Hi Motomixon (can I call you Moto for short or....)

point of clarification: is the past clause of your post suppose to read:

we have to understand how heredity cause{d} human cells are inherited as human cells.

I'm really interested in the question you are asking. What would heredity look like according to PoF. Before I dig into the specific opening statements you shared (thank you very much), I'd like to help set the table.

I think you were right to draw our attention to 7-7{20} in PoF. I've been spending so much time in chapter 5 lately that I forgot how swiftly and cleanly he takes naive realism to task here. More than that, he shows us naive realism's natural next step if it isn't corrected by PoF. Without the true insight of wholeness that PoF is aiming towards, naive realism is forced to immediately begin inferring the "hypothetical realities" that Steiner wants nothing to do with.

But I suggest it would serve this discussion well to really look at how Steiner characterizes these "hypothetical realities". First of all Steiner gives us microscopic (physcis), macroscopic (morphology) and spiritual (man's "Divine Being") examples of these hypothetical realities. What each example shares in common is that they demonstrate the mistake inferring realities that are not being observed.

At the end of the paragraph Steiner seems to warn against anthropomorphizing that which we are trying to understand. Your metaphor of some poor chap having to run through the library of DNA in order to get things to work is a wonderfully cogent picture of the kind of imagination the metaphysical realist is forced to conjure up.

I think the answer lies in what Steiner says at the top of the paragraph. He simply won't accept the conclusion that what we see is the thing. In sections like 7-10{30} and 5-10{26} Steiner makes clear that he does not accept the appearance isolated units as real. PoF insists, to me, that while we obviously must start with so-called percepts, they only lead us into reality to the degree that they are seen from the point of view of the whole (and the whole is not a percept!). In this sense heredity will make sense only when viewed as an example of how wholeness looks when forced apart into isolated segments.

Motomixon you said:

Yet the fundamental questions of control and coordination have not been solved, but only transposed to the molecular realm.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. If we are forced to begin our research by accepting the common usage of "control" and "coordination", I don't see how heredity can be understood from PoF's perspective. We will be forced to anthropomorphize "control" and "coordination" and, thereby, lose the chance to "see" the conceptual relationships involved. Anyway, I think you bring up a very interesting topic.

Jeff

Hi moto, I wasn't questioning your use of those two words. I agree that they hit the nail on the head in terms of being what we are trying to understand. And I think your following comment is very useful as well:

All I want to allude to, is that an organism is a totality in which the parts reflect the quality of that whole. In this sense the parts are coordinated.

I would add on to that one thing; that it might help if we keep at the front of our minds that the organism is a coordinated part a larger totality. I've noticed a tendency in myself has been to think of my 'percept' of the organism as a whole  as being what must be responsible for doing the coordinating and controling, forgetting that, #1, what I'm seeing as the whole is a partialized result of my own subjectivity and, #2, that it itself is the result of (and reflecting)a more encompassing process. I share your concern that we too easily simply shift the "problem" into a new domain. We then get excited about the newness of the shift and lose sight that we have created the same dilema.  As we too well know, the "heredity" that we want to research is already shaped by the kinds of concepts we will be applying to it.

 For me the exciting first step is about the nature of the concepts we are using: do our concepts imply that chopped up units of space come first and heredity is something that happens within such space/time units? Or do our concepts help us avoid trying to fit our understanding of heredity into already presumed spectator space? My hunch is that the use of newtonian type concepts will invariably lead the thinker to make the types of suppositions Steiner warns against in the passage you quoted: we will be looking for ultimate controllers/coordinators or making mental pictures of etheric/astral fields to help 'explain' heredity or the organism. So far in biology we don't have concepts that let us "see" life as something that implies its own transformation. I think this is because we are still applying lifeless concepts to life.  We presently see life's changes as secondary effects, not already implied in the living itself. What would a concept look like that started by implying its own growth or that could only be true via its own transformation? Well, for me, that gets to your final question about etheric thinking. When this type of concept is being apprehended and applied to any perception (an organism, a city, a inner experience) I think this is what you referred to as "thinking the etheric". But that's just me. I know that anthropops have over 30 different ways of using that one word "etheric" and they haven't fleshed those out. I use it in the narrow context of our conversation in which we are talking about understanding/perceiving the wholeness of life/heredity in a new way. Jeff

Hello Jeffrey,

Before  you know it, we already have a conversation going..... (YES!)

Somewhere in Steiner's many comments and observations, he says that the study of biology is today where physics was at the time of Galileo. Which means our task is daunting indeed.

I certainly agree with your awareness of how one's ready-made concepts can distort the way we can (cannot) acquire new concepts. The only way forward to acquiring a proper conceptualization is to make proper observations of life so that the concepts come to us in their living context. We don't have to construct the concepts, they are already there waiting to be revealed to proper observation.

I have been reading Steiner's Outline of a Goethean Worldview. One key idea stated there is that understanding living systems requires a different approach than the study of non-living systems; this reinforces a point you made that the way a question is framed colors the answer. For living systems, Steiner underscores the  Goethean idea: Typus (Type in English, I guess). Unfortunately, for me it is a very abstract treatment, with which I cannot do much with. You can look it over if you wish.  I do know from a prior study of Goethe's Metamorphosis of the Plant that he spent much time observing the plant world and traveled to extend his range of observations. Then with his use of active imagination, he inwardly reviewed all that he had seen, until finally his mind became the field within which the idea of Archetypal Plant arose in a well-grounded, living way. I suspect that in some way or another, we shall have to similarly acquire a large set of observations, so that the Idea: Life, can gain its proper feet (or roots or ......!).

Via a google search I came across Craig Holdrege's book: "Genetics & the Manipulation of Life", a book that seems tailored made for out study. He has been a Waldorf  high school teacher for years, so I would believe he is well-grounded in Anthroposophy. However, his book makes little mention of Steiner but rather focuses on the phenomena, a proper Goethean approach in my view. I heartily recommend it to you. I am about 1/3 of the  way through it. You can find it via Amazon.com. At some point of course, we will have to go from books to observation, but Holdrege indirectly suggests a method to the approach we can take. By the way, it also contains a compact but telling review of the history of genetics since the time of Mendelsohn. Holdrege is a talented guy.

My intimation of "thinking the etheric" was a little flighty of my part, and we should not let this abstract notion distract us in any way. I only wanted to suggest that if we can properly think the plant, or the animal, if we can experience its >>Idea<< in an adequate manner, we may well be also in an experience of the etheric world. But of course, that is only where we MAY end up; we START with observation and thinking as given to us by daily life.

By the way, I am not every day on the Internet or this website, so please be patient if I do not respond immediately to your thoughts.

all the best,

Michael Mason

Hi Michael,

I'll be happy to pick up our conversation whenever you can get to it. I move in bi-montly patterns on this site and it happens to be a time when I'm back! 

I appreciate your comments.  I find that it is increasingly important for me to know how terms are being used by individuals in order to really sink enjoyably and productively into a conversation.  I'm thankful for how you are setting up your terms.  Even though many of our terms are the same, it seems we use them to mean slightly different things, so I want to be careful not to create the illusion that I follow you. But, I think you're last post has helped very much.

What would happen if we flipped your astute comment upside down? You wrote:

The only way forward to acquiring a proper conceptualization is to make proper observations of life so that the concepts come to us in their living context. We don't have to construct the concepts, they are already there waiting to be revealed to proper observation.

I'm not asking you to do so permenantly, but just long enough so I can show you something about myself.  If we flipped it, it would read more like:

The only way forward to acquiring a proper observation is to grasp the idea of life so that the observations come to us in their living context. We don't have to observe more diligently, they are already there waiting to be revealed via the living concepts.

I want to stress that it really isn't about if one way is more true (oxymoron). But if you indulge me and read the above sentence in a way that makes it true for you, you will see an aspect of what I want to say as we set the table of our discussion.  If Craig Holdrege and a mainstream botanist are each looking at the same flower on the same table, it might not be that the botanist needs to look more closely at his sense-perception. In fact, no matter how many details Craig points to, we can imagine that the mainstream botanist will continue seeing the plant in his manner.  What I get from Steiner's theory of perception is that the idea determines the perception.  If as the botanist listens to Craig he is willing to be "touched" by the new idea of the organism that Craig is holding, we can then imagine that his observation of the plant will change right in front of his eyes. 

Goethe was in touch with this new idea of life, but he only had old ideas in which to express it.  This was his dilema (one that he shared with Steiner and with anybody attempting to speak from a living conact with his or her ongoing experience).  In Steiner's writing on Goethe, he attempted to update Goethe's insights in ways that brought them more in line with modern understanding. Obviously, Steiner was forced to do this in his time and place.  We share this same task now.   I have read "Genetics and the Manipulation of Life".  I think that there should be a law that makes it a requirement that every biologist in our universe must read each article on www.natureinstitute.org!!!!!!!!!!!

While we are setting the table, I want to explore one more thing: what is at stake in this discussion? Why does it matter? If our wildest expectations were granted here, what would be different?  This is personal, I know.  It will help me to be holding that facet as we build up our terms and observations.  And...I'll get back later today and address it myself. Thanks much, Michael.

Jeff

Hi Michael,

I'm very interested in this topic.  It seems to me that we are wondering about heredity in the context of Goethean science.  Before we jump on heredity itself, we might do well to really share our ideas and hunches as to what we mean by Goethean science.  In this post I want to address the last question I posed to you: Why does it matter to me?

What would be the important differences between a world in which individuals and organizations embrace, practice and developed Goethean science?  Why am I drawn to that world so strongly?  What is the downside of a world that avoids or ignors this new approach to Science.

I believe that goethean science is a function of self-knowledge. In this sense, I think of it as an effect rather than a cause.  In the past I would have argued that we NEED a new approach in science in order to advance and promote a healthier culture and to protect ourselves from the one-sided blindnesses of our present way of doing science. 

I no longer hold that view, although I do recognize that a goethean approach will usher in wonderful benefits for culture as a whole.  But I've come to see that the new perception of nature that this approach offers is what happens as a result of accepting an utterly new idea.  This idea, once touched, will express itself differently through each individual, but it has a recognizable mark.  It's mark, in my opinion, is that it flips our perception upside down and inspires an intuition of our true nature.  I also think we can characterize what this flipped perception entails.

The new Goethean perception moves our perception from being composed of bits to being expressive of wholes.  Perception moves from being a screen that an ego observes to being an expression that is selflessly given.  This flip also entail the individual immediately knowing that the newfound cognitive wholeness came before any parts seen by the eyes (or any other of the senses) and is there even when the perceptions fade or decay away.  Depending on the individual this "knowing" may or may not be expressed or articulated.  Those of a scientific nature will tend to strive to put it in objective sounding terms (like us), but many others will simply develop the capacity and express whatever it is that moves through it. 

But still, why does this matter? What is at stake if we don't move in this direction?

For me it's simple. Perhaps too simple. It's about violence.  The Goethan idea is ultimately the idea of our true Self; the Identity shared forever by all, the essence of the spiritualized love Steiner speaks of in PoF.  No matter how many different ways in which this idea is individuated on earth, its function remains the same: It corrects the false idea that we have embraced and spread far and wide.  Current science is a picture of our false ideas.  It starts with bits that are units of separation and must be grouped together by an outside observer that is essentially apart from the bits.  That seems rather neutral, but it hides a deeper aspect of the modern notion of Self.  The self is alone and must earn it's way back to unity.  Why is the self alone?  I almost don't wish to put words on this because it always matters more to find one's own.  But I will say this: when I am personally seeing the world through the grip of the false notion, there is always a notion of why I am apart from this union. There is always a sense of being "cast out" of heaven for some reason; this sense entails various dynamics of shame, blame, guilt and attack. It also entails the need to strive to prove my worth. When conferences on the study of molecular biology turn into divisive and angry clashes of attack and ridicule, we get a good look at the true role of this false idea. But that is only an example and I used it to show how even those whose objectivity has cut away all moral considerations (they say they're just talking about molecules) are actually involved with promoting a false and, ultimately, violent idea. Goethean science presents a picture of the true idea. Again, the content is secondary; the cognitive "seeing" of wholeness that the new science provides is the healing of the sickness that the false idea entails. 

When I let the true idea inform my living, there is utterly no sense of separation and, therefore, no perception of guilt, shame or attack within or without me. I am moved when reading Craig Holdreges' accounts of animal forms because in the very gesture of his descriptions I find more of myself than I thought was there. Yes, it is also nice to "have" a new understanding of the sloth or lion. But that is secondary to the true gift of the new science. It provides an opportunity to see your own living anew and to forgive the old way of seeing that is an attack (not real, but very painful 5-10{26,27}).  In this sense of the word "forgive" it does not imply that "sin" or separate parts are real, it implies that one is now seeing them in the light of their prior unity. 

Our conversation matters to me because it is yet one more opportunity to practice making contact with the true Self. And how wonderful that we can do so by using thoughts and observations about embryology and heredity and all the rest!  Thanks.

Jeff

Chapter 12 of the Philosophy of Freedom is worth re-reading as a whole in this context, I think (http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/English/RSP1964/GA004_c12.html).  There are many quotable bits but I think this is especially relevant to the possibility of changing our thinking with regard to the phenomena of life - heredity, evolution and so on:

For the student of ethics, the content thus produced is just as much a given thing as reptiles are a given thing for the scientist. Reptiles have developed out of proto-amniotes, but the scientist cannot get the concept of reptiles out of the concept of the proto-amniotes. Later moral ideas evolve out of earlier, but the student of ethics cannot get the moral concepts of a later civilization out of those of an earlier one. The confusion arises because, as scientists, we start with the facts before us, and then get to know them, whereas in moral action we ourselves first create the facts which we then get to know. In the process of evolution of the moral world order we accomplish something that, at a lower level, is accomplished by nature: we alter something perceptible. The ethical standard thus cannot start, like a law of nature, by being known, but only by being created. Only when it is there, can it become an object of knowledge.

In this chapter I believe Steiner is giving the outlines of a path of thinking which can unite the central experience of the Philosophy of Freedom with a rightly understood material science.  But it's very long and winding and, as you suggest above, human thinking in this area is still at a very basic level compared to the current level of thought in physics, for example.

The thing that has always intrigued me is Steiner's statement "the scientist cannot get the concept of reptiles out of the concept of the proto-amniotes".  While that is obvious from one point of view it's also obvious that scientists are always trying to derive one concept from another.  They really just can't help themselves!

For example, a scientist might assert, "all life processes are nothing but the result of the hidden workings of genes.  If we know the underlying gene structure, we can deduce the outward form of the organism and how it changes over time." 

That seems to be the underlying thrust of many reductionist views of genetics, evolution and so on.  But is it even true?

I believe this form of thinking takes its model from the usual approach of physics.  For example, two billiard balls are heading towards each other, each at a certain speed and in a certain direction.  From these facts and our knowledge of the laws applying to so-called "elastic" collisions, we can deduce later events (for example, the collision and recoil of the balls) mathematically.

However, chaos theory shows, and our experience of the real world confirms, that such situations are the exception, not the rule.  Systems such as the weather, for example, simply cannot be thought of fruitfully along the lines of the billiard ball example, it absolutely does not work in practice!  That is why weather forecasting is never 100% accurate.

In the same way, it may be, our believing that a later form (say, a human being) can be deduced logically from an earlier form (say, an amoeba or its genetic structure) given an understanding of the underlying chemical or genetic laws is fundamentally in error.  This does not mean there are no laws or forces active in life phenomena, it just means that we may need to change our thinking and change our observing and change our acting or "experimenting" to come to a truer understanding.

The question you are asking is what PoF would have to say about heredity. First, I think it would clearly disagree with any notion that presupposes heredity is governed by the gene. I think you may have already said this above.

The idea that the gene is the controller of heredity, is perfectly aligned with the type of thinking that PoF overcomes. In fact, PoF, in my opinion, gets rid of the idea of any type of centric controller. There are theolgogical and new age ideas that reject gene theory but then simply shift their attention to some other controlling mechanism.

PoF flips the notion of control on its head. We might say that control is the coordination of the whole by itself. This type of coordination/whole is not something that stands apart or outside the emergence of each so-called part. In PoF (5-4{11-12}, 5-5{13-16}) Steiner speaks very strongly about the error of trying to lay our thinking on top of our perceptions as if what we see is somehow fundamental and objective. Yet this is exactly how modern science approaches heredity! In fact, the modern mentality takes it to such extremes that it chops the already subjective perceptions into smaller and smaller parts, believing that when it finds a small enough unit it will have found the controlling mechanism of heredity. The modern view pays absolutely no attention to the fact that "what" it looks at is already the subjective production of the observer, whereas PoF starts (experientially) from the insight (direct perception) that before we produce the subjective perceptions of all the "whats' out there, our thinking is alive within itself and this this life is "where" we will begin to research heredity.

PoF suggests that we will never solve questions like that of heredity if we look outside of cognition's nature to find it. I know that what I have said may be too plainly obvious in terms of your opening question, Michael, but as I shift my thoughts specifically to PoF and heredity, these are the first ones I find. I think PoF's fundamental contribution is to show, directly, that in the experience of thinking we have found the "space" in which heredity both emerges and can be understood, that any other starting point is playing right into the hand of the metaphyscial realism that Steiner addresses so cleanly in Chapter 7. Steiner wants to start directly with the concrete and living role of cognition and he recognizes that anything else is a game of attaching inferences and mental pictures to each other.

Jeff

We might say that control is the coordination of the whole by itself. This type of coordination/whole is not something that stands apart or outside the emergence of each so-called part.

PoF suggests that we will never solve questions like that of heredity if we look outside of cognition's nature to find it.

Jeff,

Can you suggest a specific way forward, to develop the idea of cognition's nature so that this more wholistic notion of control and coordination can be more articulated?

Hi Jeff,

I feel like a beagle hound, looking for the scent of a trail that may have already grown cold. Nonetheless, I'm back and will try to scare up the rabbit you and I were chasing a while back.

You have interesting thoughts, but I guess I'm not quick enough to follow them. Your proposal to follow more closely "the pre-articulated yet direct encounter with my own activity of cognition" may work well for some minds, but I am all too aware that words all to quickly obscure the cognition you speak (IF we are even referring to the  same thing), and for me to grasp directly cognition between the words (or without the words) only leads me to fall asleep momentarily, from which I awaken only to find myself in a free associating of multifarious thought pictures  -- associations that are not driven by my own "I-am" being, but simply fixed conditioned patterns of the subhuman subconciousness.

There was a certain Hungarian chemist who died recently who wrote extensively on the path of spiritual development epitomized by PoF. He earnestly suggested that today's path (for the Consciousness-Soul) has to start with the clearest, most I-directed part of consciousness. He recommended the 6 Month excercises, and naturally the first one, as an essential practice so that the "I" could strengthen its thinking sufficiently so as to have something to behold as it tries to experience itself. Otherwise, one simply falls into daydreaming, as I mentioned above so easily happens to me. I don't name this person, as that would only lead off to another tangent, but if you know of  whom I  am speaking, you will find more substantiation of my approach than what I can quickly state here.

Soooo, my idea, rather than directly go at the fleeting awarenesses of pure cognition, would be for us to take a work or several works by Craig Holdrege, say his Elephant, or Giraffe, or Skunk Cabbage, and try to form for ourselves that exact empirical imaginations (or "precise pictorial thinking" as on http://www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic4/skunkcabbage.htm ) to which he has provided for us a guide. Trying to approach the "Idea(s)"s of some natural world Beings in this way seems like it would provide more steady reference point than for me to use many many words with meaning only peculiar to my understanding to describe a process of cognition of which I am only faintly aware.

Naturally we all want to get to the experience of living cognition, but I am using the rationale behind the first 6 month exercise and applying it to an ->Idea<- based on "precise pictorial thinking" as a less subjective method to develop awareness of our own cognition.

Ok for now.....