Mark, I am insulted when you use ad hominem attacks, which are so out of line with this listserve. I wasn't insulting anyone or any thing when I pointed out the difference between descriptive and mechanistic science, which my own colleagues do not understand because we in biology and medicine are so imbued with the descriptive as to make it a 'belief''......suffice it to say that there is no experimental evidence for evolution of species. You clearly do not either understand or appreciate what it is that I am trying to accomplish, yet Gregg was willing to let me into the 'tent' because he saw value in a meta aspect to his efforts. You on the other hand seem angered. As I had said earlier, my proposition that the joint could be seen mechanistically would afford opportunity to connect dots within and between the levels of the TOK unattainable by convention.......how can that be a negative?

And no, I don't dislike people...just the opposite. What I do dislike are people who cannot accommodate the thoughts of others as long as they are reasoned and not merely believed. I did not set out to invert the biological order of things, it just happened as I followed my data and that of others as I understood them within the context of the evolutionary paradigm. As it turns out, the approach I have taken simplifies much of what we just accept as dogma in biology and medicine, in accord with Occam's Razor....see for example the attached which expresses the idea that the heart isn't a pump (see attached), for example. This 'backward' thinking about physiology is what I am talking about, and btw, there is experimental evidence, for example, that the heart of the primitive chordate Ciona intestinalis begins in its tail as the stem cells for forming the heart, i.e. the 'beating' of the heart begins with the beating of the tail. So there is huge value in my Alice in Wonderland take on physiology. 


On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 8:25 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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






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