Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Part 7 -- How Humanity Saved the Biosphere. The Ideology of Science.








To My Readers,



Below is the seventh part of my multi-part re-rendition, in this blog, of a rare, classic hardcopy pamphlet, written by an anonymous collective author, one which -- very early-on, in the 1970s -- '''smelled a rat [smelled the 'Rocke-Nazi' rat -- in my opinion, the biggest, rottenest rat in all of human [pre-]history to-date -- the most rabid, the most massively "ambitious" mass torturers, and mass murderers, in all of human history, who make the bloody Vlad The Impaler pale to an infinitesimal in comparison] in the "Global Warming", "People Are Pollution" rap''', and circulated, in <<samizdat>> fashion, a rather comprehensive warning to humanity about this new "eu"-genocidal ploy, which remained scarcely-known until years later, when an updated version of this text became available on the world wide web.


The internet version of this text is entitled --

Crises by Nature:  How Humanity Saved the Biosphere   



For the Resumption of Humanity's Ascent, and, with it -- and by means of it -- the Regeneration of Our Planetary Biosphere,

M. Milankovitch













Crises by Nature
 How Humanity Saved The Biosphere

by
Capitalist Crisis Studies
[with modifications by M. Milankovitch]
Table of Contents
















VII  - The Ideology of Science


It should be noted that the realm of “linearity” is the only domain of mathematics — and, hence, of conceptualization itself — which has been largely conquered by modern science.


The much vaster realm of nonlinearity remains not only untamed, but virtually unexplored by it --

“In another volume the author has developed a theory of linear operators, which contains within its scope a considerable domain of analysis.”

“That such a work should include within its limits a large area of mathematics is readily understood from the fact that the assumption of linearity in operational processes underlies most applications of analysis to the problems of the natural world.”

“It is for this reason that a theory of linear operators, in contrast to a theory of nonlinear operators, is comparatively easy to develop.”

“The latter is beset by many difficulties....”

“But in spite of the difficulties of the general problem, there exists need for a systematic treatment of nonlinear equations.”

“Nature, with scant regard for the desires of the mathematician, often seems to delight in formulating her mysteries in terms of nonlinear systems of equations....”

“In the domain of linear equations, an essentially complete theory exists for differential equations....”

“But in the category of nonlinear differential equations, the situation is very different.”

“Satisfactory information exists in general only for certain restricted types of equations and for a limited number of special cases.” c58


In other words, the science of the last 250 years has scarcely begun to explore the realm of dialectics, i.e., of self-reflexive processes, which characterize the nature of Nature in general, including the nature of human Nature as human social evolution.

 
Contemporary science is biased in favor of what I will call ‘externalism’. 



It always expects and seeks out external causes, “external forces” --
“If no external forces act on a body, it moves uniformly” c59
-- is the founding principle of Mechanics — going back before Newton to Galileo — and of all of the modern sciences which have sprouted in its penumbra, for mechanics is the founding branch of modern science.


 Stated another way,  modern science is biased in favor of models of the following shape:

x (operates on) y.

where it is never the case that x = y.



That is, this science is predisposed to find, in the natural process, ‘flexion’ but not ‘[self-]re-flexion’. 



This bias is also seen in the case of its theories of Earth history and of the biosphere. 



What does Opik say, just after dismissing out of hand the Carbon Dioxide hypothesis?

“Practically all other theories of the ice ages and palaeoclimatic changes, which are based on purely terrestrial causes, are of a similar value, and thus unfounded.” c33



A rather sweeping rejection, this would seem, without having bothered to consider even one more from among “all other theories”!

Such across-the-board declarations usually signal the involvement of deep-seated underlying assumptions, or unconscious attitudes, about the world, and, in this case we suspect, to a pre-empirical, ideological premise.


  
A yet more explicit specimen of this attitude occurs in a passage, highly convergent with respect to the themes developed here (as we shall see more fully a little further on), in a recent book by Kenneth Boulding, a polemical book written explicitly to discredit the notion of dialectical processes in Nature and society in response to the author’s experiences with the Japanese Marxist student Left, and the versions of dialectical theory prevalent in that milieu --

“Dialectical philosophers may argue that the role of catastrophes in the evolutionary process has a dialectical or at least a revolutionary element in it....”

“It may well be, for instance, that the unknown catastrophe which destroyed the dinosaurs and led to the extinction of a very large number of species was an essential ingredient in the development of the mammals and the next stage of the evolutionary process...”

“it has been suggested that the Ice Ages played an important part in the development of man....”
 
“However, the catastrophes which have punctuated the evolutionary process are not in themselves dialectical, that is, they do not arise by necessity out of the contradictions of previous systems but are usually imposed from without.”

“This is particularly true of climatic changes, which do not in any way depend on the inner workings of the system of biological evolution, but are completely extraneous to it, even though they may have a great impact on it.” c60


Modern science is predisposed against perceiving ‘immanent causes’. or ‘self-forces’.

This ‘externalist’ bias is an aspect of the bias toward linearity noted already. 

The [self-]reflexive sentences formulated above, which gave rise to nonlinear terms ([self-]reflexive functions) in mathematical translation, express precisely ‘self-causation’; change due to forces arising immanently, or self-change” (Marx). a8  



In marked contrast to the modern scientific tradition’s neglect of ‘autocausation’, Hegel, for one, locates such concepts as residing at the heart of adequate thinking about, especially, the biotic world --
 
“...life is essentially a living being; and this is merely excited by the outer world.”

“Here, therefore, the causal relation falls away, and generally in the sphere of Life, all the categories of the Understanding cease to be valid.”

“If, however, these categories are still to be employed, then their nature must be transformed; and then it can be said that life is its own cause.” c61



The dialectical tradition includes as one of its “moments”, an attitude we might call ‘internalism’.  



Not that it emphasizes immanent causation one-sidedly; on the contrary, knowledge of the whole picture of a phenomenon is its goal.

  
It takes into account the total interplay of an “[it-][her-][him-]self” agent and its otherness — and all known other agents — the interplay of the ‘internity’ and ‘externity’ of such a “self”, of causes both immanent and remote.

The total[ity] view includes an emphasis upon those strange ‘conspiracies of events’ through which an entity and its environment express a unity; through which apparently “exogenous” circumstances trigger, pace, or provide occasion for, the revelation of some moment of the “endogenous” nature of that entity; of the inner essence of that entity. 

  
This view includes emphasis upon the ways in which apparently remote processes mediate the ‘self-reflexion’ of an entity — as, e.g., the apparent exteriority of the Milankovich orbital cycles, and the glacieral ice of the Pleistocene Ice Age, mediated the self-reflexion of the activity of the Photosynthetic Biosphere upon itself, through atmospheric CO2 depletion and consequent climatic cooling -- the feeding-back of action to its origin.

  
“Self-Re-Flex-ive” Action is Action which bends [Flex] back [Re] upon — returns to, or flows back to — its source [Self]. 

  
Discovery and explication of this unity of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ is indeed a primary aim of the dialectical exposition of any phenomenology.  

‘Dialectic’ is the complete relationship, or interaction, between a determinate being and the totality, a totality which includes that being itself. 

Therefore, self-interaction (‘intra-action’) is a moment of the total interaction defining such a being.  

But ‘other-interaction’ — its relationship with the rest of the universe, other than itself — remains as well, unless the being in question is the entire Cosmos, the totality itself. 

Only that being is fully self-reflexive, although all the relative totalities or sub-totalities which it brings forth within itself seem to be modeled after it, and to exhibit partial self-reflexiveness, and a drive toward its total self-reflexiveness, in ascending degrees.



The pre- and contra-empirical, ideological syndrome we have identified, calling it ‘externalism’, is but one symptom of a deep-seated conceptual disposition of modern science, which I will call ‘atomism’. 

Atomism is the view that reality at the ultimate level is a mere collection or “set”, as opposed to an organic totality; a mere ensemble of mutually indifferent, absolutely individual, indivisble, radically separable, self-existent or independently self-subsistent “elementary particles”. 

That is, the universe is thought to be composed of irreducible discretenesses which, unlike the living “organs” of a biological ‘organ-ism’, are capable of existing as such apart from one another and from any given state of mutual organization of themselves; discretenesses which are thus mutually external, essentially uninvolved in one another’s being, not internally connected, but only externally related, coming into association only in exteriority, contingently, accidentally as it were. 

All complexity, all phenomena of life and consciousness are, in this view, mere epiphenomena of the aggregations and dis-aggregations of these unchanging, isolatedly self-subsistent particles, and reducible to such — totally explainable exclusively in terms of such -- atomistic particles.


Atomism is the core of the ideology that vitiates much of modern science, and that is reflected in the linearism of modern science, including of modern mathematics. 


For this attitude, the parts — linearly, additively, without synergy — compose the whole. c62 

For dialectics, a whole also composes its parts; it inheres in each of its parts as the internal premise and support of each part. 

A part-icle is what happens when a whole, locally, swallows itself.


With regard to social science, this dialectical axiom shows up as a critique of the Lockian-Hobbesian model of society as a “gas” of individuals. 

The dialectical theory of society recognizes the sociality of the human being, which, as the immanent truth of human being, must finally be materialized in human history if the human species is to remain viable much beyond its infancy.


The possibility of my specific personality is a social product; the product of a long, deep filament of the evolutionary continuum, a product of the human labor of human history. 


My existence rests upon the ramified texture of a world-wide division of labor, on the global effort and cooperation of virtually the whole human race, presently accomplished rather blindly through the mediation of cash payment, of capital, i.e., of the world market. 


We — my personality and this social totality — appear and disappear together. 

Damage this global network, curtail its scale, diminish its productivity, interrupt its flow, and my life is curtailed, diminished, interrupted in proportion. 

The “cost” of my existence increases; the impaired metabolism of the network can no longer support the existing population, myself included, in the former quality of health, prosperity, vitality. 

Mortally wound that network, and my life rapidly evaporates; my personality becomes impossible.


On the other hand, every contribution I make to the welfare and advancement of that network — my real body, from which I live — redounds to my benefit as well. 


Social reproduction is the process of the interproduction of human selves, of social individuals. 

 Or, as Marx put it: in social reproduction, the other person is “a necessary part of your self.” c63



The deeply-held premise of atomism is a symptom of the capitalist envelopment — both internal and external — of modern science, of modern knowledge. 


This premise arises in the living of the social relations of production, in the experience of the self, of the social individuals living in, and as, modern society. 


In the terms of a human-historical socio-psychology -- of an actualized '''psychohistory'''  -- atomism could be defined as the projection of the bourgeois ego-structure into all experience, onto all of Nature. 


Its secret is the atomism of privatized life, the one-sidedly “individualistic” life of modern society. 


The fundamental gestalt of the self, the internalized model of self-identity, reproduced by any society, cannot help but become the universal model for all perception and conception for the personalities formed by that society -- the (usually, to date, unconscious) paradigm for judging all experience.

Comprehension of Nature is attempted, however consciously or, most often, unconsciously, ‘sympathetically’, that is, by imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of what we are trying to know, i.e., by projecting ourselves into the object of our inquiry. 

The basic structure of self-identity against which we interpret all experience will reflect, in turn, our social constitution and social environment, the dominant social relations [“of [our] production” — that produced and that continue to reproduce us — i.e., the ‘social self-relations of human societal self-re-production’ of our society].  


These relations express the attained level of relationship of humanity to itself, the attained development of the social pre-]productive forces, i.e., of the self-powers, of the social individual, within which our personalities had to form themselves. 


The environment of Capital, the form human personality manifests in the all-pervading field of the market-nexus, forms the conceptual atmosphere of modern science. 


The two have developed for the last 300 years and more, hand in hand. 


As Marx puts it --
“In the form of society now under consideration, the behavior of men in the social process of production is purely atomic. Hence their relations to each other in production assume a material character independent of their control and conscious individual action.” c64


Under these social conditions, the connections between individual action and the movement of the totality — as in such phenomena as depressions, wars, and chronic impoverishment — are easily obscured.


Bourgeois perception wants to see mere “sets” — mere collections of mutually-estranged, alienated individuals — everywhere it looks. 


It expects the “elements”, the parts, of such sets, to be ‘existable’ prior to, and, at any time, apart from, the whole they thus, supposedly, merely externally and contingently compose, and to belong to an order of reality more real, more concrete, than the totalities that they constitute. 


However, a part, an “organ” of an “organ-ism” — say, a human heart — will rapidly shrivel and decay if it becomes separated — alienated — from the whole in which it inheres; the organism/sub-totality of which it had formed an essential constituent.  

An organ, an organic part, cannot “be” apart; cannot be parted from, or ‘withouted from’, its unity/totality, without soon ceasing to be itself — without ceasing to be what it was when it was embedded in, and un-separated from, its native context.  


In the course of its historical development, atomism or mechanism has had to leave behind the simple “gas” models, and to increasingly admit relations, structure-formations, among its “elements”. 

But it wants to admit these relations only after the fact, after the fact of the existence of its “elementary particles” — that is, it admits the relational structures or “systems” only as derivative from the prior and deeper reality of its elements. c65 


Dialectics, on the contrary, sees the particular as an ‘invagination’ of the global, a ‘self-re-entry’ or ‘underturning’ of the manifold of the whole, of the ‘world-field’. 


Graphically represented, using a kind of ‘hyper-Venn diagram’, this conception might take shape as below --


Graphic 23: the whole containing the parts which contain the whole


In this conception, the particular arises by local ‘self-internalizations’ of the continuum (here denoted U = ‘Universe’); by ‘self-involution’ of the unitary field. 


The part ‘contains’ the whole; the particular ‘contains’ the totality, itself included. 

The [present] part-icular is thus conceived as simultaneously [past-]self-containing and [past-]other-containing, and thus as [past-]totality-containing. c66 



Such self-nested morphologies are, of course, outside the scope of any Euclidean, or flat-space, [‘un-curved’]geometry.







‘Externalism’, child of atomism, is closely related to the blind-spot which leads mainstream scientists and ecology activists away from so much as considering a hypothesis of biospheric dynamics such as that proposed herein, even when they verge repeatedly upon its evidence, and its conceptual thresholds, sifting its clues and key evidences before their apparently open eyes.


Associated with the externalist bias are two other prevalent tendencies of ‘Ecologism’:  a tendency toward misanthropy and a bias in favor of equilibrium models of Nature, i.e., in favor of linear “dynamical” models -- which are therefore really pseudo-dynamical models -- of the biosphere.


Current ecologism tends to treat man as an alien ‘external cause’ in Nature, Nature as external to “Man”, and “Man” as external to Nature. 


Its ideologues likes to talk, implicitly — and nonsensically — as if humanity were an invader in the biosphere, arrived here from outside of Nature — from ‘outside of the universe’ — rather than admitting that humanity is a [locally] new part of Nature; a natural outgrowth of prior Nature; a new kind of part of the universe, one that the universe has recently added to itself.  


Ecologism likes to abstract “man” from Nature, to imagine Nature as already completed without humanity, as peacefully self-regulated and serene but for humanity’s presence — a perfected cyclic equilibrium, deviating from this crypto-Parmenidean stasis only episodically and accidentally — i.e., when disturbed “from without”. 


As we have seen, this is far from an accurate picture of the nature of Nature --



In the language of Ecologism, “man” always only “upsets” the “balance of Nature”. c67 


But, if our hypothesis is correct, the balance of Nature is no static, timeless fixity, but a self-upsetting process, one which disturbs itself internally. 


It is not primarily “outside agitators”, but ‘inside agitators’ which foment the self-revolutions of Nature.   


Nature is a dialectical process-object, a dialectical “subject” or agent of action and of “self-activity”; a process of self-creation, in which ‘human Nature’ — the noösphere; the self-expanding patch on the biosphere occupied by the human social formation — is the latest product, or dialectical “synthesis”, of Nature itself. 


The notion that “man”, the socialized arm of Nature, can set Nature right as well as wrong, that biospheric Nature is in trouble without us; that humanity is an outgrowth of Nature lacking which Nature would be unbalanced, incomplete — an outgrowth which Nature “needs” to restore its moving balance for the next interval ahead, is foreign to Ecologism. 


It is a conception virtually inaccessible for the psychological structure and premises from which Ecologism , a massively plutocracy Foundations+ funded outgrowth of Rockefeller "Eu"-genics, grew. 


The misanthropy of Ecologism has its roots also, we must add, in the dark mood which has overtaken ruling class ideology since the zenith and turning point of capitalist civilization in the period around World War I; in the whole historical atmosphere of the decadent phase of capitalist society. 


We will consider this aspect more closely in the next section.



In the meantime, here are a few clues as to what the ruling class has had, in stealth, underway ever since --







Underlying empirically-falsified equilibrium model is a perception of time as a[other] kind of empty space, a container of events that can be filled up in arbitrary order, and which can hold either change or non-change. 


Time is not grasped as the very continuum of change — as the continuing self-prolongation of ‘universe-al’ existence, due to the continuing ‘culmination’ of both self-induced change-in-‘self’ [‘self-activity’], and other-induced change-in‘self’, for all extant cosmological entities taken as ‘selves’/subjects/agents in some degree. 


The dialectical view, by contrast, is anchored in this conception-awakened-perception of the cumulative ever-new-ness of time, such that no two moments can ever be identical. 


For dialectical perception, change is continuous. 


Time is just the continuity of change, and apart from change, Time is not. 


Or, as Herakleitos expressed, it so long ago --

“Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. You cannot step twice in the same river.... It is in changing that things find repose.... Homer was wrong in saying ‘Would that strife might perish from amongst gods and men’. For if that were to occur, then all things would cease to exist.... The sun is new each day.” c68



If Time is grasped as an irreversible cumulative continuum, a never-repeating texture of events in which later and earlier can never quite coincide in their ‘evental’ content; if duration is grasped as a texture of unique states-of-the-world in which similitude but not identity of events is possible, then the kind of radically dynamical model of Nature proposed here is the first thing one is disposed to look for; is only to be expected. 


We are not talking about “cycles” here:  in an evolutionary continuum the photosynthesis-respiration biosphere will not turn back into the atmosynthesis-fermentation biosphere; the present biosphere will not revert to the photosynthetic-respiratory one, but -- if the Rocke-Nazis humanocidal plans are successfully defeated --  will move on to something new, to a new, higher stage, based on fusion power. 


Consensus modern science, on the other hand, seems to expect true “cycles”. 


It has not, for the most part, explicitly arisen to the paradigm of the spiral or the helix — that is, to the image which synthesizes the moments of endless ‘self-oscillatory’ circular recurrence and of self-continuing, ever-chaning rectilinear self-extension. c69 


Thus, ecologists speak of the CO2 “cycle”, and tend to expect a “set-point” fixed for all time for atmospheric CO2 concentration, upon which all the feedback channels of the Earth converge and continue to converge through all the ages since the Earth’s formation. 


The idea that Nature does have a history, that the biosphere as a whole, the planet as a whole, and the universe as a whole self-evolve continuously, irreversibly, and cumulatively, is still dawning, and is resisted, even if the Darwinian “evolution” of particular biological species has long been granted.  


If evidence for these higher modes of evolution is lacking, this lack is due at least in part to the contra-empirical, ideological biases that make the prisoners of this ideology miss such evidence even when it is staring them in the face. 





Thermodynamic equilibrium is essentially a linear phenomenon, and through it linearity is linked to a tendency toward maximal entropy of systems, maximal disorder, codified in the Second Law of Thermodynamics --
“...linear systems, in particular, systems close to equilibrium, always evolve to a disordered regime corresponding to a steady state which is asymptotically stable with respect to all disturbances...” c70


‘Lerner’s Theorem’ spotlights the connection among linearity, atomism, and equilibria --
“There are two basic, interrelated axioms in the reductionist conception of the universe.”


“The first is that the universe consists of independent elementary particles....”


“The second is that these particles are organized according to a set of fixed relations, or laws....”


“Essentially every branch of existing science is reductionist in that it is based on these same axioms — discrete particles and fixed laws....”


“The fundamental axioms of reductionism necessarily imply a certain conception of the dynamics and development of physical processes and the universe in general.”


“This conception is known variously as the law of increase of entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics.”


“It states that the universe as a whole, or any system in particular, always tends towards a stable or unchanging state, a state of equilibrium.”


“An equivalent statement is that the rate of change of the universe or any system tends to zero: the universe is running down.”


“This dynamic law is a necessary consequence of the fundamental axioms.”


“Any system defined by fixed laws must have some state from which no further change is possible....”


“The tendency of the universe towards equilibrium is at the same time a tendency towards increasing disorder and randomness, since disorder is more probable than order — that is, there are more possible states of random arrangement than ordered arrangement.”


“This tendency towards increasing disorder is also called the increase of entropy.” c71



Nonlinear systems, on the contrary, may exhibit a taxis towards states of increasing order, heightening their internal negentropy by exporting entropy to their environments.  

That is, they “evolve”, through a succession of relatively or temporarily stable states located on a continuum leading ever farther from thermodynamic equilibrium --


“Our qualitative argument leads us to inquire about the feasibility of extending the concept of order to nonequilibrium situations, to systems in which the appearance of ordered structures, in thermodynamic equilibrium, would be highly unlikely.”


“One of the main conclusions of our theory will be that there exists a class of systems showing two kinds of behavior: a tendency to a state of maximum disorder for one type of situation, and coherent behavior for a second type.”


“The destruction of order always prevails in the neighborhood of thermodynamic equilibrium.”


“In contrast, creation of order may occur far from equilibrium and with specific nonlinear kinetic laws, beyond the domain of stability of the states that have the usual thermodynamic behavior.”


“Traditionally, thermodynamics has dealt with the first type of behavior, but an extension of irreversible thermodynamics that permits treating the other aspects as well as this one has been developed recently....”


“One of our main points here will be that an increase in dissipation is possible for nonlinear systems driven far from equilibrium.”


“Such systems may be subject to a succession of unstable transitions that lead to spatial order and to increasing entropy production...”


[MM:  for example] “...generation of coherent light by a laser may be interpreted as a nonequilibrium phase transition.”


“Below instability is the incoherent regime; beyond the transition threshold, corresponding to a critical value of the radiation field, the system switches spontaneously to the coherent state....”


“The amplitude and period of the oscillations are determined by the system itself [MM:  rather than by the external stimulus of the “flash” that triggers the lasing].”

“Moreover, the periodic solution is stable in the sense that all perturbations introducing an initial deviation from this state are damped.”


“This type of solution is well known in mathematics and analytical mechanics as a “limit cycle”.”

“Note that the existence of localized states and wave-like solutions... raises a number of fascinating mathematical problems related to the existence and stability of periodic solutions for nonlinear parabolic differential systems....” c72



As a result of these ideological ‘attitudes’ — ‘externalism’, misanthropism, ‘equilibriumism’ — most commentaries on the ecological organism of our planet overlook, or repress, any noticings of the kind of ecological dynamics we have been exploring herein. 

Typically, where such commentaries do verge on these considerations, signs of reluctance and anxiety are in evidence. 

These include several modes of abrupt truncation of discourse; abrupt changing of the subject — for instance, hasty consignment of such speculations, barely broached, to the nether realm of the “still unknown”, thence quickly passing on to a remote topic. 

Let us watch the thought-processes in a number of recorded such instances, in order to get a feel for the psycho-ideological, psychohistorical phenomenon involved.


The Club of Rome study, Limits To Growth, manifests very sharply the tacit presumption — the ‘pre-evidential’ and evidence-overriding, dogmatic, ‘supra-evidential’, and therefore ideological ‘pre-assumption’ that any man-made alterations in the biospheric process must be, ipso facto, to its detriment [emphases added by MM] --

“At present 97 percent of mankind’s industrial energy production comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). When these fuels are burned, they release, among other substances, carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Currently about 20 billion tons of CO2 are being released from fossil fuel combustion each year... the measured amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing exponentially, apparently at a rate of 0.2 percent per year.... If man’s energy needs are someday supplied by nuclear power, instead of fossil fuels, this increase in atmospheric CO2 will eventually cease, one hopes before it has had a measurable ecological or climatological effect.” c73


The following passage represents an example of  contra-empirical“equilibrium thinking” or “cycle-thinking”, which, while insightful in this case, errs in tending — via a thought-process which might be characterized as one of ‘ontological reductionism’ — to assimilate human agency entirely to the humanity-preceding supposedly “cyclical”/non-cumulative/non-self-transcending processes of Nature [emphases added by MM] --

“The burning of fossil fuels is an element of another cycle that affects atmospheric carbon dioxide; this is the cycle of photosynthesis and respiration.... The rate at which respiration and decay occur is very nearly equal to the rate of photosynthesis.... Nevertheless, there is, on average, a small imbalance, which is important... the rate of photosynthesis is slightly faster than the rate of respiration and decay, and there is a continual addition of carbon, of organic origin, to the sediments at the bottom of the sea. In time, these sediments are converted to rocks, and the carbon is incorporated therein, but the process does not stop there. The layer of sedimentary rocks on Earth is not getting thicker all the time. Instead, the rocks are lifted up above the surface of the sea, where they are subjected to weathering and erosion. The carbon in the rocks is oxidized in the process and returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. In this respect, the burning of fossil fuels may be thought of as a greatly accelerated form of weathering.  At the present time, the burning of fossil fuel is producing carbon dioxide about thirty times as fast as rock weathering.” c74


In the next citation, part of the hypothesis we have explored in this text is virtually broached, and the author admirably and succinctly “gives the lie” to the now-prevalent, hysterical and Hitlerian/Goebbelsian “Big Lie” mantric and ad nauseam assertions, by the growing, and 'growingly Plutocracy-funded', chorus of Rockefeller “hired liars” — ‘Zeroists’ [Zero-Growthers], ‘Negativists’ [‘Negative-Growthers’], ‘Smallists’, ‘Animalists’, ‘People are Pollution’ genocidal maniacs, ‘neo-Primitivists’, ‘neo-Luddites’, and ‘Global-Warmists’ — that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant”, rather than what it actually is, a primary, vital ‘nutrient’/resource, for our photosynthetic biosphere, but the line of inquiry is abruptly diverted [emphases added by MM] --
“...carbon dioxide is a relatively rare gas in the atmosphere and its carbon is necessary as a component for all food.  If the respiration of all organisms, particularly that of the decomposer micro-organisms, were to stop, much of the available carbon would be tied up in dead material, and photosynthesis rates would slow down. However, man is inadvertently increasing the carbon dioxide content of the air by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil in which the carbon was fixed by photosynthesis millions of years ago. Thus, where carbon dioxide may have been a limiting factor in ecosystem productivity, such productivity may eventually increase.” c75



In the following passage, it is nearly recognized that the ecological consequences of human praxis, far from being necessarily uni-directional, can even oppose one another and balance out. 

Yet, once again, only the possible negative consequences of human agency are envisioned, revealing an underlying assumption that Nature is already finished, perfectly balanced, fixed at perfect values for all of its parameters, and “ok as is”, so that any man-made changes — whether they raise or lower the Earth’s temperature, or any other natural parameter; whether they shift a given natural parameter in one direction or in the other, opposite direction -- can, at best, mean only “disturbances” -- movements away from the prevailing, quasi-static perfection — if, hopefully, tolerable ones [emphases added by MM] --
“...the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide... [MM:  could] raise the earth’s temperature, presumably melting the ice caps and flooding the coastal plains of the world. This much-discussed possibility is only one of the changes in flow that may be expected if further power injections change the world ecosystem’s composition.  Now, increasing turbidity in the air from pollution is reflecting light in many areas, lowering temperature and agricultural production.  Somehow we have to prevent major disturbances of the coefficients of the mineral cycles.” c76



Finally, we note what is probably the closest approach to the overall hypothesis stated here from orthodox circles, ironically (and by no means accidentally) occurring in a passage explicitly devoted to refuting dialectical concepts — the passage in Boulding’s book immediately succeeding the one cited previously [emphases added by MM] --
“One possible exception to this proposition is the climatic change which may result from the absorption of carbon dioxide from the air by plants and other living organisms and its present restoration to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels.”

“It has been suggested that an increase of carbon dioxide in the air will have a “greenhouse effect” and will upset the heat balance of the earth by letting more heat in through the atmosphere from the sun than it lets out at present temperatures.”


“This would be expected to raise the temperature of the earth which would, of course, have profound consequences such as the melting of the ice caps and a change in the whole ecological structure of the biosphere.”


“There may be long cycles of this kind in the evolutionary process which have something of a dialectical character to them, in the sense that it is the contradictions within one phase that produce the next.”


“There is no agreement among natural scientists, however, about the reality of these phenomena — thus the “greenhouse effect” may be literally overshadowed by increasing cloud cover and again they must be put in the category of interesting speculation.” c77



In concluding this section, it should be emphasized that no special sagacity is required to discern the patterns which anchor the hypothesis of biospheric evolution and dialectical continuum put forward herein. 


Required only is the living sense of the involvement of the totality in the particular and of the internal interconnectedness of events, that is, the sense of the unitary fabric of reality alive in one’s own identity which is none other than the Socialist sense, a perception of selfhood which is emergent in our times.






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