>>Neither is Venus and Venus has more solar energy available for organization.
That's why sexy girls
from Venus take trips here, and
our sexy Earth girls
don't go to Venus
to tell them how to run things.
Science makes it clear!
Posted on 05/04/2005 10:48:30 AM PDT by betty boop
It seems to do pretty good at explaining the form of a snowflake, a salt crystal, diamonds...
The sun hasn't run out of gas yet.
For Lurkers, the original point raised by Sheldrake:
The mechanistic explanation of morphogenesis attempts to explain it in terms of molecules and interactions between them, particularly in terms of DNA and protein synthesis. This is a bottom-up approach, and can not explain the emergence of form. For example, genes code for the sequence of amino acids in proteins, but this can not even explain how the proteins fold up in the correct way to give the right three-dimensional structure.
Life, on the other hand, cannot be explained only by such external forces. Hence, the mathematicians have turned so often to self-organizing complexity. The emphasis is on the "self" as the article explains. Other types of complexity are also being investigated: Kolmogorov, physical complexity, functional complexity, metatransition, etc.
But as the just linked article suggests, the computational complexity is not enough to explain the emergence of life (v non-life/death). It also requires an investigation of information (successful communication), autonomy, semiosis and intelligence.
The "form" issue itself makes this point very clear on several levels. As Sheldrake mentions, the geometry of the DNA itself cannot be explained from the "bottoms up" mechanistic approach.
And then there is the "form" of the organism, such as the human body, which continues to exist as a "whole" even though every cell is replaced every seven years.
Likewise, the "form" of a collective of organisms - such as a colony of Army ants - exists only when the number of ants reaches a threshold. IOW, put 100 Army ants on a flat surface and they will walk in a circle until they die. But put a half million ants together and you have a "whole" which organizes raids, maintains geometry, schedules and acts collectively to benefit the whole.
Another point in "form" is the molecular machinery of an organism which organizes around a function to the benefit of the whole organism. Not only does the organism pursue life, but the molecular machinery as well. If the brain is dead, by attaching a respirator, the rest of the molecular machinery will pursue life.
In sum, life is characterized by purposeful form - or geometry - which cannot be explained by external, natural forces alone. That issue reaches beyond chemistry and biology into mathematics, physics and metaphysics, e.g. consciousness/mind/soul.
That stuff's impressive,
but I remind myself that
mimicking a form
may or may not say
fundamental things about
the main form itself.
Hundreds of years back,
when European painters
mastered oil painting
the combination
of smooth blending and knowledge
of perspective led
some folks to wonder
how powerful images
might be and the Church
of course got involved . . .
(And, of course, ancient sculptors
could get so good that
their work gave rise to
Pygmalion-type musings.)
So, the modern world
can take fractal math
and iterate shapes that look
like real world structures.
I can't figure out
if this is a deep statement
about how forms grow,
or if computers
and algorithms are just
our time's medium
the way the old Greeks
had sculpture or Europe had
really good painters.
After all, programs
only create ferns and stuff
because programmers
work creatively
to isolate and arrange
the fractal routines.
What differentiates living things from non-living things?
Is it not above all the irrepressible instinct for survival? When did this "internal" force first come about? And why and how?
And isn't this internal force, reacting to external forces that determines the choices (including form) either made by, or imposed on organisms?
Indeed, many of us consider the first question to be "what is life v. non-life/death in nature?". To that end, you might enjoy this thread: Can the Monist view account for 'what is life?'.
On that thread, I offered the only mathematical definition known to me at post 164.
aquila48, indeed these things have form. But it is not the same kind of form that living systems have. For the instances you give are "informed" by relatively simple, repetitive instructions (information). In comparison, living organisms are astronomically more complex, and likely are not reducible to such simple repetitive instructions.
In short, a "bottom-up approach" from simple instructions/material basis -- which is available for the non-living systems you cite -- will likely not get you to an explanation or description of even the simplest of living forms, even supposing a hypothetical eternity for evolution.
FWIW, there is an important distinction to be made between "ordered" and "self-ordering systems" (crystals, snowflakes, dust eddies, tornadoes, Benard cells, etc.), and "self-organizing systems" (living organisms) in nature. WRT the latter, I do not think they "reduce" to the relatively low level of informational complexity that we observe in the former. For one thing, living states are constantly changing from moment to moment both at the organic level of the sytem and at the sub-levels (molecules, macromolecules, organelles, organs, etc.); for another, they are able to modify their paths from those predicted on the basis of initial conditions and the physical laws. They are "self-moving" and even "self-repairing" systems.
In other words, biological systems clearly have a physical/material basis; but they are not entirely reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. There is something else involved in living systems that physics and chemistry cannot "access," let alone explain.
Or at least, that is my view, based on the present state of knowledge that I have. Which I guarantee you, is incomplete.
So, FWIW.... Thanks for writing!
Your analysis at post #244 is simply excellent, Alamo-Girl, and i agree with your conclusion. Thank you so very much!
Indeed, Alamo-Girl!
Just looking in on the goings-on here; I'd love to stay and discuss, but must get back to work for now.... :^(
Thank you so much for writing!
The Second Law says that the universe will tend toward disorder, not that all things on this planet always go from order to disorder.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Neither is Venus and Venus has more solar energy available for organization.
That's why sexy girls
from Venus take trips here, and
our sexy Earth girls
don't go to Venus
to tell them how to run things.
Science makes it clear!
Well, Venus is pretty hot.
The theory you are talking about is the theory developed by the author of this paper and that is just what the "law of maximum entropy production" specifies. The law of maximum entropy production states that in all real world systems potentials (energy gradients) or minimized (or reduced) by the pathway or assembly of pathways out of available pathways that minimize the gradient (increase the entropy) at the fastest rate given the constraints. The development of increasingly more highly ordered (further from equilbrium) living things as well as the cultural systems (including the explosive gobalization going on now on our planet) is the consequence of this fact, namely that such states are more and more efficient (effective) at producing entropy (or dissipating energy gradients).
This solves a major paradox that existed in the relation of life to physics and biology to physics for many years. I've read the paper and agree with the original poster it makes a fascinating read. We studied Swenson's work in graduate school and I found it amazing then. You have to read the whole paper though, I would think to get it. There are some others online as well that one can find by searching Rod Swenson and evolution, or Rod Swenson and physics or even Rod Swenson and psychology. There's also a current article in Physica Scripta (the journal of the Royal Swedish Society that does the Nobel Prize) that features his work (the last issue I believe and for the more technically minded there's an abstract at http://philosophyofscience.net/PhysicaScripta.html)
By the way as a final note, for those few who have apparently only read a part of the excerpts that have been posted and taken this to be an 'anti-evolutionary" paper, nothing could be further from the truth. It does criticize validly the limitations of orthodox Darwinian theory though.
(I haven't read the book "Into the Cool", but the website has extensive excerpts, and it did rate an addition to my Amazon wish list.)
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