture, having interpolated Niche Construction
> into the unicell (Torday JS. The Cell as the First Niche Construction.
> Biology (Basel). 2016 Apr 28;5(2).), offering the opportunity to then
> integrate organisms within niches as ecologies, which scales all the way
> from the unicell to Gaia. Along the way, culture is a manifestation of
> exponential niche construction, or anthropomorphized institutions......so I
> would suggest that technological inventions 'facilitated' culture, all due
> respect. As for why physiologic stress is caused, perpetual environmental
> change is a Given; life must change accordingly or become extinct. In
> actuality, the ability of life to sense change in the environment, external
> and internal alike using homeostasis as its 'feelers' is how the cell(s)
> know that change has occurred, and because they are servoed to the
> environment, equipped with the capacity to change as I had described
> earlier, the organism is constantly in flux, but trying to maintain the
> equipoise that it generated at its origin as its 'Garden of
> Eden'.......like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, running as fast as
> she can to remain at rest, like a catalyst mediating a chemical reaction
> (literally), or the eternal Burning Bush, never burning up ]
>
> When you say "caused by the breakdown in cell-cell communication as a
> result of the loss of bioenergetics, which is finite" you seem to be
> alluding to what is called *efficient* causality -- which is the one most
> associated with "positive" science originating in the paradigm from the
> 16th/17th-century (also where "energy" was primary) -- right?
>
> [Len Hayflick, a preeminent cell biologist has stated that the amount of
> bioenergetics within the cell is finite (Hayflick L. Entropy explains
> aging, genetic determinism explains longevity, and undefined terminology
> explains misunderstanding both. PLoS Genet. 2007 Dec;3(12):e220). But to
> think that our lives are finite is missing the big picture point of
> epigenetics. We are actually immortalized by being the 'vehicles' for the
> transit of environmental information to the organism so that it can make
> the existential decision to either remain the same or change in sync with
> the environment. I have also considered the possibility that because our
> microbiome is 70-90% of our holobiont being, that unless we are cremated or
> buried in a concrete crypt, our microbiome goes back to the earth when we
> are buried, back into the aquifer, ingested by plants and animals and
> 'reincarnated' in others who drink and eat us. There's experimental
> evidence, for example, that when we are buried our microbiome leaves a
> 'footprint' called the necrobiome, indicating that our microbiome remains
> intact, so we live on through our microbiome!]
>
> But that paradigm was "overthrown" in the 19th/20th-century (and, yes,
> that's why Kuhn wrote his 1962 "Scientific Revolutions" book). Today
> science has no positive grasp on causality, instead substituting
> "probability," which comes with its own train-load of problems. Indeed,
> one of the pioneering AI researchers, Judea Pearl, has been trying (without
> much luck) to somehow rescue a sense of "cause," since its absence is
> seriously getting in the way of building human-like robots . . . !!
>
> [In my reduction of biology/evolution I came to the realization that a)
> there are First Principles of Physiology- negentropy, chemiosmosis and
> homeostasis- and that the first two principles are deterministic, whereas
> homeostasis is probabilistic, conferring Free Will because we are free to
> be any of a number of states of being depending upon which one provides the
> least 'friction', i.e. allows for the cell to remain at equipoise. The atom
> is similarly in homeostatic balance, the proton and electron balancing one
> another. But based on the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the first three values
> for electron spin are deterministic, whereas the fourth is time-based and
> probabilistic. So both the animate and inanimate are both deterministic and
> probabilistic. I think that in both cases the probabilistic component
> accommodates Heisenberg, but in the case of life, it resolves the duality
> in an on-going manner as evolution.]
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ama
> zon.com_Book-2DWhy-2DScience-2DCause-2DEffect_dp_046509760X
> &d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HP
> o1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=a_atcpO9RlELX5il
> A4Jj-CdDwoFgkCQwEiLcWwdTXCg&s=Emly2WgLo3WjMuPtYW9EV87r_u5PhTwjCgKcq0iqYEY&e=
>
> I've suggested (in private email) to Gregg that he invented "dimensions of
> complexity" (which he admits doesn't exist in "complexity science") to
> build his ToK for *exactly* this reason: we don't know what "causality"
> means anymore. This requires us to go-back-to Aristotle's "four causes"
> and to sort through how they function in today's "culture." And, to do
> that, we will need to use McLuhan to get there.
>
> [All due respect, but I have suggested to Gregg that the 'joints' in his
> TOK are the mechanisms that interconnect the 'levels', so there is a causal
> explanation IMHO.....is this reasonable to your way of thinking....not
> trying to be a d___k about it because I have interjected a novel way of
> thinking about the nature of life that could re-establish causation,
> alleviating the angst of the probabilistic 'Cosmic Chill', supplanting it
> with causal "Cosmic Thrill' of knowing that we are stardust, a la Sagan.]
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wiki
> pedia.org_wiki_Four-5Fcauses&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vC
> I4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYB
> gjO2gOz4-A&m=a_atcpO9RlELX5ilA4Jj-CdDwoFgkCQwEiLcWwdTXCg&s=-
> 7U_EBV5O7yj1-5bSUIawFTpdgmSgwl0Tz8tNYTCX84&e=
>
> Much work to be done . . . <g>
>
> [Am I helping? or just moving the deck chairs? For me, the cell's eye view
> is enabling, but that's just me]
>
> Mark
>
> P.S. Some would suggest that there is a "higher-level" than culture and
> call it "civilization" -- as written about extensively by Arnold Toynee
> &al. For what it's worth, at my Center, we have termed the top-level
> "spheres" to reflect the global changes caused by *electric* technologies,
> beginning with the Telegraph in the mid-1800s. These "dimensions" require
> an appropriate *metaphysics* which is grounded in a thorough retrieval of
> what we once understood about causes -- all four of them.
>
> [I would agree that civilization is a higher level than culture,
> particularly if it further facilitates the ability of Man to 'evolve' in
> the face of environmental change as the 'rule of thumb'. Of course I hate
> that aphorism because as you probably know, it comes from the king of
> England ruling that you could only beat your wife with a rod no thicker
> than your thumb]
>
> P.P.S. In the West (as civilization or sphere), the ur-text is the Bible.
> And in the East, it is the Yijing (aka "I Ching"). There is simply no way
> to think about this level of *organization* without a comprehensive
> "education" in these texts. No, this is not needed to understand cell-cell
> communication but, as we know, that's not the full ToK story. I began my
> study of the Bible in 1970 (at the age of 22), when I went to University of
> Chicago Divinity School (looking for a draft deferment), majoring in the
> "Old Testament." I remember once floating in a salt-water pool in
> Tiberias, Israel, listening to jokes about how "Jesus got nailed on his
> boards," with some Jewish friends who declared that I was "more Jewish"
> than they were. In fact, I'm Catholic but my children *are* Jewish.
>
> [I personally find religion to be the mother of all 'just so stories',
> particularly since stumbling on to the realization that life originated as
> an ambiguity and deception is the way we cope with that ambiguity (I know,
> I'm repeating myself, but it bears repeating IMHO] In my head, there is a
> process by which we move further from belief and closer to knowledge using
> science as the leverage. BTW I don't think we'll ever get to the Implicate
> because it is an asymptote, but its the journey, not the destination that
> counts]
>
> P.P.P.S. The "secularization" that dominated our 20th-century lives is
> over. Kaput! The new *digital* paradigm in which we have already living
> for 20+ years could be summarized by "Less work: More religion." This is
> what Jurgen Habermas, yes, a Marxist, calls the "Post-secular Age." As
> work shifts to the robots and people wind-up with a massive increase in
> their "leisure," many of them will move to lives of religious activity,
> including "monasteries" and a huge increase in "contemplation" -- all of
> which means that we are already living in a very different "culture" from
> the one we grew up in. Yes, it will be a challenge for ToK to explain why
> that happened.
>
> [I'm reminded of the joke about the drunk at the end of the bar who yells
> out 'All lawyers are assholes', and a guy at the other end of the bar yells
> back 'I resent that remark. It is an insult to us assholes]. In that vein,
> I understand how civilization might default back to religion as we did in
> the Dark Ages, but I am more in favor of recognizing our fundamental
> relationship with the physical world, and that what we call G_d is the
> Singularity, which is a secular idea that overarches Original Sin......I
> hate that precept because it leads to a fear-based worldview like that of
> the Church or Communism. We know scientifically that fear literally breeds
> fear....that stress causes elevated cortisol in the mother, which gives
> rise to depression in the offspring, which then experiences elevated
> cortisol, etc etc etc. That downward spiral kills hope and creativity,
> fostering negative thinking and fear. So I would like to think that in the
> post-secular world we have the option of understanding our inner workings
> as a continuum with the Cosmos, and that the gift of life is in our ability
> to circumvent the Laws of Physics in order to invent and problem
> solve......that is the true nature of Man, if only we are open to what we
> already know, and can exploit for the betterment of our species,
> unctiousness aside]
>
> We makin' any headway? Or am I just spinin' my wheels? I ask because I see
> the light at the end of the tunnel......but it's useless without others
> willing to discuss a Plan C.....Plan A being Creationism, Plan B being
> Darwinism....I don't think that in general people are considered
> alternatives to A or B, assuming that we know all we know, and that there's
> nothing else, which is unfortunate. I have had some preeminent people tell
> me that I am basically full of shit....You?
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 5:24 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> John:
>>
>> Thanks! In Gregg's "dimensions of complexity" hierarchy the highest-level
>> is "culture" -- which I'm suggesting is *caused* by our technological
>> inventions (acting as forms) -- so I suspect that the topic of
>> "physiological stress" and why it is caused now needs to be explored.
>>
>> When you say "caused by the breakdown in cell-cell communication as a
>> result of the loss of bioenergetics, which is finite" you seem to be
>> alluding to what is called *efficient* causality -- which is the one most
>> associated with "positive" science originating in the paradigm from the
>> 16th/17th-century (also where "energy" was primary) -- right?
>>
>> But that paradigm was "overthrown" in the 19th/20th-century (and, yes,
>> that's why Kuhn wrote his 1962 "Scientific Revolutions" book). Today
>> science has no positive grasp on causality, instead substituting
>> "probability," which comes with its own train-load of problems. Indeed,
>> one of the pioneering AI researchers, Judea Pearl, has been trying (without
>> much luck) to somehow rescue a sense of "cause," since its absence is
>> seriously getting in the way of building human-like robots . . . !!
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ama
>> zon.com_Book-2DWhy-2DScience-2DCause-2DEffect_dp_046509760X
>> &d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HP
>> o1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=a_atcpO9RlELX5il
>> A4Jj-CdDwoFgkCQwEiLcWwdTXCg&s=Emly2WgLo3WjMuPtYW9EV87r_u5PhT
>> wjCgKcq0iqYEY&e=
>>
>> I've suggested (in private email) to Gregg that he invented "dimensions of
>> complexity" (which he admits doesn't exist in "complexity science") to
>> build his ToK for *exactly* this reason: we don't know what "causality"
>> means anymore. This requires us to go-back-to Aristotle's "four causes"
>> and to sort through how they function in today's "culture." And, to do
>> that, we will need to use McLuhan to get there.
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wiki
>> pedia.org_wiki_Four-5Fcauses&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vC
>> I4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYB
>> gjO2gOz4-A&m=a_atcpO9RlELX5ilA4Jj-CdDwoFgkCQwEiLcWwdTXCg&s=-
>> 7U_EBV5O7yj1-5bSUIawFTpdgmSgwl0Tz8tNYTCX84&e=
>>
>> Much work to be done . . . <g>
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> P.S. Some would suggest that there is a "higher-level" than culture and
>> call it "civilization" -- as written about extensively by Arnold Toynee
>> &al. For what it's worth, at my Center, we have termed the top-level
>> "spheres" to reflect the global changes caused by *electric* technologies,
>> beginning with the Telegraph in the mid-1800s. These "dimensions" require
>> an appropriate *metaphysics* which is grounded in a thorough retrieval of
>> what we once understood about causes -- all four of them.
>>
>> P.P.S. In the West (as civilization or sphere), the ur-text is the Bible.
>> And in the East, it is the Yijing (aka "I Ching"). There is simply no way
>> to think about this level of *organization* without a comprehensive
>> "education" in these texts. No, this is not needed to understand cell-cell
>> communication but, as we know, that's not the full ToK story. I began my
>> study of the Bible in 1970 (at the age of 22), when I went to University of
>> Chicago Divinity School (looking for a draft deferment), majoring in the
>> "Old Testament." I remember once floating in a salt-water pool in
>> Tiberias, Israel, listening to jokes about how "Jesus got nailed on his
>> boards," with some Jewish friends who declared that I was "more Jewish"
>> than they were. In fact, I'm Catholic but my children *are* Jewish.
>>
>> P.P.P.S. The "secularization" that dominated our 20th-century lives is
>> over. Kaput! The new *digital* paradigm in which we have already living
>> for 20+ years could be summarized by "Less work: More religion." This is
>> what Jurgen Habermas, yes, a Marxist, calls the "Post-secular Age." As
>> work shifts to the robots and people wind-up with a massive increase in
>> their "leisure," many of them will move to lives of religious activity,
>> including "monasteries" and a huge increase in "contemplation" -- all of
>> which means that we are already living in a very different "culture" from
>> the one we grew up in. Yes, it will be a challenge for ToK to explain why
>> that happened.
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ama
>> zon.com_Awareness-2DWhat-2DMissing-2DReason-2DPost-2Dsecular
>> _dp_0745647219&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_
>> 5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=
>> a_atcpO9RlELX5ilA4Jj-CdDwoFgkCQwEiLcWwdTXCg&s=oKSiJicoDfZ5DB
>> i-buQPxCI8ws_F7TIZx7iOCi8mUe4&e=
>>
>>
>> Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>> In response, I am not very familiar with scripture, so not well versed in
>>> the Book of Revelation......a reflection of my poor education?
>>>
>>> As for --> What you didn't address is the biological process for
>>> *destroying* "equipose" (i.e. "progress," "communism" &c) and its
>>> relationship to "mutation" (and/or other processes, like cancer, for
>>> instance) . . . !!
>>>
>>> If I understand your question correctly, my conceptualization of evolution
>>> is based on cell-cell communication as the basis for development and
>>> phylogeny mediated by soluble growth factors and their eponymous
>>> receptors. Such interactions are known to determine the patterns of growth
>>> and differentiation that occur during embryogenesis, culminating in
>>> homeostasis at the time of birth, and subsequently during the life cycle
>>> of
>>> the
>>> the organism. Death/senescence is caused by the breakdown in cell-cell
>>> communication as a result of the loss of bioenergetics, which is finite.
>>> Mutations occur when the organism is under physiologic stress, causing the
>>> production of Radical Oxygen Species due to shear stress to the walls of
>>> the capilllaries.....such Radical Oxygen Species are known to cause gene
>>> mutations and duplications. But it should be borne in mind that those
>>> genetic changes are occurring within the context and confines of the
>>> homeostatic regulation of the cell-cell interactions. The cells will
>>> remodel themselves until a new homeostatic set point is reached,
>>> constituting what we
>>> think of as evolution. So if evolution is thought of as 'progress', that
>>> is
>>> how it has transpired...perhaps you could find an explanation for
>>> communism
>>> based on this mechanism of evolution. As for cancer based on the same
>>> mechanism, if the cell-cell interactions cannot re-establish homeostasis,
>>> one of the cells will proliferate to fill form a 'new' organism in order
>>> to
>>> fulfill its mission of homeostasis within the organismic construct. I have
>>> attached
>>> paper of us on the topic fyi.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 5:44 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> John:
>>>>
>>>> I was off kayaking (and eating lobster salad at Pop's restaurant)
>>>> yesterday, so I'll take your comments one-at-a-time (the last of which
>>>> was
>>>> in a private email).
>>>>
>>>> #1 "Communism" has nothing to do with "cooperation." Instead, it was an
>>>> expression of the Protestant *evangelical* expectation of an Armageddon
>>>> that would end human biology once-and-for-all. Marx was a hired-gun by
>>>> F.
>>>> Engels (paid for by his father's factory), who was actually responsible
>>>> for
>>>> all this nonsense.
>>>>
>>>> Engels was raised in Barmen, Germany, where his youthful experiences were
>>>> of itinerant preachers raising the roof with "Repent the End is Near" --
>>>> whereas Marx came from Trier, where he identified with the local farmers.
>>>>
>>>> "Communism" is a fundamental *rejection* of "equipose" and instead an
>>>> attempt to end this world with a "material" version of the 2nd Coming.
>>>> How
>>>> familiar are you with the Book of Revelation . . . ??
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, what we would now call "human" didn't exist until roughly
>>>> 500BC (and then only in a few places), or what Karl Jaspers called the
>>>> "Axial Age." Hunter Gatherers were the same species but not at all the
>>>> same "phenotype" that is today encountered by anyone who understood that
>>>> term. This is the topic of Jaynes and Donald, which I will wait for Greg
>>>> to return to elaborate.
>>>>
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wiki
>>>> pedia.org_wiki_Axial-5FAge&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4
>>>> uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgj
>>>> O2gOz4-A&m=GHCgWRTvDK4nxxOO9mUcZOXeKqbTrkLmHYR2JQzUcdQ&s=k-1
>>>> yHhOxtVZDQg50L5F8zha5fvPEThxP1XM1qLGmLwA&e=
>>>>
>>>> #2 As an "outlying thinker," you will need to learn about Leibniz. All
>>>> in
>>>> due time.
>>>>
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ama
>>>> zon.com_Leibniz-2DIntellectual-2DMaria-2DRosa-2DAntognazza_
>>>> dp_1107627613&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_
>>>> 5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=
>>>> GHCgWRTvDK4nxxOO9mUcZOXeKqbTrkLmHYR2JQzUcdQ&s=aSiHYiwqsVcVrV
>>>> R5hyEV7NBzagdNR_GJoX2mOvp4VEQ&e=
>>>>
>>>> #3 Without McLuhan, there is no "up-to-date" regarding technology. Also
>>>> a
>>>> topic for future elaboration.
>>>>
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ama
>>>> zon.com_Understanding-2DMedia-2DExtensions-2DMarshall-
>>>> 2DMcLuhan_dp_1584230738&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4
>>>> uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgj
>>>> O2gOz4-A&m=GHCgWRTvDK4nxxOO9mUcZOXeKqbTrkLmHYR2JQzUcdQ&s=
>>>> QWaAiedWWRHK_bXLzdPPeeVtFOcVHHiFpuDwZGwgB1k&e=
>>>>
>>>> --> What you didn't address is the biological process for *destroying*
>>>> "equipose" (i.e. "progress," "communism" &c) and its relationship to
>>>> "mutation" (and/or other processes, like cancer, for instance) . . . !!
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>> Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>>
>>>> .....Oh, and no, I have not read Leibnitz, just little snippets here and
>>>>
>>>>> there.....to be honest, as long as the thinking is related to biology as
>>>>> Lego Blocks (descriptive) it is unfortunately immaterial to my way of
>>>>> thinking because it reflects the logical construct being used......I
>>>>> liken
>>>>> it to the difference between Newtonian Gravity theory v Einsteinian,
>>>>> the
>>>>> former describing the attraction of bodies, the latter that gravity is
>>>>> due
>>>>> to the distortion of space-time. Like Twain said,“The difference between
>>>>> the *almost right* word and the *right* word is really a large matter.
>>>>> ’tis
>>>>>
>>>>> the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”😀
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 6:26 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Mark, nice to meet a true 'son of Madison'. I only knew transients from
>>>>>
>>>>>> Michigan State and University of Chicago in my brief post-doctoral
>>>>>> stint. I
>>>>>> worked with Jack Gorski, the biochemist who discovered the estrogen
>>>>>> receptor.......my work on the effect of cortisol on lung development
>>>>>> was
>>>>>> buoyed by such science for the next 20 years. Madison was an
>>>>>> interesting
>>>>>> transition from my MSc/PhD in Experimental Medicine, taught by the
>>>>>> discoverers of cortisol, aldosterone and prolactin, and Hans Selye, the
>>>>>> clinician-scientist who coined the term 'stress' while at McGill, a
>>>>>> bastion
>>>>>> of Eurocentnrism, back to the US en route to Harvard (from which I was
>>>>>> thrown out after 15 years of hard labor), which may explain my own
>>>>>> worldview academically, which is quite eclectic, but in a very
>>>>>> different
>>>>>> way from yours. I have spent 50+ years doing the science of the
>>>>>> establishment, chasing my tail studying physiologic mechanisms and
>>>>>> chasing
>>>>>> my intellectual tail, always in the hope of 'linearizing' the story by
>>>>>> latching on to a tale that would take me from the superficial and
>>>>>> mundane
>>>>>> to the fundamental......what else would I have expected, given that a
>>>>>> simple molecule like cortisol could flip a switch and save life at its
>>>>>> inception- the implementation of cortisol for prevention of the death
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> preterm infants was profoundly inspiring, to this day. But as I had
>>>>>> said,
>>>>>> it made no 'logical' sense that hormones would or should have anything
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> do with lungs....but now it makes all the sense in the world; I just
>>>>>> hadda
>>>>>> turn the whole process around 180 degrees, at least for my own
>>>>>> 'sanity'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So to your question about the biological relevance of Communism, I
>>>>>> start
>>>>>> with the premise that multicellular organisms evolved through metabolic
>>>>>> cooperativity, so 'from each according to their abilities, to each
>>>>>> according to their needs' makes sense as an operational principle. I
>>>>>> think
>>>>>> that all fell apart in the transition from Hunter Gatherers to
>>>>>> agriculture
>>>>>> and ownership of land, acting as a driver for human avarice and greed
>>>>>> instead of cooperativity. There is a biological underpinning to that in
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> transition from hunting/gathering to agriculture due to the ready
>>>>>> source
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> food year round increasing subcutaneous fat, producing the hormone
>>>>>> leptin,
>>>>>> which promotes the 'arborization' of the brain, the formation of
>>>>>> ever-increasing numbers of synapses. That mechanism usurped the
>>>>>> gut-brain
>>>>>> mechanism by which food would distend the gut, increasing leptin and
>>>>>> ghrelin production by the gut, affecting brain development along a
>>>>>> different trajectory from the steady infusion of leptin provided by the
>>>>>> fat
>>>>>> depot. There are those who say that the dominance of the CNS over the
>>>>>> gut
>>>>>> brain has been our undoing, and I think that's correct in that the CNS
>>>>>> mechanism tends to lend itself to neuroticisms that the gut-brain
>>>>>> doesn't
>>>>>> due to the abstractions of the CNS vs the pragmatism of the gut, if you
>>>>>> get
>>>>>> my drift. Along these lines, there was an interesting paper (Cochran G,
>>>>>> Hardy J, Harpending H. Natural history of Ashkenazi intelligence. J
>>>>>> Biosoc
>>>>>> Sci. 2006 Sep;38(5):659-93) the hypothesis of which was that Ashkenazi
>>>>>> Jews
>>>>>> have higher IQs, but an excess of neurodegenerative diseases, and that
>>>>>> this
>>>>>> is an example of balancing selection, too much of a good thing being a
>>>>>> bad
>>>>>> thing, myelinization of neurons increasing IQ but too much leading to
>>>>>> pathology.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But I digress. Not to 'chest beat' too much on my part, but I find it
>>>>>> energizing in my 8th decade to think that a) maybe we got it wrong, and
>>>>>> b)
>>>>>> how can we 'fix' it, given what we're doing to ourselves and our
>>>>>> planet.
>>>>>> As
>>>>>> I had said previously, my sense is that what I have stumbled onto is
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> realization that what we think of as evolution are all
>>>>>> epiphenomena........the so-called complexity of life is actually a
>>>>>> by-product of the core mission of life, to maintain and sustain its
>>>>>> originating ability to remain at equipoise, like the Red Queen, which
>>>>>> sounds counterintuitive because we are using the wrong intuition. BTW,
>>>>>> my
>>>>>> idea that Quantum Mechanics is highly relevant to biology, but hasn't
>>>>>> been
>>>>>> integrated with it for lack of the right perspective, i.e. that the
>>>>>> Cosmos
>>>>>> and biology emerged from the same Singularity/Big Bang, so that's the
>>>>>> way
>>>>>> in which Pauli, Heisenberg, non-localization, coherence have to be
>>>>>> viewed
>>>>>> biologically......then it works, at least in my simplistic way of
>>>>>> understanding those two domains. And that sits at the core of the
>>>>>> problem
>>>>>> in the sense that our system of logic is founded on the way in which we
>>>>>> understand how and why we exist; given that, if we got it backwards, of
>>>>>> course we would have inherent problems in our personal comportment and
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> of the societies that we constitute. We're still stuck with Descartes
>>>>>> (witness Hameroff and Penrose fixated on microtubules in the brain,
>>>>>> when
>>>>>> there are microtubules in the viscera too!) and Michaelangelo's
>>>>>> Vitruvian
>>>>>> Man when we should be devising ways of reintegrating our big brains in
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> more holistically win-win way. Have you read Jeremy Rifkin's "The
>>>>>> Empathic
>>>>>> Civilization". In it he makes this same plea, if only.....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Again, hubris and braggadocio aside, what I have offered is a
>>>>>> step-wise,
>>>>>> scientifically-based means of devconvoluting our own evolution in a way
>>>>>> that is 'testable and refutable', linking physics and biology together
>>>>>> mechanistically for the first time. That relationship is buildable- I
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> suggested merging the Elemental Periodic Table with a Periodic Table of
>>>>>> Biology to form an algorithm for all of the natural sciences....what a
>>>>>> dynamic search engine that would be. I just have to figure out how to
>>>>>> mathematically express evolution....Work in Progress. But of course I
>>>>>> am
>>>>>> curious as to how all of this 'fits' with what makes the hair on the
>>>>>> back
>>>>>> of *your* neck stand up? Because CRISPER and AI aren't our salvation,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> they're just more of the same ambiguity/deception paradigm as far as I
>>>>>> am
>>>>>> concerned......John
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 2:15 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> John:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This is *all* very exciting -- as in skin-tingly, even more than
>>>>>>> head-shaking (and, yes, mine was going up-down, not side-to-side) . .
>>>>>>> .
>>>>>>> <g>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I grew up in Madison, where both of my parents were on the UW faculty.
>>>>>>> Madison West then undergraduate 1966-70, followed by a brief stint at
>>>>>>> UofChicago Divinity School (for a rare deferment, when only
>>>>>>> "ministers"
>>>>>>> escaped the draft lottery), then back to Madison for a year in a PhD
>>>>>>> program in Molecular Biology, which was aborted by the collapse of
>>>>>>> NSF-funding post-Vietnam. Then I moved to NYC in 1972 and started an
>>>>>>> early
>>>>>>> mini-computer software company (while playing "revolutionary" and
>>>>>>> studying
>>>>>>> Renaissance history &c) -- which was the basis of my later career on
>>>>>>> Wall
>>>>>>> Street &c.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Genetics" seemed to me to be barking-up-the-wrong-tree with its
>>>>>>> over-emphasis on DNA (and "information," trying to equate life to
>>>>>>> computation) -- which meant I was looking for epi-genetics before that
>>>>>>> was
>>>>>>> quite a thing yet. Marshall McLuhan, as it turns out, is *all* about
>>>>>>> psycho-technological environments and our "adaptation" to them
>>>>>>> (although,
>>>>>>> for various reasons, he never elaborated a "psychology," which is what
>>>>>>> we
>>>>>>> are now doing at the Center, with Aristotle's help.)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I suspect that what you mean by "consciousness" -- say at the
>>>>>>> cellular-level -- is what Aristotle meant by the "soul" (aka
>>>>>>> *entelechy*)
>>>>>>> and what Leibniz meant by "monad." Have you had a chance to look at
>>>>>>> Leibniz in this way?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Throughout, this "being-at-work-staying-itself" (as Joe Sachs
>>>>>>> translates
>>>>>>> it), is in conflict with the urge to dissolve that "individuality"
>>>>>>> (i.e.
>>>>>>> Freud's "oceanic feeling" and the various "mysticisms") by trying to
>>>>>>> "be-something-else-destroying-yourself" which, in theological terms,
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> called *gnosticism* (aka "self-deification.") Btw, this was Plato's
>>>>>>> "World
>>>>>>> Soul" and it was directly in conflict with Aristotle (yes, his most
>>>>>>> famous
>>>>>>> student), much as Spinoza's *pantheism* was in conflict with Leibniz.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This anti-balance, get-me-outta-here, clean-things-up urge (shown in
>>>>>>> Voltaire's satire of Leibniz's best-of-all-possible-worlds) -- giving
>>>>>>> rise
>>>>>>> to English "Puritanism," and thus the USA-as-proto-Eden (being
>>>>>>> celebrated
>>>>>>> today, as it was in Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" lyric, "We gotta get
>>>>>>> back
>>>>>>> to the Garden"), as well as "Communism" (via F. Engels and his German
>>>>>>> "puritanism"), speaking of ironies -- likely also has a "biological"
>>>>>>> explanation, which I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts about
>>>>>>> (perhaps
>>>>>>> linked to "mutation") . . . !!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> P.S. Eventually, we'll also have to drag the Chinese into all this
>>>>>>> and,
>>>>>>> in particular, Daoism and the Yijing -- since, in the world today,
>>>>>>> theirs
>>>>>>> is a much more dynamic (and coherent) "sphere" than the West, in which
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> *balance* we are describing is institutionalized in the Communist
>>>>>>> Party
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> China (once again, noting the irony involved) -- all of which
>>>>>>> developed
>>>>>>> under *very* different psycho-technological conditions, with a writing
>>>>>>> system (i.e. the key to human self-aware "consciousness") radically
>>>>>>> unlike
>>>>>>> our alphabetic one.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> P.P.S All of this is what some call "outlying thinking" (without a
>>>>>>> "home"
>>>>>>> since the 13th-century). I remember one day when I was participating
>>>>>>> in a
>>>>>>> National Academy of Science meeting when the chairman described me to
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> group as a "very unusual scholar" (and, no, I wasn't invited back).
>>>>>>> Aristotle was Greek but he wasn't Athenian -- which meant that he had
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> leave twice, his Lyceum school was outside the city-walls and in 307BC
>>>>>>> his
>>>>>>> followers were banished, taking up in Rhodes and then largely
>>>>>>> disappearing. Likewise, Leibniz was almost completely expunged after
>>>>>>> his
>>>>>>> death, then mocked by Voltaire (on behalf of Newton &al) and slandered
>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>> Bertrand Russell. There is something psycho-technological about
>>>>>>> trying
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> "expel" the approach we are taking -- raising questions, as Spengler
>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>> put it about "Man and Technics" as well as the current drive to
>>>>>>> "merge"
>>>>>>> humanity with the robots (aka, Ray Kurzweil &al's hoped-for
>>>>>>> "Singularity.")
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Lonny, interesting comment about what I assume you mean is the
>>>>>>> ability
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> of individuals to 'fit' with their environment, cultural and
>>>>>>>> otherwise. I
>>>>>>>> think that becomes particularly relevant in the context of the cell
>>>>>>>> as
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> first Niche Construction (see attached), or how the organism
>>>>>>>> integrates
>>>>>>>> with its environment as a function of its internal 'resources'
>>>>>>>> .......or
>>>>>>>> not. I am thinking of identical twins, for example, whom we know
>>>>>>>> don't
>>>>>>>> share the same epigenomes. Deconvoluting all of that would surely
>>>>>>>> help
>>>>>>>> us
>>>>>>>> better understand what makes us 'tick'. John
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 7:24 PM, Lonny Meinecke <
>>>>>>>> [log in to unmask]>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi John and Mark,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I am following your discussion with interest... thank you both for
>>>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>>>> thread. I like the term endogenization. A curious thing about each
>>>>>>>>> individual carrying the environment around inside, is that the
>>>>>>>>> common
>>>>>>>>> world
>>>>>>>>> is unlikely to be the same as each private version. These often seem
>>>>>>>>> substitutes for the external, when that unaffectable commons becomes
>>>>>>>>> untenable (or inaccessible) to the creatures that must somehow dwell
>>>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>>>> it
>>>>>>>>> anyway.
>>>>>>>>> --Lonny
>>>>>>>>>
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