Figments of reality by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, Cambridge University
Press, 拢16.95/24.95, ISBN 0521571553
IN THESE days, Big Theories about Big Questions are to be found everywhere in
popular science books. A scan through your local bookshop will produce The
Origins of Order, Dreams of a Final Theory, Consciousness
Explained and many more descriptions of unifying theories about elementary
particles, evolution, life, mind and culture. Is the time now ripe for these
diverse threads to be pulled into a single skein? Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen
think it is, and have written a fun and useful book in this spirit with the odd
title Figments of Reality.
The major questions they pose are 鈥淲hat is `mind鈥�?鈥� and 鈥淗ow did it get
here?鈥� Stewart and Cohen鈥檚 answer is the source of the book鈥檚 title: 鈥淢inds are
figments of reality, processes going on inside structures made from ordinary
matter whose behaviour evolved in order to mimic, model and manipulate
natural processes.鈥� In other words, 鈥渇igments of reality鈥� are mental constructs
such as perceptions, ideas, internal representations, and even consciousness and
free will. They exist in the brain but are tied to reality via interactions with
the environment, other minds, culture and ultimately evolution.
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Stewart and Cohen call the processes by which these figments emerge
鈥渃omplicity鈥濃�攁 merging of 鈥渃omplexity鈥� and 鈥渟implicity鈥�, and just one of a
herd of rampant puns. Complicity is a kind of mutual co-evolution among two
initially separate processes鈥攈uman intelligence and human culture in
particular鈥攚hich as a result become inextricably intertwined and turn into
a single, much more complex process.
According to Stewart and Cohen, the beginnings of the complicity between
intelligence and culture can be traced to the discovery by evolution of
鈥減rivilege鈥濃�攏on-genetic ways in which parents smooth the way for their
offspring in the world, ranging from the provision of nutrients in the yolk of
the developing egg, to the assurance of temporary safety given by a bird鈥檚 nest,
right through to lessons in piano, table manners, driving and ultimately (for
the very privileged) tuition at Harvard and the establishment of trust
funds.
Such privileges, say the authors, 鈥渓ed to a whole new kind of intelligence,
involving the new tricks of learning and teaching. Parents
became part of the behavioural context of their offspring. It is from this kind
of culturaltransmission of special forms of behaviour . . . that the
specifically human mind has evolved. Mind is not just a matter of sophisticated
brain structure; it is something that arose through the cultural trick of
passing on behaviour through teaching and learning.鈥�
A neat positive feedback loop results. The passing on of privilege allows
brains to develop 鈥渕inds鈥濃�攖he loci of those figments of reality so
essential to complex thought. At the same time, the increasing complexity of
minds produces ever more complex forms of cultural privilege, in turn producing
ever more complex minds.
In a characteristically lighthearted but wonderfully apt analogy, Stewart and
Cohen liken this complicit evolution to a snooker 鈥渂reak鈥�, in which a player is
able to keep knocking balls into pockets with the cue ball by using each shot to
simultaneously pot a ball and position the cue ball so that another ball will be
easily pottable.
According to Stewart and Cohen, exactly this type of strategy was discovered
by evolution when it produced the complicit co-evolution between mind and
culture. 鈥淧otting the ball鈥� corresponds to producing offspring, and 鈥減ositioning
the cue ball鈥� corresponds to providing those offspring with non-genetic
privileges that will make it more likely that they will reproduce in the next
generation and confer similar non-genetic privileges on their own offspring,
and so on.
This often requires parents to make short-term sacrifices for longer-term
advantages鈥攊t takes precious energy resources to provide a yolk for a
developing fetus, build a nest or send one鈥檚 children to dance class. In the
long run such sacrifices (like the snooker player passing up an easy shot in
favour of a more difficult one that perpetuates the break) make it more likely
that one鈥檚 genes will survive in future generations.
Such positive feedback is characteristic of systems that are said to
鈥渟elf-organise鈥�, and the complicit co-evolution of intelligence and culture is a
preeminent example of a self-organising process. A considerable part of
Figments of Reality discusses the notion of self-organisation, and the
possibility of science getting to grips with the 鈥渆mergent鈥� behaviour of
self-organising systems. By definition, the traditional reductionist approach to
science can鈥檛 explain emergent behaviour 鈥攖he microscopic links of
causality are just too complicated for all of them to be elucidated. Instead, a
different approach is needed, with an appropriate macroscopic vocabulary for
describing such systems.
Developing such a vocabulary is a major goal of the scientific efforts now
known as the 鈥渟ciences of complexity鈥�. Stewart and Cohen, referring to these
efforts by the misnomer (in my opinion) 鈥淐omplexity Theory鈥�, say: 鈥淲hat we
really need . . . is Simplicity Theory, an effective and relatively
painless way to extract the big simplicities from the underlying rules.鈥� This is
precisely the goal of the sciences of complexity, which have made some
significant progress in this direction, progress that forms the basis for some
of the research results described in this book.
Figments of Realityis punctuated by dialogues among members of the
mega-intelligent alien race of Zarathustrans (presumably named after the ancient
sage and prophet Zarathustra, made famous in philosophical circles by
Nietzsche). These discuss the ideas of each chapter from their own perspective.
It鈥檚 a matter of taste, but I found these silly dialogues more distracting than
useful.
The early discussion is locally fascinating, ranging from game-playing
strategies to descriptions of new theories about how our sense of smell works
and of the recent controversies surrounding the notion of a 鈥渕itochondrial Eve鈥�,
the single ancestor of us all. We visit most of the Big Questions, from 鈥淲hat
happened at the beginning of the universe?鈥� to 鈥淗ow did life originate?鈥� The
connections to the major themes of the book are, however, often unclear.
When the discussion turns to intelligence, consciousness, culture, free will
and other characteristics of human thought, the threads come together much more
coherently鈥攁nd controversially. Stewart and Cohen seem to adhere strongly
to the 鈥渁daptationist鈥� school of evolution, believing that most of the traits
possessed by organisms came about because they were (and always were) useful for
survival, and that evolution is a very powerful generator of such traits. They
assert that, 鈥淲hatever evolution wants, and can get, it does
get鈥�, without describing some of the current controversies in
evolutionary biology about how flexible natural selection is and how much power
it has to shape biological adaptation. They also assert as fact highly
controversial claims about sociobiology and sexual selection: 鈥淚n human
societies men play contact sports, drink to excess, or drive very expensive cars
to demonstrate鈥an] immunity to handicaps.鈥� I would have been much happier
with the inclusion of more recent, sceptical points of view.
I found some of the assertions about the nature of consciousness and its
relation to evolution somewhat naive, particularly that we 鈥渒now鈥� what it鈥檚 like
to be conscious. Are consciousness and its associated 鈥渜ualia鈥� (the 鈥渟ubjective鈥�
feelings that go along with pain, perception of colours and other mental
phenomena) evolutionarily advantageous because 鈥渢he more vivid your qualia, the
more effectively you will react to your sensory impressions and the more likely
you are to survive鈥�? Does this indicate a misunderstanding of the philosophical
notion of what qualia are, and the concomitant philosophical paradoxes now being
widely discussed in the 鈥渟cience of consciousness鈥� community?
This book stimulated my own thoughts on this and other subjects. I think
other readers will be grateful for this latest provocative, ambitious and
enjoyable attempt to ask and answer some of the most interesting Big Questions
of modern science and philosophy.