The Uphill, the Downhill, & the Corner Round

I have been walking up high of late, in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming.  I haven’t had much time for reading or for this blog, but I did pick up Addy Pross’ What is Life again tonight. 

Pross argues that there is a law governing “dynamic kinetic systems” (i.e., living organisms) that is analogous to the second law of thermodynamics.  Systems governed by the second law tend toward more chemically, physically, and especially thermal stable states.  Here is the second law:

The entropy of an isolated system never decreases. 

That is to say, an isolated system (one in which no additional energy is supplied) tends toward thermal equilibrium.  An ice cube floating in a glass of scotch represents a highly order system (low entropy): the cold and the warm stuff are neatly separated.  As the ice melts, the system becomes steadily less ordered until it reaches equilibrium (high entropy). 

Systems governed by Pross’ analogous law tend toward more stable replication.  Here is Pross’ new law:

Replicating chemical systems will tend to be transformed from (dynamically) kinetically less stable to (dynamically) kinetically more stable. 

This law would underwrite the course of evolution.  Ants, for example, are very kinetically stable so they remain in their form for a very long period in evolutionary history.  Okay. 

All material transformations, including all that go on in living organisms, are governed by the second law.  Only replicators are governed by the Pross law.  Replicators include all organisms but also replicating molecules like RNA. 

Here is an analogy that I think captures this point.  Consider an alley that slopes slightly downhill.  It ends in an intersection with a second alley that slopes from right to left.  A boulder rolling down the first alley will always go left when it reaches the junction, because boulders always roll downhill. 

A man walking down the first alley is just as much subject to the laws of gravity as the boulder.  Nonetheless, the man may turn right at the junction and walk uphill.  In order to accomplish this task, the solitary walker must expend stored reserves of energy.  If he wants to keep resisting gravity, he will eventually have to replenish his store of energy‑perhaps at the pub atop the hill. 

The existence of uphill walkers, while scrupulously observant of the second law of thermodynamics, seems to depend also on Pross’ second law.  Organisms exist in forms that are more dynamically stable in the environmental niches that they occupy than the forms from which they evolved. 

All that seems reasonable; however, it still seems to me that dynamic stability is a very different kettle of fish from thermodynamic stability.  The latter needs only material and efficient causation, as Aristotle described them.  The latter, this rock bumped that rock and made it move, is underwritten in modern physics by the second law.  Pross’ law of dynamic kinetic stability requires Aristotle’s other two causes: formal (it is this kind of organism) and final (it is up to something). 

The big problem for modern biology is how to reconcile the two pairs of Aristotelian causation.  Pross’ highly critical discussion of theories about the origin of life illustrates this very well. 

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

My daughter has been very good at a lot of things and one of those things was civilizing hamsters.  Her first and best subject was Snuffles, a pocket-sized rodent the color of a calico cat.  Whenever she reached her hand into his realm he would instantly climb on board.  Her favorite trick was to come downstairs in her long nightshirt when a guest was in the living room.  She would stand there smiling and, after a dramatic pause, Snuffles would hoist his head out of her shirt pocket and present himself to the assembly. 

One day he hoisted himself too far, and fell headlong to the hardwood floor.  Snuffles began shrieking wildly in what I took to be the hamster version of profanity and then he stood up on his hind legs and reached his forepaws towards his savior. 

I am well aware of the anthropomorphizing in my account, so I won’t push it.  I will say that this behavior seems so obviously to indicate pain, fear, and a desire for comfort, that the burden of proof is heavily on the side of anyone who would argue that the animal lacked conscious awareness. 

Snuffles might be pleased to know that his consciousness has now been endorsed by an authoritative body.  Bonnie Chojnacki alerts us to the event at the IPSA Research Committee 12 Facebook page.  Here is the story from io9:

An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. But will this make us stop treating these animals in totally inhumane ways?

You can find the Declaration here. 

I have to say that I find the science in the Declaration to be underwhelming and occasionally philosophically confused.  Consider this bit:

Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought. Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patterns similar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches, neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex.

All of that is wonderful, but how, exactly, does it amount to an “observation” of “evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness”?  Consciousness is, famously, private in the most fundamental way.  It is directly observable only in the first person.  I infer it in you and vice versa by way of analogy.  I figure that you scream when you hit your head for the same reason that I do.  The same reasoning is extended to animals by anyone who has seen a hamster fall out of a pocket. 

The neurophysiological arguments in the Declaration may be understood as one more analogy.  I have this set of cognitive microcircuitries and I am conscious; my friend’s parakeet Hertzl had the former, therefore he had the latter.  Okay, but it’s still just another analogy.  It might add a lot if not for the fact that a very large portion of my microcircuitries underwrite phenomena that occur below the level of consciousness. 

We are still largely dependent here on common sense, which is in many cases the only guide we have.  Until we have some idea of how the physics gives rise to the phenomenon of consciousness, we haven’t got much further than that. 

I think we need an evolutionary account of consciousness.  Our awareness is one of the most mysterious and wonderful things that we have ever observed in nature.  It would be very odd indeed if it were not selected for.  Something about consciousness provides organisms with a hitherto unavailable flexibility in their behavior.  Pursuing the problem in that light, we might be able to better guess which organisms are good candidates for sentient beings.  Then the neurophysiological substrates of consciousness could be identified as targets of selection. 

All that said, I am also rather skeptical of such a declaration in the first place.  The declaration is political in intent.  I doubt very much whether it will have any effect on how we treat animals, but it is surely supposed to have such an effect.  It is not clear to me that the scientific status of the signatories or the fact that it was “The declaration was signed in the presence of Stephen Hawking,” has any more political significance than the fact that “the signing ceremony was memorialized by CBS 60 Minutes”.  Scientific authority is not political authority. 

Likewise, the fact that a lot of scientists signed the Declaration has no scientific significance.  Science is not decided by vote and consensus has no scientific weight.  So while I share the scientific opinion of the signatories that very many animals are conscious and I share their political opinion that we ought to care about how we treat animals, I think that such a declaration confuses these issues. 

Group Selection and the Evolution of Morality

Perhaps the best single article I have read on the group selection debate is “Evolution ‘for the Good of the Group’”, in American Scientist, September-October 2008.  It is another collaboration between the two Wilsons, E. O. and D.S.  I would add that it is also a very good introduction to the general question of the levels of selection‑genes, individuals, and groups, within a population. 

Group selection is one explanation for the evolution of altruism.  Any time one organism (or any unit within an organism) behaves in such a way as to confer a reproductive advantage to another organism at its own expense, this is evolutionary altruism.  Honey bee workers who serve the queen but do not themselves reproduce are behaving altruistically.  A vampire bat who regurgitates some hard won blood to feed a hungry roost mate is another example.  Many examples of altruism are easily explained in terms of deferred gratification (reciprocity) or benefit to closely related individuals (kin selection). 

Group selection theory is based on the claim that some altruistic behaviors are selected for because they benefit the group without any return to the altruist whether direct (deferred gratification) or indirect (kin selection).  A group with more altruists will be more reproductively successful than a group with fewer and so altruists may increase in the total population, at least initially.  Increase in the total population is what we mean by evolution. 

There seems to be an insuperable problem.  While between group selection might well favor altruistically endowed groups, within group selection will favor the selfish over the public spirited organisms.  Altruists would seem to be doomed to inevitable extinction as their selfish fellows outbreed them.  In this view, which held the field for a long time, group selection is unsustainable. 

However, group selection does in fact occur.  Wilson and Wilson present a number of forceful examples.  My favorite is the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens.

When this species is cultured in an unstirred broth, the cells soon consume most of the oxygen in the bulk of the medium, so only a thin layer near the surface remains habitable. A spontaneous mutation called wrinkly spreader causes cells to secrete a cellulosic polymer that forms a mat and helps them colonize the water surface. Production of the polymer is metabolically expensive, which means that nonproducing “cheaters” have the highest relative fitness within the mat; they get the benefit of the mat without contributing to its upkeep. However, if the proportion of cheaters grows too high, they are undone by their own success. The mat disintegrates, and the entire group sinks into the anoxic broth. Experiments by Paul B. Rainey and Katrina Rainey have shown that the wrinkly spreader trait is maintained in the population by group selection, even though it is disadvantageous within any one group.

This example illustrates the fact that the “free rider problem” is real.  The benefits of altruism in between group selection can indeed be undone when selfish cheaters crowed out the altruists.  At the same time, the very fact that mats form at all demonstrates that group selection was a powerful force in the evolution of this microbe.  Wrinkly spreader can only be maintained by its benefit to the community. 

Obviously, what is needed to maintain group selection is some mechanism for suppressing cheating.  I have no idea how this is done by bacteria but Christopher Boehm has a good idea how it is done among human hunter gatherers.  He argues in Moral Origins that social selection (reproductive benefits that result from a reputation for altruistic behavior) and sanctions against bullies (free riders) functioned to protect altruists from cheaters. 

Human beings are extraordinarily capable of altruism toward unrelated individuals.  Explaining this is a big challenge for evolutionary theory.  Boehm considers a number of explanations that are current in the scholarship.  He doesn’t reject them, but argues that some of them work only when cheating is suppressed by the mechanisms mentioned above. 

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates argues that justice is analogous to medicine: it is a response to dysfunction in the social body.  I am inclined to think that the theory of group selection is beginning to uncover something like the Platonic idea of justice.  It may be that retribution is something that shapes all life on earth. 

Pure Food & Liberal Culture

Jonathan Haidt’s fascinating survey work on the moral foundations of politics identifies a number of dichotomies that define the political culture in the U.S.  These are care/harm; fairness/cheating; liberty/oppression; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; and sanctity (or purity)/degradation.  Haidt argues that what distinguishes the left and right in America is which of these dichotomies they hold to be most important.  Here is a quote that I take from an earlier blog post:

Political liberals [in the U.S.] tend to rely primarily on the moral foundation of care/harm, followed by fairness/cheating and liberty/oppression. Social conservatives, in contrast, use all six foundations. They are less concerned than liberals about harm to innocent victims, but they are much more concerned about the moral foundations that bind groups and nations together, i.e., loyalty (patriotism), authority (law and order, traditional families), and sanctity (the Bible, God, the flag as a sacred object). Libertarians, true to their name, value liberty more than anyone else, and they value it far more than any other foundation.

One interesting thing that Haidt notes is that conservatives are much better at guessing what values liberals hold than vice versa. 

I am guessing that liberals may be just as bad at guessing what they themselves believe as they are at guessing what conservatives believe.  As I recall, the further to the left you go, the less emphasis you get on sanctity/degradation.  Most on the left, I suppose, would be uncomfortable those terms.  However, anyone who pays attention to the liberal culture in America will note that they spend a lot of time, energy, and money on achieving purity. 

The fair trade culture is one glaring example.  I can buy a pound of “Peace Coffee” at my local coopt.  Such labels as “fair trade” and “sustainable” are nothing if not certifications that the purchase and consumption of a product is kosher.  A couple of articles illustrate the character and the absurdity of this culture of purity. 

Judith Shulevitz at The New Republic exposes the “cleansing” fad as a quazi-religious bit of numbskullery. 

One afternoon last month, I made a nervous visit to the office of Ghiora Aharoni, an Israeli sculptor and architect of some renown. The awkward part was that I hadn’t come to interview him about his work. I was there to hear about his gut. He had just finished a 21-day cleanse, the kind with supplements, protein shakes, and endorsements by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. (It’s called the Clean Program.)…

What draws sophisticated and healthy people like Aharoni’s friends to commercial quasi-fasts? Cleanses, whether they last a day, a weekend, or three weeks, and whether they consist exclusively of fruit and vegetable juices or just a severe restriction of solids, are quickly becoming a part of what you might call the cosmopolitan diet, consumed in the more urbane sectors of New York and Los Angeles and Austin or wherever you find Whole Foods–levels of gastronomic consciousness and sufficient disposable income…

Aharoni and others made it clear that they fast for more than the mere improvement of their psycho-physiological wellbeing. Aharoni described his cleanses as “journeys” or “traveling while staying at home,” phrases that echoed (to me, at least) the visionary transports achieved by fourth-century Christian desert ascetics and medieval holy women. As it happens, these saints starved themselves only partly out of piety; rejecting food, they also rejected a church committed more to institutional growth than the extremes of religious experience. Another explanation I heard was that people cleanse out of a sense of shame: Their eating and sometimes their lives feel out of control. In the past, this same feeling might have provoked atonement, particularly for the deadly sins of greed and gluttony.  These new cleanses are “religion without theology,” my friend Ruby quipped.

That is how I see it.  Cleansing is religious fasting without the theology but not without the superstition.  The ubiquity of such practices in various religious traditions testifies to the psychology need that it attempts to satisfy.  However, the practice makes a lot less sense without the theology.  It’s one thing if God or my recommends a diet.  But Gwyneth Paltrow? 

A second article in The Atlantic by David H. Freedman exposes the locavore/anti-processed food cult to withering scrutiny.  Freedman is chiefly concerned with America’s big health problem, which is big Americans. 

He goes after natural food gurus Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman.  They peddle the tale that the food and restaurant industries are making us fat.  If only we would stop eating processed foods and eat only something our great grandma would recognize can we burn off the pounds and be healthy again.  Behind them is the establishment press and a range of commercial enterprises (the New York Times and Whole Foods figure prominently). 

Thousands of restaurants and grocery stores, most notably the Whole Foods chain, have thrived by answering the call to reject industrialized foods in favor of a return to natural, simple, nonindustrialized—let’s call them “wholesome”—foods. The two newest restaurants in my smallish Massachusetts town both prominently tout wholesome ingredients; one of them is called the Farmhouse, and it’s usually packed.

A new generation of business, social, and policy entrepreneurs is rising to further cater to these tastes, and to challenge Big Food. Silicon Valley, where tomorrow’s entrepreneurial and social trends are forged, has spawned a small ecosystem of wholesome-friendly venture-capital firms (Physic Ventures, for example), business accelerators (Local Food Lab), and Web sites (Edible Startups) to fund, nurture, and keep tabs on young companies such as blissmo (a wholesome-food-of-the-month club), Mile High Organics (online wholesome-food shopping), and Wholeshare (group wholesome-food purchasing), all designed to help reacquaint Americans with the simpler eating habits of yesteryear…

If the most-influential voices in our food culture today get their way, we will achieve a genuine food revolution. Too bad it would be one tailored to the dubious health fantasies of a small, elite minority. And too bad it would largely exclude the obese masses, who would continue to sicken and die early. Despite the best efforts of a small army of wholesome-food heroes, there is no reasonable scenario under which these foods could become cheap and plentiful enough to serve as the core diet for most of the obese population—even in the unlikely case that your typical junk-food eater would be willing and able to break lifelong habits to embrace kale and yellow beets. And many of the dishes glorified by the wholesome-food movement are, in any case, as caloric and obesogenic as anything served in a Burger King.

In other words, the whole whole foods movement is very well designed to satisfy the desire of a prosperous elite for purity but poorly designed to address the real problem of obesity and hopeless when it comes to meeting the needs of those who most suffer from it. 

Freedman rigorously establishes three points. 

1.        Much of the food peddled by the food revolution is “obesogenic as anything served in a Burger King.” 

2.      The food peddled by the food revolution is too expensive both in money and in time to be available to the obese masses. 

3.      The one institution in America that can effectively address the problem is the fast food industry. 

The last is the most provocative, but that is what The Atlantic is for.  I would add that he is obviously right.  No one is better than McDonalds or Carl’s Junior at making food cheaply and quickly available and no one is better at marketing food to the masses.  Getting the industry to move in that direction is not so hard.  It is already happening, as Freedman demonstrates. 

The desire for purity is a basic human instinct but it is not always a reliable guide.  Modern liberalism has always been an elitist business, yet it purports to care about the many unwashed.  If it is really to make good on that purpose, it will have to take a good hard look at itself.  Don’t hold your breath.