Internal Measurement in the Present Progressive Tense and Cohesion

Koichiro Matsuno

Department of Bioengineering

Nagaoka University of Technology

Nagaoka 940-2188, Japan

kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp

Natural dynamics proceeding in the present progressive mode is necessarily agential, whereas the linguistic stipulation of restricting ourselves only to dynamics in the present tense unduly dismisses such an agential capacity. Behavioral agents upholding the dynamics in the present progressive tense from within participate in the act of doing measurement internally. Internal measurement is intrinsically cohesive in sustaining the similar activities in the present progressive tense indefinitely while constantly precipitating the record in the present perfect tense. When internal measurement is supplemented by the empirical regularity identified as the first law of thermodynamics referring to energy conservation during its inevitable transformation, it engenders cohesive interactions through exchanging material particles or bodies between arbitrary concerned parties. Natural selection in progress as a concrete dynamic attribute of the natural dynamics demonstrating such an exchange interaction is both cohesive in yielding biological organizations and variable in the choice of material bodies to be exchanged, whereas natural selection theoretically conceived as a selective principle acting on pre-existing variations that have been generated independently of the selection is legitimately dismissed.

There has been a growing concern on how one can describe evolutionary processes in the manner as the participants would have actually been experiencing (Matsuno, 1996). The principal objective for this endeavor is to minimize the intrusion of inevitable artifacts of descriptive origin (Pattee, 1977). For instance, natural selection in progress as a dynamic attribute of natural dynamics is certainly different from natural selection in the present tense as a theoretical concept in the form of an irreducible fundamental predicate to describe evolutionary processes. The difference rests upon the difference between the present progressive tense and the present tense employed for the description of natural dynamics. While the object referred to in the mode of the present tense could remain invariant in the dynamics as letting it be an invariant theoretical concept, the present progressive tense is unique in addressing the process right in progress that can be variable. Natural selection in progress to be identified as an empirical phenomenon reveals that there should be some cohesive activities among the material participants in evolutionary processes that could eventually yield a biological organization referred to as being imputed to the dynamic attribute of the process called natural selection. If a vicious tautology is to be avoided by all means at this point, the nature of such cohesive activities should be elucidated in their own light (Sattler, 1990; Paton, 1992).

Needless to say, cohesion met in evolutionary processes is materialistic in its origin (Paton and Matsuno, 1998). Natural selection in progress to be identified as an empirical phenomenon certainly demonstrates cohesive activities in operation among the material participants in evolutionary processes despite that natural selection in progress itself is something to be explained out instead of to explain others. Of course, these cohesive activities are not sought solely within literal electrostatic or gravitational interactions, which are taken to be major sources of attractive interaction available to physical processes. Once the nature of cohesive activities in biological processes in general and in evolutionary processes in particular is focused, it would become imperative to present a convincing argument for the occurrence of such a cohesive interaction holding biological organisms and organizations from within. Otherwise, natural selection as an empirical phenomenon to be registered in the present perfect tense, though legitimate, would have to remain silent about how it could come to mold itself from its own constituents.

We shall in the present article examine the nature of cohesive interactions that should be responsible for constructing various biological organizations in the bottom up manner. In particular, special attention will be focused on the capability of our natural languages for the task of elucidating the nature of cohesive interactions in the material world.

It has been taken to be the rule to describe what natural dynamics is all about in the mode of the present tense. When we try to describe any dynamics in terms of statements made in the present tense, it would become rather imperative to succumb to a stipulation of descriptive origin (Barhtes, 1989). That is the acclaimed legitimacy of the statements at any present moment. Dynamics formulated in the present tense is about the transformation of something remaining invariant in time as exemplified in the form of the equations of motion. The equations of motion reveal that what can be transformed in time is equated to the predecessor, as implying that the equations remain valid at any present moment. Classical mechanics just happens to be this case. Nonetheless, dynamics in the present tense is necessarily incomplete of itself in specifying the nature of the predecessor which may also be referred to as the initial condition. Unless it is further supplemented by the activity of specifying and identifying the initial condition, the recursive activity latent in the dynamics in the present tense could not function properly. At issue is the dynamic nature of specifying and identifying the boundary conditions in general and the initial condition in particular (Matsuno, 1985).

No dynamics can be complete unless it is supplemented by the capacity of specifying and identifying what is to be transformed in time. In this regard, quantum mechanics is somewhat better prepared compared to classical counterpart. Quantum mechanics distinguishes between the dynamics in the present tense as embodied in the form of the unitary transformation and another dynamics imputed to the process of measurement that would practically come to enhance the extent of specification and identification with regard to the boundary conditions. Measurement dynamics inherent in quantum mechanics is certainly not the one framed in the present tense, otherwise the capacity of specification would be lost. This contrast between the unitary and the measurement dynamics in quantum mechanics urges us to recognize that the grammatical stipulation of limiting ourselves only to the present tense for the description of the dynamics should be suspended. Although there has been an extremely long and overwhelming tradition of framing dynamics in the present tense, this tradition would effectively come to dismiss the legitimacy of one more dynamics addressing the capacity of specification and identification. Appraisal of measurement dynamics should be sought in statements formulated in the tenses other than the present tense.

When the activity of specification and identification is focused, our linguistic institution turns out to be basically competent in addressing the issue as having recourse to various grammatical tenses available to our natural languages (Emmeche and Hoffmeyer, 1991). Although the author of statements in the mode of the present tense can legitimately dismiss the capacity of specification and identification on the part of the object out there by claiming and monopolizing the separation between subject and object, the present tense is no more than one of the available grammatical tenses. If one switches to the present progressive tense, the author could also find him or herself as an actor (Köhler, 1993; Kisiel, 1997). The present progressive tense can make the author to be an actor and also to be assimilated to any one of the behavioral subjects at the same time. For instance, when the author states that a worm is crawling on the earth, the author can also assume the position of the crawling worm. The author as an actor, though local in its perspective, is specific enough to identify the behavioral antecedent and to actualize the consequent accordingly, whatever they may be. Since it does not require the equation between the behavioral antecedent and the consequent, the present progressive tense can have the capacity of specification and identification that the present tense cannot afford (Gendlin, 1995; Rosen, 1997). The present progressive tense is grammatically competent enough to cope with measurement dynamics (Matsuno, 1998b).

Quantum mechanics as an interplay between measurement dynamics in the present progressive mode and the unitary dynamics in the mode of the present tense now raises a fundamental issue of how these two types of dynamics come to intertwine with each other. One connecting thread can be envisioned once one pays attention to the descriptive transference of dynamics from the present progressive to the present perfect mode if ever possible. If a set of behavioral activities in progress is transferred to the finished record in the present perfect mode, such a record would necessarily be under the constraint of fulfilling the global specification to be observed in the present perfect mode even if each behavioral activity in the present progressive mode is local. Furthermore, if such a global specification remains invariant in time, it can be referred to in the present tense as being invariant at any present moment. Then, the present progressive tense can be concatenated to the present tense via the present perfect tense. The embodiment of specification applied to the present tense can be drawn from the record in the present perfect tense if an invariant global specification is available in the latter, while the very origin of the capacity of such a specification is sought in the present progressive mode.

Most representative of the invariant in the present tense to be specified globally are various conservation laws confirmed on both empirical and theoretical basis. Conservedness of an arbitrary quantity such as energy already registered in the record could make measurement for the sake of fulfilling the conservation law internal to the dynamics in the present tense retrieved from actions completed in the present perfect tense. The unitary dynamics in quantum mechanics certainly satisfies the conservation law at any present moment. Measurement internal to quantum mechanics thus assumes two roles at the same time. One is to specify the behavioral activities of the material participants, and the other is to identify the specified activities. Internal measurement as the capacities of both specification and identification turns out to be a factor for both measurement and the unitary dynamics to interdigitate with each other (Matsuno, 1989).

One supporting evidence for internal measurement involved in quantum mechanics is the selection rule applied to the occurrence of a macroscopic quantum state. Although the unitary dynamics of quantum mechanics allows superposition of an arbitrary set of macroscopic quantum states, actual measurement in quantum mechanics eliminates such a superposition that would contradict time’s arrow in thermodynamics (Schulman, 1997). Despite that the unitary dynamics could allow superposition of both macroscopic quantum states, a cat alive and the same cat dead, such a grotesque macroscopic superposition ingeniously contrived by Schrödinger has no chance of actualization in our empirical domain. This elimination can be made possible only through the activity of global specification exerted over time, as suggesting the involvement of measurement dynamics (Rössler, 1987).

Internal measurement operative in the present progressive tense could finally yield the global specification at the present tense through the record registered in the present perfect tense (Gunji, 1995). This dynamics of internal measurement differs from the dynamics in the mode of the present tense supplemented by its boundary conditions. The dynamics in the mode of the present tense is not competent enough to accommodate the activity of specification itself. Specification as an activity principal to internal measurement can rest neither upon the present perfect nor upon the present tense. Its origin is sought exclusively within the dynamics in the present progressive tense. This perspective is decisive in making internal measurement, that is, the dynamics in the present progressive tense, more fundamental than the dynamics in the present tense. Although one can derive the dynamics in the present tense from the one in the present progressive tense via the record registered in the present perfect tense, the reverse does not function properly. This is due to the grammatical stipulation inherent in the dynamics described in the present tense in the sense that a form of an equation of motion in time would have to be observed there in any case. Internal measurement is a descriptive means for overcoming the grammatical stipulation of letting any dynamics described in the present tense inevitably follow an equation of motion.

Internal measurement puts its emphasis on the observation that the present progressive tense is more inclusive compared to the present tense when it comes to description of what dynamics is all about. Even if an equation between the behavioral antecedent and the consequent is not expected, it would not be required to have recourse to an external agency that could not be descriptively approached. This recognition would become most keen when natural selection is focused. Natural selection taken in the present tense necessarily comes to presume an equation of motion while maintaining the notion of the selection intact at any present moment. This would place a formidable burden upon the task of arguing for the origin of variations (Küppers, 1992). This difficulty is not technical, but rather conceptual (Salthe, 1993). The equation of motion letting the notion of natural selection intact in time makes the origin of variations descriptively inaccessible due to the fact that dynamics described in the present tense is deprived of the capacity of generating the specification it is going to be subject to. If the generation of variations is understood as a material process that could descriptively be accessible, the notion of natural selection should be taken in the tense other than the present. The alternative must be natural selection in the present progressive tense. This turnaround now asks us to see how natural selection could come up with variable biological organizations in the mode of the present progressive tense. At issue is variable cohesiveness residing within evolving biological organizations.

Once description of natural dynamics is intended, it would become prerequisite to examine the constraint inevitable to such a description. If the descriptive constraint is too strong, one would have to come to apply an artifact of descriptive origin to the intended dynamics. If the constraint is too weak, on the other hand, the dynamics to be described could not be specific enough to meet the objective. Internal measurement founded upon the descriptive vehicle in the present progressive tense rests upon the condition that it can be concatenated to the completed measurement in the present perfect tense while moving the activity in the present progressive mode constantly forward. That the present progressive tense neither totally reduces to the present perfect tense nor vice versa is simply a linguistic condition. One thus observes that the present progressive tense is internally cohesive as letting the present perfect tense as a concatenating agency move the present progressive further forward. For instance, when a worm is crawling on the earth, it is constantly moving ahead beyond the point it has reached without being bothered by equating the behavioral antecedent to the consequent. Cohesion internal to the present progressive tense via the present perfect is, however, not a simple tautology. It addresses the dynamic capacity that our natural languages could intrinsically incorporate into themselves. Significance of such a capacity can be highlighted when it is compared to dynamics framed in the present tense.

Movement described in the present tense, though following the Galilean-Newtonian tradition, is very peculiar in maintaining that what is described in the present tense remains as it is at any present moment. Precisely for this reason, Galilean intertia has been taken to be the most fundamental attribute of the dynamics. This observation reveals that dynamics in the present tense, whether it may be classical mechanics, natural selection taken as an attribute in the present tense or whatever, is deprived of the capacity of specification and identification internally (Ulanowicz, 1997). The present deprivation of the specification capability from within is however exclusively linguistic in its origin. Although it may be possible to find or to contrive material phenomena superficially in accord with the linguistic stipulation, such a coincidence would by no means serve as evidence for vindicating dynamics in the present tense. This is because so long as one sticks to dynamics in the present tense, the linguistic constraint limiting us only to the present tense would totally eliminate the occurrence of specification and identification, or measurement in short, from within from the outset. Elimination of the capacity of internal measurement is of course not the fault of classical mechanics or natural selection per se. What has been responsible for the fault of dismissing internal measurement from within is our long-held linguistic practice of forcing us to describe dynamics in the mode of the present tense as experienced in the form of the equations of motion. Choice of a grammatical tense as addressing the issue of dynamics inevitably influences the basic character of the dynamics whether or not the author is willing to admit this fact explicitly. Henceforth, once the linguistic stipulation of limiting ourselves only to the present tense is lifted, natural dynamics can come to exploit its descriptive capacity on its own that may suit to the objective it addresses. Focusing on the present progressive tense comes from our observation of letting ourselves be free from being subject to an unintended dynamic stipulation imputed to descriptive artifacts.

In particular, cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense through precipitation of the present perfect tense is a case in point. When we understand natural selection in terms of, say, changes in the genetic makeup, irreversibility in time and reproductive isolation of populations, this would certainly apply to natural selection in the present perfect tense. However, it lacks cohesiveness latent in natural selection in progress in the sense that natural selection in the present perfect tense is reticent about how surviving biological organisms and organizations could come into being in the first place (Brooks and McLennan, 1990). Natural selection in progress must be internally cohesive in holding itself over time while leaving natural selection in the present perfect tense behind. This perception makes the notion of natural selection in the present tense merely a misnomer. Dynamics in the present tense, though still influential in the name of mechanistic tradition in general or mechanics in particular, owes itself to no more than an inverted linguistic artifact of letting the present progressive tense be derivative of the present tense. Conversely, cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense is a legitimate linguistic vehicle enabling us to face up to natural dynamics in the material world without being circumvented by the stipulation of the present tense (Matsuno and Salthe, 1995).

That the present progressive tense stands on its own is seen in the plurality of the behavioral agents involved in the movement in the present progressive mode. In contrast, the present tense assumes the author’s monopoly of agential capacity. Once the author sets a separation between subject and object in the present tense, such a separation would have to hold at any present moment. The author’s agential capacity of separating between subject and object is taken to be immortal so long as statements made in the present tense are taken literally as they are. Such an immortal monopoly of agency is, however, foreign to the present progressive tense. Vicissitude of the behavioral agents even including the author making statements in the present progressive tense is inevitable. There is no global agency to prescribe how each agent participating in the behaviors in the present progressive mode is coordinated in relation to all of the others. The present progressive tense makes the internalist perspective whose spatio-temporal horizon remains finite inevitable as letting every one of the partcipating agents be involved in constant negotiation with all of the others (Matsuno, 1996). This exhibits a sharp contrast to the externalist perspective making statements in the present tense feasible, in which the author exercises as a global agency from outside (Van de Vijver, 1996).

The present progressive tense, on the other hand, makes even the author to be one of the behavioral agents assuming only the internalist perspective. There is no global standard of descriptive nature against which each statement made in the present progressive tense could be judged unambiguously in relation to others. The absence of such a global standard of description may invite a defeatist view that every statement made in the present progressive tense must be relative because of the absence of a reliable external reference to share. This is however a hasty conclusion. One clue to prevent us from being entrapped by such a hasty conclusion is to have recourse to the occurrence of the present perfect tense, since in the latter we may be able to expect to rely upon an empirical regularity on a global scale even if the global reference of descriptive origin is not available. Although it assumes monopoly of the descriptive author as with the present tense, the present perfect tense in itself does not yield the descriptive invariant that can be referred to in the present tense. The present perfect tense certainly provides us with the linguistic framework that may be capable of accommodating an empirical regularity if any.

Once an empirical regularity is established in the present perfect tense, the role of the present progressive tense is found within the cohesive activities operating among the participating behavioral agents, that are equipped only with the internalist perspective for fulfilling the empirical regularity from within. The activities are constantly extending toward the global extent so as to fulfill the regularity. Cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense is about the local behavioral agents participating in the dynamics right in progress, which remains foreign to dynamics in the present tense as a matter of principle. Unless description of natural dynamics is forcibly stipulated to be made in the present tense, cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense can unquestionably claim its legitimacy as referring to a certain empirical regularity to be identified in the present perfect tense.

When various physical processes in the empirical world are focused, one can observe ubiquity of cohesive interactions. Most representative of them are electrostatic and gravitational interactions. Take, for instance, electrostatic interactions. We notice that there are at least two different descriptive schemes to cope with the interaction dynamics. One is in the present tense, and the other is in the present progressive tense. Although electrostatic interactions are a unique object in the empirical domain, the descriptive stipulation we have to employ in any case comes to force the descriptive object to fit into the mold of descriptive origin. Attractive interaction in the present tense as displayed in the equations of motion for interacting molecules, though legitimate in its own light, cannot be generative enough so as to enhance the extent of the global specification. This is the reason why the equations of motion for interacting molecules by themselves cannot tell us how the origin of life could be approached from within as a form of natural dynamics in the material world. Attractive interaction in the mode of the present tense is not agential any more in the sense that how it could be attractive and cohesive remains invariant in time. If we are interested in the process of how the specification of material configurations could be varied or enhanced in time as experienced in the origin of life on the primitive Earth, cohesive interactions in the present progressive tense would have to be focused.

Cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense makes the underlying interaction dynamics potentially agential in exercising the capacity for varying and enhancing the extent of its own specification. The variability of the specification comes from those internal agents residing in statements made in the present progressive tense. At the same time, we are required to make our descriptive stance vindicated as much as possible, otherwise we would come to lose the descriptive integrity. When we say that the interaction dynamics rests upon cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense, we also have to admit that the statement itself has been made in the present tense. In order to secure such a statement in the present tense made for the sake of legitimizing statements in the present progressive tense for the description of natural dynamics, it must also be observed that some room for allowing statements in the present tense would have to be preserved while eliminating serious conflicts with those statements made in the present progressive tense. At this point, the present perfect tense stands out. Once the record registered in statements in the present perfect tense becomes available, what has been kept in the record can be approached in the present tense in the sense that the record, after its completion, remains as it is. There is no agential capacity to be exercised in the present tense other than that due to the descriptive author. Referring to the record in the present tense is to take the note of what the local behavioral agents latent in the present progressive tense have accomplished so far and nothing about their agential capacity of itself.

The present tense is intrinsically incompetent in deciphering how each agent residing within statements in the present progressive tense would behave. Nonetheless, this incompetency alone cannot dismiss the participation of such behavioral agents in the makeup of natural dynamics. Dismissal of behavioral agents is due to no more than the linguistic artifact of letting the present progressive tense be transferred into the present perfect tense. If one focuses on how the present progressive tense develops in time, the role of the present perfect tense would now serve as a supplementary condition for letting the present progressive tense survive at the least. The present progressive tense has to be concatenated to the present perfect tense in due course. What is more, if there happens to be an empirical regularity to be identified in the record, the requirement for fulfilling the regularity a posteriori would become a necessary condition for those behavioral agents in the present progressive mode to eventually comply with.

Whether an empirical regularity exists is exclusively an empirical matter. However, once such a regularity is discovered on an empirical basis by whatever means, the participation of behavioral agents for the sake of fulfilling the regularity from within can be vindicated through the linguistic vehicle of facilitating the present progressive tense. This is so even if the discovery of such an empirical regularity has been made while having no reference to actual agencies. The discovery, if ever possible, can be made as referring to observational statements in the present perfect tense or to the existence of the record in the present tense. Once an empirical regularity is accepted, this observation is just synonymous with the participation of behavioral agents for the sake of fulfilling the regularity from within. This is entirely due to the linguistic condition stating that the present progressive tense precipitates the present perfect tense in due course. Despite that the likelihood of an empirical regularity is totally an empirical matter, the occurrence of behavioral agents is exclusively linguistic. The present linguistic condition is inescapable insofar as we take our practice of utilizing natural languages in one way or another for granted. Even if we are not sure about what kind of behavioral agents are possible and available on an empirical basis in the material world in the first place, our linguistic institution enables us to refer to behavioral agents. Our natural languages are already intrinsically capable of describing the origin and evolution of behavioral agents, whose most representative examples are biological organisms.

One of the empirical regularities discovered and tested so far is Mayer’s energy conservation during its transformation, known as the first law of thermodynamics (Swenson ,1998). A possible linguistic vehicle for coping with the transformation while observing conservation is in the manner of connecting the present perfect to the present progressive tense. The underlying empirical carrier of the connection is matter itself since matter is common in both the present perfect and the present progressive tense in the empirical world. In other words, matter is agential of itself as a form of memory being capable for resuscitating what has been in the present perfect tense into a form in the present progressive tense. Although matter to be met in dynamics in the present tense is merely inertial, this prescription is no more than an artifact of descriptive origin. Unless the linguistic stipulation of enforcing dynamics in the present tense is imposed, matter can resume its legitimate agential capacity.

Needless to say, the present appraisal of agential matter does not denigrate the role which inertial matter has assumed in physical sciences in any sense of the word. Although our linguistic institution certainly permits dynamics in the tense other than the present, there has been a lot of physical circumstances in which dynamics in the present tense has functioned marvelously as demonstrated in both classical and quantum mechanics. At the same time, this success alone does not dismiss the case of dynamics in the present progressive tense while precipitating the present perfect tense at the same time.

What makes matter follow the dynamics in the present progressive tense is the agential capacity that is necessarily local due to the fact that there can be a lot of agents negotiating with each other in the situations in the present progressive tense. Matter serving as a signal certainly satisfies the condition of being agential because of the internalist perspective intrinsic to dynamics in the present progressive tense. Any signal takes it for granted that it lacks a means of communication to all over the material world instantaneously while admitting that there is an intrinsic dichotomy between having already been communicated and not yet. In addition, matter as a processor of energy conservation during its transformation carries with itself an agency of maintaining energy flow continuity there because there is neither source nor sink of energy during the transformation. Dynamics in the present progressive tense now renders matter to be a carrier actualizing energy flow continuity while exchanging with others material signals of a local character. Exchange of matter as a signal then comes up as an empirical embodiment of cohesiveness internal to the present progressive tense, since the signal to be exchanged is mutually required by both of the concerned parties for the sake of fulfilling the condition of energy flow continuity. Biological processes are full of such a cohesive exchange interaction as demonstrated in various prey-predator systems.

Occurrence of exchanging material signals of a local character for the sake of fulfilling energy flow continuity is an indication of cohesive interaction operating exclusively in the present progressive tense. This exhibits a marked contrast to renormalized electrostatic interaction in quantum electrodynamics, in which the effect of photons to be exchanged for the occurrence of electrostatic cohesiveness are taken to be instantaneously global so as to make the whole scheme of electrodynamics globally consistent at any present moment. Renormalization of quantum electrodynamics thus enables us to regard it as a form of dynamics in the present tense. However, the requirement of such a global consistency is strictly linguistic in its origin. This does not imply that electrodynamic interaction due to exchanging of photons would have to follow dynamics in the present tense. Only when the process of exchanging photons between charged material particles seems to proceed almost instantaneously compared to others, such a global consistency at any present moment could be conceivable in a practical sense. Otherwise, exchange interaction of any material bodies serving as signals of a local character is constantly in the process of fulfilling the empirical regularity identified as energy flow continuity from within. Cohesive interaction internal to the present progressive tense would become conspicuous as particles greater than photons come to be involved as agents of material bodies to be exchanged. As particles to be exchanged become larger, agential capacity for fulfilling energy flow continuity in each exchange interaction constantly spills over into the neighborhood as inducing the similar activities indefinitely (Conrad, 1996).

When material bodies to be exchanged are taken over by electrons which are infinitely heavier than photons, chemistry of forming covalent bonds comes on the scene (Markl, 1990). Furthermore, cohesive interaction due to exchanging of protons, which are about 1800 times heavier than electrons, is ubiquitous in biochemistry as evidenced in the cycle of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) hydrolysis and synthesis (Matsuno, 1993). The origin of life could have been marked by the emergence of metabolic cycles in which molecules much greater than protons enter as agents of exchange interaction (Matsuno, 1998a). A rich catalogue of metabolic reactions in the maintenance of various biological organisms and organizations manifests the significance of cohesiveness internal to exchange interaction by means of material bodies serving as signals of a local character.

As a matter of fact, biological organisms and organizations turn out to be full of cohesive interaction due to exchanging of material bodies of arbitrary sizes. This manifests that cohesive interaction resting upon dynamics in the present progressive tense can potentially generate an infinite variety of organization depending upon the choice of material bodies to be exchanged. Cohesiveness to be met in the empirical domain is actually boundless in that there is no intrinsic limit to the way material bodies to be exchanged are implemented. Our natural languages are certainly competent for describing such a cohesive interaction once the overly restrictive stipulation of limiting the description of dynamics only to the one in the present tense is lifted.

Once natural selection in progress is focused in the light of cohesive interaction internal to dynamics in the present progressive tense, we note that it is inseparable from the process of generating variations. The nature of variations is sought in the choice of material particles or bodies to be exchanged for the sake of implementing the incontrovertible empirical regularity identified as energy conservation during its inevitable transformation.

Variability latent in natural selection in progress in fact rests upon agential capacity of matter itself in concretizing material bodies to be exchanged. When the process of generating variations is forcibly separated from the operation of natural selection, the record registered in the present perfect tense would clarify what the natural selection could have been all about. Natural selection in the present perfect tense, though legitimate in the record, does not however tell us anything specific about how variations could be generated in the first place. Natural selection in the present perfect tense is only selective among those participants that have already been available, and not generative any more. If natural selection is non-generatively selective, natural selection in the present perfect tense to be identified in the record would be good enough. On the other hand, if natural selection is generatively selective, it has to be taken in the present progressive mode.

In order to settle the issue of whether natural selection is in the present progressive mode or only in the present perfect mode, it is required to compare the two on some firmer basis. In fact, these two are not mutually exclusive. Natural selection in progress or in the present progressive tense is already inclusive of the one in the present perfect tense, because events in progress, once completed, can naturally be transferred into the ones in the present perfect tense in due course. Once natural selection in progress is identified to be generatively selective, it could also be seen selective in the record even if the record is not generative by itself. Natural selection in progress is certainly responsible for precipitating natural selection in the present perfect tense, which is characterized by changes in the genetic makeup, irreversibility in time and reproductive isolation of populations among others. It does however do more than that. Natural selection in progress is constantly in the process of engendering de novo material interactions through the act of exchanging novel material bodies serving as signals of a local character, instead of being a mere consequence of material interactions fixed on other grounds. In short, natural selection is about an interaction dynamics that can vary the types of interactions and even enhance their cohesiveness with the progression of the dynamics itself.

What we have observed is that natural dynamics in the material world is generatively selective in its present progressive mode. Of course, natural selection in the present perfect tense is incontrovertible as seen in the fossil record. At the same time, if natural selection is a common organizing principle regulating the whole processes of biological evolution, it should be founded upon the much wider material ground which includes biological processes as its particular case. Natural selection in the present perfect tense, though legitimate, does not fulfill the objective of supplementing such a covering principle on the material basis. In contrast, natural selection founded upon natural dynamics in the present progressive mode supplemented by the empirical regularity in conformity with energy conservation during its transformation identified as the first law of thermodynamics is cohesive while generating variations. Natural selection in progress is in fact a concrete material manifestation of cohesive interaction internal to natural dynamics in the present progressive mode.

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