On 2/18/2018 7:40 AM, Stephen Jarosek wrote:
As far as the silicon molecule is concerned, the stone has no context that is relevant to it. The silicon molecule receives no cue from the stone as to what its properties should be.
That is not true. A silicon atom behaves in very different ways in different molecules. In minerals, it is in some molecule, such as silicon dioxide. But SiO2 may combine in more complex molecules, such as aluminum silicate. And those molecules are affected by the crystals, glasses, and surface interactions that affect the rock as a whole. Heat, pressure, tension, torsion, and chemical processes are transmitted to, from, and through every molecule in the rock.
The stone is not a system, but an agglomeration of disconnected minerals.
No!!! The concept of a system is just an abstraction from artifacts that humans design. For inorganic matter, even a single rock is a complex system. Weather, volcanoes, earthquakes, stars, galaxies, supernovas, black holes, and the Big Bang are far more complex. For organic matter, the processes are even complex and organized than any human can conceive. And there is a continuum: Some inorganic processes somehow evolved into those organic processes. The inorganic processes that generate the earth's weather are extremely complex. And the weather affects and is affected by all the organic processes on earth. And the earth is just one insignificant rocky planet in a run-of-the-mill galaxy in one corner of an immensely complex cosmos. John
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