Episode 6 - Aristotle, Kant, and Evolution

Awakening from the Meaning Crisis

Ep. 6 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Aristotle, Kant, and Evolution

The last episode was about Plato, and his description of the structure of self-deception. This episode focuses on Aristotle’s contributions to the axial revolution. His biggest criticism of Plato’s work is that it doesn’t give a sufficiently detailed account of how things change. Before we dive into Aristotle’s work, we need to lay some groundwork.

Structural-functional organisation

If I were to ask you what a bird is, how would you respond? Most people would offer an answer in terms of the typical features birds possess. For example, a bird has a beak, feathers, wings, etc. But if I slapped on a beak, feathers and some wings on a table and threw it into the air, it wouldn’t suddenly become a bird. Clearly, there’s more to being a bird than just its features. There’s a certain pattern to how all the features of a bird are bound together. This pattern seemingly makes the final product more meaningful than the sum of its parts.

Plato introduced the idea of the eidos, or the form of things. “Form” in this case doesn’t mean shape. Although, in some cases it might. The meaning is closer to the word “formula”. Another way to describe this idea would be the “structural-functional organisation” of the bird. Aristotle was impressed with this idea of the eidos, and sought an extension to it that explained why things grow and change. Specifically, he wanted to understand how humans grow and change.

A more helpful vocabulary on how things change

Before we can dive into Aristotle’s work, we need to examine our contemporary notions of how things change. Most of our mental models of change come from Newton’s ideas of linear causality. That is, there’s an event A, which causes B, which causes C and so on. This Newtonian model solves a lot of problems because it provides a clean account of why things occur. That is, it prevents circular explanations from occurring. 

A circular explanation explains a specific phenomena by reusing that phenomena. For example, suppose you wanted an explanation of how your consciousness “sees” things after light hits your retina. One possibility is that whenever light is projected onto the retina, it’s then projected onto a little screen in your consciousness. There, a little man in your head looks at this screen to infer what you’re looking at. But wait, how does the little man understand what he’s looking at? This style of explanation quickly devolves into infinite regress.

Kant pointed out a number of problems with this linear model of explanations. A large number of biological systems (e.g. trees or people) can’t be readily explained using this model.

A tree grows when it’s exposed to sunlight. How does the sunlight affect the tree? It needs to grow leaves to absorb the sunlight. But the leaves were grown by the tree. So it seems that the tree is the cause for making the tree? Kant coined the term “self-organising” to describe such systems that involve feedback loops. A feedback cycle is one where the output of the system feeds into the input of the system. Attempting to explain a feedback system using that linear model of causality quickly devolves into circular explanations.

However, feedback loops seem to be an integral part of living systems. Systems that involve feedback loops are called dynamical systems. That is, systems that move. The work by Alicia Juarrero in “Dynamics in Action” offers an alternative mental model that allows us to frame all of this in a more helpful way.

Juarrero first makes a distinction between “causes” and “constraints”. Causes are events that make things happen. Constraints are the conditions that make it possible for the event to happen. Causes capture the events that actually occur, and constraints capture the potential for events to occur. 

Imagine that I have a red ball that’s sitting still on a flat table. Suppose I decide to give that ball a nudge, which causes it to roll off the table. The cause of the ball rolling off the table was my nudge. However, there were a number of constraints that were necessary for that event to take place. First, the table probably needed to be flat. Or at least a shape that allowed the ball to roll. Then, the ball needed to be of a shape (e.g. round), to make it possible for it to roll off when I pushed it. Finally, perhaps it mattered that it was red, because the appealing nature of the redness encouraged me to give it a good nudge.

The nudge is what actually happened. But it only happened because the organisation of objects offered the potential for it to happen. 

Separating the events from their constraints in this way is really useful. It allows us to escape circular explanations when we’re discussing systems that grow and change. That is, systems involving feedback loops.

Let’s come back to provide an explanation for the growth of the tree. An event could be the sunlight hitting the leaves of the tree. This causes the tree to grow a bit more. But this growth adds constraints on the way the sunlight can hit the leaves, and therefore future growth. Events cause an eidos (i.e. a structural-functional organisation), which constrains future events. This isn’t a circular explanation because I’m talking about the different things of what actually happens, versus what could potentially happen.

Virtual engine of development

Let’s dig into another important biological system involving feedback. That is, Darwinian evolution. New instances of the same species are the source of feedback in Darwinian evolution. That is, sexual “re”-“production” where a sheep makes a new sheep, which in term can make a new sheep.

Juarrero points out that there are actually two types of constraints in any dynamical system. Enabling constraints make certain events more likely. Selective constraints make certain events less likely.

Darwin realised that constraints on the environment (e.g. the amount of resources) lead to a certain amount of selection. For example, resource scarcity reduces the number of options in the system. However, everything would likely die if that was the only constraint. The existence of enabling constraints open up new options for the system. That is, organisms undergo variation which increases the amount of options available. As this process spins, the species gets better and better at fitting to its environment.

Juarrero likens the selective constraints in evolution as “virtual governors”. A governor on a steam engine constrains the rate at which it can cycle. She likens the variation of organisms in evolution as a “virtual generator”, since it’s generating new possibilities that the species grow into. When you couple a virtual governor with a virtual generator together you get a “virtual engine” of growth.

We’re using the modern language of dynamical systems to describe growth and feedback in nature. But this is exactly what Aristotle was talking about. We can use our modern language for understanding growth to explore some of Aristotle’s ideas.

When Aristotle talked about growth, he often used the analogy of human-made things to better understand nature-made things. For example, I can turn a block of wood into a chair, a table or a ship. This is where we get the notion of “actuality” from. But what makes the wood act like a chair, a table or a ship? Aristotle pointed out that wood has the “potential” to be one of these objects. When that potential is encoded with a specific formula (i.e. an eidos), it starts to act like a table, a chair or a ship. This is where our notion of “in-formation” comes from. An object with potential is “in-formed” to act like another thing. Aristotle’s idea was that humans are somehow doing this to themselves. That is, it’s almost like a living thing is a chair that’s constantly making itself.

Plato describes the structure of self-deception in terms of inner conflict. According to Aristotle, what’s missing is an account of growth and self-development. That is, how do wisdom and meaning develop over time?

We first need to unpack what we mean when we refer to a person’s “character”. Clearly, there are aspects of one’s psyche that are largely immutable. For example, one’s personality (e.g. the Big Five) is largely a function of one’s biology and environment. But one’s “character” is the part of one’s psyche that can be cultivated, either implicitly or explicitly. When we say that someone’s “acting out of character”, we’re making a claim about the conditions that they have cultivated within themselves. For example, we’d be surprised if a pathological liar suddenly engaged in radical honesty, or if a virtuous individual became a serial killer. When we talk about character, we’re talking about the virtual engine that’s constraining that person’s development and evolution across time. All of us should ask ourselves - what constraints have we identified and internalised that regulate our own development?

The Golden Mean

Aristotle proposed a number of methods to cultivate one’s character.

Our culture generally prizes being courageous. But what does that even mean? Aristotle proposed that it’s the “golden mean” between being a coward and being foolhardy. If you’re too cowardly, then you’ll keep running away from things that you ought to face. If you’re too foolhardy, you’ll get yourself killed trying to confront something that you have no business messing with. That is, you’re always trying to set up a system with enabling constraints (i.e. don’t be too cowardly) and selective constraints (i.e. don’t be too foolhardy). You have to train yourself by engaging in practices that slowly, over time, create a virtual engine that makes you more courageous. You’re a self-organising system. Your actions in the world changes how it responds to you, which constrains your future actions. Are you letting your own virtual engine run willy-nilly? Or are you carefully cultivating an engine where this process develops fruitfully in a self-organising fashion.

In-forming ourselves based on reason - realising our potential

Aristotle suggested that there’s a deep foolishness that arises from a lack of character called akrasia. Essentially, it’s when you know what the right thing to do is. But for whatever reason you don’t do it. He suggested that foolishness arises when one has the right beliefs (i.e. propositions about the world), but insufficient character to act out those beliefs. Or to use the language we’ve just discussed, it’s when you fail to realise your “potential”. In his model, wisdom is the ability to cultivate your virtutes so that you can actualize your potential.

As you’re reading this, you might be noticing links between these ideas and what people today consider “meaningful”. That is, our modern notion of meaning has a strong developmental aspect to it. A knife is said to be well made (i.e. it realises its potential) if it achieves its purpose. But humans are not made in the way that knives are made. That is, you’re self-making or “auto-poetic”. You’re self-making in such a way that you have a structural-functional organisation, that allows you to seek out conditions that enable further self-making. That is, there’s a deep part of you that wants to live and thrive.

The diagram below makes this a bit more concrete. Let’s unpack it.

Right at the bottom of the hierarchy we have inorganic matter. That is in-formed to become a living thing. They have a complex organisation that enables self-moving. That’s what an animal is. Some of those living things have a structural-functional organisation (e.g. in the brain), that take that self-moving in the brain and act it out in the world. This is what a naive human is. They can self-move their minds in such a way that their bodies move, and therefore the world. But humans have the unique potential to optimise this process directly. This is the self-reflective aspect of the axial revolution. That is, some of these mental things can be in-formed into rational things.

To live “up” to your potential is to cultivate the character that allows you to live as high as possible in this hierarchy. Somebody that only lives as a plant, or an animal would be considered by society as a debauched and failed human being. You must cultivate your character so that as much as possible, you’re able to realise your potential as a rational, moral being. According to Aristotle, you become a good person if you in-form your being with a virtual engine that realises those things that are distinctive of your humanity. This also answers the question, why am I more valuable than a table or an animal? Because there are virtues that can be found in rational things, that are intrinsically important, that we can’t find at those lower rungs. What specifically are these characteristics that are so unique to us? Aristotle gives us an answer from the axial revolution. It’s your capacity for overcoming self-deception, growing wisdom and improving your contact with reality. That’s what being rational means.

Aristotle claims that our purpose is to be as human as possible, defined in terms of this hierarchy. Aristotle’s grammar has so deeply shaped us that the entire next lecture is spent unpacking his worldview.