I composed my email before seeing Eric's post. Having now read his email, I would say let's not get too distracted by Nick Lane's Vital Question for the task we set ourselves at FRIAM.
I think Eric's talks bests represents what I was calling the view of life as gradient dissipation and a property of the ecological whole and less a property of an individual. As a quick summary for the list, Nick and I have had a 10-year back and forth discussion on evolution since his arrival in Santa Fe. We are setting ourselves the task of coming to a common definition and perhaps explanation of mechanism. If we fail to come to agreement, we hope to at least be able to coherently state each other's position. In this context, I was arguing that evolution is a description of the historical change of the pathways of breakdown (and local buildup) of gradients and that organisms (and by extension, species) are less a focus in this description. Tangents on the list into the dynamics of vortices and tornadoes have been related to the these arguments about far-from-equilibrium explanations. At FRIAM, I argued that we need updated descriptions and explanations of Evolution in the same way that Chemistry has changed each time we discovered new concepts like conservation of mass, thermodynamics, the atom and quantum mechanics. Now that we have more modern descriptions of living systems and explanations of origin of life, shouldn't our descriptions and explanations of Evolution change along with it? _______________________________________________________________________ [email protected] <[email protected]> CEO, Simtable http://www.simtable.com 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828 twitter: @simtable On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Stephen Guerin <[email protected] > wrote: > Nick, > > I downloaded Nick Lane's Vital Question book a couple months back. From a > quick skim I got the sense it was a nice review of much of the work going > on around non-equilibrium thermodynamic origin of life explanations by the > "Seventh Day Ventists" (eg second law arguments for the emegence of life > via gradient dissipation around deep sea vents). In addition to reviewing > this work, Dr. Lane has original contributions as well. I would recommend > it for anyone as a great introduction. > > In fact our own Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz (who just passed last > month) work is mentioned in Vital Question. You might check out Eric's > recent talk at the Aspen Institute ( > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cwvj0XBKlE) which addresses a couple > questions that came up at FRIAM yesterday. > > In particular, I think the talk much more elegantly describes the shift to > defining life as an ecological pattern from the prior emphasis on the > individual organism. > > on "are viruses alive" Eric challenges the meaning of a "living thing" > https://youtu.be/0cwvj0XBKlE?t=48m21s > > Also Eric's SFI public lecture from a few years back is very relevant: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMqwgkXguw > > _______________________________________________________________________ > [email protected] <[email protected]> > CEO, Simtable http://www.simtable.com > 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 > office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828 > twitter: @simtable > > On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 10:09 PM, Nick Thompson < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Dear Friammers, >> >> >> >> Today’s meeting of the Mother Church got back to our old discussions of >> complexity, gradients, and the origin of life. In that connection I urged >> everybody to read Nick Lane’s, *THE VITAL QUESTION: Energy, evolution, >> and the origins of complex life.* The fundamental theory is that life >> was scaffolded by the microstructure and energy flows taking place in deep >> ocean vents called “white smokers”. I am curious to know if others have >> read this book, and what you might think of it. >> >> >> >> Nicholas S. Thompson >> >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology >> >> Clark University >> >> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> > >
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