A move backwards, or, physics still has a lot to learn from the organism

It is the organism, not the solar system that should provide our model of nature, (Goethe, in Richards, 1992).

The question of the nature of organisms, not only in relation to what are often claimed to be the presence of design-like qualities, but also in regards to the possibility of a universe composed of individual discrete fundamental entities has occupied the minds of some of the greatest thinkers since at least the beginnings of formalised philosophy and nature.

Kant’s investigations in his three Critiques, but in particular for this study the Critique of Teleological Judgment is a notable example. Its importance as a basis for much of the speculation in Naturphilosophie, and its legacy to the present day, makes it, if not essential reading, then at least very high on the priority list if one is to investigate some of the major problems that are present in science. It can provide leads in our investigations that we might otherwise have never had known existed. Even the misinterpretation of a claim may bring forth fruitful results, (for the history of science is full of misinterpretations of an older theory that have then allowed the investigators to travel successfully in a new direction, (although possibly with the blush of slight embarrassment if their mistake comes to light)).

It is perhaps also interesting to note that many of the thoughts of the Naturphilosophers of around Kant’s time voiced a way of seeing organisms and nature in general that have many similarities to more recent ‘discoveries’, or currently popular lines of thought in the sciences that did not exist in any notably formalised system at that time. Examples and evidence from these more recent fields such as chaos and complexity theory, and aspects of theoretical physics such as quantum, relativity and string theory have many startling similarities to the ideas of the Naturphilosophers68. This is of course not to imply that they had some ‘divine like’ vision of the future, merely that their recognition of the importance of the

68 _{For example, Blumenbach’s bildungstrieb, Goethe’s work on plants, and Schelling’s development}

Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusions

‘intuition69’ over ‘empirical facts’, whole in comparison to the ‘parts’, (such as anti- reductionism) and the similarities between aspects of nature such as organisms and the inorganic (for example Fries’ claim that there was no fundamental difference between an organism and the solar system) is similar to many currently popular theories in science. Equally though, we must also realise that these ‘older’ ideas may have also shaped the way that things are seen now, so in this case it would hardly be surprising to find certain links, or a legacy of sorts. Regardless of whether Kant’s discussion of problems of mechanism and teleology are correct in their

entirety, it leads us to investigate the possibility and need of alternate causal explanatory systems for organisms beyond the standardly utilised model. We find from this that a fundamental aspect of organisms with respect to their development, day-to-day existence and evolution, (the class of solitons) are best described by an acausal system. That is, they may provide something more than, and can subsume important aspects of our problematic mechanistic and teleological explanations. Consequently, unless we address this problem and develop a new formalised system of understanding and explanation that can account for the action of solitons in the manner by which they actually seem to exist, we risk only telling part of the story of life, organisms and evolution.

The success of these more recent formulations of ideas on the nature of reality over their predecessors (for example relativity theory over Newtonian

mechanics, and possibly string theory with both of these) also can be claimed to give the Naturphilosphers an important rebirth of sorts. At the very least it should encourage a re-investigation of many of their ideas, for they may give us further clues into possible ways to address as yet unanswered questions. If any of their ideas seem too wild, irrelevant, or just plain wrong they can be left to sit for the while70, but always left with the possibility that they may be reinvestigated in light of

69 _{Schelling’s (admittedly extreme) approach to natural science was as follows. “All that is required} to understand nature is to sit down and think logically and deductively from true premises reached through intuition…empirical observations lose all interest. One looks at nature from time to time to check that it is following the proper laws, but that is all”, (Schelling, 1803). The majority of Naturphilosophers would be unlikely to completely agree with this statement.

70

For example in the fortuitous ‘re-discovery’ of 18th Century Mathematician Euler’s Gamma function that backed up fundamental developments in StringTheory. Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s concept of ‘one animal’ in the early 19th century also has stunning parallels to the current understanding and development of knowledge in relation to Hox genes and morphogenesis, as discussed by Stephen J.

Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusions

further ‘advances’ in our systems. This is important, for who knows when even a single line written two hundred years ago may set a spark, or let us apprehend a connection and thus saves us hours or years of toil, or at the very least gives us reason to consider the limits of the systems that we operate in.

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Figure 19 –

Gould in his paper ‘Geoffroy and the homeobox; the art of finding timeless essences in apparent trifles is the kind of perception that we call genius. (Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire)’, (Gould, 1985).

Glossary