I just had a fascinating conversation with a stem-cell biologist about organoids. SCB: These cells are trying as hard as they can to make the organ. Me: I’m interested that you put it so agentially. So they are trying and failing? SCB: Yes, clearly. /1 - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

philipcball.bsky.social • 8 days ago

I just had a fascinating conversation with a stem-cell biologist about organoids.
SCB: These cells are trying as hard as they can to make the organ.
Me: I’m interested that you put it so agentially. So they are trying and failing?
SCB: Yes, clearly.
/1

Comments

leahshaffer.bsky.social•7 days ago

As someone who is always pulling half-assed analogies to explain condensates, I appreciate this discussion.

leahshaffer.bsky.social•7 days ago

You had one job, condensate, one job!
(Which you performed well by following your encoded instructions and responding to the signals of your surrounding environment).

jasminevp.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think that the interesting thing would be to try to replace the metaphor “trying” with literal language, and ask the person using it do defend that specific metaphor as opposed to others. What work is “trying” doing in that sentence? 🧵

philipcball.bsky.social•7 days ago

Thank you - exactly that!

bhny.bsky.social•8 days ago

Isn't this just Dennett's "intentional stance"? Nobody actually believes that cells have desires. It's just helps us predict their behavior

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Sure, but see thread: the question here about recognizing (or refusing to recognize) it as a framing, not a description. In the thread I offer a different framing that I think is much closer to the biology. And about consequent notions of "error" and "failure". And: "trying *really hard*"?

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

But I guess my comment was also about the certainty: Not "Well, here's why I see it this way", but "This [highly teleological] framing - and don't call it that - is the only correct one, and if you debate that then it's because you're ignorant of the topic, or a philosopher (same thing)."

deanbooth.bsky.social•8 days ago

Philosophers: There is no try, just do or do not.

staal1978.bsky.social•7 days ago

I think it is just a limitation of our language. When SCB says the cells "try", they do not imply will or agency.

Words like "try", "want", "strive to" etc are used because of a lack of better simple words to describe it.

philipcball.bsky.social•6 days ago

Oh, I agree - see thread. The point is to then examine what we are actually trying to say. To what extent *are* there genuine goals and agency, and are we locating those in the right place?

skyrunner17.bsky.social•8 days ago

Sounds similar to how some chemists describe metals "wanting" to be in a particular oxidation state, coordination geometry, or "preferring" X ligand over Y ligand, etc... it's rife. Speaking in this manner got driven out of me pretty quickly after a philosophical discussion with my PhD. supervisor

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

But I think it is safer in chemistry because it is so obviously metaphorical and generally just a way of talking about energetics (or thermodynamics). In biology the distinction can easily get more blurred.

skyrunner17.bsky.social•8 days ago

Safer to use these turns of phrase? Perhaps, yes, but is that not just how your SCB was talking? I suppose I need to think more about what I think "life" is before engaging in further debate - which reminds me that I have your book on my bookshelf on that topic that I need to start!

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

See the thread - I'm going to add some clarification!

christophstc.bsky.social•8 days ago

...biologists are usually embarrassed when they are accused of not having really moved beyond Henri Bergson's "élan vital." /hides under cushion

twitskeptic.sirvin.com•8 days ago

I audited a SCB class at the University of Washington last winter, and part of the class was devoted to organoids (including human embryo organoids). Never heard a hint of teleology in any of the lectures. So the "every single stem cell biologist speaks this way" is nonsense.

twitskeptic.sirvin.com•8 days ago

Incidentally, one of the lecturers told me that he has a stem cell biologist friend who left academia to enter longevity research at a VC funded company. Apparently, it's much more lucrative and he's considering a similar move himself after all of the NIH nonsense in the US.

pessoabrain.bsky.social•8 days ago

I'll make enemies here but to not see the distinction seems naive, don't you think?

pessoabrain.bsky.social•8 days ago

For example, one could say that "evolution is trying to Y" and argue that this is a valid way of describing it. Whether or not that's a productive way to go about it, one seems to need to appreciate the distinction.

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

The distinction between what Luis? Just making sure I understand.
(I really liked your Aeon piece BTW.)

pessoabrain.bsky.social•8 days ago

The framing of observations vs description of observations. If we can't separate the two in science, we're pretty lost imo. It comes down to the map vs territory once more, doesn't it?

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Ah, I see! And I couldn't agree more. *That* is essentially what I just talked about in Sweden.

pessoabrain.bsky.social•8 days ago

Share a slide or two please! Interestingly this confusion appears everywhere all the time, say, the brain is a transformer as opposed to it can be profitable understood in terms/with transformers. Or the latest AI tool, say the latest diffusion models

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

I'll be writing it up soon.
What mildly shocked me about that discussion though was the finality of it: This is simply the right (=approved) way to speak about the matter, and I'm not going to waste my time thinking about the philosophical issues.

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Me: Where is the failure in what the cells have done? Where is the error?
SCB: Every single stem cell biologist speaks this way.
Me: [knowing what I am inviting but unable to resist] I don’t think philosophers of biology would.
SCB: [A stare that would cut through steel]
/2

lancasterlab.bsky.social•6 days ago

FWIW, not every single SCB talks that way. @djabaudon.bsky.social and I discussed what the differences (not failures) of organoids can teach us about what cells are capable of if given the opportunity (if in vivo constraints are removed) in this article many years back: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.172049

philipcball.bsky.social•6 days ago

Oh Madeline, I'm so glad you commented. It was knowing that there are many people like you in this field who think much more carefully and deeply about these issues that made me so uncomfortable hearing this person make that claim.

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

So ‘trying’ has an accepted meaning in that (large, well-established) community.

Did you ask what ‘trying’ was shorthand for, sensu SCB?

philipcball.bsky.social•7 days ago

I, er, tried. I was interested to explore it. The answer was essentially "This is the correct way to describe it, if you're not totally ignorant." I was also intrigued by "trying really hard".

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

Not wanting to defend them, but I could see ‘trying’ as shorthand for the degree of differentiation/organogenesis. Trying v hard = lots of relevant gene expression, some start at histological structures, but not yet the full kidney.

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

Failure then is the lack of some know gene expressions, only partial/incomplete tube formation etc.

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

Ofc that stem cell exists because it’s from an extant animal, a success. There will be a wider morphospace of SCs with slightly different rules that are trying hard to become something that’s not useful, or are confused about what they want to be in life.

philipcball.bsky.social•7 days ago

And to be clear, I wasn't even objecting to the word. I can see why it's used, as a Dennettian stance. What struck me was the sense of affront at the idea that this was a particular framing that might be fruitfully explored.

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

Was this a very busy experimentialist?

okenia.bsky.social•7 days ago

I ask because there are plenty of experimentalists whose careers are focused on data generation and publication/grants that don’t have the bandwidth to engage in these sort of philosophical explorations. And can this be very defensive.

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

What was interesting to me was that, despite my best efforts, SCB was unable to understand that this was a framing of the observations, and not simply a description of them.

The response was that to be curious about this framing revealed total ignorance of the field, despite the following...
/3

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

SCB: All organoids are just spherical balls of cells.
Me: Brain organoids, for one, surely aren’t though.
SCB: Look, this is what I do. I have made organoids for 20 years.
/4

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Me: [resisting the urge to say: Would you like to see my brain organoid?] Yes, but brain organoids can have complex morphologies and internal structure.
SCB: That’s because those cells have the capability to do that.
Me:
5/5

drsurekhadavies.bsky.social•8 days ago

If I'm following this correctly, the SCB framed the organoids as almost... sentient? Entities with goals they were trying to meet? And the SCB didn't recognize that they'd made organoids into agents devoted to making organs?

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Well, the cells rather than the organoids, but yes. This notion of cells "trying really hard" to do something, not as a figure of speech but as a description of the biological reality, was fascinating to me.

justahousewife.bsky.social•8 days ago

Chirality is *intrinsic* to biology, if nothing else.

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

I guess what's interesting to me here is that many biologists are totally allergic to anything that smacks of teleology and agency when framed as such, but their discourse is often saturated in these notions, and in a way that is intensely normative.

rhamdu.bsky.social•7 days ago

Biologists had to fight the misconception that evolution was a project with the goal of producing humans. I think that's where the aversion to teleology came from.
If you don't insist on sentience, then organisms, superorganisms, physiological subsystems and even machines can have goals and agency.

jennyrohn.bsky.social•8 days ago

I think it’s semantics. Cells and groups of cells do as they are programmed to do, nothing more, nothing less. Not much different from agency. (Disclaimer, I make organoids for a living too.)

harschnitz.bsky.social•8 days ago

Fully agree. This is similar to how many biologists often (over)use anthropomorphic metaphors, as it can help explain complex and abstract processes. I think the problem partially lies in the fact that many (modern) biologists lack training in history and philosophy of science.

barrygoldman1.bsky.social•8 days ago

if we understood how agency works (the mechanism) in humans.. then we could hope to say: cells do or don't have it... but since we have no clue what human agency is... what's wrong with still using it as a metaphor? we know metaphors are sloppy!

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

Sounds like it might be good for me to clarify. My point is not "Look at this biologist talking so anthropomorphically!" It is hard not to sometimes, and not in itself a sin. This biologist obviously never meant for a moment that cells are consciously trying to do anything. The point is that...

gmacdonell.bsky.social•7 days ago

Sounds like economists once they get off campus

waynemateri.bsky.social•8 days ago

Teleology is an intellectual poison that is brutally hard to avoid. I've often caught myself saying something like, "Wings were designed to..." Lay people really misinterpret such sayings. We must work harder to avoid them.

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

I'm not so sure. I think it is worth thinking through what role purposes and goals have in biology, so that they are invoked carefully and not just thrown casually at molecules, genes, cells, evolution etc.

janellebelle.bsky.social•8 days ago

Would you agree that if cells are subject to the Free Energy Principle, for example, that when groups of neurons utilize Bayesian inference they are “trying” to reduce surprise? It’s not so much giving them false agency but acknowledging they have an innate drive to maximize function for survival.

waynemateri.bsky.social•8 days ago

No. I think we in the scientific community greatly underestimate how widespread scientific ignorance and superstition really is. Water in gravity minimizes energy. Sometimes we say it "seeks" the lowest level. Scientists know this doesn't imply will or agency. 1/2

waynemateri.bsky.social•8 days ago

But many in the lay public actually believe water has "memory" of things it has touched and that one can enhance its curative power by excess dilution of things it's contacted. This kind of scientific shortspeak for convenience is dangerous in the hands of those who take such words literally.

waynemateri.bsky.social•8 days ago

It's really difficult to say as I don't want to be the "thought and speech police." But we say thinks like "The sun rises in the East and sets in the West" and 25% of Americans actually believe the sun orbits the Earth (or floats above a flat Earth in magical circles).

superfluidmatt.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thank you Prof. Ball. BTW, off topic but I am extremely confident I can prove the photon is spin 0 or a scalar boson. If I can prove this, and show clearly why, would that be consider Nobel Prize worthy? Thanks

philipcball.bsky.social•8 days ago

I'm not on the Nobel committee, so I'm afraid I can't help with that question.

superfluidmatt.bsky.social•8 days ago

Ok sounds good. Thanks