After growing up in Africa years living in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand I am lately infatuated by China and Asia.
Can we develop a practical and applicable ethic in veterinary health care with a universal application and without dogma? In this short paper we use controversies in dog vaccination as an example.
Abstract.
CAN WE DEVELOP A PRACTICAL AND APPLICABLE ETHIC IN VETERINARY HEALTH CARE AND RESEARCH WITH A UNIVERSAL APPLICATION AND WITHOUT DOGMA?
Theo D. Holtzhausen
Problem Statement: Medical science develops and evaluates treatments according to scientific technique, evidence and reasoning in our Physical Space of Reasoning (PSOR). I acknowledge the enormous debate topics like evidence based studies, placebo effects, cultural beliefs, reality and logic can evoke in medical outcomes. Growing pseudoscientific activities in this area give rise to ineffective and sometimes dangerous interventions and a growing use of supplementary or ‘natural’ remedies with minimal if any impact on health care outcomes. With a growing number of professionals in healthcare moving freely between countries and with a mobile global workforce, awareness of cultural differences have become more urgent in order for health care workers to apply proper care. Veterinary clinics and clinicians promoting alternative remedies lacking evidence based support and simultaneously practicing medicine as a science have become more common. Such ‘holistic’ clinics see these remedies more as a belief system causing no harm with minimal impact but with added financial benefit to the facility. Promoting such remedies with questionable efficacy can create conflict in the application of an ethic in health care or in cases where a health care worker is called upon for judicial testimony.
Methods: A post-adaptionist view in understanding cognition has emerged in recent years, Gould and Lewontin (1979), Wuketits (1989, 2005) and others. We can now assume cognition is the function of active bio-systems responding to the outer world as a step-by-step accumulation of information and a complex interactive process of continuous ‘idea formation’ and error elimination. The term plasticity of DNA has also now become familiar in biology and neurosciences and can be used to model an ethic.
We use and define three essential key areas in understanding and developing an ethic as:
- Global interconnection
- Adaptability to changing needs
- Free of dogma and cultural bias
We use Physical Space of Reasoning (PSOR), Logical Space of Reasoning (LSOR) and Metaphysical (M) as a value system to reduce pseudoscientific methods and treatments and create objective idea formation and error elimination in an era where fraudulent science is becoming more common. Implementation of these three key areas and three levels of reasoning set a new ethic in evidence based methodology and act as protection against an increasing trend to manipulate research and its application for solipsistic or commercial reasons.
Corollary: M (dogma) -->PSOR result in a narrowly defined view of a pre-Copernican universe.
PSOR (dogma)--> M will also be restrictive.
Our current-day trend of PSOR⇌LSOR is also restrictive.
And even the liberating M⇌LSOR⇌PSOR is restrictive compared to exchanges where ideas move freely between:
PSOR⇌M ⇌LSOR, LSOR⇌M⇌PSOR, LSOR⇌PSOR ⇌M... open to sequence changes and numerous possibilities
An objective approach and definition of PSOR will also reduce the semantic complications that logic, tense and existence inevitably will always fall victim to.
Conclusion: We found in using a system of freely interchanging ideas between PSOR, LSOR and the Metaphysical, focused on objective reality created in the PSOR, to be suitable and more objective in creating an ethic for a 'true' science to emerge. As far as we know this is a novel approach.
Conflict of interest:
None declared
By the nature of this study and surveys conducted no ethics committees were consultded or had to be approached.
Introduction
We have to today accept the fact that our cognitive abilities (thoughts and ideas) are undeniably all products of organic evolution. Our ideas and thoughts on morality and ethics then in turn (both normative and metaethical) are also products of evolution.
In his classical paper Campbell (1974, p. 413) wrote: “An evolutionary epistemology would be at minimum an epistemology taking cognizance of and compatible with man’s status as a product of biological and social evolution”. Campbell also argued that, “evolution – even in its biological aspects – is a knowledge process, and that the natural-selection paradigm for such knowledge increments can be generalized to other epistemic activities, such as learning, thought, and science.” I would like to early on already add the concept of idea making and testing to the Campbellian list of requirements for knowledge increments.
Due to current day demand driven and marketability of scientifically backed ideas and products as an important part of our growing epistemology we urgently need to differentiate between science and pseudoscience. This demarcation, not only in a Popperian sense where falsification (a truthful flawed idea) is a necessary need for a progressive epistemology and where science remain the most important key. This is also where an ethic free of dogma is needed to help us steer clear of an ‘un-truthful’ science as can be driven by solipsism or personal gain. We have to consider financial interest, religion and political drive as potential creators of false science. These in turn driven by financial gain as the primary goal or employing antiquated belief systems, often misleading and outside the reality sphere of PSOR, with the ability to severely hijack cognition and enhance the creation of a wasteful pseudoscience. An ethical idea making system in search for the truth, open to discussion and set on a flexible interchange between the PSOR, LSOR and Metaphysical (as defined in this thesis) is essential for next stage of our cognitive advancement. In this then lies a new era ethic.
Key areas vital to drive human cognition and epistemology where an ethic is needed and our future wellbeing depend on:
• Healthcare: Medical science as caretakers of our physical and mental health develop and evaluates treatments according to scientific technique, evidence and reasoning in our PSOR. I acknowledge the enormous debate topics like evidence based studies, placebo effects, cultural beliefs, reality and logic can evoke in medical outcomes. Growing pseudoscientific activities in this area give rise to ineffective and sometimes dangerous interventions and a growing use of supplementary or ‘natural’ remedies with minimal if any impact on health care outcomes. The financially driven pharmaceutical industry is also not helping to boost an ethic in current medical practice with increased focus on market trends and marketing techniques principally driven by financial gain. Healthcare providers, insurers, government authorities and – most importantly – patients need guidance and an ethic on how to distinguish between medical science and medical pseudoscience and solipsistic misdirected interest in healthcare. As an example more emphasis is placed on the discovery and functions of supplements and nutraceuticals, presenting it as a health benefit to all and not as merely valuable in cases of deficiencies. Even more frightening is the fact that escalating health care cost is driving many people to reach out for these so called ‘natural’ or ‘holistic’ remedies, perhaps further escalating the cost of manufacturing conventional therapies with evidence based backing (due to a diminished market).
• Judicial testimony: It is essential for the rule of law that courts get the facts right in such confusing times. The reliability of different types of evidence must be correctly determined, and expert testimony must be based on the best available knowledge. Sometimes it is in the interest of litigants to present non-scientific claims as solid science backed by some sort of peer reviewed publication dug up somewhere. Therefore, courts and ethic committees must also be able to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. Philosophers have often had prominent roles in the defence of science against pseudoscience in such contexts. (Hansson 2011). An ethic amongst health care workers and pharma will be welcomed by all when a growing number of issues concerning pharma are based on legal, political and financial muscle. This boosting pseudoscience on all levels, including research and ethic level.
• Environmental policies: In order to be on the safe side against potential disasters it may be legitimate to take preventive measures when there is valid but yet insufficient evidence of an environmental hazard. This must be distinguished from taking measures against an alleged hazard for which there is no valid evidence at all or misdirecting areas of major concern due to personal political or financial interests. Therefore, decision-makers in environmental policy must be able to distinguish between scientific and pseudoscientific claims if they have a realistic and pragmatic ethic. We also urgently need a more universally altruistic and interconnected acceptable objective value here to measure the impact on life on earth.
• Science in education: The promoters of some pseudosciences (notably creationism, and alternative remedies) try to introduce their teachings in school and university curricula. Teachers and educational authorities need to have clear criteria of inclusion that protect students against unreliable and disproved dogma. Financial interests or support may furthermore also swing education to take a turn often different to logic or objective fact but backed by personal religious or belief structures.
• Cultural: With a growing number of professionals in healthcare moving freely between countries and also in general a more mobile global workforce, awareness of cultural differences have become more urgent for health care workers to apply proper care. There is a slowly emerging trend in health care due to globalisation that may create a more uniform cultural base for administering healthcare, but it is still very vulnerable to being hijacked and misdirected by major commercial interests or cultural beliefs. Veterinary clinics and medical clinics promoting alternative remedies lacking evidence based support and simultaneously practicing medicine as a science have become more common. Such ‘holistic’ clinics see these remedies more as a belief system causing no harm with minimal impact but with added financial benefit to the facility.
With the inarguable acceptance and realisation of the interconnection between evolutionary aspects of cognition, knowledge and culture as a global but vulnerable cognition-gaining process (see, e. g., Campbell 1974, Lorenz 1977, Riedl 1984, Wuketits 1986 and others) affecting us all, we can see the enormous responsibility we carry in science and health care. Such an ethic also with the potential of having significant impact on our cognition gaining process.
The post-adaptationist view in understanding cognition that emerged in recent years, Gould and Lewontin (1979), Wuketits (1989, 2005) and others is now backed by objective science, mainly in genetics. We can now assume cognition is the function of active bio-systems and not of blind machines just responding to the outer world, it is not a mere reaction to the external world with minor adjustments form time to time but it rather results from complex interactions between the organism and its surroundings. It is furthermore a step-by-step accumulation of information and a complex interactive process of continuous ‘idea formation’ and error elimination. The term plasticity of DNA has also now become familiar in biology and neurosciences.
I see three essential key elements in understanding and developing an ethic as:
1) Evolutionary Cognition– defined as an adaptable mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought (ideas and genetic adjustments), experience, and the senses; this involves the continuous evolutionary trial and error application of ‘ideas’ tested against the objective realities an organism encounters in its physical world. Such idea testing can be broken down to biological, physiological, biochemical and atomic level and is best conducted in a burgeoning interconnected system understanding and following an universal ethic.
2) Knowledge–defined as facts, information, and skills acquired through experience as part of a progressive evolutionary cognition and education where practical realities serve as building blocks and tested ideas become accepted physical realities in our PSOR to improve our quality of life (QOL) and chances of survival.
3) Culture defined as–intertwined with our evolving knowledge, ideas and belief systems (religions) such as the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. It is analysed as interconnected with our evolutionary epistemology and belief systems and studied here free from restrictive hermeneutics or dogma but with open potential to reach into the metaphysical. This exist rather unstably but as essential ideas about ideas axiomatically in our LSOR.
In brief we will approach these as follows:
Cognition. Backed by our recent objective scientific discoveries in genomics and neuroscience we cannot avoid (as already said) but approach this from a naturalistic and objective base. Furthermore, any attempt to split human cognition from animalistic origins will have to face numerous limitations and will be riddled with uncertainty, open questions and be Cartesian in nature. Therefore we inevitably accept cognition as both bodily and enactive. In the neurosciences today if broken down to physiological level we can also address the issue of the specious present as a PSOR reality dependent on the organism, the stimulus and its physiology. Thus the duration issue in temporal logic then also becomes a variable based on organism and the reality of time a ‘changeable variable’. As an example, the evolutionary acquired time taken to stimulate a GABA receptor in a tortoise’s neurocentre to respond to a stimulus compared to an ant. So time is also a variable PSOR reality set by a ‘survivalist- time’ interacting with habitat needed to escape a PSOR threat – amoeba moving away from a light source or an antelope smelling a lion and trying to run away. Time is now seen as an individualised evolutionary (physiological) determined concept with variation between organisms and perhaps even universal variable depending on what, where and when you are there. We have evolved into time as a means to confront objective realities in our PSOR. However complex we want to make the concept of time, naturalistically and pragmatically our entire evolving concept of time is physiologically based on the time between a meal and starvation and what , where and who we are. Based on this, specious present at times suggestive of nihilism, now becomes an interconnected persistently changing affair in varying PSOR’s (dealing with realities), anything but nihilism. I deal with specious present and nihilism briefly in the introduction as I see it of no further value here in creating an ethic based on pragmatic realities we face in our PSOR.
The philosophical discussion of animal cognition has traditionally focused on the metaphysics and epistemology of mind in creatures that do not have language so was centred around semantics. Philosophers have historically asked whether animals are minded or rational, and whether they have concepts or beliefs, but they have also struggled with the issue of how to answer such questions given the inherent limitations of their investigations. The main reason for such limitations was the use of mainly behaviourism, the application of language and psychology as principle tools for research– all subjective and lacking the objective proof needed by science or the ability to bridge the Cartesian split of mind and body. In my case against Cartesian dualism we have to question can we have mind without brain and if so how can we possibly split them? To me anyhow the answer is obviously not, so if the mind is a creation of the brain (or the brain of the mind) and the brain the result of organic evolution the mind is then merely a result of organic evolution. Organic evolution in turn (using our brain/mind) is merely an attempt to recognise and respond to a constantly changing environment the best we can in order to survive. Thought, a creation of mind then is ideas tested against environment everything is interconnected and there is no dualism. Thoughts differ and vary between individuals similar to genetic responses differing to environmental conditions, some have applicable value and others not. So with mind, thought and brain interconnected how can we have dualism. I think because I have a brain, not because I am. Thoughts are generated by my brain in response to my environment.
With new objective understanding in biological sciences, neuroscience and genetics the phylogenetic aspects and interconnection of cognition cannot be avoided and a posteriori seen as animalistic in origin. This is now further backed by new techniques in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of active brains and mapping the genes on a growing number of species. Taking language, the biological capacity for language may be more accurately described as a collection of biological capacities, some of which we share with other species. As am example the FOXP2 gene is found to play a role in speech production, and was instrumental in the development of language in humans. The FOXP2 gene is also expressed in the same part of the brain in even zebra finches, and it has been reported that finch fledglings with reduced FOXP2 are impaired in their ability to learn to sing (Haesler et al. 2007).
The early history of western philosophy reflects a tendency to see animals as lacking rationality. Aristotle defined “human” as “the rational animal”, thus rejecting the possibility that any other species is rational (Aristotle Metaphysics). Aquinas believed that animals are irrational because they are not free (Aquinas Summa Theologica). Centuries later, Descartes defended a distinction between humans and animals based on the belief that language is a necessary condition for mind on his view animals are soulless machines with the pineal gland the seat of the soul (Descartes Discourse on the Method). Locke agreed that animals cannot think, because words are necessary for comprehending universals (Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding). Following in this tradition, Kant casually on this topic concluded that since they cannot think about themselves, animals are not rational agents and hence they only have instrumental value (Kant Lectures on Ethics).
However, there were also early dissenters. Voltaire criticized Descartes' view that humans but not animals have souls and hence minds, by suggesting that there is no evidence for the claim (Voltaire Philosophical Dictionary). Hume was undeniably dismissive of the animal mind skeptics when he wrote “Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as man. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant” (Hume Treatise of Human Nature, 176).
Today in a post- Darwinian world with neuroscience exploding with new ideas backed by new technology and discoveries in phylogenetics and epigenetics, Aristotle and Descartes if still alive, would most likely find it extremely difficult to defend their ‘soul’ view on humans or irrationality of animals and be forced to agree with Voltaire and Hume on these matters. With such more liberal understanding of the biological aspect of our cognitive abilities we may also a priori discover and understand what is required of us and how we should behave, and what sort of an ethic is evident in nature (if any). The Quinean (1969) view that we should abandon epistemology for empirical psychology is not widely accepted by contemporary naturalists in epistemology, and then only if seen as part of a search where psychology is inevitably evolving hand in hand with cognition, environment and belief systems, and therefore of limited value if seen separately. Our security today however is seated in genomics and neurophysiology much more so than at the time of Voltaire’s criticism of Descartes with psychology now also subjective to objective functionality in constantly improved mapping of anatomical parts of the brain. Needless to say we accept the concept of enaction to present and develop a framework that places strong emphasis on the idea that the experienced world is portrayed and determined by mutual interactions between the physiology of the organism, its sensorimotor circuit and the environment as postulated by (Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1991).
Knowledge. By the nature of what it stands for and what has already been said is continuously changing and evolving and has a direct effect on how we exist. Knowledge is both temporal and temporary and a direct spinoff of our evolutionary adaptive and constantly changing cognitive abilities with utilitarian needs. This also has an impact on how we live, quality of life, our religious believes, and our political structures, we are however slower to change the latter two structures because of the dogma that governs them. The effect of greed today can be seen as a significant influence and of major concern, not only as a solipsistic misdirection to the application of new knowledge but with the dangerous potential of keeping a completely erroneous epistemology and morality alive. The bias financial, religious and political control and interpretation of research and our educational institutions today can be seen as more responsible for creative displacement than the historical effect of the church on our introduction to a Copernican universe, and deserving (in my opinion) of more criticism than even Thomas Kuhn’s Criticism of Scientific Revolutions (1962). I also argue that our recent unequivocal interpretation and acceptance of evolutionary concepts and our animalistic origins are responsible for an unnecessary harsh survivalist mentality evolving amongst people, this further boosting greed, lack of ethic, corruption and causing some disillusioned people living in denial of PSOR realities in exchange for gaining credibility in false belief systems or financial power. Subsequently many belief systems and ideas remain existing and can create false hope in an illogical LSOR where fairies and gods or a God give more hope for a benevolent future than a cruel survival of the fittest interpretation of the Darwinian concept. I also postulate that introducing a more benevolent version of our interdependency and evolutionary interconnection an emerging new evidenced based PSOR based epistemology can emerge in support of a more moral, benevolent and functional society than ever before. This indeed still setting a better platform for survival as a global unit and not an egoistic self or separatist group.
Culture. Emerges hand in hand with the above and also has a strong influence on ethical and moral behaviour. Culture may affect the application of current knowledge as well as the development of the new. Culture affects the way we search for new knowledge and at times can be replaced by a new culture with a significant effect on the way we think and behave and act as an important bridge into the metaphysical and into the arts. We also have to acknowledge our existence in a new era of universal cultures emerging due to a globally interconnected society.
Metaphysical. Kant referred to the metaphysical as, ‘A dark ocean without shore and lighthouse, Kant says, on which it is all too easy to lose one's way’ (2:66.1–6). Traditionally defined as the philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence, by the very nature of its subjective and open to argument base, it helps to steer us clear form remaining trapped in the narrow confines of our interpretation of the objective world in our incommodious PSOR. In the scope of this thesis and in the context of a naturalistic approach I shall redefine the term metaphysical to remain attached to the importance of it, which in itself has been open to much evolutionary and historical change and debate as to what it stands for. This synergy between the metaphysical and physical, as I shall proof in this thesis, is absolutely vital for our continuing epistemological development. I have created for our purposes here a (to the best of my knowledge new) definition of the metaphysical.
The Metaphysical (to be explained in much more detail later): ' The physical taken as any cognitive ability an organism has evolved or acquired, whether direct or indirect, to create awareness or perception of objective and physical realities in its perceived environment in order to survive or improve its quality of life. The metaphysical then is anything outside this sphere, (for that particular organism).
A constant state of exchange exist between the metaphysical and physical as follows:
Physical (object) or concepts of objects (whether erroneous or real)⇌ Metaphysical '.
For obvious reasons I will have to explain much more and in view of things like gods, angels and fairies entering our mental spheres as humans, and with different levels of awareness existing in different organisms, the above definition will also vary between species (and man and animal) and cross species barriers. In order to accommodate for the uncertainties that arise in the interpretation of reality in both the individual and the application of the metaphysical in different organisms we also need to systemise cognition. We will explain and place the existence of ideas and concepts as fairies in our LSOR (logical space of reasoning), we have never proved fairies do not exist we can however prove that eating a cloud has no nutrient value so can securely return this idea to the metaphysical. This will be done under the first chapter
Concept
. A moral society makes possible an accession of truthful knowledge, and the accession of reliable knowledge makes possible the performance of altruism which in turn enhance our capacity of knowing and new idea-making, as part of an emergent evolutionary cognition.
We can today both a priori and empirically conclude that all life emerged from single strands of RNA stimulated by transcriptase (proteins structures) to produce strands of protein-encoding DNA. Such a reverse transcriptase enzyme has been found in the mitochondria of the Mauriceville slime mould Neurospora crassa, exhibiting the ability to synthesise full-length DNA copies of RNA without a primer of any kind, Kuiper and Lambowittz, (1988). This and other new discoveries in genetic research falsifying the canonical pathway of the ‘Central Dogma’ of transcription of DNA into RNA as initiators of all lifeforms. We can without a doubt empirically conclude that unicellular organisms and eventually biomasses and subsequently the diversity of life as we know it today all emerged from such protein structures–RNA and reverse transcriptase enzyme. We can continue to break these ‘life generating’ proteins down to molecular and atomic level. From such basic elements emerged then our cognition and all the knowledge we have about ourselves, our planet and the known universe so far.
The post Darwinian struggle in acceptance of humankind’s animal ancestry and the ‘image of God thesis’ is now truly behind for most of us. The ease of a Cartesian spilt between a deific human soul and the anatomical body and all other life forms has also become difficult to defend.
However demeaning this may still seem to some these are impossible to ignore PSOR realities acting as the basic building blocks for developing, not only an understanding about our cognitive origins, but our future epistemology in a realistic PSOR.
We continue today in science to break all bodily functions, perceptive mechanisms and cognition and its responses down to biochemical, physiological and molecular level. We operate today in an era where the shock of realising higher cognition, even in its more sophisticated form, is as a result of organic evolution has slowly been overcome. In fact, all our new advances in the biosciences are based on this knowledge. Using this current knowledge and understanding in epigenetics and phylogenetics we cannot disclaim the minor changes on molecular level responsible for the emergence of organisms with better and more advanced cognitive abilities. In further support of the fine line of cognitive advancement we can study and visualise cognitive development objectively by means of electromicrograms and the aid of new staining techniques for examining DNA turnover and also functional MRI in different species.
Recently, based on work done trough such means with both human and non-human primates we now know that in some regions of the brain new cells are added for many years after birth, Cage (2000); Bernier, Bedard, Vinet, Levesque and Parent, (2002). We also know cognition is not genetically limited but constantly adjusting and changing even in the living organism. Such changes and experience dependent on the environment the organism is exposed to. In addition it has been demonstrated that these postnatally derived mammalian nerve cells express both neurotransmitters and also form synapses– they encode to produce protein structures to reach out for each other. At a very molecular level, we may now postulate that the processes that underlie plasticity such as the neurochemical profile of the synapses, sprouting of new dendritic spines and growth of new axons and so forth are no different in the developing brain than they are in the mature brain. This is important to us because it now appears that the environmental impact is much more significant on cognitive development than previously thought. We now see cognition as an active constantly changing phenomenon. Environments that are enriched, harmonious and stimulating will create brain development to continue and pretty much continue to operate regardless of age, Colcombe et al (2004). We now see the environment and cognition is in a constant state of interaction, environment <––> cognition.
We also know higher cognitive function actually improves with age providing a mechanism for attending to relevant information by simultaneously inhibiting irrelevant information, Cassey, Durston and Fosella (2001). Important here is that cognitive development is constantly changing and adjusting to environment throughout life. Everything is an interactive changing affair reaching for a higher healthy cognition.
We can use an example here found in migratory birds where they can remember the location of a breeding ground after many months and up to a year, whereas the non-migratory birds can recall breeding location for only up to 2 weeks, Mettke-Hofmann and Gwinner (2003). Cognition is stimulated by environmental demand.
In support of my developing theory I shall discuss the growth and development of axons and dendrites in brief next. There is no need for a detailed account of the embryonic development of neural tubes from the ectoderm in a developing foetus for our purposes here or to re-emphasise the similarity of this process in other species. We can pick up where once the neuroderm has formed and neurones start migrating to specific zones in the developing brain conducted by certain genetic codes, this process is similar across species. Once neurones have migrated in the developing embryo brain to their specific locations one of two things may happen. Some may form axons or dendrites and interconnect by means of these dendrites and axons, and others undergo programmed cell death (apotosis) and die, about 40-55% of the newly formed neurones will die.
For me what is notable here immediately is the essential need of existence failure, why the troublesome genetic expression and tedious migration of neurones to simply die off. We see numerous events in nature and genetics where losses can be intense but always in support of a higher level of coexistence. It is firstly important to not see the existence failure neurones as failures but as co-workers in support of obtaining a higher goal. If we now follow the surviving neurones we see secondly their main drive is interconnection, and they do so by sampling their environment for molecular cues. These budding axons in the developing brain are guided by a growth cone at the tip of the growing axon to either move away or toward a target. In turn dendrite sprouting is as a result of the recently isolated CREST gene causing small buds to form in the wall of the neurone and develop into dendrites. It is ultimately these new interconnections that ensure our cognitive abilities and then also lack of interconnection that create loss of cognitive function. The better the interconnections between neurones and the more there are the better the cognition. So there is secondly a pattern of branching out to interconnect. This creation of a functional interconnection is conducted by genetic coding that took millions of years of fine genetic ‘tuning’ and is not the result of some random mutation as misinterpreted by some evolutionists in the past. Also important to note is that it is an active process; constantly being fine-tuned throughout an organisms life.
The point of contact between two neurones is called a synapse and there are two ways neurones establish contact in the developing brain through synaptogenesis. One is electrical and the other chemical (neurotransmitters). Such communication links after a developmental overproduction follow the Hebbian principle of use/disuse; the ones not used weaken or eliminated. The system of plasticity continues in the adult brain and depends on activity once synaptic contact has been established. Interestingly inactive synaptic contact can be stimulated to function again if stimulated even in the older individual.
Thirdly what we clearly see here is a pattern of support structures, with inevitably some failures but in the end carrying forward a branching interconnection characterised by its pliancy.
More support of this is the recent discovery of the functions of the previously thought of fairly functionless glial support and astrocytes in the brain substance. We now know they are actively involved in myelination of some axons creating faster speed neurones to emerge and the astrocytes may also aid in assisting conduction signals and help repair neurones as they are needed in response to changing environmental needs.
We may slowly begin to detect the emergence of an ‘ethic’ even in cognitive development, such an ethic depended on support structures, interconnection, adaptability to change and respect for existence failure as part of an aid to a higher cause–– not merely an antagonistic struggle between organisms to survive based on a solipsistic adapt or die principle as thought before.
In philosophy thanks go to predecessors like Campbell for valued attempts in bringing cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology and philosophy of science together, (Skagenstad 1978). In creating this understanding of an evolutionary epistemology at a minimum as an evolutionary cognition and a product of man’s social and biological evolution Campbell proposed a model of blind or ‘unjustified’ variation and selective retention and claimed these are necessities of any evolutionary epistemology. Quine (1969) recommended that we abandon the effort to show that we do in fact have knowledge and that we instead study the ways in which we form beliefs and knowledge from a naturalistic point. Seen as such, and not in search to support either Campbell or Quine’s proposal, the slime mould and cognitive development can be seen as a very basic evolutionary precursors of how we formed our current cognitive functions, knowledge-base and belief systems.
Armed now with interconnection, support structures and plasticity even more enlightening is the discovery of mobile DNA in the genome. As Kazazian introduces his book Mobile DNA (2011), “Even Darwin will be surprised…” and the concept of mobile DNA will “would have made his head spin” We now know that the genome has the ability to undergo rapid changes by rearranging some of its parts as opposed to slow change afforded by nucleotide mutation rate. With a more philosophical leaning Riedle, Wuketits, Campbell and others to follow have continued and developed the idea of molecular instructions remembering and testing functional ideas in an epigenetic system. Every living system is an active system as Popper put it (1984), ‘in search for a better world’. To me the latter statement of Popper’s was more elucidating than perhaps many before made in evolutionary biology although it perhaps still leaves the definition of a better world open to opinion.
In this context and with many more examples on offer it can be seen how an outdated somatic survivalist endeavour exposed to only minor randomised mutations from time to time as a model to discuss an emerging epistemology can be accused not only of primitivism but even ignorance with our emerging knowledge today. In a constantly and more recently exponentially changing habitat we simply cannot rely on the idea of an objectively set gene pool with natural selection and minor mutations from time to time, or extinction or survivalist concepts as our only means to a better world. Similar to the pattern neurones follow in the developing brain our growing evolutionary epistemology is dependent on an interconnected-whole consisting of constantly adjusting ideas about ideas driven by cognition also following the same pattern of plasticity in a growing interconnected web. Important is to already see how failed ideas are necessary to carry the ideas that work.
We now also have a simple syllogism where if 40-55% of neurones were needed for the development of 45-60% of viable neurones the viable once could not survive without support, but all true to the cause. We can also syllogistically conclude we cannot have successes without failures, and our cognitive abilities rest heavy on ‘failures’. This should not be seen as cruel Darwinian competition where only winners succeed but as a distinct pattern of co-existence with a combined goal working in harmony leaning on support from others, learning form our mistakes. We can only imagine how many failed experiments, how many scientific papers written, challenged and changed have carried forward a few ideas for humankind that worked. These current workable ideas bound to be replaced by better ones in the future. If an ethic and moral conduct is not based on tolerance, selflessness, truthfulness and with it main interest support of the whole and a higher cause, what is it? We now see it omnipresent at all levels of nature.
With science focussed on narrowly defined objective realities in our physical space of reasoning (PSOR) and simultaneously influenced by social structures and many erroneous belief systems, it can already be seen how at times equivocal our knowledge base can be compared to the wisdom nature presents us with.
As I argue here a responsible search is made less equivocal by a highly interconnected, yet vulnerable, dynamic and patterned idea making process with an advancing cognition as an ultimate and essential drive under the influence of an universal ethic. Such an ethic intertwined with support structures and interconnections dependent on each other including our (or their) failures. This drive objectively seen as a natural code of evolutionary determined genetic and physiological interactions. Such a search is also a constant testing of new ‘ideas’ against functional realities, remembering ideas that work (placing them in our PSOR) and follows strict ‘ethic’. The ideas that work seen as genetic or cognitive outcomes that not only increases the chances to survival of the social group but also improve quality of life and moral values acting as a social glue. The ‘better world’ Popper proposed, in a sense perhaps metaphysically, simply cannot be seen as one where an amoral society greedily and with self interest only fight wars, poverty, corruption, mental disease and pan-epidemics disrespectfully and in isolation against each other, defending failed and changing ideas hoping to survive. We can already sense that not following a One Health system seen here as a Global Cognition with this essential ethic as directed by our evolutionary origins and nurturing and ensuring the health of our ongoing cognitive development is not only counter to the idea of evolution but counter to life. So we have no option.
Our approach to cognition in this thesis is furthermore neither in support or denial of an embodied cognition or a narrowly defined acceptance of traditional cognition. As will be seen here we argue that human cognition is simultaneously a dynamic, skull bound, functional evolutionary status and vitally and intricately interconnected to habitat, other life forms and body––merely as a means to an end. It (cognition) is capable of plasticity and genetic adaptions and adjustments and idea making even and mostly so in living organisms. It is also constantly changing as the highest achievement of a purpose driven and dynamic evolution, so far.
We have now firmly emerged into a new era, well away from an old survivalist, merely selectionist and mutation based evolutionary biology, into a new biology where life is an active interconnected idea-testing process functioning much better when harmony and coexistence is in place between all life forms and the environment. An interconnected cognition not only drives evolutionary cognition but constantly changes and affects the genetic tools it is derived form. We now have an adaptable more benevolent epistemology from which can emerge a much more dynamic and pliable cognition. Compared to an approach where blind dogmatism of previous interpretations of evolutionary genetics were based on natural selection, adapt or die and survivalist principles as all we had; we now have new promise beyond objective fixations, and as we shall see without confusion once we employ our novel approach to the metaphysical, PSOR and LSOR.
Eight important Key phrases so far:
Idea making
Interconnection
Interdependency
Support
Plasticity
Constant change and flux
Adaptability
Respect for the significans of failure
Case 7
Background: (in the context of our quest here). Our moral obligations are directed by?
Reproduction, vs survivalism, vs cognitive advancement, vs a higher force as our ultimate goal:
Case 8
Background: All new evidence suggest 3 yearly vaccinations are adequate to protect against distemper and Parvo virus. Some vaccine manufacturers still register their vaccines with recommendations to vaccinate yearly. Vets are concerned about revenue loss. Vaccines have potential side effects.
Risk to patient, vs finacial gain, vs cognitive advancement as our ultimate goal:
