Jayne S Docherty sez:
|
|were given from that whole perspective. In which case, I think you are
|probably incorrect when you say that life can be organized in an
|*infinite variety of ways*... In fact, in complex, self-organizing,
|adaptive systems (which is, I believe, what we are discussing here) there
|are attractor basins around which the system organizes and these do not
|appear to be infinite in number for any of the systems which have been
|studied in any detail.
Of course, there is a glitch. One would have to study an infinite
variety of life forms. But lok over evolutionary history. The species
extant today make up less than 10% of the total number of species that
have lived. As life evolves, it makes new "basins" as you describe
above, and teh complexity of the basins is always changing, the
interactions always change, and thus, in principle, the cominations
possible are infinite (remember, in principle). that does NOT mean that
we expect to see an infinite variety of life forms at any given time,
since, after all, a lot of time must pass for new life forms to come and
go.
|I am not mistaken, higher levels of complexity cannot evolve without a
|"lower" level basis.... Which, seems to me, to hold some implications
|about the need to study the *process* by which such systems emerge...
By defnition, but it still is only a statistical thing. That is, both
higher an lower life forms can emerge all the time, but given time,
higher and higher ones will show up, just as lower ones will. You can
think of it as a normal curve in which the numbers of possibilities
increases over time, and so more examples are going to be in the tails of
the curve (and everywhere else, for that matter) both to more complex,
and less so. However, since evolution started from less complex, there
will statistically be movement towards higher complexity.
|> |cultural order. In fact, forget humans for a moment, throw ten of virtually
|> |*any* species into a room togather for a week and (with a few expections in
|> |which most of the individuals would be killed by the dominant few) a good
|> |wildlife biologist would observe a number of different patterns and "social"
|> |organizations had formed. This predilection towards group order is, I
It obviously depends on which species. I could give many examples in
which this is not true. For example, the 3 snakes and 2 lizards that
share my aquarium. No social life there... :-) Well, the lizards have a
tough time, since they are both males (or one daes). But there is no
larger social organization.
|But, I personally believe that we can learn a lot about the way that
|complex systems evolve from studying natural complex systems and that
|some of this knowledge might be usefully (although very
|carefully, of course) transferred to our study of
|complex social systems. What he was pointing out is the key notion
|behind both chaos and complexity theory that the world does order
|itself... This doesn't imply a *moral* order, just order....
But the "world" does not order itself, only life does, and it does so
because of energy coming from the sun. Really, life is just an
intermediate step towards entropy.
|*We* must, of course, always make ethical and
|moral decisions.... To do otherwise, is to shirk our responsibility as
|human beings...
|
|Jayne
You're absolutely right, and that was my point. If we base moral
decisions (and I have seen many try to get moral example from nature) on
nature, then we need to figure out what to do about all the parts of that
nature that we would'nt want to be part of our society.
--
Jim
____________________________________________________________________
James J. Roper | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Pennsylvania | Voice: (215)898-3100
Dept of Biology, Leidy Labs | FAX: (215)898-8780
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6018 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 02:54:23 MST 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 05:27:02 +0100
From: Tzeporah Berman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: references, graduate program, etc.
Sensitivity: Personal
Unfortunately I haven't yet had the time to participate in the discussions
on
this list but I thought I'Id
post some references on the topics I've seen roll by ...
ECOFEMINISM AND LITERARY CRITICISM
-(Amanda's thesis)
Bigwood, Carol. Earth Muse: Feminism, Nature and Art. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press,
1993.
FEMINISM AND VEGETARIANISM
Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum, 1990.
Adams, Carol J. The Feminist Traffic in Animals. In: Ecofeminism: Women,
Animals, Nature. Greta
Gaard ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
-particularly good if you don't have time to read the previous book, also
specifically addresses
feminist conferences.
Collard, Andree with Joyce Contrucci. Rape of the Wild: Man's Violence agai
nst
Animals and the
Earth. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.
DIVERSITY
Sandilands, Kate. "Ecofeminism and its Discontents: Notes Towards a Politi
cs
of Diversity." In: The
Trumpeter. (Victoria, B.C. Canada). Vol.8, No.2, Spring 1991, p.90-9
ALSO
I'm currently working on an exhaustive annotated ecofeminism bibliography (
a
fabulous way to avoid
actually starting to write your thesis I've found). I'Id like to make sure
it
is complete. If anyone on
this list could send me their ecofeminism bibliographies by mail preferably
or
by e-mail I will be
happy to send you my working bibliography or the annotated version when it
is
complete (approx. 3
months). Thanks
Tzeporah Berman
R.R #1 K32
Bowen Island
British Columbia, Canada
V0N 1G0
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ALSO: RE: GRADUATE PROGRAMS
(Mathew Foster's note)
You might want to check out the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York
University, Noth York
Ontario, Canada (B.E.S, M.E.S, Ph.D programs).
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 09:41:11 MST 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 11:34:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Jeff Wilbur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Environmental Ethics
I see the journal Environmental Ethics has been mentioned several times.
Can someone please send me information on how subscribe to this journal.
Thank you
Lanette Wilbur
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Nov 15 10:20:05 MST 1994
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 12:24:28 -0500
From: Deborah Rudacille <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The nature of nature
Jim said--<If we base moral decisions...on nature, then we need to
figure out what to do about parts of nature that we wouldn't want to
be part of our society.>
Brian asked--<What aspects of human nature require heirarchical
violence ?>
It seems to me (and I wish I were wrong) that violence/aggression is
endemic to nature and that it will therefore exist in some form in
all societies. It can be channeled into socially acceptable modes
(football and capitalism come to mind) and those modes can be
mediated by "rules" and "referees", but it will exist. The same is
true, I believe, (and again, I wish I were wrong) with heirarchy.
Given that we are all born with different skills and different
talents, it seems inevitable that some degree of social
stratification will exist. The challenge is to ensure that each
individual is given whatever he/she needs to fully develop and
execute whatever talents/skills/type of intelligence he/she possesses
and that one set of skills/intelligence is not so highly valued and
compensated that others are degraded/impoverished (as is true in
patriarchal systems).
Modern systems which have attempted to eradicate heirarchy have
produced ever more rigid and repressive heirarchies--with power
remaining centered in the hands of a ruling class of priviliged males
who pretend to speak for "the people". As a species, we don't seem
to have yet evolved a biophilic system in which each individual is
completely free to speak/think/be for themselves. I continue to
maintain however (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) that
contemporary western democracies are the closest we've come to
fulfilling that ideal--although obviously we fall short particularly
with respect to our brothers/sisters of the animal/vegetable/mineral
world.
Deborah
