Reduction, Kauffman, and (presumably this is where its going) God

Examining his biographical information it is clear that Dr. Kauffman is an extraordinarily accomplished and widely respected scientist. This suggests his insights are worth considering and, further, that I am well out of my element in critiquing them. And yet, “fools rush in …” There are a number of oddly questionable elements evident in the presentation of his argument in this (apparently) first in a series of essays. Here is a sample:

He at least insinuates that it is appropriate to lump together with no distinction, under the rubric of the aspects of a reductionist approach that he is criticizing, the efforts to identify “natural laws” associated with the Galilean inclined plane experiment, the “biosphere, human economy, human culture and our historicity”. For anyone with an even passing understanding of the utterly divergent methods and analyses applied to understanding the principles in these different areas, such a broad brush representation seems at least disingenuous, applied merely to bolster his position. Indeed, there is a very strong case to be made, of which Dr. Kauffman must surely be aware, that the extraordinary, unparalleled, stunning success of the reductionist approach in some of these areas – e.g., the physical sciences – is what has prompted its incorrect, incomplete and/or inappropriate application in others – e.g., historicity. The failure of the approach in one of these areas does not and should not be used wholesale to indict its application to another as he seems to be doing.

He resorts to a shameless straw man argument and even then his conclusion from it is patently and demonstrably wrong: the physicist who has no mechanism in the tools of the trade to “pick out pumping blood as of special interest” from the properties of the heart. The root of this determination by Dr. Kauffman seems to me to arise from an assumption that our straw physicist is only capable of a completely literal interpretation of an abbreviated three step version of the “scientific method” taught in 7th grade science class. But, of course, there is a vast literature that unequivocally demonstrates that the true practice of (even reductionist) science goes well beyond this limited and ineffective approach. Finally, I hope I really do not need to list the nearly endless litany of advances and insights the reductionist sciences have achieved that lie outside Dr. Kauffman’s tightly circumscribed interpretation of its practice.

Also, I have become extraordinarily skeptical of philosophical arguments that venture into, or worse, rely on appeal to quantum theory. There are, of course, many intriguing and puzzling consequences of quantum theory but I’ve just seen too many appeals to it that are gross misrepresentations and nothing more than quantum woo. In fact, I feel disposed to venture a new principle: Futzinfarb’s corollary to Godwin’s law is that “any general philosophical argument that degenerates into an appeal to quantum theory must be ignored”. I’ll have to give Dr. Kauffman a narrow pass on Futzinfarb’s corollary, as his assertions about the implications of quantum mechanics for evolution are probably fundamentally correct: that its principles (laws) preclude a reproducible time evolution of the universe. The fatally flawed conclusion drawn from this, though, is that since the principles of quantum theory cannot be applied to reproducibly predict the time evolution of various systems, that there is “no law.” This is little more than an a priori assumption, really a prejudice, about what kinds principles are admissible as natural laws. Dr. Kauffman appears simply unwilling to entertain even the possibility that we may inhabit a universe governed by specific reductive principles (laws) that have intrinsically irreproducible consequences. It’s just the icing on the cake that this position contrasts with his critique of an a priori reductionist approach to understanding.

There are other things that deeply bother me about this piece on which I will not elaborate here. Though he may have profound insights about the nature of the universe, this gravely flawed introduction is troubling has left me deeply skeptical.

Economic Best Interest

Background: A recent piece on NPR reported about a woman near Washington, DC, who has decided to walk away from her mortgage in spite of the fact that she was financially capable of continuing payments. Her decision was made, as the piece expressed it, on “business considerations”, on her economic best interests. As you might imagine, some of the commenters excoriated her for this decision. In nearly every case, either explicitly or implicitly, the morality of this decision was given as the reason for this treatment. Ha! Seriously?

Haven’t you people been paying attention?!? For decades now, corporations and their executive elite have been handsomely, handsomely rewarded specifically for exercising an unending litany of immoral actions and breach of contractual obligations, not the least of which is the social contract: socializing risk and privatizing profits, gutting functioning companies for quick profits in leveraged buyouts, creating and selling securities while betting against them, extorting tax breaks, charging usurious interest and fees, engaging in environmental destruction, monopolizing markets, externalizing costs, delaying resolution of judgements against them through endless litigation, creating a casino economy, seeking the cheapest labor at any price, undermining taxpayer and citizen interests through lobbying and funding of transparently mouthpiece “think-tanks” and political organizations, offshoring profits in tax havens, mismanaging and abandoning contractual obligations for worker retirement, and on and on and on, ad nauseum, ad infinitum not to mention plain old walking out on their obligations bankruptcy.

In every case, we’re told of the path of destruction they leave behind: “don’t take it personally, it’s just a business decision, it’s just in the best economic interest of the company.” And yet some of those NPR commenters expect me to be horrified that one middle-class American has learned and is going to apply this all-American ultimate-Randian economic rationale to her own situation? Fergawdsake people, this is what all those Greenspan freemarketeers are always whispering into your ear: “when people act exclusively on the basis of their own economic interest, that provides the best outcome for society.” They are telling her to do this, virtually writing out an instruction manual – to act in her own economic interest. After all, it’s what gave us those wonderful outcomes of Enron traders chortling at their screwing over of granny on her utility bills, and financial executives slopping at the public money trough like so many hogs after being complicit in nearly bringing down the world economy, and the exporting of millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs to China including some under conditions consistent with slave labor, and the willful ignorance of the auto industry to the reality that their business model was unsustainable, and a decade of explosive growth in the incomes of the highest compensated one percent of the population while compensation for the poor and middle class has been stagnant or worse, and, of course, obscene compensation for executives at the companies who engineered the debacle of millions of homeowners in underwater mortgages. I could, of course, go on with examples, but I’ll spare you the gory details.

What could corporations want more – what could warm the greedy little cockles of their hearts more – than for people to listen to and live by the creed of these morality commenters? What could be better for corporations then the asymmetric warfare of consumers following a deep, unshakeable, moral and ethical code of financial responsibility, completely independent of considering what’s in their own best interests, in their interactions with sociopathic, greed-is-good, what’s-in-it-for-me, institutions? It seems pretty clear who will come out on top in that match-up every damned time.

The sad thing, the truly disturbing thing in this story is that this woman is actually likely to suffer more severe consequences than any of the obscene financial “wizards” who engineered the near implosion of the world economy many of whom are currently milking their taxpayer funded TARP bailouts to extract huge bonuses. I’ll take your offense at her actions seriously when you begin to express some real outrage at the sociopathic executives and corporations who have have vaporized tens of trillions (that’s trillions with a T) of dollars and truly undermined the long-term prospects of the nation and the world through their immoral behavior. Until then, meh.

On A Miracle

How can a simple public profession of one's faith in the context of describing an averted tragedy become offensive? When does it become destructive? Let's outline a situation: a warm Christmas-time story in a local newspaper about an energetic and engaging young woman who contracts a life-threatening condition, but who subsequently recovers through intercession, through the fervent prayers of family, friends and strangers. A close-knit family, more secure in their faith than ever, understands that this is nothing less than a miracle and that God has a purpose for the young woman. What kind of cold-hearted reprobate would begrudge these folks their joy, their celebration of this moment of grace? What kind indeed?

Well, let's fill in the outline just a bit. A previously healthy young woman suddenly and unexpectedly suffers a seizure. An MRI reveals she has a brain tumor. Across the country, a neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic removes the malignant tumor, though the surgery and its aftermath pose life-threatening complications of blood clots and infection. And, finally, her recovery is faster and more complete than any of her medical caregivers anticipate.

The miracle, has in fact been mediated by, among other things, the diagnostics of MRI and radiologists and by access, the many different layers of access, to one of the world's foremost medical facilities, to an extraordinarily accomplished neurosurgeon, and cutting edge pharmaceuticals.

To me, attributing the recovery of this woman to miraculous intervention by a loving God is, frankly, offensive. At its root it insults the long, difficult, rational and deliberate path that led to understanding the principles and developing MRI technology, it overlooks all those who spent long years educating and training those crack medical personnel, it avoids considering the dedication and effort those medical personnel have invested in their careers, it sidesteps the understanding that an experienced neurosurgeon must necessarily have gained from inevitable mistakes and the suffering of others, it elides examination of the economic conditions that make access to medical "miracles" accessible to some but not others, it implies, however mildly, that there is no purpose for those whose outcomes are less fortunate, and on and on.

In short, the claim of a miracle in a case like this, seems to me to be one symptom of a society that has so little understanding of the sacrifice, the investment, the infrastructure, the regulation, the very social contract that has made their lives livable; a society that has so interwoven these "miracles" into the fabric of people's lives that to many of them, the "miracles" and their origins have become transparent; a society that, because of that transparency, is in fact busy betraying their "miracles". "Miracles" like this, then can even be seen as destructive because rather than fully recognizing the investment necessary to make them possible it enhances their transparency. For this reason, and between you and me and the fencepost, I prefer my miracles to be weeping faces of Mary in a pan of bacon drippings than this kind.