1-7
8-14
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29-35
36-42
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57-63
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92-98
99-105
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15-21
22-28
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36-42
43-49
50-56
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71-77
78-84
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113-119
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provided the basis of science—the deterministic formulas of Newton’s theory of
gravitation and the more recent probabilistic formulations of quantum
physics—give no indication that there should be such a thing as life. In fact
these formulations are so successful that there is reason to think they will
ultimately show that what we call life needs no principles not already
recognized by science. With such an assurance, science cannot be expected to
treat life as any different from the other marvels that it has gone to such effort
to discover and explain.
quantum physics, the principles that make life possible are already implied in
the deterministic formulations of classical physics. The failure to recognize
these implications has made it possible for science to retain its obsolete dogma
that the world is exclusively objective and that everything can be reduced to
particles. It is as though we had been given a flying saucer but were unable to
read the directions and so could not operate it.
readers might prefer to think that life has a spiritual origin and is therefore
separate from science altogether, let me point out that it is to the credit of
science that it can make errors. Without error no learning is possible; the
recognition of error is the basis of progress. We should therefore not abandon
science. It is the major contribution of modern civilization. We should rather
take time to interpret that part of its message that tells us, first, where to find
the basis for free will, and second, how free will through evolution develops the
power to control matter.”38
Universe is the confusion that results when we mix levels of organization.
Arthur Young, Mathematics, Physics & Reality, Robert Briggs Associates, Portland, Oregon, 1990
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cautioned his fellow humans:
world it is necessary to have some just ideas about dimensions or
dimensionality. I will explain briefly by an example. Measurable entities of
different kinds can not be compared directly. Each one must be measured in
terms of a unit of its own kind. A line can have only length and therefore is of
one dimension; a surface has length and width and is therefore said to have
two dimensions; a volume has length, width and thickness and is, therefore,
said to have three dimensions. If we take, for example, a volume—say a cube—
we see that the cube has surfaces and lines and points, but a volume is not a
surface nor a line nor a point. Just as these dimensional differences have an
enormous unrealized importance in practical life, as in the case of taking a
line of five units of length and building upon it a square, the measure of this
square (surface) will not be 5, it will be 25; and the 25 will not be 25 linear
units but 25 square or surface units. If upon this square we build a cube, this
cube will have neither 5 nor 25 for its measure; it will have 125, and this
number will not be so many units of length nor of surface but so many solid or
cubic units.
lengths and areas and volumes, we would wreck all the architectural and
engineering structures of the world.
from direct observation; they are so simple and so important that I cannot
over-emphasize the necessity of grasping them and most especially the
definition of Man. For these simple definitions and especially that of Humanity
will profoundly transform the whole conception of human life in every field of
interest and activity; and, what is more important than all, the definition of
Man will give us a starting point for discovering the natural laws of human
nature—of the human class of life. The definitions of the classes of life
represent the different classes as distinct in respect to dimensionality; and
this is extremely important for no measure of rule of one class can be applied
to the other, without making grave mistakes. For example, to treat a
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certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to
treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties. It is absolutely
essential to grasp that fact if we are ever to have a science of human nature.
line properties—one-dimensional properties—but it has other properties—
two-dimensional properties—and it is these that are peculiar to it, give it its
own character, and make it what it is—a plane and not a line. So animals have
some plant properties—they grow, for example—but animals have other
properties—autonomous mobility, for example,—properties of higher
dimensionality or type—and it is these that make animals animalsand not
plants. Just so, human beings have certain animal properties—autonomous
mobility, for example, or physical appetites—but humans have other
properties or propensities—ethical sense, for example, logical sense,
inventiveness, progressiveness—properties or propensities of higher
dimensionality, level, or type—and it is these propensities and powers that
make human beings humanand not animal. When and only when this fact is
clearly seen and keenly realized, there will begin the science of man—the
science and art ofhuman nature—for then and only then we shall begin to
escape from the agelong untold immeasurable evils that come from regarding
and treating human beings as animals, as mere binders of space, and we may
look forward to an ethics, a jurisprudence and economics, a governance—a
science and art of human life and society—based upon the laws of human
nature as the time-binding class of life.
foregoing definitions of the classes of life; they will replace basic errors with
scientific truths of fundamental importance; they will form the basis for
scientific development of a permanent civilization in place of the so-called
civilizations of the past and present. To know the cause of error is to find the
cure.”39
—Alfred Korzybski
, a life long student of living systems, wrote:
Alfred Korzybski,The Manhood of Humanity, E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1921
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are composed of
particles; molecules, of atoms; crystalsand organelles, of molecules. About
at the level of crystallizing viruses, like the tobacco mosaic virus, the subset
of living systems begins. Viruses are necessarily parasitic on cells, so cells are
the lowest level of living systems. Cellsare composed of atoms, molecules, and
multimolecular organelles; organsare composed of cells aggregated into
tissues; organisms, or organs; groups(e.g., herds, flocks, families, teams,
tribes), of organisms; organizations, of groups (and sometimes single
individual organisms); societies, of organizations, groups, and individuals;
and supranational systems,of societies and organizations. Higher levels of
systems may be of mixed composition, living and nonliving. They include
ecological systems, planets, solar systems, galaxies, and so forth. It is
beyond my competence and the scope of this book to deal with the
characteristics—whatever they may be—of systems below and above those
levels which include the various forms of life, although others have done so.
This book, in presenting general systems behavior theory, is limited to the
subset of living systems—cells, organs, organisms, groups, organizations,
societies, and supranational systems.
fitted neatly into each other like Chinese boxes. The facts are more
complicated. I have distinguished seven levels of living systems for analysis
here, but I do not argue that there are exactly these seven, no more and no
less. For example, one might conceivably separate tissue and organ into two
separate levels. Or one might, as Anderson and Carter have suggested,
separate the organization and the community into two separate levels—local
communities, urban and rural, are composed of multiple organizations, just as
societies are composed of multiple local communities, states, or provinces. Or
one might maintain that the organ is not a level, since there are no
totipotential organs.
are derived from a long scientific tradition of empirical observation of the
entire gamut of living systems. This extensive experience of the community of
scientific observers has led to a consensus that there are certain fundamental
forms of organization of living matter-energy. Indeed the classical division of
subject matter among the various disciplines of the life or behavior sciences is
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there are in the world many similar complexly organized accumulations of
matter-energy, each identified by these characteristics: (a) Physical proximity
of its units. (b) Similar size in physical space of its units, significantly
different from the size of the units of the next lower or higher levels. (c)
Similarity of its constituent units. Such organized accumulations of matter-
energy have multiple constituent units, ordinarily a preponderance of their
components, which are systems of the next lower level, i.e, just as molecules
are made up of two or more atoms and atoms are composed of two or more
particles, so groups are made up of two or more organisms, and organs are
composed of two or more cells. This is the chief way to determine to what level
any system belongs.
avoid confusion. Every discussion should begin with an identification
of the level of reference, and the discourse should not change to
another level without a specific statement that this is occurring.
Systems at the indicated level are called systems. Those at the level above are
suprasystems, and those at the next higher level, suprasuprasystems.
Below the level of reference are subsystems, and below them are
subsubsystems. For example, if one is studying a cell, its organelles are the
subsystems, and the tissue or organ is its suprasystem, unless it is a
freeliving cell whose suprasystem includes other living systems with which it
interacts.”40
—James Grier Miller
, a neuroscientist writes about human consciousness and the
problems that can result from mixing levels of organization:
conscious aspects of our mental lives? Or is the invocation of QM in the
consciousness context just another mistaken instance of suggesting that one
area in which mysterious effects are thought to lurk—chaos, self-organizing
automata, fractals, economics, the weather—might be related to another,
equally mysterious one? Most such associations certainly conflate the
unrelated, and when the two areas are at opposite ends of the spectrum of
enigmatic phenomena, the argument is particularly suspicious.
James G. Miller, Living Systems, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1978
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scientific strategy, as long as the basics are at an appropriate level of
organization. In their reductionist enthusiasm, the consciousness
physicists act as if they haven’t heard of one of the broad characteristics of
science: levels of explanation(frequently related to levels of mechanism).
The cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter gives a nice example of levels when
he points out that the cause of a traffic jam is not to be found within a single
car or its elements. Traffic jams are an example of self-organization, more
easily recognized when stop-and-go achieves an extreme form of quasi-
stability—the crystallization known as gridlock. An occasional traffic jam may
be due to component failure, but faulty spark plugs aren’t a very illuminating
level of analysis—not when compared to merging traffic, comfortable car
spacing, driver reaction times, traffic signal settings, and the failure of drivers
to accelerate for hills.
jams—unless they provide useful analogies. Indeed, packing principles,
surface-to-volume ratios, crystallization, chaos, and fractals are seen at
multiple levels of organization. That the same principle is seen at several
levels does not, however, mean that it constitutes a level-spanning
mechanism: an analogy does not a mechanism make.
building blocks—such as crystals—emerge, Since we are searching for some
useful analogies to help explain our mental lives, it is worth examining how
levels of explanation have functioned elsewhere. The tumult of random
combinations occasionally produces a new form of organization. Some forms,
such as the hexagonal cells that appear in the cooking porridge if you forget to
stir it, are ephemeral. Other forms may have a “ratchet” that prevents
backsliding once some new order is achieved. While crystals are the best
known of these quasi-stable forms, molecular conformations are another, and
it is even possible that there are quasi-stable forms at intermediate levels—
such as microtubule quantum states where the consciousness physicists
would like the action to be.
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cards and the higher forms of organization dissolve (which is one way of
thinking about death).
persistent levels of organization: examples include chemical bonds, molecules
and their self-organization, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry,
membranes and their ion channels, synapses and their neurotransmitters,
the neuron itself, the neural circuit, columns and modules, larger-scale
cortical dynamics, and so on. In neuroscience, one is always aware of these
levels, because of the intense rivalry between neuroscientists working at
adjacent levels.
certain types of synapses. But a more appropriate level of inquiry into
consciousness is probably at a level of organization immediately subjacent to
that of perception and planning: likely (in my view), cerebral-cortex circuitry
and dynamic self-organization involving firing patterns within a constantly
shifting quiltwork of postage-stamp-sized cortical regions. Consciousness, in
any of its varied connotations, certainly isn’t located down in the basement of
chemistry or the subbasement of physics. This attempt to leap, in a single
bound, from the subbasement of quantum mechanics to the penthouse of
consciousness is what I call the Janitor’s Dream.
way as crystals were once essential to radios, or spark plugs are still essential
to traffic jams. Necessary, but not sufficient. Interesting in its own right, but a
subject related only distantly to our mental lives.”41
—William H. Calvin
systems are determined by our existing model of reality. Until the discoveries of
William H. Calvin, HOW BRAINS THINK—Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now,
BasicBooks/HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 199
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