I had a wonderful time giving my presentation on March 25th to environmental educators. One question that came up afterwards, however, made me realize that there was one concept I have in my assumptions that I rarely articulate. So I want to practice expressing that idea here. The man observed that I seemed to be making value judgments about processes in nature such as erosion. Would that lead me to view places like the Canyonlands as bad?
I replied that I was definitely making value judgments. But what I did not say well was that the value judgments were not about processes but were about the way we chose to shift the relative balance between the rates of these processes. For example, we have the two processes of soil formation and soil erosion. If the rate of soil formation is greater than the rate of soil erosion, then soil accumulates. If the relative balance shifts between the two, soil will diminish. Changes in the amount of soil, in turn, can create shifts in other balances such as how much rain soaks in and how much runs off which helps determine how much life expresses itself in that area.
If one goes to Canyonlands, the work of erosion is visually apparent. Soils are thin and life is sparse. But if one goes to a “natural” area of Canyonlands, one will see life holding on to that thin soil, helping it grow in a myriad of ways. Even though the forces of erosion are strong, there are countervailing forces at work. The land is an expression of those relative balances.
Erosion is not bad. The beautiful fertility of the floodplains would not exist without the soil deposition of the floods (and deposition is the in-between, resting state of erosion). But it can happen at different rates and when I observe nature, I see life taking a stand to try slowing down the erosion. Contemplating this leads me to “value judgments” about “taking a stand with life” and thoughts about the evolution of evolution.
Some philosophers and logicians object to the theory of evolution because it is based on circular reasoning. What does “survival of the fit” really mean. The definition of who is “fit” is determined by who survives. So the concept of “survival of the fit” could be equated with “whatever life forms live long enough to have offspring are those life forms that live long enough to have offspring.” When expressed this way, the circular reasoning seems obvious. But the logic, though it appears circular in the world of logic which lacks the dimension of time, expresses itself in the real world of time as a spiral. The logic goes around but when it gets back to the starting point, the dynamic has moved a certain distance and so doesn’t connect the circle. The fit the next time around will be different because the plants and the predators have been changed by the last turn. What fits in one millennium does not fit in the next. Evolution contains the logic of feedback loops. [1]
One of the things I liked most about the book, Complexity, is it brought out the idea that the mathematics of feedback loops are unpredictable. Feedback loops contain unknown power. Cause and effect is two-dimensional compared to feedback loops. Cause and effect can be accused of circular reasoning but feedback loops rise up out of the two dimensional flatness and require a different analysis.
Feedback loops were one of the reasons I fell in love with the Gaia Hypothesis. I once read an article James Lovelock wrote in response to some of the objections to his hypothesis. What amazed me was his implication that his fellow scientists did not understand the dynamics of a feedback loop, that mainstream science was not conversant with general systems theory. I find that hard to believe and I’m sure it has changed since then because feedback loops are the key to so much.
Feedback loops gives us a fresh perspective on what is happening within evolution. The classic evolutionary stance is that evolution does not have a direction, that attempts to try seeing a direction within evolution is like Percival Lowell trying to see canals in the fuzzy telescopic images of Mars. I disagree. The same “circular” logic of “survival of the fit” that can be applied to species can be applied to life-environment interactions.
Those feedback loops between life and environment that can accumulate more energy and resources will allow those life forms to increase which creates more of the interactions that lead to more of that kind of environment. Survival of the fit can be applied at a community level. That is why I see everywhere life forms trying to slow down the flow of soil ingredients through their community. It is one of the great universals that terrestrial life does. Any communities that didn’t do that were pushed out by expanding communities that had more energy and resources because they did accumulate soil. It is this universal tendency I see, and the simple feedback logic that underlies it, that leads me to make value judgments (as the man correctly observed). I felt in his question a struggle of our culture concerning on what grounds do we take a stand. For most of us, the moral stands of traditional religions based on revelation have lost their authority. And science, with its emphasis on all premises being subject to future interpretation based on future experimentation, has created within us a tolerance, an openness to alternative explanation, that can keep us from making a commitment, from taking a stand on values because the values might be found to be incorrect in the future. I honor his question and I acknowledge the difficulty of knowing where to stand in these transitional times. I believe that an understanding of feedback loops is essential because the qualities we want to take our stand on will be found, not in any particular process or state, but in certain directions that community-inclusive feedback loops can move us all.
[1] My 8th graders helped me understand this. I tried teaching them “feedback loops” but the image confused them because it didn’t loop back to the starting point. When I substituted “feedback spiral,” then they understood. Change through time stretches the loop into a spiral.
I had a wonderful time giving my presentation on March 25th to environmental educators. One question that came up afterwards, however, made me realize that there was one concept I have in my assumptions that I rarely articulate. So I want to practice expressing that idea here. The man observed that I seemed to be making value judgments about processes in nature such as erosion. Would that lead me to view places like the Canyonlands as bad?
I replied that I was definitely making value judgments. But what I did not say well was that the value judgments were not about processes but were about the way we chose to shift the relative balance between the rates of these processes. For example, we have the two processes of soil formation and soil erosion. If the rate of soil formation is greater than the rate of soil erosion, then soil accumulates. If the relative balance shifts between the two, soil will diminish. Changes in the amount of soil, in turn, can create shifts in other balances such as how much rain soaks in and how much runs off which helps determine how much life expresses itself in that area.
If one goes to Canyonlands, the work of erosion is visually apparent. Soils are thin and life is sparse. But if one goes to a “natural” area of Canyonlands, one will see life holding on to that thin soil, helping it grow in a myriad of ways. Even though the forces of erosion are strong, there are countervailing forces at work. The land is an expression of those relative balances.
Erosion is not bad. The beautiful fertility of the floodplains would not exist without the soil deposition of the floods (and deposition is the in-between, resting state of erosion). But it can happen at different rates and when I observe nature, I see life taking a stand to try slowing down the erosion. Contemplating this leads me to “value judgments” about “taking a stand with life” and thoughts about the evolution of evolution.
Some philosophers and logicians object to the theory of evolution because it is based on circular reasoning. What does “survival of the fit” really mean. The definition of who is “fit” is determined by who survives. So the concept of “survival of the fit” could be equated with “whatever life forms live long enough to have offspring are those life forms that live long enough to have offspring.” When expressed this way, the circular reasoning seems obvious. But the logic, though it appears circular in the world of logic which lacks the dimension of time, expresses itself in the real world of time as a spiral. The logic goes around but when it gets back to the starting point, the dynamic has moved a certain distance and so doesn’t connect the circle. The fit the next time around will be different because the plants and the predators have been changed by the last turn. What fits in one millennium does not fit in the next. Evolution contains the logic of feedback loops. [1]
One of the things I liked most about the book, Complexity, is it brought out the idea that the mathematics of feedback loops are unpredictable. Feedback loops contain unknown power. Cause and effect is two-dimensional compared to feedback loops. Cause and effect can be accused of circular reasoning but feedback loops rise up out of the two dimensional flatness and require a different analysis.
Feedback loops were one of the reasons I fell in love with the Gaia Hypothesis. I once read an article James Lovelock wrote in response to some of the objections to his hypothesis. What amazed me was his implication that his fellow scientists did not understand the dynamics of a feedback loop, that mainstream science was not conversant with general systems theory. I find that hard to believe and I’m sure it has changed since then because feedback loops are the key to so much.
Feedback loops gives us a fresh perspective on what is happening within evolution. The classic evolutionary stance is that evolution does not have a direction, that attempts to try seeing a direction within evolution is like Percival Lowell trying to see canals in the fuzzy telescopic images of Mars. I disagree. The same “circular” logic of “survival of the fit” that can be applied to species can be applied to life-environment interactions.
Those feedback loops between life and environment that can accumulate more energy and resources will allow those life forms to increase which creates more of the interactions that lead to more of that kind of environment. Survival of the fit can be applied at a community level. That is why I see everywhere life forms trying to slow down the flow of soil ingredients through their community. It is one of the great universals that terrestrial life does. Any communities that didn’t do that were pushed out by expanding communities that had more energy and resources because they did accumulate soil. It is this universal tendency I see, and the simple feedback logic that underlies it, that leads me to make value judgments (as the man correctly observed). I felt in his question a struggle of our culture concerning on what grounds do we take a stand. For most of us, the moral stands of traditional religions based on revelation have lost their authority. And science, with its emphasis on all premises being subject to future interpretation based on future experimentation, has created within us a tolerance, an openness to alternative explanation, that can keep us from making a commitment, from taking a stand on values because the values might be found to be incorrect in the future. I honor his question and I acknowledge the difficulty of knowing where to stand in these transitional times. I believe that an understanding of feedback loops is essential because the qualities we want to take our stand on will be found, not in any particular process or state, but in certain directions that community-inclusive feedback loops can move us all.
[1] My 8th graders helped me understand this. I tried teaching them “feedback loops” but the image confused them because it didn’t loop back to the starting point. When I substituted “feedback spiral,” then they understood. Change through time stretches the loop into a spiral.
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