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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Contra Columnis Quintus XV

From Parasites to Charlatans

A Circuitous but Objective Route to Understanding the Latter through the Former

What is fifth column?  Short answer?  A parasite.  It would manifest first as symptomology that seems out of the ordinary for the entity in which it is operative.  This might be in various forms, but the overall condition is that the organism which is operative as a parasite is not an actual faculty of the organism that is the "host".  That is one distinguishing feature.  Some biologists speculate or hypothesize that hosts and parasites may co-evolve insofar as there is evidence that in some cases, such as with Ophiocordyceps unilateralis in its specific relations which, in different species of Ophiocordyceps, coincide with only some preferred species which is/are alone susceptible to it.  But this is just a fine-tuning of a process wherein one organism invades the "private biosphere" of another.

In cases when the theory of evolution narrates the entire discussion of biogenesis, it is decided by the big wigs of the subject that single-cell life forms evolved by certain conditions which favored the development of genetic structures which are enclosed by conditions which favor separating those structures from what is otherwise the "proper environment" for their existence in the first place.  While that might sound chicken-vs-eggy, let it stand as the supposition to prefer rather than aliens, god, or spontaneous abiogenesis without any sensible or scientifically articulable cause.  Let the narrative stand.  Then that means that a symbiosis developed so that some certain chemical compounds, probably the most miraculous which could ever self-assemble in any environment known to man, and certainly it is convenient that a cell wall formed, at whatever point in time, along with it.  Each aspect of this entity seems to be fine with the other.  At some point the family grew, and due to being synergistically inducted into the cellular game, a certain other entity with its own proper existence, what we now come to find in the form of "mitochondria", went from being some sort of independent bacterial entity into becoming an organelle of this cellular being. Chloroplasts are said to have evolved from photosynthetic bacteria.

Whether this was in the best interests, in some higher-dimensional telic space, of those bacteria is perhaps not known or likely to be knowable by the current curators of biological knowledge at the bleeding/cutting edge of the science.  It is probably as debatable as the subject of "just how" such a process of evolution could be modeled as the effect of a specific and unambiguous, concretely causal process.  But it seems that these entities get along well enough in their composite condition so that greater and greater complexities of organic structure can be reliably built upon their union.  It seems that organelles traded off further evolution in some original environment which they shared with the cellular life which inducted them into itself, in exchange for the smaller domain of evolved action, however enhanced, which is to be obtained in that interior cellular existence.

That might not have been the fairest of trades, but let's say it was a decent deal given the intelligible alternatives to that condition, and let's say divergent opportunities are to be left out of the discussion.  The takeaway is that the cellular life which includes various organelles into their composition demonstrate a homeostasis where dead weight is not favored and that there are processes which keep honest the activities of the symbiotic combination.  A great range of viable life forms have evolved from that basic unit of complexity, most forms of life as we know it in this realm fit into this class.  But this is reasonably considered as but an opportunity for further subsumptions of the basic cellular life into either larger-scale forms of increasing complexity, or else being abducted and enslaved for digestion or some other use by other cellular life, either of similar or of greater size and complexity.  Or else they may be infiltrated by some simpler forms of ordered chemical forms and taken advantage of that way, such as by viruses.

This pattern is found amply enough in individual living entities in their relations to one another.  An amoeba may eat a paramecium simply by absorbing it through its outer layers of biomass, and a U.S. Special Forces operative may grab a lizard off a tree while running through a jungle, bite its head off and drink its blood without skipping a beat.  It may be the main form of survival for a life form (as in stable predator/prey relationships), or it may be merely opportunistic (unless somebody likes lizard heads as a regular part of his diet).  The overall pattern is that whatever is ingested is not going to be integrated into the incorporating organism without being destroyed at the baseline of its prior existence as it was when it was independent of the new organism.  That's called being killed and eaten.  If it is done all at once "from the outside" so that the eaten is inducted into the body of the eater, then that is considered devouring in the proper sense.  If the devourer enters into the body of the devoured, then that is considered "parasitism". It seems that this is not more complex either way, but is basically the same process as seen from different perspectives of scale, and so employing different mechanisms and logistics.

While there is a greyish area between these categories of symbiosis, so that they may overlap in some ways, perhaps coinciding or perhaps alternating or substituting for one another, they always amount to the destruction in whole or in part of the independent operation of the targeted organism so that the devourer/parasite may conduct itself in a way preferred by or necessary for the existence of its species.  The raw materials of, or opportunities for, the targeted organism are somehow subsumed under the restrictions necessary for the benefit of the aggressor organism in either case.  So take a mosquito.  No species of mosquito that I know of requires blood in order not to starve per specimen.  But per species, many species of mosquito will die without the organic compounds found in the blood of warm-blooded animals.  They survive nutritively on the organisms they can devour in water, and on nectar of plants, much as do butterflies.  Some are more like the "Mosquito Lion" which devours scum, basically.  Some ravenously seek out the larvae of other mosquitos.  The issue with the blood is that in most of these species if the female does not devour some blood then she will not produce the eggs required for her species to reproduce.

If all of that species' females cannot find that needed protein from the usual source (which their own bodies cannot produce), then that species will not reproduce itself even one more generation, and will die, whether each specimen can find the usual food or not.  The specimens thrive in their usual way, but the species starves and dies. So the mosquito does not per se "devour" blood as needed nutrition, but rather does so as a need upon which it is dependent for its existence as a species as such, or "qua" species.  In that way it is primarily a parasite qua species, but a typical hunter, forager and scavenger otherwise.  So the key difference is that while devouring is a process of ingestion, parasitism is a process of dependence which may or may not be nutritive for the parasite.

To be sure, the purpose is to "devour" the elements of the organism which are targeted by the predator/parasite, and this needn't be nutritive per se, though it can be. Perhaps it is both nutritive and necessary for reproduction in a compound way that is seen in the way that chiggers, ticks, and fleas survive.  They not only need a specific sort of host to serve as prey, but also that prey will serve as host.  They need to eat the blood of their host as their only form of nutrition, and at the same time need that same sort of prey to be host to their mating and reproduction cycles.  All sorts of insect life boast a wide variety of these processes of dovetailing of attributes of "devouring" and "parasitism".  But what of Ophiocordyceps in their relations to the various ant species to which they are individually adapted to act as parasites?  Well, they devour them internally in a way that leads to a behavior change in the host so that the specimens which are infected will take their "guests" for a ride to a specific place for a final act of destroying the host so that the parasitic "guest" can reproduce properly by emitting spores from that location (it is a fungus).  So while other fungi may feed on rotting corpses, and so does this one, this one will also invade the living organism and control its nervous system so that it and often many others of its species will (in tandem) operate to ensure specifically and mainly the reproductive needs of the fungus which has hijacked their entire organism for that purpose.

The mosquito may be considered to be exoparasitic, Ophiocordyceps may be considered endoparasitic, and fleas somewhere in the middle, as they eat blood on the outside, but they lay their eggs on the inside of their host.  Perhaps they should be considered "meso" parasitic.  Whatever the case, they do something which is more tailored toward an asymmetric dependence where the parasite needs the host for more than just nutrition, but also as an environmental condition for their own survival. Some are less specialized in their aggression, but have special conditions which obtain in a way specialized in a way similar to the examples already given. Toxoplasma gondii will survive well in many warm-blooded organisms, but it reproduces sexually only in felines.  Felines, for their part, seem to benefit from being host to these parasites insofar as it seems to assist their hunting of smaller organisms (especially rodents) which are infected by the same entity.  It involves a dependency that is strongly in favor of the Toxoplasma gondii if it continues, and not proportionately in favor of the feline either way.  But whatever it is about the feline small intestine, it is favorable for sexual reproduction in Toxo, so they have a special gain from their host in this case which is not reciprocated in a proportionate manner for felines they infect. Cats will survive and continue to eat without mice who are affected by Toxo, and Toxo will survive without felines and continue to reproduce in some form, but not sexually (unless they adapt somehow, which may or may not occur).  Let's say that the gains for Toxo are far more robust than for their hosts, and are even dangerous to most of them, and may become so for felines they infect.  Cat's don't infect Toxo and put them through the same exposure to risk.  So the asymmetry is apparent even in such cases where some sort of benefit accrues to both species. It might be said that while the toxo is at the service of the feline up to a point, it is simply a derivative of the way that the feline is at the disposal of the toxo

Devouring is a more general process which may or may not involve specialized dependencies between species, and which may require only some portion of what the prey class of entities possess.  It may even be, relative to the organisms involved, symbiotic (such as with certain fish who clean the teeth of sharks).  And since Toxoplasma gondii seem to devour host cells as part and parcel of their reproductive process, for them there is a fusion of devouring and reproducing which depend upon living cells of the host, and so is almost a complete subduction of "metabolic" processes of ingestion into a reproductive act (in the way they invade host cells so as to create reproductive environments which convert that environment's raw materials into the actual reproduction of the toxo themselves).  Toxo literally eat in order to reproduce, and cannot do this outside of a host cell.  So while there is a symbiosis in both cases, the parasitic form destroys its host, in part or in whole, in order to carry out its life cycle successfully, whether from the inside or the outside of the organism which contains the needed facilities. Devouring is simply the assimilative aspect which interfaces the relation between parasite and host, and in fact all predators may be understood to be exoparasitic upon their prey.  

In the same way that a scavenger depends upon the resources it scavenges, and in the same way that a predator depends upon its prey, so does the parasite depend upon its host, and all amount to the former devouring the latter.  The main difference is that those forms of this dependent relation which are called "parasitic" are often more specialized, more asymmetric in ways that span the entire life cycle, or parts of it, in ways not merely restricted to devouring, and asymmetrically favor the parasite in ways which are insidious when compared with straightfoward forms of scavenging and devouring that are seen in other relationships between life forms and that upon which they feed.  But there are analogous forms of "parasitism" which transcend the narrow confines of infectious behaviors of microorganisms vis-a-vis much larger "host environments", and involve similar sorts of dynamic asymmetries which can sometimes be partly mutualistic, and this in ways that are either mildly or severely differentially advantageous to the organisms involved. 

It is in a more macroscopic form, and hence in a more abstract form, that we will examine the fraudulence of fifth-columnry, as though through a biological lens of analogy which should therefore bear out the essence of the matter of fifthery in terms amenable to a semiotic discussion.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Contra Columnis Quintus XIV

Symbiosis:  The Good, the Okay, and the Horrific

A proper foundational discussion of the varied forms of life at their root domains is quite a challenge for even specialists in the field, it would seem.  This is due, the evidence suggests, to the very complex and multi-dimensional aspect of root life processes as they develop at basic single-celled levels and also as they develop in various ways as to their rudimentary processes of life.  Just taking the category of life known as "algae" reveals that there is a great deal of overlap and combinatory variation in how the organism may move, may ingest nutrients, may reproduce, although it seems that they are all photosynthesizers and can reproduce asexually and sexually.  But even such a root process, such as reproduction, can be varied in the same species of "protist" (a largely defunct, but in some ways still used, category of life), which are a form of eukaryote (cellular organisms with certain well-defined features of their structure, as to internal and external features).   Take the parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii, and just read about the weird that life in this world demonstrates RIGHT at the ROOT of its existence.

This thing basically lives inside any warm-blooded animal, and just reproduces by splitting itself into copies, much like a cloning process.  (I'd do a more thorough study before presenting this, but this town is FIFTH-THICK to the point that it is like swimming through a pool of algae...  lesser organisms would have suffocated by now, it is SO DAMNED RIFE HERE, HINT CLUE). As this "thing" reproduces that way in those types of animals generally, it has a special condition in which it will sexually reproduce instead.  That condition is the lining of a cat's small intestine, basically. How charming, yes?  Life, the "greatest gift of all", the greatest gift and most beautiful and wonderous thing ever, is basically an opportunistic freakazoid.  The result is that we can find that it does "its thing", and this is fine for it, but there are effects it has on the life forms upon which it "coat-tails".  It is hypothesized that there is a psychological affinity for the presence of cats that is engendered in the host, which makes it more likely that a host will tolerate or even seek out proximity to cats. Only the inner secretes of rodent and cat-lady psychology can reveal this for sure.

But imagine if it really did lead that mouse or rat to more incidents of interaction with a cat.  Good for the cat, good for the toxo, and good for the suicidal rodent.  What if the rodent host were not suicidal before the toxo infection?  Doesn't matter, it will have an enhanced likelihood of helping get toxo into sexual relations with one another.  What does it do with the cat? Perhaps it makes the cat find rodents more appetizing than they would have normally.  What if there were some sort of disease borne by rodents which would infect a cat if the cat would eat a rodent?  Then perhaps that would be to the disadvantage of that cat, but would perhaps also shore back the prevalence of toxo-bearing cats as well.  There might also be a harm to the toxo population in that vicinity, but overall the cats and rodents are suffering the most, and the toxo is rodeoing the macro of this visceral drama.

There may be other vicissitudes, but the overall situation is that the micro-level organisms can basically invade larger-scale organisms and get what they want from the deal, sometimes to the assistance, or sometimes to the detriment of the host organisms, and for purposes all their own regardless.  There may be more "weaponized" forms of parasitic activity.  Take for example Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a particularly heinous form of parasite from the fungi kingdom of life. What this thing can do, and what dynamics there are which ride with its actions on ant life, are fairly astounding when one thinks of the low level of complexity such life forms have in themselves when compared with far more complex life forms and their actions and interactions.  Yet some parallels emerge. 

The imporant thing to note right now, though, is that there is a stark asymmetry between the ant species and the fungal parasite which takes advantage of it.  The ant is adapting to its environment, with or without any such parasite.  The parasite is invading the ant and using the ant to create its own "meta-environment" which includes as one of its composing elements some aspect of the action of the host life form so that some or all of some aspect or aspets of that "host" (more like "victim") can be hijacked, in essence, so as to serve the parasites needs as a first priority.  Just look at the way this goes on in this particular form between ants as host and Ophiocordyceps and its various species. Go to all those provided links and see for yourself what sort of "asymmetry" it is that I'm talking about.  Try it out from the perspective of the host, then of the parasite, and see if they don't have a distinction that is about as fundamental, perhaps more insidiously malevolent, than a predator/prey distinction. (Predators just outright eat prey, so while it is more blatant what goes on, it is really not that different as to outcome, as the prey serves the predator rather than the other way around).

But these forms of life, such as cats and mice, are able to exist independently of one another.  The fact that when a cat sees a mouse it is likely to put it through hell before eating it, and then getting a joyous purr out of the resultant nutrition that the mouse provides, is meant mainly in this context to underscore the asymmetry between the two.  It isn't that sometimes the cat eats the mouse, but sometimes the mouse eats the cat.  A hungry cat will find and eat a mouse, and that about covers it.  When it comes to the way parasites take advantage of such an opportunity (toxo, for example), it may be more or less aggressive upon the lifestyles of those who are infected by the parasites.  Maybe they just like hitching rides, maybe they like having sex inside the small intestines that the host has which are just perfect for their mood, or maybe they like eating the organism from the inside out after controlling their behavior in a way that suits the parasite, but not necessarily the host.

Let's say that there are more benevolent, cooperative relationships that can obtain between animals.  Perhaps one will help the other, and in turn receive a benefit from that process, or from another process.  There are fish that clean the teeth of sharks, and the sharks don't eat those fish.  Both get a benefit.  There are possibly as many permutations where animals and plants, et al. can get along without devouring one another, but it will be found in most cases that they get along precisely because they are eating, usually some other species or its remains, or else being protected from being eaten or from bad hygiene.  Certain relationships in life forms are simply mutually beneficial, and help that group work together to go further than they would have in what is basically a very hostile environment to which their adaptations together work out better than if either are apart.  That's convenient when it happens, but it is the exception that got infected by and swallowed up by the rule, so to speak.

So in those cases, however, we can see a more reciprocal relationship in which at least to some degree there is symmetry, though it may be only an isomer of a truly balanced exchange.  One side may get more than the other out of the deal, though it is not in itself a zero-sum game.  Perhaps another life form could come along and serve as a sort of competition for that circumstance, and offer a better return than the life form it might replace in the relationship of mutual assistance.  There are a variety of aspects and dimensions to this idea, which is quite broad enough to include the relations of all life forms as such or rather, as found in some form of biospheric relation to one another.  This idea is called "symbiosis".

Because it is imperative for the analysis of fifth columnry, I will focus on the parasitic forms that are known to exist.  After this I will draw appropriate analogies between the different mechanisms of life and the way that these parasitic forms of symbiosis affect them.  Then I will show how actually existing rackets that human beings create and endure are, as it were, recapitulations of those biological analogies.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Contra Columnis Quintus XIII

The Modes of Life in the Species per  the Specimen

Over the Chiasm of Reproduction/Regeneration

Having found the nexus attribute which enables functional and structural translations between instances of a species, or specimens, and the aggregate forms of a specimen's existence, its species, one can now turn to examine the other attributes that have analogies between them.  Unsurprising, they will be functions of the same sorts of utilities found in the specimen, just as the chiasma that make them cognate must evidence some permutations of the same content and the therefore the same form, or else are derived from the same forms and so yield similar "action-on-content" which manifests some sort of goal-directed, functional utility.

The attributes of the living organism which are most similar to their relevant analogues in the species "as a group" are those which most directly reveal the relations between specimens in such groups, and those are explained best in a different order than with the specimen.  So I will start with the reproductive process and proceed accordingly.  After a new specimen is created by reproduction, it must develop and proceed to act as an adult would.  That requires that it be in a condition, when produced, that is in an environment compatible with development.  As the body grows in its development, the most important aspects of that development will correlate with the need to mature its tissues, grow in size, and develop behaviors of adaptation appropriate for its species.  These all happen in tandem with the ongoing activities of the adults who will rear it.

As that process goes forward, the developing specimen will acquire its respiration on its own from the environment, and in the case of more complex organisms, will in some cases require nourishment to be supplied by the adults of the species.  It turns out that if this is not the case, such as with some insects, amphibians, and reptiles just as examples, then the young will have perhaps some period of being with the parents, if any, and then must simply fend for themselves (as their own parents did, of course). If it is that they are cared for, then their nourishment will come from the parents and other adults of the species within the nearest "group" established around that reproductive occurence (the tribe, pride, murder, brood, etc).  That is the first evidence of what might be called a circulatory aspect of the species.  Nourishment, along with the basic genetic information, are transferred to the youngest members of the species by their elders, and they develop as individuals within the group just as the tissues of the adults are nourished by their own circulatory systems by a system which supplied those materials to them (digestive system, etc).

This is a subset of a larger system of exchanges between the group and the environment, so that they decide among themselves how to go about finding their nourishment in tandem, or in spite of, one another.  This process would have to do with the grazing patterns and formations of the group (vis-a-vis potential predators), or else the way that mature adults will fan out to take over separate areas which confederate into a patchwork of seperate domains within an overall territory belonging to none of them in particular (such as with eagles, who don't flock), and then, within these arrangements it is decided how to go about treating that which becomes their food, so that hierarchies manifest as pecking orders and those who are fed first and best versus those who are fed last and least well.  That reveals a pattern found commonly in nature, here representatively considered in a few forms simply to expose the kind which has the diverse forms within it.

That would be the circulatory system.  As to the digestive system, that would represent the actual systematic relationship to the ecosystem which bears out cycles of predator/prey, forager/foraged, and overall the group of specimens and the resources of the environment. That is where the taking in of the nourishment makes contact with the available supply of it, and that is where the degree of supply, as to abundance or scarcity, will relate to the capacity of the group and its members to obtain, per individual and per group, the needed sustenance that is to be acquired. This is a bare discussion of that attribute in terms of this context, but that should be sufficient to outline how that pattern resembles the pattern of digestion within the organism as an individual in terms of the organism qua species.  It's relation to the "inner" economizing of the gained resources (of whatever kind, but especially of food), will also bear out the same or at least properly analogous patter found between the digestion of food and its assimilation through the circulatory system of an individual specimen.

These are born out first simply because they have the most bearing on the individual in development as it is dependent upon the group.  This is not the proper beginning of the group per se.  It's beginning, as a group beyond the strict process of reproduction, is actually the adaptively communicative mechanisms of the group which bear out the creation of its hierarchies and pecking orders, its forms of relating to the environment, including its directives for nesting, migration, reproductive privileges, etc.  That is correlative to respiration.  Respiration is the privilege of each organism with respect to the same resource, the air (or the water, etc) in which they all participate without it being scarce enough to require a pecking order as would food, or a spot to drink, or a spot to bathe or sun, etc.  As this process becomes more complicated for the organism, as the organism itself becomes more complex, then more forms of communication are developed, some of which involve the "surplus potential" for action which enables the development of meaninful gestures to be evidenced which allow each specimen to suggest to the others what it wants to express and manifest, and they may then take this information into account as they go through all of their other processes.  Just as the "oxygen" of the in-breath comingles with the other processes in a way as to enable and limit, and hence govern their engagements, the species must develop protocols for sharing or refusing to share resources as a species, and one which enables some specimens and their reproductive projects to proceed, whether all do or not, so that the species can proceed (or else this process will end for all concerned).

So as they communicate and relate actively in ways that enable all forms of their cooperation (at least sufficient for mating rituals and not devouring all their young!), so does respiration seem to lay the overall groundwork as a limiting factor of the potential of all cells and tissues, organs and systems, and the organism as a whole to continue with all of its other processes.  It is more than just this sort of "elemental building block" in these processes, on both ends of the analogy.  Yet for now it will suffice to express this much about it. 

So if these organisms can get this much figured out, depending upon their forms of relations as a species, then they can each take care of their appropriate business as specimens yet still not fail to provide for reproductive necessity.  That is why they still exist.  This potential to get along or seperate as necessary, but always communicate these requirements sufficiently as to not require unnecessary loss of resources to disputations, this strategic inhibition of conspecific aggression, is what must be present or else the group and all its future generations will be eliminated from existence (except for the Highlander...).

But for this to occur, then they must acquire patterns of activity that clearly integrate with their different purposive behaviors so that the individuals can coexist within the appropriate boundaries as individuals sufficient to enable the development of a long-term-suvivable group capable of continuing as a species.  This would involve the capacity to find a habitat within which their operations can be successful, as species and as specimens.  So they will have to mobilize as individuals in ways that work as groups for migrations (when that is their custom), or else as individuals spread through territories in ways that, concerning choiceness and fittingness, bespeak yet another form of hierarchical delineation among them.  

These all represent the flux of a species in its existence that is stable and "internal" to it, which is a sort of homeostatic "motility" that expresses all of those features that are expressive of the species, just as would be the integration of all the mechanisms of the organism into a stable form which would represent the entity "at rest in a relatively neutral environment". As to the "mobility" of the species, this would be its cross-adaptability toward varied environments, and would indicate the more complex range of its potential as it would be actuated by those environments which may vary in range widely in some, but probably not all parameters.  These would "select for" specialized expressions of the species so that require the sophistication of an articulation of that species better suited for them.  It would represent the mobility of the organism as species in its ability to navigate an increasingly distal and peripheral set of circumstances with respect to its already expressed baseline of adaptive potential.  Note that in both cases here "adaptiveness" is the key notion that connects the relations of the species within its own frame, and the relations of the species to larger frames of environments that may vary from what is optimal, whether toward or away from it.

The only aspect which remains is one which happens to catalyze all of these other processes with the greatest impact when compared with any of them in that respect.  Both as to developmental processes of the specimen growing up, developmental processes of the entire species as whole, the mobilization of the group or the individual, the selection processes for finding ecosystemic and intra-specific orderings and homeostases, something analogous to a "neuro-glandular" system is involved, and so there must be some comparative systems and structures in place for the species which would embody for that collective organism something analogous to what is embodied in the individual.  That's not too difficult to determine.

What else remains of the species except for its capacity to devise more and more sophisticated means of approaching all of its developmental and adaptive relations to other members of the species and also the environment (to include relations to other life forms in the ecosystems they inhabit).  The accumulated heritage of customs, habits, and other behavioral adjustments that are integrated into the behavior of one generation, and passed on to the ensuing generations by the concatenations of developmental imitation and genetic recapitulation vis-a-vis environmental necessities will ensure this continual regulation and enhancement of those features of the species, just as similar adjustments made by the neuro-glandular systems of the individuals performs a similar role for the individual specimen in its vicissitudes of existence (though always framed in terms of the group at least through reproductive necessity, leaving out speculative worlds other than the one used here, as discussed in the immediately previous in this series).

Yet there is a fundamental nuance here that must be born out.  The individual entity did develop within an environment which enables it to grow into a fully functional, relatively seperate individual within whatever kind of life form that it is a genetic member.  Yet it must encounter all conditions, within its species and which are simply its own response-cycle to its own environment as rooted on its own entity per se.  That is tantamount to individuation as a process usually more fully expressed at more complex and more intelligent levels of life.  That also bears out the potential of the entire species as epitomized in this behavior in the way the species, as grouped forms, economizes individuation across common, bordering, and diverse territories.  And this is the way that individuation literally determines the form and direction of the evolution of the group so that it behaves, qua species, as though it were an individual which seeks to best economize its processes within itself and with respect to its environments.  The difference is that this is an aggregative process taking place over long periods of time, over large areas of space, and in a multi-generational process that cannot, in "non-Methusalean" worlds of life, be achieved by any individual "in itself".  Yet, it will be recapitulated in some individuals more than others, generation after generation, until its legacy develops into further changes in the organism "as a whole".  

And this will all find itself expressed anew in new generations, and most epitomally in certain individuals of those generations, so that we find a more significant meaning of the saying that "phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny".  And while I did not mention it as a fundamental feature of life per specimen, it obtains its best context and demonstration in contrast with the performance of the species per se, and respresents the power of the actual, the existential, and the particular over the potential, the universal, and the general.  The "species" does not live, actually.  The specimen is what lives.  And this is how life is the "practical joke of the particular upon the general".  

Now on to how this process varies in ways specific to the study of what are called, on the human tier of these phenomena, "rackets".  And with this study we will see how life is rather the "practical joke of the general upon the particular" when it reaches a systematic form.  This will start with a study of how such phenomena of opportunistic exploitation are found "in nature" without necessarily any reference to the human variety.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Contra Columnis Quintus XII

Analogues Across Domains of Life as Specimen and Species

Reproduction

In order to discuss the nature of life considered on the scale of a group of individuals reproducing after their kind, that is, a species, it is well to go on with the discussion of life's attributes per specimen in regards to the last attribute I have yet to discuss, with which everyone is familiar, reproduction.  Reproduction needn't be sexual, and is simply a process of reiterating a life form's bodily information into a fresh form starting from a simple beginning, and then developing into another full grown entity of the same kind, most often with the very same capability to reproduce (though this may not always be the case, depending on the species, taking the adult forms of ants, bees and wasps as an example where not all specimens reproduce, though the species does "as a whole" through the queening process).  While it is not the same as regeneration per specimen, it is still analogous, as at minimum the effect is to create one "newer" specimen than was before.  After damage, regeneration makes the specimen newer, and so creates "on newer specimen than before".  Reproduction does this in a variety of ways yet does it by creating an entirely new specimen out of the information contained in the predecessor(s).  This has a relation to regeneration in that there is a "habitable" zone in the organization of life forms so that if they cannot regenerate at a rate which exceeds the forces of entropy, then they must reproduce at a rate faster than the deaths of specimens, of there will be NO specimens even if it is just due to time passing sufficiently.

So it seems that for whatever reason, owe it to entropy, perhaps, specimens of a form of life, however adaptable that they are, end up breaking down and dying.  This happens even if they aren't directly injured by anything in their environment.  If reproduction is in their capability, then whatever information about their life form specific to that individual that is capable of being recapitulated in a new life form specimen has an opportunity to be passed on through the transference of that information as genetic code embedded in the deoxyribonucleic acid compounds that are in the cells of the organism.  It seems that the impulse for this to occur is built into the code of the organism in such a fundamental way that it is part of the definition of being that organism. 

All species do this and have always done this, at least to the best of my knowledge, which I confess is scant on the subject of biology, certainly as compared with what that knowledge ought to be (by now).  I do posit that there is a likely cause for the need for this process in life as we know it in this domain, this "world".  I take it to be a function of the laws of physics pertaining to the generation and decay of order as such.  If something did not already exist, say some ordered form of elements, compounds, and complexes of these, then that is because the sufficient cause for this did not yet exist.  Yet if that is the case, then that means that it is not "natural" for that to exist.  Not natural unless the prerequisites for the existence of that entity happen to occur.  Yet what is the difference between this situation for such an entity, and "death" for an organism, after that death has taken place? What is the difference between the "before" and the "after" concerning the existence of something (as to apparent conditions of the events where the entity "isn't")?  It seems that, just in itself, there is no difference.

So if there is not a proper impetus for something to exist, it is "destroyed in advance of being created" one might say.  But let's say that there is the potential for it to exist that is not yet manifest as an actuality.  Then that is as if to say that, if it is to exist, then the pre-emptively preventative destruction of its existence had to be eliminated from the active field of conditions.  How is that?  Well, whatever the conditions, if they don't lead to the existence of an entity, then they are in their current condition, by default, preventative of it.  It's as if the entity wants to exist but is being "frustrated" by circumstances that disallow it, which are a subset of all the conditions that are "not conducive" to it.  When the conditions conducive to the existence of an entity arise, then that means the dispelling of the conditions which had frustrated it, and so therefore it means the promotion of the existence of the entity to the point that it manifests in actual existence.

So whatever leads to the existence of life, surely it had some frustrating conditions through which to work before manifesting.  Let us just say that it is necessary, at a minimum, for conditions of an environment in which life would exist to be without any forces preventative of it being sufficient to kill them faster than they can regenerate or reproduce or be replaced in some other fashion.  Then whatever remains that would enable that life to manifest and continue to manifest can be supplied without frustration so as to lead to the formation/continued formation of that life.  It is necessary for the limiting conditions to be absent (itself a negative "necessary cause" which is "present" in the absence, so to speak), and it is sufficient for the necessary causes (which have positive form) also to be present, simultaneously, in order for life to possibly exist in a way accessible from the world of consideration.  One might even just say that the absence of limiting factors must be a part of the conditions considered "sufficient", though we may not yet know what triggers the actual event.  It must not be raining cats and dogs on a match, or it will not light.  If it has been lit, then "it must not have been raining cats and dogs on it" is the same statement said in another way, without undue regard for tense.  Yet, the condition of it not raining cats and dogs on the match, while necessary for it to be lit just then or at any time, is not sufficient for it to be lit.  In the same way for life.

So there is some sort of difficulty with things coming to life in this world as complex organisms.  They tend to be killed in way more circumstances than in which they can or would survive, let alone in which they could survive well. So for these conditions to be optimal in such a way as to generate an immortal life form (unless killed by force), would seem a bit far-fetched unless that organism had existed as long as that environment had existed.  But we are saved from this speculation by rememebering that some sufficient cause may have had to be in existence in addition to such a hospitable arrangement of forces acting in the environment, and which are directly acting on the organism (even if just by proxy).  At least we can say that if that process is not persistently acting on and through that organism, then the organism will not be able to survive even in the most hospitable environment. That condition met, it will survive as long as the counteracting forces do not wear out its influence or blockade up to some critical point.  This opens up the discussion of catalytic factors that may be variable and dynamic.

Let that "acting force" be the homeostatic relations between the genetic material and the raw materials processed into and out of the organism, and all attendent actions that the organism takes in itself and in its environment.  Let that be disturbed in some way that gradually wears down that homeostasis because the genetic material, while possessing "information", is not itself mere information, but arrangements of molecules which embody that information.  Let's say that because of the forces of entropy, which is that in a closed system the elements contained therein tend to reach only some basic form of order which, without a constant supply of fresh causal impetus from outside that system, cannot reach up to some other level of order which is complex beyond that baseline threshold.

Let's say that the life forms which are caused to exist with a reproductive capacity could live on and reproduce forever, but that some force cut that short in a way that amounts to killing it.  But let's say that conditions come about for that species so that the specimens within it, while potentially immortal, now begin to wear down on a basic genetic level and cannot, as specimens, be restored for some reason.  Then while reproduction might not have been for the sake of preventing the death of the species due to decay, it just works out that it does, just as it had prevented these potentially immortal beings from being killed off faster than they can reproduce up to this point (imagine Klingon-levels of active warfare, or Borg levels of self-reingineering requiring new assimilation of specimens and species).  But now there is an issue where the environment on a basic physical level cannot prevent such life from forming, but these life forms cannot prevent the basic fact of their existence from being temporary due to genetic decay.  So the forces which generate life are stronger in one way than the forces which destroy them (excluding brute killing forces other than the passage of time and entropy).  So, let's just assume that this is a world where such conditions obtain. Therefore, the only life forms that could survive over great lengths of time would be those which had a reproductive function.  Assuming that these processes "evolved", then this would be all the stronger of a case for that explanation, since it would take very long periods of time for these developing life forms to complexify in adaptive and stable ways so as to lead up to the level of complexity that is found in animal life.

Whatever the cause of the original simple forms of life, that must have been at the same time the cause of their capacity to reproduce themselves, or at least in those cases where it was, then it was those life forms which continued to evolve since they could as a species accomplish changes in their overall structure, through changes in their genetic code, which the individual could not, and so only those could develop beyond the simplest of beginnings.  This might be quite different in worlds where the life spans of the same organisms were very much different.  But by the same token, the cellular root of the development of the organism per specimen may not have the same plasticity upon reaching adulthood as it does during development.  But if it did, then perhaps constructive mutations could occur within the life span of a single organism rather than merely across many generations of it through reproduction of the simple form of the organism and its adaptations gradually during its developmental period and, in some species, its recombination with other specimens and their genetic information, which may have adapted in ways convivial toward a recombination leading to a constructive adaptation.  As it is, per specimen, the neuro-glandular system is the closest thing to such adaptibility which can exceed the coercive entropy of the environment beyond merely sustaining homeostatic integrity.  It seems a wonder that it can't influence the genetic material, outside of laboratory and selective breeding pressures, but can otherwise completely regulate the bodily systems.  But there is evidence of degrees of malleability in this regard.

But those Methusalean worlds are merely of speculative interest, and could probably manifest right here in this world if it weren't so damned sabotaged against the majority of life forms by a seemingly malevolent intent.

So the species, as such, is simply the group of individuals of a common genetic type which are derived from the same basic code to the extent that they either had a common ancestor, or else were created from conditions which made them genetic duplicates or near duplicates of one another.  There is more than one entity, and they are quite like one another except for variations in their forms that indicate exactly the sort of variances of genetic code which are able to vary within the species without changing its fundamental character enough to make the specimens incompatible with one another for reproduction, common projects of activity for survival and flourishing, and for evolving in the same environments.  On the same token, they are distinctions which do not make them of the same species with other species, though they share similarities in these traits so that they are superficially similar.  An emperor penguin and a human both are bipedal, but they are not compatible as one species.  A chameleon and an alligator are both reptiles, but they have very different traits as well, and just both being "cold blooded" doesn't count as a sufficient complement of fundamental traits so as to unite them into one species.  Alligators and crocodiles are much closer together, but are still very different and also treat one another as very different.  

It would seem that however this system of behavioral proclivities leading to reproduction was achieved, it was developed in such a way that organisms generally have the initiative to engage in that behavior with only the provocation of a condition making it possible and feasible.  It seems they can identify their own kind without difficulty, so that even two wildly swirling butterflies can manage to maintain contact with one another on a windy day which makes one wonder how their powers of sight and pheremone detection manage the task.  It seems a function that is inherent to all life forms capable of reproduction to attempt it correctly with their own kind and that is why those species still exist, since the specimens die off and any complex organisms that are around have been around for a long time, and are thought by many to have inherited their forms over an evolutionary chain from very ancient and prior forms which all seemed to diverge from some common ancestor of originating protoplasm.  This is a rough description of what is probably quite similar to the logic of the actual evolutionary model.  Ask an evolutionary biologist and/or geneticist for details.

The organisms that make up as species must exist together at least long enough to reproduce their kind, and each specimen involved in that task must be able to survive into maturity and must be able to survive long enough to find a mate and reproduce.  And this must, by and large, take place with a success rate that outstrips the forces of destruction and inconvenience which are arrayed against them at every turn.  So there is already an interesting similarity between the species and the specimen right here.  The group would not exist if its specimens did not have it in them as individuals to survive (through development, regeneration, and adaptive action) and reproduce.  The individuals would not exist unless the species had sufficient cooperative capabilities among its members so as to not kill one another wantonly, survive well enough together and near-enough to one another  so as to meet and reproduce, and then to cooperate in some way sufficiently conducive to the further development of new specimens, a new generation of the species, which will carry in its genetic code the same capabilities as its parents had, and therefore ensure that they'll have a further generation of decendent specimens beyond their own immediate decendents and themselves ad infinitum, just as their ancestors did for them.  There is already a clear pattern of homeostatic and cyclical behavior that limits these specimens' activities with respect to one another and also engenders changes in their development through their relations to one another (roles, etc).

More on this and other attributes of the species, which are analogues of the attributes of living specimens of those (and other) species, in the next article.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Contra Columnis Quintus XI

On the Actions of Specimens of Life Across All Kinds

Foundational Ideas which Descriptively Identify and Enable the Understanding of Life Generally and per specimens on the Way to Further Discussion of Species and Ecosystems, as a Fitting Context for the Discussion of Certain Forms of Such Possibilities which may be Rightly Called "Injust" and "Wrong" in Objective Ways Relevant to a Discussion of Rackets which I Understand to be Quintessentialized in Fifth Columnry


In continuation from X in this series, I will discuss those analogues between ecosystems, species, and specimens of life form, and this as a foundation for coherently discussing, on an objective basis, what certain "rackets" literally are, and what are their fundamental bases outside the domain, hotly contested mostly by buffoons, of moral psychology.  Later I will peel back this discussion in order to demonstrate certain truths in that causally subvenient domain (in yet one more way), which is to be done in order of its own layers of explantory and causal subvenience: Axio-ontology (True Metaphysics), Morality, Ethics, Politics (in all kingdoms and clades of life), and in this world a special form of science known as "physics" and all of its offshoots, the most "metaphysical" of which is mathematics.  In this current analysis, weighted toward objective descriptors that nevertheless will be directly relevant to the other domains I have here just mentioned, I will discuss the biological analogues between domains of life so as later to expose their relevance to the discussion of fifth column rackets of various kinds.  

Looking at the first one I listed, we mention first the respiratory system, and it is quite clear that this has different meanings on different layers of the analogy.  In terms of biological processes within the organism itself as specimen, there is the location of what is called in many cultures the "essence of life".  Surely it is not an obtuse claim, in that it is not only key in some form to most life, but represents a process of interaction with the environment that enables the organism to operate in its own process yet at the same time to economize into utility some aspect of the environment (air, for example, or gases, or oxygenated liquid, and whatever else fulfills this process, and there are analogues in many contexts which can  demonstrate such similarity as to retain the word as a metanym (let the situation breathe).  This is not a benign condition ultimately, but a fundamental "choke collar" which life in this world wears as a slave to what may be understood as the "evil air" of the demiurgic "breath".  More on that aspect in the metaphysical analysis in another series.  But this process, the respiratory, is significantly automatic for the most part.  If the organism's "higher functions" are dormant, it still occurs.  If an organism has no "higher functions" as we know them, it still occurs.  Yet it is also directly manipulable by the behavioral conditions of the organism.  Starting with the glandular and deep physiological homeostases of the body's process, breathing co-occurs with other processes involving the inner and outer conditions of the organism.  Those convergent aspects will be discussed later in terms of these other conditions.  

The digestive system is understood to include both liquid and solid materials so as to offer raw materials for the development, structure and function of the organism.  This includes, naturally, the expulsion of wastes which are necessary and otherwise consequential byproducts of this ingestion and digestion of "food".  Respiration is critical to the function of the tissues and organs which engage in these operations.  As this process is to exchange a disorganized and reorganized object of digestion (either as ingested and processed nutrients or as waste byproducts), and so requires a medium of exchange, and as respiration is also involved directly in those processes on a chemical and even physical level (the yogis know this, as do health and fitness and physiology experts) there is a direct tie-in between all these processes to which we now turn.

As the "tie in" of all these processes, each of which are essential to the life of the basic organism which has some form of them, (and if they weren't essential, they wouldn't be there at all, as I said, but more on that later), I offer the circulatory system, which I would enlarge to include the circulation of ALL materials from one part of the body to another in any form, and so the lymph, though functionally an "immune" system entity, should be understood as a functional variety of circulation, and directly depends upon a relation with it in order to carry out its functions. The same goes for interstitial fluids between and within tissues, and also within cellular structure and environments.  The "Blood" is the Life.  In it are the entire raw materials store for the organism's internal organization and function, all of them.  The circulatory system, involving all the systems of the body in such an elemental way, is their reference point to one another and to their overall order and order maintenance systems, to include all that each organ does for the body's action and potential for action.  

Now the discussion begins to go into three areas simultaneously, which are all forms of the same essential feature of life, which in a basic sense is to "act" to maintain its own existence (its "health") and so survive.  These are all forms of "adaptive response", though one is internal, the other external, and these cross-relate in dynamic ways that has required a "processing system" to navigate, control and negotiate those relations and account for their possibility for improvement.

So I'll discuss the first two in relation to one another, which are "internal and external" in various ways, and are considered "motility" and "mobility" respectively.  In terms of "motility", we mean really the capacity for motion within the organism itself.  All the muscle groups and other viscera which are involved in the transference of materials involved in respiration, digestion, and circulation are definite forms of motility, or the capacity for motion within the organism "as such" and which may simply be the consequence of physical and chemical processes which are necessarily relevant and involved in the organism's structure and function due to the raw materials involved in its constitution, and hence which are assimilated into it through various forms of homeostatic motility.  This is a natural "sea of motion" or energy transformations, already found in matter in various forms and circumstances.  Their relations specific to the generation, development, maintenance, and furtherance of life in an organism is a specific subset of these materials potential for action, as circumscribed by the needs of that organism's existence and actions, and is referred to as physiological homeostasis.  This refers to all that I first discussed before this paragraph, and then some.  If an animal with these features could just flow like a blob and absorb food through contact, these features would simply be more complex forms of what an amoeba could accomplish.

The more external expression of these factors of motility involves the locomotion and ambulation or other translocative motion of the organism both as a whole and in part.  Moving of parts of the organism with respect to other parts in a way that displaces the air or other objects of the immediate environment (and as an immediate consequence), registers as an attribute of motility shading into mobility, where in the former it is more subtle and closer to the organism's skeletal structure so that even if that structure doesn't move, motion is detected in effects on the outer world as direct physical consequences (breathing, pulsing of fluids, electrodynamic effects in some cases, in some cases digestion).  Leaving aside other behavioral dynamics like "vacuum behaviors" and behaviors which are necessary adjuncts to direct biological actions (such as various low-level nervous and glandular actions), I here just focus the reader's attention on the way that the organism acts "in situ", just as if its environment were somewhat of a neutral "pleroma".

As all of these processes are tied in within the discussion of "generation and furtherance" of life, those will be discussed later as alike with respiration, digestion and circulation they "tie in" to the other processes in a functional way that makes their discussion in tandem natural and necessary.  So before that, the further aspects of "adaptive response".

So motility is simply a gradation of the transformations of matter and energy, in the organism's body, so that structures and functions of that organism are sustained, and take forms of internal and external motions which are most directly necessary as byproducts of the homeostasis of the organism.  When those actions are taking place, however, it is not for the purpose of body manipulation of one part in relation to the other, nor of any part to the whole, nor of any of these in relation to any object in the environment, but rather it is a byproduct of the processes of the organism's homeostasis "as such".

Now with "mobility" as distinct from "motility" as I use the term, and in a way not too far from its use in biology, there is a change in the skeletal structure which is conducted so as to displace its baseline internal relation in some given sustainable relation, but not necessarily or simply as a direct consequence of the motile finctions per se.  Amoebas may represent a borderline case as they lack the cilia of a paramecium in order to be mobile yet they move, as their structure is reformed by means of the digestion and circulation of their inner fluids and organelles in constant relation to physical and chemical conditions directly outside in their environment, and so this would be an overlapping area of this distinction in the forms of motion of the organism, where motility leads to mobility in a direct way that is internalized in larger and more complex animals.

With actions of mobilization of the organism's mass still having some expressive and retroactive relations to the motilities of homeostatic actions, we'll first look at them in general forms which at least largely satisfy the distinction between these somewhat overlapping categories of change as motion of the organism.  If the organism has a steady form of projecting its form through space outside of its body, and does this as an act "in itself" and not as primarily a homeostatic expression, then we have a form of change in the organism that is not the same as simple growth and decay (development and death), of alteration (more of the modes of motile action and responses), or of increase or decrease in size (a numerical accretion or excretion of material so as to amplify or diminish the structure per se of the organism). The Aristotelian modes of "change" also do have "in themselves" modes which overlap, and the various forms of entity which express them in varied manners also demonstrate composites and amalgams of these differences in ways which are structurally and functionally overlapping (like the amoeba). Those are the "fine-structural" forms which metaphysical analysis conceptualizes as the "aetiology" of an event, the way it manifests as a complex of causal modes.  On with the essential distinction, then.

So if the organism has cause to "move" in this sense, it cannot be functional if it is in contradiction to the functions of its own motility.  That's one obvious limit that will frame the mobility of the organism so as to limit it.  You don't walk around with your head tucked into your chest or toward it if you expect your inner functions to operate optimally as to respiration and circulation, especially to and from the head (unless you have "text neck", LIKE MANY "GPS-ing" FIFTHS HAVE.  The functions of motility more importantly enable and motivate the gross and fine musculoskeletal motions of the organism for activities which are projections of their potential in seeking of a further actuality which cannot be obtained in the root circumstances from which those motions proceed.  Plant life, most of it, does this in a way similar to the way an amoeba does, and with regard to all aspects of their motility.  Animals do this far more "actively" and with more "animation".

This is not too much of a challenge for our understanding, to address mobility in this way, as it is basically the only way that this form of motion has relevance to the survival and thriving of the organism.  It must have "made it thus far" if it is "being still" without the mobility of the organism contradicting its motility, and so it is in a relative "rest" state, but if that situation starts to drift to some less satisfying form for what the organism's homeostasis has become adapted, then this will be rightly understood to be a byproduct of the changes in the environment, or in the overall unsustainability of the current relation to the environment, and not at first of the very structure and function of the organism itself in its own motility.  The organism simply seeks to adjust its relation to its environment in a way which restores an optimal or at least closer-to-optimal homeostatic condition.  Since animals as small as amoeba and paramecium do not just sit there, it is not a suprise that more complex organisms have gotten as far as they have by continuing to evolve various forms of mobilization of their obviously very useful skeleto-muscular structures.  

Blood, lymph, digestive material, cerebrospinal and hormonal fluids, interstitial fluids, and the respirative gases all benefit in various ways from the overal mobility of the organism, and the fundamental value of "exercise" is laid bare here.  It is also good for getting out of situations which are inhibitive of the organism's survival and thriving, as well as useful in seeking out situations which are optimizing of and contributive to its survival-thriving dynamic, which is simply the persistence and furtherance of its dynamic structural and functional forms that are bound by the laws of homeostatic cycles and their mediation with respect to an environment.  At least that will be sufficient for this context.  The discussion of "happiness" would take place in the study called "eudamonia".  A word which entitles another study made by Aristotle which is worthy of examination.  People throw around the word "happiness" in a way that barely has any connection to "thriving", and use it rather to mean "feeling good".  That's not how simple it actually is.  But that awaits the discussion in a moral context situated in the semiotics of a sentient animal's continuum of states between deathly misery and ecstatic joy, and will take place in a later discussion.

Let us say that the organism is simply "well-adjusted" to the environment, but that the configural situation of the organism could be an issue (such as circulation being cut off in sleep, so some turning or other motion of the body being necessary to alleviate it), or the environment as a whole which is more of the circumstance of the organism (being surrounded by circle of jackals).  The organism must find ways to adjust its bodily position relative to the situation and circumstances so as to alleviate danger (as above) and optimize gains (getting closer to a clean water source, or source of food, or area of shade or sunlight, or perhaps "becoming happy" in a eudamoniacal context).  These instantiations of mobility are all relevant to the motility of the organism, and the reverse is also true, but the motility here tends to motivate the mobility, and the reverse is an accomodating to and adjustment of conditions which are stabilizing and enhancing to the motility by the mobility.  The articulation of the forms of mobility must structurally derive from a harmonic of the functions of its inner organism, and this is to be a homeostatic relationship all its own, but not one necessarily answerable to the inherent conditions of the organism alone.  These are revised and revisible to relations to the environment even as it may change so as to be quite different from what is suitable for the organism, and in varying degrees of intensity of change.  It must have a system for processing these relations which mediates the organism and its capabilities in a truly adaptive way toward its environment vis-a-vis its innermost needs.

So these further elaborations of the changeability of the organism (mobility) parley between the less changeable aspects (motility) and the far more changeable aspects (in relation to the organism) of the environmental situation of the organism and its field of circumstances.  But this has a certain range of feasibility which may or may not obtain to any use for the organism's survival and thriving, and adjustments must be made which ensure that there is a utility of mobile actions which are answerable to the processes of homeostatic motility which motivate and justify their existence.  These conditions are developed in the "adaptive response" sysem which is most properly speaking the most active and dynamic of them all, and that is what actively governs the motility and mobility of the organism toward the objectives which satisfy its health and flourishing.  This is the "neuro-glandular" system, as I undertand them to be a complex intermingling of governing systems that process and perfect the relations of all of the organic systems in which they are embedded.  They process the allowances and potentials of the organism's other systems so as to ensure that they are not in a wasteful or organism-endangering condition, and are also capable of enhancing the baseline of the organism's capabilities so as to temporarily and more chronically achieve states of gross and subtle adaptation which are "truly responsive and adaptive", and so properly parley between the organism's suvival and thriving, health and flourishing.  This is what must obtain in order to conduct these scalar conditions in a way truly adaptive to situations and conditions in which the organism is operating, and is all an extension of its fundamental processes.

Operations of the organism over the field of an environmental condition of its situation (proximally and centrally) and circumstance (more distally and peripherally), is what it means for the organism to survive and thrive, exist in health and flourish.  These operations are strategically and tactically orchestrated and refined by the neuro-glandular system so as to reduce dangers and instabilities in the organism's operations over these fields, and is answerable to all manner of evidences and conducements to correction of those operations, and to self-corrections on those corrections on those operations.  That is what the "chakral" systems refer to if I were to reduce their descriptive content and hone their relevance to these objective demonstrable attributes of the living being qua organism.

Next I will discuss how the members of a species, the specimens, interact with one another and how they relate to their environment in certain ways that cause them to manifest in their activities as groups that which they are capable of doing within the group as individuals (i.e. their roles), and vice versa (adaptive adjustments enforced from the environment on the individuals so that the group and its role-structures are changed), so that we can see how species and specimen recapitulate and reorganize with respect to one another in their adaptive homeostasis in and with their environments.

Contra Columnis Quintus X

Biological Prelude to the Further Analsysis of a Racket

A Case Study in Philosophy become Ponerology become Criminology

(I would say "become Scatology", but "shit" is not in itself an evil racket in this context, and I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence or knowledge concerning the biological nature of shit)

So now I explain something I have often said.  Rackets are by nature clandestine or partially clandestine, operations.  The unjust portion, which is the substance of the entity under discussion, is the controlling factor, and is in some sort of "symbiosis", quite literally, with the "host" which operates as its food source and defensive perimeter against any hostile environment.  In effect, it is a parasite, if and only if the host would have been an independent entity without its adherence to the "unjust portion".  It would seem that in life forms even in their "independent" form in this world, there is a sort of justice to the roles of the various tissues and organs, and the various fluids and biochemical substances, which when taken together functions, at least relatively, as a very optimal symbiosis of one another, and not necessarily in any way inappropriate to each elements potential.  We seem to have at least some inkling of a fully integrated organism which is not improperly sorted as to any of the elements which comprise it, each according to its ability, as each is sustained to live out its role in a way that manifests the utility of its tendencies for itself strictly as part of this organic whole. 

Some would die sooner than others, perform more menial roles or more glamorous ones, but this would take place according to each element's fitness for its role and its unfitness for all other roles, or most other roles without some distortion in optimal function taking place.  And each role will have an element serving the whole and being served by the whole within that role in a way that would not otherwise exist unless, in fact, that entire organism can be improved.  Otherwise it would be "perfect" and there could not be a better assignment of functions per the structure and vice versa.  So in fact there could be "better specimens" only if there could be "better species".  And this extends up and down the categories established by Linnaeus for the various forms of life so that they may be all considered in some sense part of an "organic whole of life".

But let us look more closely and see that in this "whole of life" it is already apparent that there are ecosystems wherein these life forms take advantage of one another just as if they couldn't leave each other alone.  It certainly does look like a bunch of tissues and fluids and organs et.al. cavorting with one another in varied relationships of coexistence or co-occuring of life, or a "symbiosis".  Many forms of symbiosis involve simply "taking advantage of" one life form by another and vice versa in many cases, so that one life form may benefit from what another refuses, and does so in such a way that it either does not harm or even benefits the one who refuses something. Any biologist worth his salt will fill all the blanks for you in that paragraph by simply referring to his knowlege of his subject, where there are all sorts of examples of this found in all kingdoms of life.  And these exist also between kingdoms of life, where the most foundational distinctions in life forms exist.  Whatever the fundamental "protoplasm" of life and however it diverged, the evidence of the relations between life forms in the various kingdoms and within their "clades" shows that they will relate functionally as distinct life forms which can either go about their business more than one degree of freedom from one another or, whether they can or not, that they will operate in such a way that, at least overall, these forms of life will manifest as large scale symbioses called ecosystems.

The cycles of life which are found to exist and can be mathematically analyzed with a precision limited only by the depth and breadth of data collection concerning the life cycles in themselves.  What these reveal is that there is a limit to how far any of these cycles will permit changes in those elements which comprise them, and that these can be ascertained as cycles of attributes analogous to that found in a single organism. By all meaningful observations other than mere sensation, and even including that faculty (when these organisms interact directly), we see clear evidence of an organic process, but not necessarily a "perfect" one, and perhaps not even a "just" one.  Yes, I know there are those who don't know what "justice" has to do with "life".  I'm getting them and their cohorts shortly.  Indeed, I'm here simply laying the metaphysical, and hence metabiological foundation for that discussion, which will get sharply evident when I switch from the essence and mode of these phenomena and shift into "fifth gear", so to speak, when discussing the manner of these phenomena and specifically with an eye to the injustice of the matter.  And I must insist that the expression of these understandings, which I've gained from observation and analysis of raw and sourced data, is my pleasure, and this is nothing short of the honor that I have been bestowed to take it as my proper duty as a devotee of Truth, and in simply one of those roles of devotion as a philosopher, but simply as an Honest Man.  I can Rightly say here that those who have been in concerted and deliberate opposition to my performance of my duties, accorded me by all factors (circumstances of birth, place in space and time, place in history, inherent nature and Heaven-Bestowed Vocation), and are a FRAUD TO THE CORE, AND IN ANY EVENT ARE ALSO PARTICIPANTS IN A MASSIVE RACKET WHICH I HAVE HERETOFORE GIVEN ADEQUATE DESCRIPTION.

So on with the foundation.  We cannot properly assess any structure without a good look at its foundation, just as we couldn't have properly built one without that measure.  But that will begin to go into "measure theory", in the understanding of which I am a pure novice.  So I will have to maintain a set of "qualitative intutions" which I think link up with that science in relevant ways, and introduce those intutions at a either a more appropriate juncture in this or in future articles, but it should be mentioned as relevant because it is crucial in analyzing the "Big Data" which, if made available to a just analysis, would require that science as part of its heuristics for empirically detecting certain levels of fraud.  However, I should mention also that mathematics between Algebra and Linear Algebra should be sufficient for getting to the foundational roots of it.  The simpler math, fortunately, can handle the "unjust portion" of this phenomenon.  That's the aspect, the "beating heart" of which pumps all the "ichor" of corruption that gives the beastly racket and its primary beneficiaries their "life".  

In that, this monstrosity is not much different than any form of life of any conceivable kind.  It may be a tribute to my objectivity, and to the simplicity of the tools and materials of this analysis which are required, to approach it simply in that way.  At the foundation of the interactions of life forms we can see certain major "fields of action" which are all underlying the phenomena of their being observed.  Biology itself is the "discovery" of these fields of action which are both descriptive and explanatory of the nature of life forms otherwise readily perceived and understood in intuitive ways by perhaps even casual observors, such as children.  And you better bet it is sad racket which actually fails to respect that fact, for there are children who already, right now (based on publicly parleyed evidence) are unfortunately gaining first hand experience with the "unjust part" of the entire racket (and the entire racket in this case and in any case, outer front to inner den, is unjust).

What we see in these fields of action, discovered and conceptualized by biologists since long before the science was "official" in modern terms, are forms of activity which "define" life.  We can describe processes such as breathing, digestion, circulation, motility (in some cases mobility), adaptive response to "stimuli" taken broadly so that this includes amoeba and other entities), and finally the "reproductive process".  These all seem to be present.  Note that "sentience" is not actually included in this basic and, to my lights, comprehensive list of attributes which tends to well-describe the actions taken by "life forms". 

Now if those exist at the individual level, and they all do in some way, they also exist for all members of the group which are of the "kind" that is the same as that individual, wherever and whenever those entities overlap in their actual substantive similarity.  We'd expect these attributes to have a root in some causal substance, and that is simply understood on the basis that causation is the "root heuristic" employed by human cognition to undertand things, and that is sufficient for describing that process.  As this process involves referring to things as any observation must, and then referring that to patterns in observation which those observations must demonstrate (and do), and then as this indicates ways to actually determine the cause as distinctly manifest through the effect as a model of processes already more elementally understood as though "axioms" (physical, chemical, biochemical... in a series of explanatory fields), annd as these complexified observations yet map onto strong evidence for their relevance to the phenomena already observed, this is demonstrated as science if anything could be.  

Technique for discovering what is the cause of some phenomena understood as the "effect" eventually reaches some elemental domain of effect which, to that domain of understanding, are "their own" cause.  That is determined when causal relevance of what is further explanatory of those elements cannot be determined for effects which proceed from those elements, yet can be causaully determined in reference to them.  So there is even a sort of pattern observable in the realm of life in general, where it turns out that this "cognitive" behavior occurs in some forms of life.  Even now, we may be minimalistic about our reference to "sentience", and that does no direct damage to our analysis and its sufficiency for understanding the phenomenon at hand.  But it should be added also that if we were to understand the phenomenon which undergirds cognition as such then we would have to appeal to phenomena which are understood only as some form of sentience.  Without having to go on in that direction here, let's just continue with the examination of certain forms of behavior found in ecosystems which are proper analogues to behavior descriptive of life within species and specimens.