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    • #4165
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant
      Thanks, Duane, 
       
      Unless people see how assumptions define a science, Western science will continue to maintain its hegemony unless overthrown by a paradigm shift, and I’m not into that conquest model any more….especially as we so need the checks & balances there could be among sciences seeing each other as legit. I do not want to replace Western science with any other, as its assumptions have led it to technological applications I would not like to do without.  In other words, I no longer consider myself a paradigm shifter, but I am a strong parallel sciences advocate.
       
      ‘Non-life’ is a concept that was coined to distinguish from ‘life’.  We all know life through direct experience of it, and as my favorite Swiss botanist Walter Pankow once said “It takes a living system to know a living system” (quote from his chapter of that old book on Conciousness co-edited I believe by Erich Jantsch, a great pioneer in the Living Universe concept!  The first or 2nd chapter by Ralph Abraham.)  
       
      Life has been notoriously difficult to define, and what I so love about the Maturana & Varela autopoiesis definition is that it is the first core definition that avoids the usual recourse of simply listing a string of attributes.  I wrote Varela a four-page single-spaced argument for Earth as alive in the mid 90s and, although he had not “considered anything that large as alive,” he accepted my arguments and that thrilled me. 
       
      THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE THAT THE UNIVERSE IS EITHER ALIVE OR NON-LIVING. It is either one or the other depending on how we experience it and/or what conceptualization of life we accept. I am perfectly clear on my choice and I believe the bulk of humanity has been and is with me (my Islamic foundations of science symposium, for example, made it clear that the entire Islamic world opts for a living universe, since Allah declared it so).  My choice, like yours Duane, is for life, AND I have no need to convince those making the other choice that they are wrong.
       
      Why don’t we just take a straw vote of how many in this dialogue make each choice and get on with defining the other terms?
    • #4162
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant

      I just wrote what ended up longer than intended as a comment in the Definitions Doc, and am wondering if it belongs more appropriately here?  I would like all of us in this Living Universe group to see it and don’t know that we will all participate in Definitions.   So here is the same post:  

      I still believe it essential that we work on coming to some agreement about fundamental assumptions in science as the essential basis for our definitions work. In the two international symposia I co-convened on this topic, no one even suggested that science could be done without such assumptions– a basic set of statements conceptualizing the universe to be investigated scientifically and how it can be so investigated (statements that are by definition unproven, but ‘obvious’ by agreement).
           This is a critically important matter, since this foundation of science both suggests and restricts what can be hypothesized. Unfortunately, it is given little and vague attention in science education, especially since the contextual philosophy of science is scarcely taught at all any more.
            In the first symposium, the participants were self-identified as paradigm shifters, and each of us  first listed the assumptions (or axioms) we were taught in the course of getting our PhDs. We ended up with some 176 overlapping but differently worded assumptions which we eventually reduced to the ten we agreed were most essential.  We then repeated the process with the assumptions we had put in place of those we were taught (some diametrically opposite, such as
      a) Consciousness is a late emergent property of material evolution
      b) Consciousness is the source of material evolution
      In the course f this symposium we recognized that very different sciences could b built on very different sets of fundamental assumptions, and shifted our thinking from paradigm shift (replacing one set of assumptions with another) to parallel sciences, even the possibility and desirability of a Global Consortium of Sciences. (Note that ‘paradigm shifters’ including those in this group, got their fundamental assumptions mostly from Eastern Vedic or Taoist sciences.)
            For this reason, a second symposium was held for Islamic scientists to list and come to agreement on their fundamental assumptions in Islamic science. (Note that both Western science and Islamic have strong roots in Arabic science.)
            As things stand, Western science claims to be the only science and gets away with it by insisting its fundamental unproven assumptions are the only reasonable ones possible. In a globalized world, this is no longer tenable.

    • #4084
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant

      Pease note the impossibility of making a theory about a universe for which there is no conceptualization

    • #4083
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant

      Jon,

      You are quite right to see the list of assumptions as a model, a paradigm. That is exactly what fundamental assumptions comprise: the conceptualization of the universe and how to study it that is self-evident to the founders of a science.

       

    • #4081
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant

      Thanks, Ursula,

       

      for the prompt to continue. Note that in this continuing quote I suggest that assuming (conceptualizing) the universe as living is more plausible that assuming it to be non-living. I remind you all, that fundamental assumptions are by definition not provable, just plausible. Okay, I quote myself again:

       

      The fundamental assumptions—the ‘self evident truths’ or axioms underlying western science—included the following:

       

      1. a) that the universe exists objectively (not subjectively) as matter located in three-dimensional space and linear time,
      2. b) that the universe is non-living, describable and measurable in terms of matter and energy,
      3. c) that the universe has linear causal order discoverable through the science of physics, using mathematical models supported by logical reason (including induction and deduction),
      4. d) that the material universe is accidentally assembled from the smallest physical units into larger structures and interactive patterns through the workings of discoverable natural laws,
      5. e) that large structures can be understood by reducing them to their component parts, and
      6. f) that life is a rare and peculiar emergent phenomenon in a non-living universe, possibly restricted to a single planet’s surface and ultimately subject to the laws of physics.

       

      The most fundamental laws of physics were formulated (on the basis of these axiomatic ‘truths’) in contained laboratory experiments and then extrapolated from laboratory to cosmos. They are well known as Newton’s laws, including inertia, energy conservation and entropy—the dissipation of working energy, and with it the disintegration of order, along the “arrow of time.”

      Much, of course, has happened in the world of physics since these axioms were formulated and the laws ‘discovered’. Further understanding of light and the broader electromagnetic spectrum, Big Bang theory, Einstein’s equivalence of matter and energy and adjustments to laws of time and motion, the dissolution of hard particles into quantum waves, string theories, multi-dimensional worlds, zero point energy, non-locality have produced many candidates for a Grand Unified Theory, but none has yet been officially accepted. Physicists remain divided about the role of consciousness.

      My Assumptions for a more Integral Global Science:

      …I propose that it is actually more reasonable to project our life onto the entire universe than our non-living machinery, which is a derivative of life, a truly emerging phenomenon, rather than a fundamental one. I propose that it is possible to create a scientific model of a living universe, and that such a model is not only scientifically justified but can lead to the wisdom required to build a better future for human life on and for our planet Earth as the ancient Greeks intuited it should.

       

      Toward that end, I propose:

       

      1. The scientific definition of reality should be the collective human experience of self, world and universe as consciously perceived inner and outer worlds seen from individual perspectives. (We have no other legitimate basis for creating cosmic models.)
      2. Consciousness shall be axiomatic for the simple and obvious reason that no human experience can happen outside it.
      3. Formal experiments have as their purpose the creation of publicly shareable models of reality that permit common understanding and prediction where appropriate.
      4. Autopoiesis (continuous self-creation within a cntext) shall be adopted as the core definition of life. Since galaxies, stars, planets, organisms, cells, molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles all fit this definition, this implies that, using this definition, life is the fundamental process of the cosmos, a self-creating living whole with self-creating living components in co-creative interaction.
      5. Nature shall be conceived in size-scale levels or units of holons in holarchy, with holons defined as relatively self-contained living entities such as those listed in d) and holarchy defining their embeddedness and co-creative interdependence on energy, matter and information exchange. Beginning with these few assumptions and definitions as a conceptual framework for an integral consciousness-based science, we can reassess the past findings of science based on previous models, discover past errors and redesign experiments as necessary. We can also look for new patterns of regularity. (I shall avoid the term laws because of its implication of a lawgiver.) Cosmic autopoiesis—the self-creation of a living universe—promises to become an elegant view of the whole, with essentially the same production and recycling processes at all scalar or fractal levels. The highly complex life forms familiar as “biological” are seen to emerge uniquely at a holarchic level halfway between microcosm and macrocosm. An autopoietic universe is a universe of continual creation. Much evidence has been amassed against Big Bang theory and against the concept of entropy overwhelming the negentropic efforts of life, including the review of such reported by Samanta-Laughton6. The most commonly proposed alternative is a universe in dynamic balance between centrifugal radiation and centripetal gravitation; in terms of autopoietic/biologic systems, the balance between anabolism and catabolism, entropy and syntropy.   With regard to evolution theory, we note that while Darwin’s theory of evolution through competition in scarcity was adopted by the capitalist West, Kropotkin’s theory of evolution through cooperation was adopted by the communist East, clearly indicating the coupling between science and political economy on both sides. In my own view, both theories are half-right and together can make a whole. I have expounded my own syncretic theory in detail11,12 as an amalgamation of the two. The competitive (Darwinian) phase, represented by Type I ‘pioneer’ ecosystem species, is a highly competitive and creative juvenile phase of species that eventually become cooperative (Kropotkinian) in their mature phase, represented by species of Type III ‘climax’ ecosystems. Why? In the simplest version of a complex evolutionary process, because hostile competition becomes too energy costly and the advantages of cooperation lead to change in that direction. The biological fact that fighting or killing your enemy is more energy expensive than feeding or otherwise cooperating needs recognition. From the most ancient bacterial dawn of Earthlife to the present, this lesson has been learned again and again. There is a strong possibility that the human species is now involved in exactly that maturation cycle shift, and a more accurate understanding of evolution in the framework of a scientific co-creative cosmology may do much to help encourage it. This current revolution—this impending paradigm shift—in science is forcing reconsideration of its most fundamental assumptions, that is, of the worldview described above, of the basic beliefs supporting the current scientific model of our universe or cosmos and ourselves within it. Cosmos is defined as “the universe as an orderly construct,” so because I am proposing an orderly model of the universe, I will usually prefer the word cosmos. In eliminating those aspects of the perceived world that are not measurable, western science relegated them variously to subjective, mental, mythological, imaginary, storytelling, fictional, spiritual and other categories identified as unreal. A few aspects of our world, such as taste, smell and electromagnetism were shifted from unreal to real as ways of measuring them were discovered. My model of the cosmos includes all human experience. The goal of this new framework for science is proposed to be a) to model a coherent and self-consistent cosmos as a public reality conforming as much as possible to necessarily private individual realities, and b) to interpret this model for the purpose of orienting humanity within the cosmos and thus permitting it to understand its particular role within the greater cosmos.
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    • #4079
      Elisabet Sahtouris
      Participant

      I have not yet weighed in on this dialogue for two reasons: 1) I am in a complex transition from living on the island of Mallorca in Spain to living on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and 2) I did not want to get embroiled in an unwinnable war between the radicals and fundamentalists of science.  However, I do see real value in the dialogues among those of us in the latter camp as a way of honing our ideas and discovering our harmonies.

      My approach to the issue of Living vs Non-Living Universe is to look very deeply into the foundations upon which science necessarily rests: the conceptualizations of the universe to be studied by science as its essential task.  The very issue of life vs non-life begins right there: in the unprovable assumptions (dignified as ‘axioms’) necessary to making theories.  So let me begin my contribution(s) with the following quote from my article published in Kosmos journal in 2008, called  

      The Evolution of Science:

      A Changing Story; a possible Global Science

      I quote myself:

      Could planet Earth—even the entire Universe—be conscious and alive?

       Most people inclined to a scientific worldview think the answer to this question is a clear “no” because they believe that science has proven the universe to be made of non-living matter/energy, accidentally evolved from the singular Big Bang event, and that planets are accidentally assembled stardust—our own being Earth, on which life evolved from non-life, intelligence from dumb mud and consciousness from brain matter. 

      This is indeed the Creation Story of western science, but has it been proven? Current debates, and even court trials, between Darwinians and Creationists have opened the story to question. This debate is framed as being a conflict between science and religion, but the story of science itself is changing and this sharp, publicized conflict may be solved from within science itself. 

      In fact, many western scientists, influenced by also studying eastern sciences and philosophies, as mentioned above, have come to the startling conclusion that life does not come from non-life, that intelligence is already inherent in “dumb mud” and that planets, as well as people and their brains, evolve within a limitless universal consciousness that gives rise to everything we know as our universe. 

      How can we come to such conclusions in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary? The simple answer is that science has no evidence to the contrary. Science, as already stated, is necessarily founded on a set of beliefs arrived at through reason, rather than revelation, but unproven beliefs nevertheless. These fundamental assumptions of science are held by agreement within a scientific establishment as the most reasonable assumptions that can be made as a basis for scientific inquiry. As a graduate student half a century ago, this was clearly taught to me by a well-known philosopher of science J.R. Kantor1, with assigned exercises in founding a science on assumptions to drive the point home to us budding scientists. Unfortunately, as philosophy of science in academia has been replaced by more ‘practical’ or ‘realistic’ courses, even scientists now often lack awareness of the difference between their fundamental beliefs and the enterprise of forming theories and performing research. Nevertheless, all theory, research and interpretation of results are deeply biased by unproven foundational beliefs. 

      Descartes’ belief in a universe created by a Christian Grand Engineer God who designed all of nature as machinery and put a bit of God-mind into his favorite robot, man, so that he, too, could create machinery was a merger of western science and religion. Note that this foundational scientific story accounted for conscious intelligence as the root of all creation. The later revision of the story to exclude God clearly divorced science from religion. Most importantly, for our understanding, it eliminated all consciousness and purpose from nature while keeping the concept of nature as an assembly of machinery, clearly implying that ‘natural’ machinery could and did create itself in accidental material processes. 

      This remains the current belief in biology, the study of life, although, somewhat ironically, astronomy and physics have moved far beyond the mechanistic metaphor into birth and death of stars, the dance of energy, collapsing wave functions, etc. if still divided on the primacy of consciousness. Biology, having long accepted the primacy of physics, seems stuck in Newtonian physics, still seeing mechanism as the appropriate metaphor from the level of individual molecules now visible in their amazing ‘machinations’ to entire vastly complex organisms such as our own bodies and the engineering diagrams of entire ecosystem interactions. But metaphors do not make truth, much as they imply it. In the next section of this chapter, I make the arguments for how we can reasonably accept alternative assumptions about a living universe and planet Earth upon which to build science, as many scientists have done by now. 

      The real sticking point for western science, ever since intelligence and purpose were removed from its worldview, has been the question of consciousness, brought to attention by physicists as quite possibly fundamental while biology persisted in seeing it as a late emergent property of evolution. Erwin Schroedinger, the physicist popularly noted for his cat- in-box conscious wave collapsing model, published an essay in 1958 called “Mind and Matter”, later published together with his earlier 1943 essay “What is Life?”2 , in which he pointed out that scientific models of the universe are generated entirely within the human mind, which is then conveniently, if not logically, omitted from the models themselves. Evelyn Fox Keller3,4 has since been an important analyst of the history of a wide range of vitalist propositions that life cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry— seeing hope of ending the argument soon in models of the universe based on information theory that continue in denying the primacy of consciousness. 

      What might a new scientific model of a universe based on a different set of assumptions look like? The following is an attempt to go deeper into the current assumptions of established western science and the reasons for adopting alternative assumptions better fitting the data of science itself.

      (the next section is called  

      Introduction to a Tentative Model of a Living Universe

      Let me know if anyone wants more…..

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