Hi folks. I'll weigh in at this point with some observations, hopefully connecting to the broader themes of our list. We are a diverse group that spans the arts & humanities, social and natural sciences. Our passions include the proverbial triad of "the good, the true, and the beautiful," as well as how these various evaluative modes might be integrated and advance a broader, 21st-century enlightenment project. I suspect that many of our biographies intersect with our historical/generational locations and cultural backgrounds to help explain our particular interests in the different fields of knowledge we have pursued. One of the great benefits of the list, then (on which I have previously commented), consists of learning from others who have shared some of their work and thoughts about matters with which we are all less familiar. For example, at present I am currently working on a "deep dive" into John's work, which I find interesting and challenging. Similarly, the other presentations from the ToK conference Gregg organized have already stimulated further cross-fertilization, a more conciliatory understanding of knowledge development, and possibly some collaborative work as well. Both John and Gregg have offered some rather compelling meta-analytic perspectives on cosmological evolution -- which are open to discussion, critique, and refinement -- while others have contributed more specific theses and observations relevant to their different fields. And I must confess that Dave Pruett ("a former NASA researcher (and) an award-winning computational scientist and emeritus professor of mathematics at James Madison University" - sorry to brag on your behalf, Dave!) has already inspired me to want to develop and offer a capstone course on "the big questions" (e.g., "why are we here" -- which has many different meanings and interpretations!) at my own university. I love how Dave has been able to offer a course that examines the grand cosmological question from both a "mythological" (cultural) and a "scientific" perspective, as he described at the conference. If you didn't see that, then check out his TED talk "Ripples in the Cosmic Web." https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3D4JoErXyAd98&d=DwIGaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=IaMMB4evoGavxNoKGb5gSizGuZun4YG7nEP68lcevLs&s=iJm-SpfJ2m8Bmdvz6HLfb5KfN9ugJqmj7kZBhenoVaI&e= [https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bing.com_th-3Fid-3DOVP.bRtElxX1b823rbsSRxC0OwHgFo-26pid-3DApi&d=DwIGaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=IaMMB4evoGavxNoKGb5gSizGuZun4YG7nEP68lcevLs&s=MFddne_kdJiLTPdKigYvUzLwmec8dYg1A83ZQ9S48GM&e=]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3D4JoErXyAd98&d=DwIGaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=IaMMB4evoGavxNoKGb5gSizGuZun4YG7nEP68lcevLs&s=iJm-SpfJ2m8Bmdvz6HLfb5KfN9ugJqmj7kZBhenoVaI&e=> Ripples in the Cosmic Web | Dr. David Pruett | TEDxJMU<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3D4JoErXyAd98&d=DwIGaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=IaMMB4evoGavxNoKGb5gSizGuZun4YG7nEP68lcevLs&s=iJm-SpfJ2m8Bmdvz6HLfb5KfN9ugJqmj7kZBhenoVaI&e=> www.youtube.com Ripples in the Cosmic Web | Dr. David Pruett | TEDxJMU David Pruitt is a professor in the James Madison University Honors College. This talk was given at a TEDx event ... As Dave briefly mentions, one of our greatest challenges, especially in diverse countries such as the U.S. & Canada, is the search for a common narrative, or what Harari describes as "shared myths" (including science). Gregg's Tree of Knowledge approach (and subsequent work), John's challenge to Darwinian theory (including his paper "The Singularity of Nature"), and Steve Q's sharing of Stephen Pepper's World Hypotheses all challenge us to think and "re-think" what we know. I'm not sharing anything new here, but rather just reaffirming my appreciation for the dialogue and our shared struggle. Glad to see Mark's contributions too, as I believe the critical juncture we have reached involves the intersection of cultural and the rapidity of technological development ("Future Shock" indeed!) that have far outstripped our biological or animalistic evolution, recounted by numerous authors, cultural critics, and scientists alike. Just saw the movie "Hidden Figures" last night, reminding me for the 10,000th time that the tribalism of our species and our core survival strategies (the ways in which we manage and secure resources for ourselves and our kin, for example) have not changed much since the emergence of Homo sapiens. Stated another way, although I'm a student of culture and technology, the evidence does not stack up well for our long-term survival if we are hoping for cultural/technological overrides to systems that have evolved over "big history" and billions of years. "Nothing gold can stay." But we live here and now. Why not keep trying? 😊 Best to one and all, -Joe Dr. Joseph H. Michalski Associate Academic Dean King’s University College at Western University 266 Epworth Avenue London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3 Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439 Fax: (519) 433-0353 Email: [log in to unmask] ______________________ eiπ + 1 = 0 ________________________________ From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2018 6:10 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: The Science of Anti-Scientific Thinking Yes, I am a Hungarian Jew as you surmised. And an interesting group, given the creativity in both science and the arts. I haven't read Leo Perutz, but will have to do so, so thanks for the heads-up. And I was vaguely acquainted with the theory that we are Khazars, having recently read Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana, about the Middle-East in the 1930s. My father's father claimed to be able to trace his family in Hungary back to the 1500s, so what transpired between then and the Khazars in the 8th Century is a big gap. No doubt someone will do the genetics so we'll solve the mystery. There was an interesting study from U Utah (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 given Ashkenazi Jews have 10 IQ pts higher than average, but also have excessive neurodegenerative diseases, that the myelinization that promotes intelligence taken to excess is pathologic. My interests in understanding the drivers of human intelligence run to my interest in the origins of the Holocaust, which I maintain was a result of ignorance and fear, so what ever we can do to inform is all to the better..... John On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 2:34 PM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: John: Fascinating! As it turns out, Leo Perutz's 1933 novel "Saint Peter's Snow" is an important one for me -- since it apparently describes the invention of LSD 5-years before it was first "officially" synthesized at Sandoz in Basle (yes, as it turns out, I'm the "historian" of LSD.) Ever have the chance to read it . . . ?? https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Saint-2DPeters-2DSnow-2DLeo-2DPerutz_dp_1611458862&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=8gWMLyW-4S0F8shA4pIvFIhkqtYAHRv8FfknvF-8PBc&s=jUCqzAP--Vu_4--9pqCh13JqvmXDTHfk0_hisiklZNw&e= As you likely know better than I, Hungarian Jews (if that's appropriate in your case), are a very special group. To some extent, they might be described as "Khazars" (i.e. neither Sephardic or Ashkenazi &c), somehow related to the Khazar Empire in Central Asia -- as written about by Arthur Koestler in his last novel "The Thirteenth Tribe" (1976). https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Thirteenth-2DTribe-2DArthur-2DKoestler_dp_0945001428&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=8gWMLyW-4S0F8shA4pIvFIhkqtYAHRv8FfknvF-8PBc&s=sJVEoiN5J576BZzOysp6BHoAOIue7vFZb2mtgy1FefU&e= Some other Hungarian "Khazars" who I've crossed paths with are Intel-founder Andy Grove (who I met, plus had many dealings with his company) and atom-bomb inventor Leo Szilard (who I've deeply researched). Quite a story, which has recently resurfaced in various disputes about Jewish *genetics* . . . !! https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Khazars&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=8gWMLyW-4S0F8shA4pIvFIhkqtYAHRv8FfknvF-8PBc&s=fJxVLwSImaJW6ZBLP3YITakQcYy8zRSj5Hz1S7jJ2O0&e= Yes, I expect that your interests have a great deal to do with your early experiences (as, indeed, have all of us). There's no doubt that "biography matters" a lot. Thanks, Mark Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>: I was born in Budapest, Hungary. My mother's family is from Prague, Cz and Budapest, Hungary. I am related to Max Perutz, the Nobel Laureate, and to Leopold Perutz, the novelist, on that side of my family. My father's family is from Gyngyos, Hungary. We emigrated to the US in 1948 through my grandparents initiative in franking their NY congressman gain entry to the US; we had originally had exit visas to go to Honduras. I had grandparents and great grandparents living in the States who had emigrated in the 1930s. I grew up on Long Island, New York, the product of an excellent formal public educational system. I say 'formal' because I spent my weekends in Manhattan with my Viennese grandparents who took me to museums, theater, opera for my entire growing up years. We spoke Hungarian exclusively at home; my maternal relatives spoke German, but I was not encouraged to learn, I assume because of the 'stigma' of the post-WWII environment. I attribute my insatiable and ecclectic curiosity and career in biomedical research to that overall experience. My son Daniel is a well-known novelist whose first novel, The Last Flight of Poxl West was about my maternal family fleeing Nazi Germany. On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 11:54 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: John: We have much work to do and I, for one, look forward to your participation in the upcoming discussions . . . !! Your Facebook post from Feb 1, 2017 says that you are an immigrant from a Communist country (along with assorted "political" remarks &c). Would you care to tell us a bit about your early life . . . ?? Mark Quoting JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>: Mark, I hope that we are 'kayaking' and not just 'yaking' which I don't think we are, but I liked the pun, so there.....again I will interject within your last email: I have had some preeminent people tell me that I am basically full of shit....You? [The Editors at a couple of conventional Evolution journals have said so in more civil language. And I just assume they're keeping their finger in the dyke because there's more and more of us who think that Darwin was wrong. As for my colleagues, they're either politely hear me out or turn a deaf ear. I gave my homily to a group of MDs and PhDs who do developmental biology a few years back and a friend was sitting in the audience, so I asked him what he thought of the lecture. His PC answer was that what he heard was some saying 'brilliant', others saying 'huh?'. But I guess I hang my hat/head on the fact that I have published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, which counts for something, at least in the realm of grant funding and patenting. And the fact that the model is predictive for dogmas in biology gives me courage to keep on keeping on. One of my first research Fellows back in the day challenged me to come up with some physiologic trait that would be predicted by the cell-molecular approach, particularly as it pertains to the evolution of endothermy. So we came up with the attached hypothesis as to why we males carry our testes on the outside of our bodies fyi.....that's never been explained before. Not even close. It's testable and refutable....] 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). [Well actually I just use cell biology as a tool. My formal training is in endocrinology/reproductive endocrinology, and my career as a funded investigator has been as a lung biologists. Besides which, I am a PhD, which I think gives me license to 'philosophize'. Lovelock and Margulis were geochemist and biologist, so why did they have license to hypothesize Gaia? Because, just like why dogs lick their genitals, because they could] 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. [I like Schrodinger's concept of negentropy, as expressed in What is Life? 1944. And the Reviewers seem to be OK with it too. As for my science being old fashioned, you might have said the same about Gallileo riffing on Copernicus. In point of fact, we do cutting-edge epigenetic research in my lab, funded by the NIH, so no, my science is anything by old fashioned. I've just looked at the data from a different perspective, kinda like Einstein, travelling in tandem with a lightbeam. I know that the physicists think that all is probability, but Einstein said that G_d does not play dice with the Universe......so he must have thought that some aspects of physics were deterministic, like the mass of a neutron, for example. Besides which, if ever get more widely recognized, I maintain that we got the how and why of our existence backwards, and since our system of logic is founded on our sense of self to a large degree, perhaps that's why we keep going through ups and downs as a society.......I maintain that the closer we get to the Implicate Order, the smoother the 'ride' will be. As for biology never making he leap to a probabilistic perspective, that's been tried by many (LL Whyte, Prigogine, Polanyi, Wilson) but they make a systematic error in seeing life as a 'snapshot', or synchronically, when in fact evolution is diachronic (see attached). Seen across space-time life is both deterministic and probabilistic depending upon what aspect of the process is being examined. Quantum Mechanics is highly relevant to biology, but it has to be applied at the cellular-molecular level from the origin, not 1:1 realtime. The example I use is that of the effect of gravity, which refers all the way back to the origin of life as unicells. When the cell is dissociated from gravity experimentally the ability to communicate with the environment is lost, i.e. the cell is comatose] 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" . . . !! [Well and my frustration with Gregg is that in his TOK the joints between the levels are mechanistic, if only he would see it as I do......he sort of does in that he refers to it as metaphysics, but it's not philosophy when you(I) apply the cellular-molecular template.] That is a different kind of "outsider" from the sort you present -- albeit no doubt the basis for friendship and collaboration. [Yes, largely because the psychologist credo is that you can just talk your problems away, but I maintain that that's just kicking the can down the proverbial road. In reality, if we were to embrace a novel way of thinking about the how and why of our existence, particularly our mortality, which I addressed in my last give and take, that we would be able to move forward, but that's a 'bridge too far' for Gregg. When I get into this head space I think of Heliocentrism and The Enightenment.......we've had a reboot before by displacing our 'home' from the center of the Solar System. Now I think we need to do the same for ourselves by displacing ourselves from the center of the Biosphere in order to be better stewards of ourselves, other organisms, and the planet] 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> [I'm talking about a fundamental change in human logic.....I don't think that digitizing affects that...it just exacerbates the underlying/overarching problem IMHO. The problem with the Titanic was in the hull design, not the arrangement of the deck chairs] 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." [Dark Ages is a convention....and I don't appreciate the ad hominem stuff. I happen to know plenty about history, so I don't think that's my problem] 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. [To think that technology would affect human kind at the level I am going to is, in my opinion, ludicrous, and misses the whole point. I don't think that, for example, the invention of the wheel altered the trajectory of human consciousness, it merely affecting the rate of change] 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. [1/0 ?] 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. [So picture yourself saying that science will never explain everything in 14th Century Florence, and then you are told that the world is round......does your statement still apply? I don't think so, but I don't want to sound dogmatic, just open minded and forward thinking] I honestly don't think you see what it is that I am saying with regard to my perspective. The idea, for example that we misconstrue consciousness as brain/mind rather than as our sense of being aware of our being because of the iterative process of internalizing the external environment and making it useful physiologically, the aggregate of that being Consciousness. That alone is a game changer to my way of thinking......Perhaps it would help to cite my co-author Bill Miller, who says that the concept we are promoting is 'like turning your sock inside out'. On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 8:34 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: 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]<mailto:[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_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. [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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[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 ############################ To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<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]<mailto: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