Dear Enzo and All:
First, thank you Enzo for your interesting post. Unfortunately,
other matters leave me little time for addressing the interesting
issues raised here. I look forward to the end of a very busy
semester! (Enzo's post is appended below.)
In my original post, I sought to separate the functional behavior of
an ecosystem into "degrees of organization". The mathematical /
logic purpose for generating this separation of terminology was to
distinguish the components of ecosystems into logical classes,
somewhat analogous to the mathematical notion of a "lattice"
structure. By starting at the bottom of the "lattice" and moving
stepwise upward, one starts with a very very fine structure,
subatomic components, and step by step, increases the size and number
of components of the next degree of informational assembly. Each
assembly is formed from logical components of lower rank and each
collection of lower assemblies forms logical assemblies of a higher
order.
The scientific languages for these operations are well established
and supported by experimental methods (at the lower levels in the
lattice) or empirical observations (for higher levels.) These are
discrete mathematical operations (that is, non-continuous) and are
composed from indivisible components.
The purpose for these constructions is give a representation that can
be critically examined by scientific methods. In other words, to
develop the capacity to study the flow of individual "bits" /
"units" of information at each degree of organization within the
lattice. For my purposes, the study of human health and disease, a
basic concern is the role of the individual structure in generating
the dynamics of the whole. The unique character of the individual
assembly is vital to understanding the flows of information in the
system as a whole. In less abstract language, each biochemical
structure represents an indivisible object. Each biological gene
represents a unique source of one component of the biological
dynamics. Each individual citizen represents a unique source of
social action and inaction. Each biological species contributes
uniquely to the ecosystem.
A lattice structure is reflexive, anti-symmetric and transitive. The
"lattice like" structure I proposed is reflexive. It is similar to
the anti-symmetric property. It is, in some senses, similar to the
transitive property.
By way of contrast, at this scale of coarse linguistic structure,
thermodynamic functions are reflexive, symmetric and transitive, that
is, thermodynamic functions are equivalence relations.
From the perspective of informational sciences, it appears that we
need to identify operations or methods that allow one to bridge the
relations between discrete systems composed from individuals and
continuous systems that presuppose homogeneous populations. A
fundamental obstacle to communication between the physical and the
biological sciences is the absence of such methods. Within this
framework I note that the logical structure of thermodynamics
excludes the inclusion of chemical structures into the mathematics of
thermodynamics. Ratios of the numbers of each type or class of
structure (equilibrium constants) become the source of relation
between the chemical sciences and the physics of heat.
I agree with Enzo that our basic view of nature must shift to an
evolutive one. For me, an evolutive view of nature requires
inclusion of the specificity and sensitivity of assemblies of
components. Metaphorically speaking, the problems of describing
information flow is similar in a cell, in a individual organism, or
in a ecosystem - in all cases, a large numbers of distinctive
processes are collaborating to sustain the system. I believe that
the source of the specific and sensitive behaviors of living systems
must be accounted for in terms of the structure and behavior of
individual components of perplex assemblies as these components and
assemblies are the sources of informational flows.
I hope to respond to some of the other posts in coming weeks.
Cheers to All
Jerry
>I apologize, I have sent you a not definitive draft of my considerations
>for the debate. Here follows the right version.
>
>Best regards,
>Enzo Tiezzi
>
>
>
>FIS Debate, Some observations, by Enzo Tiezzi
>
>1) Constraints, Carrying capacity
>
>The system in which we live, the planet Earth, is a finite system, and
>as such has constraints. Physical reality is therefore subject to
>constraints which determine limits. The term "carrying capacity" refers
>to the capacity of the planet to sustain a growing population. In these
>last years, the verb "to carry" has been replaced most of times with "to
>sustain" (implying duration in time) which gave rise to the idea of
>sustainable development.
>The difference between the fast tempos of technological growth and the
>slower tempos of the biological sphere, is at the core of the
>environmental crisis. To create a steady state of slow growth in the
>society means maintaining the energy flux at a constant low level,
>slowing the entropic process, favouring decentralization and the small
>scale, using renewable resources.
>
>Growth vs. development, Steady-state economics, Natural capital
>To grow means "to increase naturally in size by the addition of material
>through assimilation or accretion". To develop means "to expand or
>realise the potentialities of; bring gradually to a full, greater or
>better state". In short, growth is quantitative increase in physical
>scale, while development is qualitative improvement or unfolding of
>potentialities.
>The integration of economics, ecology and thermodynamics gives rise to
>the new theory of ecological economics, or sustainability, which has
>nothing to do with that bad oxymoron "sustainable growth".
>We should adopt the biological model of steady state: evolution with
>minimum production of entropy and maximum thermodynamic efficiency. The
>steady state in biology does not mean renouncing development. Natural
>history is the history of biological evolution, of systems in continuous
>dynamic variation. The steady state does not negate evolution (and
>development), it guarantees it.
>The two golden rules on which it is based are due to Herman Daly:
>I) harvest rates should be equal to regeneration rates (sustainable
>yield);
>II) waste emission rates should be equal to the natural assimilative
>capacities of the ecosystems into which the wastes are emitted.
>Regenerative and assimilative capacities must be treated as natural
>capital, and failure to maintain these capacities must be treated as
>capital consumption and therefore not sustainable. Natural capital and
>man-made capital are complementary and natural capital has become the
>limiting factor.
>Calculations on natural capital (Nature, 387, 253-60, 1997) indicate
>that the wealth produced by humans from nature is far greater then the
>global gross national product.
>
>
>2) Thermodynamic foolishness: some considerations
>
>Thermodynamics' second principle, one of nature's fundamental laws,
>addresses the pathways we should avoid in order to keep life on Earth.
>It shows the universal, inescapable tendency toward disorder (in
>thermodynamics, the general trend toward a entropy maximum), which is
>also a loss of information and of usable energy availability. This
>tendency to the Clausius' "thermal death", takes to the thermodynamic
>equilibrium, namely the death of biological systems and ecosystems,
>through the destruction of diversities.
>There are two ways to achieve such a condition:
>a) when, through energy exchanges as heat fluxes, there are no more
>differences in temperature and nothing more can be done, because any
>exchange of usable energy is allowed;
>b) when a system, becoming isolated, consumes its resources, reaching a
>great increase in its internal entropy and, at the end, to
>self-destruction.
>For this reason living systems try to avoid the condition of
>thermodynamic equilibrium, keeping themselves as far as possible from
>that state, self-organizing due to material and energetic fluxes,
>received from outside and from systems with different conditions of
>temperature and energy.
>Economics and our society cannot be unaware of thermodynamics' second
>principle. As a consequence globalization, the destruction of both
>biological and cultural diversities, homogenization and the unique
>thought take inescapably to the thermal death (or to the "entropic
>euthanasia", as we called it), to the final destruction.
>In the same way a country, a nation, a system that makes a political
>dogma of its isolation, of its refusing of cultural contamination
>(better: of cross-fertilizations), of its castling on fundamentalist
>positions of self-conservation, will go to the same end. An excessive
>defence of one's diversity and a complete loss of diversity are two
>faces of the same thermodynamic foolishness.
>
>3) A new paradigm: from a space to a time culture
>
>Sustainable development needs the reformulation of some fundamental
>premises of the western thought. A critique of contemporary science must
>look for a transdisciplinar perspective, and be able to seek the basic
>elements of a multidimensional and multilfocused paradigm, in order to
>fully describe the relations, quality and complexity of reality.
>The relationship between thermodynamics and sustainability is mainly due
>to the attention that thermodynamics gives to the biophysical boundaries
>that represent a constraint for the global environment. More
>specifically, sustainability finds a precious contribute in the
>ecodynamic models, which represent a synthesis between environmental
>physical chemistry and ecology.
>Sustainability needs also to consider the anthropic presence as a
>subsystem of the whole biosphere, which can be assumed as a
>thermodynamic closed system, exchanging energy but not matter with the
>external sink (except a minimum dust or meteorite). Regarding every
>human activity as a part of a whole system is a basic step for the
>evaluation of the carrying capacity of the Earth.
>The most relevant scientific reference for sustainable development's
>models is thermodynamics of far from equilibrium systems, studied by
>Ilya Prigogine.
>We can consider the whole biosphere as a closed system in steady-state,
>far from equilibrium, in which a negentropic flow allows the creation of
>dissipative structures, complexity, new information, biodiversity,
>relationships.
>The switch to a vision of the interactions between man and nature as a
>complex and non-linear system is a fundamental step, in order to abandon
>the scientific reductionism that leads to abstract the single elements
>of the system from the context of its properties and that draws an
>oversimplified picture of nature (at the basis of the environmental
>crisis).
>The analysis of the evolution of a complex system underlines the
>essential role of the time's arrow, which becomes a basic point to be
>understood in the description of irreversibility. The reintroduction of
>the time dimension in the scientific understanding allows moreover the
>passage "from a space to a time culture". Shifting our scientific
>paradigm from being to becoming means to find the link between the human
>and the natural sciences, as nature is considered no more like an
>unchangeable reality, isolated, ruled by deterministic and absolute
>laws, where human being is condemned to an always greater alienation,
>once lost his original natural rootness.
>So we can find a scientific way for the elaboration of an alternative to
>the positivistic reductionism that has evicted all those perceptive
>elements that contribute to the knowledge but are not characterized by
>the repeatability and quantifiability claimed by the hard sciences. The
>new paradigm for sciences should be an evolutive one. Dominant economic
>theory, based as it is on mechanistic principles, remains ignorant of
>the law of entropy and the role of the time variable. The classical
>dynamic concept of time and its reversibility, has nothing to do with
>reality and nature. Time is not without its preferred directions (it is
>not isotropic) as is space. Time has a direction. Thermodynamics
>introduces "knowledge of the unidirectional flow of time", traces the
>limit between past reality and future uncertainty, indicates the
>orientation of time in natural processes.
>
>
>Prof. Enzo Tiezzi
>Dip. di Scienze e Tecnologie chimiche e dei Biosistemi
>Via della Diana 2/a
>53100 Siena (Italia)
>Tel: +39-0577-232012
>Fax: +39-0577-232004
>Studio: +39-0577-45207
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>fis mailing list
>fis@listas.unizar.es
>http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Mon Nov 24 04:37:46 2003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Mon 07 Mar 2005 - 10:24:46 CET