It may seem that I am labouring the point out of sheer perversity, but this paradox is indeed vital to the problem of causality. Since the causal chains which lead to the decay of individual atoms are ostensibly independent from each other, we must either assume that the fulfilment of the statistical prediction that my sample of thorium C will have a half-life of 60.5 minutes is itself due to blind chance -- which is absurd; or we must take the plunge and opt for some alternative hypothesis on the speculative lines of an 'acausal connecting agency', which is complementary to physical causality in the sense in which particle and wavicle, 'mechanical' and 'mental' complement each other. Such an agency would operate in different guises on different levels: in the shape of 'hidden variables' filling in the gaps in causality on the sub-atomic level; coordinating the activities of the physically independent thorium C atoms to make them respect the half-life date; bringing like and like together in the 'confluential events' of seriality and synchronicity; and perhaps generating the 'psi-field' of the parapsychologist.
This may sound like a tall proposition, but is in fact no taller than the paradoxical phenomena on which it is based. We live submerged in a universe of 'undulating quantum foam' which ceaselessly creates weird phenomena by means transcending the classical concepts of physical causation. The purpose and design of this acausal agency is unknown, and perhaps unknowable to us; but intuitively we feel it somehow to be related to that striving towards higher forms of order and unity-in-variety which we observe in the evolution of the universe at large, of life on earth, human consciousness, and lastly science and art. One ultimate mystery is easier to accept than a litter-basket of unrelated puzzles.
In his classic essay What is Life? which I have quoted before, Erwin Schrödinger took a similar line. He called the connecting link between the totally unpredictable sub-atomic events and their exactly predictable collective result 'the "order from disorder" principle'. He frankly admitted that it is beyond physical causation:
The disintegration of a single radioactive atom is observable (it emits a projectile which causes a visible scintillation on a fluorescent screen). But if you are given a single atom, its probable lifetime is much less certain than that of a healthy sparrow. Indeed, nothing more can be said about it than this: as long as it lives (and that may be for thousands of years) the chance of its blowing up within the next second, whether large or small, remains the same. This patent lack of individual determination nevertheless results in the exact exponential law of decay of a large number of radioactive atoms of the same kind. [38]
Robert Harvie, co-author (with Sir Alister Hardy and myself) of The Challenge of Chance, commented on this passage by Schrödinger:
Orthodox quantum theory attempts to resolve this paradox by asserting the probabilistic nature of matter at the microscopic level. But a further paradox remains -- that of probability itself. The laws of probability describe how a collection of single random events can add up to a large-scale certainty, but not why. Why do not the million nuclei explode at once? Why should we expect that a symmetrically balanced penny will not fall 'heads' on every toss from now to eternity? The question is evidently unanswerable . . . The 'order from disorder' principle seems to be irreducible, inexplicably 'just there'. To ask why is akin to asking 'Why is the universe?' or 'Why has space three dimensions?' (if indeed it has). [39]
In the present theory, the 'order from disorder' principle is represented by the integrative tendency. We have seen that this principle can be traced all the way back to the Pythagoreans. After its temporary eclipse during the reign of reductionist orthodoxies in physics and biology, it is once more gaining ascendancy in more sophisticated versions. I have mentioned the related concepts of Schrödinger's negentropy, Szent Györgyi's syntropy, Bcrgson's élan vital, etc.; one might add to the list the German biologist Woltereck who coined the term 'anamorphosis' -- which von Bertalanffy adopted -- for Nature's tendency to create new forms of life, and also L. L. Whyte's 'morphic principle', or 'the fundamental principle of the development of pattern'. What all these theories have in common is that they regard the morphic, or formative, or syntropic tendency, Nature's striving to create order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, as ultimate and irreducible principles beyond mechanical causation.*
* Although most of them do not expressly invoke acausal factors, these are implied in regarding the formative tendency as 'irreducible'.
The present theory is even more hazardous by explicitly suggesting that the integrative tendency operates in both causal and acausal ways, the two standing in a complementary relationship analogous to the particle-wave complementarity in physics. It is accordingly supposed to embrace not only the acausal agencies operating on the sub-atomic level, but also the phenomena of parapsychology and 'confluential events'. We have seen that ESP and 'synchronicity' often overlap, so that a supposedly paranormal event can be interpreted either as a result of ESP or as a case of 'synchronicity'. But we are perhaps mistaken when we try to make a categorical distinction between the two. Classical physics has taught us that there are various manifestations of energy, including kinetic, potential, thermal, electrical, nuclear and radiant energy which can be converted into one another by suitable procedures, like interchangeable currencies. The present theory suggests that in a similar way telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis and synchronicity are merely different manifestations under different conditions of the same universal principle -- i.e., the integrative tendency operating through both causal and acausal agencies. How this is done is beyond our understanding; but at least we can fit the evidence for paranormal phenomena into the unified design.
12
Among the basic requirements for the validation of a scientific experiment are its repeatability and predictability. Paranormal events, however, whether produced in the laboratory or spontaneously, are unpredictable, capricious and relatively rare. This is one of the reasons why sceptics feel justified in rejecting the results of some forty years of rigorously controlled laboratory experiments in ESP and PK, in spite of the massive statistical evidence which, in any other field of research, would be considered as sufficient proof for the reality of the phenomena.
But the criterion of repeatability applies only when the experimental conditions are essentially the same as in the original experiment; and with sensitive human subjects the conditions are never quite the same in terms of mood, receptivity, or emotional rapport between subject and experimenter. Besides, ESP phenomena nearly always involve unconscious processes beyond voluntary control. And if the phenomena are in fact triggered by acausal agencies, it would be naive to expect that they can be produced at will.
There is, however, another explanation for the apparent rarity and capriciousness of paranormal phenomena, which is of special interest in our context. It was, I believe, originated by Henri Bergson and has been taken up by various writers on parapsychology. Thus, for instance, H. H. Price, former Wykeham Professor of Logic in Oxford:
It looks as if telepathically received impressions have some difficulty in crossing the threshold and manifesting themselves in consciousness. There seems to be some barrier or repressive mechanism which tends to shut them out from consciousness, a barrier which is rather difficult to pass, and they make use of all sorts of devices for overcoming it . . . Often they can only emerge in a distorted and symbolic form (as other unconscious mental contents do). It is a plausible guess that many of our everyday thoughts and emotions are telepathic or partly telepathic in origin, but are not recognized to be so because they are so much distorted and mixed with other mental contents in crossing the threshold of consciousness. [40]
The Cambridge mathematician, Adrian Dobbs, commenting on the extract I have quoted, went straight to the heart of the matter:
This is a very interesting passage. It evokes the picture of either the mind or the brain as containing an assemblage of selective filters, designed to cut out unwanted signals on neighbouring frequencies, some of which get through
in a distorted form, just as in ordinary radio reception. [41]
Cyril Burt, former Professor of Psychology, University College, London, took up the same idea:
Our sense organs and our brain operate as an intricate kind of filter which limits and directs the mind's clairvoyant powers, so that under normal conditions attention is concentrated on just those objects or situations that are of biological importance for the survival of the organism and its species . . . As a rule, it would seem, the mind rejects ideas coming from another mind as the body rejects grafts coming from another body. [42]
At this stage, the reader may have experienced a feeling of déjà vu, because earlier on I discussed some other 'filter-theories' related to the mechanisms of perception and the process of evolution. In fact, the hypothesis that there is a filtering apparatus which protects us against 'unwanted' ESP signals is merely an extrapolation from what we know about normal, sensory perception. We remember William James's famous 'blooming, buzzing multitude of sensations' which are constantly bombarding our sensory receptors, and particularly the eyes and ears. Our minds would be engulfed by chaos if we were to attend to each of these millions of stimuli impinging on them. Thus the central nervous system, and the brain, have to function as a multilevelled hierarchy of scanning, filtering and classifying devices 'which eliminate a large proportion of the sensory input as irrelevant "noise", and assemble the relevant information into coherent patterns before it is presented to consciousness'. By analogy, a similar filtering apparatus might protect our rational minds against the 'blooming, buzzing multitude' of messages, images, intuitions and coincidental happenings in the 'psycho-magnetic field' surrounding us.
We can draw a further analogy between the filtering hierarchies which protect the mind from irrelevant stimuli of sensory or extrasensory origin, and the genetic micro-hierarchies which protect the hereditary blueprint in the chromosomes against biochemical intrusions and harmful mutations which otherwise would play havoc with the stability and continuity of the species (see above, pp. 200 ff). Moreover, I also felt emboldened to suggest the existence of a Lamarckian micro-hierarchy of selective filters, which prevents acquired characteristics from interfering with the hereditary endowment -- except for those select few which respond to some vital need of the species, resulting from persistent pressures of the environment over many generations, until they seep through the filter and become part of the hereditary endowment of the human embryo, like the thick skin on its soles. This is undeniably an acquired characteristic which has become hereditary -- yet in conformity with the prevailing dogma we are asked to believe that it happened by pure chance.
In fact, the Lamarckians, as we have seen, found themselves in the same type of predicament as the parapsychologists: they were unable to produce a repeatable laboratory experiment. Even apparently clear-cut cases of Lamarckian inheritance were open to different interpretations, to polemics pursued with quasi-theological passions, and as a last resort, to accusations of fraud. Moreover, the Lamarckians were unable to provide a physiological explanation for the inheritance of acquired characteristics -- just as the parapsychologists are unable to produce a physical explanation of ESP phenomena.
This curious parallel seems to have gone unnoticed by both Lamarckians and parapsychologists; I have found no mention of it in the literature of either school. Yet it seems to me relevant, because both heresies show up the shortcomings of scientific orthodoxies, without being able to offer a comprehensive alternative beyond Johannsen's 'great central mystery' or Grassé's 'It seems possible that confronted by these problems, biology is reduced to helplessness and must hand over to metaphysics.' [43]
XIV
A GLANCE THROUGH THE KEYHOLE
1
Approaching the end of this journey, it might be useful to look back at the Prologue, in which I discussed the sudden rise of the human neocortex, and its growth at a speed without precedent in the history of evolution. We have seen that one of the consequences of this explosive process was the chronic conflict between the new brain which endowed man with his reasoning powers, and the archaic old brain, governed by instinct and emotion. The outcome was a mentally unbalanced species, with a built-in paranoid streak, mercilessly revealed by its past and present history.
But the brain explosion in the late Pleistocene also led to other consequences -- less dramatic, but no less far-reaching -- which remain to be discussed.
The crucial point is, that in creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.
An instrument has been developed in advance of the needs of its possessor . . . Natural selection could only have endowed the savage with a brain a little superior to that of the ape, whereas he possesses one very little inferior to that of the average member of our learned societies . . . [1]
This was written by no less an authority than Alfred Russell Wallace, who co-fathered (if the expression is permitted) with Darwin the theory of evolution by natural selection.* Darwin instantly realized the potentially disastrous implications of the argument, and wrote to Wallace. 'I hope you have not murdered completely your own and my child.' [2] But he had no satisfactory answer to Wallace's criticism, and his disciples swept it under the carpet.
* The first public unveiling of the theory was a joint communication to the Linnean Society by Darwin and Wallace in 1858.
Why was that criticism so important? There were two reasons. The first is merely of historical interest, in that Wallace's objection demolishes one of the cornerstones of the Darwinian edifice. Evolution in Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theory must proceed in very small steps, each of which confers some minimal selective advantage on the mutated organism -- otherwise the whole conception makes no sense, as Darwin himself kept reiterating. But the rapid evolution of the human cerebrum, which some anthropologists have compared to a 'tumorous overgrowth' [3], could by no stretch of the imagination be fitted into this theory. Hence Darwin's agonized response, and the subsequent conspiracy of silence.
The second, and by far the more important, aspect of Wallace's criticism, he himself does not seem to have fully realized. He emphasized that the 'instrument' -- the human brain -- had been 'developed in advance of the needs of its possessor'. [4] But the evolution of the human brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is also the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use; a luxury organ, which will take its owner thousands of years to learn to put to proper use -- if he ever does.
The archaeological evidence indicates that the earliest representative of homo sapiens -- Cro-Magnon man who enters the scene a hundred thousand years ago or earlier -- was already endowed with a brain which in size and shape is indistinguishable from ours. But, however paradoxical it sounds, he hardly made any use of that luxury organ. He remained an illiterate cave-dweller and, for millennium after millennium, went on manufacturing spears, bows and arrows of the same primitive type, while the organ which was to take man to the moon was already there, ready for use, inside his skull. Thus the evolution of the brain overshot the mark by a time factor of astronomical magnitude. This paradox is not easy to grasp; in The Ghost in the Machine I tried to illustrate it by a bit of science fiction which I called 'the parable of the unsolicited gift':
There was once a poor, illiterate shopkeeper in an Arab bazaar, called Ali, who, not being very good at doing sums, was always cheated by his customers -- instead of cheating them, as it should be. So he prayed every night to Allah for the present of an abacus -- that venerable contraption for adding and subtracting by pushing beads along wires. But some malicious djin forwarded his prayers to the wrong branch of the heavenly Mail Order Department, and so one morning, arriving at the bazaar, Ali found his stall transformed into a multi-storey, steel-framed building, housing the latest I.B.M. computer with instrument panels covering all the walls, with thousands of fluorescent oscillators, dials, magic eyes, et cetera; and an instruction book of several hundred pages -- which, being illi
terate, he could not read. However, after days of useless fiddling with this or that dial, he flew into a rage and started kicking a shiny, delicate panel. The shocks disturbed one of the machine's millions of electronic circuits, and after a while Ali discovered to his delight that if he kicked that panel, say, three times and afterwards five times, one of the dials showed the figure eight. He thanked Allah for having sent him such a pretty abacus, and continued to use the machine to add up two and three -- happily unaware that it was capable of deriving Einstein's equations in a jiffy, or predicting the orbits of planets and stars thousands of years ahead. Ali's children, then his grandchildren, inherited the machine and the secret of kicking the same panel; but it took hundreds of generations until they learned to use it even for the purpose of simple multiplication. We ourselves are Ali's descendants, and though we have discovered many other ways of putting the machine to work, we have still only learned to utilise a very small fraction of the potentials of its millions of circuits. For the unsolicited gift is of course the human brain. As for the instruction book, it is lost -- if it ever existed. Plato maintains that it did once -- but that is hearsay. [5]