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

Replying (first to Loet):

>Stan's model, for example, raises the question of whether our society is
>"mature" or "senescent". Or should we say that the European society is
>"senescent" and the American one "premature"? :-) It seems to me that one
>always has to write these metaphorical uses of terms between quotation
>marks. The mathematics indeed may be helpful for the translation.

     Thi is a natural kind of question to ask with regard to this (or any)
model. I need to point out a few things in this regard.
(1) The terms, 'immature', 'mature' and 'senescent', as I use them, are
very much generalized into information theoretical and thermodynamic
(infodynamic)terms, so that they should be applicable AS SUCH, directly to
any kind of system. Unfortunately the labels themselves are associated by
most folks with biology. It would be a question of creating neologisms to
replace these terms.
(2) Comparisons among different instances of the same kind of system are
more difficult and less secure than comparisons between stages within one
system.
(3) Especially with systems of larger scale than our organismic
observational scale, as when considering societies, it is often difficult
to match systems appropriately for comparison. Is "European Society" the
appropriate match for "American Society"? To answer this would take
considerable thought, and work with many different variables, looking for
appropriate ones that reflect the infodynamic variables. This raises a
deeper question as to what kind of science is being made here. Are we in
the framework of confirmation, or of testing? I would say, at this stage,
that we are in the stage of confirmation. That is, we are gathering
examples that fit the model, and leaving aside those that don't. So, in
comparing European and North American societes with different variables, we
will retain those that reflect the model. (We would eventually need to
explain why the others did not fit the pattern.) The justification would be
that, in doing this, we are able to add society to organisms, ecosystems
and abiotic dissipative structures so as to strengthen the case for the
cogency of the model as being general. The case is not hopeless, insofar
as ecosystems have been accepted as showing this pattern, and they present
many of the same problems of scale that societies do (see further below).

Next, replying to Guy:
>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?

     Yes indeed, I have been quite aware that perturbations tend to
rejuvenate systems. This is well known in ecology, especially as an
important effect of agricultural pollution on wetlands and waters of all
kinds, which results from an injection of available energy into the system,
which leads certain species to take over, simplifying the system. In fact
I think that Guy's "perturbation" as a source of rejuvenation would always
tend to be accompanied by (and often triggered by) increasing energy
throughput. This is certainly true of organismic reproduction, as
propagules aways begin with very high mass specific energy throughput,
which increases in immaurity and then drops off into senescence. This is
found in all the kinds of dissipative structures I know of.
     There are several ways that dissipative structures end their days in
senescence. Simple ones like hurricanes and tornadoes increase in size,
overextending themselves in increasingly complicated minor swirls. They
lose focus, become "scatter brained". In this phase hurrcanes might give
rise to tornadoes. Ecosystems, after developing into senescence, await some
rejuvenating perturbation -- fire, flood, etc. -- and then begin their
development again. Organisms, after reproducing in maturity, get recycled
because the effects of information overload prevent them from handling
perturbations adequately.

Now to Victoeras, who said:
>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

     I have, of course, met these examples before. I think that the notion
that they do not senesce is due to not looking at them in a way that shows
their senescence. First, with atoms and elementary particles we have a
severe observer problem. We have no idea whatever whether they develop or
not. We deal with them en masse, in such a way that indviduals are never
examined as such. Our theories ofthem do not require that we know wether
or not they develop. With bacteria (or any cells) I have shown that the
cell cycle can be interpreted to be a process leadng to senescence, with
cell division being a rejuvenation (as in my reply to Guy above). This
applies of course to the cells of hydroids as well. But, with modular
organisms like these I would further submit that in order to show
senescence we would need to show that colonies experience a slowing down of
growth rate and/or of metabolic rate. These data are generally not
available, and without them, I submit that, once again, we do not know
whether they senesce or not. So, in order to convince me that modular
organisms do not senesce I need to see that their growth rates do not
decline, and that their metabolic rates do not decline.

>.. 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.
     Yes, I have commented upon this in my answer to Guy. It is not
necessary to die as a consequence of senescence. Ecosystems, in
particular, get rejuvenated.

STAN

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Received on Sat Sep 18 22:09:46 2004