Paradox at the heart of life

Presence and absence must be mutually inter-defined.

To effectively move forward we need a comparative approach, one that takes a few lessons from Terrence Deacon's "figure-ground shift" in his description of the paradoxical nature of life. The concept of holism is central to the approach we must take. We have heard that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. But could it be less than the sum of its parts?[1] Deacon suggests that we need to recognize a causal role for absence, not just presence, as nonaction (i.e. what's not happening) can shed light on the processes of life. This may even include the source of striving and purpose in life (echoed in Plato's description of love in Symposium). And we must learn from Laozi's description of nonaction, or "action without action".[2] Another way of saying it is "action by means of inaction" or "movement through stillness". Traditionally, this phrase is understood as meaning one should take no action that is contrary to nature, and that by not striving for the great, the great is achieved.

These paradoxes are central to understanding life, and therefore I will argue that they are also central to understanding how to sustain it as we confront our ecological crisis. They also help to illuminate the bioeconomic approach of Howard Odum, Peter Corning, Kate Raworth, Giorgos Kallis, and many others. I'll spend more time on the paradox of action without action, or the phrasing which I think is more clear and consistent with my unorthodox biosemiotic interpretation: "no action without nonaction"; no motion without stillness. To explain this it helps to return to Deacon's "autogen model" of the origin of life and meaning. In order to function an autogen requires energy that is constrained to enable work that supports the continued function of the autogen. (Think of how a pump constrains a fluid, or a cylinder constrains the combustion of gas to perform work to support the function of an engine.) Here we see how constraints enable possibilities that, paradoxically, absolute freedom would never permit. Without a cylinder to constrain the force of combustion, a piston cannot function. Absolute freedom, then, is not the condition that enables life.

Returning to my interpretation of "no action without inaction", it is the inability of the force of combustion to be directed outside the cylinder that allows the engine to function. It is the inability of the products of metabolic activity to react outside cellular organelles that sustains essential life processes. It is, in other words, inaction that allows specific actions to occur, enabling constraints that produce new possibilities never before imagined possible. The use of constraints to prevent some forms of activity thereby assists in freeing up that energy to perform or enable other forms of activity, whether physical or mental (a feature that is useful in addressing procrastination as well). If you compare this interpretation to the traditional Taoist interpretation of taking no action contrary to nature, you will see that I've departed from it considerably, but I've preserved the paradoxical element.

To reduce inflammation, we could adjust the amount of simple carbohydrates in our diet. To avoid global heating we could take a thermoeconomics approach and eliminate fossil hydrocarbons from the global energy diet. But we can't do this from an information deficit. An "embodied energy" label consistent with what Howard Odum and Charles Hall recommended could accompany all products/services, and this could identify the amount of fossil hydrocarbons used in their manufacture. Information from satellites that track emission sources, or ground based sensors that identify local pollution sources, could also be available and actionable. This improves comparison of products and understanding of what they represent in terms of ecological impacts. Arming people with information allows them to act. Or more accurately, it allows people to stop acting in ways that are destructive and prefer alternative actions and processes. This is also the same intention behind the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2019, just a different method of approach; both internalize and seek to make available the same information.

Motion through stillness. Photo: Miguel Anton

There is no action on global heating unless we know and understand what we are doing that is harmful and stop doing that, favoring instead healthier alternatives. We can, for example, use a combination of clean air and vacuum technology instead of dangerous SF6 in electric transmission switching components. We can eliminate the constraints of "expiration dates" on food labels and prevent the needless waste of products. The point is, we can identify the level of health we want, and act in such a way that our actions maintain or even advance it beyond the level we enjoy today. But to do that we need a correct understanding of factors that promote or detract from it. And we need to understand how we interact with and relate to them.

The biosemiotic perspective places emphasis on the role of enabling constraints that allow desirable action by preventing undesirable actions. The degrowth approach of Odum, Raworth, and Kallis also focus on preventing undesirable actions, specifically unsustainable economic growth. I'd suggest that economic degrowth isn't the the actual telos of this perspective however. The full realization of the degrowth perspective is properly the same as that of life: it is the development of new possibilities through the creation of new enabling constraints. In the same way that an internal combustion engine (a kind of heat engine) allows us to travel to places we have never visited before, new "actions through inaction", that is to say, our ability to realize enabling constraints, will allow us to improve our quality of life. This will occur through many avenues, in the creation of new plans and policies, new vision statements, new tools and applications, and actionable information that allows us to close the loop on material an information streams.

One of the effects of our nihilistic culture (Arran Gare's term) is that it has a shocking disregard for constraints that function in the interest of preserving social and ecological health. And to the degree that these still exist, it has sought to erode them when they conflict with greed and self-aggrandizement. Why? Nihilism sees no meaning in life, and therefore doesn't care to discern between acts of destruction and acts of creation, preferring instead to entertain a false notion of "blind freedom" with regard to the future, whether such absolute power is in fact possible in reality or just pure fantasy. And as we've now seen through the example of heat engines, absolute freedom necessarily undermines the structures and functions of life itself. In a permissive culture such as this, the radicals who resist are just as likely to take pride in what they haven't done as much as what they have, because they know that the wise use of restraint is a tool we should have never renounced.

Once we have recognized the extent of damage to ecosystem services our lack of constraint has caused, we attempt to place these within our perspectives and judge the value of the possible actions we can take in light of this information, choosing among them accordingly. Whether you are Jem Bendell, Adam Sacks, Jonathan Franzen, or Greta Thunberg, or anyone else, you may see things differently and act accordingly. The Trump Administration, as Katherine Hayhoe recently remarked during her presentation in Fairbanks[3], first ignored the science, then projected a seven degree rise in temperature with dramatic impacts and decided that it was simply too late to do anything. This is gravely irresponsible. As Slavoj Žižek noted, "The paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism." And, in truth, it may be easier to accept an ecological apocalypse than an end to a "grow or die" system of economic inequality where the unemployed scream for growth. Wherefore art thou restraint?[4] To understand this perspective it helps to read Arran Gare's Nihilism Inc. (p176-188). In place of this, we will need to pursue the development of an ecological civilization that is modeled on life processes. 

A pump. Photo: Keri Oberly

Notes:
[1] For Ross Ashby, Edgar Morin, and Terrence Deacon, organization is equivalent to restriction or constraint. This lead Morin to the observation that the whole is not just more than the sum of its parts (possessing nondeducible and irreducible emergent qualities) but it is also less than the sum of its parts - due to the organizational constraints that impede the expression of all possible/potential states. (Paul Marshall, "A Complex Integral Realist Perspective")

Terrence Deacon writes: "Western civilization concentrates on what is yang, what is there, what is strong, what is unyielding, what is positive. So, in contrast, what is emphasized in Incomplete Nature is the yin; that mode of absence that necessarily complements what is present. That being is both due to what happens and what is prevented from happening is the core metaphysical assumption at the foundation of Incomplete Nature." This is good. More than merely describing ecological limits, we need to identify their metaphysical foundation. Relatedly, Arran Gare noted that contemporary approaches within Western culture to address the unfolding ecological crisis have been inadequate. Perhaps it is precisely because they have not addressed a social context that primarily sees value in presence or acquisition, which must be balanced with absence.

Deacon wrote: "Rendering the Buddhist concept of “no-self” in teleodynamic terms we might rephrase it to mean that self is not some thing, but a mode of absence." Might absential qualities shed light on the Buddhist idea of dukkha as well? In a way perhaps. Certianly 侘寂 (Japanese: wabisabi) not only recognizes this incompleteness, but identifies it as the very source of beauty and aesthetic quality. Yin/yang = absence/presence. A line from the beginning of the Tao Te Ching reads: "Being and non-being produce each other". Deacon concludes: "The paradox of life, then, is that it is forever incomplete. It is only in incompleteness that the real, the good, the true, the one and the beautiful come into being... Absences actually do exist. They are not non-existent, neither are they non-physical, they are just non-material and non-energetic... Presence and absence must be mutually inter-defined”.

[2] The taijitu symbol represents both monist (wuji) and dualist (yin/yang) aspects. The opposite of wu-wei is yu-wei (effortlessness/purposiveness). Here I'm using the taijitu to illustrate how constraint and freedom engage in a dialectic with each other to enable new possibilities. Jeremy Lent also used this Taoist concept to illuminate other themes within biosemiotics.

[3] At time 22:30 Hayhoe points out that the Fourth National Climate Assessment reads: "The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on (1) the amount of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases emitted globally and (2) on the remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to those emissions." However, commenting on this assessment, a White House spokesman said: “The magnitude of future climate change depends significantly on ‘remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth’s climate’” to greenhouse gas emissions. This, as Hayhoe pointed out, ignores the critical role our choices play in climate change.

[4] In "The Open Society and Its Enemies", Karl Popper wrote: "The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance."

[5] For further description on the role of constraints in cultural evolution, see my earlier post on the strategic use of constraints. A latter addition to the conclusion of that post noted: "We return to two enduring paradoxes. The first is that what can create can also destroy, and the second is that the enjoyment of freedom requires restraint. Not recognizing the first has been a curse on nature, not understanding the second has been a curse on society. 

1. “We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth century: our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” (Aldo Leopold) 
2. "It is the very placing of boundary conditions and constraints that, paradoxically, calls forth new strategies, behaviors, interactions and relationships within the semiosphere.” (Donald Favareau)
3. "No growth without assistant. No action without reaction. No desire without restraint. Now give yourself up and find yourself again. There is a lesson for you." - Li Mu Bai (In Wang Dulu's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon")
4. 無為而無不為 or 无为而无不为 (Chinese: wúwéi ér wúbù wéi) meaning: "No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone." Tao Te Ching, chapter 37 and 48. This is often included in the paradox wéiwúwéi, "action without action" or "no action without nonaction".