The law of quantity and quality also serves to shed light on one of the most controversial aspects of modern physics, the so-called uncertainty principle, which we will examine in greater detail in another section. Whereas it is impossible to know the exact position and velocity of an individual subatomic particle, it is possible to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of large numbers of particles. A further example: radioactive atoms decay in a way that makes a detailed prediction impossible. Yet large numbers of atoms decay at a rate so statistically reliable that they are used by scientists as natural “clocks” with which they calculate the age of the earth, the sun and the stars. The very fact that the laws governing the behaviour of subatomic particles are different to those which function at the “normal” level is itself an example of the transformation of quantity into quality. The precise point at which the laws of the small-scale phenomena cease to apply was defined by the quantum of action laid down by Max Planck (1858-1947) in 1900.
At a certain point, the concatenation of circumstances causes a qualitative leap whereby inorganic matter gives rise to organic matter. The difference between inorganic and organic matter is only relative. Modern science is well on the way to discovering exactly how the latter arises from the former. Life itself consists of atoms organised in a certain way. We are all a collection of atoms but not “merely” a collection of atoms. In the astonishingly complex arrangement of our genes, we have an infinite number of possibilities. The task of allowing each individual to develop these possibilities to the fullest extent is the real task of socialism.
Molecular biologists now know the complete DNA sequence of an organism, but cannot deduce from this how the organism assembles itself during its development, any more than knowledge of the structure of H2O provides an understanding of the quality of liquidity. An analysis of the chemicals and cells of the body does not add up to a formula for life. The same is true of the mind itself. Neuroscientists have a great deal of data about what the brain does. The human brain consists of ten billion neurons, each of which has an average of a thousand links with other neurons. The fastest computer is capable of performing around a billion operations a second. The brain of a fly sitting on a wall carries out 100 billion operations in the same time. This comparison gives an idea of the vast difference between the human brain and even the most advanced computer.
The enormous complexity of the human brain is one of the reasons why idealists have attempted to surround the phenomenon of mind with a mystical aura. Knowledge of the details of individual neurons, axons and synapses, is not sufficient to explain the phenomenon of thought and emotion. However, there is nothing mystical about it. In the language of complexity theory, both mind and life are emergent phenomena. In the language of dialectics, the leap from quantity to quality means that the whole possesses qualities that cannot be deduced from the sum of the parts or reduced to it. None of the neurons is conscious. Yet the sum total of neurons and their connections are. Neural networks are non-linear dynamical systems. It is the complex activity and interactions between the neurons that produce the phenomenon we call consciousness.
The same kind of thing can be seen in large numbers of multi-component systems in the most varied spheres. Studies of ant colonies at Bath University have shown how behaviour not witnessed in individual ants appears in a colony. A single ant, left to itself, will wander around at random, foraging and resting at irregular intervals. However, when the observation shifts to a whole colony of ants it immediately becomes evident that they become active at perfectly regular intervals. It is thought that this maximises the effectiveness of their labours: if they all work together, one ant is unlikely to repeat a task just performed by another. The degree of coordination at the level of an ant colony is such that some people have thought of it as a single animal, rather than a colony. This too is a mystical presentation of a phenomenon which exists on many levels in nature and in animal and human society, and which can only be understood in terms of the dialectical relation between whole and part.
We can see the law of the transformation of quantity into quality at work when we consider the evolution of the species. In biological terms a specific “breed” or “race” of animal is defined by its capacity to inter-breed. But as evolutionary modifications take one group further away from another a point is reached where they can no longer inter-breed. At this point a new species has been formed. Palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) and Niles Eldredge (1944-) have demonstrated that these processes are sometimes slow and protracted and at other times extremely rapid. Either way, they show how a gradual accumulation of small changes at a certain point provokes a qualitative change. Punctuated equilibria is the term used by these biologists to describe long periods of stability, interrupted by sudden bursts of change. When this idea was proposed by Gould and Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History in 1972, it provoked an acrimonious debate among biologists, for whom, until then, Darwinian evolution was synonymous with gradualism.
For a long time, it was thought that evolution precluded such drastic changes. It was pictured as a slow, gradual change. However, the fossil record, although incomplete, presents a very different picture, with long periods of gradual evolution punctuated by violent upheavals, accompanied by the mass extinction of some species and the rapid rise of others. Whether or not the dinosaurs became extinct as a consequence of a meteorite colliding with the earth, it seems highly improbable that most of the great extinctions were caused in this way. While external phenomena, including meteorite or comet impacts, can play a role as “accidents” in the evolutionary process, it is necessary to seek an explanation of evolution as a result of its internal laws. The theory of “punctuated equilibria”, which is now supported by most palaeontologists, represents a decisive break with the old gradualist interpretation of Darwinism, and presents a truly dialectical picture of evolution, in which long periods of stasis are interrupted by sudden leaps and catastrophic changes of all kinds.
There is an endless number of examples of this law covering a very wide field. Is it possible now to continue to doubt the validity of this extremely important law? Is it really justified to continue to ignore it or to write it off as a subjective invention, which has been arbitrarily applied to diverse phenomena that bear no relation to one another? We see how in physics the study of phase transitions has led to the conclusion that apparently unrelated changes – of the boiling of liquids and the magnetising of metals – all follow the same rules. It is only a matter of time before similar connections will be established which will reveal beyond a shadow of doubt that the law of the transformation of quantity into quality is indeed one of the most fundamental laws of nature.