Elements of Physical Biology

Meanwhile orthogenesis continues.’ Man has travelled far, from the crude intuitive recognition of the ego and the non-ego, the first dim realization of a depiction of one system of codrdinates upon another; to our latest conception of the part played by codrdinate reference frames in our intercourse with nature. The most modern world-picture, as drawn for us by Einstein and his followers, seems to outstrip, for the time being, not only our needs, but our immediate opportunities for practical application. But that is the virtue of orthogenesis.

‘8 For a somewhat detailed presentation of the case of orthogenesis in man see the author’s article Biassed Evolution in Harper’s Magazine, May, 1924. Was wir Willen nennen ist nichts anderes als die Gesammtheit der teilweise bewussten und mit Voraussicht des Erfolges verbundenen Bedingungen einer Bewegung. . . . . Inder bewussten Willenshandlung fallen Ursache und Zweck Zusammen.—E£. Mach. From the nature of things the adjustors are more recondite, both in their material substance and in their operation, than either the receptors or the effectors. It has already been remarked that the location of the adjustors is inconsequential; partly for this reason, and partly because their concrete material apparatus does not need to be external (as must be that of the receptors and effectors), we have at most a very imperfect consciousness of the location of the adjustors. It is chiefly from hearsay that the man in the street associates the brain with mental processes.

It is, then, not greatly surprising, that the functioning of the adjustors should be shrouded in a good deal of mystery, which even introspection into our own experience does not by any means dispel. If unsatisfied curiosity is the fons et origo of human interest, such interest should certainly not be lacking in this phase of our present enquiry. Mechanistic and Teleological Interpretation of Adjustors. We have seen, from the example of a simple toy, that typical and fully competent adjustors can very well be provided in and by purely mechanical structures. In the toy beetle anticipatory correlation between the reaction of the beetle and untoward variations of the environment is established as follows: The beetle is progressing along the straight line AB, (see fig. 72). Its law of motion is that of uniform progression along this straight line. Suppose a scale of centimeters is laid along AB. Successively higher scale divisions along A Bare reached at successively later intervals. In fact, this scale, with the beetle moving along it (at constant velocity, we may suppose, to simplify the argument) constitutes a clock. If at the time ¢ = 0 the driving wheel of the beetle is at the zero mark, scale

divisions to the left correspond to and represent past instants, and those to the right represent future instants. Suppose the antenna is 5 divisions long, and that the table edge is at division mark 15. If for any reason the adjustor apparatus failed to function, at time t = 15 the driving wheel of the beetle would pass the table edge and fall over. When the adjustor apparatus 7s functioning, five time units in anticipation of the threatened catastrophe the antenna “senses” the danger, and the creature turns aside into the path of safety. Note that this anticipatory reaction depends upon the correspondence between points forward upon the line of advance, and future instants of time. A supposititious future, a future that may be, is depicted, instant by instant, by successive points in the line of advance of the beetle on the supposition that its law of motion

Fig. 72. How true Fururs ENTERS INTO THE DETERMINATION OF THE MOTION or THe Watkina MercuanicaAL BrErrLe, THUS IMITATING PURPOSIVE AcTIOoN (TELEOLOGY). continues unchanged. The behavior of the beetle is determined in terms of this depiction of a supposititious future.! 1 This conception of a future that may be is found both in A. N. Whitehead, Principles of Natural Knowledge, and also in E. Mach’s Analyse der Empfindungen (1903, p. 78). The expression seems to raise a question as to just what meaning may justly be ascribed to it in a determinate universe. One admissible meaning is indicated in the text above: The future that may be is that computed by extrapolation according to a law of motion that in fact does not hold up to the instant under consideration. Another construction that suggests itself is that the future that may be is one compatible with certain differential equations, but not necessarily with the integration constants. The toy beetle shows very clearly how a future that may be can, seemingly influence the course of events. It is interesting to note that there is another circumstance which also is competent to explain the apparent influence of this fictitious future upon the present course of events. Mach points out, with especial reference to the seemingly miraculous foresight displayed by coreain

The depiction in this case is plainly mechanical or geometric. We, as living, conscious organisms, in certain circumstances exhibit a precisely analogous behavior; our action is determined by a picture (psychic in this case) of the future that we seek to avoid or to attain.? “In human purpose the result to be attained is first pictured in consciousness, and the thinker then proceeds by a series of acts to fulfill his preconceived aim.”’ The law of ‘“preconceiving’” is precisely the same in both cases, at any rate in the simple case in which the reaction is one of avoidance of an unfavorable condition. An image of the future of the system is constructed on the supposition that the mechanism or organism does not interfere. This is the future that may be. Interference, financed from the fund of free energy, then takes place accordingly, thus modifying the course of events and determining the future that will be.

Little doubt enters our mind in construing the course of events in these two cases. We are directly conscious of our own volition (whatever its precise physical significance may be.) We hesitate not at all in describing our action as purposive, as directed to and determined by an end, by a final cause. As to the tin beetle, we have dissected him and fully understand his mechanism. We would think it foolish, with our peep behind the scenes, to impute to him volition or purpose; we describe his action as mechanical, as fully determined by an efficient cause.

The Doubtful Cases. But what shall we do when confronted with a case that falls into neither of these categories? An amoeba, for example? We cannot enter the amoeba in spirit and become parties to its conscious experience; we do not even know whether it has any such experience. On the other hand its mechanism is not completely known to us. To class it among purposive, teleological beings so long as we are ignorant of its working, and to be prepared

instinctive actions, that the life process is essentially periodic in character, repeated over and over in successive generations, and that it may not be so much the future of individual A that influences its action, as the past of its progenitors A’, A’, . . . who were placed in similar circumstances on earlier occasions. ‘‘Es ist dann micht eine mégliche Zukunft die wirken kénnte, sondern eine unzihlige Mal dagewesene Vergangenheit, die gewiss gewirkt hat.’’

to reclassify it among “purely mechanical” structures* as »vuu as we come to understand its physical operation, seems hardly a very commendable way to marshal our mental stock-in-trade. There is here involved something of those mysteries to which reference has 3 “Die Vitalisten begehen nun den Fehler, die Zielstrebigheit dort zu leugnen, wo ihre Ursache durch physikalische Gesetze erklirbar ist, da sie eben diese Zielstrebigkeit als mit den physikalischen Gesetzen nicht zusammenhingend betrachten.’”’ (C. Doelter, Aus dem Grenzgebiete des Organischen und Anorganischen, 1906, p. 13.) It isa singular fact possessing a certain psychological interest, that as soon as we understand the modus operandi of a teleological mechanism we are disposed to reject its interpretation in terms of ‘final causes.’? Why this preference for the mechanistic view? ‘There is another closely analogous case. So long as we remain in ignorance of the precise working of our nervous system in the phenomenon of memory, we are forced to contemplate this faculty as being perhaps wholly psychic in character. To quote Bertrand Russell (Analysis of Mind, 1921, p.92), “I aminclinedto.... hold that past experience only affects present behavior through modifications of physiological structure. But the evidence seems so far from conclusive that I do not think we ought to reject entirely the possibility that mnemic causation may be the ultimate explanation of mnemic phenomena.’’ Here also we feel that just as soon as a physical basis of memory were made manifest, we should discard the hypothesis of a purely psychic mneme. A certain light is perhaps thrown on this curious psychological bias when we consider the matter from the point of view of the equations of motion of a mechanical system. We noted in Chapter IV (pp. 47, 48) that conceivably the equations representing the course of events might contain a lag or a lead, that is to say, the motion at time ¢ might, for example, depend explicitly upon the condition of the system at time (t — a) or perhaps at time (tf + b), or both.

We also noted in passing that something of this sort seems actually to be the case in systems comprising living organisms, since the reaction of these upon their environment is a function of their previous history through the intervention of memory, and a function of the future through the intervention of volition. But we also noted particularly that the appearance of a lag or lead in the equations might be spurious. So for example the rate of incidence of new malaria cases today may be expressed as a function of the number of persons bitten by infected mosquitoes nine days ago (period of incubation). But this is merely a short way of describing the state of these persons today, so that the equation could also be written without the lag term. Why do we, in mechanical systems, give preference to an equation free from a lag term, whenever such can be framed? The first thought that suggests itself, perhaps, is that we do this from a bias for simplicity. But this is probably not the true explanation. More likely we make this selection because there is something arbitrary about the lag term. It does not give a unique representation of the process. The differential equation free from a lag or lead, on the contrary, is more free from arbitrary features, and is presumably in some sense unique.

been made. The mystery may be in part of our own making. The difficulty in answering a question sometimes arises from the fact that the question has been badly put. Certainly no harm can come from an effort to make a survey of some of the relevant facts and their relations. To such a survey we shall proceed forthwith. Here it may be well to summarize briefly three cardinal points in our observations so far: 1. Mechanisms teleological in their operation can be constructed, which we would not in any ordinary sense of the word describe as conscious.

2. The active types of teleological mechanisms in nature (animals) impress us as being in some sense conscious, though in the case of the lower rungs on the scale we feel very doubtful as to just what meaning to assign to this statement. 3. In our own selves we feel that consciousness (volition) plays a dominant réle in the teleological operation of our bodies, and, in particular, in the operation of the adjustors. Adaptive Adjustment of Tastes. In all that has been said so far the individualistic character of tastes has been emphasized. A man’s likes and dislikes are essentially his own personal affair. As Paretot remarks, if a man dislikes spinach, it is useless trying to prove to him, as one would demonstrate a proposition in geometry, that spinach tastes good. Judgments of this kind are typically not of that class in which ‘universal assent’? can be attained, the class with which the worker in physical science is mainly concerned.®

Now this does not mean, as might perhaps at first sight appear, that tastes of different individuals are wholly random collections of likes and dislikes, dealt out purely haphazard, like the cards from a well shuffled pack. However erratic human desires may appear in detail, in the gross they display a species of uniformity, of law, of constancy; a fact recognized long ago by Adam Smith, who “considered a science of economics possible because of a few outstanding traits of man which guaranteed self-preservation, while also promoting the welfare of society at large.” ® ‘The same constancy in the

average performance (symptomatic of desires) of men was again noted by Quetelet, and more particularly by Herbert Spencer,’ who was presumably the first to recognize the full significance, in the evolution of the race, of that “adjustment of feelings to actions’”’ which has made “pains . . . . the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, and pleasures . . . . the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare.’ This, as Spencer points out, is the inevitable outcome of natural selection, since “there must ever have been, other things equal, the most numerous and long-continued survivals among those races in which these adjustments of feelings to actions were the best, tending ever to bring about perfect adjustment.”

Genuine Utility for Social Service. And what is the “perfect adjustment?’ A hint of the quantitative method of approach to this question has been given in Chapter XXV. The argument there set forth suggests something of the nature of an absolute standard of value, to which actual standards established in the community must approach, however imperfectly. Without attempting any quantitative definition, or, indeed, any definition at all, such an absolute standard has been directly or implicitly mooted by many. Irving Fisher® thus speaks of a genuine utility for social service, a concept which is evidently intended to be purified from the caprice of the individual. The question is, remarks T. N. Carver,? ‘not what men are actually like, but what men fit best into the cosmos. What are the earmarks of a good man, that is, of a man who adds strength to the community or nation? It is not enough if we study the variations of human institutions, habits, morals, ete. We want to know what institutions, habits and moral systems work well, what kind of a nation or social organization fits into the cosmos and grows strong under the conditions of the Universe. Similarly, as to individual motives, it is not simply a question as to what motives actually govern human behavior, though it is important that we should know that. It is of equal importance that we know what motives or combinations of motives work well.” Just as man has

’ Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, section 124; Data of Ethics. section 34. learned, in the progress of ages, to think logically, to think in accord with reality, so he must yet learn to will rightly, that is, in harmony with Nature’s scheme. We have here a thought that seems fundamental for a natural system of ethics. I will not follow it up further at this point, but shall take occasion to return to it in the closing chapter. Vous connaissez, n’est-ce pas, cette jolie griserie de l’Ame? On ne pense pas, on ne réve pasnon plus. Tout votre étre vous échappe, s’envole, s’éparpille. Onest la mouette qui plonge, la poussiére d’écume qui flotte au soleil entre deux vagues, la fumée blanche de ce paquetbot qui s’éloigne, ce petit corailleur a voile rouge, cette perle d’eau, ce flocon de brume, tout excépté soi méme.

Intimately involved, both in the process of world depiction, and in the operation of the adjustors, as we know them in ourselves, is the phenomenon of consciousness. In preceding pages this has been taken for granted. But our study would be incomplete indeed if we did not give some separate consideration to a phenomenon that is of so superlative importance in the shaping of the world’s events. Consciousness is a natural phenomenon which we know directly in ourselves, and whose existence we infer in others from their behavior in view of its greater or less resemblance, in type, to ours.

Relation of Consciousness to Physical Conditions. What mainly interests us here, regarding this phenomenon, is its relation to physical processes and structures. These relations are presented to us in two aspects, and we may accordingly distinguish them as (1) conditional, and (2) operative relations; that is to say, first relations between consciousness and the physical conditions necessary for its manifestation; and second, relations between consciousness and physical events that seem to be dependent upon consciousness for their occurrence, in the operation of the correlating apparatus. The enquiry into these latter relations must cover (a) the function of consciousness in directing the course of events, and (0) the origin of conscious mechanism or apparatus which so directs that course; the reasons that can be assigned, if any, why organic evolution should have seized upon consciousness as a tool to secure adaptive (zweckmiissig) behavior in the organism,

It is frequently pointed out with critical emphasis that mechanistic attempts to explain consciousness are philosophically unsound. Such strictures are based upon a misconception of the function of science, mechanistic or other. Science does not explain anything, consciousness occupies in this respect a position in no wise peculiar. Science does not explain electricity, for example. Science is less pretentious. All that falls within its mission is to observe phenomena and to describe them and the relations between them. It is true that in loose parlance such statements are commonly made as: The inertia of matter is explained by the electron theory. But all this means is that certain relations have been established between the properties of an electric charge, and those of a mass of gross “‘matter;” that the laws of motion of matter can be comprehended in the laws of motion of anelectron. If explanation means themaking comprehensible in this sense, then this is explanation. But who should say that the attempt to establish relations between consciousness and other phenomena is philosophically unsound? One would be disposed to retaliate by questioning the soundness of his philosophy.

Quite on the contrary, the study of the relations between consciousness and other phenomena is not only legitimate, but altogether alluring and full of promise. Here, however, a difficulty confronts us at the outset. Strictly speaking, the only consciousness I can ever know (unless altogether revolutionary developments in our sources of knowledge should follow) is my own. This seems to impose most serious restrictions upon the investigations.

A Fundamental Hypothesis Admitted. However, there is general assent that, in this study, we shall admit the fundamental hypothesis that the consciousness of my fellowmen exists and is sufficiently like my own to constitute a proper subject for study as a type phenomenon. We even go farther, and quite willingly admit the propriety of investigations regarding the consciousness of dogs, cats, apes, mice, sparrows, and so forth, as manifested by their behavior. All this is well enough, until some one begins to ask impertinent questions. Just where we are to stop in hypothecating consciousness? And what do you mean by saying that Jones’s consciousness is like Smith’s? or like that of a dog? or of an amoeba? These questions are embarrassing. But so long as we deal with restricted material and restricted enquiries regarding the relations between consciousness and other phenomena, we find in practice we can ignore these fine points. And then certain basic propositions find at least provisional acceptance. The first of these we may enunciate as follows:

Consciousness is Closely Bound Up with Life Processes and Structures. The statement hardly requires exemplification. Starve a man, and he becomes unconscious. The same may happen after a blow on the head, and so on. Unfortunately, however, our proposition is not so proof against criticism as it appears. For it is admitted that we observe consciousness only by its manifestations similar to those which we know directly in ourselves. The inference that consciousness is absent in non-living matter reminds one somewhat of the assumption commonly made by ignorant persons that insects or similar voiceless creatures feel no pain. Since non-living matter lacks the familiar means of manifesting any consciousness which it might possess, it is evidently not permissible to base, upon the absence of such familiar manifestation, any conclusion as to the absence of consciousness. We are really arguing in a circle: First we agree to postulate consciousness where certain manifestations are observed. Then we turn around and say that the presense of these manifestations is characteristic of consciousness, and their absence of its absence.

The truth is, all we can state with any degree of confidence is that, if non-living matter possesses any kind of consciousness, this must be of a character so radically different from our own as wholly to transcend our powers of imagination. This may appear at first sight a rather pointless observation. But it must be remembered that the statement holds true with almost equal force with regard to living matter in the case of such elementary forms as amoeba, for example. The importance of such reflections as this is that it draws our attention to the significance of forms or modes of consciousness. The general scheme of nature is more readily understood if we contemplate the several material objects as gifted with graded modes of consciousness, than if we suppose them sharply divided into conscious and unconscious. It is true that this point of view commits us to admit the existence of modes of consciousness utterly inaccessible to human experience. But this admission is not as damaging as it may appear, for, in a restricted measure at least, we are forced to make it in any case as soon as we hypothecate consciousness in a dog or a flea, for example.

Allowing, however, for these finer distinctions, the statement may stand that consciousness of the character familiar to us in ourselves, or of a character approaching to this, is closely bound up with life processes, in the way indicated. Consciousness Dependent on Metabolism. The Personal Element. This suggests that the continued conscious state of matter requires constant excitation by the metabolic processes, somewhat as the continued maintenance of a magnetic field in the neighborhood of a conductor requires constant excitation by the passage of a current. And since metabolism is essentially a state of chemical flux, or chemical reaction in progress, one is led to suspect that the conscious state may be in some way correlated to that transitional state through which matter must pass on its way from one stable molecular combination to another'—a state regarding which our knowledge today is extremely fragmentary. Almost the only direct evidence we have of matter actually in that state is the observation by Sir J. J. Thomson and by F. W. Aston of such molecular débris as CH; and the like, by a method capable of detecting these fugaceous aggregations of atoms even though their life period be only a few millionths of a second. Meanwhile it must be borne in mind that in the case of the highly complex and bulky molecules characteristic of organic matter, the ‘Gntermediate” state between two compounds may be something more lasting. It is even conceivable that ‘‘open’”’ molecules may, in this realm of chemistry, be the more stable configuration; the molecules may perhaps be more or less in a state of oscillation, in a species of tautomerism, between two “closed” compounds. This would, in a way, harmonize with the continuity of consciousness, as known to us, if consciousness be indeed typically associated with the “open” state of molecules. On the other hand it may give us at least some distant idea of the meaning of consciousness as applied to so-called non-living inorganic matter.

Such consciousness as may here occur would be, it seems, of the nature of flashes of almost infinitesimally short duration. If this conception appears fantastic, it must be borne in mind that brevity of time is altogether a relative concept; by geological standards human life itself is merely a flash of lightning in the eternal darkness; and though to most of us the altogether impersonal species of consciousness which seems to be here implied must appear inconceivable, those who have observantly come through the experience of syncope may not find the thought so unreasonable.

Pendant la syncope, dit un auteur qui a pu étudieur sur lui méme ce phé- noméne, c’est le néant psychique absolu, l’absence de toute conscience, puis on commence A avoir un sentiment vague, illimité, infini, un sentiment d’existence générale sans ancune délimitation, sans la moindre trace de distinction entre le moi et le non moi; on est alors une partie organique de la nature ayant conscience du fait de son existence, mais n’en ayant aucune du fait de son unité organique; on a, en deux mots, une conscience impersonelle. . . On a des sensations stupides, si je puis m’exprimer ainsi, c’est 4 dire, des sensations qui, justement parcequ’elles restent isolées, ne peuvent pas étre connues, mais seulement senties.?

In an entirely normal state, too, certain persons seem to have realized the experience of a species of impersonal consciousness. An example of this is to be seen in the quotation from Daudet’s Lettres de mon Moulin that has been placed at the head of this chapter. Thus the phenomenon of the ego is neither as fundamental nor as simple as it may appear to the naive observer. The occurrence of primitive consciousness of a kind, which does not recognize an ego, is not only possible, for ought we know, but should be regarded as decidedly probable. It may indeed, be argued with much plausibility (as we have already had occasion to note) that the ego is a mere artifice, an aid to thought (just as a frame of rectangular coérdinates is a mere figment, convenient for the purpose of defining the position and configuration of geometrical structures), but has no objective existence, and forms no indispensable element of the more general phenomenon of consciousness.

The separation of “chemical” processes from other physical processes is almost certainly merely a matter of convenience. If, then we tentatively associate consciousness with certain states of chemical strain in molecules, we are forced te contemplate the possible extension of our conception to matter under physical strain generally. Space does not permit us to follow up in detail the implications of such a point of view. It must suffice to indicate that it leads us to question

* Herzen, Le cerveau et l’activité cérébrale, 1887, p. 236; quoted by Janet, L’automatisme psychologique, 1889, p. 43. 5 A very similar thought is expressed by Theodor Dreiser in Proteus (American Mercury, 1924, vol. 1, p. 9): ‘“‘And I am the birds flying in the air over the river, whether a much frowned upon species of anthropomorphism may not, after all, be in some sense legitimate. When we say that a soap bubble, for example, tends to contract under surface tension, or perhaps when we use even less guarded language and say that it is trying to contract, our terms are commonly thought reprehenzible as being more picturesque than scientific. Yet we ought to be prepared for the conception that the straining of the bubble to contract may not be so fundamentally different a thing from the straining of an amoeba to engulf a food particle, or the straining of a Newton to assimilate a new conception or to solve a problem in philosophy. The two phenomena may be far separated, indeed, upon the scale of evolution, yet they may be two rungs upon the same scale.