John:

If you go to Gregg's website and take the "tour" of his Garden, you  
will see a "Yin/Yang" on the center-trunk which assigns these two to  
"Empirical" and "Metaphysical."  They have been "interwoven" to  
reflect how what you call "mechanistic science" is simply inadequate  
to the task he has taken on (and, ultimately, organized us to help him  
accomplish).

Throughout human history, "mechanistic science" has only rarely been  
considered adequate (and, even then, never beyond a cult-like group,  
such as the "Vienna Circle" &c.)  Indeed, as I've suggested, it is  
fine for *engineering* (particularly if you remember that there is  
more to life) -- if that's your goal -- but certainly not for  
"understanding."

If "medicine" is thought of as "engineering health," then taking the  
mechanistic approach might help but then all sorts of other problems  
regarding "engineering emotions" and "engineering ideas" rapidly enter  
the picture.  Where does the engineering stop?  My guess is that the  
end of that road is not where Gregg is trying to take us.

My "godfather," Norbert Wiener (who invented the terms "cybernetics,"  
along with my father, while passing around a bottle of Chianti wine  
one Saturday night c. 1946), refused to work with Gregory Bateson and  
Margaret Mead (along with Kurt Lewin) because he considered them  
"emotional engineers."  One of the characters I've run into in my  
studies is Alfred Korzybski, who first described his approach as  
"Human Engineering."  That approach would seem to be one that someone  
with your background would try to avoid.  Yes, "Nazi" comes to mind.

If you are "insulted" that people on this list aren't likely to follow  
you, you might want to think through where you are proposing to take  
them . . . <g>

Mark

P.S. Yesterday I wrote a post about "paradigms" and today about  
"causality."  In both cases you replied by not replying.  Instead of  
addressing the issues I raised, you brought us back to *your* view of  
the world (reminding us how wrong everyone else is about everything.)   
As you know, when someone Googles your name, a litany of your lectures  
to everyone else appears -- much as you have been treating people  
hereabouts (and particularly me, as the new-kid-on-the-block.)  My  
guess is that's not the best way to win-friends-and-influence-people.   
So, perhaps that isn't your goal.

P.P.S. Do you actually "like" people?  You repeatedly refer to Trivers  
and his "self-deception" meme.  I actually know Bob and, guess what,  
he *doesn't* like people much at all.  The term "misanthrope" comes to  
mind.  You like "cells" but you seem to also consider humanity to be a  
"stain" on the planet.  Treating people like "fools" will probably  
lead to them treating you the same way and I suspect that's not what  
Gregg has in mind.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Folly-2DFools-2DLogic-2DDeceit-2DSelf-2DDeception_dp_0465085970&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=k3xqnO2kVI6UkSiJDNTcJqM4mlbJJo1kYWQTI5PwGDY&s=mcb9dFlQjBW1il5f0wJHWfmZqV-PD_QOi-20P2UF9uo&e=

Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]>:

> Dear Mark and TOKers, in Mark's previous post he said that my use of the
> term Alchemy was insulting, which was a mischaracterization of what I was
> saying. I was contrasting descriptive and mechanistic science, knowing full
> well that you have to have a body of information before you can attempt to
> figure out how and why it works. My peers in biology have either forgotten
> what our mission is, or taken the easier route of brushing the problem of
> 'knowing' under the rug, resulting in a system of medicine that is
> satisfied with masking the symptoms of disease in lieu of understanding
> their causes- that's not medicine, it's shamanism and capitalism. And as
> for my position that "MIND and CULTURE can be explained by *kinetic* causes
> alone, I suspect that few on this list would agree", as I have said before
> science is the only way to know what we don't know. And if Mark is right in
> his assessment that the TOK would disagree with my scientific understanding
> of Mind and Culture, I am insulted.
>
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 5:35 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> ToKers/TOKers:
>>
>> At the risk of getting ahead of myself (i.e. before Gregg returns), let me
>> start the conversation about *causality* by piggy-backing on our discussion
>> about the "ToK Stack" and its relationship with "science."
>>
>> In his Metaphysics (4th-century BC), Aristotle details four causes:
>> Material, Kinetic, Final and Formal.  Yes, I know that the second of these
>> has commonly called "efficient" in English (probably since the 17th
>> century) but, for various reasons, we are changing that to "kinetic"
>> (although perhaps "mechanistic" would also fit.)
>>
>> Here are the correspondences (denoted by "~", not equals or "=") that I
>> would suggest --
>>
>> *ToK Stack*
>>
>> CULTURE ~ Sociology/Economics/Political Science/Anthropology ~ Formal Cause
>>
>> MIND ~ Psychology ~ Final Cause
>>
>> LIFE ~ Biology ~ Kinetic Cause
>>
>> MATTER ~ Physics ~ Material Cause
>>
>> All of these causes were actively engaged and widely understood in the
>> 13th/14th/15th centuries in Europe -- particularly after Aristotle was
>> translated into Latin (sometimes from Greek, sometimes from Arabic) -- but
>> their usage fell-off precipiticiously following the invention of the
>> Printing Press and the expansion of its "paradigmatic" effects in the
>> 16th/17th centuries (aka the "Enlightenment").
>>
>> In particular, in as much as what we think of as "science" requires
>> *mechanisms* (as John has been reminding us) -- since the goal is
>> engineering -- this could be thought of as the result of the Royal Society
>> of London, which explicitly banned all discussion of "religion and
>> metaphysics" in its 1660 by-laws -- effectively banning all discussion that
>> involved "final" and "formal" causes.
>>
>> Leibniz -- who attempted to establish rival groups in Berlin and St.
>> Petersburg (which would likely not have had those restrictions) -- made a
>> promise to the London group: he would deliver to them a "calculating
>> engine," which some today use to credit him with inventing "computers" (and
>> a newly fabricated copy of which now sits in a case outside the chairman's
>> office at IBM, where I've visited it).  That's *kinetic* cause.  However,
>> as we know from his life, what he was really trying to accomplish was a
>> "universal language" (to replace Latin) and "linquistics" (unless it is
>> reduced to "mechanisms") is *formal* cause.
>>
>> [image: Image result for leibniz engine]
>>
>> Newton, Leibniz's rival and a stalwart of the London group, is famous for
>> his "Laws of Motion" -- which is to say, *kinetic* causality.  However, as
>> those who have studied Newton know, not only was he an aggressive Alchemist
>> (which is "formal cause," pointing to why John uses it as an insult) and he
>> spent much more of his time poring over the Bible to try to figure out the
>> timing of the 2nd Coming (which is "final cause") than he did on his
>> mathematics (which is why Leibniz published first on the Calculus).
>>
>> If we limit ourselves to Material and Kinetic causes, we will get as far
>> as Physics (MATTER) and Biology (LIFE) but no further.  To rise to the
>> "level" of Psychology (or MIND), we will have to consider what happens to
>> LIFE when it becomes "self-aware" in the sense that humans show that power
>> -- which means including *final* causality (i.e. what for humans we now
>> call "mythology" or "how does all this end"?).  To be sure, there is a
>> "psychology" that uses *material* cause (i.e. "complexity science"), with
>> some *kinetic* causality thrown in, which is called "cognitive psychology"
>> (i.e. the dominant mode today, responsible for modeling humans on
>> computers.)  Not a drop of either *final* or *formal* involved there at all.
>>
>> I remember having dinner with Jim Rutt (and his wife and my girlfriend)
>> last year when all this came up.  Jim is a "manager" (not a researcher) who
>> is particularly good at remembering what others have studied, who was
>> brought into the Santa Fe Institute to put Humpty-Dumpty-back-together-again
>> after they were spinning around way off-in-the-weeds.  He told me that he'd
>> never heard of these terms and would only allow me to discuss them if I
>> could "reduce" them to the Material/Kinetic causes he already understood.
>>
>> Then, when he got frustrated about the direction the discussion was going
>> on the Rally Point Alpha group he started on Facebook, he tossed me and my
>> friends off the group -- which then quickly imploded and has now
>> collapsed.  Gee, I wonder what "caused" that to happen . . . <g>
>>
>> Yes, I know that John has told us that MIND and CULTURE can be explained
>> by *kinetic* causes alone but I suspect that few on this list would agree.
>> These "upper" levels of the "ToK Stack" need something more and, indeed, I
>> would suggest that the reason why these "social sciences" are in such bad
>> shape today is precisely because they are so "causally ignorant" (given the
>> currently limited "scientific" approaches).
>>
>> To restore these upper levels -- which has become far more urgent now that
>> we are living in a *new* paradigm -- an expansion of our understanding of
>> causality is required.  I look forward to Gregg's contribution to this
>> discussion soon . . . !!
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ############################
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to:
>> mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the
>> following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=
>> 1
>>
>
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
> or click the following link:
> http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1