The Temporal Problem of Biological Relativity and Its Relation to Hayek's Views of Civilizational Development

In his book, Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity (D. Noble 2017), Denis Noble presents the principle of biological relativity “as simply that there is no privileged level of causation in biology; living organisms are multi-level open stochastic systems in which the behaviour at any level depends on higher and lower levels and cannot be fully understood in isolation” (2017, 160). This characterization was preceded by Noble’s paper, “A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation” (2012) and followed by the popular science book, with brother Raymond Noble, Understanding Living Systems (R. Noble and Noble 2023). An additional point made in the paper is that “Each level provides the boundary conditions under which the processes at lower levels operate. Without boundary conditions, biological functions would not exist” (D. Noble 2012, 58).

The evidence for biological relativity is strong, and I have no grounds for criticism—it seems to be right. However, it prompts the question, “If there are levels (the Nobles prefer nesting, or inner/outer levels to higher/lower), don’t the inner levels precede the development of the outer ones in time?” And, if the answer is, “Yes,” don’t we have to wonder if the outer level is actively constructed by the low level and, hence, agreed to by it in a way that we have little or no concept of what “agree” means?

In Hayek we see a similar problem where he argues that civilization creates reason:

Man did not adopt new rules of conduct because he was intelligent. He became intelligent by submitting to new rules of conduct. [italics in original] (Hayek 2021, 522)

Hayek seems to deny that developing new rules of conduct involves trial-and-error learning, which requires, in Popper’s terms, the creation of a theory and its testing followed by error elimination, demanding intelligence. Elaine Sternberg finds a similar problem when she writes:

Unlike the Ferguson formula of ‘human action but not human design’, the alternate formula—’the unintended coordination of intentional action’—clearly differentiates orders from their elements. It therefore also helps clarify the relation of spontaneous order and reason. (2021)

The creation of civilization requires reason to create a new theory, to enact it, and then to evaluate the results. While Hayek is correct that civilization is not designed in toto, incremental uses of reason, not necessarily with good results, produces civilization.

To conclude, I believe that both in biological causation and in civilizational development there is a bootstrapping process in which the current base must, in some way, produce and/or accept the new constraints that then establish the new base upon which, if successful, the next leg is built. This process may be expressed in terms of Popper’s tetradic schema, P1->TT->EE->P2: problem situation one leads to tentative theories followed by error elimination producing problem situation two. The implication that a teleological process is at work seems inescapable.

Bibliography

Hayek, Friedrich A. 2021. Law, Legislation, and Liberty: A New Statement of the Liberal Principles of Justice and Political Economy. Edited by Jeremy Shearmur. XIX. The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, volume XIX. The University of Chicago Press.

Noble, Denis. 2012. “A Theory of Biological Relativity: No Privileged Level of Causation.” Interface Focus 2 (1): 55–64. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2011.0067.

Noble, Denis. 2017. Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity. Cambridge University Press.

Noble, Raymond, and Denis Noble. 2023. Understanding Living Systems. Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg, Elaine. 2021. “The Power and Pervasiveness of Spontaneous Order.” Column. Econlib Articles, July 5. https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2021/sternbergspontaneousorder.html.

 

Increasing Constraints by Higher Levels of Biological Organization

Feared by the bad, loved by the good,

Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!

                -Refrain from the theme of the television show The Adventures of Robin Hood

In the very interesting book by Raymond and Denis Noble, Understanding Living Systems, there is a figure (8.2 on page 128) that depicts a direction of increasing constraints by higher levels of organization on lower levels, and to my surprise, I agree.

However, these increasing constraints do not usually consist of threats of pain. In fact, the great majority of pain signals flow in the opposite direction, from lower systems to upper ones. It's Scotty in the engine room yelling to Captain Kirk in his Scottish brogue, "I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain!" (although he apparently never quite said that). When the increasing constraint does consist of threats of pain, say in a pack of wolves, the individual doing the threatening is very much at risk, direct or indirect.

In the case of human governance by the state, there is a combination of both threats of pain—inconvenience, imprisonment, or even death—and the absence of risk as the "deciders" are insulated by the many layers of bureaucrats and enforcers "just following orders" from the pain being inflicted.

Because of this isolation, we have stories of heroes like Robin Hood, who outsmarted the Sheriff of Nottingham and his boss, the evil King John, and returned money taken through onerous taxation to the helpless peasants. Modern political participants believe that democracy has created a return nerve pathway to signal pain to the rulers, but anyone can see that policies that are bad for the peasants are just as difficult to change as they were in Merry Olde England. Once the campaign is over, the elected politicians simply do as they like and their campaign utterances can only cause them real harm in the next election.

As a rollback of the state seems unlikely, the only remedy for this situation is the possibility of secession on the scale of the individual, possibly leading to a situation like what Chandran Kukathas advocates in The Liberal Archipelago. This remedy was eventually applied in the case of state religions with the happy result that religious wars and persecution, at least in western nations, have ceased. Let each person choose their property regime and method of bringing it to fruition, and let entrepreneurs respond to those choices.

Are Societal Structures Really "… the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design?"

This phrase from Adam Ferguson (quote in context here) is bandied about quite a bit by supporters of markets and, specifically, in the context of Friedrich Hayek's views of markets and society. The phrase brings to mind the inductivist view that science proceeds first by observations–"just observe." However, in the case of creating social structures, "just act." This formulation can lead one to think that in science any random observation can lead to knowledge, or in society, any action will contribute to the spontaneous order. Such thinking denigrates the individual and minimizes such achievements as Newton's laws of motion and Mises's work on socialism's calculation problem.

If we accept Mises's definition of human action, "purposeful behavior" (Human Action, p 11), we take it that each action is rational and aimed at a certain end (this is not to say that impulsive or instinctual actions involve thought processes, but that the ones that concern us in economics and social interaction do). Therefore we can say that each action is designed by the individual for a specific purpose. When individuals act with a purpose in mind they are supported by the entire background of biological and societal evolution that preceded them. For that reason, actions are not random but are stochasticly targeted in the sense Denis Noble describes in Dance to the Tune of Life (194-197), varying only part of the theoretical structure.

In acting, each person impinges upon the plans of others. As each person adjusts their plans to mesh with others' their actions produce effects that feed back into the system, producing new effects unanticipated by the original actors. These new effects produce plan revisions, and so on. The pattern is the same as Karl Popper's tetradic schema:

P₁ → TT → EE → P₂

 Where P₁ is the initial problem state, TT is a tentative solution or theory, EE is the error-elimination process applied to the theory, and P₂ represents the new problem state that has been generated by the process.

This concise representation is simply that of a Darwinian or evolutionary approach to knowledge, reflecting the iterative process of markets that is so foreign to the state and political governance.

New knowledge is created at the frontier by trial-and-error based upon what we currently believe to be true. Individuals produce the mutations to our theories–scientific and social–that make progress possible. These mutations are tested against reality and retained or discarded based on the results. Sometimes, when problems with an accepted theory become too great science takes a step back, and we discover we "know what ain't so."

At this moment in history, it appears that what we are in such a position with economics and society. In economics we are in the grips of the neoclassical synthesis, which provides an intellectual argument for the state, an institution that already resists falsification through power and violence. In society the failed arguments of natural rights have opened the floodgates to identity politics and the intellectually sterile ad hoc strategy of resistance to it. It would seem that we are heading for a giant reset in which one hopes for a rethinking of the whole project of governance resulting in institutions developed through the trial-and-error of what I have called evolutionary liberalism. Only then might we have Peace on Earth.

A Popperian View of The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Problem

Richard Dawkins, in the "Preface to the 1976 edition" of The Selfish Gene wrote:

We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment. Though I have known it for many years, I never seem to get fully used to it. (1989, v)

Although I never finished the book, I read enough of it years ago to understand, and accept, what Dawkins was selling—that these inanimate molecules were selfishly controlling evolution.

I believed this narrative for many years—actually, until recently. Then, having become ever more familiar with Karl Popper's philosophy and his evolutionary epistemology, I came to believe Dawkins's narrative was false for reasons I will attempt to explain.

For those readers who are not familiar with Popper's work, some introductory remarks are in order. For a wider review of Popper's most important works, see Rafe Champion's Popper: The Champion Guides.

The Tetradic Schema

Popper expressed his evolutionary, trial-and-error epistemology in a "tetradic schema":

     P₁ → TS → EE → P₂

This schema may be read as Problem situation 1 produces Tentative Solutions that undergo Error Elimination, leading to the new Problem situation 2. The schema represents an infinite process, as each new P₂ becomes a new P₁. Note that TS may represent an array of possible solutions.

Popper linked his thinking to Darwinian evolution in his early works, writing in The Logic of Scientific Discovery, "We choose the theory which best holds its own in competition with other theories; the one, which by natural selection, proves itself the fittest to survive" (1959, 108). In his  "Of Clouds and Clocks," Popper made the connection between his tetradic schema and evolution, writing that it describes "the fundamental evolutionary sequence of events" (1972, 243).

Three Worlds

Popper divided the world into three categories:

1. World 1: the world of physical objects.
2. World 2: the world of mental states.
3. World 3: the world of objective—that is, intersubjectively criticizable—knowledge.

Much as Mises discussed action in the context of humans, Popper focused on the human component of these categories, while acknowledging a glimmer of world 3 in the preconscious animals. Examples of the latter would be a spider's web (1972, 112) or a bird's nest (1972, 117). He did assert a connection between animal knowledge and genetic information:

This statement of the situation is meant to describe how knowledge really grows. It is not meant metaphorically, though of course it makes use of metaphors. The theory of knowledge which I wish to propose is a largely Darwinian theory of the growth of knowledge. From the amoeba to Einstein, the growth of knowledge is always the same: we try to solve our problems, and to obtain, by a process of elimination, something approaching adequacy in our tentative solutions. (1972, 261)

World 3 in a human context contains the consciously-constructed results of conjecture and refutation that Popper called objective knowledge. For the process of refutation or error correction, the conjectures being evaluated must be in a form to be criticized. For that reason, world 3 objects are generally represented in world 1 objects like books or recordings. I believe, in the case of humans, they may also be represented in myths and ballads that are passed on through retelling and memory.

Genetic Dualism

In "Evolution and the Tree of Knowledge" (1972, p 256-284) Popper proposes a conjecture:

"The problem to be solved by [my conjecture] is the old problem of orthogenesis versus accidental and independent mutation—Samuel Butler's problem of luck or cunning. It arises from the difficulty of understanding how a complicated organ, such as the eye, can ever result from the purely accidental co-operation of independent mutations.
"Briefly, my solution of the problem consists in the hypothesis that in many if not all of those organisms whose evolution gives rise to our problem—they may include perhaps some very low organisms—we may distinguish more or less sharply [at least] two distinct parts: roughly speaking a behavior-controlling part like the central nervous system of the higher animals, and an executive part like the sense organs and the limbs, together with their sustaining structures." (p 273)

Popper calls this conjecture "genetic dualism" and suggests that it "strongly resembles mind-body dualism."

In the cases which we wish to explain, certain inherited dispositions or propensities like those of self-preservation, seeking food, avoiding dangers, acquiring skills by imitation, and so on, may be regarded as subject to mutations that do not as a rule induce any significant change in any organs of the body, including the sense organs, except those organs (if any) which are the genetic carriers of the dispositions or propensities referred to. (p 273)

Popper goes on to explain that changes in the executive part that occur independently of the behavior-controlling part are likely to be unfavorable, while changes in the behavior-controlling part prepare the way for taking advantage of later changes in the executive part. He concludes, now referring to the behavior-controlling part as the "central propensity structure":

Once a new aim or tendency or disposition, or a new skill, or a new way of behaving has evolved in the central propensity structure, this fact will influence the effects of natural selection in such a way that previous unfavourable (though potentially favourable) mutations become actually favourable if they support the newly established tendency. But this means that the evolution of the executive organs will become directed by that tendency or aim, and thus 'goal-directed'. [emphasis in original] (p 278)

If we consider the context of all known living organisms, the possibility that world 3 is not simply a human phenomenon, and the conjecture of genetic dualism we find an argument against Dawkins's theory.

Are We Slaves of Libraries*?

Just as humans need books, and by extrapolation, libraries, to pass on knowledge, so too must cells have the capability to encode their knowledge to pass on an organism's characteristics. To do so, cellular processes must have discovered or even created DNA and used it to store genetic information. Perhaps this discovery occurred through random combination, or through some method yet to be understood that might be called "unconscious intelligence." In relation to the latter there are a number of competing hypotheses including vitalism, panpsychism, holism, etc., all of which are speculative and might be called "skyhooks" by the likes of Daniel Dennett. The primary point here is that the acting or behavior-controlling part is cellular processes, while genes fulfill the role of the executive part. Applying Popper's conjecture to cells, genes would be relegated to a passive role in the same relationship to cellular processes and libraries are to humans. The question then becomes, are we slaves of libraries?

In Denis Noble's book, The Music of Life, he presents two possible alternatives for genes. The Dawkins version is that living things are the slaves of genes, while the other is that genes are the prisoners of organisms. Each of these choices seems somewhat silly (as Denis Noble has informed me, they were meant to be, as alternatives between which there was no way to choose through experiment). After all, are we slaves of our libraries, or are libraries our prisoners? I would suggest that neither is the case, and that we create libraries as world 3 extensions of ourselves with which we interact, enhancing our survival (Popper, 1994).

Evidence for Genetic Dualism

In the second part of the Homage to Darwin debate held at Oxford (41:36) (also documented in (MacAllister, 2009, p 16)) Noble points out that implanting a genome of one species in the egg cell from another is only able to develop so far before "freezing."

There are extremely few cases of cross species cloning that lead to a living organism. What that tells me is that the genetic 'program' --if we can use that metaphor--lies as much in the cell as in the genome.

I suspect that this observation is in agreement with Popper's genetic dualism in that the control apparatus, the cellular processes, are not able to process the DNA presented to them.

Conclusion

Whatever Dawkins may have thought he was doing when he wrote The Selfish Gene, he fostered a belief that there was some control of evolution exhibited by genes. But when we apply Popper's thinking to the problem, we come to a completely different conclusion—that cellular processes are the world 2 behavior-controlling part that makes evolution appear goal-directed while the world 1 object, DNA, performs the world 3, "library" function.

*I use the word "libraries" to represent those world 3 objects that are represented in world 1 form.

MacAllister, James (2009). "A Commentary on Homage to Darwin Debate." Retrieved June 5, 2018 from NanoPDF: https://nanopdf.com/download/homageto-darwin-debate-commentary_pdf.
Popper, Karl R., (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery.  Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Popper, Karl R., (1972). Objective Knowledge. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press.
Popper, Karl R., (1994). Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem: In defence of interaction. (M. A. Notturno, Ed.), London: Routledge.