Re: [Fis] CONSILIENCE: When separate inductions jump together

Hi Stan et al.,

On Sep 16, 2004, at 2:38 PM, Stanley N. Salthe wrote:

> SS: I have been urging a very general pattern or ALL dssipative
> structures, including living ones -- what I call the canonical
> developmental trajectory. This structure can be shown most simply as
> immature -> mature -> senescent. In my hands it is described in very
> general infodynamic terms, as:
> IMMATURITY: system relatively small and unformed, experiencing
> tremendous
> intrinsic (per unit mass) energy throughput used in its growth and
> construction, but producing large amounts of entropy at the same time.
> This
> system was started as a trivial spin-off from a larger dissipative
> structure.
> MATURITY: This stage endures for a while only in the most stable
> kinds of
> systems, basically in biology and ecology. It is a pause between
> immaturity
> and senescence. The system has become definitive for its kind, has
> powerful command of strong gross and mass-specific energy flows for
> recovery from perturbations, and can spin off other instances in
> reproduction.
> SENESCENCE: The system, even though it is definitve, keeps loading in
> information, and this information leads to overload, as the system
> becomes
> overconnected, leading to functional underconnectedness and lags in
> response time, and therefore fails in recovery from perturbations. A
> consequence of this is that the intrinsic energy flowthrough begins to
> decline. As well, its behavior becomes overdetermined internally and
> stereotyped.
> First descried in organisms, this applies as well to ecosystems,
> and
> to abiotic dissipative structures like tornadoes. In fact, I would be
> interested to here of a counterexample!

I don't have a counter-example, per se, but I have a suggestion to
extending your paradigm a little. My thoughts here are based solely on
familiar phenomenology. I think that major perturbations to a system
can rejuvenate them. The primary example I have in mind is the effect
of mass extinctions on the life history phase (sensu Salthe) of the
biosphere. Another somewhat different sort of example is biological
reproduction. A new organism does not represent a completely fresh
instantiation, as in spontaneous generation. Instead, it relies
entirely on the persistence of metabolisms from the previous
generation, whether the reproduction was sexual or asexual. I suspect
that this is consistent with what you had in mind when you wrote that
immature systems "started as a trivial spin-off from a larger
dissipative structure," but I would argue that it represents more of a
continuation of process than is suggested by "spin-off." In effect, it
could be considered a designed mechanism of large perturbation to the
metabolic process of gametes/zygotes, which go from being part of the
parental organism, to being on their own. The merger of fertilization
would be another dramatic metabolic perturbation, although one that
results in an increase in system size. Have you thought about
mechanisms of rejuvenation and the potential for systems to incorporate
such mechanisms into their mode of existence?

> So, if one could demonstrate cogently that this is truly a
> universal
> pattern, in the material world at least, would gathering cases under
> its
> aegis be enacting a consilience?

It certainly seems so to me.

Cheers,

Guy Hoelzer

Department of Biology
University of Nevada Reno
Reno, NV 89557

Phone: 775-784-4860
Fax: 775-784-1302

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Received on Sat Sep 18 00:17:12 2004