Part II Emergence of a Wholistic Theory of Inquiry from Realism

Chapter 4 Biological Science

I have repeatedly emphasized the claim that rational thought composes a single coherent whole in the form of a logical system. For example, based on this claim, rationality is meaningless unless it references specific purposes. However, the literal works of authors do not always, or even commonly, work out the details of a complete and consistent logical system. Frequently the epistemological or methodological assumptions of authors preclude this kind of exposition. This lack of detailed systemic reasoning, though enigmatic, does not prevent interpreting the detail that is presented as a single coherent whole. Systemic interpretation also sometimes requires use of alternative wording more appropriate to this particular perspective and context.

The focus of research into organic behavior has been on the mechanisms and the adaptive significance of the behavior. We would like to know how genes regulate the development of a nervous system and how neural and hormonal systems control behavior patterns. Better knowledge of these relationships helps us understand how natural selection shapes the evolution of behavior by transmitting information in the genes, or in any other form, from one generation to the next.

Albert Einstein (1978) has said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." What we would like to comprehend more than anything else is human behavior. Applying evolution theory to our own behavior, we might expect that anything we find consistent in that behavior should have a base in innate mechanisms and have an adaptive significance. Study of human behavior has been controversial, and this is understandable, realizing that the purpose for such study is control. Reflection on the results of inquiry as themselves the products of human perception has produced a set of generalizations about human perception called "systems theory."

This section will start by describing the theory that all behavior is based on biological mechanisms and evolutionary adaptivity. It will then suggest that "systems theorizing," a specialized form of human behavior, also results from biological mechanisms and evolutionary adaptivity. I will describe possible proximate and ultimate causes that underlie the use of systems theory and finally show that its value lies in both its individual and social utility.

There shouldn't be much argument that a tendency to perceive the world in a specific way can be referred to as behavior. An effort to explain human investigative behavior in terms of evolution requires formulating certain questions (Alcock, 1993):

Proximate causes

1. What is the relationship between genetic makeup and the characteristics of the behavior?

2. How could morphogenesis have contributed to this perspective?

3. How could the process of organizing sensory stimuli result in this specific response?

4. How could the innate or learned characteristics of the nervous system be organized that would produce this response?

Ultimate causes

1. What are the historical origins of this behavior and how has it evolved over time?

2. How could a way of organizing perception have increased human "fitness?"

Foundations

The scientific study of behavior begins with the theory of natural selection. In natural selection, evolution occurs when individuals of a species produce differing numbers of mature offspring. Traits that increase individual reproductivity tend to proliferate in populations, driving out other traits. Natural selection will be influenced by any category of behavior that enhances the reproductive success of individuals.

In living forms, genetic material is copied, or reproduced, and passed on from parent to offspring. That some offspring have a better chance of surviving than others seems to be linked to the genes through behavior. Specific nervous systems have components designed to detect and respond appropriately to simple cues, or sign stimuli.

Behavior, a fundamental characteristic of animal life, is a reaction to simple or complex stimuli. Differences in behavior are explained two different ways: first, by the adaptive, or reproductive, significance of each behavior pattern and, second, by the genetic-physiological mechanisms that produce individual behavior patterns. All behavioral traits have both a genetic and an environmental foundation. Distinct and complex combinations of neural and hormonal mechanisms are responsible for different behavioral traits.

Research on the adaptive significance of behavior suggests that the categories of behavior with their varying degrees of freedom from instinctive influence and their underlying neural and hormonal mechanisms have evolved because certain behaviors are better at solving different kinds of problems. Certain kinds of experience are influential in behavioral development. The integrated interaction of genetic and environmental factors is critical to the development of functional nervous and endocrine systems that are responsible for behavior patterns. Specialized sensory neurons can react preferentially to biologically important stimuli so that animals not only perceive biologically significant objects in their environment, they also react appropriately to their perceptions. Neural foundations are the basis for fixed action patterns as well as learned behavior. Fixed action-patterns, or innate and stereotyped behaviors, are triggered by specific cues, called releasers or sign stimuli, from the environment. Appropriate behavior patterns can be selected even when sensory information triggers contradictory activities. Individuals can sense changing conditions and alter their behaviors accordingly.

Social species are recognized as exhibiting distinct kinds of adaptations, such as group cooperation for mutual benefit, which can become extremely complex. Many species exhibit highly structured social interactions. The cooperative social behavior that helps members of the group survive has evolved just as morphological and physiological traits have evolved. Communication is behavior on the part of one organism that affects the behavior of another or results in the exchange of information and coordination of effort. Language is believed to be a unique communication system in that it is capable of conveying information about events remote in time and space or of conveying information about the system itself.

Since selection acts upon individuals, rather than species or groups, in generating adaptive traits, and the "fitness" of an organism is the ability of that organism to reproduce itself, individuals will tend to behave in ways that maximize their fitness. Psychological mechanisms that have evolved as a result of differential human reproductive success can be expected to bias human behavior in predetermined ways regardless of social constraints.

Human Perception as Behavior

"The transition from purely phenomenological to fundamental theory in sociology must await a full, neuronal explanation of the human brain (Wilson, 1975, p.575)." One analyst who looks at the "matter of the mind" from a biological perspective is Edelman (1992):

We must incorporate biology into our theories of knowledge and language. To accomplish this we must develop what I have called a biology based epistemology--an account of how we know and how we are aware in light of the facts of evolution and developmental biology. A fuller realization of this goal will expand our scientific horizons. And through its connections to what makes us uniquely human, a biologically based epistemology will enrich our lives. (p. 252)

We see that biological organisms (specifically animals) are the beings that seem to have minds. So it is natural to make the assumption that a particular kind of biological organization gives rise to mental processes. Obviously, then, to pursue the subject scientifically we must turn to how the brain is organized. It would be a mistake, though, to ignore the rest of the body, because there is an intimate relation between animal functions (especially movement) and the development of the brain. (p. 7)

It seems too simplistic to mention that when we "see" things, what we see is dependent on how we see. Consequently, if we compare the products of human perception over time, establishing similarities and differences between these products, it is reasonable to expect that those characteristics we find will give us insight into how humans perceive.

Now, with the exception of introspection, the only evidence we have of human perception is discourse, so the specific products available for analysis are all discursive products, the result of humans recording perception in a material form that we all can share.

When we look at these products, the themes that emerge are: space, time, material objects, causal relationships, mathematics, logic, etc. There is a tendency toward unification of all these themes into a single integrated, comprehensive whole. Within the whole, humans see mutuality of components involving reciprocal interaction. They see a hierarchy of components with the more complex being composed of the more simple and with characteristics emerging out of increased complexity that are impossible to find in the less complex. They see that if the necessary reciprocity of components is not maintained, the entire hierarchy falls.

When we find these similarities consistently, possibly universally, in the products of human perception, we have some reason to believe they tell us something about how humans perceive. This set of observations about how humans see is called the "systems" perspective. Generally, when humans look at complicated things they see "systems," and when they refer to those complications either introspectively or discursively, they refer to them as "systems." The systems perspective may be universal to the extent that all humans are endowed with the same innate mechanisms involved in "seeing" systems.

Advantageous Relationships

As individuals, we conceive of the universe in a way that subjects it to our will. That means there can be no will involved but our own. The rest of the world, excepting us, must be deterministic, mechanistic, a machine whose outcomes are determined by us. If we cannot do this we have not "explained" the "system." When we have explained the system, we share that explanation with others. We predict the outcomes of the system and cooperate with others to control the system to produce desirable outcomes (undesirable indeterminacy, Miller, 1978, p.437). In order to control it we must predict its behavior. To be predictable, its behavior must be determined. If we cannot determine its behavior, we are not scientists; if not scientists, we are paupers.

As living organisms, we survive by developing advantageous relationships with the environment that surrounds us. When these relationships do not occur naturally, organisms will acquire behaviors to manipulate themselves within the environment and eventually to manipulate the environment around them. The ability to manipulate the environment does not just increase the fitness of the organism, it multiplies it (Wilson, 1975, p.172). Accidental manipulation of the environment may improve the immediate chances of survival but systematic manipulation improves survivability in individual after individual, generation after generation. When organisms use external objects, not part of themselves, to manipulate the environment, we call these objects tools (Alcock, 1993, p.72). Regardless of how the ability to use tools is developed, tools confer quantum improvements in fitness. When an animal acquires the behavioral ability to invent tools, fitness expands even faster.

Wilson refers to the ability to invent tools as a dynamic "shifting in adaptive behavior in response to an unusual ecological opportunity (Wilson, 1975, p.172)." One theme of this chapter is that humans have developed tool-using ability to an astonishingly sophisticated and complex level.

Definition of a Tool

A fox, knowing that a rabbit can easily escape by reaching the bushes, will attempt to force the rabbit's path back into open space. In this case, both the fox and the rabbit are using aspects of environment as tools. The fox selects the open field to achieve its purpose, while the rabbit selects the bushes. Each maneuvers strategically to use the environment to best effect.

This may be seen as too broad a definition of the word "tool." I use this example to show that tool using is a strategic ability that looks for those things in the environment that previous success, evolutionary or experiential, has proven useful to achieving a purpose. The ability to maneuver objects other than one's self is an increased sophistication of this ability. Such objects do not have to be inanimate. Vultures that flock to a wounded but still dangerous animal clearly benefit if they can attract other predators that may assist in the kill. My cat knows how to get me to open a door she knows she cannot open herself. These behaviors are not random and accidental, but systematic and purposeful.

Animals not only use objects in their environments to their advantage, they also use other animals, and, of all animals, others of one's own species can be most useful. Obviously, the females of one's species are necessary to procreate, but one's conspecifics also increase one's fitness beyond immediate procreation. They are essential in establishing habitat, feeding, and protection from predators. Not just for other animals but also for humans.

However we know it, we know that our conspecifics represent an ecological opportunity, and we use them to best advantage in precisely the same way we use tools. That we allow ourselves to be used in the same way (altruism - it is in your interest for your tools to survive) is a strategic necessity that makes the usage mutual and the behavior social. Of course there is some parasitism in any society but the benefits of mutual usage are greater than the costs because of the levels of magnitude of fitness that accrue from cooperative behavior.

Emergent Properties

Both abstract theoretical concepts and observed physical details are mental constructions. They are tools built into the brain for the purpose of survival. They were not designed for survival; they just happened to deliver it, and so they survive, as do the living beings that use them.

Without constructive effort, the sensory data that bombard the organism are infinite and chaotic. Innate mechanisms have proven successful in previous organisms in structuring this data for use. Those same innate mechanisms are in place today and provide the basis for innovative use of tools. Empirical methods can be seen as providing tactical information used moment-to-moment. Rational methods are strategic and determine the context in which tactical methods are employed.

When we create abstract theory, we are constructing an instrument that is fine tuned by empirical research. Consequently there is a very real limit to the effectiveness of empirical research. If we have created an instrument that is ultimately going to kill us, we will not remedy that problem by fine-tuning it.

That an instrument like social theory is ultimately fatal to a society may be a quality that emerges out of the use of that instrument systematically in a highly complex organization. There may be no way of predicting this effect from the local, physical use of the tool. This is what is meant by an emergent property. It is not possible to identify the emergent properties of a system (for example, the collective instrumentality of choral bouts in tree frogs) by dissecting a frog, or by atomistic analysis of individual frog behavior. Emergent qualities are only observable by using a holistic approach, which addresses the question from the outside in, from the largest conception of the system down to the level that interests us. We do not yet have adequate explanations for why this is so. We can conclude, however, that the explanation lies in the way our minds work.

"The recognition and study of emergent properties is holism (Wilson, 1975, p.7)." Systems are defined by the emergence of holistic properties. Talcott Parsons (1949), Bertalanffy (1969), and Ervin Laszlo (1972) have labeled the holistic approach as part of systems theory, but the idea can be traced back at least as far as Spinoza (Wolfson, 1934). Intuitively we can understand the logic of how holism works together with atomism, but we do not have a "scientific" explanation of it because science emphasizes the atomistic perspective. Seeking a fit between conceptual descriptions and empirical observations is the goal of "science" and is dependent on methodology (Miller, 1978, pp.1025-1026). "General systems theory is a conceptual metatheory [used] to construct any sort of theory about any sort of system." Bateson (1979) and Edelman (relationship between categorization and value, 1992, p.163) both refer to the dialectic between the holistic and atomistic perspectives in production of a hierarchical worldview.

Having an understanding of how humans construct models of reality is prerequisite to understanding the emergent qualities of any human model, including evolution and natural selection. It has been pointed out that this leads logically to an infinite regress. So be it.

Dialectic between the holistic and atomistic views can be seen as a proximate mechanism developed in the evolution of consciousness. Alcock describes a model for the effects of stimuli in development as organizational, while the effects of the same stimuli during operation are activational (1993, p.92). The organizational/activational model seems isomorphic to Heidegger's (1962) "present-at/readiness-to-hand" where in both cases the former state represents an analysis/synthesis cycle and the latter represents a stimulus/response cycle. This isomorphism is also reflected in Polanyi's (1969) explicit and tacit awareness and Ortega's (1957) ensimismamiento/praxis dichotomy, with Heidegger's "breakdown" represented by Ortega's alteracion. In sociobiological terms, the proximate cause of the holistic/atomistic perspectives is a neurologically based discursive norm. The ultimate cause is multiplication of group and therefore individual fitness that the social use of such a tool has on human ability to manipulate the environment.

The organizational/activational model describes the way biologically based intellects first order the stimuli presented in a way that is innately structured but still dependent on environment. After stimuli are ordered atomistically, subsequent stimuli evoke the holistic conception of the integrated, comprehensive set of stimuli as a single stimulus. I believe this may be the basis of the "Gestalt" phenomenon. It is only when we respond holistically to the data that we can relate a whole entity systematically to its environment, like the fox does the rabbit.

The process of initially organizing stimuli that we refer to as analysis/synthesis is itself an activational response to previously organized stimuli and requires energy. The holistic perspective is based on the organized logic that every local perspective must also be reflected on from the "outside" to become global. When this is done recursively a sufficient number of times, it seems to exhaust, temporarily, the available platforms for outside perspective.

Atomism is this same process, but applied to an inverted (like turning the telescope around) universe and used operationally instead of strategically. Ultimately, both are based on the organized logic that, until identified (organized), critical opportunities and dangers will not be acted on and the lack of organization will adversely affect fitness. I don't think it is a coincidence that this completely biological combination of responses is logical and rational.

Collective Perception

What we call knowledge is evolutionarily directed toward group selection. With humans, information no longer has to be carried in the genes to improve the fitness of the individual. It doesn't even have to be carried in the neurons. Fitness information forms a sort of ambiance that affects the individual in two ways. The success of preceding organisms has structured the environment in such a way that current individuals have only to conform to the structure to benefit. Secondarily, since the necessary conformity is not built into the genes, fitness information left as artifacts by previous generations is incorporated by the individual to achieve levels of adaptation that are related to the biological capability to use this type of information. Systemically, neuronal information can be transmitted from generation to generation in a way that is only limited by the ability of a specific generation to organize and activate the information. This in itself is a collective learned ability.

What we see in the world is based on the way we "see," as well as on the relationships we see between ourselves as conscious entities and other entities. The relationships we see between other entities and the characteristics of those entities are isomorphic with what we intuit in ourselves. What we perceive as reality does not exhaust the possibilities of what actually exists because our perspective and our perceptions are necessarily anthropomorphic. It is a feature of ultimate survival for humans that they continually plumb for the weaknesses that may exist in the difference between their reality and actuality. Discourse is a weak link in the chain of understanding, but is essential to collective action.

The commonalities, or isomorphisms, we see, as individuals, in and among entities in the real world are a result of our singular genetic makeup structuring the chaos of actuality in precisely the way that has been evolutionarily, historically and ultimately important to our survival.

The word isomorphism describes the quality of abstract identity between concepts. For example, the concept of "evolutionarily stable strategy" is isomorphic with "punctuated equilibrium" noted in non-living as well as living systems. Also described by Kuhn (1970) as "normal science," there is an absorbing of unresolved anomaly until a critical density of anomaly is reached necessitating a global restructuring. Isomorphic with these concepts are quantum theory and what Bak and Chen (1991) call "self-organized criticality." Isomorphism is the result of the mind, when presented with incoherent stimulant data, forcing a structure on the data based on a single innate mechanism. The reason these phenomena have the same structure is not because that structure actually exists, but because our shared genetic makeup causes us to see these phenomena all in the same way. What we are seeing is the internal workings of our own minds. Fitness results from the necessarily evolutionary relationship between our minds, that produce reality, and actuality, that produced our minds. Historically, this relationship has, for humans, been social.

Conclusions and Direction

Proximate causes

1. Although discursive forms seem arbitrary, for example comparing languages, the more intuitive (abstract) they get, and the more they are shared intuitively with others, the more likely it is that their bases are in innate structure.

2. Abstract perceptions of physical reality could be morphogenetic in the same way that "reading" faces has been found to be.

3. Sensory stimuli have posed a historic problem for science. It has not been possible to prove that what we perceive as reality actually exists. Perhaps it is necessary to "trust" that a meaningful relationship with actual stimuli had to have existed at some point in the phenotypic development of perceptive behaviors.

4. Today we have to accept the possibility that innate structural mechanisms may be involved in all human "rational" perception. This should shed new light on the value of intuition.

Ultimate causes

1. "The concept 'system' does, so far, survive; and systems thinking is the process of trying to use that concept to help understand the world (Checkland, 1987)."

2. As is fairly easy to see, discourse does not directly affect individual fitness. Physical possibilities for discourse are related to group fitness and are endless. The greatest group fitness should accrue from using a discursive tool that is founded on the innate abilities of the individual and is immediately, and intuitively, understood by any individual in the group (like faces).

The following is a systemic rendering of Wilson's text Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.

Individuals are prepared to belong to a collective and to have a purpose beyond themselves. Their existence must be explained in terms of a past and future. Science is the discipline by which this explanation is produced. The proximate purpose of science must be to provide unified understanding.

The natural world is orderly, is unified, and can be theoretically explained by a small number of natural laws having a material basis. Immediate revelation, and intuition, is eventually replaced by objective description. Complex phenomena comprise objects that may appear distinct yet can be theoretically unified. Patterns are induced from extensive experience by and among individuals, and expressed as theory. Theory can be optimized and consolidated to become logically perfect and absolute. Unification is a condition that can be approached but not reached. Objective descriptions are unified when they explain the past and the future in the logically perfect form we call knowledge.

The ultimate project of consciousness is the unification of diverse systems of explanation. The standard for judging this accomplishment is consilience, a common ground of explanation that links these systems. Belief in the possibility of consilience is a metaphysical assumption. Systems of explanation are not necessarily unified; they must be intentionally integrated. Integration depends on a common body of abstract principles and evidentiary proof that must be brought into accord.

Action is based on principles of physical causation. Distinct disciplines and industries take different approaches to descriptions of causation. Approaches efficacious for one industry may not be for another. This leads to divergent systems of explanation based on unequal distribution of collective power. Consilience depends on sharing the purpose of integration across industries. Consilience must be understood as the means to solve problems that are common to all industries.

Collective intentionality is the chosen intent of each individual in the collective to work toward a common purpose. Common purpose is not a necessary condition of shared existence; it must be chosen and obtained either by force or individual intent. Common purpose imposed by force does not constitute collective intentionality. The goal of consilience can only be obtained by collective intent. Like individuals, diverse industries cannot be forced into consilience, but must choose it because it contributes to a common purpose. Describing a common purpose is itself a function of systems of explanation. By describing a common purpose, systems of explanation transcend all the individuals, and their experiences, in a collective. Such descriptions are necessarily metaphysical.

Collective intentionality becomes a matter to be understood in terms of individual consciousness and how experience becomes systematized and shared by and among individuals. Expression of theory comes to be understood as conveyance by metaphor. Conscious process is found to produce erroneous interpretations that violate standards of rationality, the second standard for judging systems of explanation. Logical consistency is not only a matter of unity in systems of explanation but also adherence to principles of mechanical cause and effect, and organic functionality. Consistency must extend from the highest levels of abstraction to the lowest levels of decomposition. It must extend from the most immaterial aspects of consciousness to the most material aspects of the physical universe.

The way humans experience the world, reality, is distinct from whatever the universe actually is. Reality emphasizes those aspects of actuality that are essential to human existence. Rationality goes beyond human experience in an attempt to describe actuality. Rationality attempts to deduce, from the laws induced in human experience, what the universe actually is. These theoretical deductions transcend human experience to describe the metaphysical universe. This metaphysical universe is then used as a basis for inferring the necessary conditions of human existence, the bases for collective human action. Powerful collectives can enforce the use of metaphysical descriptions that justify their own domination and oppression of the less powerful. Hypostatized metaphysical descriptions of the universe can come to be contradicted by evolving systems of explanation derived from continuous human experience.

However, metaphysical descriptions can also unite individuals and collectives in a common understanding of a universe that exists as a whole for a common purpose that energizes the activities of everything and everyone it comprises. Since these descriptions are human constructs, the problem arises of warranting collective acceptance of a single description in exclusion of all other descriptions. Individuals need justification for accepting metaphysical descriptions that those individuals had no part in constructing. Thus there is a search for warrants and justifications that transcend the arbitrary metaphors of human construction. Individuals want to know the absolute and certain characteristics of actuality, a demand that can never be fulfilled.

The drive to define actuality is a dialectic between two intents: that to integrate divergent descriptions, and that to differentiate integrated descriptions. The tension between these two intents drives the effort forward in the never-ending evolution of systems of explanation. The system in use is the one that offers the most opportunity at that instant.

At the current time in human history, technology is the major interest of the dominant part of collective human experience. Those who are not caught up in the race for technology are at the mercy of those who are. Technology, the development and use of complex sophisticated tools, provides exponentially greater opportunities to those who use it than is available to those without it. Technology results in explanatory descriptions leading to opportunistic action that would be inconceivable without the technology. Where opportunity is a prerequisite to organic existence, technology offers possibilities for existence otherwise unavailable.

Technology offers a means to search for any possible opportunity that reality has to offer. Tools provide an expendable extension of the organism that isolates the organism from conditions that otherwise could cause extinction. Abstract explanatory systems are such a tool. Today, nothing in the lives of people in many societies would make sense without the abstract explanatory systems they call scientific theory.

Scientific theory is a product of highly structured imagination, based on experience, which goes beyond the limits of that structure to predict the existence of phenomena that have not yet been experienced, but could be. Science as an enterprise gathers and structures experiences and induces from them highly probable generalities about the world. From these generalities, previously unexperienced facts can be deduced. Imaginatively associating these structures with other similar structures during both the inductive and deductive processes yields unique combinations that stimulate new experiments and new discoveries.

Good theory is a simple explanation that fits with other explanations and yields new discoveries. Chains of discoveries yield new and different classes of tools that can be employed collectively to create significant increases in opportunity. Although increased opportunity is the ultimate purpose for theory, the proximate purpose, creating new tools, can come to be confused with the ultimate purpose. Where developing new technology defines an elite class of individuals, creating new tools can become an esoteric fascination, excluding any effort to develop encompassing new theory, and oblivious to the ecology, or even the morality, of effects on opportunity.

When developing new technology defines a privileged elite that promotes itself as the exclusive source of all new opportunity, that elite is free to promote a metaphysical description that justifies and preserves its privileged status. A technological elite will define all knowledge in terms of tools and all human discourse in terms of technology. When technology is mistakenly taken to be the ultimate purpose, by definition, of all human endeavor, and a restricted elite is given exclusive control of technology, the evolution of systems of explanation is stalled, and the possibility of transcending or unifying metaphysical descriptions of the universe is precluded.

New opportunities collectively afforded by emerging theory have a tendency to focus all energy on precisely those opportunities, to the exclusion of other opportunities as well as other theoretical structures. When the opportunities in this area begin to wane, the theory that is in focus needs to be reunited with theory that went before, making possible advancement into new areas of opportunity. This does not invalidate any universal understanding we may have of theory itself. It represents a neglect of the theory producing process that must again be brought into theoretical focus.

Refocusing on the theory of theory has drawn attention to the phenomenon of consciousness. An attempt is currently underway to reexamine the material basis for reality and redefine it based on primacy of consciousness. In terms of consciousness, phenomena such as space/time and cause/effect are organic interpretations imposed on consciousness by our genetic heritage. Likewise, consilience is related to a similar organic interpretive standard recognized as wholeness.

In line with the primacy of consciousness standard of wholeness, the standard of consilience seeks descriptions of complex phenomena as systems. Systemic models describe these phenomena in terms of essential components related as parts of a functional whole, where the whole has characteristics distinct from any, and transcending all, of its parts. Functional description attributes an observable purpose to the whole, to which each of its parts contributes materially, fulfilling all the proximate purposes essential to the ultimate purpose of the system.

Systemic modeling is a descriptive tool that is chosen for two reasons: 1) it describes the products of both analysis and synthesis as a unity, and 2) experience has shown that functional description is, with space/time and cause/effect, an interpretation founded on organic, in other words, genetic, structures. This is the structure a description must have in order to be judged rational. However, it is a mistake to assume that, because we have described a set of phenomena rationally, there is an actual entity with that structure. Systemic modeling allows description of interrelated organic elements without losing any of their complexity and showing the relationship of each to the organic whole.

Consciousness has the innate ability to reduce complicated, even chaotic, data to orderly wholes. Although we are not aware of the organic origins of this process, experience demonstrates clearly that it happens, and that the process can be rationalized, in other words, doing it consciously improves the quality of the results. The most serious impediment to systemic description is insufficiency of data. Phenomena must be observed intensely, continually, and in context for the necessary elements of the system to emerge to consciousness.

An erroneous effect imposed on systemic modeling by the current emphasis on technology is the tendency to describe systems exclusively in mechanical terms, as we would tools. Mechanical description neglects an essential element of organic systems, the aspect of consciousness. Organic terms fully recognize and describe conscious behavior observed in a system. Organic terms also recognize and describe functional relationships with a surrounding ecology.

Systemic description reveals opportunities, and potentials for loss of those opportunities, better than any other structure, where organic human interests are concerned. It leads to understanding that is dynamic in its ability to incorporate, and integrate, a continuous stream of new data into an evolving model. Organic models can be easily adapted to new sets of phenomena by retaining only those elements that are isomorphic. Extension of these techniques to many sets of phenomena eventually reveals those elements that can be described as universal.

Every functional idea must be physically grounded in reality. This creates a problem in describing the mind. The mind is not real, except in the sense that consciousness is apparent to itself. The idea of the unique mind cannot be grounded in a reality that is shared by others. To accept mind as real, we must accept the idea of other consciousnesses like our own. Since there can be no physical grounding of this idea, the claim falls in the category of untestable axioms. This is a matter we all take on faith and is supported, not by proof, but by a preponderance of evidence that warrants certain inductions that we ourselves are conscious, and the ultimate deduction that some other entities are conscious.

Functional understanding of consciousness demands that it must have a purpose. The apparent complexity of conscious processes suggests that they must be described systemically. In light of the previous paragraph, it would be absurd to ask for an objective description of consciousness; any description will necessarily be subjective. One objective standard that might apply is that what we experience should be the result of genetic evolution. Using this standard, consciousness would offer an opportunity, unavailable to unconscious matter, to achieve some higher level purpose. This same rationale would apply to each functional aspect of consciousness, like the senses, or the emotions. We would seek a description that reflects the emergent properties we observe in both the individual and the collective consciousness.

Consciousness is a stream of experiences, both those of which we are aware and those of which we are unaware. Ideas come from some unaware source and are attached as meanings to real objects that also come from some unaware source. The confluence of these emergent sources forms an extant universe.

Within this universe, we act to satisfy needs. Our ultimate needs are affectual, in other words, innate, there is no rationale for them. Our proximate needs are instrumental, in other words, rationally instrumental in satisfaction of our affectual needs. We find through experience that our own rational actions satisfy our needs, more and more, as we become more experienced and attain more control in applying our energy to our actions. One domain of action is in the rational application of structures of meaning to sets of objects. As the structure of the universe becomes more stable, and integrated, our actions become more efficacious.

None of these aspects of conscious experience are observable by physically examining the characteristics of a brain, where we deduce these experiences occur. Neither will this examination reveal the means by which one conscious organism shares a specific structure of the universe with another consciousness. This statement is neither a denial of the reality of the physical brain nor of the conscious self. Both are real, in the sense in which we commonly use the term, but in different ways. It is a matter of how we attach ideal meaning to real objects that makes one of these phenomena seem more real than the other.

The systemic model of consciousness just described reveals a functional relationship between two genetically determined polar aspects of the mind that interact to produce a decision demanding, opportunity laden universe. The dialectic between the ideal (integrative) and real (differentiative) domains we find in individual consciousness is extended to collective consciousness. It appears in the dichotomy between the scientific realm, concerned with the real, and the literary realm, concerned with the ideal. A problem that has surfaced in creating transcending systems of explanation might be best described as each of these realms defining the other out of existence.

Culture is founded on collective consciousness like each individual consciousness is founded on genetic structure. Genes and culture are therefore flexibly linked. Genes prescribe a foundation on which the individual consciousness assembles reality. Parts of reality are absorbed from the existing culture available to consciousness, with selections guided by genetic structure. As the individual and the collective coevolve, culture is reconstructed in the consciousness of each individual, generating continuous variation. Culture can grow indefinitely large and complex, but the fundamental influence of the genetic structure is constant.

Some individuals inherit genetic structure enabling them to find more opportunities in the surrounding environment and culture than individuals who lack that specific structure. As long as these specific opportunities remain constant, this genetic structure will spread through the population. However, as the ecology of opportunity evolves, only genetic structures that find the new opportunities will survive and develop, unless culture provides epigenetic structures that render genetic structure irrelevant.

As epigenetic structures necessarily evolve much faster than genetic structure, the connection between genes and culture becomes looser. Culture becomes the dominant means for finding opportunity in a population and genetic structure remains constant. The primary force in human evolution, as with all living organisms, is availability of opportunity, but humans adapt to that availability by epigenetic means, learning of culture, the possibility of which is established by the genes.

Culture, in this sense, is like consciousness in that it cannot be discovered by physically examining the body of an individual. It can only be described by observing humanity as an organic whole, a collective consciousness embedded in an ecology. The complex of symbolic means of communicating, and thereby sharing, accomplishes the connection between individuals in this organic whole that each individual conceives of as reality, largely composing what we call language. The ability to use this means of sharing an evolving reality, culture, is made possible by genetic structure.

In language, in other words, any form of textual or literal evocation, we reduce the meaning of phenomena to a physical form that individual consciousnesses have previously agreed to interpret in the same way. Using these agreed upon literal forms, the chosen understanding of the universe of one consciousness can be understood by another consciousness. Sharing a single understanding of the universe bonds individuals in coordinated action that provides opportunity to all.

Since the onset of the industrial revolution, the particular shared understanding that has been found to provide the most opportunity is called realism. This is the perspective that focuses on and emphasizes the contribution to understanding from the real domain of consciousness. This perspective has yielded such impressive opportunities over such a long period that the literal reductions of phenomena offered by realism have been culturally hypostatized. The realistic perspective postulates that contributions to conscious experience from the ideal domain are all products of the human mind, and the human mind is part of the physical universe. Realist theory stipulates that real domain contributions to conscious phenomena can be isolated from ideal domain contributions and that the real domain contributions alone can claim to transcend the subjectivity of mind and culture, in other words, become objective. This perspective characterizes the scientific realm, mentioned above, and distinguishes it from the literary realm.

This perspective is an important aspect of current epigenetic structure. It is a cultural decision that determines the direction and efficacy of the collective search for opportunity.

Culture arises from human action and human action arises from culture. The recursivity of this process refines both culture and human action in the direction of greater opportunity. The proximate effect of human action must be the ability to predict. Predicting the behavior of entities from the real domain can only take us so far. Eventually, we must acknowledge the effect of the ideal domain and take this into consideration in our predictions. Evidence exists that we have reached, at least for the moment, the limits of opportunity in the real domain, leaving the ideal domain as the only remaining source for expanded opportunity. Currently, the most significant constraints imposed on individual opportunity are widely believed to be cultural, or epigenetic, impositions.

For example, the privileged status of the realistic perspective interferes with systemic interpretation of literal forms, and the process by which they are created and used. These forms need to be recognized as evidence of the necessity for primacy of consciousness in theoretical structures. Widespread restrictions against this kind of interpretation can preclude evolution of theory in more opportunistic directions. The only standard that cautions us against this chosen myopia is consilience.

The standard of consilience advises us to encourage creative chaos in a significant portion of our culture, because it is only out of that chaos that new perspectives can emerge. This is a conclusion that is compellingly clear when the universe is understood in terms of primacy of consciousness. Epigenetic structures cannot evolve most opportunistically unless allowed to draw upon random sources. This is a function that we cannot rationally control, but that we must have complete confidence in the ability of individual and collective consciousness to perform. This confidence can only arise out of extensive study of consciousness and its effects.

Culture cannot be restricted to what seems to occur outside the mind. This perspective needs to take its place among earlier systems of explanation now considered mythical. One of the oldest myths is that of the efficacy of power. The realistic perspective in particular promotes that myth. It is essentially the cultural mandate that might makes right. The same mandate humans have struggled against since the beginning of time. Only the primacy of consciousness perspective and the standard of consilience offer any alternative to power as a source of authority.

For Wilson, "consilience" is a quality necessary to metaphorical structures. Consilience is, in my terms, the quality of unity of systemic descriptions from all perspectives that yields completeness and produces wholistic understanding. The functional value of this quality may be described systemically. According to Wilson (1998, p.274), human purpose is to control proximate conditions in order to achieve a chosen ultimate goal. Proximate purpose creates opportunity for individuals that ultimately results in collective development. Individual and collective choices are made based on rational structures.

Certain genetic axioms produce the ideal bases for experience, in other words, space/time, cause/effect, functionality (at least), the fundamental intuitive structures. From these bases, recursive refinement of these ideal structures, interacting with intuitively supplied real structures, produces an evolving understanding of a rationally structured universe. All rational structure is expressed literally and stabilized according to the distribution of collective power, which is, in turn, distributed according to this rationalization.

Experience can be separated as distinguished by purpose into modalities of action and inquiry. Action provides the broader purpose, supported by the purpose of inquiry. The purpose of action is survival and development. The purpose for inquiry is to create a rational structure on which action can be based. Inquiry provides the basis for action, and action creates the basis for inquiry, in a recursive refinement of a stable rational structure. Inquiry is action that cultivates the structure on which all action is based, hence recursivity and refinement. Action cannot be separated from inquiry, and inquiry cannot be separated from action, except by function, where the two functions proceed simultaneously.

Distinct individuals and collectives can develop evolved rational structures in isolation from each other. Where rational structures have undergone independent development, inferences drawn between these structures will result in contradictions. These contradictions decrease the functional efficacy of the rational structures where cooperative action between these previously isolated groups is required. However, when structures are developed with the intention to produce consilience, the highest levels of efficacy are achieved.

We invent ingenious literal speculations to describe and explain our experience, but these speculations are necessarily provisional, because the "actual" is inaccessible to experience. Experience must precede imagination, against which each speculation must be tested. Experiential phenomena are united by interlocking systems of literal representation. Systems with common rational structures can be translated isomorphically from one structure to the other. The phenomenally experienced world is 1) the intersection between two pre-experiential domains of consciousness: the real and the ideal, and 2) structured to reveal opportunities for survival and development. Structure is obtained by a dialectic between the two standards that together define wholeness: integration (supplied by the ideal domain) and differentiation (supplied by the real domain).

Rationality has evolved through the recursive refinement of functional metaphorical structures that, through increased ability to predict and control, lead to increased ecological opportunity. Humanity is progressively growing more rational, in other words, depending more and more on literally expressed functional metaphorical structures to guide individual and collective action.

On a realistic basis for evolution of these metaphorical structures, there could be only one of these structures, the one that conformed best to an independent reality. However, acknowledging a necessarily rational basis for action means there can be a multitude of these metaphorical structures, in other words, there are obviously an infinite number of means to achieve a given end, some better than others. This contradicts the idea of a single independent reality, and reveals that the standards for performance of rational structures are not real, but ideal. The resulting quandary polarizes theoretical approaches, as long as these perspectives are mutually exclusive. The factor that seems to create mutual exclusion is whether action is determined by reality or chosen from among ideas. The controversy rages because neither of these polemic alternatives seems to explain all the evidence.

The problem is to describe the relationship of categories of real objects to ideal rational structure. This relationship can be described as one of functionality. Each significant real object plays a potentially functional part, and those objects that are not significant are identified as such. This means there is no place for an empirical theory of objects separate from human functionality. Functionality encompasses both the real and the ideal. Technically, functionality is expressed in terms of "systems." Any systemic description emerging from the natural sciences is essentially the application to a specific body of real phenomena, the general principles for understanding human consciousness. This establishes the principle of primacy of consciousness that is the basis for the "wholistic" perspective, as well as the basis for consilience.