Janus (34 page)

 

 

A few pages earlier, I referred to 'the active striving of living matter
towards the optimal realization of the planet's evolutionary potential'.
In a similar vein, the veteran biologist and Nobel prize winner Albert
Szent-Györgyi proposed to replace 'negentropy', and its negative
connotations, by the positive term
syntropy
, which he defines as
an 'innate drive in living matter to perfect itself'. He also called
attention to its equivalent on the psychological level as 'a drive towards
synthesis, towards growth, towards wholeness and self-perfection'. [25]

 

 

What all this amounts to is, frankly speaking, a revival of
vitalism
,
which the reductionist orthodoxy had branded as a dark superstition. The
origin of the concept dates back to Aristotle's
entelechy
, the vital
principle or function which turns mere substance into a living organism
and at the same time strives towards perfection. Since Aristotle, the
concept of a vital force which infuses life into inanimate substance
was taken up by various authors in various guises: Galen's and Kepler's
facultas formatrix
; Galvani's 'life force', Leibniz's 'monads'; Goethe's
Gestaltung
, Bergson's
élan vital
. At the beginning of our century,
the term
entelechy
was adopted by the German biologist Hans Driesch,
whose classic experiments in embryology and regeneration convinced him
that these phenomena cannot be explained by the laws of physics and
chemistry alone, while the opposite school of 'mechanists' claimed that
they could be so explained. Owing to the rapid advances in biochemistry,
vitalism kept losing ground as an unnecessary hypothesis with a
mystical flavour -- until the pendulum started to swing in the opposite
direction. Schrödinger's revolutionary concept of negentropy, published in
1944, which found such universal acclaim, reintroduced vitalism through
the back door, as it were.* But it should be called
neo-vitalism
,
to distinguish it from its pre -- scientific forerunners. Its basic
message has been summed up with admirable simplicity by Szent-Györgyi
(who can hardly be accused of an unscientific attitude):

 

If elementary particles are put together to form an atomic nucleus,
something new is created which can no longer be described in terms of
elementary particles. The same happens over again if you surround this
nucleus by electrons and build an atom, when you put atoms together
to form a molecule, etc. Inanimate nature stops at the low level of
organization of simple molecules. But living systems go on and combine
molecules to form macromolecules, macromolecules to form organelles
(such as nuclei, mitochondria, chloroplasts, ribosomes or membranes)
and eventually put all these together to form the greatest wonder of
creation, a cell with its astounding inner regulations. Then it goes
on putting cells together to form 'higher organisms' and increasingly
more complex individuals, of which you are an example. At every
step new, more complex and subtle qualities are created, and so in
the end we are faced with properties which have no parallel in the
inanimate world, though the basic rules remain unchanged. [26]

 

* Other terms were coined which amounted to reinstating vitalism in
a respectable disguise: thus the German biologist Woltereck proposed
'anamorphosis' for the trend in nature towards the emergence of more
and more complex forms, while L. L. Whyte called it the 'morphic
principle'.

 

 

By the 'basic rules' he means the laws of physics and chemistry which
retain their validity in the realm of biological phenomena but are
insufficient to explain them, because they 'have no parallel in the
inanimate world'. Hence the postulate of syntropy (or negentropy or
élan vital) as an 'innate drive in living matter to perfect itself' --
or towards an optimal actualization of its evolutionary potential.

 

 

In the present theory this 'innate drive' derives from the integrative
tendency'. It is more specific than the terms I have just quoted, because
it is inherent in the conception of hierarchic order, and manifested
on every level, from the symbiosis of organelles within the cell, to
ecological systems and human societies. Its opponent, the self-asserting
tendency, is equally ubiquitous on every level. It provides a clue to the
puzzling conservativeness of the evolutionary process as reflected in
the phenomena of homology, the stability of species, and the slow rate
of change, the survival of 'living fossils' (also known as 'persistent
types'); and lastly, when not held in check by the integrative tendency,
in the blind alleys of stagnation and over-specialization.
For we have seen (
Chapter II, 4
) that the
self-assertive tendency is indeed conservative, intent on preserving
and asserting the individuality of the holon '. . . in the here and
now of existing conditions, whereas the integrative tendency has the
dual function of co-ordinating the constituent parts of a system in
its existing state, and of generating new levels of organization in
evoloving hierarchies -- whether biological, social, or cognitive. Thus
the self-assertive tendency is oriented towards the present, concerned
with self-maintenance, whereas the integrative tendency may be said to
work both for the present and towards the future.'

 

 

Evolution has been compared to a journey from an unknown origin towards an
unknown destination, a sailing along a vast ocean; but we can at least
chart the route which carried us from the sea-cucumber stage to the
conquest of the moon; and there is no denying that there is a wind
which makes the sails move. But whether we say that the wind, coming
from the distant past, pushes the boat along, or whether we say that it
drags us along into the future, is a matter of choice. The purposiveness
of all vital processes, the strategy of the genes and the power of the
exploratory drive in animal and man, all seem to indicate that the pull
of the future is as real as the pressure of the past. Causality and
finality are complementary principles in the sciences of life; if you
take out finality and purpose you have taken the life out of biology as
well as psychology.*

 

* Even the elusive Waddington, in one of his later books, argued in
favour of a quasi-finalistic view'. [28]

 

If this be called vitalism, I have no objection, and shall quote in reply
a profound remark by that arch-vitalist, Henri Bergson:

 

The vitalist principle may indeed not explain much, but it is at least
a sort of label affixed to our ignorance, so as to remind us of this
occasionally, while mechanism invites us to ignore that ignorance.

 

But the last word in this chapter belongs to Professor Grassé:

 

The joint efforts of paleontology and of a molecular biology purged of
dogmatism, ought to lead eventually to the discovery of the precise
mechanism of evolution -- but possibly without revealing to us the
causes which determine the direction of evolutionary lineages, and the
purposefulness of structures, functions and vital cycles. It seems
possible that confronted with these problems, biology is reduced to
helplessness and must hand over to metaphysics. [27]

 

 

 

 

PART FOUR

 

 

New Horizons

 

 

 

XII

 

 

FREE WILL IN A HIERARCHIC CONTEXT

 

 

 

1

 

 

'If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter,' remarked Pascal, 'the history of
the world would have been different.' And if his contemporary, Descartes,
had kept a poodle, the history of philosophy would have been different.
The poodle would have taught Descartes that contrary to his doctrine,
animals are not machines, and hence the human body is not a machine,
forever separated from the mind, which he thought to be located in the
pineal gland.

 

 

A diametrically opposite view is summed up in another unforgettable
aphorism of Bergson's: 'The unconsciousness of a falling stone is
something quite different from the unconsciousness of a growing cabbage.'

 

 

Bergson's attitude is close to panpsychism: the theory that some
rudimentary kind of sentience is present throughout the animal kingdom
and even in plants. Some speculatively inclined modern physicists
would attribute a psychic element even to sub-atomic particles. Thus
panpsychism postulates a continuum extending from the growing cabbage
to human self-awareness, while Cartesian dualism regards consciousness
as an exclusive possession of man, and places a kind of Iron Curtain
between matter and mind.

 

 

Panpsychism and Cartesian dualism mark opposite ends of the philosophical
spectrum. I shall not go into the various elaborations to which they
have given rise -- interactionism, parallelism, epiphenomenalism,
identity-hypothesis, and so forth; instead I shall attempt to show that
the concept of the multi-levelled holarchy is well suited to shed some new
light on this very old problem. As we shall see, the hierarchic approach
replaces the panpsychist's continuously ascending curve from cabbage
to man by a whole series of discrete steps -- a staircase instead of a
slope; and it replaces the Cartesian single wall separating mind from
body by a series of swing-gates as it were.

 

 

To start with, everyday experience tells us that consciousness is not
an all-or-nothing affair but a
matter of degrees
. There are levels
of consciousness which form ascending series from the unconsciousness
under an anaesthetic, through the drowsiness induced by milder drugs,
through the performance of complex routines like tying one's shoelaces
automatically with an 'absent mind', through full awareness and
self-awareness to the self's awareness of its awareness of itself --
and so on, without hitting a ceiling.

 

 

In the downward direction we are also faced with a multiplicity of levels
of consciousness or sentience which extend far below the human level.
Ethologists who have a close rapport with animals generally refuse to draw
a line indicating the lower limit of consciousness on the evolutionary
ladder, while neurophysiologists talk of the 'spinal consciousness'
in lower vertebrates and even of the 'protoplasmic consciousness' of
protozoa. To mention a single example: Sir Alister Hardy has given us a
vivid description of Foraminfera -- single-celled miniature sea-animals
related to amoeba, which build elaborate microscopic 'houses' out of
the needle-like speculae of dead sponges -- houses which Hardy calls
'marvels of engineering skill'.
^[1]
Yet these primitive protozoans
have neither eyes nor a nervous system and are but a gelatinous mass of
flowing protoplasm. Thus the hierarchy appears to be open-ended both in
the upward and downward direction.

 

 

To quote an eminent ethologist, W. H. Thorpe:

 

The evidence suggests that at the lower levels of the evolutionary
scale consciousness, if it exists, must be of a very generalized kind,
so to say unstructured; and that with the development of purposive
behaviour and a powerful faculty of attention, consciousness
associated with expectation will become more and more vivid and
precise. [2]

 

However, it is essential to realize that these gradations in the
'structuring, vividness and precision' of consciousness are found not
only along the evolutionary ladder, and in members of the same species
at different stages of their ontogeny, but also within adult individuals
when confronted by different situations. I am referring to the deceptively
trivial fact that one and the same activity -- driving a car -- can be
either performed
automatically
, without conscious awareness of one's
own actions, or accompanied by varying
degrees of awareness
. Driving
along a familiar road with little traffic on it, I can hand over to
the 'automatic pilot' in my nervous system and think about something
else. In other words, the task of controlling and coordinating my driving
performance has been shifted from a higher to a lower level in my mental
hierarchy. Vice versa, overtaking another car requires an
upward
shift
of control to the level of semi-conscious routine; and overtaking in a
tricky situation requires a further shift to full awareness of what I
am doing.

 

 

There are several factors which determine how much, if any, conscious
attention is paid by a person to the activity in which he is engaged.
The most important of these factors in the present context is
habit-formation. While learning a skill we must concentrate on every
detail of what we are doing. We learn laboriously to recognize and name
the printed letters of the alphabet, to ride a bicycle, to hit the right
key on the piano or typewriter. But with increasing mastery and practice,
the typist can let his fingers 'look after themselves'; we read, write,
drive 'automatically', which is another way of saying that the rules which
govern the exercise of the skill are now applied unconsciously. This
condensation of learning into habit may be looked upon as a process
which transforms mental into mechanical activities
-- mind-processes
into machine -- processes. It starts with infancy and never stops.

 

 

This tendency towards the progressive automatization of habits has a
positive side: it conforms to the principle of parsimony. By manipulating
the wheel of the car mechanically, I am able to carry on a conversation;
and if the rules of grammar and syntax did not operate automatically
I could not attend to meaning. But on the other hand the progressive
mechanization of habits and routines threatens to turn us into automata.
Man is not a machine, but most of the day we behave like machines --
or sleepwalkers, without mentally attending to the activities we are
engaged in. This applies not only to manipulative routines -- wielding
knife and fork at table, lighting a cigarette, or signing a letter --
but also to mental activities: one can read a whole paragraph in a boring
book 'absent-mindedly' without taking in a single word. Karl Lashley
once quoted a colleague of his, a professor of psychology, who told him:
'When I have to give a lecture I turn 'my mouth loose and go to sleep.'