The failure of the machine metaphor

Friday, 02 May 2008 02:03 |

Written by Don

DesCartes gave us the machine metaphor, the basis for Cartesian Reductionism. This is widely accepted in the biological sciences where organisms are seen as machines by some and special machines at that. He also gave us mind/body duality which is a necessary way to reduce humans to something that is consistent with the machine metaphor. The consequences of large scale accepiance of these ideas over centuries is an interesting quandry for modern science and its teaching. The problem is the apparent conflict between science and religion over the explanation of origins of things. In its simplest form it entails evolution vs creationism and lately, the latter includes Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design proponents actually go so far as to invoke Complex Systems Theory to "support" their position.

Robert Rosen has produced a number of books and papers that put this all in perspective. To summarize, the Cartesian reductionists' view of life necessitates a diety to cut of an infinite regression of causal entailment. This is because machines are always impoverished causually and require outside sources of cause. Rosen, using a mathematical model, prooves conclusively that organisms are distinct from machines in that they are closed networks of cause, needing no outside sources other than their rquirement for exchanges with the environment.

Building on Rosen's model it is also possible to cast the Earth system, Gaia, in the same kind of closed causal system as the organism, lending strength to arguments that Gaia is alive in some important way. Looking at the Earth system as if it were a machine is another example of the harm done by the Cartesian Machine Metaphor.

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Bob Guyer - Several years ago I wrote the following about caus

|Y-m-d H:i:s

My view of the issue of reductionism and its harmful effects on our world view.
Parallels your view, although expressed a little differently.

Quote:

When awareness can isolate identify a distinct object, view it?s component parts
and states of motion relative to a particular point of view, much can be learned
about how things happen. Humanity has gained significant power by pursuing cause
and effect analysis of important issues in human life. Agriculture, medicine,
and technology have advanced significantly through this method that Sir Francis
Bacon would have characterized as inductive reasoning and learning the laws of
nature.

Is consciousness a cause at the most fully interconnected level of analysis, or
how do we take consciousness into account? The more interconnections are taken
into account the less useful the strictly cause and effect thinking becomes.
Complex reciprocal interrelationships and their ever-changing dynamics can be
described, participated in, and shaped through conscious participation. But the
cause and effect system of analysis that leads directly from this, to that, via
the laws of nature in a strictly deterministic fashion, vanishes as a useful way
of looking at events, particularly where consciousness and choice enter the
picture as forces in their own right.

Once again I find a deep similarity between our views. I see the complexity of
pervasive interrelationship in life and I see all parts of life, particularly
the very forceful ways humans can act, as an ever changing reciprocal process of
change. Attributing a single cause to any event is only a matter of focusing on
a single aspect of that specific event exclusively, reductionism.

UR Part of It

The failure of the machine metaphor