Tyler VolkCritiques

Volk's "grand sequence" of 12 nested structures arising from "combogenesis": fundamental quanta (base level for physical law and precursor level for the atomic/molecular "alphakit"), nucleons, atomic nuclei, atoms, molecules, prokaryotic cells (base level for biological evolution and the genetic alphakit), eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, animal social groups, tribal metagroups (base level for cultural evolution and the linguistic alphakit), agrovillages, and geopolitical states. This carefully considered scheme affords further analyses, such as one suggesting a parallel between the eukaryotic-cell revolution and the much later agricultural revolution.

The excellent writing and original insights found in this book ought to be mentioned first in a review, but I can't help but start by noting how charming the book design is. Death & Sex is fittingly a naked hardcover book, without a dust jacket, finished in a lovely and tasteful black damask cloth. The single volume is actually two separate books. One side reads in two lines, "Death Tyler Volk" in silver type above a barely discernable embossed "Sex Dorion Sagan" as a mirror image below it. Turn this attractive little book over and around and it reads "Sex Dorion Sagan" in, of course, harlot red script, and Volk's title and name are its mirror image. This book will be a collector's item; there is no doubt about that. I usually mark up the books I read, but I treat this one like the valuable aesthetic object it is. It is also a book that will find its way into the conversations of all your friends. It covers our favorite subjects with humor and depth. We all wonder what makes us the sexual beings we are. Why these habits and tendencies and not others? How like are we to other members of the animal kingdom? Are the Marquis de Sade's sexual practices any worse than those of male bedbugs who pierce females through any part of their bodies to impregnate them? Sagan explores our cultural, philosophical and biological history of sex, along the way showing us facts and quotes that make us wonder and laugh at ourselves. Consider this gem: Lyndon B. Johnson's observation that "there is nothing so overrated as a lousy lay, and nothing so underrated as a good crap." Tyler Volk's contributions on the subject of death are equally amusing and revealing. Looking at death's life-enabling nature, he makes death beautiful. The two authors together have created a book that gives us new perspectives on life. Don't let this year go by without Death & Sex.½

Tyler Volk is an earth scientist. That's one of the few scientific fields today where it is actually desired to tend more towards holism than towards reductionism, i.e. to study whole systems as interactions of smaller subsystems, building up rising levels of understanding rather than endlessly subdividing fine points.

Metapatterns seems to be the result of Volk's philosophical insights that parallel the holistic nature of his work. In it, he categorizes phenomena that occur on different levels of reality (atomic, macroscopic, mental, spiritual) according to common patterns - forms - that these phenomena exhibit. For example, the sphere is a form that exists at many levels of reality and that has certain common properties across all these levels, such as optimality / perfection.

The book is not just a collection of unrelated observations. The author builds a coherent system of patterns, starting from primordial ones and assembling them to form more complex wholes. Towards the end, we start getting glimpses of how the complexity around us might be arising from simple primitives, which I imagine is the author's original thesis.

Book Description
what is death?
A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life

Answering the question "What is death?" by focusing on the individual is blinkered. It restricts attention to a narrow zone around the individual body of a creature. Instead, how expansive is the answer we receive when we look at the context of death within the biosphere. Death now is tied to all of life, via the atmosphere and ocean. Death supports the awesome biological enterprise of making abundant the green and squiggly life. Talk about death has headed us straight into a contemplation of life, not only individual life, but big life, life on a global scale. Death and life are neatly dovetailed by the supreme cabinetmaker of evolution. Again, the crucial feature is not the death of any one creature per se, but rather what is done with death. To reach into the meaning of death, we must reach out into the wider context of which death is a part.

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An exploration of the meaning of death and its profound implications about the meaning of life

In the winter of 1997, biologist and critically acclaimed science writer Tyler Volk began suffering from mysterious physical ailments that would bring him face to face with his own mortality. This experience led him to explore what death means to us–and to discover that our mortality is, paradoxically, extraordinarily life affirming. In What Is Death? Volk shows how we deal with death psychologically and come to inner peace; how as a culture we find our funeral rituals a tremendous comfort and a revitalization of community; and how death evolved at the cellular level and stands as one of the most beautiful necessities in our biosphere. Here is death that is at once an end and a beginning, a source of dignity and a revelation, the basis of who we are as people and as a people.

There is nothing morbid about this book. Tyler Volk's openness and sincerity about the sometimes difficult topic of death had just the opposite effect. My understanding of life, and my gratitude for it, was enhanced. - In just over 200-pages, Volk covers a lot of territory. In three parts, he sensitively explores what neurologically makes us a conscious self, warmly discusses cultural attitudes, and knowledgeably looks at how the myriad forms of death make biological life possible. - If you enjoy reading about the natural sciences or social-cultural topics, you will enjoy this book. Because I enjoy both, I had a great time. It brought to mind cell biologist Ursula Goodenough's "The Sacred Depths of Nature," which I also found edifying. - As the author of "What is Death?," Tyler Volk comes across graciously human and without pretense. Unlike an aloof scientist narrowly consumed with a field of interest, I experienced Volk as down to earth and someone who shares the foibles and joys of being alive. Like each of us, he also is trying to come to terms with his own life and death. Volk's honesty in relating some of his personal journey enhances this fine volume.½