Darwin owns Wittgenstein

"4.1122 The Darwinian theory has no more to do with philosophy than has any other hypothesis of natural science.

4.113 Philosophy limits the disputable sphere of natural science." (Wittgenstein, Tractatus)

 "67. I can think of no better expression to characterize these
similarities than 'family resemblances'; for the various resemblances
between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait,
temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.—
And I shall say: 'games' form a family.
And for instance the kinds of number form a family in the same way.
Why do we call something a 'number'? Well, perhaps because it
has a—direct—relationship with several things that have hitherto
been called number; and this can be said to give it an indirect relationship
to other things we call the same name. And we extend our concept
of number as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And
the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that some one
fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many
fibres.
But if someone wished to say: "There is something common to all
these constructions—namely the disjunction of all their common
properties"—I should reply: Now you are only playing with words.
One might as well say: 'Something runs through the whole thread—
namely the continuous overlapping of those fibres'." (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations)

de Mul's vermeende ontsnapping aan de facticiteit

"Culturele 'mutaties' zijn niet uitsluitend, zoals in de biologische evolutie, afhankelijk van toeval, maar worden vaak doelbewust voortgebracht. Cultuur kan worden beschouwd als een poging om het blinde toeval te bedwingen. In het bijzonder de moderne wetenschappen en techniek hebben de mens krachtige instrumenten in handen gegeven om het voor de natuurlijke selectie vereiste toeval naar zijn hand te zetten. Dat heeft ook zijn neerslag op de biologische evolutie, die onderwerp wordt van een niet-natuurlijke selectie. Door teelt wordt de toevalligheid van de genetische recombinatie onderworpen aan een menselijk ontwerp en met behulp van genetische manipulatie worden zelfs de voorheen toevallige genetische mutaties onderwerp van technisch beheer. Uiteindelijk heeft de mens daarmee zeggenschap gekregen over zijn eigen evolutie. De mens is daarmee het eerste dier geworden dat in staat is zijn eigen evolutionaire opvolgers te creëren." (de Mul, Cyberspace Odyssee, pp. 285-286)

Nein.

"From a remote period, in all parts of the world, man has subjected many animals and plants to domestication or culture. Man has no power of altering the absolute conditions of life; he cannot change the climate of any country; he adds no new element to the soil; but he can remove an animal or plant from one climate or soil to another, and give it food on which it did not subsist in its natural state. It is an error to speak of man 'tampering with nature' and causing variability. If a man drops a piece of iron into sulphuric acid, it cannot be said strictly that he makes the sulphate of iron, he only allows their elective affinities to come into play. If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." (Darwin, Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication Vol.1 , p. 2)

Zowel God als de mens zijn dood

Nietzsche

"God is dood."

"With Darwin's natural selection at the helm, no one needed to consider what Life did next, or what it had done, or even what it was doing. Consideration was not a consideration. The mindless, ceaseless engine of natural selection would take care of the flight plan - such as it was, beacause, according to Darwin, it was making it all up as it went along, and there was no real purpose to the flight anyway, no confirmed destination. Life was flying just because it could fly. And God, the universe's former pilot, was out of a job." (Hughes 2011, On the Origin of Tepees, p. 104)

Foucault

"De mens [het subject] is dood." 

"If hats and barns and every other artifact of humanity can self-design, if everything we hold dear can come about mindlessly, just as species do in nature, then we could be out of a job: cultural Life could evolve quite happily without any conscious participation on our part." (Ibid.) 

Een onaanvaardbare gedachte

"Wat de onsterfelijkheid betreft, er is niets wat me zo duidelijk laat zien dat dit een sterk en bijna instinctief geloof is als de overtuiging van de meeste tegenwoordige fysici, namelijk dat de zon en al haar planeten na verloop van tijd te koud zullen worden om leven toe te laten, tenzij een groot object inslaat en de zon en haar op deze manier nieuwe energie geeft. Voor iemand als ik die gelooft dat de mens in de verre toekomst een veel perfecter schepsel zal zijn dan hij nu is, is het een onaanvaardbare gedachte dat hij en alle andere schepsels met gevoel na zo'n langdurige en langzame vooruitgang gedoemd zijn totaal vernietigd te worden." (Darwin 2009, Autobiografie, p. 84)

De implosie van Plato's grot

"In mijn Journaal heb ik geschreven dat, staande te midden van de indrukwekkende pracht van een Braziliaans woud, 'het niet mogelijk is een gepast beeld te geven van de hogere gevoelens van verwondering, eerbied en devotie die de geest doen volstromen en verheffen'. Ik weet nog goed hoe ik ervan overtuigd was dat er meer in de mens is dan alleen zijn adem. Maar nu kan het indrukwekkendste landschap dergelijke overtuigingen  en gevoelens niet meer opwekken in mijn geest. Men zou werkelijk kunnen zeggen dat ik lijk op een man die kleurenblind is geworden, en het universele geloof van mensen in het bestaan van de kleur rood heeft tot gevolg dat mij tegenwoordige gebrek aan waarneming geen enkele bewijskracht heeft." (Darwin 2009, Autobiografie, p. 83)

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
(Dawkins 2006, The God Delusion)

Gradualism

"Nevertheless the differences in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind." (Darwin 2006, The Descent of Man, p. 151)

Vrije tijd

"Leasure is the mother of Philosophy." (Hobbes 1985, Leviathan, p. 683)

"In oktober 1838, dat wil zeggen vijftien maanden nadat ik was begonnen met mijn systematische onderzoek, las ik ter ontspanning toevallig het boek van Malthus over Bevolking [Essay on the Principles of Population]. En aangezien ik door het langdurig waarnemen van de gewoonten van dieren en planten rijp was voor het begrijpen van de strijd om het bestaan die overal plaatsvindt, kwam er direct bij me op dat onder deze omstandigheden voordelige variaties bewaard, en onvoordelige vernietigd zouden worden. Het gevolg daarvan zou de vorming van nieuwe soorten zijn. Welnu, hier was dan eindelijk een theorie waarmee ik aan de slag kon."  (Darwin 2009, Autobiografie, pp. 116-117)

Darwin on language

"In the spelling also of words, letters often remain as the rudiments of ancient forms of pronunciation. Languages, like organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups; and they can be classed either naturally according to descent, or artificially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread widely and lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like a species, when once extinct, never, as Sir C. Lyell remarks, reappears. The same language never has two birth-places. Distinct languages may be crossed or blended together. We see variability in every tongue, and new words are continually cropping up; but as there is a limit to the powers of the memory, single words, like whole languages, gradually become extinct. As Max Müller has well remarked:—'A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue.' To these more important causes of the survival of certain words, mere novelty may, I think, be added; for there is in the mind of man a strong love for slight changes in all things. The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection." (Darwin 1871, The Descent of Man, p. 113)

Baboon metaphysics

 "He who understand baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke." (Darwin in his notebook, 16 August 1838)

Marx to Engels

"I'm amused that Darwin, at whom I've been taking another look, should say that he also applies the ‘Malthusian’ theory to plants and animals, as though in Mr Malthus’s case the whole thing didn’t lie in its not being applied to plants and animals, but only — with its geometric progression — to humans as against plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers, among the beasts and plants, the society of England with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions’ and Malthusian ‘struggle for existence’. It is Hobbes’ bellum omnium contra omnes and is reminiscent of Hegel’s Phenomenology, in which civil society figures as an ‘intellectual animal kingdom’, whereas, in Darwin, the animal kingdom figures as civil society." (Marx to Engels, 18 June 1862)

Great mechanical inventions

(Darwin 1859, On the Origin of Species, p. 400)

Darwin: the Godfather of postmodernism

"Karl Marx was exultant: "Not only is a death blow dealt here for the first time to 'Teleology' in natural sciences but their rational meaning is empiracally explained." Friederich Nietzsche saw an even more cosmic message in Darwin: God is dead. If Nietzsche is the father of existentialism, then perhaps Darwin deserves the title of grandfather." (Dennett 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, p. 62)

"What foundation can we stand on as we struggle to keep our feet in the meme-storm in which we are engulfed? If replicative might does not make right, what is the eternal ideal relative to which 'we' will judge the value of memes? We should note that the memes for normative concepts - for ought and good and truth and beauty - are among the most entrenched denizens of our minds. Among the memes that constitute us, they play a central role. Our existence as us, as what we as thinkers are, is not independent of these memes." (Ibid., p. 366)

De fenomenolgie van de koorts

Een revolutionaire denkwending kan pas geschieden wanneer iemand losgescheurd raakt uit het web van gestolde vanzelfsprekendheden waar hij zich tot dan toe in bevond. Op het moment dat zoiets gebeurt raakt men in een vrije val, waarbij alle voordien vertrouwde oriëntatiepunten hun grip verliezen. Hegel brengt het geschieden van een dergelijke gebeurtenis in verband met de doodsangst, een moment van zuivere negativiteit, waarin alle vastgeroeste kaders ineenstorten, waardoor een explosie aan alternatieve zienswijzen zich aandient:

"[Het bewustzijn] is daarbij innerlijk ten ondergegaan, heeft helemaal in zichzelf gesidderd, en alles wat vast was heeft erin gebeefd." (Hegel 1807, Fenomenologie van de Geest, p. 94)

Heidegger neemt Hegels thematiek van de doodsangst over in Sein und Zeit (1927). Ook volgens hem zou een radicale omslag in het denken pas kunnen geschieden in de grondstemming van de angst. Pas wanneer alle schijnbare zekerheden radicaal op het spel gezet en aan het wankelen gebracht worden, kan een revolutionair nieuwe kijk op de dingen aan het licht treden.

In zijn boek Uit Verveling (2007) onderzoekt Awee Prins of naast de angst, de verveling misschien niet een soortgelijk doel zou kunnen dienen. Wie weet. Daar zal ik hier niet verder over uitweiden. Wel wil ik speculeren over een ander alternatief namelijk: de koorts.


Het verhaal van de bioloog Alfred Russel Wallace:

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) en Charles Darwin (1809-1882) ontdekten, onafhankelijk van elkaar, vrijwel gelijktijdig het prinicpe van evolutie door middel van 'natuurlijke selectie'. Het idee hing zo te zeggen kennelijk in de lucht. Het heerste. Terugblikkend op het moment van zijn revolutionaire vinding schrijft Wallace:

"Ik had op het bewuste tijdstip een zware aanval van wisselkoorts en moest dagelijks tijdens de koude- en warmte-aanvallen urenlang het bed houden, en het enige dat me al die tijd te doen stond was piekeren over onderwerpen die me op dat moment na aan het hart lagen."

"Ik zag in een flits de oplossing, en daardoor namen mijn werkzaamheden een volkomen andere wending dan tot op dat moment verwacht." 

"Hoe meer ik erover nadacht, hoe meer ik ervan overtuigd raakte dat ik uiteindelijk de natuurwet had gevonden waar men al zo lang naar zocht en die het probleem van de oorsprong der soorten oploste. Vervolgens liet ik een uur lang mijn gedachten gaan over de onvolkomenheden in de theorieëen van Lamarck en de auteur van de Vestiges en drong het tot me door dat mijn nieuwe theorie de lacunes in hun ideeen onderving en elk bezwaar weerlegde. Ik verlande vurig naar het einde van mijn koortsaanval, opdat ik terstond notities kon maken voor een artikel over dit onderwerp."

"Als Darwin en ik niet door stom toeval op 'natuurlijke selectie' waren gestoten, zou ik de beste jaren van mijn leven wellicht hebben gewijd aan betrekkelijk profijtloos werk." 

(Wallace 1905, Charles Darwin. Herinneringen, pp. 28-32)

Door stom toeval viel het idee van 'natuurlijke selectie' Wallace in. Was de koorts waaraan hij leed hierbij een onbeduidende bijkomstigheid? Of was het misschien slechts bij gratie van deze 'stemming', dat het nieuwe inzicht überhaupt tot hem komen kon?


In 1976 publiceerde Richard Dawkins zijn boek The Selfish Gene. Ook hierin wordt een revolutionair nieuw perspectief - 'the genes-eye-view' - onthuld. Een nieuwe zienswijze vanwaaruit de gehele levende natuur op een andere manier verschijnt. Over de totstandkoming van dit werk schrijft Dawkins in het voorwoord van de tweede editie:

"I began the book in 1972 when power-cuts resulting from industrial strife interrupted my laboratory research. The blackouts unfortunately (from one point of view) ended after a mere two chapters, and I shelved the project until I had a sabbatical leave in 1975. Meanwhile the theory had been extended, notably by John Maynard Smith and Robert Trivers. I now see that it was one of those mysterious periods in which new ideas are hovering in the air. I wrote The Selfish Gene in something resembling a fever of excitement."

(Dawkins 2006, The Selfish Gene, p. xvii)

Net als Darwin en Wallace bevond Dawkins zich kennelijk in een tijd waarin nieuwe ideeën in de lucht hingen. Een kentering van het wereldbeeld lag op de loer. Toen Dawkins door een stroomstoring eindelijk de tijd had zijn gedachten neer te pennen, schreef hij zijn boek in een koortsachtige opwinding.

Is dit slechts puur toeval? Een irrelevante bijkomstigheid? Of zit er meer achter?

Incessantly ready for action

(Darwin 1859, On the Origin of Species)

Monkey business

"Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors: they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tabacco with pleasure." (Darwin 1871, The Descent of Man, p. 23)

Leibniz, Darwin & the beehive

 1859

“Cell-making instinct of the Hive-Bee. I will not here enter on minute details on this subject, but will merely give an outline of the conclusions at which I have arrived. He must be a dull man who can examine the exquisite structure of a comb, so beautifully adapted to its end, without enthusiastic admiration. We hear from mathematicians that bees have practically solved a recondite problem, and have made their cells of the proper shape to hold the greatest possible amount of honey, with the least possible consumption of precious wax in their construction. It has been remarked that a skilful workman, with fitting tools and measures, would find it very difficult to make cells of wax of the true form, though this is perfectly effected by a crowd of bees working in a dark hive. Grant whatever instincts you please, and it seems at first quite inconceivable how they can make all the necessary angles and planes, or even perceive when they are correctly made. But the difficulty is not nearly so great as it at first appears: all this beautiful work can be shown, I think, to follow from a few very simple instincts.

I was led to investigate this subject by Mr. Waterhouse, who has shown that the form of the cell stands in close relation to the presence of adjoining cells; and the following view may, perhaps, be considered only as a modification of this theory. Let us look to the great principle of gradation, and see whether Nature does not reveal to us her method of work. At one end of a short series we have humble-bees, which use their old cocoons to hold honey, sometimes adding to them short tubes of wax, and likewise making separate and very irregular rounded cells of wax. At the other end of the series we have the cells of the hive-bee, placed in a double layer: each cell, as is well known, is an hexagonal prism, with the basal edges of its six sides bevelled so as to join on to a pyramid, formed of three rhombs. These rhombs have certain angles, and the three which form the pyramidal base of a single cell on one side of the comb, enter into the composition of the bases of three adjoining cells on the opposite side. In the series between the extreme perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and the simplicity of those of the humble-bee, we have the cells of the Mexican Melipona domestica, carefully described and figured by Pierre Huber. The Melipona itself is intermediate in structure between the hive and humble bee, but more nearly related to the latter: it forms a nearly regular waxen comb of cylindrical cells, in which the young are hatched, and, in addition, some large cells of wax for holding honey. These latter cells are nearly spherical and of nearly equal sizes, and are aggregated into an irregular mass. But the important point to notice, is that these cells are always made at that degree of nearness to each other, that they would have intersected or broken into each other, if the spheres had been completed; but this is never permitted, the bees building perfectly flat walls of wax between the spheres which thus tend to intersect. Hence each cell consists of an outer spherical portion and of two, three, or more perfectly flat surfaces, according as the cell adjoins two, three or more other cells. When one cell comes into contact with three other cells, which, from the spheres being nearly of the same size, is very frequently and necessarily the case, the three flat surfaces are united into a pyramid; and this pyramid, as Huber has remarked, is manifestly a gross imitation of the three-sided pyramidal basis of the cell of the hive-bee. As in the cells of the hive-bee, so here, the three plane surfaces in any one cell necessarily enter into the construction of three adjoining cells. It is obvious that the Melipona saves wax by this manner of building; for the flat walls between the adjoining cells are not double, but are of the same thickness as the outer spherical portions, and yet each flat portion forms a part of two cells.

Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would probably have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee. Accordingly I wrote to Professor Miller, of Cambridge, and this geometer has kindly read over the following statement, drawn up from his information, and tells me that it is strictly correct:-

If a number of equal spheres be described with their centres placed in two parallel layers; with the centre of each sphere at the distance of radius x √ 2 or radius x 1.41421 (or at some lesser distance), from the centres of the six surrounding spheres in the same layer; and at the same distance from the centres of the adjoining spheres in the other and parallel layer; then, if planes of intersection between the several spheres in both layers be formed, there will result a double layer of hexagonal prisms united together by pyramidal bases formed of three rhombs; and the rhombs and the sides of the hexagonal prisms will have every angle identically the same with the best measurements which have been made of the cells of the hive-bee.

Hence we may safely conclude that if we could slightly modify the instincts already possessed by the Melipona, and in themselves not very wonderful, this bee would make a structure as wonderfully perfect as that of the hive-bee. We must suppose the Melipona to make her cells truly spherical, and of equal sizes; and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she already does so to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows in wood many insects can make, apparently by turning round on a fixed point. We must suppose the Melipona to arrange her cells in level layers, as she already does her cylindrical cells; and we must further suppose, and this is the greatest difficulty, that she can somehow judge accurately at what distance to stand from her fellow-labourers when several are making their spheres; but she is already so far enabled to judge of distance, that she always describes her spheres so as to intersect largely; and then she unites the points of intersection by perfectly flat surfaces. We have further to suppose, but this is no difficulty, that after hexagonal prisms have been formed by the intersection of adjoining spheres in the same layer, she can prolong the hexagon to any length requisite to hold the stock of honey; in the same way as the rude humble-bee adds cylinders of wax to the circular mouths of her old cocoons. By such modifications of instincts in themselves not very wonderful,—hardly more wonderful than those which guide a bird to make its nest,—I believe that the hive-bee has acquired, through natural selection, her inimitable architectural powers." (Darwin)

1697

"Each thing that expresses essence or possible reality, strains towards existence; and these strainings are strong in proportion to the amount of essence or reality that the straining possibility contains. Or we could say: according to the amount of perfection it contains, for perfection is just the amount of essence. This makes it obvious that of the infinite combinations of possibilities and possible series, the one that exists is the one through which the most essence or possibility is brought into existence. A good rule to follow in practical affairs is:

always aim to get the most out of the least, that is, try for the maximum effect at the minimum cost, so to speak.

For example, in building on a particular plot of ground (the ‘cost’), construct the most pleasing building you can, with the rooms as numerous as the site can take and as elegant as possible. Applying this to our present context: given the temporal and spatial extent of the world—in short, its capacity or receptivity—fit into that as great a variety of kinds of thing as possible.

A different and perhaps better analogy is provided by certain games, in which all the places on the board are supposed to be filled in accordance with certain rules; towards the end of such a game a player may find that he has to use some trick if he is to fill certain places that he wants to fill. If he succeeds in filling them, but only by resorting special measures, he has achieved a maximal result but not with minimal means. In contrast with this, there is a certain procedure through which he can most easily fill the board, thus getting the same result but with minimal ‘cost’.

Other examples of the power of ‘minimal cost’: if we are told ‘Draw a triangle’, with no other directions, we will draw an equilateral triangle; if we are told ‘Go from the lecture hall to the library’, without being told what route to take, we will choose the easiest or the shortest route. Similarly, given that existence is to prevail over nonexistence, i.e. something is to exist rather than nothing, i.e. something is to pass from possibility to actuality, with nothing further than this being laid down, it follows that there would be as much as there possibly can be, given the capacity of time and space (that is, the capacity of the order of possible existence). In short, it is just like tiles arranged so as to get down as many as possible in a given area.

From this we can now understand in a wonderful way how the very origination of things involves a certain divine mathematics or metaphysical mechanism, and how the ‘maximum’ of which I have spoken is determined. The case is like that in geometry, where the right angle is distinguished from all other angles; or like the case of a liquid placed in something of a different kind—specifically, held by something solid but flexible, like a rubber balloon—which forms itself into a sphere, the most capacious shape; or—the best analogy—like the situation in common mechanics where the struggling of many heavy bodies with one another finally generates the motion yielding the greatest descent over-all. For just as all possibles strain pari jure for existence in proportion to how much reality they contain, so too all heavy things strain pari jure to descend in proportion to how heavy they are; and just as the latter case yields the motion that contains as much descent of heavy things as is possible, the former case gives rise to a world in which the greatest number of possibles is produced.

So now we have physical necessity derived from metaphysical necessity. For even if the world isn’t metaphysically necessary, in the sense that its contrary implies a contradiction or a logical absurdity, it is physically necessary or determined, in the sense that its contrary implies imperfection or moral absurdity. And just as the source of what essences there are is possibility, so the source of what exists is perfection or degree of essence (through which the greatest number of things are compossible). This also makes it obvious how God, the author of the world, can be free even though everything happens determinately. It’s because he acts from a principle of wisdom or perfection, which doesn’t make it necessary for him to act as he does but makes it certain that he will act in that way. It is only out of ignorance that one is in a state of indifference in which one might go this way and might go that; the wiser someone is, the more settled it is that he will do what is most perfect." (Leibniz)