Steve, When I hear of gradients 'causing' self-organization .. as in "free energy by abiotic processes may have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup of free energy stresses".. I generally look for how the neutral pressures of gradients could dictate the intricate internal organization of the growth processes that develop from them.
My own work began with the simplest sorts of conditions, the highly diffuse thermal gradients in the surface layers of fluids produced by sunlight and other heat sources. What you find there are amazingly intricate locally original and rapidly evolving systems of movement. One can easily accept that nothing would grow without gradients, but speaking of diffuse 'forces' causing intricately self-organized individual structures that spontaneously develop at irregular intervals is way more than a stretch. It's just dreaming. Gradients may produce instabilities in which complex systems are quite likely to develop, and life itself to appear to have come from one. It diverts all the good questions, though, to say it explains what happens inside the loops of evolving systems, or that the same cause of providing an opportunity for evolution must always produce the same effect. Phil > From: On Behalf Of Stephen Guerin > Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 7:10 PM > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Origin of Life (was: Rugged fitness landscapes) > > David Breecker writes: > > Phil, indulge a layman for a moment: isn't auto-catalysis > > widely considered to be the origination of life, and thus evolution? > > Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith have a very approachable > working paper on Origin of Life: > http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/wpabstract/200608029 >ABSTRACT: Life is universally understood to require a source >of free energy and mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, >the converse may also be true: the continuous generation of >sources of free energy by abiotic processes may have forced >life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup of >free energy stresses. This assertion -- for which there is >precedent in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and growing >empirical evidence from chemistry -- would imply that life >had to emerge on the earth, that at least the early steps >would occur in the same way on any similar planet, and that >we should be able to predict many of these steps from first >principles of chemistry and physics together with an accurate >understanding of geochemical conditions on the early earth. >A deterministic emergence of life would reflect an essential >continuity between physics, chemistry, and biology. It would >show that a part of the order we recognize as living is >thermodynamic order inherent in the geosphere, and that some >aspects of Darwinian selection are expressions of the likely >simpler statistical mechanics of physical and chemical >self-organization. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
