|
The Animate and the Inanimate William James Sidis |
CHAPTER IX
THE RELATION BETWEEN THE TENDENCIES
It would seem that the negative tendency depends for its possibility on certain special combinations of position taking place, which combinations would probably take place anyway by accident, but which would be much more likely to happen as a result of other similar combinations. In other words, if we take the negative tendency, we will find that any "negative" event must have been immediately preceded by an extremely improbable sort of combination, but is followed by a more probable combination. This can be seen if we take the simplest example of the negative tendency, the super-elastic collision, which, in order, to happen at all, must be preceded by a rather unlikely sort of concentration of particles and energy at the exact point of collision. This does not in the least contradict our conclusion that the positive and negative tendencies are equally probable; for, on analysing the positive tendency, we find that it is followed by a similarly improbable condition. Thus, in the negative tendency, the cause is where the improbable stage comes in, but in the positive tendency, that same improbable stage comes in at the effect. However, the two varieties of "improbable stage" do not correspond exactly; for that of the negative tendency consists in a concentration of motion, while that of the positive tendency consists of a divergence of motion. Hence the effect of a positive event could hardly serve as the starting-point for a negative event. Outside of some accidental combination, a negative event must have a negative combination for at least part of the cause. The reverse of this rule is, that a positive event must give rise to positive effects, at least partially.
In other words, we have such things as a negative or a positive event giving rise to another event of its own kind; but with only positive causes, a negative result would hardly be expected to arise. If we identify the negative tendency with life, the statement reduces to this: All life comes from some living cause.
On the contrary, there is no such improbability in a purely negative cause giving rise to positive effects. In fact, as we have seen, a positive universe could not have existed for an infinite time past, nor a negative universe for an infinite time in the future; in either kind of universe, the change from negative cause to positive effect must take place; in fact, it is to be expected that it will be very common for a negative cause to give rise to a positive effect.
We thus see that the transformation from positive to negative takes place in a very different way from the change from negative to positive. The latter can take place as a comparatively sudden transformation, a sudden cessation of all life activity; while non-living bodies cannot become alive except by accretion on other living bodies. The transformation from positive to negative can occur only as an extension of the negative tendency from some sort of center that is already negative; that is, by a living body growing.
It might be supposed that this difference between one kind of transformation and its inverse indicates an irreversible law; and we have already seen that, if we give up the second law of thermodynamics, we must replace it by the statement that all physical laws are reversible. Hence it would seem as though we had arrived at an inconsistency. But, if we examine into the question, we will see that one form of transformation is not the actual reverse of the other, but that each process is symmetrical in time, and is really the reverse of itself. For the transformation, for instance, of a negative cause into a positive effect suddenly and completely, is a strictly reversible one, if we consider the fact that a negative cause corresponds in the reverse universe to a positive effect, and vice versa; so that, when in the real universe we have a negative cause and a positive effect, we will have the same in the reverse universe, so that the process remains unchanged when reversed. The same is true of the other process, by which a positive cause might give a negative effect.
However, in the latter case, there is a different element, whose reverse is not quite identical with itself, and therefore whose reverse can be used to supplement the proposition. That is to say, where such a transformation must, as we have seen, require some negative element to enter into the cause, the reverse of this requires some positive element to enter into the effect. That is, such a transformation not only cannot be spontaneous, but it also cannot be complete. If a positive substance be absorbed into a negative body, some positive matter must, at the end of the process, be rejected.
In other words, we come to the following conclusions; (1) Life cannot generate spontaneously, except by an accident that is so extremely unlikely that it would hardly happen once in a whole universe; (2) life extends to new matter by a process of growth, that is, by accretion round a living center; (3) where a living body absorbs inanimate mailer, some inanimate matter must be rejected; (4) however, the transformation of living into lifeless matter may take place suddenly and completely, manifesting merely a sudden cessation of life-activities, a cessation which would be an irreparable one.