Cybernetics and Human Knowing. Vol. 27 (2020), no. 3, pp. 33–63

Knowing How to Be: Imitation, the Neglected Axiom

Stephen Laszlo Jarosek1

The concept of imitation has been around for a very long time, and many conversations have been had about it, from Plato and Aristotle to Piaget and Freud. Yet despite this pervasive acknowledgement of its relevance in areas as diverse as memetics, culture, child development and language, there exists little appreciation of its relevance as a fundamental principle in the semiotic and life sciences. Reframing imitation in the context of knowing how to be, within the framework of semiotic theory, can change this, thus providing an interpretation of paradigmatic significance. However, given the difficulty of establishing imitation as a fundamental principle after all these centuries since Plato, I turn the question around and approach it from a different angle. If imitation is to be incorporated into semiotic theory and the Peircean categories as axiomatic, then what pathologies manifest when imitation is disabled or compromised? I begin by reviewing the reasons for regarding imitation as a fundamental principle. I then review the evidence with respect to autism and schizophrenia as imitation deficit. I am thus able to consolidate my position that imitation and knowing how to be are integral to agency and pragmatism (semiotic theory), and should be embraced within an axiomatic framework for the semiotic and life sciences. Keywords: autism; biosemiotics; imitation; neural plasticity; Peirce; pragmatism

The concept of imitation has been around for a very long time, and many conversations have been had about it, from Plato and Aristotle to Piaget and Freud. Richard Dawkins’s memetic theory incorporates imitation into the Darwinian narrative, and interprets memes, analogous to genes, as cultural replicators. Clearly, Copyright (c) Imprint Academic imitation is regarded as important throughout academia and within contemporary Occidental culture. Yet despite this pervasive acknowledgement of its relevance, there For personal use only -- not for reproduction exists little appreciation of its place as a fundamental principle in the semiotic, cognitive and life sciences. There is little point accruing further evidence to prove imitation’s importance. If our cultural narrative has failed to appreciate its significance by now, after all these centuries since Plato through to contemporary Darwinism and systems theory, then it is unlikely to in the foreseeable future. We need to take a different approach, to interpret imitation more fundamentally, particularly within the context of the Peircean categories. Before addressing terms and definitions in greater detail in a later section, let’s begin by first establishing what the consensus on imitation is, and what it is generally understood to mean. From Wikipedia (2019):

Imitation (from Latin imitatio, “a copying, imitation” [Online etymology dictionary]) is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of social learning that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture.

1. Independent research scholar. Email: [email protected] 34 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

It allows for the transfer of information (behaviours, customs, etc.) between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance" (Hopper 2010). The word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is termed mirroring. (Wikipedia, 2019)

1) Reframing Imitation as a Fundamental Principle

1.1 The Pervasiveness of Imitation A cursory overview of some of the reasons why imitation should be taken more seriously within the life sciences. Here are some contentions that align with the thesis that I am setting out to establish: • Pragmatism within the context of mind-body predispositions (Jarosek, 2013), on its own, does not adequately account for how organisms make choices from their ecosystems. It is necessary to factor in imitation in order to account for the myriads of options that impact on behavior, from animals in the wild and domesticated animals, to humans in culture. • I contend that imitation provides humans with access to an array of options in culture that far exceed the options confined solely to arms-length, mind-body predispositions. Through language, our extended horizon of options enables us to get into the minds of others to apprehend experiences and contexts well beyond our own immediate familial contexts. • My contention is that it is imitation, not instinct, that provides the basis for replicating behavior. More specifically, there is no such thing as instinct. What is often mischaracterized as instinct, in non-human animals, is a category error. Animals without human language are confined to simpler,

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic more reflexive actions and responses within a reduced horizon of options. Their behavior is no more confined to instinct than our own. There is nothing

For personal use only -- not for reproduction about the instinct fallacy that cannot be addressed in the Peircean categories and our imitation thesis. This places us in a position to address the clumsy instinct-freewill dichotomy that has plagued Occidental science and theology throughout history. • Peirce’s categories are still important, but they are more appropriately interpreted as the filter through which organisms decide what to imitate. For example, humans with female mind-bodies will be predisposed to imitating women, and humans with male mind-bodies will be predisposed to imitating men. • My contention is that imitation, as the driver for conformity, provides the basis for structure, order, and division of labor. Without it, there would be only the chaos of individual needs and, therefore, disorder. Imitation is perhaps the most important solution to the entropy problem, because without it, there would be no colonies or culture. • Imitation, particularly within the existential context of knowing how to be, plays a fundamental role in the major world religions: Knowing How to Be 35

i) There are several references to imitation and leading by example, throughout the Catholic Holy Bible (Smith 2019 and Thomas à Kempis 1989). To follow Christ is to imitate him (Burridge 2007). Drake Williams (2013) explores Ignatius’s interpretation of imitation as a means of identifying with God, with “the person of Christ”, and with reference to human examples. Imitation of Christ as “a general ethical notion related to suffering, love, humility, and endurance.” Imitation as “being like God” and the imitation of “exemplary human beings.” ii) Islam clearly prohibits imitation of the kuffaar, that is, non- Muslims. Reasons revolve principally around identification, for example, “by describing those who imitate the kuffaar as being of them” (Islam Question & Answer, 2012) and “Whoever imitates a people is one of them” (narrated by Abu Dawood, 3512, in Islam Question & Answer, 2012). • Knowing how to be relates to Dasein, which is a concept from the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Dasein is a German word that translates to English as being there, or presence, or existence. Concepts expressed in the context of Dasein include being-in-the-world, knowing oneself (Sichkennen), being-with, uncovering, being-with-one-another, potentiality-for-being, thrownness, modes of being, and these point clearly to the importance of engagement within the world in the course of discovering the kind of person

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic that one is to become. Being and Time (Heidegger, 1962) provided the original inspiration for the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, whose “existence precedes essence” relates to the notion that an individual’s essence For personal use only -- not for reproduction emerges with the choices that they make and how they live their life. Knowing how to be therefore relates in a fundamental way to existential philosophy. To have an existential crisis is thus to have a crisis of being—a crisis of knowing how to be.

In summary, imitation relates to pragmatism because it is one of the ways in which organisms (as agents) define the things that matter. But imitation extends the narrative from that of individual needs, to that of the whole—the colony, the culture. Imitation is thus integral to knowing how to be, because compliance with the whole implies agreed-upon habits, narratives and assumptions.

1.2 Agency as Knowing How to Be Imitation plays an important role in how we and other entities know how to be, and knowing how to be relates to agency. In order to address the limitations of self-organization from the bottom up, we need to factor in organization from the top down, and this places mind-stuff at center 36 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

stage. An agent must know how to be in order to reliably and consistently gather facts that are relevant and attribute meaning. Kull (2018, p. 452) suggests “shifting the concept of choice to the centre of the semiotic theory of learning”:

The model we propose consists in a slight redefinition of the general terms of learning, memory and semiosis. We define these terms bringing in the concept of free choice, which has been downplayed by both the computational and the neo-Darwinian approaches to learning. We observe that, in semiotics, the concept of free choice has not received the attention it deserves. (Kull, 2018, p. 453)

By shifting emphasis to free choice, Kull positions the agent at the locus of control, and this aligns the agent’s choice-making with knowing how to be. Okasha (2018, n.p.2) examines the importance of agency and agential thinking in biology, which “involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival and reproduction, and treating its phenotypic traits, including its behaviours, as strategies for achieving this goal.” To this end, semiosis, pragmatism and imitation are integral. Heidegger’s Dasein incorporates being in the world into its narrative, and therefore by extension, knowing how to be. While Heidegger does not discuss imitation in any specific detail, Dasein can certainly be understood in the context of knowing how to be. (The question of agency and knowing how to be has deeper metaphysical implications in the context of entropy and the life-essential properties of matter. How do atoms and molecules come to “know” their properties that are so essential to life? These questions are beyond the scope of this paper, but are explored in greater detail in Jarosek, 2017) Copyright (c) Imprint Academic

1.3 Agency Is a Core Notion in Biosemiotics For personal use only -- not for reproduction Semiosis taking place at the cellular level is reflected in semiosis taking place at higher levels, such as ecosystem and culture. This again relates to agency theory. According to Sharov, agency is a core notion of biosemiotics. This shifts the emphasis from signs and meanings to agents, “because signs and meanings are grounded in the recurrent goal-directed activity of agents. Thus, the core notion appears to be agency rather than sign or meaning. Agents include all living organisms from bacteria to humans”(Sharov, 2018, pp. 204–205). Sharov summarizes the basic features of agency:

Agency requires three interrelated features: autonomy, informed choice, and goal-directedness. Autonomy is a capacity of agents to select and execute actions using available resources and tools, or recruit and program other agents for certain activities. Due to autonomy, agents can be initial causes of chains of subsequent events. Informed choice means that agents use information (signs) to

2. The quotation is taken from the marketing blurb of Okasha’s book on Amazon, but it also constitutes an abstract at the following link: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/ 9780198815082.001.0001/oso-9780198815082 Knowing How to Be 37

initiate and regulate their actions. Finally, goal-directedness means that agents tend to select actions that are expected to be beneficial and avoid actions that may damage or disrupt functional capacities of agents in the foreseeable future. Functional capacities represent agential identity (i.e., the living state), and thus, goal-directedness is targeted at preserving and, possibly, propagating and improving the agential identity. (Sharov, 2018, p. 206)

Sharov then details the three features to explain how autonomy, informed choice and goal-directedness play out at different levels, from human and other multicellular agents to cellular subagents (such as molecular complexes and organelles), to protosemiotic agents that lack mind (such as bacteria). In Jarosek (2001), I explored the importance of habituation and associative learning in neurons and people, and showed that the habituation and associative learning that takes place among neurons at the neural level is expressed ultimately in the habituation and associative learning that takes place among people in a city (culture). Accordingly, the functional specializations that form in the human brain are directly analogous to the functional specializations that form in the city. My emphasis of enquiry was confined to the human brain and culture, because much work had already been done on habituation and associative learning in neurons (for example, Eric Kandel’s research with aplysia). But ultimately, the same rationale can be extended to other cellular and higher level interactions, particularly within the framework outlined in Sharov (2018).

1.4 Imitation Increases Complexity Tomasello, Kruger, and Ratner (1993) show that imitation is integral to human cultural evolution because it accumulates modifications and ratchets up complexity over time. According to Tomasello, only one explanation can account for the Copyright (c) Imprint Academic differences separating human beings from the great apes:

For personal use only -- not for reproduction This biological mechanism is social or cultural transmission, which works on time scales many orders of magnitude faster than those of organic evolution. (Tomasello, 1999, p. 4)

Human history has demonstrated how the sharing of values, language and experiences can play a fundamental role in increasing cultural complexity. Industrialization and human progress have always revolved around imitation of ideas and innovations. It is self-evident, and can be stated as axiomatic:

Imitation can increase complexity.

But it is also true to say that imitation can decrease complexity. This is recognized in the context of entropy.

1.5 Semiosis and Imitation Resist Entropy Deacon (2007, 2008) provides a thorough review of the issues as they relate to entropy in the context of semiotic theory, and has shown that semiosis resists entropy. And 38 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

since imitation is now factored in with the semiotic paradigm, what impact might imitation have on entropy? In a society high in conformity and low in individualism, where customs and behavior are copied obsessively, there is little room for diversity. It is self-evident that such an ordered, structured society will be of lower entropy than other comparable, but more diverse, societies, and can be stated as axiomatic:

Imitation resists entropy.

Thus it is self-evident that semiosis and imitation provide bulwarks of resistance to entropy within living, semiotic systems.

1.6 Conclusion Imitation is pervasive throughout human culture. Imitation plays a fundamental role in evolutionary processes, in both the creation of order and its destruction. Factoring in the human drive to belong to groups, fraternities, allegiances, hierarchies and any other collective where identities are forged, we see that imitation always plays a pivotal role in the creation and destruction that comprise human history.

2) Imitation as Top-Down Systemic

The limitations of bottom-up determinism require top-down intervention. The established, dominant narrative in biology has long assumed that functional specializations in the brain are determined in a DNA blueprint. Later, with the development of epigenetic theory, the narrative factored in the environment, but it too, Copyright (c) Imprint Academic was ultimately a genocentric interpretation. More recently, Doidge (2008) introduced neural plasticity into the narrative, and For personal use only -- not for reproduction this has set the stage for factoring in culture’s influence on brain development. But his interpretation, for the most part, regards neural plasticity not as a fundamental principle of self-organization, but as an additional mechanism within a mechanistic brain. Doidge’s narrative closely tracks that of the established mainstream, and in this context, neural plasticity comes across as an adaptive trait, a product of natural selection. This adaptive-trait interpretation of neural plasticity has limited applicability to understanding the relationship between mind and culture. Most importantly, it underestimates, if not omits, agency. Clinical professor Dr Jill Stamm, who specializes in child brain development, observes that ninety percent of a human brain’s growth, wiring and structures (functional specializations) are typically established by the time a child is five years old (Stamm & Spencer 2007). There is much more to neural plasticity than the established narrative factors in, and interpreting it as an adaptive trait relegates it to an incidental status that fails to realize its potential. Knowing How to Be 39

Let us at this point define some terms, and clarify what is meant by adaptive trait, in the context of neural plasticity. In Darwinian theory, an adaptive trait is a characteristic acquired by natural selection, in the survival of the fittest. We want to distinguish between neural plasticity as an adaptive trait, versus neural plasticity as a dynamic in its own right. The former interpretation regards neural plasticity as merely incidental in a brain architecture that is defined in a DNA blueprint, and so I define it as weak neural plasticity. The latter interpretation, with neural plasticity as a dynamic in its own right, factors in agency at the neural level in accordance with the Peircean categories (motivation, association and habituation at the neural level (Jarosek 2013)), and so I define it as strong neural plasticity. Weak neural plasticity is problematic because it extinguishes agency at the neural level. It assumes the functional specializations in the brain to be defined in the DNA blueprint, and weak neural plasticity merely tweaks the nuances, without significantly impacting on the brain structure itself. By contrast, with strong neural plasticity, the functional specializations in the brain are wholly contingent on the agency of neurons making choices in their warm, wet environments. A brain is much more like a bee- hive or ant colony than a computer or machine. In Jarosek (2013), I took a closer look at associative learning in neurons, and the relevance of semiotic theory and the Peircean categories to neural behavior, to arrive at an interpretation of neural plasticity that is much more dynamic than that typically assumed in weak neural plasticity. Our interpretation factors experience more directly into the wiring of neuroplastic brains, and enables us to arrive at a general and robust interpretation that is applicable to all mind-bodies (phenotypes), irrespective of whether they be birds, bees or fish, or humans, cats or dogs. Here, emphasis is on strong neural plasticity, where neurons have agency, and neural plasticity is Copyright (c) Imprint Academic interpreted as a fundamental organizing principle. Thus, neural plasticity is no longer merely incidental, but fundamental to how the brain is structured, how mind-bodies

For personal use only -- not for reproduction encounter experiences, and how they make choices from their Umwelts. Strong neural plasticity resonates with natural law in ways that weak neural plasticity does not. The neural collective that constitutes the brain, with its functional specializations, has more in common with colonies, swarms and cities than it has with blueprints, software and computers. Given the emphasis on strong neural plasticity and factoring in the role of experience in wiring brains, a mechanism for drawing self-organization from the bottom up is required. Accordingly, with self-organization proceeding from the bottom-up, top-down intervention is provided from the environment with which a mind-body engages. That is to say, self-organization proceeds as self-organization of the whole, with mind-body experiences in culture (and ecosystem) interfacing with experiences at the cellular level. This approach calls for knowing how to be to be emphasized at the level of the agent, because pragmatism confined to immediate mind-body associations (phenotypic predispositions) is no longer sufficient to account for all the possible choices that are available within cultures and ecosystems. And imitation provides the 40 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

most efficient and effective way in which agents within cultures and ecosystems can know how to be. It is imitation that provides the vital clues that inform an agent how it should define the things that matter, in survival real-time.

3) Imitation as Assimitation

3.1 The Different Forms of Imitation There are good reasons to imitate. The motivations behind imitation include the desire to be (Jarosek 2001), the desire for reward and knowing how to obtain it, the desire for acceptance, fear of danger or loss and knowing how to avoid it, fear of the unknown. Semiosis, as it is most frequently studied and understood in the context of the triadic scheme, proceeds at too slow a pace when it comes to the urgencies of survival, and competing in hierarchies in ecosystems and cultures. Imitation fast-tracks the acquisition of meaning. Imitation can make the difference between life and death, winning and losing, survival and extinction. Kull (2019) distinguishes between imitative learning and other forms of learning, and he introduces the emon (emonic sign) to account for that distinction. He suggests that because imitative learning assumes the capacity for analogization and therefore amplification, it implies the involvement of emotions, and therefore emons. Accordingly, most invertebrates cannot use emons because they don’t have the relevant mechanism of learning, and he thus suggests that:

Emons are acquired via imitation or social learning, and exist in animals with emotions. Emonic semiosis would be present in vertebrates (birds and mammals), not invertebrates (insects). The transition from non-imitating to imitating animals would be the emonic threshold zone. (Kull, 2019, pp. 95–96) Copyright (c) Imprint Academic

Initially, the temptation might be to conflate emon, as the sign based on imitation, with For personal use only -- not for reproduction Richard Dawkins’s concept of meme. Kull cautions against this, emphasizing that meme relates to replication (copying) and is consistent with the neo-Darwinian narrative, while emon relates to interpretation, which is semiotic. Aplin et al. (2015) describe the spread of learning of foraging techniques in wild populations of great tits (Parus major), through the introduction of two trained birds into each sub-population. Their emphasis is on conformity of behavior acquired from birds observing each other and learning what works. Tomasello et al. (1993) distinguish between emulation in chimpanzee culture and imitation in human culture. They show that imitation is integral to human cultural evolution, and the speed with which it proceeds, because it accumulates modifications and ratchets up complexity over time. By contrast, cultural evolution by emulation can only proceed more slowly. On tool use modeled by a demonstrator, human children imitated their demonstrator, and in the process, learned something about the demonstrator’s strategy in using the tool. On the other hand, instead of imitating, chimpanzees emulated their demonstrator, and learned only that the goal could be Knowing How to Be 41

obtained with the tool, but obtained no insight as to strategy or method (Tomasello et al., 1993). Among the nuances regarding imitation versus emulation, the key issues, according to Tomasello et al., revolve around internalization, empathy, and self- regulation. Chimpanzees are unable to “conceive of others as mental agents having thoughts and beliefs that may be contrasted with their own” (1993, p. 505). Tomasello et al. (1993) provide a review of autism in children, which can be summarized as follows:

the common denominator among all who share this diagnosis [childhood autism] is problems in relating to other persons … . Autistic children thus show little or no evidence of cultural learning; we believe that this is due to the absence, or seriously diminished quality, of human social cognition in this population … the vast majority of autistic children do not engage in collaborative learning … one robust and recurrent finding is that throughout their development autistic children show significant deficits in their ability to interact with and relate to peers … we are not aware of any observations of autistic children that demonstrate anything beyond very minimal behavioral coordinations with peers. In our hypothesis, the lack of collaborative learning occurs because autistic children do not conceive of others as reflective agents. Evidence that they do not do so is provided by their lack of reflective mental-state language … and their inability even to understand reflective mental-state language … (Tomasello et al., 1993, p. 503)

Thus from Tomasello et al., it follows that as with chimpanzees, the problem with autism revolves principally around deficits in internalization, empathy, self-regulation and ultimately imitation. Meltzoff & Decety (2003) argue that motor imitation is particularly important in child development, because through motor imitation, “the human young come to understand that others not only share behavioural states, but are ‘like me’ in deeper Copyright (c) Imprint Academic ways as well” (Meltzoff & Decety, 2003, p. 491). This provides the basis for a developmental trajectory integral to the understanding of other minds.

For personal use only -- not for reproduction Experimental evidence is emerging to suggest that true imitative learning (as opposed to merely emulative learning) takes place also in other non-mammalian and invertebrate species. In an experiment by Kis, Huber, and Wilkinson (2014), eight bearded dragon reptiles (Pogona vitticeps) learned from a demonstrator bearded dragon, by imitation, how to open a door to access food, while none of the four control bearded dragons, in the absence of a demonstrator, were able to do so. Insects are also capable of complex learning skills. Loukola, Perry, Coscos, and Chittka (2017) demonstrate emulative learning in bees. A fake, plastic demonstrator bee guided by a human experimenter, shows a real bee how to move a ball to get a reward. The real bee learns the task, and does it to get the reward. It then becomes the demonstrator bee, showing new, untrained bees how to do the task. New bees not only learn the task, but improve on it. Giurfa (2012), and Leadbeater and Dawson (2017) review several experiments demonstrating complex social learning skills, through demonstrator-observer interactions, in crickets, fruit flies and bumble bees. 42 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

Mimesis is an important category of social learning that emphasizes copying and replication over empathy and internalization—for example, the mimicry of facial expressions. It’s not just humans and apes that mimic facial expressions. Taylor, Hartmann, Dezecache, Te Wong, and Davila-Ross (2019) show that sun bears mimic the facial expressions of their peers. Their finding “questions the relationship between communicative complexity and social complexity, and suggests the possibility that the capacity for complex facial communication is phylogenetically more widespread than previously thought” (Taylor et al., 2019, p. 1).

3.2 Imitation and the Role of Abduction and Induction At a general and abstract level, imitation can relate to one’s sense of self, and imitation is what one does when they identify with someone and what they stand for. In this context, a role model is a representamen that might stand for the sorts of ideals that one wants to accomplish in their own lives. But we do not usually associate role models with how non-human animals make choices from their ecosystems, and so in the interests of generality, let us distill our analysis to a more familiar approach that relates directly to the Peircean categories. When someone imitates another person’s action, they attribute a meaning to that action. That action is a representamen that stands for something, like a goal or outcome. And so imitation relates directly to semiosis. What sort of meaning does one attribute to the action that they choose to imitate? It is self-evident that imitation is an efficient and effective way of learning a new task, or accomplishing a desired goal. The action that we observe is the representamen, and the successful outcome observed is the object that we, as the interpretant, also want to attain. Of course we could learn to do our tasks the hard way, from scratch, without Copyright (c) Imprint Academic having anyone to imitate. This is the basis of abduction and, within the context of Peircean semiotics, it relates to how an agent first apprehends its concepts and

For personal use only -- not for reproduction hypotheses about the world. Thus the semiotic process connects representamens with objects through interpretants. The consequences of abduction are observed, tested, and evaluated through induction. Abduction is a labor-intensive process of discovery that works well in a laboratory (the context in which Peirce first intended it). Non-human animals, such as corvids, can also make discoveries by employing sophisticated levels of abduction in the pursuit of goals, such as reaching food or water by dropping stones into tubes of water to raise the water level (Vitti-Rodrigues & Emmeche, 2017). But the tasks of everyday life are rarely as complex as we would find in a laboratory or a corvid would find in any experimental configuration designed to test its patience. There are much easier ways to learn less complex tasks, particularly when precedents for them already exist in culture. Imitation begins in infancy, at a basic level, as a form of abduction. Infants imitate adults and test for outcomes in a process of discovery that fast-tracks learning. The infant tests how the adult reacts, and from such engagements, learns how to respond. How the adult engages the infant, in the early years, impacts most dramatically on the personality that unfolds. As the infant departs from infancy towards adulthood, it Knowing How to Be 43

departs from the discovery phase of imitation, and into the assuming, or habituation phase. Induction plays an increasingly important role. We now come to a point where we need to distinguish between two types of imitation. Imitation as abduction takes place in the discovery phase when the infant is trying to decide what reality is, and what the correct responses should be. The infant’s brain is largely undifferentiated, and it is at the phase of its development when the brain is rapidly wiring up its functional specializations. Imitation as induction, by contrast, takes place when assumptions about reality have consolidated and functional specializations in the brain are, for the most part, fully formed. In this later stage of development, cultural norms have been assimilated, and imitation relates to surviving according to the norms of the accepted cultural system. In the context of cultural norms, there is nothing “new” (contrary to the terms of reality) to discover, because every task that is imitated is consistent with the cultural narrative. This is also the stage where cultural norms are imitated, where role models play a vital role, and where humans consolidate language and accent. There is little need for abduction, in establishing the finer nuances of knowing how to be. Imitation as induction is the stage where simple tasks can be explained, or learned by observing others perform them. The explanations themselves can be considered a form of imitation, as the observer plays through in their mind, the actions required to perform the task. On the relationship between induction, habit and association, Peirce writes:

Attention produces effects upon the nervous system. These effects are habits, or nervous associations. A habit arises, when, having had the sensation of performing a certain act, m, on several occasions a, b, c, we come to do it upon every occurrence of the general event, l, of which a, b and c are special cases. That is to say, by the cognition that Copyright (c) Imprint Academic Every case of a, b, or c, is a case of m, is determined the cognition that Every case of l is a case of m.

For personal use only -- not for reproduction Thus the formation of a habit is an induction, and is therefore necessarily connected with attention or abstraction. Voluntary actions result from the sensations produced by habits, as instinctive actions result from our original nature. (CP 5.297)

In the above quoted passage, we can replace Peirce’s “performing a certain act” with our own “observing and imitating a certain act.” Thus imitation bears directly upon induction and the assumptions that are made, habituated and internalized. “Every case of a, b, or c, is a case of m.” Every category of behavior can be attributed a specific meaning. The behavior is imitated and its meaning is internalized as one’s own. And in this way, cultural assumptions take hold. This is the basis of projection, where the rationale is along the lines of “this (behavior) is how I would react if I was thinking the same thing.” We anticipate and infer what others are thinking from their behavior, based on assumptions about what we would be thinking if we behaved the same way. To conclude, imitation relates to induction, which plays a central role in learning simpler tasks and reflexes, and in acquiring the assumptions and norms that persist throughout culture. 44 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

3.3 Defining Imitation as Assimitation Thus far we’ve encountered a number of ways that behavior is replicated, from copying and mimesis to empathy and imitation. These distinctions are not of substantial concern to my thesis, because they all revolve around agents knowing how to be with the phenotypic tools that they have at hand, and it is the knowing how to be, integral to agency, that is the prime driver. Too much emphasis on the distinctions distracts us from apprehending the core principles. Insofar as emulation, mimicry or other forms of social learning might be regarded as lesser forms of behavioral replication because they don’t factor in the internalization and empathy of imitation, nonetheless, they all serve their essential purpose, integral to survival. Chimpanzees emulate instead of imitate, because they are incapable of the sophistication of human language, and so revert to a clumsier, less nuanced mode of behavioral replication. And agents still lower down in the hierarchy, without hands, vocal chords or other means of nuanced signing, know how to be through simple mimesis. What all these different forms of behavioral replication have in common is they provide perfectly practical solutions to knowing how to be. Let us now take a closer look at imitation, in this broader, knowing how to be context. Kull (2000) examines the distinction between copy versus translate (meme versus sign), and how they relate to natural-scientific (Darwinian) biology versus semiotic biology:

several differences between the natural-scientific biology and semiotic biology are compared, showing that the latter is a generalization of the former. (Kull, 2000, p. 101)

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic To the extent that there isn’t a word in the English language expressing imitation in the broader context, as a generalization of its narrow copying (replication) aspect, we

For personal use only -- not for reproduction have to invent our own. Our new word factors in knowing how to be. Integral to knowing how to be is assuming. Synthesizing the word imitation with assuming yields assimitation. Assimitation is not blind mechanical imitation, replication or copying, but semiotically informed pragmatism—the knowing how to be—the assimilation of values into a logically coherent whole… the having to decide what values (signs) matter… the distinction between the known and the unknown. Assimitation, then, is the generalization of which imitation is a narrow subset. All creatures assimitate, because every creature is an agent that is compelled to know how to be. It doesn’t matter whether they mime, copy, emulate or imitate… the behavior that they replicate is their knowing how to be. The prefix for assuming—ass—implies continuity and habituation. In order to be motivated to imitate, one needs to assume what’s real and internalize it (firstness), before one can associate, habituate and imitate the real (Secondness and Thirdness). But there is another important aspect, too. In order to achieve structured unity and continuity across time, all participants in any colony, be it a culture of humans or a swarm of insects, all participants need to come to a mutual agreement on what Knowing How to Be 45

matters, so that each can assign themselves to their respective divisions of labor. Without that mutual agreement, arrived at by assimitation, there would be only chaos. These preceding two points, assuming and shared agreement on what matters, apply to all agents. Too precise a definition for imitation that focuses only on replication of behavior, loses its semiotic significance. Assimitation, then, best serves our purpose. The Peircean categories are still critically important. They provide the basis for identifying common purpose or need. The rationale is simple: A creature that looks like me probably thinks like me, too. That is, the Peircean categories provide the filter that determines the signs that mind-bodies are motivated to assimitate—for example, the assimitation of gender roles in culture. Assimitation is integral not just to survival, but to the organizational dynamics and gender roles that play out in cultures. But assimitation taken to extremes, motivated by fear, self-interest and the need to belong, is something quite distinct from the spirit of knowing how to be, because it seeks to assert its own assumptions about being. Assimitation taken to extremes approaches that definition of imitation that we typically associate with blind copying. It enables us to recognize imitation’s role in groupthink—that unquestioning herd mentality that typically leads to strife. Assimitation’s role in assembling colonies of structured unity has wider implications with respect to identity and sense of self. We can quote Peirce’s words “the man is the thought” (CP 5.314) and extend it to culture. More specifically, the culture is the thought. Neurons in a brain are to personality what people in a city are to culture. This would not be possible without assimitation. So to summarize: The Peircean categories are relevant to assimitation. Assimitation incorporates all three categories without favor in the interest of unity… Copyright (c) Imprint Academic the motivations that collective values harness (Firstness), the association of shared values to form a logical unity (Secondness), and the habituation of shared assumptions

For personal use only -- not for reproduction (Thirdness).

4) Gender Roles as Assimitation

In Jarosek (2013), I summarize gender roles in the context of the Peircean categories:

Men and women think and behave differently because male and female mind-bodies are predisposed to making different kinds of choices from culture, and this impacts on how men’s and women’s brains are wired. Thus, more generally, we can infer that:

1. Gender roles are habits (relates to Thirdness); 2. Gender roles are chosen (relates to Secondness); 3. Men and women like the roles to which they have been assigned (relates to Firstness). (Jarosek, 2013, p. 223)

But our gender roles evolve not individually, but collectively, in the context of culture. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we don’t need to decide what to 46 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

associate or habituate. We assume our gender roles, and we imitate (assimitate) our gender roles based on our sex. Our mind-bodies provide the pragmatic filter by which we decide what roles to imitate. Thus, generally, humans with female mind-bodies are predisposed to imitating female gender roles, and humans with male mind-bodies are predisposed to imitating male gender roles. A fourth point can now be added to the summary of inferences relating gender roles to the Peircean categories:

4. Men and women learn the roles to which they have been assigned through assimitation.

5) Mimesis as Assimitation

The intelligent octopus is proficient in the art of camouflage, with its ability to change its color to match its surroundings (Prager, 2000). Cephalods, like the octopus, are able to do this because they have chromatophores under the skin that are connected to the nervous system. With their acute vision, octopuses are adept at controlling their chromatophores to match not only background colors, but also the light intensity of their surroundings. They can also modify their skin texture to mimic sand, rocks and other forms, by altering the papillae on their skin. The ability of the octopus to recognize its environment and change its color to match it, raises an interesting question. Is the mimesis of insects, such as stick insects and bark-colored moths, adaptive, in the context of natural selection of adaptive mutations? Or is it somehow a deliberate semiotic process—assimitation? More specifically, is mimesis a choice, evolving across generations to incorporate environmental textures and structures into phenotypes, and therefore a means of Copyright (c) Imprint Academic knowing how to be? Taking our lesson from the octopus, it would seem that solitary insects that don’t have parents to assimitate or colonies to assimilate to, might

For personal use only -- not for reproduction nonetheless, assimitate; they assimitate the structures and forms of their surroundings. A praying mantis, not quite a stick insect, nonetheless knows to conceal its presence by assimitating the stick or leaf on which it is positioned, and stand silently still. Indeed, if we accept this line of reasoning, stick insects take assimitation to the next level; they have evolved to assimitate sticks so well that their bodies even come to look like sticks or twigs. Is this natural selection? Or is it choice internalized, associated and habituated? And at the other extreme are social insects that are denied their need to assimitate, through imposed solitude. Isolation has negative effects on many creatures, particularly social insects, but on carpenter ants it has been shown to be especially fatal. Anthes (2015), with reference to the study by Koto, Mersch, Hollis, and Keller (2015), writes that ants that live alone have one-tenth the life span of those that live in small groups—even when the researchers provided them with food and water. Clearly, social insects such as ants crave company. They crave connection to conspecifics and connection implies assimitation. They are not equipped to assimitate the walls Knowing How to Be 47

enclosing their solitude, and their ultimate fate follows quickly. It follows that assimitation is a basic need, one that applies even to insects. In the interests of further research, perhaps even mimesis of physical forms, like those of stick insects and bark-patterned moths, amount to assimitation and knowing how to be within the environment that provides the objects to assimitate.

6) Imitation Shapes the Way We Think

The importance of imitation in child development has a history of considerable research (for example with reference to the work of Jean Piaget, Andrew Meltzoff, etc.) and is well-established in our cultural narrative. Meltzoff & Decety (2003, p. 491) suggest “that the mechanisms involved in infant imitation provide the foundation for understanding that others are ‘like me’ and underlie the development of theory of mind and empathy for others … [imitation] is used by infants to learn about adults.” Their three-step argument is summarized as follows:

i. imitation is innate in humans; ii. imitation precedes mentalizing and theory of mind (in development and evolution); and iii. behavioural imitation and its neural substrate provide the mechanism by which theory of mind and empathy develop in humans. (Meltzoff & Decety, 2003, p. 491)

“In ontogeny, infant imitation is the seed and the adult theory of mind is the fruit” (Meltzoff & Decety, 2003, p. 491). The primary role of imitation in child development is not controversial. However, there are some interesting issues to iron out, and Jones (2009) examines some of them from a dynamic-systems perspective. In particular, she Copyright (c) Imprint Academic questions the innateness of imitation in the first year of infancy (innateness as bottom- up determinism). For personal use only -- not for reproduction

From a dynamic systems theoretical perspective (e.g., Thelen & Smith, 1994), no dedicated modular system is needed to give imitation its form. Instead, imitation will be the emergent, stable product of the coming together of a range of distinct kinds of knowledge and skill. Such multi-component systems are not deterministic and do not follow a built-in blueprint for the development of behaviours. They are self-organizing and can generate new behaviours through their own activity. Development of the system occurs as its constituent components and the relationship among them change. Such change occurs as individual components continue to develop and new components come online. (Jones, 2009, n.p.)

Thus, Jones concurs with reservations regarding the limitations of bottom-up self- organization, which requires directions from the top-down. Imitation is not innate, it is not an instinct. Imitation must be learned. Imitation must be drawn into realization, through experience, before it can be realized as a primal motivation. Imitation is a motivation that must first emerge with an infant’s initial experiences. Once imitation is acquired, the infant easily reverts to imitation because it is imitation that provides the easy answers that resolve the brain’s yearning for how to wire. The rule is simple: If in doubt, imitate. 48 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

As semioticians, we can recognize the direct relevance of imitation to pragmatism, assimitation and knowing how to be. Neuroplastic brains won’t wire themselves substantially, in the absence of experience—that is, until an infant begins to look for, reach for, listen for, and thus define, what matters. This relates to the formation of the brain’s functional specializations (Jarosek 2013). The work of neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her team (Atzil, Gao, Fradkin, & Barrett, 2018) is an approach in a similar dynamic-systems direction as that of Jones. In his article “What If People From Different Cultures and Economic Backgrounds Have Different Brain Wiring?” Ibelle reported on the team’s research. He interviewed Dr Barrett, who suggested that “babies are not born with the circuitry for social behavior. Instead, that circuitry is created during infancy and childhood as the brain wires itself in response to caregivers, culture, and social environment” (Ibelle, 2018, n.p.) Thus Barrett (Atzil et al., 2018), like Jones (2009), implicates brain wiring, in the direction of social behavior, from an emergence perspective. Infants begin life engaging with their parents. As bonding proceeds and experiences wire the neuroplastic brain, the motivation to social behavior emerges, to consolidate the acquisition of basic skills. We thus see how the development from infancy to childhood shifts increasingly to imitation (assimitation) in cultural and social environments.

7) Inheritance of Behavior Through Assimitation

This interpretation suggests a further, very different mechanism for cultural and behavioral inheritance. Of course genes and DNA remain important to all life Copyright (c) Imprint Academic processes, but in having shifted our focus to the agent that makes choices, we must factor in self-organization from the top down, and this calls for some revision of the

For personal use only -- not for reproduction classical picture. Accordingly, cultural and behavioral inheritance proceed along the following lines (assuming traditional, two-parent families headed by the mother and father, as has been the norm for much of human history):

1. With our emphasis on strong neuroplasticity, our thesis is that experience plays a fundamental role in wiring the neuroplastic brain. Furthermore, this wiring commences soon after conception, with experiences encountered in the womb (Jarosek 2013). 2. Children first learn from their primary nurturer the things that matter (pragmatism). For most children, this is likely to be the mother. 3. Based on the training and rewards that most children receive first from their mothers, boys become men who prioritize the provider role, while girls become women who prioritize the raising of children. 4. As children grow into adolescence, the secondary nurturer, mostly the father, also begins to play an important role. For most boys in western culture, the father becomes a role model. In other cultures, at an appropriate time marked Knowing How to Be 49

as coming of age, the boys’ fathers often remove them from the community and its matriarchal influences, to subject them to initiation rituals that inculcate into them the responsibilities of manhood. For most girls generally, the mother obviously continues to play a crucial role as a role model, but the father also plays an important role that will have an impact on what she will look for in men. 5. From a broader cultural-evolutionary perspective, how might we best describe the patriarchal role of men? If the matriarchal role of women is to define the things that matter (that we relate ultimately to cultural norms), then the role of men is to redefine and discover new things that matter (that we relate to invention, transcendence and changes to cultural norms). 6. Every individual’s personality develops with their experiences within culture. Consistent with pragmatism, culture reaffirms in their mind the things that matter. Their personality becomes a manifestation of cultural personality. They acquire the same accent, the same priorities and motivations and the same fears and aversions that characterize the rest of their culture, and they do this principally through imitation (assimitation). Culture plays a central role in every man’s and woman’s knowing how to be, and imitation (assimitation) is integral to making it happen; 7. Husbands become fathers, wives become mothers. And new infants arrive to be assimilated and assimitated into their culture—as had their parents before them and their grandparents before them; 8. Rinse, repeat—down on through the millennia—from mother and father to daughter and son, from generation to generation. In this way, culture attains continuity across time, across centuries. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic

By factoring imitation (assimitation) into the above outline, the role of genes in

For personal use only -- not for reproduction determining behavior becomes more ambiguous. Genes and DNA are especially important in biological processes, but in the context of the outline above, are least directly relevant to the inheritance of behavior across families, generations and cultures. Mind stuff—imitation and assimitation—might play a much more fundamental role in explaining the persistence of cultures, traditions, accents and behaviors across the generations and across time, and must therefore be included in any evolutionary paradigm.

8) Domestication and Feralization as Assimitation

The domestication of animals can be understood in the context of their experiences within human domains (culture) from which they assimilate aspects of human behavior. A domesticated animal, one that is far removed from its feral predispositions in the wild, learns its civil behavior through assimitation. Despite not having a human body, it learns to define the essence of what matters (pragmatism) from the humans that raise it. Being loved matters, and the loved pet returns in kind, without 50 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

understanding why it does so. Being abused matters, and the abused pet fears, snarls or cowers without understanding why it does so. Domesticated cats’ and dogs’ mind-bodies intercept cultural experiences differently to human mind-bodies because they don’t have the bodily tools to do human. Hence their inability to assimilate complex language. Without vocal chords (Sebeok & Umiker-Sebeok, 1980) or hands, a domesticated pet is generally in no condition to learn human language, or write, or learn to drive. There is only so much of human civility that they are able to imitate. Feral children raised by wolves—for example the Wild Boy of Aveyron (McCrone 1993)—have the bodily tools (phenotype) to do language, but because much of their neural wiring has been set early in wolf culture, they are unable to assimilate to normal society. There are several accounts throughout history of children raised in the wild. In the absence of the more exacting methods of modern science, many of these accounts are generally too unreliable to study at any great depth. However, drawing on the well- documented work of Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre and Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard (Victor of Aveyron), and Joseph Amrito Lal Singh (Amala and Kamala), John McCrone’s (1993) outline provides a succinct summary of some of the most salient observations:

The most important feature shared by the children was that none of them could speak and they all had tremendous difficulty learning to speak once captured. The children could hear—and so were not simply deaf—but treated the sounds of the human voice as no more important than the background rumbling of distant traffic. Almost equally surprising, the stories of feral children suggest that walking upright is not an innate skill in human infants. We may be anatomically designed for such a posture but it seems that we still need an adult model to persuade us to stand up and walk. Yet another disturbing feature of feral children was that they were so unresponsive to their

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic human captors. Rather than welcoming fellow humans, reports agree that their faces showed only fear. Laughter, tears and smiles all came only after some years of socialization. A further surprise was that the feral children did not have a normal sexual response. At puberty, For personal use only -- not for reproduction feral children like Victor gave every indication of arousal and sexual feelings, but it was somehow undirected and frustrated as if the child had to have a social model to know how to satisfy its urges. Itard described how Victor went up to a woman and flung his arms around her neck, but: “This was all, and these amorous demonstrations ended, as did all the others, with a feeling of annoyance which made him repulse the object of his passing fancy” [see also Lane, 1976, p. 158] A final characteristic shared by the feral children was that they seemed somehow to lack memory and self-awareness. As the detailed accounts of Bonnaterre, Itard and Singh make clear, the thoughts of Victor and the wolf-girls were limited to the world of the here and now. They could make simple associations and learn to recognise familiar people and situations. But they seemed unable to reflect on the past or the future, or to have any insight into their own plight. This picture of feral children tallies well with the bifold model. With no inner voices to organise their minds, feral children are reduced to the level of an animal. There is little, if anything, about man’s higher mental abilities which can be considered innate. Indeed, even sexual behaviour, facial expressions and walking on two legs seem to require the shaping mould of society. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on society to clothe us. But there still remains one puzzle: why, having been brought back into the arms of society, did the feral children not learn language and catch up with their peers? What was the invisible obstacle blocking their rehabilitation? (McCrone, 1993, 103–104) Knowing How to Be 51

The above passage illustrates the impact that isolation from human culture, with exposure to animal culture in its place, has on the wiring of the human brain, and subsequently, behavior.

9) Assimitation of Role Models

Let us briefly consider the narrowest definition of imitation, in its copying, or memetic context. Accordingly, metaphors from dynamic systems theory are useful in describing the dynamics taking place within colonies and cultures. A culture’s role models establish the norms around which numbers of people coalesce. In terms of dynamic systems theory, a role model is a cultural attractor. Gender roles also take on the flavor of attractors. Fashion, art, music, science, and so on, provide the memetic attractors that define culture. Without getting too specific regarding the nuances in formal semiotic theory, the spread of signs in culture can be approximated to the spread of memes. To this end, role models are of primary importance. But we don’t imitate just our role models. Different human cultures, to varying extents, also imitate animals. Canetti (1973) describes how an African king’s manner of rule might be informed by the lions and leopards that he identifies with, and therefore assimitates:

The king was regarded as a lion or a leopard, whether because the animal was thought to be his ancestor, or simply that he shared its qualities without being directly descended from it. His lion- or leopard-nature meant that he, like these animals, had to kill. It was right and proper for him to kill, to spread terror as these animals did; his propensity for killing was inborn. The king of Uganda ate alone and no one was allowed to see him eat. One of his wives had to hand him his food and then turn her back while he ate. ‘The lion eats alone,’ it was said. If the food

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic was not to his liking, or was not brought quickly enough, he would call for the offender and spear him to death. If the wife who was waiting on him coughed during his meal, she, too, was killed. He had two spears always at hand. If someone happened to enter and surprise the king eating he was For personal use only -- not for reproduction transfixed on the spot. Then the people said, ‘When the lion was eating he killed so-and-so.’ No human being was permitted to touch any food left by the king. It was given to his favourite dogs. (Canetti, 1973, p. 423)

To conclude, assimitation is not confined solely to conspecifics, but often extends across species.

10) Assimitation Succeeds Where Neo-Darwinism Fails

In this article I’ve incorporated an axiomatic emphasis that seeks consistency across disciplines. The axiomatic method outlined by Woodger, Tarski, and Floyd (1937) relates. We thus address issues that lie beyond the bounds of mainstream biology. Among these are themes, especially critical to the life sciences, that have not received the level of attention that they deserve. These include:

• Entropy: The tendency to disorder, with particular emphasis on Shannon entropy. 52 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

• The binding problem: Separate, autonomous biological processes within an organism are bound to a common purpose, or identity.

10.1 Assimitation Resists Entropy The failure of neo-Darwinism to address the many concerns around entropy has been competently dealt with by the intelligent design community. One does not need to be a proponent of intelligent design to appreciate their sound arguments—for example, Berlinski (2010), or Beisner (1987) with reference to Byles (1972). Their success in tackling challenging issues such as entropy and irreducible complexity, despite objections from neo-Darwinians, cannot be ignored. My contention is that assimitation (imitation) is not merely incidental, but primary to evolutionary processes. It relates directly to agency, and it addresses the entropy problem. Assimitation provides a compelling alternative to the neo-Darwinian paradigm assuming genetic causation. The options that are chosen by an agent are not determined from within by genes or instinct, but from without by the contexts that present themselves. Assimitation relates to knowing how to be, and therefore agency, moderated by semiosis and mind-body (phenotypic) predispositions. This point might be best emphasized by way of a simple thought experiment. If the neo-Darwinian assumption of genetic causation is excluded entirely from our narrative, can assimitation, moderated by semiotic, mind-body and genetic predispositions (not determined by genes), fully account for every possible mode of behavior and its spread or inheritance? It remains to be shown that it cannot. This contention may be difficult to prove conclusively, perhaps even to the extent of being unfalsifiable. But where we work from an axiomatic framework seeking consistency across disciplines, Neo-Darwinian determinism does not. The onus of proof is on the Copyright (c) Imprint Academic Neo-Darwinians to justify genetic causation. Their onus of proof remains outstanding.

For personal use only -- not for reproduction 10.2 There Can Be No Agency Without Binding There can be no choices made in the absence of motive, and no motive in the absence of agency. And there can be no agency without binding. Feldman (2013) reviews some of the issues relating to the neural binding problem. But let’s extend the argument further. How is binding accomplished, despite the absence of direct lines of causation linking autonomous biological processes? Perhaps binding relates to quantum entanglement. To this end, in Jarosek (2017), I reviewed the evidence confirming that the principles of entanglement apply also to very large molecules, such as buckey balls, fluorofullerene and porphyrin (TPP) molecules, with the inference that they will apply also to the largest molecules of life—DNA. Contemporary research continues to trend in the same direction, with Shayeghi et al. (2019) having experimentally demonstrated the wave nature of the polypeptide gramicidin. There is every reason to remain optimistic that the wave nature of DNA molecules will eventually be confirmed. The question of DNA entanglement is directly relevant to my axiomatic framework because it provides an account not only of the binding problem, but also of Knowing How to Be 53

agency at the cellular level (how cells act on the cues provided by their neighbors). It therefore deserves a place-holder, within the axiomatic framework, around which further narratives can be explored. Is the topic of DNA entanglement controversial in the context of currently accepted narratives? Maybe. But is it controversial in the context of the consistencies that I am attempting to reify within the axiomatic framework? Not at all. The correlations that have been observed between separated neural networks (Apostolou & Kintzios, 2018; Pizzi, Fantasia, Gelain, Rosetti, & Vescovi, 2004) have not been explained. Many researchers have observed remarkable levels of cooperation in cellular colonies comprised of cells sharing identical DNA (McDonald, 2015; Bloom, 1995; Baruchi, Towle, & Ben-Jacob, 2005; Ben-Jacob, Becker, Shapira, & Levine, 2004). Within the context of the constantly evolving narratives in quantum mechanics, it is logical to infer that these correlations in highly cooperative cellular colonies would not be possible without DNA entanglement. In these aforementioned citations the authors had omitted references to DNA entanglement because the possibility had not occurred to them, because they were not looking for it. They received their training in established paradigms where neither semiotic agency nor large-molecular entanglement were part of the narrative. One of the purposes of an axiomatic framework is precisely to introduce possibilities that have not been thought of before. In the interests of consistency, these explanations that remain outstanding should be incorporated into my axiomatic framework, at least as place-holders while possibilities are being explored. Irrespective of where these trains of thought finish up, it shows that we’re paying attention.

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 10.3 Further Interdisciplinary Concerns—Entropy and the Persistence of Complexity Across Time

For personal use only -- not for reproduction The evidence that supports Darwinism is based on sticky, intractable assumptions about matter and chemistry as a given. For example, there is no entropy problem because, goes the unspoken assumption, stable chemical bonds take care of it. This materialist line of thinking fails to address how something as disordered as dumb dirt (from which plants draw their essential nutrients) can account for the astonishingly precise properties of the atoms and molecules that are essential to life. Life would not be possible were dumb dirt not so smart. The atoms and molecules comprising the soils and clays of Earth’s crust make possible the complex structure of DNA and the persistent complexity of the inner workings of the cell. While simulations at the cellular level are difficult to model accurately, the simulation by XVIVO for Harvard University—Inner Life of the Cell (MoreThinking, 2013)—provides a graphic illustration of the spectacularly ordered dynamics playing out within the cell, which contradicts the tendency to disorder that commonsense would anticipate. At an intuitive level, it is obvious that entropy deserves to be taken seriously. How is such persistent, dynamic complexity (Inner Life of the Cell) even possible? Complexity is one thing. In an infinite universe, incredibly rare events, such 54 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

as complex structures, are conceivable. But that structured, organized, dynamic and static complexity can persist across time, is quite another. The persistence of complexity across time should be the deal-breaker, and a closer look is required at the assumptions of our established paradigms, for example, those relating to neo- Darwinian, mutation-based natural selection. The Big Bang interpretation of the universe’s origin, and the assumptions accompanying it, are an integral part of the problem. The materialists’ narrative assumes that life-essential atoms and molecules have a common source, and therefore, within the context of the strong/weak anthropic principles, sufficiently explains living complexity and the incredibly complex, life-essential properties of matter and DNA. But increasingly, evidence is casting doubt on a Big Bang universe (the tired-light hypothesis, currently controversial and much disputed, is one explanation for galactic red-shift, and given the ongoing, ever-emerging controversies in cosmology, it is not sensible to consider the case against tired-light closed). Either way, a Big Bang interpretation does not explain the entropy problem, particularly with respect to the persistence of complexity across time. Regardless of whether or not we accept the Big Bang, the entropy problem cannot be resolved within the context of the materialist paradigm. There has to be something else going on. Let’s put all this another way. If a Mars rover found cogs, wheels, nuts and bolts on Mars, we would have to conclude that these are the remnants of a once-advanced civilization on Mars. But the cogs, wheels, nuts and bolts of life are strewn throughout the cosmos, in the atoms and molecules of which matter is comprised (as evidenced in the spectral analysis of stars, and analyzed soil-samples collected from the moon and Mars). How do these atoms and molecules acquire their persistent, life-essential properties? It is perhaps safe to assume that H2O on Saturn’s Titan has the same Copyright (c) Imprint Academic life-essential properties as water on Earth. To what end? And how so? It would seem remarkable that a hydrogen or oxygen or carbon atom from Andromeda should have

For personal use only -- not for reproduction properties that are identical to a hydrogen or oxygen or carbon atom on Earth. This identicality of atoms and molecules across the cosmos is nontrivial, yet it is widely taken for granted. We can understand why. With a common origin in the Big Bang, why shouldn’t matter have replicable properties throughout the cosmos? However, this is an assumption that is not warranted. The question of—let us call it identicality—is now beginning to be taken seriously in quantum physics. In the abstract to their article, Blasiak & Markiewicz (2019, p. 1), setting the context for identicality, write: “All identical particles are inherently correlated from the outset, regardless of how far apart their creation took place.” With reference to Blasiak & Markiewicz, according to the Polish Academy of Sciences (2020, n.p.): “A big surprise may be the fact that the postulate of indistinguishability of particles is not only a formal mathematical procedure but in its pure form leads to the consequences observed in laboratories. Is nonlocality inherent in all identical particles in the Universe?” Or to put it yet another way. We need to find only one place in the universe where complexity persists across time, to infer that this is a living universe. Why? Because Knowing How to Be 55

persistence of complexity across time, on Earth, implies persistence of complexity across space, and the matter that populates it, anywhere where the conditions are right. We’ve found that one place in the universe. We are standing on it. The conclusion is self-evident. What exists over here exists over there, stars and galaxies away. It is the persistence of complexity across time (and therefore space) that implies as much. And even yet another way. Consider the Fermi paradox, first suggested by Enrico Fermi. Where are they (the aliens)? We already have all the evidence we need to establish that this is a living universe. There is no Fermi paradox. The smartest civilisations are too smart to go throwing their alien moneys at risky projects with dubious ROI (return on investment) of centuries duration. Arecibo’s message of 1974 was directed at globular star cluster M13, 25,000 light-years, or quarter of a galaxy, away from Earth—the best ROI, if any, can be expected in about 50,000 years. Most of 1974’s Arecibo researchers and investors would likely be dead by the time that they received any result, and any share of the profit, in 52020 AD. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Not just the absurdly unreachable distances, but the physical limitations of space travel need to be better appreciated. Travelling at even a fraction of light speed can be hazardous to human health and survival (Thompson, 2015). And not just the physics. Also, the semiotics of making investments and running productive businesses. Why would advanced civilisations go throwing valuable resources at hare-brained investments with zero chance of ROI within their lifetimes? Hence the relevance of quantum mechanics, and extending the semiotic question down to the level of atoms and molecules. What is it about the void that compels something to precipitate from it? What do virtual particles need to acquire before they become the matter particles that persist across time? What is the basis of this primal proto-consciousness that favors being over not-being? Copyright (c) Imprint Academic At the heart of all these questions lies the entropy problem. Life would not be possible without the very specific properties of the elements. How do the atoms and

For personal use only -- not for reproduction molecules comprising matter circumvent the entropy problem? Howard Bloom—author of popular books like The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain—tackles the entropy problem head-on in The God Problem (Bloom, 2016). On the implications of entropy, with particular reference to Shannon entropy, he concludes that we should not exist:

On the other hand, says entropy and its math, there are quintillions upon quintillions of paths that could lead to an utter chaos … If you carry this [entropic] reasoning to its extreme you come to an interesting logical conclusion. A conclusion that’s rock solid and irrefutable. You and I do not exist. (Bloom, 2016, p. 416)

Bloom’s solution to the entropy problem is semiotic:

The very shape of the universe is semiotic and linguistic. Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to bend. Note the word ‘tells.’ If no one opens the fortune cookie, you are not able to ‘tell’ a single thing. In ‘telling,’ meaning means everything. And meaning amounts to one simple thing: response. If one quark responds to another, it has opened the fortune cookie. It has read what Claude Shannon’s co-writer, Warren Weaver, call that quark’s meaning. (Bloom, 2016, p. 428) 56 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

The ancients were right to trust their gut instinct. There is something challenging and mysterious about all this complexity that persists across time. But we don’t need to revert to their ideologies, rituals and invented gods, to explain it. The semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, in synthesis with the biosemiotics of Jakob von Uexküll, provides us with the basic tools with which to explore the nature of persistent, living complexity. And by incorporating assimitation within the synthesis, we are also able to more directly address the entropy problem.

11) Imitation Deficit

We now return to the question that first provided the inspiration for this article. If imitation is so important in the behavior of animals and humans, are there pathologies in evidence that can be directly attributed to imitation deficit? It turns out that autism (and also schizophrenia) can indeed be interpreted in this way. We have already been introduced to this insight, with respect to autism, in Tomasello et al. (1993). A further review of available literature will consolidate this position.

11.1 Review of the Literature on the Relationship Between Imitation Deficit and Autism Rogers (1999) reviews research that has been conducted on deficits in motor imitation, as one of the primary deficits in autism. Of particular interest is the cascading effects on social development, of a primary deficit in motor imitation from infancy, which impacts on self-other correspondence and sequencing/execution of intentional movements. Ingersoll (2008) examines the social role of imitation in autism. She looks at the Copyright (c) Imprint Academic importance of imitation in typical development, with emphasis on the social function of imitation and learning social communication skills. She considers different

For personal use only -- not for reproduction approaches and their efficacy, for example, the difference between imitation as a skill (discrete trial training), versus the social use of imitation (reciprocal imitation training). Van Etten & Carver (2015) accept the evidence establishing that deficits in imitation play a central role in autism, but there is little consensus on the reason for the deficits. They review the evidence that impaired social motivation is the precursor to social communication deficits and autism. They place particular emphasis on social motivation and the desire to imitate. With imitation problems having been associated with autism for many years, Vanvuchelen, Van Schuerbeeck, Roeyers, & De Weerdt (2013) explore whether these problems are caused by selection or correspondence problems. Timo, Maia, & Ribeiro (2011) provide a more extensive review of available literature on the relationship between imitation deficit and autism, in order to establish the extent to which this relationship has become accepted by the mainstream. They conclude that indeed, there does exist a correlation between imitation deficit and autism, an assumption now widely accepted by the mainstream. Contemporary Knowing How to Be 57

researchers no longer concern themselves with whether or not such a correlation exists. Instead, they defer to the assumption that this relationship between imitation deficit and autism is a given, and now the priority is to establish which practical interventions are most effective. Rogers and Williams (2006) provide a detailed scholarly review of the role of imitation in typical development, the evolutionary and neural basis of imitation, and imitation in autism and other clinical manifestations. They ask if people with autism have deficits in cultural knowledge, and they conclude that autism has an impact on the ability to acquire culture, which is integral to human cognition and behavior. The extensive literature linking imitation deficit with autism provides compelling support for my introductory premise—more specifically, autism is imitation deficit. Imitation is thus an important principle worthy of factoring in with the Peircean categories. This consolidates my position that imitation and knowing how to be are fundamental to pragmatism, and should be factored into the semiotic paradigm.

11.2 Reinterpreting Mental Illness in the Context of a Semiotic Paradigm As for autism, so too, a similar rationale can be extended to schizophrenia. According to Thomas Szasz (1961), schizophrenia is not a disease that requires treatment by a medical practitioner, but rather, a dysfunctional way of viewing the world that is more appropriately treated in the context of reasoned consultation and explanation. The logical narratives, with emphasis on meaning, play out between cultural conventions and the “mad person’s” motivations, in Szasz’s interpretation:

Properly speaking, contends Szasz, insanity is not a disease with origins to be excavated, but a behavior with meanings to be decoded. Social existence is a rule-governed game-playing ritual in

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic which the mad person bends the rules and exploits the loopholes. Since the mad person is engaged in social performances that obey certain expectations so as to defy others, the pertinent questions are not about the origins, but about the conventions, of insanity. In this light, Szasz dismisses traditional For personal use only -- not for reproduction approaches to the history of madness, as questions mal posés [poorly posed questions] and aims to reformulate them. (Porter, 2003, p. 2)

As outlined above for autism, so too, Szasz’s interpretation suggests that functional psychoses (not of organic origin) are not a faulty-wiring/dysfunctional biology problem. They also amount to an imitation-pragmatism problem, a failure to properly identify and imitate the cultural assumptions of the dominant cultural narrative. As with autism, functional psychoses might be better addressed from a semiotic perspective, as a product of motivation, association and habituation (Peircean categories), and in this light, Szasz’s suggestion for a consultative approach might not, initially, seem unreasonable. However a closer examination of the relationship between experience, neural plasticity, and their impact on brain wiring (functional specializations), suggests limitations for a merely consultative approach, particularly in more serious cases. Functional specializations in the brain that deviate considerably from the norm, when attributable to life experiences, suggest a very different way of viewing the world. 58 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

This is clearly illustrated in the passage cited above, on feral children (McCrone, 1993). By the time that a brain has committed itself to its functional specializations and the narratives that have been scaffolded upon one another, a merely consultative approach might be far from adequate. The brain becomes the lifestyle choices that have been habituated, and this becomes difficult to roll back. The scaffolding of experiences upon experiences and the neural collectives that habituate them are not easy to undo.

12) In Anticipation of Objections

12.1 Are Psychoses and Autism Organic or Functional? Correlation does not prove causation, and one should remain wary about the claims that frequently materialize with respect to autism and other psychoses. For example, how might reports of increasing autism throughout society correlate, simply, with social media, or advancing technology, or a polarizing, politicized culture? However, responding to some objections might reveal vital clues about flaws in the dominant narrative. There now exists a considerable body of literature that has consolidated around the view that all psychoses are organic, not functional. Accordingly, the views of Tyrer and Mackay (1986) reflect a majority consensus. They celebrate that the era of regarding schizophrenia as a functional psychosis is over, and their abstract summarizes their position:

Accumulating evidence from the last ten years has demonstrated that schizophrenia can no longer be regarded as a functional psychosis but an organic one. Many studies have demonstrated ventricular

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic enlargement in schizophrenia using CT scans, and precise neuroanatomical evidence of brain changes in schizophrenia have now been demonstrated by Crow and his colleagues. The brains of patients with schizophrenia were found to be lighter than those of patients with primary affective

For personal use only -- not for reproduction disorder; they were also found to have enlarged lateral ventricles, particularly in the temporal horn, and to have significantly thinner parahippocampal cortices. These findings are consistent with abnormalities in neuropeptide concentrations in the temporal lobe (particularly in the amygdala) of schizophrenic patients, and suggests that schizophrenia is a temporal lobe syndrome. Its cause remains elusive but viral infection could be responsible. (Tyrer & Mackay, 1986, p. 537)

Study after study, failing to factor in top-down agency, cannot avoid arriving at similar conclusions. Researchers—like Dr. E. Fuller Torrey (2010) of the Stanley Medical Research Institute—attribute schizophrenia to a combination of factors that include genetic and biological predispositions, along with social, familial, and environmental stressors. According to Schizophrenia Cause and Prevention (Schizophrenia.com, 2010, n.p.): “In fact, experts now say that schizophrenia (and all other mental illness) is caused by a combination of biological, psychological and social factors, and this understanding of mental illness is called the bio-psycho-social model.” Of course there are likely to be some cognitive dysfunctions that are directly attributable to organic causes, such as virus, cancer or trauma. However, these will Knowing How to Be 59

likely manifest with mostly very different indicators to those of the neuroplastic structural abnormalities attributable to dysfunctional lifestyle choices. Similar approaches, confined to bottom-up determinism in omission of top-down agency, also play out in some interpretations of autism. On the “Autism Fact Sheet” of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (2018), one of the questions is, what causes autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? Their answer, in omission of top-down agency, fails to identify the imitation deficit that characterizes autism:

Scientists believe that both genetics and environment likely play a role in ASD. There is great concern that rates of autism have been increasing in recent decades without full explanation as to why. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder. Imaging studies of people with ASD have found differences in the development of several regions of the brain. Studies suggest that ASD could be a result of disruptions in normal brain growth very early in development. These disruptions may be the result of defects in genes that control brain development and regulate how brain cells communicate with each other. Autism is more common in children born prematurely. Environmental factors may also play a role in gene function and development, but no specific environmental causes have yet been identified. The theory that parental practices are responsible for ASD has long been disproved. (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2018)

As discussed in previous sections, from the fraction of citations referenced from a much larger pool, all concluding the same thing, the evidence establishing a relationship between autism and imitation deficit is unambiguous. So what are these interpretations, assuming organic genesis in both schizophrenia and autism, getting wrong? They are conflating correlation (symptoms) for causation. The changes in brain structure are not the cause of the disease, but the response to lifestyle choices. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic What these interpretations fail to factor in is strong neural plasticity and the relationship between experience (habituated lifestyle choices) and neural wiring.

For personal use only -- not for reproduction Moreover, their narratives continue to be dominated by the neo-Darwinian paradigm assuming bottom-up causation (genetic determinism). So even if they were to accept my unambiguous conclusion of a relationship between autism and imitation deficit, they would, presumably, continue to look for organic causes of the autism and/ or the imitation deficit that accompanies it. And in the spirit of confirmation bias, they would find it in the abnormal brain structures evidenced, for example, in MRI scans. In both autism and schizophrenia, with neo-Darwinian determinism informing their narrative, the erroneous assumption of organic causation (as suggested in abnormal brain structure) omits the top-down agency of the person making the choices, and therefore the importance of imitation (and imitation deficit) to the study of autism and schizophrenia will escape their notice. How is ASD treated? In the absence of top-down agency, only the direst of outcomes can be forecast. From the same NINDS Fact Sheet: “There is no cure for ASD. Therapies and behavioral interventions are designed to remedy specific symptoms and can substantially improve those symptoms” (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 2018). 60 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek

Thus, in omission of top-down agency, with the neo-Darwinian narrative providing the basis for their assumptions, the role of imitation deficit escapes their notice and treatment provides little in the way of positive outcomes.

12.2 Strong Versus Weak Neural Plasticity In Jarosek (2013), I introduced the case of a man with severe hydrocephalus (water on the brain). This is a case that continues to confound researchers (MacDonald, 2016; CBC Radio, 2016). The subject was still able to function normally, despite possessing a brain structure massively deviated from normal:

With reference to a case documented in Lancet (Feuillet et al., 2007), New Scientist and Reuters (2007) describe a man with severe hydrocephalus (water on the brain) who is able to function normally, despite massive ventricular enlargement resulting in a 50 to 75% reduction in brain volume. He is a married father of two children who works as a civil servant. While his IQ at 75 is considered below average, he is not mentally retarded or disabled. This suggests that functional specializations in the brain are not confined to a developmental trajectory spelled out in a genetic blueprint, but rather, that they self-organize in exactly the same way that any colony of social organisms self-organize in response to pressures from the ecosystem. If water on the brain makes regions of the brain uninhabitable, then neurons will set themselves up in regions that are habitable (Jarosek, 2013, p. 214–215).

Strong neural plasticity, factoring in top-down agency, implies a very different outcome to that confined solely to bottom-up determinism (or framed in the context of weak neural plasticity). Far from being disabled, the subject described by Feuillet et al. (2007) has, in reality, a far more positive prognosis to what he would have received had he been otherwise diagnosed with a problem, and proceeded to treatment via the conventional route. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic

13) Conclusion For personal use only -- not for reproduction The established dominant narrative in the life sciences, confined to bottom-up determinism to the exclusion of top-down agency, has failed to appreciate the importance of imitation, and therefore knowing how to be. Semiosis, in the context of the Peircean categories, on its own does not adequately account for the efficiency with which organisms adapt and survive. To this end, imitation, generalized as assimitation, needs to be factored in. And assimitation relates directly to pragmatism and therefore, how an agent defines what matters. And what is the message of the pervasiveness of assimitation throughout the animal kingdom? Living organisms are informed from the top-down, and need to look outside of themselves in order to choose how to behave. Every organism, every agent, needs to know how to be, and it obtains its cues for being from outside of its own body. Recontextualizing agency as knowing how to be, with the incorporation of assimitation into semiotic theory, suggests a crucial starting point towards a more compelling life-science paradigm. Knowing How to Be 61

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