Whitehead and the Philosophy of Science

 

Alfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World, originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science.

Taking readers through the history of modern science, Whitehead shows how cultural history has affected science over the ages in relation to such major intellectual themes as romanticism, relativity, quantum theory, religion, and movements for social progress.

The famed mathematician and philosopher takes readers on a journey into a new scientific age, exploring topics from relativity to religion.

Alfred North Whitehead, one of the great figures in the philosophy of science, wrote this prescient work nearly a century ago. Yet, in an era that has us reckoning with science and technology’s place and meaning in our lives, it remains as relevant as ever. Science and the Modern World puts scientific discovery into historical and cultural context—exploring the effects of science and people on each other.

“It is a work not only of the first importance but also of great beauty. . . . Vivid writing.” — Nature

Whitehead and the Philosophy of Science

by R.E. Slater

Introduction to Process Living and Thinking

I have been somewhat frustrated to discover that the world of science... whether in biology, mathematics, physics, astronomy, etc... has been so ignorant of Whitehead's "philosophy of organism" now described as a philosophy of process or, "process philosophy."

Once apprehended, it becomes immediately obvious - as well as immediately relevant - to any-and-all discussions on any subject matter in the world. From the stories and narratives spoke of in the Jewish and Christian bibles to the evolutionary development of the universe and mankind (sic, Homo-homo-sapiens = modern man), to the construction of artificial intelligence in its quantum states.

Whitehead, should not, and cannot, be ignored:

He must be read, studied, grappled with, shared, and understood as a presenter of a very old and very organic understanding of nature and the universe we live in. Specifically, how nature lives and moves and has its being. How all is organically relational, experiential, and inherently "spiritual" by whatever descriptor is relevant to a study's application.

I know Whitehead's philosophy of organism as the description of how the universe (or, multiuniverse) conducts itself to itself and without itself panrelationally, panexperientially, and panpsychically. There is no other way to describe Whitehead's process understanding of the cosmos.

The organic universe is... well, organic! It is not mechanistic. Not isolated. Not composed of isolated rules and formulaes unto an apparatus' own self. It is not a mash of disparate processes. Nor of nonintegrating processes. Nor is it any mix of the above.

More aptly, an integral philosophy such as Whitehead's process philosophy has been observed since ancient times via stories, song, poetry, or rites of celebration. Once you know it, and understand it, you see process everywhere about.

Forms of Process Living

The ancients may have called it "God" when giving a naturalized process they didn't understand an anthropomorphic name such as "storm, harvest, war, or love." And the more adaptive, synthesizing religions may have described it as a "consciousness, a zen, a transient or immanent predialection of anger, wrath, holiness, or way of being and living."

But in a process evolutionary world - as the kind of world of materiality and immateriality in which we live - what may have started out as one thing has by-and-large given birth to a bazillion things... each as deeply related to the other as it may seem apart from the other... though essentially, and inherently, no singular process is ever "apart" from itself in the sense that it is always inhabiting a universe composed of a "plurality of processes".

Where the One becomes Many, and the Many are One

Meaningfully, a processual world is a world which is, and is becoming. That is, it inhabits an ancient state of "once was" which "now is". In other words, the universe (cosmos) of man and God, flora and fauna, element and force, are separately-and-together in living stages of "Being and Becoming".

Whiteheadian process philosophy then describes us - and the worlds we live in - as worlds which once were breath-takingly alive to potential world realities which have deeply interacted with, and constructed one another, to produce new worlds exuberantly reacting to what once was to what can be.

Whitehead then, wasn't simply describing statism or causally resulting qualities of difference but dynamically interactive-and-responding potential futures birthed from the present which were birthed from the past (eg, portending potentialites becoming actualized occasions).

The Concrescence of Being

He calls this type of outcome process "concrescence" which is the growing together, or coalescence of parts thought to be separate, but never were, nor ever will be. All grows together from the "all" of past potentialities.

Even when birthed temporally "apart" in the concrescing past those concrescing occasions will relationally experience one another sometime later in the present or the future, as all that was becomes all that is:

"Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past." - James Joyce, Ulysses

Adding and Building Upon the Past Processes

Some Whiteheadian scholars like to describe concrescence as "the addition of one potential process to that of the evolving actual other."

Process then is a description of life... a description which needs to be apprehended, understood, and enmeshed in our current topics of interest across the worlds of social theory, politics, economics, science, literature, etc. And, for those Christians still reading this, of God and Christ and salvation, bible, us, and very ecclesiastical structure itself.

A Word About Gare's Observations

Today's discussion on "Whitehead and Science," I thought to be a bit muddled in its recording perhaps due to Arran Gare's kind of rambling voice or due to mine own preference for "tenors via bass" auditory transcriptions.

However, I found if I listened "apart" from the recording, and gave the sound quality a bit of time to get acquainted with Arran's voice, I could begin to hear what he was saying with a little better distinction.

And though I have provided a transcription of his discussion further below, it is not of the best quality. I suppose, in the end, we must buy his book(s) and read Whitehead's own plethora of science books (there are many, as he was a mathematician before he was a philosopher). 

A Final Note

And because Whitehead was a mathematician we'll quickly discover how he methodically, with organization, produces his distinctive form of process theory to which we might add and expand our own over the eras to come.

Whitehead grants a sufficient, albeit, complex basis upon which we might build similarly distinctive - perhaps adaptive, perhaps synthetic - discussions relevant to our eras and observations.

And so, as I and others build-and-expand process theory we must always remember Whitehead's original thoughts - to respect the distinctiveness of Whitehead's processual theory - while realizing other words and thoughts will come forward to his own.

BUT, we must not be so eager to replace Whitehead's words with other words as to discern in the vast cacophony of processual strains found albeit in other religions and philosophies and observations partialized forms of Whiteheadian philosophy.

To remember that these strains are but smaller bits-and-pieces (or larger bits-and-pieces) of Whitehead's organic processual whole which "integrates" us - or "binds" us - backwards and forwards to life's steady drumbeats of evolutionary thought and presence both now and in the past.

Process Thought is Integral

Thus, Whitehead's organic philosophy of process is an integrated and integrating INTEGRAL Philosophy of the world, of life, of us. We can find strains of it in eastern religion; in westernized sectarianism (such as the recovery of liturgy to sterile ecclesiastical settings); in simple family pastimes of fellowship.

Similar to the proverbial elephant being describes as all ears, trunks, or tail, so these multiple varieties of process ways of being and worshipping, may add up together as a near "elephatine" facsimile of Whitehead's cosmic processual whole.

That Whiteheadian processual thought aptly describes:

(1) process-based cosmological metaphysics (the logic of being),

(2) an encompassing ontology (the existence of being), and

(3) when including processual ethics (ways of being),

Why? A processual "beingness" evolves, or becomes, to all other processually adaptives states of "beingness" metaphysically, ontologically, and ethically.

Whiteheadian thought then is complex. And though I have laid out the basics of Whitehead there is far more to it than than has been stated here.

So let this new year of 2024 be the year that I and others become less frustrated with the philosophies of life, science, and society, so that we might see process ual thinking and observation bleed into theories of ecological civilization and society, for instance.

For, as we intuitively know - and native cultures have taught us, such as found in the Native American Indian cultures - aligning ourselves with nature's rhythms and outcomes bearing social justice is a very, very, Whitheheadian thing to do.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

January 6, 2024

click here for slide show

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Mathematics, Narratives, & Life:

Reconciling Science and the Humanities

Presentation | Arran Gare  |  1.17.46

Cobb Institute   |  Mar 14, 2023

SUMMARY

In this presentation and conversation, Arran Gare and Matthew Segall examine work in theoretical biology that might advance the way we understand mathematics and narratives, and their relation to each other and reality, and thereby how we should understand science and the humanities and their relationship to one another.

• Sponsored by the Cobb Institute Science Advisory Committee.

• Recorded Saturday, March 4, 2023 - https://cobb.institute/science-adviso...

DESCRIPTION

The triumph of scientific materialism in the Seventeenth Century not only bifurcated nature into matter and mind, as Whitehead pointed out. It divided science and the humanities.

• The core of science is the effort to comprehend the cosmos through mathematics. The core of the humanities is the effort to comprehend history through narratives.

• The life sciences can be seen as the zone in which the conflict between these two very different ways of comprehending the world collide.

• Evolutionary theory developed out of natural history as defended by Schelling, but efforts have been made to formulate neo-Darwinism through mathematical models.

However, it is impossible to eliminate stories from biology.

As Stuart Kauffman pointed out, mathematical models attempt to pre-state all possibilities, but in evolution there can be adjacent possibles that can be embraced by organisms but cannot be pre-stated.

To account for these it is necessary to tell stories.

• Mathematics provides analytic precision allowing long chains of deduction, but tends to deny temporal becoming and cannot do justice to the openness of the future...

• While narratives focus on processes and events, but lack exactitude that would allow precise deductions.

In advancing mathematics adequate to life, Robert Rosen argued that living beings as anticipatory systems must have models of themselves, and strove to develop a form of mathematics able to model this. 

It has been convincingly argued that narratives are central to human self-creation and they are lived out before being explicitly told:

• Their models of themselves are first and foremost, narratives.

• If this is the case, might not living beings as biological entities be characterized by proto-narratives in their models of themselves?

Biosemiotics, largely inspired by C.S. Peirce, provides a bridge between mathematical and narrative comprehension, conceiving them as different forms of semiosis ("the signification of language and literature").

The study of life through biosemiotics should reveal how mathematics and narratives should be understood in relation to each other. This could have implications for how we understand mathematics and narratives and their relation both to each other and to reality, and thereby how we should understand science and the humanities and their relationship.

In this presentation and conversation, Dr. Arran Gare and Dr. Matthew Segall examine work in theoretical biology that might advance these efforts. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

ARRAN GARE is an Australian philosopher and Reader (Associate Professor) in Philosophy and Cultural Inquiry at Swinburne University. His main areas of research are environmental philosophy, history and philosophy of science, mathematics and metaphysics, the history and philosophy of culture, and Chinese philosophy. He is aligned with the tradition of process metaphysics, and has published widely on these topics and am the author of a number of books, including Postmodernism and the Environmental Crisis (London: Routledge, 1995), Nihilism Inc.: Environmental Destruction and the Metaphysics of Sustainability (Sydney: Eco-Logical Press, 1996). and The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization: A manifesto for the future (London: Routledge, 2017). He also founded the Joseph Needham Center of Complex Processes Research and the online journal Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy. His current work is devoted to providing the philosophical foundations for a global ecological civilization.

 

MATT SEGALL is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where he teaches graduate level courses on process philosophy and German Idealism. His recent book, Physics of the World-Soul: Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology, put Whitehead’s process cosmology into conversation with various contemporary scientific theories, such as general relativity and quantum theory. This book is exemplary of much of Matt’s recent work, which puts ideas from process philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences.

 

* * * * * * *

Biosemiotics is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, production of signs and codes and communication processes in the biological realm. Wikipedia

Biosemiotics is the idea that life is based on semiosis, i.e., on signs and codes. This idea has been strongly suggested by the discovery of the genetic code, but so far it has made little impact in the scientific world and is largely regarded as a philosophy rather than a science.

Biosemiotics: a new understanding of life - PubMed

National Institutes of Health (.gov)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › ...

Ecosemiotics and biosemiotics: a comparative study

 

Figure 4. A graphical illustration of C. S. Peirce's triadic philosophy and semiotics in epistemology, ontology, evolutionistic theory, psychology, analogic of cognition (modification of Brier 1998b: 188).  |  Published in 1999, Biosemiotics and the foundation of cybersemiotics: Reconceptualizing the insights of ethology, second-order cybernetics, and Peirce’s semiotics in biosemiotics to create a non-Cartesian information science

What is an example of a biosemiotics?

A simple example is a bird song that indicates to the singer's species mates that he is guarding his nesting ground. In biosemiotics, processes taking place inside an organism, such as interpretation of DNA for protein synthesis by a cell, are also regarded as sign processes.

* * * * * * *

Sample of Whitehead's writings and titles

amazon link

      

• Adventures of IdeasAdventures of Ideas
• Process and RealityProcess and Reality
• Science and the Modern WorldScience and the Modern World
• Modes of Thought
• An Introduction to Mathematics: The Important Applications of the Science; The Theoretical Interest of Its Ideas - Alfred North Whitehead's Mathematical ... the theoretical interest of its ideas.An 
• The Function of ReasonThe Function of Reason
• A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction | Matt Segall

0:05

let's go ahead and get started welcome everyone to a special Saturday edition

0:10

uh of uh the Cobb institute's offerings I'm Matt Siegel I chair the science

0:17

advisory committee here at the Cobb Institute and today I'm very excited uh

0:24

to welcome Aaron gare who many of you know that's why you're here he's an Australian philosopher and

0:32

associate professor in philosophy and cultural inquiry at swinburne University

0:38

as you've heard a little bit about already his his areas of research include environmental philosophy history

0:45

philosophy of science mathematics metaphysics and the history of philosophy the history and philosophy of

0:52

culture I'll mention just one of his most recent books the philosophical

0:58

foundations of ecological civilization a Manifesto for the future which was

1:05

published in 2017. today uh Professor Garrett is going to talk to us about

1:12

mathematics narratives and life in an attempt to reconcile science in the

1:18

humanities so he'll he will speak for about 45 minutes I'll have a couple of questions

1:24

for him and then we'll open it up to the larger group for discussion all right so uh with that uh Aaron I'll

1:32

turn it over to you very much look forward to your remarks yeah thank you thank you and thank you for inviting me

Presentation | Arran Gare

1:38

to make this presentation um I was literally asked to talk on developments and Mathematics

1:45

um but I was heavily involved in that about five years ago I'm not a

1:50

mathematician it's difficult to give a lecture if you're not a mathematician about Arts ideas and maths

1:56

um so um I suggested that I talk about something I've been engaged in more

2:01

recently and it's really associated with the development of biosemiotics and the

2:07

effort to give a place to both mathematics and narratives and this is

2:13

seen by me as part of that broader project of making process philosophy you

2:19

know the glossary of civilization succeeding in the straw against um you know the nilas

2:26

um and uh the work that I'm engaged in is also an effort to integrate ideas

2:33

from various process whilst was particularly personal Whitehead

2:38

um but going back to showing and arguing that he has to be recognized as a major

2:43

figure in the development of modern process metaphysics you can trace most

2:49

of the process philosophers back to him somebody who's generally ignored because he's regarded as a

2:56

romantic and the romantics but people who thought to have their hearts in the right place but a bit soft-headed well

3:02

if he wasn't like that um but the the work in theoretical biology is also a way of

3:12

uniting these ideas in a very practical way that is that um you know I'll be

3:18

looking at the ideas of referring to the ideas of Warrington who has very strongly influenced by Whitehead in the

3:26

development resist theoretical theoretical biology and the whole theoretical biology movement that he

3:31

opted Inspire um leading to Major conferences in the late 1960s and early 1970s and what I

3:39

want to do is show the need to integrate those ideas of what items but the ideas of the biosemiotics

3:46

parasymmeticians particularly those influenced by purse and that's a way of integrating the ideas of purse and

3:52

Whitehead so um I think you need to keep that in mind and

3:58

um what I say and what I'm talking about so it's partly an effort also in the

4:04

process to rethink the history of process metaphysics um and from my point of view that's

4:11

extremely important and it's also illustrating the importance of narratives stories not to be taken as to

4:18

sort of entertainment but as Central to orienting ourselves to understanding the

4:24

past and creating the future and the way you tell these stories um to some extent determines whether or not

4:31

you're going to be successful so one of the most influential works of Whitehead

4:37

is science in the modern world we he told a story about you know the development of science situating his own

4:43

work in relationship to that and it's that perspective provided by history that I think convinced usual people the

4:52

people who you know didn't have any contact with process philosophers to embrace his work and embrace them there

4:59

too um um you know sort of forward these ideas

5:05

um so to some extent you know what I'll be doing in this is refiguring that

5:11

narrative now the um starting point is the um

5:17

scientific materialism which um writer defined as what has to be overcome

5:23

um Ronnie does Matt has suggested that the

5:29

problem now is not so much scientific materialism but pythagoreanism and if you look at the development of

5:35

scientific materialism it was associated with new developments in mathematics analog geometry of Descartes the

5:42

calculus developed by Newton and so on and uh the development of the notion of matter

5:49

is inert it's a atoms moving endlessly meaninglessly as

5:56

um what had characterized it or points as um Descartes talked about

6:01

um really derived from the mathematics and this is what I think has to be understood now the thing about that

6:09

development was was enormously successful and the only way you're going to

6:15

succeed in process philosophy is doing Justice to the achievements of mathematics

6:21

and also on that basis recognizing the potential of developing better

6:27

mathematics mathematics that's more in accordance with the process view of the world

6:32

um so um looking at you know that that earlier

6:38

history divided by um Martin um it focuses on the 17th century if you

6:45

move to the 19th and 20th Century as you can see the kind of scientific materialism

6:50

um really um was led by irwinians

6:57

um and the concept of life I think has to be recognized as it is Central to

7:03

um to all this because it's um you know if you look at the Cartesian dualism

7:08

um you don't get very far just looking at Consciousness and then looking at its relationship to the physical world

7:15

it's with life that you've got that bridge and so I think that that has to

7:21

be the focus of um understanding the opposition between you know the dominant

7:26

Pythagorean pythagoreanism and people promoting a process view of the world you know what

7:33

you've heard of the Department of darwinian evolutionary theory was the development of neo-darwinism which tried

7:39

to make it more scientific and in the process we need much more mechanistic and as it's developed it's Incorporated

7:47

information the notion of information so DNA is supposed to encode information

7:52

and we're supposed to be machines for reproducing DNA and I think that the um

7:58

the development of information science has been really problematic for process philosophers because it's enabled the

8:06

proponents of this reductionist uh pythagoreanianism to gain a new release

8:11

of Life by claiming now they've got the means to characterize as life and

8:16

thought supposedly cognition can be characterized as receiving and processing information and you had the

8:24

development of cybernetics so we can be conceived of as information processing cyborgs

8:32

um we've now got people first humanists arguing that to lead us to regard ourselves as

8:38

Superior to these um to robots as they develop which might become more efficient to process the information and

8:45

we should just accept that we'll be succeeded by these more efficient information processes

8:52

um that's also associated with the development of scientism you know the success of that oral development has

9:00

been associated with the undermining of the humanities um so it's regarded as part of the

9:07

entertainment industry and it's clear that you know the humanities areas of universities are now really looked down

9:14

upon they've lost in that struggled with two cultures um so that's something that has to be

9:21

really struggled against um now that's where also looking at the history of the development of scientific

9:28

materialism write it um like most people regarded the 17th

9:35

century Scientific Revolution as overcoming or living behind the Medieval World View

9:40

um what people like Stephen Truman pointed out was it wasn't so much the um Medieval World View medieval order

9:48

that was being reacted against by people like Descartes and Newton and so on but

9:53

the Florentine Renaissance um and Mr Florentine Renaissance that

9:59

intended the humanities uh you know Petra developing a new form of Education Reviving ideas of the Roman Republicans

10:07

and ancient Greeks committed to republicanism a form of democratic

10:13

republicanism and from the perspective of people like Descartes I just led to chaos

10:20

um so they if they supported anyone it was the um the lesions who had a society

10:26

based on Commerce even though they purported to be a republic um and you can see this with um homes

10:31

further developing that mechanical review of the world and I think probably being the most important figure for

10:38

characterizing society and you can see in hobbs's work a virtual anticipation of the idea that all thinking is just

10:45

adding and subtracting in other words pretty much processing information

10:51

um the other um

10:56

I suppose defect in Whitehead's characterizing with history he gives a

11:02

place to the romantics but as I said I don't think that he fully appreciate it just how powerful the ideas of the

11:08

romantics were and the extent to which his own thinking was really a development of their ideas

11:16

so what you've got is this pythagoreanism that um

11:21

sort of integrates into it a kind of logical atomism where the blood or atoms

11:28

now bits of information so John Wheeler argued that we probably take to be things or it's a Reconstruction from

11:35

bits of information and you know that really supports the

11:40

block Universe if you read John Wheeler's work um and supports you know the idea that

11:46

uh with now um with the notion of information got the basis for a coherent scientific

11:53

worldview that's got no place for the Humanities and by virtue of that it has really got to know a place for what the

11:59

humanity stood for or the other side of the um the other development of the advantages which culminate I mean the um

12:06

um planting Renaissance culminated I think in the work of guidono Bruno which

12:12

was nature enthusiasm which is really a form of process philosophy and also Vico

12:17

is a culmination of um you know work on History um the Renaissance was concerned

12:23

particularly with Reviving history as it had been defended or developed in Rome

12:29

but also in the ancient Greece it's a history is the core of the humanities is something we have to take

12:36

really seriously and this is where you get the conflict between you know the humanities and scientism really coming

12:42

out into the open or one area where it comes out of the other areas as a service I think the um uh struggle

12:49

within biology over how you characterize what life is

12:55

now that's a very schematic sort of History um

13:00

um of development of um scientism but the thing about narratives is that the

13:06

table of being schematic in fact they have to be you know if you write history you always have to leave certain things

13:12

out but I think that um what it does is shows how you know the pythagoreanism

13:21

um culminates in a prominentian view of the world and this is what nature as

13:26

somebody who is um influenced by The Romantics pointed out

13:31

um It's associated with the egyptianism of Western philosophers

13:37

um and as they put it there was the hatred it did and the idea of becoming their egyptianism

13:43

I think they're doing I think honor when they dehistoricize it supposedly

13:48

subspecy attorney when they make a mummy of it all the philosophers have handled for Millennia have been conceptual

13:54

mummies nothing actual has escaped their hands alive they kill their stuff when they worship these conceptual idolaters

14:01

they become a mortal danger to everything when they worship death change age as well as procreation and

14:08

growth and for them objections refutations even what is does not become

14:13

what becomes is not now they believe even to the point of Despair in that

14:18

which is I was normally regarded as somebody who was reacting against Christianity but did you read his

14:23

notebooks it's clearly the development of Science and bobsman's work um

14:29

advancing that mechanical view that we're at intimacy view of the world that he is really concerned about and he

14:36

really is a part of the um um labor of you know these scientists

14:42

producing a great edits of concept displaying the rigid regular regularity for Roman columbarium

14:49

it's learning exciting the logic and strength and coolness which is characteristic of mathematics and the

14:55

column they're in as we're actually with the ashes the dead it's a the deadly

15:00

effect of scientism and also in the influence of the books he talked about the aim the science is to destroy the

15:07

world I think that if you look at the trajectory that we've been on since then there's good evidence that in this world

15:16

view this this culture continues that's where we're going to recommend that so

15:22

um looking at the um the development that took place after that

15:28

um as I said I think the thing that's um Whitehead left out didn't do justice to was the Romantic reaction and what

15:36

you really heard was in Germany um a Revival of

15:43

um Renaissance ideas and further elaborating elaboration of them these

15:48

ideas have been really suppressed after the rise of Newtonian physics you might have here in Britain and uh few people

15:55

promoting it and in France you had people at Russo ditto and so on promoting these ideas

16:02

but it was in Germany with these ideas got really developed and a pivotal

16:07

figure is clearly can't um is perhaps less um or his main ideas on his radical then

16:15

I think they should be um he just started out embracing vico's

16:20

ideas that Science and Mathematics are human constructions and thereby putting Humanity back in the center of the

16:27

picture and on that basis being able to give a place to a free agency yeah the

16:32

extent his political philosophy and so on um but it was really a very big thinker and

16:39

um if you read his work you realize that he was never somebody who came up with just a fixed system he's continually

16:46

developing his ideas and this is how he was understand understood at the time

16:53

um for instance he wasn't simply defending eternity physics he was

16:58

influenced by broskovic and leibniz and so defended a notion of matter as active

17:03

even when he was sort of trying to limit the influence of scientism

17:09

um but it's also in the critique of judgment he wrote some really important

17:15

ideas on biology that had a huge influence on shelling

17:20

um and he characterized these for the most part as principles of regulative Reason

17:25

rather than the more basic ideas of reason because he thought that

17:31

ultimately you might be able to justify these ideas making them stickly

17:37

but he also in one place suggested that this is more basic than what you get in

17:45

the physical sciences and I think that you know one of the interesting things about the mechanical

17:51

view of the world why they didn't use that term I think for good reason the machine always implies Organization for

17:58

a purpose this is something that Michael Palani really brought out very clearly and if you're studying a machine you're

18:04

never going to understand how difficult it's chemistry and what have you you have to understand what its purpose is

18:09

you have to have life as something more than a machine in order to understand

18:15

what a machine is um so I think that that's what um Shilling took from

18:22

um can't and really developed now it can't influence the number of thinkers and for

18:30

the most part these people um gave up on the numeral and defended a

18:36

form of uh idealism and then Hegel and selling is usually

18:42

lumped together with Victor and Hegel as somewhere in between the two

18:48

but in fact selling when you read him ideas of natural philosophy is more

18:53

fundamental than the work of the idealists where they're examining the categories that people must use in order

19:00

to understand the world what he did was naturalize the um transcendental argument

19:07

um saying that if science is possible nature must be something different than

19:13

it was characterized by people like Newton and daycare you have to fundamentally reconceive nature and he

19:21

built on that notion of nature being active and counts ideas about biology to

19:28

really defend the process view of the world um and that that fundamental

19:34

argument I think should be recognized as the core of process philosophy you know

19:40

science requires people who are conscious who can develop science

19:45

as part of Nature and you have to understand nature um as such that allows that development

19:52

to take place you know like there's that kind of being sort of emerged from nature

19:58

um this is where I think you know the the people who are promoting us the idea of

20:04

us as information processing inside of all which is a real challenge that has to be combated

20:10

um you know they're acknowledging the need for understanding us to get this with you know crude versions of um uh

20:17

darwinian epistemology um and this idea that ideas the ones that went out in the struggle for

20:24

survival and they're just really forms of information and means of organizing

20:29

your information um I think that you have to recognize that that just

20:35

doesn't do justice to what science is you know it's associated with understanding and awareness and

20:40

Consciousness and so on and that requires a far more fundamental re-characterization of the nature of

20:46

physical existence and the The crucial place is

20:52

um out of biology looking at what life is and characterizing life and that's

20:58

what shelling was doing now in doing that I'm calling for a new philosophical

21:05

physics he also suggested that we need a new mathematics I think that this is um

21:12

you know really bold move um think about something like Hegel you

21:17

know right huge amounts on natural philosophy that had no influence showing

21:22

actually had a huge influence on the subsequent development of the sciences and during mathematics people took up

21:29

his ideas um and further development I won't talk

21:34

so much about his ideas about physical existence but his return very similar in some ways to to whiteheads but the idea

21:42

is about mathematics um the idea that we needed um

21:48

Dynamic mathematics um let me find that um

21:56

a new form of of mathematics appropriate or a dynamic universe and this inspired a slow marker

22:05

supporters also and Justice Crossman was influenced by both schwar marker and

22:11

shelling to develop a fluid geometry a dynamist morphogenetic mathematics that

22:17

would facilitate insights into the emergence in the synthesis of patterns in nature that's how I was characterized

22:23

by horiza and that's um come as a successful development of mathematics

22:30

that enabled him to model crystallization now his um

22:35

this intelligent son living Grossman who he thought didn't have much potential

22:40

took up his ideas and developed a whole new approach to mathematics called

22:45

extension Theory which he presented as a survey of a general theory of forms assuming yes

22:52

they put it only the most the general concepts of equality and difference conjunction and separation

22:59

um it was meant as the Keystone of the entire structure of mathematics um if people have read things apart on

23:07

isolation of the water as um

23:13

differences and similarities similarities similar differences and so on um he actually was studying Grassman

23:20

when he developed these ideas so you can see the source of that notion of order in grassman's work the Grossman even

23:27

though it is largely ignored at the time um actually provided the foundation for

23:32

most of the new forms of mathematics that have been deployed in physics it

23:38

was an invented lineians Martin in aradara and the pre-cursor vector algebra

23:44

exterior and Clifford algebra how clever with Australian influence by

23:49

and uh Whitehead this first major published work I think was universal algebra strongly influenced by cross

23:56

plants um later on other printers maybe Snowden Gibbs um

24:01

developed ideas that really echoed his work without having read his work but he anticipated

24:09

those developments even the organizing transparents um

24:17

pencil calculus was some extent influenced by grassland's mathematics

24:26

um now William was here um

24:32

I use the Craftsman Craftsman's extension theory was also a precursor to

24:38

category Theory which is a more recent development in mathematics so let's talk about later on but it's I think really

24:44

important to understand always developments in relationship to each other so it was a very powerful tradition so what you know process

24:51

velocity should be appreciated as a much more powerful tradition of thought than this normally understood to be and if

24:58

people look at books and so on various other figures perhaps um

25:06

um let's see

25:12

already in Russia for instance um the idea of technology which led to

25:21

development of systems theory these are also part of that whole

25:26

tradition I thought the thing is they should be recognized as part of a developing tradition which has diversity

25:32

of approaches within it but that's characteristic of a healthy tradition

25:37

you need diversity for it to succeed well not losing the plot on losing the

25:45

core commitment to understand the wireless process now Whitehead

25:51

um was usually associated with certain muscle that's trying to reduce mathematics to logic but um I think that

25:59

he was um doing far more than that and really had a very different understanding of

26:05

mathematics to um Bertram Russell um he characterized it as the science of

26:12

patterns but um Everybody wrote about it in various places you know rejecting the idea that

26:18

mathematics is just a set of tautologies you know when we say the equal sign of 2

26:25

times 3 is 6 implies that it's tautology um

26:31

he argued that you shouldn't read that as two threes are becoming six

26:37

um so it's got a process orientation to it and you could argue that what he is

26:42

really talking about is patterning rather than patterns other patterns of you know or to investigate as the realm

26:49

of possibilities you know the Eternal objects and process and reality but

26:56

um I think it's better to characterize these as you know the realm of possibilities and recognizing the

27:02

reality of possibilities and the need to study those and then look at how those possibilities are actualized

27:09

um as a kind of process so that's the core of his whole thinking I think

27:16

um along with this commitment to doing justice to all dimensions of our

27:21

experience and recognizing that science only reveals some of those some of the

27:28

patterns of activity that exist in reality they also defended the you know

27:33

classical education the humanities and as I said really uh brilliant histories of Science and

27:40

civilization um

27:45

um it's interesting reading is characterization of science how similar it is to shelling this it also

27:52

anticipates most of the developments of the post logical positivist philosophers

27:57

of science uh clearly curing which was probably in direct influence by Whitehead

28:03

um like a tasks for this notion of hard cause and you commit sort of term what have you

28:08

um so again it's really important to recognize the continuities of this tradition which tends to get locked out

28:16

nothing else gets blocked out you know people gain positions and then don't

28:21

allowing their students don't get um agonic positions so there's a kind of tendency for the continuity of this

28:29

these Traditions to be plus side of

28:34

um now looking at the influence of writed on science

28:40

um you know his famous for his effort to develop an alternative general theory of relativity but I think

28:47

that the more interesting work perhaps is physicist influenced plan but the

28:55

potentially perhaps it's because this was taking place in Britain rather than America is the development of

29:01

theoretical biology and the importance of people like um Warrington and um

29:08

his colleagues in developing the theoretical biology movement um they're influenced by other thinkers

29:15

as well the notion of field was taken up and

29:21

developed from um Alexander gervich and Lithuanian Russian

29:28

biologists influenced um

29:36

influenced by other thinkers influenced also by um

29:42

phy who also took up the notion of field but the Waddington was particularly influenced

29:49

by Whitehead in its characterization of these fields and how they're developed

29:55

he wrote on write it and criticized him for being too complex he produced

30:01

simplistic ideas perhaps but I think that he was taking over those ideas which you could utilize not worrying

30:07

about whether or not he was being faithful to write it so developing the notion of increase of

30:14

uh catalyzed piles of development was as he sort of pointed out strongly

30:21

influenced by what I did um now you don't normally think of concretions in relationship to societies

30:27

of actual occasions because there's a strong tendency to treat that as appropriate to understanding you know

30:34

the actual occasions not from that's understood very optimistically but then

30:39

you know the compound individual has been a problem for Whitehead ends and right at himself said he'd been

30:45

misunderstood in that regarding the letter to Art Sean um so I think that there's justification

30:50

for that appropriation of emotion concretions and characterizing the

30:56

development of fields as canalized Pathways developments understood as a kind of concretions

31:02

an interaction of these fields with the surrounding environment

31:09

now the other aspect of his work on those fears was appreciating how they

31:15

emerge from each other so if you look at embryology you can see her from a you

31:22

know a couple of cells and get that differentiation and in the process

31:29

um subfields emerging so you get the field of you know the volume and the high end and then the sub-sub fields of

31:36

the digits and what have you and so that Enchanted um whole research project in biology

31:45

developed particularly by Brian Goodwin um

31:50

it was associated with as I said the notion of Creations necessary path homeareesis the tenancy once a path is

31:58

Disturbed to return to its original state but also the examination of how

32:03

past could move from I mean the path compete displaced that led to a

32:09

different path being taken and these are the ideas that influenced um Rene Tom from the Department of

32:15

catastrophe Theory which he um acknowledged rather than graciously but

32:22

um I think it's clear that you know got there was a similar kind of

32:28

development that had taken place when faradays which was uninfluenced by mathematics was taken up and developed

32:34

by Maxwell who is a mathematician and could develop these ideas much more

32:40

rigorously um so another example of mathematics emerging from the process view of the

32:47

world is that development of uh of catastrophe Theory uh good one was

32:54

looking at a different aspect of his work the development of um temporalities you know with temple organization of

33:01

Souls and looked at um of statistical mechanics um

33:15

the centrality of biochemical feedback loops and living processes but also the oscillations that develop in those and

33:21

how those related which was um looking at how you get complex

33:28

coordination in multi-celled organisms um that notion of different

33:34

temporalities I think is really important it was something that was argued for by

33:39

um bergson and take up and developed by the topic

33:46

um it tends to get forgotten about but I think it's also been revived by the hierarchy theorists people influenced by

33:54

our party I think that it's an important component of the process philosophy that should be taken fairly seriously

34:01

um the whole project of theoretical biology

34:06

um inspired different developments participants included Stuart Kaufman

34:14

um David Bond um

34:19

somebody called ibro who also looked at different temporalities a whole range of things there's some

34:25

um writing some linked up with um Ilia pregajin in his last years and

34:33

Bridget James work to some extent was influenced by the effort to depose that theoretical biology and the way he

34:39

characterized the development of a slime mold and how the individual cells

34:44

integrate into a multi-solar organism using fluctuations

34:50

in chemical accuracy to orient themselves so it's pretty pretty much a development that whole research program

34:57

and the notion of disability structures I think you know as a developmental process thinking

35:03

um and it's interesting in the way in which brigazine also is critical of the

35:09

idea that you could fully characterize reality through mathematics as a major argument that's Renee atonement over

35:15

that issue um the other development has a service

35:20

hierarchy Theory by Patty was also a participant in the conferences were later Taken up in ecology in

35:27

particular by Timothy Allen and then later on by Stan Salter Who provided a

35:33

kind of bridge between this theoretical biology movement in Britain and the biosynapticians

35:41

um my passenger wasn't invited to the conference apparently because um

35:47

which should go on and playing that was too far from the data was Robert Rosen

35:54

and uh well it wasn't I think was primarily a mathematician initially but

36:00

concerned mainly to develop mathematics appropriate to life and working in

36:06

Chicago he embraced and developed category Theory and I think it's

36:11

unfortunate you know the category Theory wasn't taken up at the time in the 1970s

36:18

um it originated in the workers Saunders McLean

36:23

um trying to investigate weather and when different branches of mathematics were dealing with the same objects

36:29

uh it was seen as a way of modeling one branch of mathematics per another

36:34

um and then developed into a general theory of mathematics William rovere as

36:40

a challenge to um to set theory as a foundation of mathematics but I think that it's really

36:47

provided a better defense of Whitehead's nation that science I mean mathematics

36:52

is the science of the study of patterns

36:58

Rosen who took up these ideas and embraced loveria's arguments

37:06

um characterized category of theories the general theory of formal modeling the comparison of different modes of

37:12

inferential or entitlement structures moreover it is a stratified or a

37:17

hierarchical structure without limit the lowest level which is familiarly understood by Telluride theory is a

37:24

comparison of different kinds of entirement and different formalisms the next level is roughly the comparison of

37:30

comparisons the next level is the comparison of these and so on so

37:36

it facilitates an examination of relations to relations

37:41

so Rosen was concerned to characterize life mathematically as I said and what

37:48

he argued was um what he started looking at nature of modeling generally in

37:53

science and in mathematics and breaking with them Saunders McLean suggested that just as

38:01

you can model different branches of mathematics you can model physical reality through or mathematics

38:08

and the entitlement structures in the mathematics will be those that are

38:13

associated with the causal entailments and what you're examining

38:19

looking at life the idea that the peculiarity of it was that

38:24

um drawing from Neumann organisms have models themselves this is

38:29

a condition of them being able to repair um damage to them

38:36

um and once they can repair damage to them they can also reproduce themselves so there's the Mr models

38:42

um to allow for the possibility of that you have to allow for circular definitions

38:51

and in predicativities in mathematics which have previously been excluded by

38:58

which of allowing those in predictivities then it becomes impossible to sim simulate

39:04

the causal entombments on a computer and they argument that this is because

39:10

you're dealing with life life itself something that's much more than just

39:15

mechanisms anything that's a mechanism can be modeled on a computer living being as can't

39:23

um he emphasized that um you know life is really emergent and the um

39:30

when he talks about model it's not as though you've got some kind of map somewhere it's a function of the whole

39:37

organism in its environment um

39:42

and I talked to Stuart Kaufman about this notion he was very critical of it

39:49

um because I think that he understood it in a fairly limited way but I think that you need to take seriously in this idea

39:55

that it's not the um um

40:01

as he put the um fractionated components that you're

40:07

examining it's the functions he's reintroducing through mathematics the notion of there being functions and

40:13

associated with that um final causes and this was associated with this

40:19

development of um you know systems that anticipate the future respond to what they anticipate

40:27

anticipate anticipated systems um now the movement to develop

40:34

um theoretically I mean you know theoretical I mean philosophical

40:41

brother biological mathematics biomass as it can be called by

40:47

um and semino and Andre eresman

40:55

um they took their Point of Departure in waslam's work and

41:00

um try to further elaborate that notion of

41:07

um [Music]

41:13

or modeling at um very category Theory

41:19

um now pythm as I said was rather critical of

41:24

rosin um didn't fully go along with the idea that you can model mathematically all

41:31

the relations in human beings and it came to this conclusion quite suddenly

41:39

writing and like in a book investigations published in 2000 because

41:44

it really broke with what he'd previously believed it was a radical thinker developing

41:51

um the whole idea of um once they call them

41:59

the order catalytic sets and deriving new

42:05

ideas you know being at the Forefront of complexity Theory you came to the conclusion that they've been dominated

42:10

by um the sort of assumptions about what science is that came from Newton

42:17

developed by Einstein and Bohr which had to be questioned and that is that

42:22

through mathematics you can pre-state all the possibilities he said that when you look at what

42:28

actually goes on in the evolution this isn't possible they're adjacent possibles that are totally unable to be

42:37

represented through your mathematical models so he gave an example of what's involved in that for instance if you

42:44

um even to fish short of oxygen started sculpting air

42:50

and that gulp there allowed the organism to take in oxygen so it's float tanks

42:58

float bladders a whole new development of evolution takes place but it's not

43:04

something that you could anticipate you can't represent it prior to that having taken place

43:11

um if you look at um what do you call it or Darwin characterizes expectations

43:18

developments that end up having a useful function but didn't have a function tool I developed

43:25

you can only understand it through these adjacent possibilities being taken up

43:31

and when you look at the interaction between organisms and evolution and the way in which new situations are thrown

43:38

up by their interactions you can see that there's co-evolution where new

43:43

possibilities are addressed in creative ways it can't be mathematically

43:49

so even the very radical ideas in biom mathematics developed by rosin are not adequate to

43:57

to Justice to life itself um it's on this basis that he

44:04

started taking more interest in both wytech and he turned up to one of the Whitehead and conferences that I was at

44:10

and also biosemiotics and and that Levy

44:17

Carol one of the main figures in the development of Iris and Alex in Estonia

44:23

um and was convinced that we've been there to move beyond that notes to semiotics that doesn't doesn't mean to

44:29

say you abandoned mathematics just recognizes limitations this is recognition of the limitations I think

44:35

that's fairly important and why it is necessary to embrace

44:40

um biosemiotics in the case of um Danish thinkers there are principally

44:46

influenced by the work of purse in developing biosemiotics but um also take

44:53

upon obstacle and take upon our school was in a huge influence in

44:59

Estonia where he was born so clearly colors and Estonia really pushed

45:06

um Jacob from Oak school's work so I think most of you would know about take upon our school and how he argued that to

45:13

understand an organism you have to understand how it defines its environment as its world to then

45:19

responds so the world has meaning for it um these are the ideas that taken up and

45:26

developed in having you seek phenomology by people like Heidegger but yeah we've

45:31

also in the case of humans got with worlds on Mid Falcons and

45:37

eigenbuild and the software achieve through reflection

45:43

um but the notion of the surrounding World um was also the core of efforts to

45:49

naturalize the phenomenology so it's um a core idea of this more humanistic

45:57

approach um to understanding what life is um what puts provided was a way

46:04

rigorously characterizing what was involved in in the transformation or the the defining of elements in your

46:12

environment as science equating the notion of that meaningful

46:17

world has a world of science that you then respond to the audience's response to yeah

46:24

a person's been like Whitehead um mathematician a major figure in the

46:31

development of symbolic logic uh steeped in the history of philosophy um but he characterized himself to

46:39

William James as a selenium of some stripe unlike Wright had been influenced by

46:45

idealism defended a kind of realism which is confusing but that's how it is

46:52

um he defended um metaphysics and I get the basic categories of first and secondness and

46:58

thirdness there's actually influenced by dialectical thinking um and he argued that the Emporia is a

47:04

most thought based on dualisms about virtue of always thinking in diets

47:10

rather than Triads so um in characterizing logic he argued

47:16

that there's not only deduction and induction but also abduction which is the creative

47:22

component where people conjecture to make sense of what

47:28

that experience or would overcome contradictions and their previous ideas using Keppra as an example somebody

47:36

looking at the observations of Tico Abra and coming to the inclusion that you could account for is observations if you

47:43

saw the sun as the center of the solar system and the orbits being elliptical

47:50

rather than circular um

47:55

that had a big influence on either development and philosophy of science in

48:01

hospital um Lord Russell Hanson patterns of Discovery

48:07

um but it's um the audience were taken up beyond that and first himself

48:14

um suggested that a huge amounts huge areas of what we understand about the

48:19

world could be understood through um his logic which he then characterized as

48:27

semiotics um so semiosis was triadically as involving

48:34

a sign an object and and an interpretant and that's been triadic allow sport

48:41

continual further development as each interpreter becomes a scientific

48:46

efforts to understand the object a person literally understood what's

48:52

involved in interpreting ideas in the mind but later on provided a much more General definite general definition as

48:59

that which mediates between an object and an interpreted since it is both determined by the object relatively to

49:06

the interpretent interpret determines the interpretent in reference to the

49:12

object in such ways as to cause The Interpreter to be determined by the object through the mediations of sign so

49:18

it's a long definition but if you understand it you can see that it's essentially a process in nature

49:24

involving a very complex form of causation and that's very much in accordance with

49:30

Charlene's thinking um so it's on that process that the um

49:36

prior semantitions could take up versus work and rethink

49:42

um Jacob front of school's ideas but in doing so it may also extended it far further versus suggestions arguing that

49:51

The Interpreter could not just be a symbol an idea but it could be an action

49:57

so you think about you know organism interpreting situations the action being

50:03

an interpreter which also becomes an assigned rather organisms or for itself

50:10

not only that you can also have visited something else as well the generation of form can be seen as an interpretant so a

50:17

plant developing in a certain way is really an interpreter

50:23

um that is growing towards light and towards the ground and then you've got

50:28

endosomiosis is something the communication that takes place within the organism and interpreting lots of

50:35

what's involved in DNA [Music]

50:40

um being assigned a vehicle didn't you I mean the price of magicians use the term sign vehicle

50:46

um a person sort of didn't but anyway um they analyzed this

50:52

and in the process were highly critical of the idea that you could particularly

50:58

hofmeyer you could categorize this as you know DNA just encoding information

51:04

um it's something that involves interpret and interpretent

51:09

um and uh the relationship information that was acceptable to hofmeyer was

51:14

um Gregory Brighton's notion of the difference that makes a difference it was always understood in relationship to

51:19

the whole organism so it's a much more holistic approach

51:25

than you get in the information scientists and then just a quick time check for you

51:31

we're at about a little bit a little bit over 45 minutes so I don't know

51:39

um so the um the reverse

51:44

um ready that's taken up by the biosemite digitals they Embrace Patty's work on constraints talking about

51:51

semiotic constraints and characterizing emergence and semiotic scaffolding leading to new more complex levels of

51:58

organization on that basis um they're

52:04

um the reactions to it though within the movement some of them wanting to become

52:09

more acceptable to mainstream science and more happier to embrace the notion

52:14

of information and focus on codes others about radical according for Bio

52:20

hermeneutics influenced by cardigan gadana um now

52:27

um mother is that the um they need to be both more acceptable to

52:34

science mainstream science and need to embrace the insights of the bio human users in

52:40

fact the bioluminesis in my view weren't radical enough because they didn't really give a place to

52:48

narratives in the development of life supposing you think about I mean one of the peculiar features of logicians that

52:56

focus on propositions pretty much in isolation the um you're reacting against

53:01

logical positivism you know pointed out absurdity of that here I suppose

53:07

questions always formatted from the perspective of a theoretical framework which itself can be an answer to a

53:14

broader question so the different propositions are related to each other

53:20

and you can say the same thing about science you know Perth because he was a magician to find particular active

53:27

semiosis and it's unfortunate that the plural semiasis is the same as their singular

53:33

um when your Chinese might be happy with that but um it means that you can't talk

53:39

about them easily but if you think about what's involved in the semiosis in organisms

53:46

you can see that you know the development of um the complex organism in epigenesis is a

53:53

process of responding to a whole range of science the way I try to eliminate it

54:01

was looking at what's involved in the way Builders and innovators built Cathedrals which often took centuries so

54:08

over the individual lifetimes we just superseded by the development of the

54:14

cathedral the people participating in the development didn't have a rigid plan

54:20

they responded to what was going on around the new developments and how you build things that kind of thing and they

54:26

were responding particularly to the signs around them so the signs

54:33

had made each of them by the to their engagement of this much broader project now if you understand

54:40

um you know what's involved in that it's really living out a story of building the cathedral and what I've been

54:47

suggesting is that you can see the same thing involved in the development of an organism the inner semiosis which is

54:54

connected to um the follow School talked about you know the

55:01

surrounding World um being responses to situations where

55:06

the particular instances of stimulus is a part of a broader narrative

55:11

um and the importance of narratives in life was pointed out by

55:16

um Stuart McIntyre and also David Carr I

55:24

think made a very strong Pace that um we're always living out stories and

55:29

the stories we tell made sense of because we're living out stories and we can re-figure those stories

55:35

what I'm suggesting is that this is what's taking place within organisms they're kind of living out of the story

55:43

now try to argue for that position um seems to me that you the

55:50

person by the semiticians haven't done Justice to the um you know what's really

55:56

going on I mean they haven't fully embraced um the kind of ideas that were taken up by Warrington and what you really need

56:03

to do is synthesize the ideas of whatington who called for something like bio symbiotics right at the end of his

56:10

four conferences and and this person brought some addicts and then you can

56:17

see that the sign you know if you look at DNA what is it I mean you know

56:22

information science talks about you know how you can get so much through a channel

56:27

um through um you know cable or whatever trying to characterize that in

56:33

abstraction of this information but it's like looking at a page of print on a paper and saying how many

56:39

shapes you can sort of identify on the page it's meaningless unless you see

56:46

this as writing that has to be interpreted it's only in relationship to it's being interpreted that it can be

56:51

seen as information and I think that this is a feature of science the science

56:57

always have to be understood in terms of the broader Fields um that uh

57:04

um that they're part of and they're associated with the you know switching

57:10

from One path to another whatever you can see that this is um where signs are really important and

57:17

you can see how you know science and the environment uh for instance a particular sign was sent off I think it is other

57:24

horned grasshopper can lead to Old transformation of the morphogenesis of

57:29

the grasshopper so that it develops into a locust rather than a grasshopper with every part of the grasshop would be

57:36

slightly different than it would have been otherwise but you can see from that you know the creativity involved in that semiosis and

57:44

the semiosis being involved with a whole lot of levels of different

57:50

instances of semiasis associated with the different uh fields and subfields

57:55

each of those fields having partial autonomy been constrained by their environment

58:02

and considerance but not being reducible to them and relating that back to the National concretions you know as an

58:08

imminent causation I think that's really important we're also appreciating whether you know the feeling that's so

58:14

important to Whitehead ends has its place you know it's when you eliminate any appreciation of that imminent

58:20

causation the notion of something having a feeling becomes meaningless but once

58:26

you've got that in place then it doesn't it's not a lot difficult and you know to appreciate that and appreciate that's

58:33

connected to the science having meaning so this leads to

58:40

um you know defense of that motion of narrative and the idea was that um

58:45

biasmaticians can give a place to mathematics and as kind of symbiosis and

58:52

the causal relationships that are associated with that but also to that more creative side of things associated

58:59

with narrative and you can combine the two when there has been efforts to develop a um

59:06

um a semiotic notion of mathematics based on purse and modeling by myself done

59:13

easy and Mariana even though it was himself didn't

59:19

characterize mathematics through semiotics and that links up with the work of or utilize the work of people

59:26

like lakov on the role of metaphors and liberation of metaphors in developing

59:31

mathematics fitting versus idea of diagrammatic reasoning

59:38

um so my work was sort of saying that that's great and that can

59:44

um allow the biosynapticians to appreciate providing they integrate their ideas

59:51

with what engine's ideas developed by category Theory um and then at the same time you can

59:58

recognize this Persian approach to neurotology as opposed to a

1:00:04

structuralist or a hermeneutic phenomologist approach in my view be

1:00:09

superior to both of those and giving a place to the inside so both of them so that's what my work has been involved in

1:00:15

trying to make sense of that and I'm not sure that I've been all that convincing

1:00:21

I'll go over a talk that the biosemiotics conference in last year in

1:00:26

Czech Republic I'm not sure how it went down I really feel that I've got a lot

1:00:31

more work to do in this um but uh that's that's where it stands

1:00:38

and the audio is that with that synthesis of warrington's theoretical trajectory and biosyntheticians you've

1:00:46

got a synthesis of um um process philosophy the Percy and the

1:00:53

whiteheading process philosophy growing upon other ideas which are consistent with the Challenger and tradition and it

1:01:00

really does overcome that opposition between the humanities and the Sciences by putting narratives right down in

1:01:07

nature as part of life

1:01:13

that's it thank you so much Aaron

Dialogue | Gare & Segal

1:01:19

both for the historical account of uh the sort of

1:01:25

stream of influences that some of us may not have known about and also for the theoretical proposals uh to to move the

1:01:32

ball forward um it strikes me that uh in in Whitehead's

1:01:39

own historical account as as you know um in science in the modern world he doesn't

1:01:44

do justice to or wasn't aware of uh the contributions that shelling made in the

1:01:53

uh early 19th late 18th early 19th century to the kind of process um

1:02:00

philosophy and and philosophy of nature that he himself would take up in the 20th century

1:02:05

um and your work is helping to correct that and

1:02:11

um carrying forward this uh work of archeology that that you're

1:02:17

doing I've also been trying to cement shelling in in the lineage of process

1:02:22

philosophy um to point out the continuity there I think it helps illuminate what

1:02:28

shelling was doing to compare him to Whitehead and vice versa so there's so many so many questions I

1:02:35

could ask you and there's there's a very active um conversation in the chat that hopefully

1:02:41

I can draw from as well I think my first question for you would be in regards to uh Pythagoras and

1:02:48

pythagoreanism and the role that mathematics plays in

1:02:55

metaphysics um it seems to me that for Pythagoras and the pythagoreans there was not yet

1:03:02

this sharp bifurcation between say the quantitative and the qualitative and

1:03:08

that uh the pythagoreans obviously felt there

1:03:13

was a very close connection between number and music for example yeah uh and

1:03:20

the idea of ratio as a relationship um that in some sense was was an

1:03:26

aesthetic relationship a Harmony as it were and that the meanings of numbers had to do with these types of

1:03:32

relationships and it was not the kind of calculative quantitative form of

1:03:37

mathematics that we might be more used to in the modern world and so I wonder if there's anything salvageable in the

1:03:45

Pythagorean tradition I don't know you have to salvage that because you have to

1:03:50

appreciate just how important the development mathematics was development of their understanding of the world the

1:03:56

problem is to avoid that permittian and tendency so amenities was really strong

1:04:01

influence but Pythagoras and if you think about principle of sufficient

1:04:07

reason he conclusion he came to understand the world through mathematics is this just one little change and

1:04:14

difference and so on or Illusions since then I defended that pointing out the um paradoxes when you do give a place to

1:04:21

change and you can't make sense of it um you look at the atomas and they were saying okay well how can we have the

1:04:29

appearance of change um with Humanity so what they said there's a whole lot of community and

1:04:35

ones that move in relation to each other so you've got the atoms and the void and

1:04:41

I was sort of pointed out you know that the boy does nothing how can there be any difficult distance

1:04:48

incoherence to that and you can trace you know all these developments the introductor of the motion is displaced

1:04:54

by telezio was dealing with that problem with Aristotle would argued against the atomas by saying well actually they're

1:05:01

located in space so this place is called an ontological status and it will you

1:05:07

know brilliantly to hear them Newton's philosophy and that's some you know the problematic aspect of Newton's

1:05:13

philosophy that it was so coherent that it becomes really difficult to overcome

1:05:19

um but then yeah Newton sort of said that um spacemith is a sensory of the deity

1:05:26

and through which God was active and so when Maxwell was looking at this defending field there he pointed out

1:05:32

well Newton was really a field he was so it was a vulgarization that ended up

1:05:37

coming to dominate yeah I suppose I can see the line from Parmenides saying that being is to a

1:05:45

view of mathematics as merely logical tautologies um and that there's a there's a need to

1:05:53

uh resurrect I think uh I mean in Whitehead's work you get a more aesthetic sense of the mathematical

1:05:59

realm as uh not detached from Aesthetics

1:06:04

I think and and it's a very powerful um tool but I think we've allowed it to

1:06:10

become the master perhaps and I hear you saying um that semiotics can provide us with a

1:06:18

um a sort of General language in terms of which both the humanities and the the role of

1:06:25

narrative as well as mathematics can begin to to cohere and to be understood

1:06:31

as descriptions of the same universe uh right for providing um you know become the

1:06:38

limitations of the biosemite digital display integrating with the um you know Waddington

1:06:44

traditional Fields I think is really important the notion of fears is really interesting because you know in that

1:06:50

whole debate about compound individuals um various people came up with salute

1:06:55

Solutions one of them I think it was Joseph early argued that you needed to give a place to fields in what's

1:07:02

involved in concretions you know the concretions involving appreciation by you know for occasion of the field

1:07:09

within which it's functioning um and I think that uh I found that pretty appealing I mean I haven't spent

1:07:16

a lot of time working on it but because Washington just used the term feel it seems to me that that's a good thing to

1:07:22

build upon and it's lacking in um in person bio semiotics and I think

1:07:28

you've got the same problem that led Charles hard to want to move from Perth

1:07:34

to Whiter you know you edit it or person's work and found it deficient well you've got the same kind of

1:07:40

deficiency I think in Nebraska's you need to incorporate that um we're at Helium

1:07:46

development but the notion of fields itself that's you know really um customers here so you can talk about

1:07:53

that um you know really complex notion um and Ruth along with um

1:08:01

Stuart Kaufman you know want to give a place to real possibilities

1:08:07

um your potentialities um as part of those fields which I think is the right way to go

1:08:15

so just a few weeks ago at the 50th Anniversary conference at the center for process studies there was a presentation

1:08:22

by Benjamin chica on biosemiotics and

1:08:28

he offered it as a friendly challenge to pan experientialists uh

1:08:34

by arguing that you know we really shouldn't be trying to push experience all the way down but rather recognize it

1:08:42

as emerging at the level of life and that the biosemiticians give us a powerful way of

1:08:48

um of understanding and and and grappling with the role that experience as a kind of interpretation might play

1:08:55

um in the Living World um I've always understood purse to be

1:09:01

like Whitehead um if not a pan experientialist at least a pan semi-auticist in the sense that

1:09:08

sign interpretation goes all the way down and so some kind of um experience if you want I don't know

1:09:14

if purse would use that exact word uh goes all the way down and so when you think about speaking of the limitations

1:09:20

of the biosemiotic Paradigm um do you think that there is

1:09:27

um any is there something important being lost when we are unable to recognize that the phys the pre-living

1:09:33

or non-living physical world is also engaged in activities of sign

1:09:38

interpretation and if that is the case what does that mean about the the extent of experience in in the universe yeah

1:09:47

um I think Perth talked about feeling rather than experience I think that somehow you have to get experience right

1:09:52

at the beginning because um otherwise you just can't account for its emergence and that's where I was saying

1:09:59

that um just the um imminent causation of fields and must imply some something

1:10:05

like feeling and holding the whole thing together um in a very Proto way I like the word

1:10:10

protest that we should have sort of minimize it and then talk about how it might develop

1:10:17

um the um the biocentricians for the most part um I get for a parasymatics being

1:10:25

the beginning of semiasis I mean life beginning the semiasis so some wanted to

1:10:31

extend it through the entire crossbar sign Bria I think I wanted to do that which was reacted to by others who

1:10:39

regarded that as leading people to dismiss it as an unscientific

1:10:45

um I've sort of not really gone into it much

1:10:50

um as far as white as it's concerned you know he was interpreted by some as a parent cyclist

1:10:56

and rejected the idea that he was a Panasonic so that's why people took up the mountain of pen experientialism

1:11:02

um I'm happy with the notion of feeling um and would like to think of experience as a

1:11:09

you know more developed kind of feeling but I haven't really um gone into it much

1:11:16

um living in an environment which is really hostile to these ideas I tend to you know take my stand on positions

1:11:22

where I can most easily defend what I'm arguing for and then build out from

1:11:27

there in the case of um Barbieri you know he's promoting code biology and

1:11:33

very critical of purse um so the paper that I gave in Moscow in 2019 was an effort to defend person by

1:11:42

our semiotics in a way that couldn't be dismissed as somehow unscientific by talking about the notion

1:11:47

of conversation so on that basically I he got me to write a paper for a special edition of

1:11:54

the journal um by assistance then he later on asked me to write another paper and since I

1:12:01

was working on narratives which is related to her musics that was just too

1:12:06

far for him he took my proposal um this is what you've got you know this

1:12:12

this constant struggle and then promoting the notion of narrative I've decided to focus on the epigenesis of

1:12:20

multi-star organisms because I think that's where it is code biology proves to be limited he talks about codes as

1:12:26

being a kind of natural convention you know there's no necessary relationship

1:12:32

between the DNA and the proteins that produce that has to be a kind of rhinot type that kind of mechanism that

1:12:39

transforms the you know the order to get in the DNA into the particular kind of proteins but

1:12:46

a feature of molecular organisms is clearly the ability of the organism as a whole to utilize DNA the same string of

1:12:54

DNA to produce different proteins which you know sort of doesn't fit as characterization of what's going on when

1:13:02

other carefully this work but it's clear that you know it's really weak in that area so that's what I've decided to

1:13:08

focus on um yeah it's it's a difficult

1:13:13

issue um because we both want to recognize and Grant what is unique about living

1:13:20

organisms that's uh not present in the non-living world and yet we don't want to so emphasize that difference that it

1:13:27

becomes impossible to understand how life could have come out of physics and chemistry and there are very few

1:13:34

um approaches that get that balance right I think uh yeah I think it's really important to acknowledge that

1:13:40

distinction between life and one life because we're first with you know working in the global ecosystem and you

1:13:46

think that it's necessary to appreciate that this is some people regard that as soon as

1:13:52

possibly incorrect because it implies some kind of elitism you know aren't really opposed to the

1:13:59

um posthumous but I tend to take an egocentric view um but then appreciating you know the

1:14:06

importance of different life forms is some more sentient than others and humans you know being cultural business

1:14:13

somehow um having a unique status

1:14:18

yeah so one last question for you um thinking more about the domain of

1:14:25

mind and Consciousness there's a lot of talk a lot of concern uh a lot of

1:14:32

um almost hysteria right now about the new chat GPT um AI uh applications and

1:14:40

um some people seem to me to be um um

1:14:46

on the verge of claiming that these that these machines are already in a sense conscious and a lot of this has to do

1:14:52

with the ambiguity of the term information as you were highlighting um because if human beings are

1:14:57

understood is if our own Consciousness is understood as just a kind of complicated information processing then

1:15:04

there's no real huge hurdle for uh algorithms to LEAP in

1:15:10

order to become just like we are um and you know personally I'm less concerned about machines becoming

1:15:17

conscious than I am about human beings who think that machines are conscious yeah um and so I wonder what what what would

1:15:23

you want to um bring into this conversation that's so topical right now

1:15:28

well the brother said right at the beginning you know this effort to add information look at us as information

1:15:34

processing cyborgs has been the prime thing that has to be overcome so that's just part of that whole world view

1:15:42

associated with post-humanism the idea that we should replace humans with machines

1:15:47

um admittedly all of in this book on shrinking the technosphere at a brilliant piece on you know this kind of

1:15:54

thinking how um parents would first of all or people as they got sick would sort of cut off

1:16:01

their heads and have um cyborg better organized cybernetics

1:16:07

bodies and later on that decide that they could download their brains onto computers then they would do away with

1:16:15

the entirely that have children first of all that have children and cut off their heads to begin with to make life easier

1:16:20

and attach them to computers and then later on they'd say all you know the heads a bit problematic will just

1:16:29

relaxing the stupidity of it um I think you know people like rosin

1:16:36

are important for saying what's wrong with that we're thinking you know there's a kind of life itself it just

1:16:44

isn't computable in that way yeah yeah absolutely I mean it seems to

1:16:50

me that while machines are becoming uh more and more capable at mimicking

1:16:55

human language human beings are becoming more and more machine-like uh in our

1:17:02

in our Communications and so uh it says though we're meeting that's a problem well I mean Perth talked about this you

1:17:08

know I talked about when you you said that you know you've got Minds you know there's this feeling and so on and it's

1:17:14

all spontaneity possibilities and then it gets habits when the habits become

1:17:19

absolute then you've got matter and you can see that people are transformed the episodes from one to America and

1:17:25

becoming you know this is associated with managerialism you know controlling people so that they become predictable

1:17:31

cobs in the machine then you can replace them with machines

1:17:37

right