Creation and Evolution

A Biosemiotic Approach

Friedrich S. Rothschild

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351525213
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The issues surrounding Darwin's theory of evolution as a function of the survival of the fittest have hardly abated since they were initially promulgated about 150 ago. The reason is clear: behind the theory of evolution is a doctrine of structure of organisms that can be explained only by fitting the adaptation to the external world. The older doctrines of creation have been at odds with evolutionism from the outset--sometimes utilizing straight theological arguments and at other times employing sophisticated scientific arguments. Into the breach steps Friedrich S. Rothschild, a trained neurologist, psychologist and physician. On the basis of his researches in comparative embryology, Rothschild argues that the central nervous system of animals as well as humans conveys meaning just like language, and not just a system aimed at adaptation to the external environment. His theory of biosemiotics introduces the concept of inner adaptation. This adaptation to the principal forces assign meaning to life. In monotheistic religions this force is called God. The issue of adaptation is therefore both external and internal, related to growth of the person no less than the environment. This book is intended for those who are interested in life and its varied meanings, to students of sociobiology and medicine as well as those concerned with humanities.

Part One The Role of Inner Adaptation in the Biosemiotic Theory of Evolution

Chapter One
Foundation of the Method in the Search for Meaning

JUSTIFICATION of the method in the search for meaning. Title as well I as subtitle of this chapter seem unusual. Adaptation of organisms to their environment is often mentioned in the theory of evolution, but according to the prevailing Neo-Darwinistic vision, no difference is made between inner and outer adaptation. Adaptation is interpreted as a result of the selection of the variations of the genes resulting from contact with the environment. Those successfully adapted individuals and species had better chances to reproduce in the course of the millions of years of the history of the human race. Those failing in the struggle for life also failed in reproduction and are extinguished. Mutations of genes and natural selection are regarded as the explanation of adaptation. We are of the opinion that this view is one-sided. By means of the differentiation between inner and outer adaptation, we hope to overcome this one-sided view. This one-sided interpretation of the theory of evolution is derived from zoology, biology and genetics. The methodology and frames of reference of these branches of science, prevent posing certain questions and of course, cannot answer them either.

Adaptation of organisms to their environment is identified with the theory of evolution, but according to the prevailing Neo-Darwinistic vision, no difference is made between inner and outer adaptation. Instead, we have the incomplete view — derived from the sciences such as zoology, biology and genetics — that adaptation is the transmittance or inheritance of selected genetic variations resulting from an organism’s contact with the physical environment. In other words, individuals have successfully adapted through millions of years of natural selection—a process that acts to eliminate unfit variations by cessation of reproduction.

Actually, “inner” and “outer” are ambiguous adjectives. In the first place, they have a relation to time and space, for example, the peel (outer) covering the fruit (inner), or cytoplasm (outer) and nucleus (inner) as part of the cell, or the cerebral cortex (outer) and the basal ganglia (inner) as parts of the brain and central nervous system (CNS). Figuratively, inner also means the essence of something in contrast to its appearance. Our experience and thought as compared with external appearance also exemplifies the concepts inner and outer. Values and ideas are inner as compared with material realizations. All these approximations of inner and outer are related to the biosemiotic analysis of evolution and result in the differentiation between inner and outer adaptation.

It is the nature of mankind to throw off balance between inner and outer adaptation. This loss of balance may result in an incapacity to find solutions for impending crises. An understanding of inner and outer adaptation is necessary for mankind to understand itself.

In the course of this discussion, we will explain why inner and outer adaptation are necessary for the appearance of meaning. For the record, however, we say that the matching of fishes, whales and sea-lions to water and the matching of birds to air is regarded as outer adaptation—adaptation to the physical environment.

We will use the term inner adaptation when dealing with factors indicating a sign or message—a communication—like the DNA code for the building of proteins and when referring to sign processes related to the inner life, to the experience and thought processes of the human ego. Sign processes contain a meaning. The communication of meaning takes place through expression and understanding and leads to inner adaptation between the dispatcher and receiver.

We will try also to complete this picture by discerning the difference between inner and outer adaptation. The methodology and frames of reference of the branches of science mentioned above make the posing and answering of certain questions difficult. Take the following, for example: How and why did living matter develop from certain arrangements of inorganic atoms and molecules? How and why did these developments result in man with its thinking capacity? How do living matter and organisms survive in view of the constant change of their composite material as a result of mitosis and means of reproduction?

These questions cannot be answered by a science based on the laws of physics and chemistry and the arbitrariness of chance. These questions can be answered by a science dealing with the meaning of evolution, a subject alien to natural science. Natural science observes the facts and some of the relationships of living and inanimate material and the development of consciousness in man, but it does not deal with its meaning.

We will deal with the scientific relationship between inner and outer adaptation, but before we can pose relevant questions, we need to describe the present state of affairs in the science of life and the evolution of man.

At a conference titled The New Image of Man organized by the late Arthur Koestler and J.R. Smythies, a group of scientists (neuro-physiologists, biologists, geneticists, psychologists and psychiatrists) came to the conclusion that Neo-Darwinistic theories cannot satisfactorily explain all the phenomena of evolution. In other words, Darwin’s theory contains only part of the truth. The scientists objected particularly to reductional and mechanical thinking, endeavoring to reduce the multiplicity of life to the laws of the general sciences. All shared the opinion that the theory of evolution lacked completeness. But in spite of the application of innovations, no new explanations of life materialized. Koestler said the result of the conference was essentially negative. Nothing new was presented that could have led to the completion of the theory of evolution.

The conference dealt with outer adaptation exclusively, and what we call inner adaptation was not discussed. Thorpe, however, mentioned L.L. Whytes’ book Internal Factors in Evolution (1965), which dealt with inner selection and inner adaptation. But the work did not impress the theoreticians. According to them, inner and outer adaptation are manifestations of one selection process. Only new methods of investigation, however, will be able to discover principles unknown to the evolutionists and overcome the lack of meaning in the natural sciences.

At the conference, psychiatrist and logotherapist Victor Frankl singled out the inability of the will to find meaning as a factor leading to the development of neurosis. Waddington, the geneticist, focused attention on the over-emphasis of the intellect and the suppression of the will as the factors preventing the discovery of meaning. Even the word meaning was regarded a despicable concept. Koestler added that logical positivism concerning questions about God, the universe and man is senseless. (Logical positivism is the philosophical school that refutes metaphysics through calling for observations to confer meaning.) This greatly influenced public opinion and the media.

Until now, the meaning of evolution was discussed in terms of speculative philosophy or theology. We will use a controllable, scientific method to differentiate inner adaptation from outer adaptation. In the study of language and other sign-systems by the American C.S. Peirce, semantics is defined as the branch of science dealing with the relation of signs to meaning or objects; syntax is defined as the branch describing the structure of the signs; and pragmatics deals with the use and application of signs.

We will use methods and concepts from semiotics and apply them to the analysis of sign processes and sign systems. Furthermore, we will prove that the generation and utilization of signs is a basic characteristic of life.

In our new field of biosemiotics, we apply these concepts and methods to various biological systems that developed in the course of evolution, such as the nervous system, the hormones and the DNA-RNA communication of the nucleus of the cell. The terms biophysics and biochemistry are given to the methods derived from the study of inorganic material when they are applied to biological systems. But this application is problematic, because inorganic and organic materials are basically different. Also, the laws of physics and chemistry have not succeeded in explaining life, although they have added tremendously to our understanding of the many aspects of biological systems.

In biosemiotics, we have to deal with a certain overlapping of the boundaries of sciences that deal with human beings endowed with consciousness and spiritual values and the sciences that have nothing to do with human consciousness. Concepts and methods of the former will be applied to the latter. Experiencing, thinking, and the expression of experience and thought are the most characteristic manifestations of life. If the application of chemistry and physics to biological issues is justified, then the application of semiotics, a methodology of behavioral sciences, is equally justified. In this context, it should be mentioned that functions analogous to human language are described in the behavior of the bees by v. Frisch. In this example, the symbolic meaning of certain dancing movements of the bees signifies location, distance and quantity of food available to the population.

In the course of our exposition, it will be made clear why the overlapping of boundaries between the various sciences is necessary for a more profound understanding of life. Only a synthesis between natural and behavioral sciences will overcome Descartes’ dichotomy of matter and body on one hand, and consciousness and spirit on the other hand. Only this synthesis can overcome the old speculations of body and soul as various aspects of a certain identity or the speculative theory of psychological parallelism.

Another example of these problems is the relationship between subject and object in the various sciences. What is the relationship between a scientist and the objects under his or her observation that are endowed with a completely independent objectivity? According to Immanuel Kant, human experience and knowledge are determined by the categories of time and space, and these are projected on the objects.

The German philosopher Edmund Husserl called the scientists who disregard the existence of a transcendental subjectivity (we will use TS from here on) which determines human consciousness as well as the so-called objectivity of the objects, naive. But what do we need to know about the relationship between the objectives of the objects and the subjective consciousness of mankind, if we can manage so successfully the things of our world? This certainty of objectivity was shattered by the results of the quantum theory, which illustrated that electromagnetic radiation has a dual nature, behaving sometimes as a wave motion and sometimes as a discontinuous emission of particles. This observation of microphy sics can be interpreted as a spectrum of possibilities.

Biosemiotics presents a new vista of old problems, such as the relationships between body and soul, between natural science and behavioral science, between object and subject, which are artificially generated by Descartes’ dichotomy and looked at for causes that change facts. Biosemiotics, on the other hand, asks the question: From where does a certain condition originate, and what are the determining forces? It is not the result that counts but the process and especially the logic of the sign process.

When you are about to communicate something to someone, you freely choose one word or another to suitably convey your thoughts. Expression of meaning and its understanding emanate as expression and communication from original relationships, which is completely different from causal relationships. In the sign-process, the relationship maybe triadic (consisting of a union of three) in dialogue even tetradic, in contrast to the dyadic relationship of cause and effect.

Expressed words as signs occupy a central function. They are meaningful and represent a thing or a concept. The object, the thing, is the meaning of the sign (of language). Signs are the mediators of meaning by a process of give and take around a free and creative subject. Signs mean something to somebody and thus, cannot be reduced to simple cause and effect — even in multiple cause and effect relationships.

Another characteristic of the sign process and its aspects of expression and communication is the connection between directness and mediation. When people speak, they directly focus on their thoughts, which represent the meaning of their words. When one listens, the words mediate the relationship to the meaning. Speaking is direct mediation; listening is mediated directness.

Kant and Husserl maintained that no human experience and knowledge is possible without the additional supplement of a transcendental subjectivity that goes beyond the individual. On the other hand, physiologists of the central nervous system (CNS) proved that there is no experience and knowledge without the brain. If you combine these two sets of data, then you have an example of mediated directness of communication in the sign-process.

You see the room and the window directly, but you are not aware of the complicated physiological processes in the retina and the optical tracts and centers without whose activities you would not be able to see. The excitation of the retina and the optical tract and center, therefore, can be a sign to be understood only by the performance of TS. The meaning of these sign-processes is obvious to the ego because this ego originated from TS.

Today, we talk about a code utilized by cells, or sense-organs, or the CNS to receive and transmit information. Not many are aware of the sign aspect of these processes. Information is a mathematical measure based on spiritual acts determining whether things or processes are similar or different.

Applying this concept of information, the American mathematician Norbert Wiener developed a branch of science called cybernetics — the view that as complex as humans are in all respects, they are machines that can, in principle, be constructed in a laboratory. Cybernetics started a scientific revolution and became part of our civilization. The subjective capacity of man to make conscious decisions about cognitive and volitional acts becomes an objectified cybernetic process.

This process can be exemplified by a machine with built-in programs and information, and this machine can regulate its own activities. Such a machine became a model for the organism in general and for the brain in particular, but biocybernetics is not identical with biosemiotics. The difference is that the biocybernetical machine demonstrates the logic and the mechanics of biological information systems, but biosemiotics presents us with the meaning of these signs.

Concepts such as code, information, memory, choice, translation, and analogy, all used to describe biological processes, are derived, however, from a subjective origin. But a spiritual, or at least non-material, process may have played a role in the programming and developing of these processes, and biosemiotics attempts to prove that. Biosemiotics investigates the relationship between life and matter, soul and spirit by means of the complimentary application of methods originating from the natural as well as from the behavioral sciences.

You are mistaken if you believe that this endeavor is a new manifestation of neovitalism. The difference will be clear after we expose the role of creativity in the evolution of sign systems and the integration of these systems in the biological organism. It is not just the assumption of a concept, such as entelechy, that will “bring to life” scientific observations and facts, but new methods of investigation will be applied, namely biosemiotics.

The world of natural phenomena will be analyzed by using methods derived from the behavioral sciences. Natural phenomena will be regarded as signs of a communication and expression process. As a result of these investigations, it will appear that the difference between inner and outer adaptation is justified.

John C. Eccles, the Nobel laureate in neurophysiology, was the first to point out the limits of his own field of science and of the theory of evolution, and to warn of the dire results of their one-sidedness. He once wrote that “mankind is sick and lost its faith in itself and in the meaning of existence. There are many symptoms of this sickness or alienation; from purely deterministic psychology, there developed an irresponsibility and a feeling of meaningless of life. I am not able to give a scientific account of how thought can lead to action, but this failure serves to emphasize the fact that our physics and physiology are too primitive for this most challenging task of resolving the antinomy between our experience and the present level of our understanding of brain function... the framework of a quite inadequate and primitive concept of the brain provides the medium in which flourish the materialistic, mechanistic, behavioristic and cybernetic concepts of man, which at present dominate research.”

Biosemiotics originated out of the struggle with these problems, namely the influence of science on man’s understanding of itself and its culture. Biosemiotics shows how to respect the values and truth of science but also to supplement what is lacking.

Chapter Two
The Present Situation of Mankind

PEOPLE ARE OFTEN prophets of doom and destruction, believing that they live in a critical period of the history of their own nation or even of mankind itself. The future will tell if they are correct, but it usually happens that the predicted death of a people does not materialize.

The times we now live in are ominous, and instead of panicking, there is the school of thought that we should adopt a wait-and-see position. On the other hand, we cannot just ignore or deny the threats to mankind that abound. The dangers are all too obvious. The possibility of a nuclear war still exists despite the end of the Cold War and despite the great strides the superpowers have taken with disarmament. Millions are still starving in over-populated regions, a tragedy that cannot simply be brushed aside, even if one takes into account all the measures to encourage a lower birth rate and to increase food production.

The exploitation of natural resources, such as using coal and oil and metals for the production of an ever-increasing amount of energy for our expanding industries, can lead to the exhaustion of these reserves -notwithstanding the possible use of synthetic materials and alternative sources of energy. Pollution is yet another problem rising out of the mismanagement, or sheer size of, industrial waste. The many environmental protection groups agitate continuously, but it is nevertheless difficult to stem the course of events. Unfortunately, it is just not enough to be aware of the dangers and to advocate reorganization and counter-measures. Man’s intelligence, driven by science, is the real obstruction to change. Due to his control of science and technical skills, man judges himself master of nature and the earth.

Will the people in the underdeveloped countries forgo the advances and pleasure of the first world where even middle class workers try to improve on their accomplishments? Man cannot detach himself from the technique, even when it forces him to abuse natural resources, thus undermining man’s very existence. Is it not possible that human intellect will learn to restrain itself from abu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Appendices