The Logic of the Critique of the Vitalists was Impeccable

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 6, 2019, 5:52:45 AM8/6/19

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Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science, Bangalore, India. 1.5K likes. Inquiring into th...

David Marjanovic

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Aug 7, 2019, 12:08:16 PM8/7/19

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And these two sentences without context are worth sending a picture with 314 kB?

I don't think so. Mayr was not a vitalist himself, and I bet he explained why in the very next sentence. But you didn't even cite the work, so I can't find that out myself.

John Jay Kineman

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Aug 7, 2019, 1:18:19 PM8/7/19

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Yes indeed. I think in this day and age of “post-truth” and “fake news” we have to be especially careful to present complete information, cite sources, and ensure high integrity of communications. We can no longer afford to “cherrypick” supportive statements out of context. Context is everything! I would think the Bhakti Saraswat Institute would, more than anything else and above other institutions, want to adhere to high ethical standards. Is that not the case?

I personally agree with the statement, but I doubt that Ernst Meyr would have left it at that.

John

> On Aug 7, 2019, at 9:45 AM, David Marjanovic <david.ma...@gmx.at> wrote:
>
> And these two sentences without context are worth sending a picture with 314 kB?
>
> I don't think so. Mayr was not a vitalist himself, and I bet he explained why in the very next sentence. But you didn't even cite the work, so I can't find that out myself.
>

John Jay Kineman

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Aug 7, 2019, 6:03:07 PM8/7/19

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excuse me, I meant BVI…

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 7, 2019, 6:15:26 PM8/7/19

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Dear Prof. David Marjanovic,

Namaste. The effort that you put in keeping the record of the size of the emails that you receive may be someway useful to you but in our humble view the sincere efforts to understand the context in which those email are sent is more valuable. The quote of Ernst Mayr "It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine... The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable." [Reference] was meant to highlight the credibility that Ernst Mayr could see in the critique that Vitalists presented to put forward the case that the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine.

The believers of different concepts (vitalists/non-vitalists or atheists/theists) may have some good or bad points in their arguments in presenting their case. Irrespective of the source of their origin, those who are sober human beings (like, Ernst Mayr) they have no problem in happily accepting those good points. On the order hand, in my humble view, it is a barbaric behavior which does not give that due respect and regard to the believers of different opposing views and as a consequence such an attitude can only be seen as a type of extremism that is practiced on the name of science.

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science, Bangalore, India. 1.5K likes. Inquiring into th...

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

On Wednesday, 7 August, 2019, 09:38:03 pm IST, David Marjanovic <david.ma...@gmx.at> wrote:

And these two sentences without context are worth sending a picture with 314 kB?

I don't think so. Mayr was not a vitalist himself, and I bet he explained why in the very next sentence. But you didn't even cite the work, so I can't find that out myself.

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 7, 2019, 6:15:54 PM8/7/19

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Dear Prof. John Jay Kineman,

Namaste.

We hope that you are doing well. Thank you for your comments and agreeing with the statement of Ernst Mayr that the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine.

Ernst Mayr sincerely tried to critique the machine concept of organism and the evidence of the same can be found from his works. The view on living organisms and the attempt to understand biology in terms of physics in modern science is mostly derived more or less directly from the stance which equates organisms as mechanical (machines) in nature. Our Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute sees this as a dangerously misleading characterization about the nature of life. Moreover, we have to understand that this is not just a matter of importance for historians of science but all the concepts of modern biology (for example: seeing protein complexes as molecular-machines; behavior of organism along with its development as a mere execution of a program encoded in the genome; and so on) are driven by this dangerously misleading characterization. Therefore, one of our institute's work is focused on helping the honest and sincere scientists recognize this misconception that is obstructing our progress towards developing a genuine scientific understanding of life.

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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John Jay Kineman

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Aug 8, 2019, 6:26:22 AM8/8/19

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Bhakti Nishkama Shanta

With great respect, thank you for the clarification. As you know from our wonderful conference at Rutgers, there is general agreement on these points, and yet also a desire to accurately represent these historical figures and their views, as well as counter-arguments. I am keenly aware of the present degradation of society in general by the very tempting employment of snapshot impressions and sound-bites. I think we may come to realize at some point that advertising, while necessary for honest exchange, turns evil when it becomes marketing. We’ve seen this now in our politics. We are at a time in history when we must learn to avoid it. As a career scientist, now embracing strong spiritualism as well, and observer of current politics, I very am concerned about any kind of information marketing strategy, and especially the tit-for-tat exchange that leads us to greater polarity. I think Prof. Marjanovic’s comments are to be taken seriously even though I strongly support the message you are trying to get out. I have also studied Ernst Meyr, and my impression was that he was struggling to admit as little as possible to vitalism, while citing it as the target, and to characterize it as a false impression of something more physically real. I disagreed with his assessment in 1988 and I still do. What you and BVI are aware of is true and real. And yet to establish that in the awareness of others must conform to the very highest standards of communication, standards that are rapidly eroding all around us by the misuse of media. It is ironic that I should write this to BVI, which is certainly committed to universal Truth, and struggling against all kinds of mischaracterization of not just spiritual and religious views (often falsely attributed in a negative way by others) but also of BVI’s legitimate scientific views that a majority of ‘scientific populists’ in the Western culture simply don’t like. In many cases their dislike is for reasons that are so empty that their comments can only come as insults. I am not identifying anyone in particular here, just the general nature of public dialogue on social media. So, in perhaps seeming to criticize the recent posting I am really wanting to help present the message. In the Veda it is said that method is greater than end, and actually determines the true character of the end that will be karmically achieved —- quite opposite to the Machiavellian philosophy of “the ends justify the means” which still permeates Western thinking. I think the best we can do is to present the new understanding of reality and show its warm embrace of the full view of those imagining opposition to it. Their opposition will help clarify it. Meanwhile, I want to reserve the option of disagreeing with Meyr on most of his position (at least past position - I’m eating crow if that has changed).

Respectfully,

John Kineman

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John Jay Kineman

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Aug 8, 2019, 6:26:40 AM8/8/19

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Meyr clarifies his view of “organicism” as the intermediate ground between mechanism and vitalism, which he credits with the right insight, but the wrong answer. In Meyr’s view the answer is genetics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoviqZnJ-Gg

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David Marjanovic

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Aug 8, 2019, 1:51:03 PM8/8/19

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Dear Bhakti Niskama Shanta,

namaste, and thank you for the promotion – I'm not a professor. :-)

Thank you also for the indirect link to the source! This is a direct link. It says pretty much what I predicted:

"The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable. But all their efforts to find a scientific answer to all the so-called vitalistic phenomena were failures. Generations of vitalists labored in vain to find a scientific explanation for the Lebenskraft ["life force" in German] until it finally became quite clear that such a force simply does not exist."

Mayr's point, evidently, was that the vitalists applied impeccable logic to completely faulty premises and so, through no fault of their own, drew completely wrong conclusions that logically followed from these faulty premises. Yes, Mayr said, organisms aren't wind-up toys as Descartes thought; yes, he said, organisms can't be wind-up toys, as the vitalists correctly pointed out; but, he also said, we're a lot more similar to wind-up toys than the vitalists believed. There is no ghost in the machine; there is no magic that happens between an organism's nucleotide sequence and an organism's behavior or growth or reproduction. The vitalists were not ridiculously stupid, they were simply wrong because they – like everyone else in their time – lacked knowledge of very important facts, said Mayr, and I agree.

Let's get into specifics. Immediately preceding the quote above, Mayr said this:

"The developmental biologists in particular asked some very challenging questions. For exarnple, how can a machine regenerate lost parts, as many kinds of organisms are able to do? How can a machine replicate itself ? How can two machines fuse into a single one like the fusion of two gametes when producing a zygote ?"

In the last thirty years, the science of development genetics has figured out how this works, and the answers don't involve any additional force of nature that the physicists had overlooked.

I really recommend the whole lecture, and would be happy to discuss it all.

My gripe with the size of e-mails is very simple: the e-mails sent on this mailing list are often unusually large – enough so that, several times, they have filled my inbox, and I couldn't receive any further e-mails for hours or days. That is extremely annoying. It is simply rude to send e-mails without any regard for their size, or at least their ratio of information content to size. The two sentences you quoted stand for themselves – what was the point of illustrating them with a photo of the person who said them? What did that contribute, other than making the whole e-mail look like a clumsy argument from authority?

Please consider these matters.

Sincerely,

David Marjanović

David Marjanovic

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Aug 8, 2019, 1:51:03 PM8/8/19

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Gesendet: Donnerstag, 08. August 2019 um 01:53 Uhr
Von: "John Jay Kineman" <john.k...@colorado.edu>

> In the Veda it is said that method is greater than end, and actually determines the true character of the end that will be karmically achieved —- quite opposite to the Machiavellian philosophy of “the ends justify the means” which still permeates Western thinking.

It's actually similar in science: it's better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons, because if you're right for the wrong reasons, there is no reason to think you'll be right the next time, while if you're wrong for the right reasons (such as applying "impeccable logic" to faulty premises), you'll likely be right once your premises are corrected.

> Meanwhile, I want to reserve the option of disagreeing with Meyr on most of his position (at least past position - I’m eating crow if that has changed).

Mayr died in 2005 at the age of 100.

(He never spelled himself Meyr. That wouldn't change the pronunciation, though; and there are indeed people who spell themselves Meyr, not to mention Meier, Maier, Mair, Mayr, Meyer, Mayer – however, Meir, as in Golda, is completely different.)

zen dogen

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Aug 8, 2019, 1:51:04 PM8/8/19

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Respectfully, I agree with JJ Kineman. Mayr should not be cited, even correctly, for the notion that there is something valid about vitalism. While he may have acknowledged that as a logical thing, he unquestionably had very strong views about biology, and he held, as an overarching principle, that Darwinian evolution was a fact (i.e., not a theory). IOW, there is no way he could be read philosophically (albeit he was not a philosopher per se) to admit non-material causal influences. Maybe that Mayr statement will give a grad student studying Mayr something to explain away, but it should be read, if at all philosophically, as evidence Mayr was not trained in philosophy.

John Lunstroth

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 14, 2019, 4:32:39 AM8/14/19

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The concept of genetic program is also coming from the code concept in programmed machines and hence is only a new version of mechanistic view. This concept is now scientifically refuted by the evidence in cell biology where we no longer see "genome as a digitally encoded Read-Only Turing tape that feeds instructions to the rest of the cell about individual characters". In fact what frontier cell biology establishes is that there is "no dedicated information molecules exist separately from operation molecules."

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 14, 2019, 4:32:39 AM8/14/19

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Respected Prof. John Kineman,

Namaste.

Thank you for your very nice reply and your appreciation of our conference at Rutgers. In my humble view it is not necessary to consider whether Ernst Mayr was accepting Vitalism or not to appreciate what Ernst Mayr felt sincerely about the arguments of Vitalists. What is important to realize is that Ernst Mayr could see the scientific credibility in ‘The Logic of the Critique’ that was presented by Vitalists to refute mechanistic model of living organisms. I respectfully feel that it is not at all scientific mindset to reject something genuine only on the basis of the background of a person from which it is coming. We accept that the movement of water caused by osmosis generates a force called osmotic pressure because it is scientifically observable and not because it is coming from an American/non-American, atheist/theist or vitalist/non-vitalist and so on. If we can realize that much then we never reject or attack sentimentally something genuine. Vedic tradition also does not tell us to reject something genuine just because it is coming from a person who is not following the same belief or faith that we are following. A development of this most essential scientific attitude is very much essential in modern scientific community to avoid the prevalent sentimental (unscientific) attacks on each other.

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 14, 2019, 4:33:53 AM8/14/19

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On Thursday, 8 August, 2019, 11:20:52 pm IST, David Marjanovic <david.ma...@gmx.at> wrote:

>It's actually similar in science: it's better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons, because if you're right for the wrong reasons, there is no reason to think you'll be right the next time, while if you're wrong for the right reasons (such as applying "impeccable logic" to faulty premises), you'll likely be right once your premises are corrected.

In science what is wrong and what is right cannot be judged simply on the basis of the background of the person (vitalist/non-vitalist) who is presenting the concept. It is only a faulty premise that can make someone to believe that in science we can discriminate truth on the basis of the faith/belief of the person.

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 14, 2019, 5:00:56 AM8/14/19

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Respected Dr. David Marjanovic,

Please see my recent reply on Genetics to Prof. Kineman to appreciate the fact that there is no Cartesian dualism (information/functional molecules) in the E. coli (or any other) cell.

You have told "In the last thirty years, the science of development genetics has figured out how this works, and the answers don't involve any additional force of nature that the physicists had overlooked."

I humbly feel it is a seer display of arrogance on your part to come up with such an outlandish statement without supplying any scientific evidence to support the same. If you ask any good biologist and you will confirm for yourself that we even do not know how a simple cell (single cell organism) works and yet you often on this list wrote such unusual statements without any actual evidence to support your views. According to James A. Shapiro the followers of Dawkins adheres thoughtlessly to the causal primacy of DNA, which is biologically nonsensical: DNA + 0 = 0. In other words, Nascent or naked DNA (or RNA) on its own produces nothing. In contrary to what you claim, James A. Shapiro wrote:

"Like the man searching for his key under the lamppost, we currently focus our thinking about heredity almost completely on DNA sequences, because our ability to read and manipulate them lies at the heart of present-day biotechnology. Nonetheless, we should never forget that not all heredity involves the transmission and interpretation of nucleotide sequences in DNA and RNA molecules. To date, all studies of genetically modified organisms have required an intact cell structure for the introduction of new genetic information by DNA or nuclear transplantation. So there is no unequivocal empirical basis for believing the frequent assertion that DNA contains all necessary hereditary information."

Therefore, it will be very much helpful if you can provide the proper scientific references to to your claims.

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

P.S. We would like to suggest you that you may use the Gmail/Yahoo to overcome your worries about size of email.

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Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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Aug 14, 2019, 5:58:43 AM8/14/19

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Dear Prof. John Lunstroth,

Namaste.

Thank you for your comments. You are correct that Ernst Mayr had made an attempt to justify Darwinian view very strongly and his that attempt should not be taken as basis by anyone (especially those who disagree with Darwinism) to reject his other scientifically correct views in biology. In both science and philosophy our acceptance of what is correct and what is incorrect cannot be based on individuals' belief.

In modern science we do not 'think about thinking' because thinking is non-material and inaccessible to methodologies that is predominate in physical sciences. We cannot accept letters and papers (material) as real causal influence responsible for the production of a (say, biology) book because without the concept (non-material) of the author (biologist) the book cannot manifest. In this context Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. explained:

“From the reader's perspective, a book is composed of alphabetical letters; but the book itself did not originate from these letters. Ultimately it is from the ideas of the author that the letters of the book come to be. In the same way, the molecules of a biological organism are the result, not the origin of life. This is the difference between the order in which we come to know things (ordo cognoscendi) and the order in which something comes to be (ordo essendi).”

At present biologists are only studying the body of the living organism using physics and chemistry where they completely ignore the very essence of life: thinking, feeling and willing. Biology cannot be grasped by mere physical sciences. We need philosophy to understand the concepts like thinking, feeling and willing.

Thanking you.

Sincerely,

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

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John Jay Kineman

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Aug 14, 2019, 9:33:59 AM8/14/19

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Namaste,

My earlier comments were to the effect that neither should not quote out of context. Mayr didnt understand the logic of the vitalists in my opinion, or else he chose to trivialize it when he claimed that their concern was satisfied by genetics. His thinking was deterministic. But a vitalistic argument remains. I have no problem disagreeing with Mayr in this regard, and I agree with BVI’s position if it is understood to go beyond genetic determinism and Darwinism without rejecting those processes but adding to them. Mayr’s position regarding vitalism was deceitful. Not only did he mischaracterize their argument but he also mischaracterized the supposed solution. Vitalists were and are concerned about what causes life itself. Genes are involved but not an answer to that question. Food is also involved, but in the same sense it does not answer the question alone. Neither metabolism nor genetics get us to conscious experience of life, which is what the vitalists were aiming for. In every branch of science we encounter a problem of an implicit fifth essence. Genetics is no more the answer to that in biology than is dark energy the answer in cosmology. It goes beyond materialism. The failure of vitalism was because they proposed physical solutions when the a swer is nonphysical. Genetics is just another physical a swer to a no physical problem. But that was t Darwinism, which was more open, it was neo-Darwinism that dogmatically insisted on a physical answer. Elan Vital was proposed as a physical answer. Mayr’s point was that they were right to look for a physical answer, and genetics was it. I think the point that BVI wants to make, which I fully agree with, is that it was never a physical issue and no physical mechanism can answer the question.

John

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John Jay Kineman

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Aug 14, 2019, 4:37:07 PM8/14/19

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Just to lend support to my comments that Darwin was much broader minded than neo-Darwinists, David Loye’s book does a nice job recovering the true views of Darwin.

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The Logic of the Critique of the Vitalists was Impeccable - Ernst Mayr

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science

David Marjanovic

John Jay Kineman

John Jay Kineman

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

John Jay Kineman

John Jay Kineman

David Marjanovic

David Marjanovic

zen dogen

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

Bhakti Niskama Shanta

John Jay Kineman

John Jay Kineman