03.05.08
What is evolution? What indeed? Consider the eonic effect…
I and a diverse group of people got a question in email, one that we are supposed to answer in a single sentence. The question is,
What is evolution?
You know, Ernst Mayr wrote a whole book to answer that question on a simple level, and I’m supposed to have the hubris to answer that in one sentence? OK, knowing full well that it is grossly inadequate, here’s my short answer:
Evolution is a well-confirmed process of biological change that produces diversity and coherent functionality by a variety of natural mechanisms.
Go ahead, you people try to answer it in one sentence in the comments. It’s harder than it looks, especially since I feel the itch to expand each word into a lecture.
A one-line definition of evolution is an interesting exercise, but in fact it shows our fixation on simplistic explanations, mostly Darwinian reductionist. These oversimplifications are then used to reduce everything else to the rubric of explanation. But a fallacy lurks in this process. The first part of the fallacy is the assumption that we can put a handle on evolution. Because we apply this reasoning to unseen events in deep time we never get the right feedback with the facts, in a word a reality check.
In fact, I doubt if there is such a thing as a general process description of evolution. Any generatlization will always fail, but ‘evolution’ can reveal itself it many different ways at different levels of reality.
I recommend an examination of the eonic effect. There we see a process of evolution in relation to history, one that has no direct connection to genetic evolution. The myth of purely genetic evolution will die hard. If we examine the factor of evolution in history we discover something that outstrips simple process explanations, in terms of laws. In fact, we can only proceed descriptively to see a series of processes that change over time and manifest themselves in a series of complex successive transformations.
The idea that all this complexity can be annexed as a footnote to physical/chemical/genetic explanations is clearly false and pernicious to our views of what evolution is.
Stephen P. Smith said,
March 5, 2008 at 10:08 pm
In defining evolution it is important to consider the power of the negative argument; Socrates’ dialectic comes to mind.
First consider the lowly behavior of dishonesty; say thievery. Thievery is as much to put oneself ahead of another; i.e., taking from another to put one self ahead. This lowly behavior comes with egocentric projections that source an uncultivated desire. Nothing more need be said, however, the Darwinist will claim much more.
The Darwinist will break in and claim that the thievery is explained by evolutionary psychology: it was an early adaptation that promoted self centeredness, as only the self-centered can survive and pass genes on to the next generation. The Darwinist will claim that reason will dictate that self-interest is better promoted by cooperation, however, but that self-interest is still behind the apparent cooperation. The Darwinist uses a negative argument against the lowly that would engage in simple thievery. Yet the Darwinist is unable to engage the apparent self-interest beyond the simple mindset that sees only reproductive adaptation. The Darwinist is found equivocating: the pursuit of self-interest is anticipated by evolutionary psychology; but the Darwinist fails to recognize the ineffable self-interest as the precondition to natural selection, and as a precondition the ineffable desire finds itself unexplained by natural selection. In other words, the Darwinist is unable to apply the negative argument to his own beloved theory for the simple reason that the Darwinist is found making the same mistake as the thieve: projecting egocentric desires on to the beloved theory while claiming more than can be delivered.
Darwin’s theory fails because it fails to consider its own self-love: the ineffable is left again unexplained except that the self-lover is completely ignorant of this failure. The self-lover continues to overextend their beloved theory, in some cases creating much injury in the overextension (note the “coefficient of murder”). The recognition of resulting injury is what Hegel calls the “cunning of reason,” but note that this recognition is again possible because (and in spite) of the innate desire that is found beyond the perception and conception of Darwinists. To see the power of the negative argument we must come to terms with our own self-love; we must tame our own desires. And the taming of desire is the very evolution that cries out for a better definition. But as my expression is again a projection of my own self-love, it must be that the ineffable is again permitted its escape. Otherwise, I would have fooled myself with my own desires, and I would have painted a picture unworthy of a greater love. Nevertheless, the Logic is found in-itself and for-itself, as Hegel demanded.
The ineffable that escapes is what I am calling vitalism. Everything else is a word game. But the vital tension also gives meaning to our words (beyond the DNA of cells), as what I am describing is also semiotics: first there is the felt irritation; and then the felt euphoria as the tension returns to source. We define words because we can feel: in the positive sense of extension; and in the negative sense that brings withdraw. Feeling is an oscillation. Knowing the source of desire turns evolution into transcendence; in a way that extends beyond the best interpretations of Kant and Husserl.
nemo said,
March 7, 2008 at 12:13 am
The evolutionary process I am pointing to is something very much larger than even the individual’s evolution. ‘Eonic Evolution’ as explored in the study of the eonic effect is a definite macroevolutionary process thant encompasses human evolution at the level of civilizations, and beyond that entire populations in a species spectrum. The eonic model is carefully contstructed behind a Kantian firewall to preempt speculation.
A problem with the term ‘vitalism’ is the conceptual fatigue in the word itself. The term is not ‘fresh’ after all the debates with reductionists. Vitalism has discredited itself almost as much as scientism.
The early perceptions at the dawn of biology did however produce the original views of the vitalists, and they deserve a clearer place in the history of biology. But we need to change terminology or else make clear how one’s usage differs from the earlier, in the context of the derailment of vitalism into metaphysical overreach.
Stephen P. Smith said,
March 7, 2008 at 11:55 am
The individuals evolution, that is seemingly conflicted with the whole beyond the individual, is already resolved by the fact that biological symbiosis is a reality.
nemo said,
March 7, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Perhaps, but I merely wished to point to the highly complex macro process visible in the eonic effect.