We are not machines

We are not machines

Phillip Ball

Welcome to the new, post-genomic biology: a transformative era in need of fresh metaphors to understand how life works

Some biologists responded by saying, in effect: ‘No no no, nothing to see here – our existing understanding is just fine.’ (This was mild stuff compared with the furious reaction the ENCODE paper itself elicited from some biologists, who accused the team of evolutionary heresy on a par with intelligent design.) Others said that, even if biology was indeed more complicated that we’d thought, what was to be gained by telling the public that? In other words: don’t upset the status quo.

The role of metaphor and narrative, as opposed to new theories or experiments, is too little recognised in discussions of the historian of science Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, supposed (and contested) moments of dramatic change in science. All scientists know how to go about scrutinising a theory: you use it to formulate some testable hypothesis, and then do the experiment. If the theory fails the test, that’s just the scientific method at work. But metaphors aren’t the kind of thing you test at all: there are no critical tools designed to challenge them. They become regarded merely as expressions of how things are: an invisible component of the prevailing paradigm.

As such, they are hard to dislodge when their utility has passed – scientists will instead find ingenious ways to hold on to them. Thus, genes may still be ‘selfish’, and organisms may still be ‘machines’, brains ‘computers’, genomes ‘blueprints’, so long as we give those metaphorical words different interpretations to the everyday ones – thereby, of course, negating their value as metaphors. Keller wrote eloquently on this issue:

[T]his style or habit of chronic slippage from one set of meanings to the other has prevailed for over 50 years; it has become so deeply ensconced as to have been effectively invisible to most readers of the biological literature. This feature I suggest qualifies it as a Foucauldian discourse – by which I mean a discourse that operates by historically specific rules of exclusion, a discourse that is constituted by what can be said and thought, by what remains unsaid and unthought, and by who can speak, when, and with what authority.

Overall a good article, though:

I have heard it said that biologists who cleave to the claim that organisms are ‘machines’ do so not so much because of the aptness of the analogy but because it signifies allegiance to a materialist view of matter – as though one could not reject the idea that we are ‘machines made by genes’ without capitulating to a non-physical, mystical view of life.

One might ask why a "mystical view of life" is so bad, or why a non-physical view is automatically "mystical".

Yes it’s a good article. He is exactly advocating for strong emergence which I also have done in a couple of threads here.

That’s to say, the true causes of outcomes at the level of traits and of health don’t all come from the bottom up, from the genes, but emerge at all levels in the hierarchy of scales. That’s how life works. If we can identify the key locus of causation for a given trait, we have a better chance of making interventions that make a difference.

It does however not mean that the emergent consciousness at the top of the hierachy can survive with the death of the “bottom”

Yes it’s a good article. He is exactly advocating for strong emergence which I also have done in a couple of threads here.


It does however not mean that the emergent consciousness at the top of the hierachy can survive with the death of the “bottom”

Of course 'emergence' might be an attempt to interpret submergence. That is pre-existing consciousness immerses itself in matter and thereby becomes observable by physical methods. Same observation, different interpretation.

Of course 'emergence' might be an attempt to interpret submergence. That is pre-existing consciousness immerses itself in matter and thereby becomes observable by physical methods. Same observation, different interpretation.

This is the better choice, since Strong Emergence just posits Something from Nothing which makes no sense.

This is the better choice, since Strong Emergence just posits Something from Nothing which makes no sense.

Yes, that 'something from nothing' aspect troubled me too.

Of course 'emergence' might be an attempt to interpret submergence. That is pre-existing consciousness immerses itself in matter and thereby becomes observable by physical methods. Same observation, different interpretation.

I seem to find myself pondering on HG Wells' 'The Invisible Man' quite a lot recently. There was a film or possibly a TV series I saw many years ago. The man became visible only when wrapped in clothing and of course his face was covered in bandages. It seemed quite mysterious to me as a child for although he could in the invisible state still give an opponent a good punch to the jaw, my train of thought often led me towards contemplating a completely non-physical version of that man, where he could walk through walls and be otherwise uninvolved with matter. That is a diversion away from the Wells story but the idea always fascinated me. I wasn't considering it in any more esoteric sense such as the world of ghosts or immortal souls. It was simply a very ordinary human, but without the trappings of a body, an ability which could be turned on and off at will. I was just a small child when I thought these things and wasn't trying to plug all the loopholes or answer all the questions it would raise.

This is the better choice, since Strong Emergence just posits Something from Nothing which makes no sense.

I don’t think there’s much substance in that argument. How do you explain the electricity powering your computer? I can explain it to you. Electricity arises from the movement of electrical charges inside a medium. But electricity  does not exist as a concept on the more fundamental level.

Consciousness probably doesn’t exists without a conducting medium very much like electricity. So it’s not from nothing.

I don’t think there’s much substance in that argument. How do you explain the electricity powering your computer? Something from nothing?

What about electricity is "Strong Emergence"?

What about electricity is "Strong Emergence"?

You replied before I finished writing my post. I have edited it a couple of times since first draft. Electricity is an emergent phenomena, everybody should know that.