What Gregg has done here may be the *first* time this has ever been accomplished (or perhaps even attempted).  While many have "philosophized" over all this, Gregg has actually assembled a group of experts (which decades of detailed knowledge as well as experience arguing with their domain-expert colleagues.)  Hurray . . . !!

Tree of Knowledge Stack

Culture :: Sociology (Joe)
Mind :: Psychology (Gregg)
Life :: Biology (John)
Matter :: Physics (???)

[Ditto]

Does the "lower" define the "upper" or are there new *principles* that must be added at each level (or what Gregg calls "dimensions of complexity") . . . ??

[At the risk of repetition, and for those who may have missed it, I have hypothesized that the 'joints' can be expressed in mechanistic terms using the cellular-molecular/First Principles of Physiology algorithm, which is scale-free, tracing the arc of evolution from the Singularity/Big Bang to contemporary biology/physiology, and the intermediary steps in the chain of events, allowing for experimental testing/refuting]

In the 19th-century, during what was a very different paradigm from the one in which we live Bernhard Reimann suggested what some call the "hypothesis of the higher hypothesis" and Georg Cantor generated his Transfinite schema in attempts to *rigorously* tackle this conundrum.  Both of them have largely been forgotten today and this was replaced with the notion of a "Theory of Everything" (ToE) and "Unity of Science" (as per Carnap &al) in the 20th-century -- as a result of the new paradigm in which those scientists lived (but not the same one as ours).

[With all due respect to Reiman, Cantor, Carnap, etc etc, as long as life is only seen in the present tense, and not as the 'history' of the organism evolutionarily across space-time one cannot understand the relationship between life and physics as interrelated mechanisms. Without that perspective, it's all "Just So Stories" because you need to rationalize how and why the organism is as it is based on after the fact reasoning, which is illogical, by definition. Conversely, the cellular-molecular approach to cell-cell signaling as the basis for development and phylogeny offers the opportunity to start at the unicellular beginnings of life and move forward in space-time mechanistically, morphogenetically and phenotypically, from the past to the present]

"Quantum" physics caught many people's attention and, for a while, seemed to be the answer -- but then it failed to produce a ToE and dissolved into a group of rival splinters until it was revived by some "hippies" who were living under yet-another paradigm (yes, as it turns out, I know Jack Sarfatti and he is an entertaining sorta guy, whose ideas were enhanced by both some LSD and some "conspiracies" that he imagines he was a part of) . . . <g>

https://www.amazon.com/How-Hippies-Saved-Physics-Counterculture/dp/039334231X

[I have not read How the Hippies Saved Physics yet, by rest assured that without the biologic background that I have offered in the above reply, the application of Quantum Mechanics to life forms is apples and oranges. It is only at the origins of life that Heisenberg, Pauli, non-localization and coherence make sense]

So much for physics -- but wait there is more!  The US *military* decided it wanted to take some Los Alamos bomb-desingers and shuffle them across-the-street to a new place that was called the Santa Fe Institute, to see if the physics of nuclear weapons (i.e. mini-stars) could be applied to society.  The Department of Energy (which owns the US arsenal, not the service branches) initially funded them 100% (and now it's 30% with another 30% coming from Pierre Omidyar).

https://www.santafe.edu/

[So Geoffrey West at the Santa Fe Institute has done mathematical modeling of physiology and come up with a formulation, but it is based on description, not mechanism, so it's like Newtonian Gravity v Einsteinian Gravity, the former describing how objects attract one another, the latter tying gravity to Relativity Theory. Newton's theory of gravity would not have predicted the bending of gravity by planets to find other Earths, for example]

The result was "complexity science" -- re-branding "chaos," since that frightens the children -- and its elaborate models of "emergence."  Some of us from the Center spent last Spring with these folks (in particular, Jim Rutt, long-time chairman and now trustee at Santa Fe) and I can tell you they don't have a clue (and are unlikely to ever get one.)

[Agreed. In actuality, because of our narcissistic/anthropocentric view of ourselves, we just assume that because our physiology seems so complex that everything else in existence also must be. However, that's based on the ex post facto, Rube Goldberg way we see ourselves, which when seen in the forward direction is actually simple- see Torday JS. Life Is Simple-Biologic Complexity Is an Epiphenomenon.Biology (Basel). 2016 Apr 27;5(2).]

So, Physics as failed (multiple times).  How about Biology or Psychology or Sociology?  As John tells us, biology is broken.  As, Gregg tells us, psychology is broken.  As Joe tells us, sociology is broken.  So, what are we going to do . . . ??

My suggestion is that we take a look at *paradigms* behind these approaches and their causes/effects.  This is the study of the "structure of scientific revolutions" (as per Thomas Kuhn, although he never explained either the causes or effects) and, to accomplish that task, we will need Marshall McLuhan -- which we will do when Gregg returns.

https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-50th-Anniversary/dp/0226458121

[In the meantime, I have taken my cue from Kuhn, who said that when the paradigm shifts, the language changes, and have redefined a number of dogmas in biology- the cell, the life cycle, homeostasis, pleiotropy- to make the point that we have misconceived biology.....and I would submit that since our perception of ourselves biologically is the basis for our system of logic, so no wonder sociology and psychology have failed?]

To do this, we will have to do something that has been "forgotten" for 400+ years -- understand *formal* cause.  Fortunately, Aristotle is there to help us (since he's the one who came up with this idea in the first place, 2500 years ago) and, even more fortuitously, we are now in a new paradigm (otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation).

Mark

P.S. The previous paradigm was characterized by "globalism" and what was called the "new world order" (i.e. the one that Kuhn was plumping for, as funded by the Ford Foundation) and it has now collapsed.  Yes, this is what keeps Henry Kissinger awake at night.  This is why Trump was elected, Briexit occured and the 5 Star Movement now runs Italy &c.  This is also why we are now in another "counter-culture" (parallel to the 60s), since that's what happens to *culture* when paradigms shift (over-and-over, making its explanation a top priority for a "pure" sociology).  This is the focus of my Center (and,, yes, I also know John Ralston Saul).

https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Globalism-J-R-Saul/dp/1786494485

P.P.S.  The "cheerio conspiracy" in all this is that the *center* of maintaining that now obsolete paradigm was the Government Communications Head-Quarters (GCHQ) which is the foundation of what some now call the "Deep State."  Edward Snowden had a lot to say about them in terms of their acronym, "Five Eyes," making Trump's upcoming meeting with the Queen very interesting -- since the "Deep State" actually reports to her (yes, making Canada an actual national security threat) . . . !!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

P.P.P.S. Since our confusion about all this has been going on for a long-time, we will have to "drop back" and try to recover what previous paradigms -- such as the "Enlightenment" &c -- have destroyed.  That is the origin of the "motto" on the Center website that "Digital *retrieves* the Medieval" and, from ISIS reviving *medieval* Jihad, to the Chinese reviving the *medieval* "Silk Road," it is already the world in which we live.  As Marty McKly put it, "Doc, it's time to go back to the future" . . . <g>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future

P.P.P.P.S. What we have to try to avoid, as difficult as it may be, is to not behave "like a drunk looking for our carkeys underneath the streetlamp, because that's where the light is."  The recently past paradigms have seriously screwed us up.  This is why we are in such terrible condition -- which, btw, is not the situation in China, where its historic civilization is now the focus of study at the Central Party School (where CPC cadre are trained in Beijing) -- and *all* of our attempts at "coherence" have failed.  But, we're in luck, Aristotle is there to help us (which is why Summer School at the Center is teaching his 4th-century BC "On the Soul".)

[All due respect to Mark, but until we come to the realization that life is founded on ambiguity (Schrodinger), balanced by deception (Trivers), we will continue to systematically devise ad hoc solutions. It will only be when, for example, Michaelangelo's 'Vitruvian Man' is supplanted by the Periodic Table of Biology that we will be free of domination by myths about our prowess as humans, brought on by the fact that we are the only species that 'knows that we know', leading to our anthropocentrism because we are the only species that knows that we are survivors, yet all organisms are survivors!]