Emergence: Of or From Mind?

Richard K. Khuri

Science has often advanced because strange ideas were seriously entertained. That there can be no "scientific" proof that mind comes before emergence does not mean that we are to dismiss this possibility a priori. Emergence and complexity have already taken us well beyond the traditional scope of empiricism, employing something more akin to Cartesian clarity and distinctness in order to make sense of some of the astonishing results to which we have ironically been led by strict adherence to a family of methods that assign a privileged place to proof and experimental verification. It may just turn out that placing certain findings from various fields in a more open-minded context, where one is willing to at least consider the possibility of mind's ontological priority, would result in an overall view that enjoys a higher level of coherence and infuses subsequent research with more vigour and purpose such that further findings could fit remarkably well. Or it may be only a useful challenge to our usual way of examining the phenomena. Either way, the presentation will attempt to make a case for the ontological priority of mind.

Four aspects of the relationship between mind and emergence will be presented. The talk and accompanying paper will be organized accordingly. We shall begin with our (human) side of the story, namely the emergence of mind as we ordinarily consider it: the human mind. The emergence of the human mind can be dealt with diachronically (across time) and synchronically (at a given moment in time). The diachronic aspect will be presented first, as it is very well known and is the simplest entry into a discussion that links the mind with emergence. This aspect often falls under the title "the discovery of the mind." Brief mention will be made of the building of stone tools that are symmetric in three dimensions, cave art, burial rites, the use of tokens in anticipation of abstract counting, and the abstraction of metaphysics from mythology among the ancient Greeks. These and similar developments not only set the stage for the emergence of mind, but are signs that it must have already been there, awaiting the proper context for self-expression (much as genes depend on a context in order to express themselves). The early evolution of the mind has a further significance that will only become apparent when we have surveyed all four aspects. Ever since Godel's theorem became known, reflections about what we may term the "synchronic emergence" of mind have intensified. The term "synchronic emergence" is meant to refer to a further dimension of the mind's existence that comes forth simultaneously with mental activity with which we are extremely familiar. The synchronic is more subtle than the diachronic aspect because of the difficulty of articulating the mind's ability to be "ahead of itself" at the very moment that it expresses itself. We have become habituated to working with axiomatic systems, but there is nothing ordinary about the consistency of the underlying axioms, the recognition of which comes so naturally to us that we struggle to account for it lucidly. The same problem is encountered when we try to formally account for our natural ability to pick out the proper reference of our terms when their meaning is otherwise ambiguous, a problem that is believed to arise from the correct interpretation of the theorem by Lowenheim and Skolem. But the recognition that there is profoundly more to the mind than what it seems to be doing as it performs simple logical or arithmetic operations goes all the way back to Aristotle. In this light, we shall concentrate on the exceptional interpretative work of the contemporary Aristotelian scholar, Aryeh Kosman. For example, in a paper on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, Kosman argues persuasively that Aristotle was aware that in the formulation of an explanation, which is eventually laid out in a syllogism, the mind grasps that a proper (i.e., scientific) explanation of a particular occurrence will apply to all such occurrences. Moreover, our ability to formulate explanations presupposes a grasp of that by which we explain. That we take this for granted ought not diminish our appreciation of its philosophical implications. For Aristotle, mind really comes in at the level of our grasp of that by which we explain, our grasp of archai (first principles). It is not finding causes for the phenomena that is paramount but knowing that a cause IS a cause; it is not knowing that a principle is true, but that the principle in use is appropriate. Because we only acquire such knowledge through a complex process that involves habituation, definition and dialectic, mind is thus defined (by Kosman after Aristotle) as "a feature/habit (hexis) of our understanding of all explanatory principles just insofar as we understand them in the act of explaining by them." We shall also consider Kosman's reflections on Aristotle's extraordinary but notoriously sketchy remarks on the mind in de Anima. The notion of habituation will be a theme in the second half of my presentation, for the transition from "habits of mind" to "mind as (in part) habits" seems to be on its way to finding an echo in our thought about nature, which some argue ought itself be seen as displaying a long and intricate history of accumulated habits that are signs of Mind (Hoffmeyer after Peirce).

The first part of the second half will deal with what may be termed "objective encounters with Mind in nature" (the third aspect promised above). Physicists have for a while now been talking about such "mental" presences in nature because of the remarkable precision with which various cosmological constants have been "selected". The trouble with this line of thought is that it depends heavily on theoretical projections that may one day be radically overturned. It would therefore be best to turn closer to home. My examples will therefore begin with the solar system, which itself requires highly specific initial conditions in order to be precisely what it is, namely one within which life is possible, some say inevitable. On the borderline between physics and chemistry lies the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which dictates that no two electrons at the same energy level can have the same spin. It therefore determines the number of energy levels for every element and so provides a deep ordering for the periodic table of elements. If anything in nature is an arche, surely this is it, because nothing justifies it. It overrides physics rather than being deducible from anything therein. It is simply there, and does what it does. It has thus been termed a "noetic principle" (Morowitz). Moving into chemistry itself, we have the phenomena of ontological ambiguity as in the case of benzene-diiodide pairs, and the spontaneuos emergence of form in the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction (both discussed by Earley in a philosophical context). The spontaneous emergence of form plays an important role in biology as well (Goodwin). But it is a close examination of evolution itself (in its strict biological sense) that shows the noetic at its most striking. Evolution as such would not be possible in a mechanical world (Peirce). Turning to the growth of sexually reproductive organisms from fertilization onwards, it turns out that DNA by itself, even circumventing the problem of how it came about in the first place, does not do as much as is commonly believed (Goodwin). Not only does it rely on the cytoskeleton of the fertilized egg for the timing and placement of proteins, but even the amino acid sequences that it does specify may be "edited" by certain types of RNA. The egg itself has a long and complex history ("billions of accumulated molecular habits"). The genome may thus be seen as merely a sign that, from the perspective of the growing embryo that interprets it, signifies a certain ontogenetic trajectory (Hoffmeyer). The genetic code is a surface phenomenon signifying a genetic history (Chandler). However, the recent examination of the most common leaf patterns in plants, with the help of computer simulations, has provided strong signs that habit and genetic history are subject to an underlying order that restricts emergent phenomena to specific forms that may themselves be related through mathematical transformations (Goodwin, Douady and Couder, and others). A striking example of this that will be discussed in some detail is the relationship between the patterns of phyllotaxy and the Golden Section. This example urges us to take seriously the possibility that there is something like a "space of potential forms" which in this case is also underlain by a precise numerical order (another arche). Transposing the model to the morphogenetic field, as Goodwin does, then leads us to wonder how it is that genes are perfectly appropriate for interpretation within that field, how the materials from which genes are made and with which they work are perfectly suited for acquiring the specified forms, and how cascades of gradients and bifurcations are readily available to power the dynamics of such processes. The fourth and last aspect of the relationship between mind and emergence turns to the subjective side of encounters with the noetic in nature. For it is not just an indifferent noetic presence that we encounter in nature, but one that moves us. All the evidence points to the emergence of phenomena that have no survival or other functional value and yet have certain striking qualities such as beauty. Some butterflies from Malaysia or New Guinea, the parrots of Tucuman, the valleys of Mount Lebanon, and snow and sunset and birdsong and seabreezes and the smell of blossoms in so many places, have what is almost an excessive beauty that obviously predates the humans who have been touched by it. And yet the world can just as obviously have great functional efficiency without it. One can only ask what it means for it to be there. And so we shall have come full circle, for cave artists did more than just leave a record of their surroundings and activities, as did metaphysically-minded Aborigine mythmakers. Tools long ago began to look appealing, the deceased were given burial rites, building took on an architectural dimension (assuming that it ever existed without it). From very early on, humans recognized that nature demanded and merited appreciation, reflection, and contemplation. It is at this level that "semiotic fitness" receives its highest expression, for art and beauty seem to be the loci of a semiotic exchange with nature's noetic aspect.

We will have seen many ways in which M/mind emerges. And yet my examples will have presented us with a problem as regards precisely the way it can be claimed that M/mind is emergent. It seems to fly in the face of intuition and common sense to insist that M/mind emerges from what is not M/mind. "Strong" emergence appears misguided in this case. "Weak" emergence may be more appropriate in this case, something like the claim that all along, Mind has been there in some primordial form and emerges and metamorphoses in all sorts of ways given the right circumstances.