Exploding Elephants

Streetlight

A fun holiday thread. For those who don't know, Kurzgesagt ('in a nutshell' in German), is probably one of the best educational channels on Youtube, and their latest video, on exploding elephants, is a treat:

What I want to explore, on the back of the video, are some of the philosophical lessons that can be drawn from it. In particular, what I'd like to bring out is the anti-Platonic lesson that the video implies. The idea is this: that form and function are intimately related, and that form cannot be thought about in any way separately from the immanent conditions which shape it. The 'form' we're talking about here of course, is size.

As the video points out, the size of an elephant and the size of a mouse are not simply incidental: we cannot blow the mouse up to the size of an elephant or shrink an elephant down to the size of a mouse without killing either. And this has to do with the different metabolic rates of each respective animal - the mouse, on account of it's tiny size, needs a rapid metabolic rate to stop it from literally freezing to death, while the elephant, on account of it's large size, needs a slow metabolic rate in order to not overheat itself to death.

'Form', or size in this case, cannot be thought of as transcendentally imposed on some indifferent 'substrate' of material or 'matter': both must be thought of as imminently co-arising from processes of evolution (in the case of living things, anyway). In fact, the example from the video only begins to touch the wide and wonderful world of 'size', which is an under-explored area rich with philosophically interesting resources.

Take the further example of the field of gravitational biology, for instance. This is the study of gravity and it's effects on life. For a awesome introduction, check out J. B. S. Haldane's wonderful 6 page paper On Being the Right Size [pdf]. For Haldane, and indeed the entire field of gravitational biology, gravity has been one of the biggest constraints on the size and shape of animals: the reason that no land animal is as big as a whale, for instance, is because whales don't have to support their massive weight on account of living in water, whose bouyancy enables whales to grow to the giant sizes they do. And if giants remain the stuff of fantasy, it's because they'd have to contend - probably unsuccessfully - with gravity. Giants don't unfortunately make much engineering sense.

These are only but a few examples of how form and function and intimately connected, and many more can be provided. Perhaps a nice way to sum much much of the above is in D'Arcy Thompson's famous statement (from 'On Growth and Form') that form is a diagram of forces: that all form is reflective of the forces which work upon it, which bring it into being and sustain it. In the case of our exploding elephant/freezing mouse, form reflects the the kind of metabolism that each animal can possess. These are all just some very cursory illustrations, but hopefully they bring out the poverty of thinking that form can in any way be thought of in any kind of transcendent manner, and that no Idea of Form can explain morphogenesis (the 'genesis of form' ('morphḗ' in Greek)), but that morphogenesis is what explains form.

Shawn

The idea is this: that form and function are intimately related, and that form cannot be thought about in any way separately from the immanent conditions which shape it. — StreetlightX

What makes you say the latter, that beyond immanent conditions form is not shaped?

Streetlight

I don't think there's any use in speculating on negatives.

Metaphysician Undercover

The idea is this: that form and function are intimately related, and that form cannot be thought about in any way separately from the immanent conditions which shape it. The 'form' we're talking about here of course, is size. — StreetlightX

My opinion is that what is at issue here is the nature of matter. It is not properly an issue of form, though it may be best described as an issue of the relationship between matter and form. Matter, or energy, is how we understand the temporal continuity of existence. The common place perspective seems to be that matter is some sort of tiny indivisible particle which make up all objects. But this is a misunderstanding, because matter is really the thing which allows any size of an object to have temporal continuity, as the object which it is. Since matter is just this one fundamental principle of temporal continuity, then all the matter of a big object, and all the matter of a small object, must be exactly the same in relation to the object's form, which is what the object is.

What the video clip shows is that there is a strange relationship between the inside of an object, and the outside of an object. The matter of the object is an internal property rather than external, so temporal continuity (which expresses the existence of an object) is different from where there is no object (no expression of temporal continuity). Now when matter is expressed as a quantity, a size (a form), an exponential relationship develops between what is of the object and what is not of the object, due to the fact that real temporal continuity is of the object, and not of the surrounding "space" which is a conceptual construct. So, when this relationship with respect to a big object is compared to this relationship with respect to a small object, the difference is revealed significant, and very strange, by the exponential values. The difference referred to here, being the difference between the temporal extension of a real object, and the temporal extension of the assumed surrounding space (conceptual temporal extension). But the exposed strangeness here, in this relationship, is completely the result of quantifying matter (temporal extension), representing it as a form.

What we can conclude is that although we can refer to temporal continuity with the one term, "matter", or "energy", the temporal continuity of a very tiny object is completely different from the temporal continuity of a very large object. The relationship between these two is very strange. And when we try to express this relationship in terms of form, (quantify this relationship), we do not have the tools necessary, because we do not properly understand how the temporal continuity of a large object relates to the temporal continuity of a small object.. And this is exactly what quantum mechanics has already demonstrated to us, that how we understand the temporal continuity of a larger object is inadequate for understanding the temporal continuity of very tiny objects..

SophistiCat

↪StreetlightX

Nice video.

The material ontology consisting of inert, amorphous matter substrate as a distinct existent, with form and/or animating spirit or force or process acting on it as another distinct component of existence is both ancient and surprisingly ubiquitous and persistent. For example, ancient materialists, who you would not think of as natural allies of Plato, also believed something like this. And this sort of thinking is still current.

Of course, proponents of this view would not be much discouraged by your exploding elephant - they would just push "matter" to lower, sub-cellular scales (as, of course, has long since been done in the normal process of scientific reductionism).

Another thing that this video reminded me of (again): You often hear people say how machine-like biological mechanisms appear to be - surely, a hallmark of design! I think this is just a superficial impression that is an artifact of the way we analyze and present scientific models, which is like engineering in reverse (or reverse engineering). The impression I get is the opposite. When you look at living things with an unprejudiced eye, as well as when you learn the bewildering array of biological facts, such as those described in the video, it strikes you just how messy and complicated and thoroughly alien these things are. They are so obviously not designed by anything like a human designer*, but grown, evolved through billions of generations across billions of individuals in a blind and unthinking, but massively integrated process: integrated across all physical scales, all the way to the bio-chemical and even quantum mechanical level.

And what role does this inert, formless "matter" play in all this? It seems like a useless kludge, and we should rid our thinking of it.

* And it's no use saying that the designer is totally unlike a human designer: that just removes any reason for inferring design in the first place.

Metaphysician Undercover

Of course, proponents of this view would not be much discouraged by your exploding elephant - they would just push "matter" to lower, sub-cellular scales (as, of course, has long since been done in the normal process of scientific reductionism). — SophistiCat

This is exactly the problem, how is matter scaled? By its defining terms, it cannot be scaled because an object's form is always what is measured.

And what role does this inert, formless "matter" play in all this? It seems like a useless kludge, and we should rid our thinking of it. — SophistiCat

As I explained, "matter" accounts for the temporal continuity of existence. You can replace "matter" with "energy", but this does not make the problem go away, it just reaffirms it, as is evident in quantum mechanics.

tim wood

My opinion is that what is at issue here is the nature of matter. — Metaphysician Undercover

My opinion is that what matter is, depends on who's asking and why. Matter is not a well-defined term, and it's probably useless to try to reconcile differing definitions/understandings of matter.

T Clark

These are only but a few examples of how form and function and intimately connected, and many more can be provided. — StreetlightX

Here's a link to an essay by Stephen Jay Gould that covers some of the same ground and goes beyond it a bit:

http://qrc.depaul.edu/djabon/CTTI/Readings/Gould_Size_and_Shape.pdf

T Clark

And this is exactly what quantum mechanics has already demonstrated to us, that how we understand the temporal continuity of a larger object is inadequate for understanding the temporal continuity of very tiny objects — Metaphysician Undercover

You have taken something that seems really interesting and non-intuitive but simple into something incomprehensible. The issue that the video is discussing is one of the most important in physics - classical physics, in this case, not quantum - the scaling relation between geometry and force or energy. It's simple because it all comes down to basic geometry. It's non-intuitive because such seemingly small differences have such profound impacts on what forms are possible.

For me, there has always been a more general theme in this subject - It doesn't take magic or gee whiz quantum shenanigans to make simple things act in complex and unexpected ways.

Streetlight

The material ontology consisting of inert, amorphous matter substrate as a distinct existent, with form and/or animating spirit or force or process acting on it as another distinct component of existence is both ancient and surprisingly ubiquitous and persistent. For example, ancient materialists, who you would not think of as natural allies of Plato, also believed something like this. And this sort of thinking is still current.

Of course, proponents of this view would not be much discouraged by your exploding elephant - they would just push "matter" to lower, sub-cellular scales (as, of course, has long since been done in the normal process of scientific reductionism). — SophistiCat

Yep, exactly - the entire hylomorphic schema inherited from antiquity - determinate form descending upon inert and ready matter - needs to be shot out into space, never to return again. While I think you're right our hylomorphic enthusiast would simply scale-down, I suspect the problem he will run into is that at a certain level he will simply lose the very phenomena he means to explain: form.

Another thing that this video reminded me of (again): You often hear people say how machine-like biological mechanisms appear to be - surely, a hallmark of design! I think this is just a superficial impression that is an artifact of the way we analyze and present scientific models, which is like engineering in reverse (or reverse engineering). The impression I get is the opposite. When you look at living things with an unprejudiced eye, as well as when you learn the bewildering array of biological facts, such as those described in the video, it strikes you just how messy and complicated and thoroughly alien these things are. They are so obviously not designed by anything like a human designer*, but grown, evolved through billions of generations across billions of individuals in a blind and unthinking, but massively integrated process: integrated across all physical scales, all the way to the bio-chemical and even quantum mechanical level — SophistiCat

Again, yes! Part of what at stake here is precisely the way in which constraints like size, gravity, heat, and surface area do so much of the 'heavy lifting' of 'design' that any need to posit some kind of singular 'engineer' behind it all can only come off as ridiculous. Behind the divergent paths of the mouse and elephant lie the same physical-chemical principles that quite obviously were harnessed by evolutionary processes in ways distinct to each, as their phylogenetic paths played out in real time. I just finished reading, not too long ago, Peter Hoffman's Life's Ratchet, where, after looking at a whole range of exquisitely 'engineered' molecular 'machines' (operating quite obviously at a way different scale from what are discussing), he ends up drawing the same conclusion:

"Looking at molecular machines has made me realize that evolution is the only way these machines could have come to exist. As we have seen, life exploits all aspects of the physical world to the fullest: time and space, random thermal motion, the chemistry of carbon, chemical bonding, the properties of water. Designed machines are different. they are often based on a limited set of physical properties and are designed to resist any extraneous influences. the tendency of molecular machines to use chaos rather than resist it, provides a strong case for evolution ... The ability of life to somehow incorporate thermal randomness as an integral part of how it works - as opposed to giving in to the chaos - shows that life is a bottom-up process. It is not designed from the top down."

This notion, that life is basically a scavenger, using all the bits and bobs it comes across as it tinkers away in real time, is similarly what comes across in the comparison between the mouse and elephant in the video above.

charleton

↪StreetlightX

The square cube law can be used to explain why shrinking or expanding animals would be disastrous just in terms of mechanics without about of the biological detail.
The 50s sci-fi film THEM proposes giant ants. These would simply collapse under their own weight due to the thinness of their own legs.

Streetlight

↪T Clark

Ahh, thanks for this! I love that he moves into a discussion of architecture at the end of the paper, and I think it's so important that these principles be seen as operating all across the scales of not just the living, but the non-living too.

↪charleton

The Gould paper T Clark linked actually talks about exactly this film. I think it's my favourite passage in the paper too, and it gets at what I was trying to say in the OP when I said that giants don't make much engineering sense:

"The creators of horror and science-fiction movies seem to have no inkling of the relationship between size and shape. These “expanders of the possible” cannot break free from the prejudices of their perceptions. The small people of Dr. Cyclops, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Fantastic Voyage behave just like their counterparts of normal dimensions. They fall off cliffs or down stairs with resounding thuds; they wield weapons and swim with olympic agility. The large insects of films too numerous to name continue to walk up walls or fly even at dinosaurian dimensions.

When the kindly entomologist of Them discovered that the giant queen ants had left for their nuptial flight, he quickly calculated this simple ratio: a normal ant is a fraction of an inch long and can fly hundreds of feet; these ants are many feet long and must be able to fly as much as 1,000 miles. Why, they could be as far away as Los Angeles! (Where, indeed, they were, lurking in the sewers.) But the ability to fly depends upon the surface area of wings, while the weight that must be borne aloft increases as the cube of length. We may be sure that even if the giant ants had somehow circumvented the problems of breathing and growth by molting, their sheer bulk would have grounded them permanently."

Gould's invocation of the 'possible' offers a way into what would be a very interesting discussion about questions of modality - over which the pathetic efforts of analytic philosophers to construct 'modal metaphysics' would show themselves for the shame-inducing embarrassments they are - but I'll lay-by that to another day, I think.

charleton

↪StreetlightX

:)
Yes I was always puzzled by the Incredible Shrinking Man. How the hell did he manage to break surface tension of water to have a drink? What was happening inside his body? Was everything shrinking? Surely to keep looking like a man his atoms would have to shrink too? This would make it impossible to sustain his health. But if his cells stayed the same then this would lead to his appearance and internal architecture having to change.
I would imagine it would be possible for a body to acclimatise to reduce the number of mitochondria, but what happens when the size of a capillary would have to be smaller than the cells of which it was comprised? How would memories be preserved as brain cells were inevitably lost?

Metaphysician Undercover

Matter is not a well-defined term, and it's probably useless to try to reconcile differing definitions/understandings of matter. — tim wood

Matter is actually quite well defined in Aristotelian physics, as the underlying thing which persists through time, when change occurs. It allows that continuity is real. Modern definitions are just branchings from the original which have emerged following Newton's first law of motion, inertia. Newton's first law, leaves that underlying thing which doesn't change, matter, as something mysterious, because it creates the illusion that all aspects of matter can be understood in terms of motion. But the existence matter itself (under the Aristotelian definition) is taken for granted and therefore left unexplained, and mysterious.

The issue that the video is discussing is one of the most important in physics - classical physics, in this case, not quantum - the scaling relation between geometry and force or energy. It's simple because it all comes down to basic geometry. — T Clark

The issue is that we scale and practise geometry with immaterial concepts. And we apply the immaterial concepts to material existence. There is something missing in our applications, which is demonstrated by the difficulties of scaling in actual practise. What is missing is a proper understanding of matter.

Streetlight

Hmm, speaking of, Matt Damon's latest, Downsizing, really ought to be a kind of horror film, where people just die horrifically. And then there's Honey I Shrunk the Kids....

Stupid Aristotle, ruining films 2000 years after his death.

T Clark

Yes I was always puzzled by the Incredible Shrinking Man. How the hell did he manage to break surface tension of water to have a drink? What was happening inside his body? Was everything shrinking? Surely to keep looking like a man his atoms would have to shrink too? This would make it impossible to sustain his health. But if his cells stayed the same then this would lead to his appearance and internal architecture having to change.
I would imagine it would be possible for a body to acclimatise to reduce the number of mitochondria, but what happens when the size of a capillary would have to be smaller than the cells of which it was comprised? How would memories be preserved as brain cells were inevitably lost? — charleton

As I've thought more, this has bothered me about the video that started this thread also. How did they shrink the elephant? Did they shrink the individual cells? Certainly that would bring it's own set of area/volume scaling issues. And in your example, how could you shrink an electron? Or even a molecule for that matter. Take out the extra space? Seems unlikely that could possibly work.

charleton

↪T Clark

That's the problem with all hypotheticals.
If they are possible, knowing the causes answers the hypothetical, offering no new information.
In matters of science and natural history you have to in some way alter the nature of reality to perform the trick in the first place.
In alternative history scenarios, you have to alter necessity or the conditions of history in the first place, negating any value to your query.

Agustino

Nobody is stating the obvious. If you enlarge the mouse would the metabolism rate not change? I'm guessing it would, because the organism would seek to adapt if it gets too hot. Meaning it would signal to its cells to slow down. I've had a look at a few of his videos earlier this morning, and he seems to have very very little awareness of what is known as "form" in philosophy. This video makes this clear.

He only discusses "pattern" from 5:00-5:30 and wastes all the other time discussing matter.

Agustino

'Form', or size in this case, cannot be thought of as transcendentally imposed on some indifferent 'substrate' of material or 'matter': both must be thought of as imminently co-arising from processes of evolution (in the case of living things, anyway). — StreetlightX

I disagree for the potential reasons stated above. These seem to be really vacuous and silly thought experiments, because we're not sure what would happen if we actually enlarge the mouse. The metabolic rate may remain the same, or it may slow down. Both are possibilities.

It's very likely that form acts in a top-down manner on matter.

Agustino

In fact, to prove the absurdity of the mouse exploding or of the elephant freezing, it suffices to just think if a creature could not have evolved that had the shape of the elephant, but the size of a hamster. I think it very well could. And if this is possible, then we can clearly see that the form (size in this case) quite likely does act in a top-down manner on the matter, deciding, in this case, the metabolic rate.

tim wood

Matter is actually quite well defined in Aristotelian physics.., — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure,in Aristotelian physics, for Aristotelian physics, but what is that to the baseball player who is concerned with the matter of the bat, the ball, the glove, the grass? Or to anyone else whose concern is not precisely Aristotelian physics? And I am under an impression that matter is exactly not well-defined by Aristotle, being left as a deficiency of form in things not having yet achieved their telos. (Collingwood, The Idea of Nature.)

...as the underlying thing which persists through time, when change occurs. — "Metaphysician

Is this Aristotle's definition? Why not? I'm sure it worked for him, although I am convinced he recognized its deficiencies as well as anyone. But it says really nothing about what matter is. At some point the question of being becomes a trap - a rabbit hole - of language.

charleton

In fact, to prove the absurdity of the mouse exploding or of the elephant freezing, — Agustino

To you basic science is absurd, we already know that.
Whilst it might be possible for a mouse to reduce the number of its mitochondria, it is likely that this would have to be achieved over a period of weeks and months. There is a good reason why there are no life-forms the size of elephants that are huge fur-balls with hear rates of a minimum of 300 bpm. Elephants beat at 30bpm
You really need to pay more attention.

Agustino

To you basic science is absurd, we already know that.
Whilst it might be possible for a mouse to reduce the number of its mitochondria, it is likely that this would have to be achieved over a period of weeks and months. There is a good reason why there are no life-forms the size of elephants that are huge fur-balls with hear rates of a minimum of 300 bpm. Elephants beat at 30bpm
You really need to pay more attention. — charleton

No, it is YOU who needs to pay more attention and read more science. Just because they have more mitochondria does not mean that those mitochondria will all be active producing energy - to begin with, they will not have sufficient hydrocarbon molecules to produce energy. And it is possible that cells have too many mitochondria for their energy needs, in which case nothing bad happens - there's no overheating. All that happens is that some mitochondria are less active than others, and lysosomes start surrounding those mitochondria and breaking them apart. There might be an issue due to increased oxidation and free radicals.

You have very little understanding of how complex systems function and the kind of negative feedback loops that allow for self-regulation.

Metaphysician Undercover

Sure,in Aristotelian physics, for Aristotelian physics, but what is that to the baseball player who is concerned with the matter of the bat, the ball, the glove, the grass? — tim wood

To the average person, (that is unless one starts to think about exploding elephants and things like that), the concept of matter has no relevance.

Is this Aristotle's definition? Why not? I'm sure it worked for him, although I am convinced he recognized its deficiencies as well as anyone. — tim wood

If you think that you can account for the temporal continuity of existence, in a way that is less deficient than the concept of matter, then be my guest. But I suggest that this has already been approached with the concept of energy. And since "matter" and "energy" are both derived from the same fundamental assumptions regarding temporal continuity, they both suffer from the same deficiencies. Simply put, we do not understand the temporal continuity of physical existence.

But it says really nothing about what matter is. — tim wood

That's the thing with matter, there is no such thing as what it is, as we must allow that the same matter can be something different at each moment of passing time, to account for the fact that things change as time passes. Matter itself doesn't have a "what it is",so any attempt to say "what matter is", is a mistaken enterprise right off the bat. But we can start to glean an understanding of matter by studying the existence of forms in space and time. For example, in the exploding elephant clip, you can see that when expressed in terms of amount of energy per area of space, it requires a exponentially larger amount of energy to maintain material existence (temporal continuity) of a small object, as it does to maintain the material existence (temporal continuity) of a large object.

Janus

it suffices to just think if a creature could not have evolved that had the shape of the elephant, but the size of a hamster. I think it very well could. — Agustino

Don't forget the thick legs, man, thick legs!

charleton

↪Janus

A mouse the size of an elephant would be stranded with those tiny legs, unable to move as it overheats, incapable of cooling its bulk as it heart beats its body to death at ten times the rate of an elephant.

Janus

↪charleton

Yes, that's along the lines of what I was referring to by "thick legs", although it seems I didn't read carefully enough; I read Agustino as saying that a creature the shape of a hamster, but the size of an elephant could have evolved. An ordinary-sized elephant-thicklegged hamster. Problem?

Akanthinos

it suffices to just think if a creature could not have evolved that had the shape of the elephant, but the size of a hamster. I think it very well could. — Agustino

You would have to gerrywork your universe a lot to justify the existence of an evolved hamster-sized elephant. Why would an animal so small evolve a trunk? It doesn't need to apply as much force to lift any amount of water, it doesn't need large, unflexible joints to prevent his own legs from breaking, so it's going to be easier for him to lower his head without toppling over.

Perhaps a world with higher gravity?

Streetlight

Nobody is stating the obvious. If you enlarge the mouse would the metabolism rate not change? I'm guessing it would, because the organism would seek to adapt if it gets too hot. — Agustino

Err, bodily regulation happens with values within expected ranges for a particular animal's environmental niche - a change from mouse to elephant and vice versa would be orders of magnitude different. No amount of regulation would prevent near-instantaneous death. If no one has yet 'stated the obvious' it because it's so far from obvious as to be flat out silly. Just so we're clear how much of a non-starter it is, here is where a mouse and elephant stand in relation to each other on a heat/size scale:

delicious sauce

Explosions and all round death, no ifs about it.

Streetlight

You would have to gerrywork your universe a lot to justify the existence of an evolved hamster-sized elephant. Why would an animal so small evolve a trunk? It doesn't need to apply as much force to lift any amount of water, it doesn't need large, unflexible joints to prevent his own legs from breaking, so it's going to be easier for him to lower his head without toppling over.

Perhaps a world with higher gravity? — Akanthinos

Exactly. Such a thought experiment proves nothing but a basic misunderstanding of how evolution works on the part of anyone who would propose it. An elephant is as bulky and meaty as it is precisely because of it's size - there's no way it would have 'got there' had its evolutionary path taken the 'small' route. Not to mention it wouldn't have those ridiculous heat expending ears, or, as you rightly point out, that trunk (a proboscis, yes! Because liquid surface tension will murder you at that size and you need to stay far af from any liquid). An elephant would make no evolutionary sense at the scale of a hamster.

Akanthinos

An elephant would make no evolutionary sense at the scale of a hamster. — StreetlightX

A contrario, we can observe that some living structures can be adapted (within reason) to multiple scale orders. Monkeys can be the size of mice or bigger than most humans. Feline will vary between 4 and 650 pounds. Yeah there are elephant species which are smaller than others, but you don't see any of the degree of variation present in, let's say, caniforms, feliforms or even ursidae.

Perhaps there is also something there to exploit?

Exploding Elephants

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