Leibnizs Monads and DNA

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Leibnizs Monads and DNA

• George MacDonald Ross
• University of Leeds

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Who was Leibniz?

• First major German philosopher
• 1646-1716 (contemporary of John Locke)
• Main influences
• Thomas Hobbes
• Descartes Spinoza
• Other influences
• Ancient and scholastic philosophy
• Well connected with lesser contemporaries

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What are monads? - 1

• Monad means both unit and unity
• as units the ultimate constituents of reality
• as unities simple, indivisible, organic wholes.
• The model for monads is the human soul
• The human soul is characterised by
• reason
• (self-)consciousness (apperception)
• perception
• volition (appetition)

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What are monads? - 2

• Other monads are not humans
• They lack reason and consciousness
• But they do have
• unconscious perceptions (petites perceptions)
• unconscious appetition, or striving towards a
  better state
• Leibniz sometimes calls them spiritual atoms

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Why monads?

• The theory seems crazy. So why monads?
• New solution to the problem of what the universe
  consists in
• Two issues
• is there one kind of substance, or two (mind and
  matter)?
• is the material world a compound of atoms, or a
  plenum divisible into infinitely many parts?

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One kind of substance or two?

• For Descartes, there are both mind and matter.
  But
• how can they interact?
• how can they be united to form an individual
  person?
• For Hobbes, there was only matter. But
• how can he explain consciousness?
• For Spinoza, the only substance was God. But
• heresy!!!

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Leibnizs solution

• Only spiritual substances exist, and matter
  belongs only to our perceptual world
  (phenomenalism)
• No problem of interaction between different kinds
  of substance
• Consciousness is not a product of matter, but a
  gift of God to human monads
• Individual substances are kept distinct from God

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Are there atoms?

• Atomists (Democritus, Gassendi) held that the
  material world consists of material atoms moving
  in empty space. But
• why cant atoms be subdivided?
• how can one atom transfer a force to another?
• how can empty space exist, if it has no substance
  or properties?

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Is there a plenum?

• Most believed in a plenum (Hobbes, Descartes,
  Spinoza)
• It seemed obvious because
• the concept of empty space is incoherent
• light and gravitation pass through an apparent
  vacuum
• But
• if things are just part of matter as a whole,
  they are not genuine substances
• there is no way of distinguishing things

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Leibnizs solution

• There is indeed a plenum
• But it is composed of infinitely small parts,
  which can always be further subdivided
• These parts are the bodies of living organisms,
  and every organism is a colony of smaller
  organisms
• Bodies are only phenomenal, and the ultimate
  realities are the souls which constitute the
  unity of each organism.

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How do monads relate to their organic bodies?

• Each monad is the principle of unity of an
  organic body
• The monad of a larger body dominates those of
  the smaller bodies of which it is composed
• The parts of the same organism belong together
  because their characteristics are uniquely
  related to their monad

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How does this relate to DNA?

• The parts of a body are not held together
  spatially, because space is unreal
• They are held together by characteristics which
  relate them to just one monad, and no other
• Even if they become detached, the characteristics
  remain
• As with DNA, it is in principle possible to
  discover which organism they belonged to.

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Conclusion

• Leibniz did not discover DNA
• The discovery of DNA surprised modern scientists,
  because they could not conceive that the tiniest
  parts of an individual organism could be unique
  to it
• Leibniz would not have been surprised, since the
  idea was central to his philosophy