path: root/subnaturefn.otx

FOOTNOTES










10 Ilya Prigogine, \et{Unity of Physical Laws and Levels of Description} in
M. Grene (editor) \jt{Interpretations of Life and Mind} (N.Y., Humanities
Press, 1971) and Ilya Prigogine and others \et{Thermodynamics of Evolution} in \jt{Physics Today} Vol. 25 #1, 1972,

11 See John and Nancy Jack Todd, \bt{Tomorrow Is Our Permanent Address} (N.Y., Harper \& Row, 1980), p. 48.

12 See Magoran Maruyama, \et{The Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying
Mutual Causal Processes} in \jt{American Scientist} \#51, 1963, and G.
Nicolis and I. Prigogine., \bt{Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems}
 N.Y., Wiley Interscience, 1977).

13 Lancelot L. Whyte, \et{Towards a Science of Form} in \jt{Hudson Review}
Vol 23 \#4, Winter 1970--71, reminds us of the sense in which the
natural world is a perceptually present world of spatial units from
molecules, crystals, organisms to solar systems and spiral nebul\ae.
How thesee spatial forms are generated---how these units and hierarchies
of units arise in nature---is the project of a morphic science.

14 H.H. Pattee, \et{Complementarity vs. Reduction as Explanation of
Biological Complexity} in \jt{American Journal of Physiology} Vol. 236
\#5, May 1979 where he argues:

\Q{As a consequence of this property of information none of the rules
or constraints of information-processing systems can be reduced to
rate-dependent equations (to the structural laws of nature T.S.), and
therefore their descriptions cannot be integrated in time, as are rate
equations, to give the trajectory or behavior of the system. Such
informational constraints that have rate-independent alternative
structures are called nonintegrable\ld\ constraints. I would define
biological function as activity that is controlled or measured by
nonintegrable constraints.}
\Qs{(p. R244)}

Both the explanatory laws of physics and the cybernetics of nonintegrable
constraints are essential for an account of biological organization.

15 Bateson, \e{op. cit.}, p. 460.

16 Ilya Prigogine, \bt{From Being to Becomuing: Time and Complexity in the
Phystcal Sciences} (San Francisco, WH. Freeman \& Co., 1980).

17 G. Nicolis and I. Prigogine, \bt{Self-Organization inn Nonequilibrium
Systems: From Dissipative Structures to Order Through Fluctuations}
(N.Y., John Wiley \& Sons, 1977).

18 See Marjorie Grene's \bt{Approaches to a Philosophical Biology} (N.Y.,
Basic Books, 1965) for a discussion of Portmann's thinking in contrast
to other biological theorists who reject the Galileian primary qualities
as fundamental for organic life. For a brief introduction to Portmann
in English, see \et{Beyond Darwinism}in \jt{Commentary} XL (1965), pp.
31--41.

19 This argument is developed below in Section 1V.

20 J E. Lovelock, \bt{Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth} (N.Y., Oxford
University Press, 1980)

21 As indeed it has: See W. Ford Doolittle's review of Lovelock's book in
\jt{Co-Evolution Quarterly} \#29, Spring 1981, pp. 58ff. where the charge
that the feedback loops of Gaia are either created by natural selection
or, more likely to Doolittle, occur by chance. In response, we can return
to Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures:
\Q{We here propose an alternative description of prebiotic evolution.
The main idea is the possibility that a prebiological system may
evolve through a whole succession of transitions leading to a hierarchy
of more and more complex and organized states\ld\ As a
result, if the system is to be able to evolve through successive
instabilities, a mechanism must be developed whereby each new
transition favors further evolution by increasing the nonlinearity
and the distance from equilibrium. One obvious mechanism is that
each transition enables the system to increase the entropy production\ld}
\Qs{in \et{Thermodynamics of Evolution.} op. cit.}
However other reviewers of the book find the hypothesis tenable: See
K. Mellanby, \ht{New Scientist}, Oct 4, 1979; René Dubos, \jt{Nature}, Nov. 8,
1979; P Morrison, \jt{Scientific American}, March 1980.

22 Erns Mayr, \et{Teleological and Teleonomic: A New Analysis} in \jt{Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science} 14 (1974), pp. 91--117.

23 See EM. Lappe and J. Collins, \bt{Food First: The Myth of Scarcity}
(Ballantine Press, 1978). Also see \bt{The New International Division of
Labor} by F. Frobel, J. Heinrichs, D. Kreye (Cambridge University Press,
1980).

24 See Gerald O. Barney, \bt{The Global 2000 Report to the President of
the U.S.: Vol. I The Summary Report} (NY., Pergamon Press, 1980).

25 See Klaus Myer-Abich, \e{op. cit.}

26 See Nicholas Georgesev-Roegen, \et{Inequality, Limits and Growth
from a Bio-Economic Viewpoint} in \jt{Review of Social Economy} V. 35,
Dec. 1977.

26 See Serge Moscovici, \et{The Re-Enchantment of the World} in Norman
Birnbaum, \bt{Beyond the Crisis} (N.Y., Oxford University Press,
1977) for an analysis to which this paper is indebted.

28 Raymond Dasmann, \et{Eco-Development} in the \jt{Planet Drum Review}
Vol. 1 \#2, Winter 1981.

29 The term \dq{re-inhabitation} is taken from one of many local journals
which are now advocating the watershed as the natural eco-development
unit. The strategy is the use of a combination of oral history and local
ecological research as a place identification approach. See Paul Ryan's
\bt{Talking Wood: Living in the Passaic Watershed}, 1980 (Talking Wood,
PO.Box 364, Pompton Lakes, N.J. 07442). (But the original use of the
term was by Peter Berg in an article on \et{Re-Inhabitation of California}
in \jt{The Ecologist} in the early 1970's.)

30 See Ivan Illich, \bt{Shadow Work} (Boston, Marion Boyers, 1981).

31 For the notion of communicative rationalization, see Jurgen Habermas'
\et{Science and Technology as Ideology} in \bt{Toward a Rational Society}
(Boston, Beacon, 1970). However, this paper represents a critique of
Habermas' instrumental concept of natural science as well as his
orientation toward core nation-states of the West. For an account of
his notion of critical theory, see my \bt{The Critique of Domination}
(Boston, Beacon, 1974).

32 Yet there is a sense in which the anarchist position's notion that theory
and practice is ultimately unified art the level of action which changes
reality cannot be faulted. Especially in the American context, there is
an affinity of anarcho-libertarianism and the historical symbols of
independence, self-determination, and self-reliance which are, at least
in origin, not reducible to possessive individualist idealizations of
self-interested production for gain. These American practices were
socially and ethically mediated by the ever-present American quest for
\dq{community.} An anarchist practice still permeates the American
movements for decentralization, ecology and approprate technology,
feminism, etc. There is also a unique amalgam of Old World utopian
surplus and contemporary anarchist, neo-primitivist, and nativist symbols
 that simply mystifies Marxists---especially theoreticans who expect
social relations to dance according to their notion of reason.

33 Russell Means, \et{For the World to Live, \sq{Europe} Must Die} in
\jr{Mother Jones}, Dec. 1980.

34 Wendell Berry, \bt{The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture}
(San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1977).