Autoevolutionism
Here are a few provocative paragraphs from Chapter 26 of
Lima-de-Faria's "Evolution without Selection":
The physico-chemical basis of ethics
"Not only is a physico-chemical concept of life compatible with
ethics, but it seems to be the only approach to life that will
allow us to understand the origins of ethical principles". This
statement comes from Loeb (1912), who
emphasized that most if not all of our instincts have such a
basis.
He points out that we eat, drink and reproduce not because humanity
has decided by general consensus that such behaviour is desirable
to the species, but simply beause we are forced to do so by our
construction. A woman loves and cares for her children not because
of the fact that the psychologists think that such behaviour is
desirable, but because she is obliged to do so due to the
physico-chemical processes going on in her own body.
Our fight for justice and truth also has no other
source.
The point Lima-de-Faria is raising is merely the old problem of
determinism and free will, of course. But he's doing it in the
context of "autoevolution". It's unfortunate that if you search for
the phrases "autoevolution" and "autoevolutionism" on the internet,
you get references to intelligent design. Let me be very clear
about this:
Lima-de-Faria's concept of autoevolution is NOT intelligent
design.
It is simply the concept that biological form and function is a
natural, self-organizing, extension of mineral, chemical, and
physical form and function. Plants and animals are constructed in
precisely the same way that the elementary particles, chemicals,
and minerals are constructed. In simple terms, a human grows and
lives in the same way a crystal or a hunk of rock grows and
lives.
Although this is difficult to swallow in these simple terms, he
makes his case working backwards from he current neo-Darwinist
concept of evolution to this point simply by considering evolution
without selection. All the same concrete
mechanisms of the modern theory of
evolution are present in autoevolution. He just attempts to remove
the abstract and problematic concept of selection. And in that
context, although autoevolution won't be popular until we either
falsify selectionism or identify concrete mechanisms for selection,
it's a perfectly reasonable alterative to neo-Darwinism WITHOUT
resorting to nonsense like intelligent design.
Indeed, I believe we have found some concrete mechanisms for some
forms of selection; but I am largely ignorant of biology and can't
build strong rhetoric for it. However, it does seem to me that
Lima-de-Faria is, in this book, arguing from a dual position to
that taken by the selectionists. I imagine the actual system
working analogous to any complementary system, like a hand to a
glove or Lagrangian to Eulerian perspectives. Autoevolution
examines the system solely from the perspective of the construct.
Selectionism examines the system solely from the perspective of the
environment that surrounds the construct.
Hence, selectionists think in terms of constraints and degrees of
freedom. Autoevolutionists think in terms of composition and
construction (for lack of better terms).
In this sense, I think that Lima-de-Faria's conception of
neo-Darwinism is outdated. I think there are some few concrete
selection mechanisms (constraints) that are the precise duals of
the self-organizing mechanisms that give rise to biological
diversity. Again, I am too ignorant in biology to build the
rhetoric to show that.
All this smacks to me of the age old question of determinism versus
free will. It's almost like the selectionists are simply those of
us who are agnostic enough to allow for free will, whereas the
determinists are those of us who see life as a series of
straightforward actions to be taken. In autoevolution, an organism
takes the next best action where "best" depends on whether it needs
food, has an chemical urge to mate, or whatever. There is no free
will required, only a canalized most efficient next action. In
selectionism, there is plenty of wiggle room surrounding any next
action. At any point, there are sets of actions to be chosen from.
The environment circumscribes the set of actions the organism can
take. It then takes the action it WANTS to take, where "want" would
be determined by some random (inexplicable and/or unpredictable)
process.
Of course, both of these are over-simplifications because
selectionists allow for selection at multiple scales and
autoevolution would, presumably, posit composition at multiple
scales.
Scientifically, what we really need is a particular concrete
multi-scale situation that's determined at the lower scale and
indeterminate at the higher scale. The trouble is that our best and
smallest scale theory (quantum mechanics)
also alows the
dual. In some ways, it's deterministic and in other ways it simply
circumscribes the wiggle room for the mysterious mechanisms
underneath.
Anyway, as you can see if you're still reading, I'm just muddling
through all this as best I can. There's no point, no moral to the
story. Sorry.
Loeb, J. (1912) La Conception
M�canique de La Vie. Librairie F�lix Alea, Paris.