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

From: Viktoras Didziulis <[email protected]>
Date: Sat 18 Sep 2004 - 11:03:10 CEST

Hi !
 
I would argue on senescence... There are systems that do not senesce: stable
elementary particles, stable atoms, some molecules, hydroid colonies,
bacterial colonies (if enough space and resources are provided) are immortal
.. However some systems must pass structural transitions after certain time
- non stable atoms during the process of radioactive decay become stable
(and "immortal"), ecosystems too - no ecosystem die just because of time
flow (although it may die because of drastically changed environmental
conditions), it just change its structure, both species composition and
habitat characteristics.
 
Best regards
Viktoras
 
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!
> 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?
 
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Received on Sat Sep 18 01:08:02 2004

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