Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Evolution: Lonergan - Darwin; Materialismus - Intelligibilität

Kurzinhalt: While Lonergan's account is evolutionary in the broad sense, he carefully distanced himself from Darwin's version of evolution and the reductionistic, materialistic biases that characterize much of neo-Darwinian thought.

Textausschnitt: Ib Those efforts reached a mature culmination in his classic work, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. There he gradually develops his account of the dynamic processes of the created order, characterized by what he called "emergent probability." While Lonergan's account is evolutionary in the broad sense, he carefully distanced himself from Darwin's version of evolution and the reductionistic, materialistic biases that characterize much of neo-Darwinian thought. In Lonergan's view, materialism assumes that ultimate reality is known through sensation, especially through sight and touch (i.e., the "real" as what resists physical contact). By way of contrast Lonergan argues that what is known through sensation is only a component of reality; it is intelligibility (what is known through human insight and judgment) that is the heart of the natural reality. Natural science, he argues, is fundamentally concerned with discovery of the intelligible relationships and orders that make up the natural world. Where a materialistic worldview regards something like physical impact as the ultimate explanatory cause, Lonergan argues that it is intelligible relatedness that explains why things are as they are and why they behave as they do. Nowhere is this more evident than in Lonergan's account of "emergence." In the following paragraphs I offer a brief sketch of Lonergan's account of "emergent probability." (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Schemes of Recurrence (Ü. G. Sala: Rekursive Schemen)

Kurzinhalt: By "scheme of recurrence" Lonergan means a series of events (or "operations") that are intelligibly linked together by natural laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Schemes of recurrence can be "represented by the series of conditionals, If ...

Textausschnitt: (1) Schemes of Recurrence

1a Lonergan remarks that the focus of Darwin's evolutionary was the gradual accumulation of small "sensible qualities," (1992, 290) that is to say, observable and describable phenotypic characters. By way of contrast, the focus of Lonergan's account is what he calls "schemes of recurrence." The small variations of classical Darwinism do not merely pile up. Rather, scientifically they must be understood in their intelligible relationships to the internal and external functioning of the organism and its environment:
These combinations of variations ... are relevant to schemes of recurrence. For the concrete living of any plant or animal may be regarded as a set of ... recurrent operations ... Within such schemes the plant or animal is only a component. The whole schematic circle of [operations] does not occur [solely] within the living thing, but goes beyond it into the environment (1992, 156)

1b By "scheme of recurrence" Lonergan means a series of events (or "operations") that are intelligibly linked together by natural laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Schemes of recurrence can be "represented by the series of conditionals, If A occurs, B occurs; if B occurs, C occurs; if C occurs, ... A will recur" (1992, 141), where the intelligible connection between the occurrence of A and B, between B and C, etc. is determined by some law of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Simple examples of schemes of recurrence include the hydrogen-helium fusion cycles in the interiors of stars, the Krebs cycles in cells that continually regenerate energetic ATP from depleted ADP, and the mutual regeneration of atmospheric CO2 and O2 by animals and plants. Lonergan goes on to note that schemes of recurrence are usually far more complex, involving intricate sub-loops and alternative pathways. (Fs)

1c Lonergan's focus on schemes of recurrence places emphasis on two important facts. First, the evolving unit is not a random material variation of the organism (e.g., longer limb) but a way of living (i.e., an intelligible functioning). Second, the environment is not merely a passive stage onto which an individual organism with a variant feature is placed. The schemes of the environment are always already implicated in every organism's functioning. (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Emergence (emergente Wahrscheinlichkeit) vs. Materialismus; Unbestimmtheit der Naturgesetze; "probabilities of emergence and probabilities of survival"

Kurzinhalt: What is impressive about Lonergan's account of emergence is how he can avoid materialism without needing to invoke any sort of vitalistic force or elán vital.

Textausschnitt: (2) Emergence

2a Emergence has always been a problem for hardcore materialism, which tends to regard underlying matter (elementary particles) as ultimately unchanging. Although the rearrangements of matter change, ultimately no real change occurs. (Fs) (notabene)
This materialist philosophy tends to fly in the face of common sense and religious belief as well. Interesting, Lonergan argues that it is only a philosophical position that is also incompatible with scientific study. Science, he argues, seeks to correctly understand how events are intelligibly connected within schemes of recurrence, and when new schemes begin to function, really new intelligibilities emerge. (Fs)

2b What is impressive about Lonergan's account of emergence is how he can avoid materialism without needing to invoke any sort of vitalistic force or elán vital. Instead, he draws attention to an obvious but commonly overlooked feature of laws of science: their conditionality (1992, 70). Laws of science are extremely general, but for that very reason they are also are extremely indeterminate. For example, Newton's three laws of motion and law of gravity are extremely general; they apply to any massive object. Yet from those laws alone it is impossible to derive any specific, concrete path of motion. A determinate path of motion be deduced only once specific conditions are stipulated. For example, if one stipulates or observes two bodies with very special combinations of mass, position and velocity, then a particular kind of elliptical path can be deduced; but for a different combination, the bodies will follow a specific hyperbolic path. As another example, the laws of chemistry allow that if octane is combined with oxygen, then carbon dioxide and water will be produced (2 C8H18 + 34 O2 -> 8 CO2 + 18 H2O). However, this chemical transformation will occur as complete oxidation, only under highly specific conditions of pressure, temperature, concentration, catalysis, etc. To put the matter bluntly: the laws of science in and of themselves determine nothing. It is only the laws plus specified conditions that determine concrete events (1992, 70-71). (Fs)

2c Lonergan used this feature, the conditionality of scientific laws, as the foundation of his account of emergence of schemes of recurrence. It is true that A is a condition for the occurrence of B in the scheme, "If A occurs, B will occur; if B occurs ..." That does not mean, however, that A is the one and only condition for the occurrence of B. In general, we might think of A as the last condition to fall into place so that B occurs. The only thing that singles A out for special consideration from all the other conditions requisite for B is that A just happens to be an event that sets off a self-conditioning scheme that eventually leads back to the recurrence of A. In other words, if all of the other appropriate conditions happen to be fulfilled, then the occurrence of A will result in the occurrence of B and "if B occurs, C will occur; if C occurs ... A will recur." (Fs) (notabene)

2d For Lonergan, then, there is such a thing as real emergence. Schemes of recurrence emerge. Schemes of recurrence are not merely spatial aggregations of material particles or random variations. They are really distinct, novel, intelligible functionings. Lonergan writes for example that a biological species "is an intelligible solution to a problem of living in a given environment," that "later species are solutions that ... rise upon previous solutions," and that "a solution is the sort of thing that human insight hits upon" (1992, 290). They emerge wholly in accordance with laws of science. No vitalistic force is needed to produce them or breathe life into them. Yet schemes emerge only when the appropriate prior conditions happen to be fulfilled. Lonergan goes on to explain how the assembly of appropriate prior conditions occurs randomly, and hence that there are "probabilities of emergence and probabilities of survival" that pertain to this field of environmental conditions. Indeed he argues that such probabilites undergo dramatic jumps, but that is tangential to the purposes of the present paper. (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Emergente Wahrscheinlichkeit (emergent probability) - Befangenheit (bias)

Kurzinhalt: When biases interfere with the full development of intelligence, both the well-functioning of human systems as well as their underlying natural infrastructure is imperiled.

Textausschnitt: (5) Bias and Destruction

5a To say that human beings have an unlimited capacity to intelligently inquire into every sort of problem posed by their organized efforts does not, of course, mean that human beings actually do so. Unlike natural ecologies, innovations in human social and economic arrangements are all too frequently implemented without the fullness of intelligent self-correction. Real self-correction can occur only when the full complement of further pertinent questions and problems are taken into account and answered by with creative solutions. The possibilities of genuine social and economic self-correction are cut short, Lonergan argues, by the forces of what he terms "bias." He therefore resonates with Jane Jacobs complaint, "we no longer care" to understand "how things really do work, but only what kind of quick easy outer impression they give" (1993, 11). When biases interfere with the full development of intelligence, both the well-functioning of human systems as well as their underlying natural infrastructure is imperiled. (Fs)

5b Lonergan's account of emergent probability in the human order incorporates the fact of human failure to consider questions raised by their endeavors, failures to seek answers even to all the questions they do raise, and refusals to act according to what they come to understand as the best courses of action. He identifies four fundamental forms of bias that distort human collaborative efforts into dysfunctional constellations: psychological aberrations ("dramatic bias"), selfishness disregard ("individual bias"), ethnic, racial, class and gender discrimination ("group bias"), and the narrow-minded disregard for non-immediate consequences, such as long-term environmental impacts ("general bias"). Instances of bias are legion. They all operate by ignoring the reflective processes of asking and answering all the questions that are raised by complex situations. According to Lonergan, biased courses of action that evade intelligent self-correction initiate downward spirals of decline, degradation and destruction not only of natural but also of cultural environments. Biases and decline have their own "logic" - the logic of a vicious cycles that lead to great destruction, unless something acts to reverse their downward trends (1992, 214-23, 242-63). (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Emergente Wahrscheinlichkeit (emergent probability) - Gnade

Kurzinhalt: What is distinctive in Lonergan's own treatment of grace and redemption is his way of situating them in relation to emergent probability

Textausschnitt: 6a In using the term "bias" Lonergan characterizes the accumulating devastation in terms of its relation of opposition to the self-correcting potential of intelligence, inquiry, and insight. But as a Christian theologian, Lonergan was clear that the same pattern of decline is a pattern of sin in its relation of opposition to God. Lonergan is in fundamental agreement with St. Augustine's characterization: "evil is nothing but the removal of good until finally no good remains." And as a Christian theologian, he affirmed that the reversal of sin and its devastating social consequences is by God's grace. In fact his earliest research was on the development of Aquinas's theory of grace (2000). (Fs) (notabene)

6b What is distinctive in Lonergan's own treatment of grace and redemption is his way of situating them in relation to emergent probability. In Insight, he raises the question of God's solution to the problem of sin, evil, and social decline, and argues that the solution is the emergence of the theological virtues of "faith, hope and love" (1992, 718-25, 741). There he reflects upon redemption as occurring within this universe of emergent probability - "When in the fullness of time" the Redeemer came, as Christian theology has put it. (Fs)
6c Soon after Insight, however, Lonergan began to speak about the relationship between emergent world process and redemption more broadly as involving "three dynamics" of creativity and progress (intelligent self-correction), decline and degradation (bias and sin), and redemption and recovery through the healing that takes place in all religious love (1993, 1999a). The religious love, according to Lonergan's later view, is a constant of human affairs. Love heals hatred and bias, and off-sets the corrosive effects of stupidity and wickedness. There is a strain of hatred of nature to be found embedded in the seminal works of some founders of modernity like Machiavelli and Bacon. There is also misanthropic hatred to be found in certain strains of environmental activism. Religious love is love of God, and to love God unconditionally is to love everything God loves-all natural and human creation. Grace, religious love, sets about undoing hatred and making possible healing and discerning, intelligent responses to situations. (Fs)

6d As a Christian theologian Lonergan identifies the unconditional love found in all religions with the mission of the Holy Spirit, "God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us (Rom 5, 5)" (1972, 105). This dynamic of redemption, Lonergan claims, suffuses all human history and is present through all human affairs, just as is intelligent creativity and biased degradation. The mission of the Holy Spirit reaches full efficacy through the mission of the Son, who inaugurates in emergent probability God-authored schemes testifying to God's undying redemptive love. (Fs)
6f Reductionistic forms of Darwinism tend not only to refute role of God as Creator, [eg: but]to eliminate as superfluous theological considerations of grace. Lonergan to the contrary integrates God's grace with the evolving character of the natural and human worlds. (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Jane Jacobs; Merkmale für gesunde biologische u. ökonomische Systeme 1; Entwicklung; schemes of recurrence

Kurzinhalt: acobs initially characterizes all kinds of developments as the interplay of two principles: differentiations emerging from within generalities; and differentiations becoming new generalities from which further differentiations then emerge ...

Textausschnitt: (1) Development

"Where do new things come from? ... An animal, a plant, a [river] delta, a legal code, an improved shoe sole-they all depend on the same underlying process for development" (2000, 15-16). (Fs)

8a Jacobs initially characterizes all kinds of developments as the interplay of two principles: differentiations emerging from within generalities; and differentiations becoming new generalities from which further differentiations then emerge (16-17). (This closely parallels Lonergan's schemes of recurrence emerging from prior, conditioning schemes.) By her imaginative and strategic use of illustrations, Jacobs makes a persuasive case that both natural and human developments all follow the same patterns. Examples: (a) An originally generic, undifferentiated cosmic cloud differentiated into a star (our sun) and nine very different sorts of planetary climate systems. One of those (our earthly system) became in turn the new "generality" within which diverse ecosystems and life forms differentiated. (b) In mammalian evolution, successive sequences of differentiations of vertebrate forelimbs have produced hoofs, paws, hands, flippers, and wings. (c) In embryogenesis, the generically indistinguishable cells of a zygote differentiate into ectodermic, mesodermic, endodermic cellular layers, which become new generalities, which in turn differentiate into the multifacited tissues and systems of an adult mammal. (d) The first crude wheel, whatever its origin, has been modified, and its modifications modified, over and again into such differentiations as rimmed spoked wheels and "rimless spoked wheels such as: water mill-wheels, windmills, fans, paddle wheels, propellers, food blenders," solid wheels like "the potter's wheel ... circular saws, rotating dials, phonograph turntables, movie projectors," and so on (25). (Fs)

8b To the interplay of these two principles, Jacobs adds a third: all development depends upon co-development (2000, 19). Jacobs insists that it is a great mistake to think of development linearly, as is suggested in biology textbooks by evolutionary trees that trace lines of descent. Such "trees" are too abstract. They prescind from the real fact that concretely, evolution operates not linearly, but "as a web of interdependent co-developments" (19). In other words, any newly differentiated innovation needs a habitat, and habitats consist of intricately interconnected differentations, each of which itself had to have been developed. This is evident in the intricacies of evolved natural ecologies. It is no less evident in human economies, Jacobs argues. In this way Jacobs contextualizes and relativizes competition and survival: "Competiton for feeding and breeding take place in an area. That area is a [co-developed] habitat" (21). (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Jane Jacobs; Merkmale für gesunde biologische u. ökonomische Systeme 2; Erweiterung (expansion)

Kurzinhalt: The second component in Jacobs' analysis, expansion, begins with the question, "Why don't new developments crowd old ones out?"

Textausschnitt: (2) Expansion

"Development is qualitative change. Expansion is quantitative change. The two are closely linked" (2000, 37). (Fs)

9a The second component in Jacobs' analysis, expansion, begins with the question, "Why don't new developments crowd old ones out?" From this question flows her analysis of how both biological and economic environments expand. "The most amazing demonstration of expansion is the sheer volume and weight of biomass on the earth. It expanded from nothing before life began" (43). Expansion here can mean growth in spatial extent, but more to the point, it means growth in complexity. Webs of co-developments do not merely multiply instances; they multiply differences and intertwine differences together into ever more complex systems. In this way co-developments are constantly providing new interstices and niches for still further developments. This is why old developments are not automatically crowded out. (Fs)

9b Not content, however, to merely solve the crowding problem, Jacobs offers an account of how the dynamics of expansion work. Reminiscent of the work of Ilya Prigogine, she explains that

Expansion depends on capturing and using transient energy. The more different means a system possesses for recapturing, using, and passing around energy before its discharge from the system, the larger are the cumulative consequences of the energy it receives (2000, 47 & 46). (Fs)

9c In order to illustrate her point, Jacobs contrasts desert with forest environments. Both receive comparable amounts of energy from the sun. Yet in forests
energy flow is anything but swift and simple, because the diverse and roundabout ways that the system's web of teeming, interdependent organisms uses energy. Once sunlight is captured, it's not only converted but repeatedly reconverted, combined and recombined, cycled and recycled ... Energy flow through an intricate conduit of this kind ... leaves behind, complex webs of life " (2000, 46).

9d By way of contrast, desserts have relatively few systems for capturing sunlight and converting it into forms usable by other biological systems. The lesson that she wishes to draw from this analysis is that expansion is not primarily a function of external inputs - sunlight - but rather of internal complexity.

Jacobs then turns this analysis upon the phenomena of economic growth.
I began thinking about settlements' economies as instances of natural energy-flow [and realized] that imports came in at the receiving end of their conduits, exports left at the discharge end, and the interesting question was what went on within the conduits (2000, 53). (Fs)

9e What "goes on within the conduit" is the complex interdependent patterns of working, producing, trading, and living that characterize each particular settlement. She argues that theories and policies intent upon promoting development have focussed too much upon introducing external inputs - such as large grants and loans - and too little upon existing webs of complexity and the means needed for differentiating and diversifying patterns that already exist. The result of input theories, she argues, has been devastation both of economic and natural ecologies. Here Jacobs is incorporating her earlier work on the dynamics of urban economies (1969, 1985) into the more comprehending world-view linking natural and human orders. (Fs)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Jane Jacobs; Merkmale für gesunde biologische u. ökonomische Systeme 3; Selbsterhalt (self-refueling); Skepsis gegen Umwelt-Moralisten

Kurzinhalt: Jacobs distinguishes dynamic natural ecologies and economic ecologies from mere machines by their capacities to "refuel" themselves.

Textausschnitt: (3) Self-maintenance through Self-refueling

"Machines lack equipment for refueling themselves" (2000, 66).

10a Jacobs distinguishes dynamic natural ecologies and economic ecologies from mere machines by their capacities to "refuel" themselves. What she means by this is that part of the system's operation is devoted to obtaining the forms of "energy" usable by the system itself. "Part of the energy each takes in from outside itself is spent to capture subsequent infusions of energy, and part of that to capture more infusions, and so on, repeatedly" (2000, 65). Mere mechanical systems, by comparison, are passive with regard to energy acquisition; someone else has to turn the crank or fill the tank, so to speak. (Fs)

10b In line with her endorsement of the value of diversity and complexity in other contexts, here, too, Jacobs insists that

Each system has its own integrity as a discrete, tangible unit. One organism's waste is another's dinner. Self-refueling has no generalized form - only many, many specific forms (2000, 67). (Fs)

10c Because self-refueling is so crucial to a system's integrity and survival, this assertion of uniqueness implies, therefore, that it is imperative to learn how each system effects its own form of self-refueling, and to undertake no policy that would imperil it. Once again drawing upon her earlier work, Jacobs argues that vital economic systems refuel themselves by beginning to produce locally what they had previously been importing from outside. Earlier she had devoted much attention to the dynamics of this "import replacing" process (1969, 1985); here she is integrating that earlier analysis into her broadened framework of natural/human ecology. (Fs)

10d Jacobs explains that she deliberately coined the term, "self-refueling" in order to avoid certain kinds of moral principles associated with environmental movements that she has found inadequate:

What about self-relying, self-sustaining, and sustainable? ... Those expressions overlap with self-refueling, although we tend to give them moral overtones. For example self-reliance is generally taken to be so admirable that lack of it is seen as unfortunate or even bad. Sustainable commonly applies to the practice of drawing on renewable resources at a rate no needier or greedier than the rate at which the resources can renew themselves; the practice implies environmental morality. Self-refueling [rather] is a basic natural process ... so fundamental to survival ... that conceptions of whether it is a good or bad thing are pointless (2000, 67-68). (Fs)

10e Her point is that simplistic versions of these moral principles can interfere with really understanding how refueling works - preemptively classing certain forms as "bad" before they are properly understood in relation to their environments. This is not to say, however, that Jacobs is unconcerned with the rate at which resources can renew themselves. Quite the contrary; she explicitly acknowledges that all natural systems and human settlements require unearned "gifts" (Lonergan's earlier schemes) that are "inheritances from earth's past developments and expansions" in order to start their own developments (2000, 54-55). (More on the theological significance of this observation later.) What she opposes is policies based moral principles that would declare certain categories of innovations in self-refueling to be "off limits" before the concrete situations are fully explored. Rather, in healthy economies, "chains of replacements typically start with goods and services that are easiest to replace at a specific time and in a specific place and replacements can proceed to more complex and difficult ones as ... its refueling equipment ... diversifies and expands" (2000, 78-79). (Fs)

10f In dynamic ecologies self-refueling is itself a dynamic process. It is no mere matter of constantly taking in the same forms of energy in the same way year in and year out. She points out that if this were so, the system would eventually perish. The constancy of the form of its input energy cannot be guaranteed; moreover, by its own expansion, it produces ever increasing amounts of dissipated energy that begin to accumulate in its own environment. Unless the system adapts, it will cease to function.

10g In any healthy biological or economic ecosystem, therefore, the dynamics of self-refueling both presuppose and are presupposed by the dynamics of development and expansion (2000, 82). Self-refueling takes in appropriate forms of "energy" (inputs, imports). Development modifies the system's "equipment" including its mechanisms of self-refueling. Expansion converts, recycles, and recombines the energy, altering its dissipated energy (outputs, exports). Altered outputs provide new potential energy sources, which further development, expansion, and self-refueling can make use of. (This, again, is comparable to Lonergan's account of development.)

Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Jane Jacobs; Merkmale für gesunde biologische u. ökonomische Systeme 4; Vermeidung eines Zusammenbruchs

Kurzinhalt: Jacobs argues that there are four basic processes for evading collapse: bifurcations, positive feedback, negative feedback and emergency adaptations.

Textausschnitt: (4) Evading Collapse

All dynamic systems are in danger of succumbing to instability, which is why they need constant self-correction (2000, 85).

11a Because there is no such thing as a "total system," dynamic biological and economic systems characterized by development, expansion and self-refueling also need processes that enable them to survive (when they do survive) both dramatic changes to which they are not already adapted, and unintended consequences of their own functioning. Jacobs argues that there are four basic processes for evading collapse: bifurcations, positive feedback, negative feedback and emergency adaptations. I will forego the rich details of her discussion of these processes, offering just one illustration, and fundamental points that she draws. (Fs)

11b "Positive feedback loops" Jacobs writes "permit biomass expansion and economic expansion without loss of dynamic stability" (2000, 94). She illustrates the role that positive feedback can play through an analysis of the dynamics of Grand Banks cod fishing. Here is a clear instance of a system of intertwined natural biological and a human economic systems. Processes of development and expansion led to technological innovations in trawlers, nets, sonar detection, etc., as well as growth in the yield of cod. However, the numbers of fish caught and their sizes eventually began to decline. This led a rise in prices. Rising prices, declines in fish size and yield were forms of positive feedback information. They suggested to many that the intelligent response would be to cut back on the rate of fishing. But in fact just the opposite happened. Instead, the fishing industry responded with more sophisticated equipment and more intensive fishing, requiring greater financial investments. But catches continued to decline, and returns on investments were disappointing: more positive feedback. Yet in 1992 Grand Banks cod fishing collapsed, "a horrendous economic and social disaster ... to say nothing of an ecological disaster, whose ramifications are still unknown" (2000, 97). The problem, Jacobs argues, was not "the feedback information, but the response to it." The root problem, she claims, was government subsidies of the escalating growth of fishing. Had the subsidies been added into the costs, "cod would have priced itself out of the market before fish stocks collapsed" (2000, 100). (Fs)

11c From this and similar illustrations Jacobs raises two serious considerations. First, each of these manners of evading collapse has an associated "trap." She analyzes the forms of these traps, often through the sorry lessons of human ventures that failed to beware of them (instances of Lonergan's "general bias"). (Fs)

11d Second, the existence of traps raise for her the question: "whether our species has inborn traits that restrain habitat destruction"? (2000, 125). This is a way of posing the question of redemption, even though she is not a theologian. She considers several possibilities, among them aesthetic appreciation, fear, awe, but ultimately concludes that it is our intelligence, our moral consciousness, and our awareness that we partake of "processes of development and diversification" that we receive as gifts-which of course is one way of talking about the awareness of grace (2000, 130-32, 146). Elsewhere she identifies love as the source of recovery as when people chose to stay and work together in slums out of love of their neighborhoods (1993, 279-83) and when people act out of care for future generations they will never see. Like Lonergan, therefore, Jacobs is keenly aware of the need for the healing and restorative power of love to reverse the effects of bias against understanding. (Fs)