Replying to Walter --
On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 8:41 PM, <walter.riof...@terra.com.pe> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
It seems that a good start point is to look at the “dissipative structures
world”.
And we could ask if in every dissipative structure it is possible to find
information
and/or computations and/or intelligence and/or the like…
Of course no in cyclones and hurricanes, neither in Bénard cells and
Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions, but we would almost surely affirm the living
systems have these capacities.
At least, we can affirm it would be in animals and plants, but in archaea
and bacteria?
Keep in mind that these microorganisms usually exist in multispecies
communities,like biofilms. This makes them more less equivalent to simple
living tissues.
or, in prebiotic systems?
As an evolutionist and materialist, I would expect that any property
higher living forms have would have had precursors in more primitive,
ancestral systems -- but, of course in more rudimentary form.
My bet is that there was a beginning from which we could talk about
information (with meaning)
and then, on natural computations and then, on behaviors and then, on
cognitive phenomena and then, on other more sophisticated phenomena and so
on…
This beginning was the one with “minimal complexity”.
A kind of molecular dissipative structure with processes behaving like
dynamic biological constraints: (1) a container made of amphiphilic
molecules and (2) a micro cycle, driving the protocell far away from
thermodynamic equilibrium, and with the basic properties of life: biological
information and biological functions…and then, we could talk on autonomous
agents…(Riofrio 2007).
Could I have copy of this? Thanks.
Nowadays, comparative genomics, metagenomics and system biology are
increasingly showing that natural selection is only one of the forces that
shape evolution, and even it is not quantitatively dominant. It happens that
non-adaptive processes are much more prominent than previously thought
(Kelley & Scott 2008; Koonin & Wolf 2009; Dhar & Giuliani 2010; Doolittle &
Zhaxybayeva 2010).
Perhaps, more than one of these forces shaped evolution before Darwinian
threshold was reached by protocells.
Some think that self-organizing forces predominate in ontogenetic
development, and may be responsible to discovering new forms.
And this circumstance is owed to the fact that each new level of complexity
materializing in the universe implies, by necessity, the emergence of new
properties containing causal efficacy that will, in the end, produce new
events in our universe.
Moreover, we contend this prebiotic world might have been comprised by an
almost continuous series of systems, and when we talk about continuous, it
is in the sense that the most fundamental properties of these different
types of systems – behaving as the details of a specific, self-organizing
kind – would have been shared by all of them.
In consequence, it is possible that these molecular dynamics had provided
the conditions for the emergence of the first small world structures as core
characteristics to the way in which the biological realm computes.
That looks promising.
Sincerely,
Walter
**Then, replying to Loet
On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 2:41 AM, Loet Leydesdorff <l...@leydesdorff.net>
wrote:
Dear Stan,
It seems to me that “senescence” applies to system components which are
continuously replaced (generationally) by the autopoietic or dissipative
system, while the system at this next-order level can be expected continue
to develop (or stagnate).
For example, the clouds come and go, but the weather pattern is continued.
Of course, a systems level can itself be embedded in a next-order system and
thus be replaced, but at a much lower frequency level.
Yes, I would propose that all dissipative systems follow the 'canonical
developmental trajectory' shown in my posting. So, what you say here could
be the case. The 'next-order level' would itself necessarily senesce
eventually, but at a much slower rate.
Thus, we have to distinguish in terms of the vertical levels of the
hierarchy. J
As you know, this is of great interest to me!
**Then, replying to Joseph, who said:
One of the important aspects of Pedro's "limitations" as that they
themselves appear to me, at least, to be the resultant, the effect of some
kind of interactions, as well as have causal power for further development.
Thus Stan is
right in calling attention to "senescence", but "anti-senescence" also
exists and the 2nd Law alone (massive input of energy) is necessary but not
sufficient to explain it.
Anti-senescence is reproduction of new dissipative structures, as in weather
systems and living systems. My point is that tis is the usual focus of
almost everyone in our growth-fascinated culture, while senescence is almost
always avoided as a topic of inquiry, except in medical circles. As our
global society is enterig a pewriod of collapse, I think it important to
know more about senesce!
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