On Nature's Complexity and Human Morality

Rationalizing the limits of rational knowledge: stocks and flows of information in the biosphere and human civilization

One of the greatest challenges in running this Substack, something I know I am not alone in, is the decision to maintain a certain regularity, which in my case means committing to at least three posts per month. This inevitably requires diverting attention from doing science itself, which typically demands intense and sustained concentration over months on a single problem.

This month I hope to publish two additional posts, Science Insider #2: Making Our Path through Rain and Hurricane Wind, following Part #1, and China at an Ecohydrological Crossroads, but I still need more time to complete them in parallel with my on-going work.

In the meantime, I would like to address several questions I have recently received from readers, which are easier for me to discuss at the moment based on previous research. One major question came from Michael Pilarski, who asked what I think about a proposal to massively cut down boreal forests and bury the wood in the ocean in order to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and ease global warming. Michael himself was deeply horrified by the idea.

The danger of 100% rationality

Michael’s question immediately made me recall an interview with Mattias Desmet, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, in which he described the processes by which a society can become monolithic with respect to certain judgments, to the point that it begins to physically eliminate those who disagree. This may seem far removed from the idea of burying trees in the ocean, but the connection is deep, and I will try to explain it.

There are several ingredients in such a tragic scenario. First, there must be a complex social context that is difficult to handle both intellectually and emotionally. Something is clearly going wrong, yet it is unclear how or why it is happening. At this point, relief is often felt when attention is forcefully narrowed to a single aspect of reality, which is then identified as the primary cause of all that is going wrong. Desmet compares this to hypnosis, where attention is fixed on a small, bright, swinging object, causing the surrounding complexity to disappear from awareness.

Once this focusing is achieved, which requires a steady flow of organizing information from elites to the public, an emotional relief follows from the perceived simplification of reality. People then remain attached to that simplification. Anyone who argues that reality is more complex directly threatens this emotional comfort and is therefore perceived as a threat. This down-top subscription to a shared, simplistic narrative destroys horizontal connections between people, leading, for example, to situations in which sons report their fathers to the authorities, fully aware that this will lead to their execution and even participating in the prosecution.

Desmet argues that, in order to avoid reaching the stage of physical elimination, the five to ten percent of the population who cannot be hypnotized, for whatever reason such people always exist, must continue to speak out. Alongside emotional comfort, there is also intellectual comfort, which is reduced in the hypnotized majority, as they must suppress their intellect in order to follow the agenda uncritically. This suppression is not equally easy for all. By continuously rippling the surface of the propaganda space with contrasting, fact-based narratives, dissenters can, at personal risk, maintain a fragile equilibrium that prevents hypnosis from settling completely. Since a hypnotized society is destined to fail, as it cannot properly handle complex reality, a point I first learnt from Chuck Pezeshki, the goal of the dissenters is to outlast the propaganda.

The key point, however, is what Desmet sees as lying at the core of these processes. Why would elites choose to hypnotize the population by simplifying its thinking? Because, Desmet argues, we as a global society have come to believe that everything can be rationally understood. On the basis of such rational arguments, which must be inherently simplistic in order to be formalized in mathematical models, a widespread belief has emerged that society itself can be programmed to act successfully toward goals set by elites. Yet, Desmet emphasizes, or at least this is how I understand him, because life is far more complex than our rational models of it, such simplified social programs will inevitably fail, leading to collapse in the longer, or more often not so long, term. He further argues that only a limited part of reality can be rationally understood, while the rest must be engaged with through what he calls emphatic resonance.

As a scientist, I am strongly inclined toward the rational approach, and I find the notion of emphatic resonance unsatisfactorily vague, although I do not mean to suggest that I have not experienced it. What I mean is that the claim that rational models of society, when used to code or hypnotize the population, will always fail is a very strong one. It is akin to saying that all designs of a perpetuum mobile, no matter how sophisticated, can be shown to be wrong. If this claim is true, then there must be rational arguments supporting Desmet’s position that our ability to rationally understand life is objectively limited, in much the same way that the law of energy conservation provides a rational argument against the possibility of perpetual motion machines.

This post is therefore largely devoted to exploring such arguments. None of them is carved in stone.

Information stocks and flows in the biosphere and civilization

Can we demonstrate that life lies beyond our rational comprehension? To address this question, let us compare key informational characteristics of the living world and human civilization: the stocks of information, the rate of information change through evolution and technological progress, and the instantaneous flow of processed information.

As far as information stocks are concerned, a plausible argument can be made that the stocks of information in the biosphere and in human civilization are of the same order of magnitude. The detailed reasoning behind this comparison can be found in our 2000 book, Chapter 7, Energy and Information. Briefly, the central issue in such a comparison is how one defines a single bit of information.

If one bit is defined as a single nucleotide base pair in a DNA molecule, then by combining characteristic genome sizes of biological species, the fraction of non-overlapping genetic information, and the total number of species, one arrives at an estimate of approximately ten thousand trillion bits of information stored in the biosphere.

To estimate the stock of information in human civilization, we need to consider how rapidly a human brain accumulates new information, the degree of non-overlapping information among human brains, and the total number of humans. This leads to approximately the same estimate, about ten thousand trillion bits. Notably, this calculation assumes that functional information exists only in human brains. Once some knowledge is lost from all brains, it no longer counts. For example, humanity has apparently lost the information necessary to send successful human missions to the Moon. Other technologies are likely similarly fragile.

The above exercise is mainly illustrative. Its purpose is to show that our civilization has plausibly accumulated an enormous amount of information. What this information is actually about is a separate question.

As for the rates of change, human civilization clearly outpaces biological evolution. I am not of the opinion that there exists a strict proof that biological evolution has increased the total amount of information in the biosphere. After all, change is not synonymous with progress. Different configurations of the biosphere can be equally efficient responses to different external conditions. Thus, while life continuously modifies the mechanisms by which it perpetuates itself, its overall complexity does not necessarily increase; rather, it remains precisely adequate for the task of perpetuation.

Nevertheless, the rate of biological evolution can be estimated using known species lifetimes, which we have studied, and the genetic distances between ancestral and descendant species. This rate turns out to be on the order of one bit per second, which is roughly ten million times slower than the rate of technological progress.

This gives modern humans an unprecedented ability to destroy the biosphere.

But now we come to the parameter that matters most: the amount of information that both human civilization and the biosphere can process per unit time. Life is a process, a flow. Each moment brings new problems that must be handled promptly to keep everything functioning. Once these efforts stop, collapse follows.

It turns out that, in terms of information-processing capacity, the biosphere is overwhelmingly superior to human civilization. Each square micron of Earth’s surface is covered by several living cells, each of which has an information-processing capacity comparable to that of a modern PC. The difference amounts to roughly ten quintillion, or ten to the 19th power. Allowing for uncertainties of a few orders of magnitude does not alter any of the implications.

Life is also superior to human civilization in terms of energy cost per operation, as discussed in “Information Processing by Natural Ecosystems”, although here the difference is comparatively modest, amounting to a factor of about one thousand.

The question, then, is what life uses these enormous information fluxes for. Why are they needed?

These information fluxes are required to maintain the strongly non-equilibrium environment in which life can thrive. They reflect both the complexity of this task and the underlying mechanisms through which life perpetuates an environment suitable for its continued existence. The quantitative abyss between these fluxes and the information-processing capacity of human civilization constitutes the rational argument sought here: we will never be able to adequately model life.

Furthermore, we will never be able to maintain a suitable climate by technological means. Once natural ecosystems are destroyed beyond their threshold of self-recovery, our existence as we presently recognize it will come to an end.

Implications

The primary implication of this conclusion is that whenever we destroy a natural ecosystem, the environment and climate inevitably destabilize. This brings us back to the question of whether destroying natural forests could possibly help the climate. The answer is no. Whenever we destroy a functional part of life, Earth as a living planet becomes more fragile.

One can, of course, examine in detail the flaws in the rational arguments intended to persuade us that burying logs in the ocean is a good idea. One can point to disappearing cloud cover, the loss of soil moisture, summer heatwaves and winter coldwaves, drying rivers, floods and droughts, and the growing frequency of extreme events. But such an exercise would, in essence, amount to yet another examination of a perpetuum mobile design. Any project that destroys a natural ecosystem or interferes with its functioning will inevitably lead to destabilization.

Another implication is that we will never be able to build a closed system with a stable environment. A Biosphere 2.0 is therefore not possible in principle. Any attempt to construct such a system will similarly result in wasted resources.

The more subtle implications concern how we interpret what we observe in the biosphere. A conspicuous example is the misinterpretation of biotic responses to the anthropogenic disturbance of the carbon cycle. This has been discussed on this blog here and here, but I would like to once again emphasize the internal incoherence of the CO₂ fertilization hypothesis.

In an important, empirically based study reporting increasing tree diameters in the Amazon rainforest, discussed on Melanie Lenart’s Substack, the researchers wrote (my emphasis):

The observed patterns match the expectations from increase in resources either by CO₂ fertilization or by nitrogen deposition. Although atmospheric nitrogen deposition is a major driver of change in forests of temperate regions³⁸, there is weaker evidence of its impact on tropical mature forests, particularly in remote regions³⁹. First, mature Amazonian forests tend to be phosphorus and not nitrogen limited⁴⁰, meaning that increases in nitrogen would not necessarily translate into greater productivity^39,41. Second, although nitrogen deposition rates are expected to increase, they remain quite low^7,42 and concentrated across the fragmented southern border of Amazonia⁴³. On the contrary, atmospheric CO₂ has progressively increased year after year globally and across all tropical forests, consistent with the Amazonian-wide tree size increase⁹ (Fig. 2). Thus, we conclude that the increase in atmospheric CO₂ is the most likely, although potentially not only, driver of the observed increase in tree size.

Consider the logic of this argument. It is stated that Amazonian forests are phosphorus-limited and therefore cannot respond to increased nitrogen availability. In other words, they can be fertilized by phosphorus but not by nitrogen. How, then, can forests that are limited by phosphorus be fertilized by atmospheric carbon?

As we have discussed elsewhere (see “Is Extra CO₂ good/food for plants?”), the removal of excess carbon from the atmosphere is not a simple biochemical process that shifts in one direction or another depending on external conditions. It is a complex, coordinated response of the entire ecological community, in which primary producers increase the synthesis of carbon-rich compounds while decomposers refrain from consuming the additional biomass produced. This response is a manifestation of biotic regulation of the environment.

Having become accustomed to the concept of fertilization in the disturbed environments of gardens and agricultural fields, we may overlook that under natural conditions there is typically enough of everything for everybody, with neither persistent shortage nor surplus. In doing so, we tend to project anthropocentric assumptions onto natural ecosystems whose functioning largely remains a mystery.

Another example of an antropocentric perspective is, in my view, the relatively common narrative about the Amazon rainforest depending on Saharan dust. In 1992, Swap et al. proposed that the atmospheric transport of dust from the Sahara provides an essential supply of minerals to the forest and that, by inference, periods of Saharan greening should be synchronized with periods of decline in the Amazon rainforest. No such correlation has ever been observed.

Yet this idea has been widely discussed, and one reason, I suspect, is that it resonates with an anthropocentric analogy to international trade. Just as some people enjoy pineapples in January that are transported from distant parts of the world, it can feel intuitive to imagine that the Amazon rainforest similarly depends on an intermittent supply of mineral dust from Africa.

However, basic calculations indicate that the entire phosphorus demand of the forest can be met by mineral deposition originating from the ocean. We discussed this possibility with colleagues several years ago. According to the review of the global phosphorus cycle by Ruttenberg (2003, Table 1), oceanic inputs of phosphorus to the atmosphere are approximately one order of magnitude lower than the dust inputs estimated by Swap et al. (1992). At the same time, phosphorus losses associated with Amazon runoff, according to Swap et al. (1992, p. 146), “vary from an order of magnitude less than our [dust] deposition values to the same order of magnitude.” Since forest disturbance increases nutrient losses, the available evidence appears fully consistent with the notion that all phosphorus demands of the thriving Amazon forest, the mightiest ecosystem on Earth, can be met by phosphorus supplied from the ocean.

Unlike the distant and unpredictable Sahara, the ocean is always present. For an ecosystem, organizing itself to rely primarily on oceanic inputs is therefore a more prudent strategy, with greater potential for persistence, especially given that without the biotically pumped import of atmospheric moisture the forest would not thrive in any case. By the same logic, moving toward local food supplies is the right choice for human populations. This shift will occur regardless of our preferences, so it is better to be prepared.

Human morality

Returning to the question of elites seeking to program the population to serve their goals, one might ask, however cynical the question may be: we have managed domesticated animals for thousands of years, so why could the majority of humans not be managed in a similar way for profit? The crucial difference is that domesticated animals do not participate in creating a favorable environment. They are entirely nonviable if left without human control. They cannot reproduce and leave a viable progeny. They are environmentally dysfunctional.

Maintaining a thriving and developing civilization requires complex behaviors. Among the most complex of these is the ability to raise the next generation in a way that energizes it to carry complex and functional life forward. A hypnotized population governed by simplistic propaganda may serve the goals of elites for some time, but it will not produce a progeny capable of continuing civilization. This is what we are now observing globally. The human system thus begins to collapse toward more primitive modes of existence.

This leads to another question. If humans have a tendency to rationalize reality in ways that ultimately lead to destabilization, how can we survive in the long run? And how can we continue to develop as a species, including the development of our intellect?

Desmet suggests that we should embrace what he calls emphatic resonance with reality and follow high moral principles, which he considers the most important course of action for a human being. He makes a striking observation: in many cases, people who do not conform to propaganda but continue to speak out and act according to what they believe to be true under pressure show a marked increase in inner strength, enabling them to persist and sometimes even prevail.

From my own experience, since I began writing this Substack, which I try to do carefully because I still want to pursue scientific work that I believe truly matters and do not wish to be prematurely eliminated at any level, I have nonetheless taken my small step toward speaking out. I do feel that something changes inside me, strong enough to feel almost physiological. At times, I sense a quiet rise of inner drive within me. However, whether this elusive feeling corresponds to what Desmet describes, or reflects some other process altogether, such as increased dopamine associated with greater visibility, cannot be determined with certainty.

Indeed, the fact that something feels good or profound does not automatically mean that the cause one is striving for is a good one. As a canonical example, people who participated in the operation of concentration camps had families and cared for their children. They, too, presumably experienced positive feelings. Feeling inner strength or moral certainty is therefore not, by itself, a reliable guide.

Rational, scientific arguments are valuable precisely because they can be universally assessed at the intellectual level. Human existence has remained possible because natural ecosystems possess enormous buffering capacity and have long compensated for the disturbances caused by human activity. Neglecting the reality of the permissible ecological corridor, through a technocratic blindness that facilitates further degradation of the climate-regulating functions of natural ecosystems, will not end well for our species and, most likely, for other macroscopic life as well.

I would argue that the highest moral imperative of our species, consistent with available rational knowledge, is therefore to withdraw from destruction and return to this corridor, within which we can continue to pursue scientific and technological progress, and experiment with our social organization, while surrounding natural ecosystems stabilize the environment and climate for us. Quantifying this safe ecological corridor for our species and bringing its existence to light were among the central achievements of Victor Gorshkov’s work.