Quadralogic Biology

Yves beeps his horn three times from the stone wharf and I motor in to get him with the dinghy. As I come alongside, he climbs down the stone stairs, smiling, handsome, charming.

"Yves, mon cher amie, come ton vacance a Isle des Pines?" I stumble along in French.

He laughs as he steps easily into the dinghy and shakes my hand, "It was, as always, very pleasant. But we were sorry you could not join us." I start to apologize again but he holds up his hand and says, "Don't worry, I understand. The wind was very strong down there, too, and from the wrong direction. It was not possible to arrive."

"How's Danielle?" I swing the dinghy around and head back to Moira.

"She's wonderful, and will be back next week."

"Freddy has prepared a big pizza."

Yves hoists a big paper bag, "Well, I've brought the red wine."

Freddy has a candle burning and has laid out the dinette out with our best (and only) dinnerware. Over the dinette, behind where I sit, the full Earth hangs suspended in the black of space. Yves sits opposite me and studies the photograph with the same intent look he gave it the very first time he saw it.

"It's a self-portrait," I comment, "taken by everyone on the planet."

"Everyone?" Yves asks.

"Sure. If you scratch your nose with your finger all 100 trillion cells must get involved in the act to some degree. And getting half way to the moon to take that photograph took the concerted effort of all the people in the United States and, by extension, everyone who does business with the U.S. and, by extension, everyone everywhere."

"An interesting view, but of course you are right." Yves replies pleasantly. "Yes, you can think of it as a self-portrait of a living planet. One man held the camera but the man was put there, with the camera and film, by many others. Perhaps even the combined knowledge and effort of the whole planet."

"Would you like some wine now?" Freddy asks, taking Yves' bottle from the paper bag. The bottle looks like it has been in a fire, half melted, then recovered from a shipwreck after 100 years. It's surface is covered with what looks like sand.

"Of course, why not," Yves smiles. "In fact, it is a picture of me. I am just there, in Madagascar, when this photograph was taken from the Moon."

I twist around and look behind me to see the vague outline of Madagascar just off the coast of Africa. "I like it because it reminds me of the Bible," I turn back to Yves.

"The Bible? How can this photograph of the planet remind you of the Bible?" He asks.

"The Bible says man was created in the Image of God." I explain.

Yves looks over my shoulder at the big blue sphere, "Surely this is metaphorical?"

"What is the shape of a human - or almost any living creature - when it is created?" I smile.

"Ah, oh yes, of course, a small, spherical egg!" He laughs.

"Right, floating in a giant magic sea, slowly spinning and quickened with life. Did you know the human egg actually spins when it is fertilized in the darkness of the fallopian tubules?"

"No. This is an interesting thought. So perhaps the Bible is not metaphorical after all." He shrugs. "And what have you been doing over the holidays?"

"When we couldn't make it to Isle of Pines we did the logical thing and turned around and sailed the other direction. Ended up at Point Maa with Louis and George on the Dragon. We met Mr. Schmidt and his family. Do you know them?"

"Not personally. But yes, Mr. Schmidt is somewhat well known. They did a small television program about him." Yves accepts a glass of clear red wine from Freddy.

"It's really very nice there, although I wished we could have been in Isles of Pines with you." I toast him with a glass of his wine. The bottle may look like something from a shipwreck, but the wine is scrumptious, smooth and delicate with the smell of a freshly picked grape.

We talk for awhile about Point Maa and I tell Yves about my vision of New Caledonia with the projection of the behavior system from France. How it forms and controls the physical landscape here. I chatter away until Yves frowns and says,

"Wait, what is epis....?"

"Epistemology. The study of Knowledge. Its origins, nature, that sort of thing. Actually, that's a hard word to translate because who knows what I might mean by knowledge. There is a whole group of words like that. Abstractions of abstractions of abstractions."

"Yes, some are jargon to isolate the thinker, some are words designed to hold secret understandings between people." Yves remarks.

"Sure. All of the real control words in language are like that: words with lots of power and fuzzy meanings. Like freedom, free will, liberty, destiny, God, religion, spirit, soul, and all that. Things of great importance seldom have nice clear cut meanings." I sip the wine, reseeing the vision of black war clouds blowing down from Europe, buffeting the island and condensing hatred from the atmosphere.

"Richard, I have been thinking about some of your ideas about evolution. It seems to me you must, to make people understand what you are saying, to get people to believe you, you must have proof. Evolution is, after all, only a theory. It is one of the abstract words of great power. We need to have proof of this process so we can define it by pointing to the experiment. In chemistry or physics, one must always have an experiment to prove the thesis."

"Well, proof depends on what kind of logic system you are using," I counter.

"But there is logic or non-logic. Something is logical or it is not." Yves protests.

"No, there are different kinds of logic. The basic level of logic in common use is what we'd call Aristotelian logic. This is the logic of cause and effect. It's also the logic of our biological perceptual system and is therefore easiest to understand. I see an olive on the table. Olives are good to eat. I reach out and eat the olive. It's good. It's logical to eat another." I demonstrate this logic with a delicious Algerian olive Freddy found at a small delicatessen.

"Physics was based on Aristotelian and Newtonian logic. Two balls are on the table." I put two olives on the table. Freddy glares at me from the galley. "One ball rolls towards the other. It strikes the other ball and makes it roll away. The logic is simple. Ball 1 strikes Ball 2 and Ball 2 moves. Cause (I eat Ball 1) and effect (I eat Ball 2, too). This is linear thinking, if we do this, that will happen.

"Over the years we've built up an impressive library of cause and effect observations. Logic 1 works fine and can be proved by simple experiments. The problems come when we start dealing with systems containing feedback, a looped relationship. A second kind of logic was set up to cope with feed-back loops. It's called Cybernetics. Gregory Bateson's favorite example was the governor of an engine."

"The governor?" Yves asks.

"The governor, is the part of an engine controlling the speed the load varies."

"Oh, of course, in French it means the rudder of a ship. Go on."

"An engine is running at constant speed. A load is put on the engine and it slows down. The governor, part of the engine, also slows down. When the governor slows down it opens a valve adding more fuel to the engine thus making it speed up. If this is done evenly as the load is applied the engine speed remains more or less constant. When the load is taken off, the engine speeds up and the governor also speeds up. When the governor speeds up it shuts down the fuel to keep the engine from going too fast."

"Logic 1 sounds silly when applied to the cause and effect of a cyclic, feedback system. If we consider the engine, governor and all Logic 1 says, `When a load is applied to the system the engine speeds remains the same. When a load is removed, the engine speed remains the same."'

"Cybernetics adds the timed sequence. The idea that cause and effect can happen in logical progressions. It's a simple change in thinking and helped revise how we explain biological systems and thus what proofs were needed."

"The Pizza is the next logical progression," Freddy lugs a ravishing pizza to the table. I cut it into sections while Yves holds it down and Freddy shovels the slices onto our plates. Yves pours another round of wine. The Pizza smells terrific and I can't resist a quick taste. The logical progression is that I burn the top of my mouth.

"Yow," I suck in air and drink the wine at an unsophisticated gulp, washing it around to try and cool the molten cheese. I sit back, grinning foolishly, sipping the wine and favoring my mouth with my tongue. "Maybe I'll let it cool awhile longer."

"Back to cybernetics," Yves says.

"Yeah, well, Lets call cybernetics Logic 2. Bateson points out something interesting about Logic 1 and Logic 2. Logic 1 is digital. We do this, that happens. On or off. We flip this switch, that light goes on. Logic 2 is analogue, it deals with relationships. The change in fuel flow by the governor is proportional, varying by degrees, keeping a relationship in balance."

"We see this digital/proportional sequence everywhere in nature, especially in biological systems. Our nerve impulses are digital and they form a balanced relationship with the environment via a `governor" called mind. Nerve impulses are digital, single switch-like events. Mind is analogic, dealing with infinite relationships."

"Some people's mind, maybe," Freddy says, blowing on her piece of pizza.

"Logic 2 helps us describe and understand many aspects of biology we could not handle with Aristotelian logic. But Logic 2 does not explain what mind is or how it works. For that we need another viewpoint, another logic. Lets call it Logic 3."

"And what is Logic 3?" Yves tests a piece of pizza.

"Suppose Bateson's observation about alternating digital-analogue patterns continues. The next level of logic is digital again. So, to explain mind we need to be looking for some sort of digital event in nature altering conditions such that analogue relationships switch on or off.'

"Well, at last this is getting interesting," Freddy says. "I like switched on relationships."

"Sorry?" Yves asks Freddy.

"She is joking," I give her a look. "She think's I'm boring you."

"No, not at all, this is most interesting to me. Please, let's continue with the progression."

"Lets take a simple behavior pattern. Water. Water, we know, through Logic 1 experiments, is H₂O - two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. But there is a logical problem because hydrogen and oxygen are two gasses. They behave quite differently than water does. In fact, we can fill a room with oxygen gas and hydrogen gas and we will have a room full of oxygen gas and hydrogen gas, not water."

"Until someone adds a spark," Yves remarks. "Then Boom! And you have water, not gas."

"Right. Water isn't hydrogen and oxygen. Water is something brand new and different formed by the interaction of hydrogen and oxygen. We could say water is the dance of hydrogen and oxygen because when the atoms of these gasses move in a certain pattern of motion they become the liquid mass of elements we perceive and measure as water. Water is the motion, the relationship, the interaction, of two gasses." I pause to gobble my slice of pizza.

"When two systems get together they behave in brand new, different ways; behavior they could not do by themselves." comes out between bites.

"Ahh, Fuller. Synergetics," says Yves. "Synergetics is logic 3."

"Sure. Synergetics. It's digital. Two relationships come together and boom, there is a whole new way of behaving. No timed sequence, no Aristotelian predictability, just wham bang and there's water where there were two gasses before. It's not there, then it is. A quantum leap in behavior." We eat for awhile.

"The neurons of the human brain, in concert with all the other body cells reacting with the whole environment, create the human mind. The mind is not the digital impulses, not the analogue, living neurons, but the interaction between the neurons, the digital signals, and the environment. We go along receiving all kinds of signals, internal and external, and then the signals reach a critical point - or perhaps are sparked off by a special signal - and wham bang, we have an idea, a new mode of behavior. We make a quantum jump from indecision to decision."

"And we eat another bite of the pizza." Freddy finishes.

"Exactly," I demonstrate this process by devouring another slice of Freddy"s delicious pizza.

"Language is also like this," Yves says as I eat. "The letter W, by itself means nothing. It is digit. Add another letter - O, still nothing. M, A, and finally, when I say N, the digital sequence of letters - WOMAN -becomes an analogue concept with infinite meanings and relationships. Language also operates on Logic 3 levels, does it not?"

"Yes. You've got it," I agree. "And where you have a woman...?"

"What? Oh, I see. Yes. There must be a Logic IV which is analogue again." Yves rallies to my cause.

"Exactly. But first, tell me what sort of mental picture you get of the world using logic 3."

"This is a test, class," Freddy puts in. I glare at her while Yves laughs.

"A test. What sort of mental image do I see using logic 3?" Yves thinks for a minute while I munch on a fourth slice of pizza. "I think the best way to begin is with the motion. Everything is moving relative to everything else. The atoms always move about, interacting with each other. Each atom is digital. When they come together in very large numbers, and in a special ways, their movement spells out a special relationship. Water, the example you used. But also big, living molecules like DNA."

"Good opening," I say.

"The DNA molecules become the new digits. They also move and interact in very large populations to create cells. Cells are brand new, unpredictable analogue behavior compared to the DNA molecules. This is Synergetics." Yves smiles, he's got it exactly.

"And then?"

"Well, the progression continues. The cells become the digits. When they reach high enough populations, they form new kinds of behavior, unlike any cell, new creatures called plants and animals. These are now the digits, they work together in large populations to form societies or ecosystems....." Yves stops.

"Ah Ha!" I say, pointing my Pizza crust at him. "There's something wrong with logic 3. Right? Something missing. You can feel it."

"Yes, I can. But I can't say what it is."

"OK. Suppose we see logic 3 like this. Quantum jumps of behavior result from the interaction of focal points of behavior we call selves - like you, I'm including atoms as selves - they are the focal points of electrons, protons and neutrons. The selves communicate with each other to form new selves, new modes of behavior. The interactions of any one self have an infinite number of possible relationships. But not always. When they lock into a specific pattern of behavior they no longer have an infinite number of directions of movement available to them.

"Do you see? Hydrogen and oxygen as atoms can move in any direction but when they lock into the water pattern, their individual movements shift into channeled, directed behavior. Same thing with DNA or with a cell. Like a protozoan swimming in the water, a single cell in the ocean, can move in any possible dimension. But a single cell in a human body is locked into a behavior pattern it can't alter or escape from. It is now a part of a new and different, larger behavior system. The human."

"Yes. I see. And the human, alone in the wild can do almost anything, move in any direction. But a human in a city is locked into certain set paths of movement, along roads or sidewalks, down corridors. In rooms. Yes, of course. Logic 3 does not address the control systems. So logic 4 must be the logic of the control systems, and it must be like cybernetics again, a feedback arrangement."

"Give the man a ceeegar," I say and pass Yves a box of his favorite Davidoff cheroots.

"Freddy, that was delicious," Yves says.

"Thank you, Yves. Just don't smoke those things in here," Freddy can't stand the smell.

"See? Logic 4 is everywhere," Yves and I go out into the cockpit to smoke the little cigars.

"Logic 3 could never have developed without extrasensory perception," I say as we get settled, looking out at the glitter of Noumea's lights on the harbor water.

"I'm sorry?" Yves interrupts, "Did you say extrasensory perception?"

"Yeah. Extrasensory. Beyond the horizons of animal perception."

"You mean telepathy?" He looks dubious.

"No, not at all. As animals, we can perceive each other, but not our body cells or our molecules of DNA or the even the larger behavioral structure of society; all of which play a role in the control sequencing. We needed to see beyond our animal senses to perceive these. And we invented extrasensory perception devices like microscopes and cyclotrons and libraries to discover the other layers of being." I light up the cigars.

"Oh yes, I thought extrasensory perception was something else." Yves frowns.

"Oh, you're right, most people mean something else by the term; perceptions gained in ways we can not explain. Like telepathy. Two hundred years ago the words would have included radio and telephones and electron microscopes."

"Yes, I understand. And logic 4? Now we are approaching your idea about evolution and control systems."

"Sure. Logics 1 through 3 can explain most of the physical world with little difficulty, including most biological systems. It can explain the billiard ball hitting and moving another one and even tell us most everything about how billiard balls are made. We can even explain the biology of the creature rolling the billiard ball along the table.

"What logics 1 to 3 don't explain is why a creature would want to roll a billiard ball along a table. They don't explain the meaning behind the act nor the meaning of meaning itself."

"Yes, I agree, I suspected this also, it was missing from logic 3."

"As you predicted, logic 4 is analogue, it deals with relationships between the quantum jumps of logic 3 levels of behavior."

"Yes, yes, that's right." Yves is getting excited. "And the proof of the logic is in the patterns we see in the world. The model of thinking represents the observed patterns of behavior."

He understands. He really does understand. "Not many people would have seen that."

He grins, nodding his head. "I have had similar thoughts. Our talks clarify them."

"A good example of this is the business about the map is not the territory." I look across the bay at the lights of Noumea.

"The map is not...oh yes, of course. The word is not the thing itself." Yves puffs on the cigar.

"Right. Simple logic. But although the statement about the territory and the map was from Korzybski - you know, Science and Sanity? - it is still bound up in logic 1 errors. Korzybski renovated the old argument between Aristotle and Pythagoras. Aristotle saw reality as made up of substances and asked, what are the building blocks of nature. Pythagoras saw patterns. He asked what is the pattern of nature. He looked for form and function."

"You're lect-u-ring," Freddy's voice sweets up from the galley.

"Right, sorry. It would have been a different world if Pythagoras had won. Anyway...." I hesitate.

"The map and the territory," Yves prompts.

"The map and the territory. Logic 2, like Logic 1 would say the map is not the territory, but it is related to the territory because it is a feedback system. Bateson asked, 'If the map is not the territory, what is it in the territory that gets onto the map?"'

"Yes, a good question. And how did Bateson answer?" Yves asks.

"Differences. Boundaries. Changes in status. That's what gets onto the map. Bateson had some really profound questions about differences. Like, what is a difference? Right is different from left, up is different from down. But right-left is a different kind of difference than up-down. So, for example, a mirror reverses right and left but not up and down."

"Yes, I see, very confusing."

"He's right, too, about the importance of differences. Whenever language can't describe an event you have uncovered a proscribed - a secret - area. A Logic 4 Control regulator. See, when you begin to explore the landscape of differences all you get is one word. Different. Yet out there in that wordless wilderness is the whole question of form, the appearance of a being against the backdrop of nothingness, the mysterious quantum leaps from one kind of behavior to another, the structure of mind and awareness, the directionality of evolution."

"I think we must stay with the map and Logic 3," Yves says gently.

"Sorry. I got carried away. The map, as seen from Logic 2. First someone sees the real territory. They draw a map of the differences they perceive out there. After this is done, someone else draws a proposed road on the map. Later the road is constructed according to the idea depicted on the drawing. So the territory changes because of the feedback loop of the terrain - map - idea - map - terrain. Now there is a road, a real road. The map is changed to show this. Next someone looks at the map and sees a good place to build a home because there is a road there. They build the home and start a farm which changes the territory again and the map is changed to reflect the property boundaries and so on."

"In this way, Logic 2 says the map is not the territory but the map and the territory are related in a feedback system."

"And Logic 3?" Yves asks and then answers himself. "Logic 3 would see the map/territory as one relationship resulting in whole new possible levels of behavior."

"Absolutely correct. In Logic 3, first we have a mapless condition. This contains very limited possibilities for future behavior. Then we have a written map condition. The potential behavior array leaps outward in a quantitative way, entering a whole new realm of development. In the mapless/map relationship, the map and the territory are, in fact, the same.."

"From this point of view, it is logically wrong to slice the map out of Man's territory. Both are part of the planet Earth. Both are part of the advancing patterns of learning on the planet, both made from Earth atoms arranged in patterns meaningful to Man. Hell, even the paper of the map comes from Earth trees, the dyes from Earth minerals. The pattern shown on map and terrain are the same patterns. Both are mental extensions of the hominids looking at them."

"Yes, OK. It is possible to look at it this way. To have the map and the territory separate on one level and together on another level." Yves agrees.

"Logic 3 reveals the patterns of behavior, nested layers of behavior of the world around us. But although Logic 3 reveals and explains the patterns, Logic 4 regulates it. Logic 4 is the pattern which connects the patterns, the thread of awareness in chaos." I stop to relight my cigar.

"And the regulators in Logic 4, they must also be patterns, like symmetry, right and left, towards and away, polarity, Stochastic processes." Yves sits forward, excited by the ideas.

"Yes, and aspects of awareness, like what hominds perceive as desire. Desire to eat, desire to reproduce." I grin.

"Ahh, but logic must apply to everything and you can hardly say atoms have desire." Yves objects.

"Well, how would you define inertia and momentum? You know, of course, a very long pendulum will swing back and forth in a straight line and the Earth will turn under it, causing the pendulum to swing around in a circle over a 24-hour period."

"Yes, I know. There is such a pendulum in the United Nations building in New York." Yves agrees.

"Why does it do that? What is the pendulum oriented to? What force keeps it aligned with the universe and not the planet? When you push on a spinning gyroscope it resists the push and maintains its balance. Why? What does spin have to do with the rest of the universe? Why does it give some kind of stability to the gyroscope?"

"I don't know the answers to this but certainly you can not think desire has anything to do with it. Inertia yes, momentum, of course, but desire?" Yves shakes his head.

"I'm showing the relationship goes beyond the limits of our logical horizons, a pattern which connects all of behavior. Maybe I should call it communications momentum. In a sequence of events the path of a being - could be an electron or a planet or a man walking to work - the position of that being is not independent of its environment. It's position is relative to a vast array of other selves communicating with it on a multitude of levels, both smaller and larger than itself. These relationships force the being to continue on its way, from one position to the next, because of what you call momentum in a billiard ball and desire in an animal."

"Desire is a position, a viewpoint, of awareness. A kind of momentum demanding the next step in the same direction. Only the direction is towards survival, not left or right or up or down. Gravity is the same kind of pattern. It dictates the direction the next step will take, where the next position of the self will be." I am talking too rapidly and feel Yves withdraw.

"The patterns which connect get much more complex with each new level of awareness. We have different words for each new level of behavior. Like the change in change. That's another pattern which connects." I try another tack.

"The change in change?"

"Right. In the atomic world, when the paths of hydrogen and oxygen stop moving independently and link into the new path of water, this is a permanent change in direction and in the kinds of interactions these molecules will have with their environment. In the human world, new experiences form memories and these can permanently alter our behavior. We call it learning. Atoms don't learn to become water. But when the process enters the realm of behavior...."

I stop because I see he's got it and because I see something else coming in my own thoughts. There is another pattern here. From the atomic world to the world of awareness... Somewhere there is a big change, a selectivity, the ability to prefer one action over another.

"Yes, I see what you are saying. The patterns are the same but in the inanimate world we give the pattern of behavior a different name."

"Yes, but the different levels - inanimate, animate - do exist and the way they develop the patterns of behavior can be quite different. There is, for example, the timed sequence. On each level of development, the ability of a being to act is keyed into where it is on the sequence of change. The rapid movement of the atom, the slower movement of the DNA, the still slower communications of the cells, the longer interval of integration of a thought from the cell communications, the final movement of the mouth in saying the idea."

"And the spreading of the word from one mind to another." Yves expands on the sequence.

"And the much longer interval as the idea moves into a population of people," I finish. "This timed sequence is a another pattern which connects all beings and also regulates their behavior."

We sit and smoke the last of our cigars. Yves says, "What is the name for this logic 4?"

"I don't know. I haven't come across this logic system before." Yves turns to look at me, starts to say something and then decides not to.

"I'm trying to explore the phenomenon of evolution, or the development of awareness, with logic 4. So it's kind of hard to prove my concepts using logic 1. It's like trying to prove the map and the territory are the same using Logic 1. You wind up proving they are not the same.'

"Yes, it's as I said, you must have a proof, an experiment, an example." As Yves says that I'm thinking of fluidonics, visualizing controls like fluid switches where the smallest of changes in the early flow of a system can alter huge masses of moving liquids. Non-linear systems.

"Such as?" I ask, still thinking of how fluids can flow in any sort of direction yet their flow-patterns wind up being remarkably limited. A stream or a river takes on a relatively limited number of characteristic patterns over a wide variety of terrain. This has some relationship to my image of Moirae's thread of awareness as a river flowing through a far off jungle.

"You need, perhaps, a demonstration of your control systems in a small island somewhere." Yves continues thoughtfully.

My mind is reaching into Eric Fromm's catastrophe theory. Maybe Fromm has a mathematical model of this. Maybe there is a nifty mathematical design for logic 4, explaining how a condition of infinite variation can be locked into set patterns of behavior with the input of only a tiny bias early in the system. Mathematical proofs always seem more believable than just words.

"Somewhere like New Caledonia." Yves concludes.

"Like New Caledonia?"

"Like New Caledonia." Yves repeats. "Use logic 3 or 4 politically to provide an example of how it could be of practical use."

My mind winds down, and I look at the lights of Noumea, turn to look at Yves who is looking at me, waiting for a reply to his suggestion. Jesus. What a klutz I can be. This was what Yves wanted to talk about all along and I've blown the night yabbering on about levels of logic. "Right, sure, that's a terrific idea, Yves. Fantastic."

"Your vision of the outside forces, the propaganda from a hate-filled world. If we could stop these somehow, using logic 4, perhaps. We could reverse the flow and continue the evolution of a peaceful, united New Caledonia." he continues.

"Yes, you're right." But it ain't gonna be easy, I think to myself. "Unfortunately, the outside forces are already practicing Logic 4 and have thrown a switch in the mind-set of New Caledonia."

"But we must try."

"Yes. It would take quite a bit of effort, and you'd have to act quickly. Their attack on the group mind of the island depends on division of the racial elements of the population. Islanders in general and Melanesians in particular are highly susceptible to xenophobic ideas. You would have to counter-attack on the cultural unity front. Not easy. It takes sophisticated publicity, video, phographic posters, that sort of thing. Not cheap, either. Whoever is behind the attack has a head start and plenty of backing. You have to fight two major controls;

1. powerful people who don't believe there is a problem and so will not provide funds for the counter-offensive.

2. powerful people who know damn well there is a problem because they are causing it, and will up their effort in direct proportion to whatever you attempt to do.

"We must try, anyway." Yves looks determined. Or perhaps annoyed. "It is difficult to imagine a New Caledonia with racial strife and bloodshed," Yves says quietly into the night.

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