Members,
The Peirce list has been relatively quiet over the past few days. Perhaps
this is an opportune moment to introduce a different kind of exploratory
perspective.
My thinking sprawls across several disciplines and experiences, and so
people often have trouble following where Im coming from. Lets see if we
can distill everything into a few short lines, in one place, to explore why
the DNA molecule might perhaps provide the key to life, the universe and
everything.
1) The semiotics of CS Peirce plays a fundamental part in my reasoning.
But I also extend Peircean semiotics to the biosemiotics of Jakob von
Uexküll, down to habituation and associative learning in single cells (e.g.,
with reference to the work of Eric Kandel on habituation and association in
Aplysia, or AH Klopf on association);
2) Entropy needs to be taken seriously. No, not the
over-intellectualized entropy of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but the
tendency to disorder as per Shannon entropy. Here is an excellent review of
the entropy issues as they relate to evolution by natural selection (Beisner
1987, with reference to the work of Byles 1972):
https://www.icr.org/article/270;
3) One can get an intuitive appreciation of the scale of the entropy
problem from this video, Inner Life of the Cell, which is a simulation of
the incredibly complex goings-on inside the cell. Incredible complexity is
one thing. But that it persists across time is quite another, and the onus
is on the Darwinists (especially Neo-Darwinists) to prove that their natural
selection theory has properly dealt with entropy. Their onus of proof
remains outstanding. Video from More Thinking:
https://youtu.be/FzcTgrxMzZk;
4) Intelligent Design (ID) has competently addressed the most salient
issues before, such as irreducible complexity and entropy. But then they go
and spoil it all with their human exceptionalism. Human exceptionalism has
no place in science. Converging on the god question certainly might, but
indulging in value-judgments about how exceptional humans are, does not.
That the folk of ID do this demonstrates their failure to understand key
ontological/phenomenological issues, which are more potently addressed
within the semiotic/biosemiotic paradigm. The same biological principles
must apply to all organisms, including human, otherwise it is not biology
that they are studying. If they want to celebrate their humanity, then by
all means go for it, but please don't call it science;
5) Quantum mechanics and nonlocality. Is the self nonlocal? I have
reason to suggest that it is. The local self, by contrast, is an assumption,
an illusion based on the fact that all experience can only ever take place
in a localized context;
6) At least in the context of epigenetic theory, it is widely accepted
that experience changes DNA (which genes are expressed);
7) At least in the context of Darwinian natural selection, it is now
widely accepted that experience wires the neuroplastic brain;
8) The previous two points (6 and 7), however, suffer from the
shortcomings of the Darwinian paradigm, which is inconsistent with entropy.
The notion of "adaptive traits" is particularly problematic in this regard.
Neural plasticity is not merely an incidental "adaptive trait", but
absolutely fundamental to the way that single cells, such as neurons, make
choices from their ecosystems. This is more effectively interpreted through
the Peircean-biosemiotic paradigm (I believe the term "scaffolding" applies.
Systems theorists use the word "autopoiesis");
9) Neural plasticity and cellular autopoiesis (self-organization) relate
to systems theory. If experiences wire the brain, it then follows that
experiences are contingent on the body with which they are apprehended. In
the context of human culture, human experiences are apprehended by male and
female bodies. Our outline sets the stage for properly understanding sex
differences and gender roles in culture. Particularly within the context of
evolution, the cultural known and the unknown. Here is a web article that
nudges onto the significance of this point, particularly in the context of
the primary nurturer (Ibelle, 2018, citing Lisa Feldman Barrett and Atzil et
al, 2018):
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/08/06/what-if-people-from-different-cultu
res-and-economic-backgrounds-have-different-brain-wiring/
10) Do we follow where this is taking us? Mind precedes matter. Only by
taking this route, might we be better able to address the entropy problem.
Entanglement and imitation tend to structure and order. Richard Dawkins was
on the right track with his memetic theory... how unfortunate that he
allowed this to languish, in favor of his selfish gene narrative. Both
selfish genes and selfish people increase entropy because they act contrary
to the interests of structure and order;
11) Eastern religions, most notably Buddhism, converge on these sorts of
questions quite impressively. Though I suggest that Peirce has something to
contribute to the Buddhist narrative, with respect to pragmatism. According
to Buddhism, desire (Tanha) is the source of all problems. But desire
relates to motivation (firstness), which relates to pragmatism and "knowing
how to be". Let us designate "imitation" as shorthand for this "knowing how
to be". Tanha is secondary to imitation. It is imitation (pragmatism), in
the sense of knowing how to be, that first establishes the things that
matter... the things that one should desire and fear. Incorrect imitation is
the source of all problems, not desire. Tanha is downstream from imitation.
It is through imitation (in the more nuanced sense of knowing how to be)
that we learn what to desire;
12) Structure and order, imitation and entropy... has relevance to
everything political, from blindly imitated groupthink and tyranny, to
courageously fought-for freedom and democracy;
13) We now know that the same dumb dirt that makes The Inner Life of the
Cell possible is the same dumb dirt that exists elsewhere throughout the
cosmos. The Inner Life of the Cell would not be possible were dumb dirt not
so smart;
14) We now know that the number of galaxies in the universe is of the
order of trillions (2 trillion guesstimated at last count, though I suggest
that the number might be closer to infinite). With billions of stars per
galaxy, that's a lot of possibilities for a nonlocal self to be reincarnated
into, and there will be no shortage of possible configurations to
accommodate;
15) On the assumption that the self is nonlocal, it follows that each
and every one of us will enter our next culture with the same innocence that
we entered into this one. We will be wholly dependent on our primary
nurturer to introduce us to the basic assumptions governing our new home. We
won't remember our current existence nor our current sex. Both the law of
entropy and the no-communication theorem prohibit the transfer of
information. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin have been reborn as helpless
innocents, whether male or female. An innocent child is an innocent child,
but in their new homes, they have new cultural unknowns to contend with. And
that's a scary thought. Good luck Adolf and Josef, you'll both need it...
but at least your mothers might love you;
16) My article, Quantum Semiotics, explores some of the most salient
issues as they apply in this outline:
http://journals.sfu.ca/jnonlocality/index.php/jnonlocality/article/view/64/6
3
17) The initial motivation for my paper, Quantum Semiotics, was the
topic of DNA entanglement. And on the basis of evidence to date, we can
confirm that entanglement applies not just to the smallest subatomic
particles, but also to the largest of molecules. And therefore to DNA. The
following reference on DNA replication, with video, is particularly
interesting, because it challenges mainstream (deterministic)
interpretations on how replication proceeds (Crew, B. 2018, citing the work
of Graham et al 2017):
https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-replication-first-footage-unexpected
Sure, I have made some unfalsifiable conjectures here. But this is my
condensed, all-inclusive picture, how I see things. And at least I frame
this unfalsifiable conjecture within the context of a solid axiomatic
framework. Is DNA the key to understanding the relationship between culture,
personality, reincarnation, karma and heaven and hell? No matter how we look
at it, there's something strange going on, and nobody gets it. How little we
know. So much to wrap our heads around. So much paradigm to shift. This is
my feeble stab at it.
Stephen Jarosek
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atzil S., Gao W., Fradkin I. and Feldman Barrett L. (2018). Growing a Social
Brain. Nature Human Behaviour volume 2, pages 624636.
Beisner, E. Calvin (1987). Mutation Fixation: A Dead End for
Macro-evolution. Retrieved October 29, 2018, from
https://www.icr.org/article/270
Byles, R. H. (1972, March). Limiting Conditions for the Operation of the
Probable Mutation Effect. Social Biology, 19:1 29-34. Retrieved April 10,
2016, from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19485565.1972.9987962?journalCode
=hsbi19
Crew, B. (2018). This is the first detailed footage of DNA replication, and
it wasn't what we expected. Sciencealert.com. Retrieved 29 October, 2018,
from
https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-replication-first-footage-unexpected
Graham J.E., Marians K.J., Kowalczykowski S.C. (2017). Independent and
Stochastic Action of DNA Polymerases in the Replisome. Cell, 169/7, pp
1201-1213.
Ibelle, B. (2018). What If People From Different Cultures And Economic
Backgrounds Have Different Brain Wiring. News@Northeastern. Retrieved
October 29, 2018 from
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/08/06/what-if-people-from-different-cultu
res-and-economic-backgrounds-have-different-brain-wiring/
Jarosek, S. (2017). Quantum Semiotics. J. Nonlocality: Special Issue on Psi
and Nonlocal Mind, 2017
http://journals.sfu.ca/jnonlocality/index.php/jnonlocality/article/view/64/6
3
Kandel, E. R. & Hawkins, R. D. (1992). The biological basis of learning and
individuality. Scientific American: Mind and Brain, 267(3), 53-60.
Klopf, A. H. (1982). The hedonistic neuron: A theory of memory, learning and
intelligence. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
MoreThinking. Inner Life of the Cell (Full Version - Narrated). [YouTube -
XVIVO for Harvard University]. January 9, 2013. Retrieved April 04, 2016,
from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzcTgrxMzZk
DISCLAIMER
No cells, plants or animals were harmed in the creation of this post. No woo
was entertained to deliver on the facts.
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
