Jonas on Philosophical Biology

Lately I've been reading a great book a friend recommended. It's called The Phenomenon of Life by Hans Jonas. It really is surperb, so I'm using some of his insights in a paper I'm now busily preparing for next week's American Maritain Association meeting (which will probably prevent me from posting next week).

I've typed out some selections from the main line of the book's argument below. But before presenting those, I thought I'd summarize that argument for you first.

One big thrust of the book is establishing the continuity of man with living things, not in a materialistic sense, but to show how man is not in some utterly different ontological category from the rest of the world. The thinking is that unless we want to bracket living things as somehow subject to wholly different natural laws, we need to establish man’s continuity with the whole of the material world.

Jonas identifies the origin of the distinctly human parallel capacities to recognize truth and to act freely in the unique distance or mediacy of the human being from the world. He traces the mediacy that culminates in human beings through its development in the vegetative and animal powers of living things. The increase in organisms’ powers from vegetative to sensitive to rational comes from increasing separation between an organism and its environment in parallel with a novel and more intimate connection or dependence on the environment. Metabolism allows and requires the constituents of the living thing to be constantly renewed while preserving the identity of the organism they form. An organism, by living, asserts an independence of identity from the matter that constitutes it, in parallel with a dependence on the matter to maintain itself; thus the organism separates itself from the world while taking on a new dependence or outward directedness to the world. This is the beginning of internality that is yet open to the environment, and that even needs its environment.

Whereas in plants, the environment is immediately present, the transition to animal life brings distance between the organism and its needs, a distance which sentience, emotion, and mobility must bridge. Again we see the organism’s separation from the world along with a stronger connection to it. The internality of the organism increases, as does its dependence on its environment.

In man, emotional mediacy grows into rational mediacy through his image-making ability. Whereas animals “recognize” objects by merely comparing present sense impressions to past, humans actually form an image of every object they encounter and in fact do not see anything except through an image. The image is either adequate to its object or it is not—either true or false—and implicit in any affirmation of truth is rejection of falsehood, which requires the freedom to say “no.”

Below are the quotations I picked out. Believe me, there is much more to this book worth reading. I highly recommend it.

Committed to itself, put at the mercy of its own performance, life must depend for it on conditions over which it has no control, and which may deny themselves at any time. Thus dependent on propitiousness or unpropitiousness of outer reality, it is exposed to the world from which it has seceded, and by means of which it must yet maintain itself. Opposing in its internal autonomy the entropy rule of general causality, it is yet subject to it. Emancipated from the identity with matter, it is yet in need of it: free, yet under the whip of necessity; isolated, yet in indispensable contact; seeking contact, yet in danger of being destroyed by it, and threatened no less by its want: imperiled thus from both sides, by importunity and aloofness of the world, and balanced on the narrow ridge between the two; in its process, which must no cease, liable to interference; in the straining of its temporality always facing the imminent no-more” thus does the living form carry on its separatist existence in matter—paradoxical, unstable, precarious, finite, and in intimate company with death. The fear of death with thich the hazard of this existence is charged is a never-ending comment on the audacity of the original venture upon which substance embarked in turning organic. (5)

In this process of self-sustained being, the relation of the organism to its material substance is of a double nature: the materials are essential to it specifically, accidental individually; it coincides with their actual collection at the instant, but is not bound to any one collection in the succession of instants, “riding” their change like the crest of a wave and bound only to their form of collection which endures as its own feat. Dependent on their availability as materials, it is independent of their samenss as these; its own, functional identity, passingly incorporating theirs, is of a different order. In a word, the organic form stands in dialectial relation of needful freedom to matter. (80)

[I]n order to change matter, the living form must have matter at its disposal, and it finds it outside itself, in the foreign “world.” Thereby life is turned outward and toward the world in a peculiar relatedness of dependence and possibility…. It is important to se that this “spatial” self-transcendence, opening into an environment, is grounded in the fundamental transcendence of organic form relative to its matter, for it is this which constitutionally refers it beyond its given material composition to foreign matter as needed and potentially its own. In other words, the self-transcendence of life in having a world, with all its promise of higher and more comprehensive stages, springs from the primary antinomy of freedom and necessity inherent in organism as such. (84)

It then also follows that with respect to the organic sphere, the external linear time-pattern of antecedent and sequent, involving the causal dominance of the past, is inadequate: while mere externality is, at least can be presented as, wholly determined by what it was, life is essentially also what it is going to be and just becoming: in its case, the extensive order of past and future is intensively reversed. This is the root of the teleological or finalistic nature of life: finalism is in the first place a dynamic character of a certain mode of existence, coincident with the freedom and identity of form in relation to matter, and only in the second place a fact of structure or physical organization, as exemplified in the relation of organic parts to the whole and in the functional fitness of organism generally. With this Aristotelian reminder we may return from analysis to discussion. (86)

Where, then does that [cybernetic] model fall short? The answer can be compressed into cone statement: living things are creatures of need. Only living things have needs and act on needs. Need is based both on the necessity for the continuous self-renewal of the organism by the metabolic process, and on the organism’s elemental urge thus precariously to continue itself. This basic self-concern of all life, in which necessity and will are bound together, manifests itself on the level of animality as appetite, fear, and all the rest of the emotions. The pang of hunger, the passion of the chase, the fury of combat, the anguish of flight, the lure of love—these, and not the data transmitted by the receptors, imbue objects with the character of goals, negative or positive, and make behavior purposive. The mere element of effort lifts bodily activity out of the class of mechanical performance, and the fact that movement requires effort means that an animal will move only under the incentive of an interest. (126)

From this point of view we see wherein the real advance of developed animality lies. Its mediacy of world-relation is an increase of the mediacy which is already peculiar to organic existence on the first (metabolizing) level, as compared to the immediate self-identity of inorganic matter. This increase mediacy buys greater scope, internal and external, at the price of greater hazard, internal and external. A more pronounced self is set over against a more pronounced world. The progressive nervous centralization of the animal organism emphasizes the former, while correspondingly the environment becomes open space in which the free-moving sentient has to fend for itself. (107)

The principle here involved on the part of the subject is the mental separation of form from matter. It is this that makes possible the vicarious presence of the physically absent at once with the self-effacement of the physically present. Here we have a specifically human fact, and the reason why we expect neither making nor understanding images from animals. The animal deals with the present object itself. If it is sufficiently like another object, it is an object of the same kind. The likeness aids the recognition of the object-kind, but is not itself the object of recognition. Recognized is the present object alone as “one such,” that is, as familiar in certain properties. These, spotlighted by activation of memory traces, call up in turn their former associates, which enter as expectations into the perceptual picture and , once recognition takes place, form part of the “presence” of the object. Nothing but this is present, standing entirely for itself, though imbued with past experience. Only reality counts, and reality knows no representation. In our search, there for, for the conditions of image-making we are referred from the faculty of perceiving likeness to the more fundamental one of separating eidos from concrete reality. (167)

For the animal mere similitude does not exist. Where we perceive it, the animal perceives either sameness or otherness, but not both in one, as we do in the apprehension of similitude. (166)

The sense in which one can speak of an experience of truth may be illustrated by the situation in which one feels moved to exclaim “So this is what it really is!”—such exclamation containing a submerged, if not explicit, “and not this!” The illustration is to convey the at once emphatic and antithetical character of the truth-experience, i.e., that it stands out from the normal flow of acceptance of phenomena and against the background of error and falsehood: this background being itself an “experience” only realized in the act of supersedure by its opposite. In short, we wish to indicate an element of negation. Hence follows, as a first proposition, that the capacity for truth presupposes the capacity to negate, and that therefore only a being that can entertain negativity, that can say “no,” can entertain truth. And since the power of negation is a part of freedom, indeed a defining ingredient of it, the proposition is that freedom is a prerequisite of truth, and that the experience of truth itself is the evidence and exercise of a certain kind of freedom. (175)

The distinction between truth and falsehood, and therefore the idea of knowledge, arises only where the “wrong” perception is not simply supplanted by the “right” one but survives to be confronted as falsified with the right one; or more generally, where two terms are available for comparison, and one of them is accepted as the standard by which the other is judged. (178)

But genuiness itself comes to be discovered only with the experience of its opposite, which furthermore must be retained in the mind for comparison and contrast: the mere “explosion” of an impression by a subsequent corrective impression is not enough. (180)

The new mediacy consists in the interposition of the abstracted and mentally manipulable eidos between sense and actual object, just as on the level of animal mediacy the perception of objects was interposed between the organism and its primary environment-relation. Imaging and speaking man ceases to see things directly: he sees them through the screen of representations of which he has become possessed by his own previous dealings with objects, and which are evoked by the present perceptual content, impregnating it with their symbolic charge, and added to by the new experience itself. (184–185)

---

Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2001/1966). —

Greatness and History

I was talking to a friend the other day about the current trend among certain faithful Catholics to refer to the late Pope John Paul II as "John Paul the Great." There is even a "John Paul the Great University" that opened its doors this fall. It seems like an unwise trend to me and one characteristic of the narcissism of our society to pronounce on a matter better left to posterity.

Please don't get be wrong. I admire the late pontiff as much as anyone. Playing such a large role in bringing down communism might itself qualify someone as "great," but in addition John Paul II also left us with so many wonderful writings, not to mention the courageous example of his holy death.

The problem I see is that we really cannot fairly assess the value of a person's legacy for years—that is, until we really see the fruit of that legacy. To call someone "great" who is only a few years in the grave is to assume a power that lies beyond any single generation. But as self-involved as we are these days, we assume that anything that strikes us as great at this moment can only be great for all time. This is the same narcissistic age that arrogates to itself the power to name itself ("modern," "post-modern").

What's even more troubling is the undercurrent one senses among many "John Paul the Great" cheerleaders that faithful Catholics can only share their enthusiasm and that to do otherwise is to be less than faithful. It's almost as if they believe Christian orthodoxy requires the believer to surrender to the cult of personality that accreted around the late Pontiff (and that to a degree extends to his successor). Let's not take our eyes off the ball: the whole point of the Papacy is not the man who occupies the Chair of Peter, but the reverence due the office of Peter and its role in preserving the orthodoxy of the Catholic Faith.

Ecclesial Morphogenesis

The last post discussed the theme of natural development with the emphasis on "evolution not revolution": that discontunity is unnatural and severs identity. Now we examine the same principle from the opposite perspective: continuity through change.

Vladimir Soloviov, a Russian Orthodox Christian who came into communion with Rome, wrote vigorously in defense of the Papacy. Here's a beautiful excerpt that compares the historical growth of the Church to the dvelopment of a tree.

Though the transformation of a stone into a mountain is only a symbol, the transformation of a simple, almost impreceptible seed into an infinitely larger and more complicated organism is an actual fact. And it is by just this fact that the New Testament foretells and illustrates the development of the Church, as of a great tree which began in an impreceptible grain of seed and today gives ample shelter to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.

Now, even among Catholics we meet with ultradogmatic spirits who, while justly admiring the vast oak which covers them with its shade, absolutely refuse to admit that all this abundance of organic forms has grown from a structure as simple and rudimentary as that of an ordinary acorn. According to them, though the oak tree arose out of the acorn, the acorn must have contained in a distinct and discernible form, if not every leaf, at least every branch of the great tree, and must have been not only idenitical in substance with the latter but similar to it in every detail [like the old homonculus theory].

Whereupon ultracritical spirits of the opposite school set to work to examine the wretched acorn minutely from every angle. Naturally, they discover in it no resemblance whatever to the entwining roots, the stout trunk, the leafy branches, or the tough, corrugated foliage of the great tree. "What humbug," they exclaim. "The acorn is simply an acorn and can never be anything else; it is only too obvious where the great oak and all its characteristics came from. The Jesuits invented it at the [First] Vatican Council; we saw it with our own eyes—in the book of Janus [a dissenting account of the Council]."

At the risk of appearing a freethinker to the extreme dogmatists and of being at the same time labeled a Jesuit in disguise by the critics, I must affirm the unquestionable truth that the acorn actually has quite a simple and rudimentary structure, and that though not all the component parts of a great oak can be discovered in it, the oak has actually grown out of the acorn without any artificial stimulus or infringement of the laws of nature, but by its own right, nay, even by divine right. Since God, who is not bound by the limitations of space and time and of the mechanism of the material world, sees concealed in the actual seeds of things all their future potentialities, so in the little acorn he must not only have seen but ordained and blssed the mighty oak which was to grow from it. In the grain of mustard seed of Peter's faith he discerned and foretold the vast tree of the Catholic Church which was to cover the earth with its brances.

Though Jesus Christ entrusted Peter with that universal sovereign authority which was to endure and develop within the Church throughout its existence upon earth, he did not personally exercise this authority except in a measure and in a form suited to the primitive condition of the apostolic Church. The action of the prince of the apostles had as little resemblance to modern papal administration as the acorn has to the oak; but this does not prevent the papacy from being the natural, logical, and legitimate development of the primacy of Peter.

The growth of an organism ties back to Aristotle's discussion of the meaning of natural:

The form indeed is 'nature' rather than the matter; for a thing is more properly said to be what it is when it has attained to fulfillment than when it exists potentially. (Physics II.1.193b7-8)

Thus an oak tree is more natural than the acorn from which it grew, since it more fully expresses its nature. So human societies, like the family or a larger community, are more natural than the individuals from which they grow and who bind together to form them. Humanity fully expresses its nature in community (contrary to the Enlightenment philosophers' postulation that the State of Nature is solitary).

Similarly, the Catholic Christian Church is a more perfect expression of the Body of Christ than individual, particular Churches, but it also more fully expresses the nature of that universal Communion in its mature state than in it did at birth.

---

Vladmiri Soloviev (Solovyov), The Russian Church and the Papacy, trans. Herbert Rees, ed. Ray Ryland (San Diego, California: Catholic Answers, 2001), 149-150.

---

Personal note: I will be travelling for the next couple weeks, so posts if any will be intermittent.

Return from the Wasteland

Tomorrow on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Pope Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum officially takes effect and makes explicit the right that all Catholic priests have say the traditional "use" of the Roman Rite (i.e., the traditional Latin Mass that traces its lineage back to the original Apostolic Mass).

Many people date the liturgical reform to the Second Vatican Council's Dec. 4, 1963 promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy). But the changes actually implemented had the vaguest connection with the Council's decrees (as you can see from the actual document) or even unstated intentions (according, for example, to the recollections of someone who was actually there).¹

Pope Paul VI actually promulgated the "new Mass" with his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum on April 3, 1969. This means the current Holy Father is correcting a misunderstanding of nearly forty years.

The Israelites spent forty years in the desert before entering the Promised Land. I don't think that it is an accident that we've spent nearly forty years in the liturgical wasteland. While I certainly wouldn't have willed this period of desolation, but our Lord is able to draw good out of our worst failures. It is clear in retrospect that it was part of God's Providence: among other benefits it allows us to better appreciate the traditional Mass (we never seem to know what we've got until we lose it), as well as our utter inability to draw life from any source except that our Lord gave us through his Apostles—the Liturgy grows by evolution, not revolution.

Now I need to say that I don't believe the return of the old Mass will bring the Church to some sort of idyllic state of perfection. First, as we all know perfection is impossible this side of heaven. Second, even the Israelites after returning had to fight to take possession of their heritage.

The difference the Motu Proprio makes is that tomorrow, we can stop wandering and begin to fight. Deo Gratias!

---

Notes

1. Really the concrete form of the reform Archbishop Annibale Bugnini was realized according to Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, a man who was exiled in July 1975, not long after his liturgical vision was promulgated to an unwary Church. (I understand that he was exiled after convincing evidence surfaced that he was a Freemason—an avowed enemy of the Church.)

---

Alfons Cardinal Stickler, "Recollections of a Vatican II Peritus," The Latin Mass Winter 1999.

The Pope's Letter Accompanying the Motu Proprio

Summorum Pontificum, English translation from the Latin original.

Here's a whole blog devoted to the Motu Proprio, its consequences, and surrounding issues: Summorum Pontificum.

An entertaining and somewhat insightful take on the old rite from a convert: What I think about the "Tridentine" Mass by David Palmer.

Moralism without Morals

In a recent National Review article on the office of Surgeon General, Yuval Levin makes an insightful remark about the new American way of being moralistic but without a reference to any sort of objective morality:

The tone of surgeon-general reports makes for a telling case study in the way health has usurped the place of virtue in America's public vocabulary. Public health is the only remaining language in which to speak of vice -- an old-fashioned word that once would have been the obvious way to refer to, say, smoking and drinking. The self-righteousness that colors the crusade against obesity, smoking, and other modern sins is as near as the Left gets to religion, and the surgeon general fills the role of oracle.

Mencken once memorably said, "Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The American elite are no longer be truly religious in attitude, but they are still Puritanical.

---

Yuval Levin "A Doctor, But Whose? Diagnosing the Disorder in the Surgeon General's Office," National Review LIX:15 (August 27, 2007).

More on the Infinite

As I mentioned before, I'm reading A.W. Moore's The Infinite. (I found out about it through the webpage of a member of the Syndey School of Mathematics.) The book is much clearer than the Zellini book I commented on previously. Whereas Zellini makes a single distinction between the actual infinite and the potential infinite (which are synonymous with "true" and "false" infinites), Moore adds an additional distinction between true and false versions of the actual and potential infinites. The true versions of these he calls metaphysical and mathematical infinites.

Part of Moore's clarity comes from starting off (in the introduction) discussing the paradoxes of the infinite and defining terms.

[O]ne of the central issues concerning the infinite is whether it can be defined. Many have felt that it cannot; for if we try to define the infinite as that which is thus ans so, we fall foul of the fact that being thus and so is already a way of being limited or conditioned. (It is as if the infinite cannot, by definition, be defined....)¹

Two clusters of concepts nevertheless dominate, and much of the dialectic in the history of the topic has taken the form of oscillation between them. Within the first cluster we find: boundlessness; endlessness; unlimitedness; immeasurability; eternity; that which is such that, given any determinate part of it, there is always more to come; that which is greater than any assignable quantity. Within the second cluster we find: completeness; wholeness; unity; universality; absoluteness; perfection; self-sufficiency; autonomy. The concepts in the first cluster are more negative and convey a sense of potentiality. They are the concepts that might be expected to inform a more mathematical or logical discussion of the infinite. The concepts in the second cluster are more positive and convey a sense of actuality. They are concepts that might be expected to inform a more metaphysical or theological discussion of the infinite. Let us label the concepts 'mathematical' and 'metaphysical' respectively. (1-2)

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is an overview of the historical of thought on the infinite, and the second part is an assessment of the various strains of thought. Aristotle has a foundational role in both. Moore points out that Aristotle wasn't saying that the (mathematical) infinite was false, but that it only exists potentially, not actually:

I said at the beginning of §2 that Aristotle appeared to abhor the mathematical infinite. We can now see how profoundly false such an appearance was. What he abhorred was the metaphysically infinite, and (relatedly) the actual infinite—a kind of incoherent compromise between the metaphysical and the mathematical, whereby endlessness was supposed to be wholly and completely present all at once. It was the mathematically infinite that he was urging us to take seriously. Properly understood, the mathematically infinite and the potentially infinite were, for Aristotle, one and the same. Far from abhorring the mathematically infinite, he was the first philosopher who seriously championed it. In so doing he recoiled from earlier thinking in such a way that he set the scene for nearly all subsequent discussion of this topic. (44)

According to Moore, the pre-Socratics had given voice to what was essentially the metaphysical infinite, but Plotinus first articulated it clearly and distinctly:

He called it self-sufficient, perfect, and omnipotent, a complete and pure unity, utterly beyond our finite experience. He also said that it was 'supremely adequate, autonomous, all-transcending, most utterly without need.' Sometimes he spoke of it in a Parmenidean way, implying that it had internal limits. 'Its manner of being is settled for it,' he said, 'by itself alone.' But elsewhere he emphasized its lack of limits, either exeternal or internal. Indeed, in line with this, he insisted that all our attempts to talk about it or derfine it were strictly speaking, and inevitably, inadeqaute. This, in truth, it even transcended such descriptions of it as 'The Good' or 'God'. Its ineffability meant that we had to be content with mystical insight into it. He nevertheless tried to convey as much as possible with words. And in so doing he supplied one of the first explicit identifications of the infinite with God. (46)

Moore very clearly explains the categorematic/syncategorematic distinction originated by Peter of Spain and taken up by Jean Buridan and Gregory of Rimini:

Roughly: to use 'infinite' categorematically is to say that there is something [an actual whole] which has a property that surpasses any finite measure; to use it syncategorematically is to say that, give any finite measure, there is something [another individual] which has a property that surpasses it. (51)

This distinction carlifies an important point about uses of infinite, and furthermore subsumes Aristotle's actual/potential distinction.

By way of illustration, consider the following application of the new distinction in a temporal context, noted by Gregory [of Rimini]. If I say, 'An infinity of men will be dead,' and use 'infinity' categorematically, then I mean that there will come a time when infinitely many men are dead; there will then be an actual infinity of dead men. If I say the same thing, and use 'infinity' sycategorematically, then I mean that there is no end to the number of men who will, each in his own time, be dead; there is a potential infinity of dead men. This explains, I think, why so many philosophers have thought that there was something deeper and more abstract underlying straight-forward temporal accounts of the actual/potential distinction. It seems they were right. There is something—something grammatical [cf. later invocation of Wittgenstein]. (Working with this new distinction also has the advantage that one can avoid the false implication in Aristotle's terminology, noted by Aristotle himself, that what is potentially infinite must be capable of being actually infinite.) (52)

Moore includes some provocative reactions of contemporaries to Cantor's transfinite mathematics:

[French mathematician Henri Poincaré] challenged Cantor's claim to have proved that R [the set of real numbers] was bigger than N [the set of natural numbers]. Cantor's proof could just as well be taken to establish merely that we could not devise a way of pairing off the natural numbers with the real numbers, or indeed that R was not a genuine set at all—presumably because the real numbers were somehow too unwieldy to be grouped together into one determinate totality.

This, incidentally, was something urged by the American philosopher and mathematician C.S. Peirce (1938-1914). He had independently discovered that there was no way of pairing off the natural numbers with the real numbers, but he concluded that R did not exist as a completed whole. At most it existed as something potentially infinite. However many reals had been actualized, there were always more waiting to be. A continuum, he felt, was precisely not just a set of points. It was something absolute, consisting of unactualized possibilities, cenmented together in a way that defied description but of which we were aware in experience.

I'm not sure how much credence to give these ideas, but they do seem to lead us back to Aristotle's notion of the continuum not being composed of points.

I'm still re-reading and digesting the book. Moore's advocacy of Kant and Wittgenstein's positions on the subject sound reasonable to me (from what he says), but I'm not entirely certain how kosher they are (especially Kant) and I need to examine them more closely because they have a big part to play in the second half of the book. Being a good Englishman, Moore ends (as I read him) with the empiricist (or more-or-less Aristotelian) position of denying the reality of the metaphysical infinite and affirming that while we can see things about the mathematical infinite, we cannot really say anything about it as actual.

---

Notes

1. Not sure this is the right way to note the ellipsis.

---

A.W. Moore, The Infinite (New York: Routledge, 1991). All emphases in original.

Paolo Zellini, A Brief History of Infinity, trans. David Marsh (New York: Penguin Books, 2004).

Beach-blanket Natural Philosophy

At a yard sale recently, I bought an old copy of Hubbard's Battlefield Earth for twenty cents. "Beach" reading, perfect for summer. The characters are superficial, the plot movement often contrived, and some of the language confusing, but Hubbard does a good job building that momentum that gets you to turn to the next chapter (or part).

One of the main "science" premises of this science fiction novel is the mysterious workings of the antagonists' teleportation system:

Prior to this [discovery], it was thought that teleportation consisted of converting energy and matter to space and then reconverting it in another place so it would assume its natural form. But this had never been proven. En [the discoverer] had apparently found that space could exist entirely independently of time, energy, or mass and that all these things were actually separate items. Only when combined did they make up a universe.

Space was dependent only upon three coordinates. When one dictated [!] a set of space coordinates one shifted space itself. Any energy or mass contained in that space thereupon shifted with that space shift.

In the matter of a motor such as this freighter had, it was just an enclosed housing in which space coordinates could be changed. As the coordinates changed, the housing was forced to go along, and this gave the motor power.... A series of coordinates were progressively fed to the main motor and it self went forward or backward as the housed space occupied each set of coordinates in turn.

Teleportation over vast distances worked the same way. Matter and energy were pinned to the space, and when it was exchanged with another space, they simply changed too. Thus matter and energy would seem to disappear in one place and appear in another. They didn't actually change. Only the space did.

There are so many things wrong with this description that it is hard to know where to begin. Now of course, no one takes the "science" mumbo-jumbo in science fiction novels seriously (I mean most of these things technically don't even qualify as novels¹), but for entertainment purposes, let's look at it more closely.

In the first place, this idea of absolute space (apart from an absolute time) was conjured up by Newton to facilitate his mechanics, which was based on Descartes's analytic geometry. It's took us centuries to get over this naive starting point, but as we all know, the consequences of Einstein's notions of space and time continua forming a unified space-time continuum were experimentally confirmed by the time Hubbard wrote his novel in 1982. In his special theory of relativity, Einstein showed how the dilation of time intervals and the correlative contraction of spatial dimensions at speeds approaching the speed of light explain many phenomena, most notably the constancy of the speed of light for all observers, however they are moving. So not only are space and time interdependent, but also there can be no absolute coordinate system---what would define the origin?

Further, in his general theory of relativity, Einstein showed that the geometrical structure of this spacetime depends on nearby masses. So space exists relative to mass-energy as well as time.

But the dubiousness of the idea goes deeper than physics. Coincidentally, I've also been reading A.W. Moore's The Infinite. Of course one of the puzzles of infinity is whether a magnitude or continuous quantity can be composed of discrete, infinitesimal points. Cantor's transfinite mathematics notwithstanding², it is pretty clear that elements with length zero can never add up to a finite length. Philosophically speaking, using a teleporter to move through a continuum requires more sophistication (infinitely more!) than teleporting across the universe. That means that the teleportation motor that Hubbard describes cannot move continuously, but has to move itself through discrete points. Perhaps the resulting vibration is the reason the engines make such noise when "dictating" themselves through space. Of course, if space exists independent of the rest of the universe, then one has to wonder what sort of forces would allow one to shift it.

---

Hubbard's novel is interesting also for how it speaks about his personal philosophy, a philosophy that undoubtedly colors the doctrine of the Church of Scientology, which he founded. It shows a naive trust in human nature so characteristic of the 20th century. But in addition, Hubbard also displays a distrust of government and a simple faith in the abilities. More interestingly, Hubbard has at least a rudimentary respect for nature: his villains, a race of aliens called the Psychlos, have been altered at birth to suit arbitrary societal demands (working hard, preserving technological secrets) that also make them sadists.

Wikipedia says that Punch (April 4, 1984) sarcastically commended Hubbard's "excellent understanding of evil impulses, particularly deviousness, which helps with the plot, and [he] is well-enough aware of his weaknesses not to dwell upon frailties like love, generosity, compassion." I might add that Hubbard's detachment from humanity is reflected in his naive, purely quantitative conception of greatness. Beyond the 1000-page length of the book, the Psychlos are much bigger than humans (10-ft tall and weighing 1000 lbs each) and the greatness of their empire is reflected the vastness of the numbers that define it. As Hubbard writes,

Psychlo!

The homeplanet of two hundred thousand worlds.

The center of an empire that had ruled and ruined sixteen universes over the period of three hundred and two thousand years.³

Wanna spice up your novel with more awe-inspiring bad-guys? Just add zeros!

---

Notes

1. A novel in the usual understanding centers around the development of a character. The cover of my copy of the present work is a painting in bold primary colors of a blond, bearded bare-chested man (physique of a body builder) firing two futuristic guns, in the background angular spacecraft zooming around (see the book homepage: www.battlefieldearth.com). In this case it seems you can judge a book by its cover. Tragic little of science fiction explores characters with any depth, though later writers have sought to overcome this shortcoming by introducing sex scenes, as if meaningless couplings add human depth! At least Hubbard refrains from the latter.

2. Cantor showed that there are (infinitely) more irrational numbers between any two rationals than there are rationals on the real number line. But his failure to show that the continuum is the next infinity bigger than the rationals leaves an indefiniteness to the place of the continuum in Cantor's hierarchy of transfinite numbers. More on this later.

3. P. 899. Somehow their tremendous evil does nothing to destablize their society.

4. Looks like Battlefield Earth is Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's favorite novel! Just the thing to read while you're having your hair blow-dried.

---

L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth: A Saga [!] of the Year 3000 (Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, 1984), 187-8.

A.W. Moore, The Infinite (Routledge, 1989).