0185 Part 1, “The Phenomenon of Emergence”, covers the first third of Divine Action and Emergence.

Chapter one is titled, “The Science and Metaphysics of Emergence”.

0186 Emergent phenomena are classified according to order.

In first order phenomena, content includes properties that come into play as the content is situated.

0187 For example, water… I mean… H₂O acts as a sticky dipole.  That sticky dipole supports the situational or “bulk liquid” properties of water, including surface tension, high boiling point, and so on.

0188 Now, I explain.

Oxygen has 8 protons.  An oxygen atom will take two electrons to own 10 electrons.  Why does it want 10 electrons?  Quantum mechanics explains.  Electrons are waves.  Around the positive point source of an atomic nucleus, they form standing waves.  Standing waves may be described by geometric mathematical models.  The lowest energy orbital, the one closest to the oxygen nucleus, is spherical and holds two “magnetically paired” electrons (1s(2)).  The next energy orbitals include 1 “2s” or spherical and three angular node-bearing or “2p” orbitals, which may “hybridize” into four 2sp³orbitals. 

0189 So, the math goes like this.

Oxygen has 8 protons.  Oxygen has 1 lowest energy and 4 second to lowest energy orbitals.  Each orbital can hold 2 electrons.  When an oxygen atom has the power to fill all its orbitals with electrons, it becomes an O^-2 ion because it owns 10 electrons (1s(2) and 2sp³(8)).  The property is nice because the 8 positive proton nucleus is uniformly surrounded by 10 negative electrons in a mathematically symmetric arrangement.

0190 The problem?

O^-2 is negatively charged.  It is a beacon for positive charges, such as hydrogen ions, H⁺¹, who have no electrons.  Hydrogen ions are protons who cannot hold onto their electrons.  So, they “share” electrons with other atoms, simply by burrowing into the electron-densities of one of those mathematically modeled orbitals.  The electron orbital adjusts to form a “covalent” bond.  A “covalent” bond is a mathematically modeled wave between two positive nuclei.  When two electrons occupy the covalent wave, then each positive nucleus is held in place by what it perceives as a cloud of negative charge.

The result is neutral H₂O, pictured above.

0191 H₂O is a dipole.  It has a positively charged side and a negatively charge side.  So, gaseous water molecules will orient themselves according to an electric field.  Plus, in liquid water they will tend to arrange themselves so that the positive side of one molecule is facing the negative side of another molecule.

Plus, in liquid water, each hydrogen ion loves to play a game of guessing which 2sp³ orbital it belongs to.  When an electron cloud from molecule A comes close to a hydrogen-bearing orbital of molecule B, the hydrogen nucleus on B moves in response to the electron cloud in A, creating a temporary weak “hydrogen bond” between molecules A and B.

Here is a picture.

0192 Hydrogen bonding is water’s disposition, giving it the power to pull some molecules into bulk solution and to push some molecules out of bulk solution.  If a molecule, such as cyclohexane, cannot play the game because all its hydrogen are tightly bound to carbon, then out it goes.  When a molecule with basically the same carbon structure is loaded with covalently bound oxygen, it goes right into solution.  Here is a picture of cyclohexane and glucose.

0193 Yes, I can describe what happens in terms of dispositions [properties] powers.

0194 Plus, I can portray the bulk property of glucose solubility as the situation level of a sensible construction.

0195 So, I can say that the fact that glucose dissolves in water but cyclohexane does not is sort of like a first order emergent phenomena, based on the hydrogen bonding of water.  Other bulk properties of water, such as its remarkable surface tension, belong to the list of first-order emergent phenomena.

0196 In order to get to second order emergent phenomena, I need to add a twist.

How about a fatty acid entering bulk water?

Here are classical chemical portraits of these two molecules.  I color code the carbon, oxygen and hydrogen for better visualization.  Notice that the hydrogen bound to carbon are… well… just like the hydrogen in cyclohexane.  They are not available for hydrogen bonding.  But, like molecular hydrogen, they are disposed to vigorously reacting with molecular oxygen, which is why laboratories in organic chemistry have fire extinguishers nearby.

0197 So here is the conundrum.

Water wants to hydrogen bond to the carboxyl group and pull it into solution.  At the same time, water wants to form a cage around the long alkane tail and drive it out of solution.

So what happens?

Fatty acids will form a bilayer.  The alkane-tails collect in the middle, excluded by hydrogen bonding.  Water-facing carboxyls are pulled into solution by hydrogen bonding.

When the bilayer curves, it produces an “inside” and an “outside”, resulting in a micelle.

0198 A micelle is a second-order emergent phenomenon.  

Here is a diagram of the sensible construction.

0199 Now, if I remember the previous example of emergent phenomena, the next step in an ordered conceptualizationvirtually contextualizes the micelle through a a dissipative process that exploits the bit of free energy captured by the fact that water drives the alkane part of the fatty acid out of bulk solution and pulls the carboxyl part of the fatty acid into bulk solution.

0200 The potential of a micelle_1c is that it forms a membrane between the inside and the outside.

The contents within the membrane include the stuff of life.

In other words, an organelle (for eukaryotes) or a cell (for bacteria and for archaea) consist of living components within a membrane.

0201 With that in mind, no wonder organelles_2c and bacteria_2c add proteins that stabilize the membrane’s dynamic form_3c.  Plus, they_2c synthesize fatty acids_2a that make for particularly robust cell walls_2b.

0202 In archaean life, downward causation becomes apparent, because cellular membranes_1c put the micelle_2b into perspective and the properties of fatty acids_1b in water select for some fatty acids and not others_2a.  Archaean cells with fatty acids that make good membranes survive.

The problem, for me, is that the jump from the situation to perspective levels is enormous.

The chemistry and properties of micelles is a topic amenable to empirio-schematic models.

The organization of membranes in living cells is a huge leap in complexity.

Such is the leap from second-order to third-order emergent phenomena.

0203 Can empirio-schematics model third-order emergent phenomena?

May I consider an example?

Archaean cells living in a volcanic hot spring rely on the capacity of their micellular walls to maintain integrity at high temperatures. They do so by incorporating particular fatty acids, with extended fatty tails that have the power to be excluded by water, even at high temperatures, and charged carboxy heads that tend to remain in water, even at high temperatures.

0204 Here is the example as a virtual nested form in the realm of normal context.

0205 Tabaczek notes that modern science, since its inception, labors to build models for how things work.   Science asks, “What are things made of?  How do they operate?”  Empirio-schematics builds models on truncated material and efficient causes.  If the model works, then a triumphalist scientist will proclaim, “This model is more illuminating than the thing itself.”

0206 What a proclamation!

What does the proclamation really proclaim?

Is everyday science able to game emergent phenomena?

0207 Let me say that the dynamical living form_3c represents a huge leap between the perspective level normal context_3cand bulk solution in volcanic spring_3b, certainly much larger than between bulk solution_3b and chemical compositions of fatty acids in water_3a constituting a “system”.

Say what?

0208 Let me label the actuality of archaean cells living in a particular hot spring_2c as “a system”.

Now, the complexity of the archaean cell becomes a system.

0209 This allows me to draw an association between the molecular structures of the fatty acids_1a and the stability of the cellular membrane_1c.  The properties of the fatty acid now are relegated to phenomena, which ought to be observed and measured using techniques of chemical extraction and so on.

0210 The way that a reductionist games emergent phenomena follows.

0211 Notice how the emergent phenomena subtract out, so one is only observing and measuring alterations due to changes of conditions.

0212 Comparing emergent “systems” under different conditions bypasses the ontological realness of the noumenon, the thing itself, because the comparison cancels out emergent “systems” through rigorous manipulation of laboratory conditions.  The emergent “system” does not need to be accounted for, except to say, changing conditions may or may not alter its properties… er… phenomena associated with the emergent “system”.

0213 In section 1.3.3, Tabaczek writes that there is an intrinsic tension, within modern emergence theories, between ontological monism and qualitative differences between emergents.

Does this imply that a reductionist can game the concept of “nonreductive physicalism”?

I suspect so.

0214 In this thought experiment, the researcher has developed a silicon diode imprinted to measure the concentration of 1000 chemicals, including a suite for fatty acids and other lipids.  In the laboratory, this probe is placed in contact with an archaean hot spring cell colony at 95^oC (scalding hot water) and then the temperature is lowered to 50^oC (very warm water), a temperature low enough that cells may start to die.

Here is a picture of the experiment.

0215 The probe measures (among other chemicals) biochemical breakdown products of phosphorylated lipids with branching alkane chains.

0216 Certainly, advances in silicon-imprint technology allows the construction of a probe capable of collecting dense on-the-fly information of biological systems in vivo.   The scientist promotes the relevance of system-oriented approaches, along with the desirability of the novel probe, capable of scientifically investigating organisms holistically (without chopping them up), dynamically (on the fly, in vivo and in situ), and across hierarchical organization (by holding the entire living thing as a constant, of sorts).

0217 What does this example imply?

A reductionist can game the system.  Let funding from the national science foundation continue!

0218 Does the reductionist know what he is assuming?  

Can the comparison of systems approach (as content-level everyday science) be situated by triumphalist modelism or logical positivism?

After all, the resulting models apply to the phenomena of changing conditions, not to the thing itself.

0219 What is the thing itself?

Is it a colony of single-celled creatures obtained from a particular hot springs?

Or, is it found in the materials and methods section of a science research grant?

0220 Admittedly, Tabaczek does not explicitly mention reductionists gaming the system by treating emergent phenomena as “a system”.  Let trifles pass.  There are rumors of widespread failures to reproduce the results published in scientific journals in biochemistry and related fields.  So, maybe, my fashioning this archaean cell example out of whole cloth is not out of the ordinary.  Perhaps, in the next few years, I will be able to purchase an artificial general intelligence programthat can conduct additional imaginary research for me.

0221 If Tabaczek is correct, the thing itself is not found in the materials and methods section of a research paper…. er…. grant.

What is the most amazing feature of the noumenon?

Is it the fact that humans recognize noumena, intuitively and instantly, because we are attuned to their signs?  Is that what humans are adapted to do?  Surely, psychologists can observe and measure gestalt recognition under varying conditions.   Are we (humans) living examples of the application of Gestalt theory?   Or is Gestalt theory a model of us that is so pertinent that we might as well call ourselves, Homo gestaltus.

Well, that is what a triumphalist modelist would have me believe.

0222 Instead, I follow Tabaczek’s dispositional metaphysics and situate the everyday science of gestalt with the following situation-level hylomorphe_1b.

0223 Classical accounts of emergence (section 1.3) sound like gestalt.  If an observer asks, “How do you recognize that archaean cell colony in the hot spring is a noumenon?”, I must answer, “I don’t know.”

And, if I did try to formulate a thoughtful response, my answer would be as discombobulated as the various philosophical theories of emergence.  Tabaczek labors in these fields.  Tabaczek elevates Deacon’s account of emergence because it honors his own intuition.  Emergent phenomena belong to a noumenon with “dynamical depth”.

0224 First, emergent phenomena are grounded in a natural flow.  They do not violate the laws of thermodynamics.  In prior examples, “thermodynamics” names the content-level of a three-level interscope.

0225 Second, they capture energy from that natural flow.  As such, they appear to violate the laws of thermodynamics.  But, they do so in particular locations and manners.  Situational energy-capture carries Deacon’s label, “homeodynamics”.

0226 Third, the capture persists because the siphoned free energy is dissipated by producing structures or processes called “dynamic forms”.  These forms catch the human gaze.  That is to say, a dynamical form acts as a sign-vehicle that stands for a sign-object, a noumenon, in regards to a sign-interpretant, consisting of an adaptation to the ultimate human niche.  This recognizable feature is called, “morphodynamics”.

What is a sign-relation?

A sign is a triadic relation.

A sign-vehicle stands for a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.

0227 Fourth, morphodynamic structures and processes appear designed.

But, we do not know who designed them or what they are designed for.

In other words, we may presume that an emergent noumenon is a sign-object, arising from a sign-vehicle that should reveal the who and the what of its design, in regards to a sign interpretant, consisting of the normal context of encountering emergent phenomena arising from the potential of… um… ‘recognizing a gestalt’.

0228 What do items one through four tell me?

Dynamical depth is a gestalt, an instant recognition of whole, whose parts are articulated in Deacon’s philosophical construction of the adjusted thermodynamic, homeodynamic and morphodynamic interscope.

0229 So, what is the problem?

Oh yeah, the problem is Tabaczek’s optics.

0230 Chapter two of Divine Action and Emergence extols the Aristotelian, not as one who sees a reflection of empirio-schematic labor, but as an agent capable of looking into the mirror of science.

Surely, there is a history to tell.

Plus, if history is a noumenon, the I (acting as a scientist) may place a model on top of that noumenon, so as to obscure the thing itself, and reveal that “history” is nothing more than what my model says that it is.

0231 My semiotic construction of Tabaczek’s account starts with a model of our current Lebenswelt called, “the first singularity”.

For the next several points, I will use chronological nomenclature corresponding to the nominal beginning of the Ubaid period of southern Mesopotamia.  Zero U0′ (0 Ubaid Zero Prime or “uh-oh prime”) is set at 5800 BC.  The first singularity is a hypothesis that the potentiation of civilization is due a change in the ways human talk, from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk, plus, the first culture to practice speech-alone talk is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

Yes, the hypothesis of the first singularity satisfies the (now deceased) positivist intellect.

Plus, the hypothesis bubbles with truncated material and efficient causations!

0232 Note how the time frame changes.

For example, Aristotle (384-322 BC) lives from 5416-5478 U0′.

In other words, Aristotle lives over five millennia after the initiation of the first singularity and the potentiation of civilization.

Aristotle participates in a debate on the nature of stability and change that begins with Thales (5180-5250 U0′) and Anaximander (5190-5225 U0′).  Aristotle figures out his famous four causes as well as the hylomorphic character of things.  Aristotle’s foil is Democritus, who proposes that everything is made of unchanging tiny things called “atoms”.

0233 The debate may be configured as follows.

0234 Consider the classic example of an acorn that germinates and grows into an oak tree.

How do Democritus and Aristotle explain?

Democritus’s account offers a fantastic vision that, in the 7600s, is shown to be scientifically correct.  The acorn is composed of particles, “atoms”, so small that the relative difference in mass between an oak tree and acorn is smaller than um… the absolute number of particles in the acorn in the first place.  In other words, relative differences are dwarfed by actual numbers, if that makes sense.  Say the oak tree is a million times larger than the acorn.  A million is ten times itself 6 times (that is 10⁶).  That difference is insignificant compared to the millions of millions of millions (ten times itself 18 times, 10¹⁸) of atoms composing the acorn.

Aristotle’s account offers a more accessible vision.   The acorn is a being-in-potency.  The oak tree is a being-in-perfection.  Here, the technical term, “perfection”, means “all grown up”, not “without flaw”.

0235 What is the problem with Aristotle’s account? 

Aristotle’s account cannot be reduced to truncated material and efficient causes.

Aristotle’s account cannot be converted into mathematical or mechanical models. 

So, Aristotle’s vision is rejected by the so-called “mechanical philosophers” in the 7400s.

0236 Not surprisingly, today, in 7824 U0′, scientists are starting to realize that emergent phenomena, such as a living acorn growing into an oak tree, cannot be described by mathematical and mechanicals models.  But, inquiry into these emergent phenomena can be gamed, by altering conditions and pretending that the changes in the emergent phenomenamay be modeled as quantitative responses to changing conditions.

0237 Tabaczek is not impressed.

He proposes that Aristotle’s four causes are relevant to a living acorn growing into an oak tree as well as other emergent phenomena.

0238 What he needs is an updated way to express Aristotle’s causalities.

This examiner suggests that Peirce’s category-based nested form offers an opportunity in that regard.

0239 Here is a picture for the acorn as an actuality₂.  In order to understand the acorn₂, one needs to ascertain its normal context₃ and potential₁.  Aristotle’s four causes describe complementary connections within and among the three elements of the following triadic relation.

0240 Sections 2.1.2 through 2.1.4 set forth Aristotle’s four causes along with hylomorphism.

The previous figure covers that territory, but it does not cover the distinction between primary and secondary matter, as well as other distinctions.

The previous figure also covers the interrelatedness of causes discussed in section 2.1.5.  Plus, it visualizes the importance of the hylomorphe as an exemplar of and a gateway to Peirce’s category of secondness.

0241 So far, I present a fairly simple example of a motor driven by a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell.  This example dovetails into a general picture of Deacon’s science-loving portrayal of emergence, as an interscope.

Here is a diagram.

0242 This diagram serves as a map for the next example.

Respiration in multicellular animals depends on special cellular organelles, called mitochondria.

Mitochondria live in eukaryotic cells.  The scientific project to discover how they conduct the biochemistry of respirationis one of the great successes of science.  In order to do so, scientists did not change the conditions of the mitochondria, but they did something similar.  They labeled each specific carbon in glucose with a radioactive carbon.  They traced each of the six positions through the Krebs cycle.  Then they “reverse engineered” the metabolic pathways.

0243 In terms of inquiry, these investigators consider respiration₂ as an actuality.  They already know that respiration₂requires mitochondria within a eukaryotic cell₃.  Indeed, mitochondria₃ provide the normal context for respiration₂.  Also, scientists already know that many cellular processes require ATP or similar high-energy phosphate carriers.  I could describe ATP as adenosine-P_iP_iP_i, where Pi is a phosphate.  The third P_i pops off with enough energy that cellular work can get done.

0244 Here is an initial nested form for respiration.

0245 Plus, here is how some of these terms might enter into Deacon’s interscope.

0246 Now, I want to clarify.  I am standing on Tabaczek’s “metaphysical” side of the mirror.  But, I am talking about natural philosophy.  So, I am looking into the scientific domain of truncated material and efficient causalities, as if it were a reflection of what nature is doing.

This view is not the same as triumphalist science, which would replace the noumenon with chemical models and reduce mitochondria to “little laboratories producing ATP”.  Nor is this view the same as logical positivism, which would claim that the positivist intellect is… ahem… still alive. This view sees a reflection in modern scientific inquiry into the phenomena of respiration. My goal is not to technologically manipulate respiration (as desired by many corporate sponsors of modern science).  My goal is to appreciate the thing itself.

0247 Let me start with the reagents of glucose and oxygen.  Typically, glucose is taken by a cell out of the bloodstream through special pathways.  Oxygen is breathed in as gas, then attaches to hemoglobin in the lungs, then is released from hemoglobin into capillary tissue.  How crazy is that?  The transport of oxygen is another special pathway.

These pathways work because of the properties of glucose and oxygen.  Here, the technical term, “properties” labels the contiguity between dispositions and powers.  As such, properties are not real elements, they are contiguities between two real elements.  Disposition is what a thing tends to do.  Power is what a thing is capable of doing.  These two real elements will change, depending on the normal context₃ and potential₁, but they always contiguous.  Each pair of disposition and power displays the contiguity called “property”.

0248 Here are two properties of glucose and oxygen.

These hylomorphes describe how glucose and oxygen find paths to the mitochondria.  The mitochondria is where the biochemistry of respiration occurs.  The lungs are where oxygen bind to hemoglobin.  The capillaries are where oxygen lets go of hemoglobin.  Since glucose is soluble in water, it can float in the plasma of the blood.  The concentration of glucose is tightly regulated, because there are other things that can feed off glucose, such as bacteria.  Too much glucose in the blood invites infections.

These hylomorphes also describe how one orthograde (or spontaneous) chemical reaction will get split, by mitochondria and the cell, into two.

Here is the one reaction.

0249 How does the one chemical reactions get split into two?  Glucose releases electrons.  Then, these electrons are transported by specialized molecules (sometimes with the hydrogen ion tagging along).  Where are the electrons (e^-1) and hydrogen atoms (a H⁺¹ and an e^-1, that is, a H⁰) transported?  The are carried to a system where oxygen takes electrons to form water.

0250 Here are labels for the carriers.  The labels NAD⁺ and FAD are acronyms for rather exotic biochemical names.  I will pass over these details, because I know that these molecules have the disposition to take on electrons (e^-1) as well as to release electrons (e^-1).  Sometimes, hydrogen ions (H⁺¹) are along for the ride (hence the term, H⁰).  These biomolecules have the power to transport high-energy electrons.

0251 Here is the category-based nested form for the thermodynamic level.

0252 The potential of the hemodynamic level imposes biases and constraints on the thermodynamic level, dividing it into two separate steps.

The first step includes the Krebs cycle, which starts outside of mitochondria and produce 2 ATP equivalents.

Here is a picture of this step.

0253 In the second step, the electron carriers release electrons into a transport chain, producing around 32 ATP equivalents.

0254 Two separated chemical reactions produce 34 ATP equivalents.

With this in mind, the homeodynamic level of Deacon’s interscope comes into clarity.

0255 Of course, ATP is crucial for staying alive_1c.  The eukaryotic cell_3c internally moves components and builds biomolecules_2c.

Now, the morphodynamic level comes into view.

0256 Does this picture of respiration as emergent phenomena describe a new style (or fashion) for the Aristotelian tradition?

The answer is “yes”.

Is this new style consonant with Tabaczek’s emphasis on disposition, property and power, as discussed in sections 2.2 through 2.4?

If the answer is “yes”, then I should take a moment to reflect on where Tabaczek is coming from.

0257 Tabaczek starts his journey as a Thomist.

Recall that Aristotle lives in the 5400s U0′.

In the 7000s, Thomas Aquinas provides a “new” style in Aristotle’s tradition.  Call it the “the schoolmen style”.  Aquinas raises a lot of questions.  His questions are debated for four centuries.  His “new” style becomes the “old” style.

In the 7400s, mechanical philosophers in northern Europe dismiss the “old” scholastic nonsense.   Final and formal causes are incompatible with building mathematical and mechanical models based on observations and measurements of phenomena.

The success of the mechanical philosophers gives rise, over the next four centuries, to the Positivist’s judgment.  In the Positivist’s judgment, a positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be,secondness) into relation with phenomena (what is, firstness).  Well, correct that.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon. Oh, never mind.  What scientist cares about the thing itself?

0258 On paper, mechanical philosophers accept Aristotle’s material and efficient causalities.

In practice, they do not.

0259 As I argue earlier, mechanical philosophers promote truncated material and efficient causes, severed from their complementary formal and final causes.  Why?  Truncated causes permit mechanical and mathematical models.  Furthermore, the severed causes may be imported into the truncated causes as shadowy elements.

By 7800 U0′, the severance and re-importation of formal and final causes makes people wonder about the modern use of the word, “cause”.

0260 According to Tabaczek, we are not the first to suspect.

Already, in the 7500s, two philosophers smell the head of a rotting fish.

David Hume (7511-7516 U0′) agrees that humans are not justified in claiming access to formal and final causations.  Without such access, “causality” reduces to… um… let me guess… mathematical and mechanical models.  Sure, it smells, but it is still good to eat.  Tabaczek discusses the contemporary wreckage of a revived Humean discourse in section 2.2.1.

Immanuel Kant (7524-7604 U0′) poses the question, “If mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements of phenomena, then what about the thing itself (that is, the noumenon)?”

Of course, Kant embeds this question within a myriad of intricate arguments filling dense tomes, so it takes a while for the answer to manifest as a slogan.  Indeed, rumor has it that the simplified slogan gets scrawled on a bathroom stall at the University in Turbingen.  The slogan, translated into English, reads, “A noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena.”  Of course, I am fictionalizing here, but I am not embarrassed enough not to project my guilt upon one suspiciously idealistic student of that university, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (7570-7631 U0′).

0261 Yes, sometimes false accusations are true.  But, not in the way that the deceiver would have you imagine them to be.

0262 Another century passes before a French neo-Thomist writes the subject of Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, where the slogan that preserves the metaphysics-laden noumenon from triumphalist advocates of science appears as what is in the Positivist’s judgment.

Here, I refer the reader back to points 0017-0027 and the start of Tabaczek’s emergence.

0263 The development of Tabaczek’s mirror is discussed in points 0028-0050.

The science side transforms the empirio-schematic judgment into a hylomorphe.

The philosophical side transforms Kant’s slogan into something that cries for a new “new” Aristotelianism.

0264 The example of mitochondria “burning” glucose and oxygen to make ATP shows that when the philosophical side looks at its own reflection in the mirror of science, scientific discoveries get reconceptualized without significant distortion.

0265 So, I wonder, “If the Aristotelian does not distort the empirio-schematic side of the mirror, then why does the science side distort the metaphysical side of the mirror?”

Perhaps, modern scientists still channel the ghost of the positivist intellect. They get a lot of funding to conduct experiments with radioactively labeled chemicals and the like.  So, who would not distort the Aristotelian side of the mirror?  That is what the Positivist’s judgment recommends.  Who cares if the positivist intellect is dead?

0266 Who cares whether the component actions within emergent phenomena are the equivalent of dispositions [properties] powers, when the involved chemical reactions, when balanced, reflect something like a metaphysical unity?

0267 Of course, from this examiner’s point of view, Tabaczek’s persuasive impact would be radically improved if he realized that Peirce’s philosophy may be regarded as a postmodern branch of Thomism.  Peirce offers a neo-Aristotelian terminology. Aristotle’s hylomorphe exemplifies Peirce’s category of secondness.  Aristotle’s four causes integrate the category-based nested form.  Category-based nested forms offer a way to portray emergence.  As such, Aristotle’s causes are integral to describing the relationship between the thermodynamic, homeodynamic and morphodynamic levels in Deacon’s interscope.

0268 The specific example of cellular respiration satisfies Deacon’s general account of emergence.  The causality represented by the above interscope is described by Peirce’s concept of precission.  Precission describes how one category emerges from and orders the adjacent lower category.  Precission exhibits the logics of both “downward causation” and “dynamical depth”.  The situation level virtually emerges from (and situates) the content level.  The perspective level arises from (and contextualizes) the situation level.

0269 In terms of Aristotle’s causes, the situation level is what needs to be understood in material terms.  Notably, in Deacon’s schema, the situation level adjusts the thermodynamic level.

At the same time, the virtual nested form in the category of secondness offers a different view of material causation for this emergent. 

0270 The normal context of building biomolecules and moving cellular components_2c virtually brings the actuality of the high-energy molecule ATP_2b into relation with the potential of the mitochondria-facilitated Krebs cycle and electron transport chain_2a (which is the way that mitochondria “burn” glucose and oxygen_2a).  The word, “combustion”_2a becomes a metaphor for what mitochondria_3b are really doing_2b.  They_3b are containing and capturing some of the free energy_2breleased by a spontaneous chemical reaction_2a.

0271 Perspective-level formal causality fleshes out situation-level material causality.  The perspective level virtually puts the situation level into context.  The perspective level formalizes the situation level.

In particular, the actuality of ATP_2b is a formal requirement for the potential of staying alive_1b.  ATP_2b is the molecule of choice, because of its capacity to power proteins to move cellular components and to build biomolecules_2c in the normal context of the living eukaryotic cell of a multicellular organism_3c. 

At the same time, the virtual nested form in the realm of thirdness (pictured below) formalizes the virtual nested form in the realm of secondness (pictured above).

0272 Now, I present one long sentence.

The normal context of the living cell_3c virtually bringing the actuality of mitochondria_3b into relation with the potential of an adjusted orthograde reaction_3a formalizes the normal context of moving cellular components and building biomolecules_2c virtually bringing ATP_2b into relation with the mitochondrial use of glucose and oxygen_2a.

0273 In terms of Aristotle’s causes, the way that the situation level virtually emerges from (and situates) the content level dovetails into instrumental and efficient causalities.  The question may be asked, “How do mitochondria_3b work_1b?”  They_3b work by exploiting a spontaneous chemical reaction_3a that relies on the chemistry of glucose and oxygen_1a.  How they_3b accomplish the task_2a is solved by very clever laboratory work.

When thinking of efficient causality, must not ignore the virtual nested form in the category of firstness.

This virtual nested form is a launching point for the instrumental causalities that are inherent in the virtual nested form in secondness.  The chemical dispositions of glucose and oxygen_1a are exploited in the mitochondrial “combustion” of glucose and oxygen_2a.  The Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain_1b produce ATP_2b.  ATP_1c powers transport proteins and synthetic pathways_2c.

0274 What is missing is the way that final causality complements these efficient causes.

Final causes are ignored in scientific research.  Why?  The positivist intellect does not permit metaphysics.

Formal causes are banned as well.  But, I suspect that formal causes can slip in, as shadowy figures, under the umbrella of material causes.

Final causes have a little more difficulty infiltrating efficient causes.  The above figure demonstrates why.  It is not obvious how the virtual nested form in firstness implicates the virtual nested form in thirdness.

0275 Or is it?

To me, the term, “teleodynamic” is an appropriate label for the following juxtaposition.

0276 While this application of Deacon’s formula for emergence does not cover all the bases in section 2.4, it demonstrates that Tabaczek, the metaphysician, is able to visualize an image in the mirror of science that roughly corresponds to what agents of science would be proud to own.