- Email: [email protected]
Preface: Towards a global understanding of development and evolution
Accepted Manuscript Towards a more global understanding of development and evolution Robert E. Ulanowicz PII:
S0079-6107(17)30178-5
DOI:
10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.07.008
Reference:
JPBM 1239
To appear in:
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology
Received Date: 0079-6107 0079-6107 Revised Date:
0079-6107 0079-6107
Accepted Date: 0079-6107 0079-6107
Please cite this article as: Ulanowicz, R.E., Towards a more global understanding of development and evolution, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (2017), doi: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.07.008. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
2017 CFP JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathematics: The Necessary Conjunction of Western and Eastern Thought Traditions for Exploring the Nature of Mind and Life
RI PT
Towards a More Global Understanding of Development and Evolution Robert E. Ulanowicz 1. An Incomplete Narrative
SC
Most acknowledge that the ascendancy of Western science owes largely to the
formulation of the four force laws of physics. As Nobel Laureates Stephen Weinberg, David Gross and Murray Gell-Mann agree, “All causality is from below, and there is
M AN U
nothing down there but the [force] laws of physics.”1 Little wonder, then, that contemporary biology clings to the goal of reducing biology to the laws of physics.
In his introduction to the 2015 issue in this series, Denis Noble extolled how much progress had been made under this reductionistic hypothesis. Nevertheless, he noted,
TE D
“Something is missing!” For example, as one moves up the hierarchy to ecology, those missing features become central to the scientific narrative, because attempts at mechanical treatments of whole ecological systems have been notable for their lack of
EP
success.
AC C
2. Life not derivative of physics
Noble also astutely puts his finger on a major difference between physics and biology: The former is essentially timeless, whereas irreversible time plays a prominent role in biodynamics. Disparate dimensions also mirror a logical disconnect, as cogently portrayed by Walter Elsasser, who noted that Whitehead and Russell over a century ago had demonstrated that the force laws of physics can be logically mapped onto operations among homogeneous sets. Elsasser concluded, therefore, that any putative laws of heterogeneous biology cannot resemble those of physics.2
1
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
In addition, Elsasser noted that, in order to be universal, physics had to deal entirely with homogeneous systems, such as mass, charge, energy, etc. Biology, by strong contrast, is all about massive heterogeneity. In order to apply the homogeneous methods of physics to heterogeneous biology, separate variables must be defined for each distinguishable
RI PT
biotic element and the boundary values for the many variables must be woven into a closed, coherent statement.
Unfortunately, the combinatorics among many categories makes the boundary statement
SC
“unprestateable”3. Epistemologically, the problem cannot be formulated in closed form, because the combinations of compound events quickly exceed the estimated maximum of 10106 simple events that conceivably could have occurred over the whole universe since
M AN U
the Big Bang.4 The laws of physics fail the ontological test as well. Combinations of the half-dozen or so physical laws number in the hundreds, whereas those among the manifold biotic variables readily become hyper-astronomical. Hence, any combined conditions among physical laws are likely to be equally satisfied by many, or at least a few, different combinations. The laws of physics are not broken, they continue to
TE D
constrain, but they lose their power to determine outcomes.
3. The contingent origins of order
EP
Bluntly stated, the desire to explain biology fully in terms of physical laws is fatuous. But how, then, to explain the manifest order in nature, if not via laws? To be sure, empirical
AC C
correspondence between genomes and phenotypic traits is enormously helpful in codifying organic order. But as Noble aptly pointed out, “DNA on its own does nothing!” Furthermore, as Sidney Brenner long ago noted, the correspondence is not determinate5, and recent advances in epigenetics only underscore that result. What, then, accounts for organization in living systems?
A possible way forward might be to face up to the obvious difference between biology and physics and treat the former as an irreversible process instead of timeless dynamics. As Karl Popper ecstatically exclaimed, “We are not things, but flames … nets of
2
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
chemical pathways!”6 While, interest in networks has burgeoned over the past two decades, the bulk of current work searches ensembles of binary connections only for mechanical reasons why certain patterns are observed. Only rarely is attention paid to networks of processes and the altered causality that emerges when multiple processes
RI PT
interact.
A notable exception to the mechanical perspective has been the field of ecology, where for the past seventy-five years networks of relationships among trophic processes (who
SC
eats whom, and at what rate?) have been the focus of ongoing research.7 In particular, the question has been raised, “What drives the dynamics of ecosystem network development?” In response, an observation by Gregory Bateson becomes key, “In
feedback generates order.
M AN U
general, random inputs to causal cycles generate non-random outputs.”8 That is, causal
4. Non-mechanical dynamics of development
TE D
One particular type of feedback, when impacted by manifold contingencies, gives rise to decidedly non-mechanical outcomes. Autocatalysis, or indirect mutualism, is a circumstance whereby processes uniformly benefit one another in cyclical fashion. For example, in nutrient-poor waters the carnivorous aquatic plants in the family Utricularia
EP
provide a surface on which filamentous algae can prosper because they are held stationary in a stream of oncoming dissolved nutrients. Those nutrient-rich algae attract
AC C
populations of micro animals, like copepods and water fleas, which feed on them, and occasionally these animals are captured in the utricles of the host plant, providing sustenance to the Utricularia.9
The positive reinforcement ubiquitous in autocatalysis means that any contingent change in any element of the cycle that happens to augment its contribution to the dynamic will be rewarded, and vice-versa. That is, autocatalysis exerts an endogenous and facultative selection pressure upon all its components that also tends to stabilize the overall dynamic. Furthermore, any change that brings more resources into a component so that it can
3
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
function more effectively will likewise be rewarded. Over time, the net result will appear as “centripetal” flow whereby the system gathers progressively more resources into its orbit.10 The phenomenon is obvious, for example, in relatively nutrient-rich coral reefs
RI PT
that exist in the midst of a virtual oceanic desert.
Centripetality is a ubiquitous feature of living systems, and yet it appears on almost no list of the attributes of life. By way of exception, Bertrand Russell pointed to what he called “chemical imperialism” as the “drive behind all of evolution”!11 Order, then,
SC
grows in autocatalytic fashion as an historical series of “frozen contingencies”. Such
development is nonrandom, but indeterminate. Its exact sequence is not determined by
M AN U
the physical force laws. They do constrain what can happen, but are unable to specify a particular contingent pathway – numerous variational principles involving homogeneous properties (e.g., maximum entropy production) notwithstanding.12
5. Eastern perspectives on causality
TE D
This heuristically straightforward but obscure dynamic departs in several respects from the common Neo-Darwinian narrative. Selection is endogenous and facultative. Directionality is progressive, but indeterminate. Unlike the linear progression of physical reductionism, which eschews Aristotelian circular causality, process ecology is grounded
EP
upon circular phenomena – a key feature of Eastern thought.
AC C
Yet another deficiency of physics with respect to living phenomena is its overwhelming positivism. As Bateson also pointed out, physics deals almost exclusively with what exists. Statements concerning what is missing are rare (e.g., the Pauli Exclusion Principle). In Zen fashion, what is missing from heterogeneous systems can drastically affect system dynamics. In ecology, for example, a missing predator or prey item can significantly alter the dynamics of a population.
Fortunately, a sub-discipline of mathematics, information theory (IT), is predicated on what does not exist. Claude Shannon’s fundamental formula (formally identical to an
4
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
earlier one by Ludwig von Boltzman) quantifies the lack of certainty. It can be resolved into two separate but formally similar terms, the first of which reveals the degree of constraint in a distribution and the second, its residual degree of freedom (lack of
RI PT
constraint).
6. Networks as metaphors for entwined constraint and indeterminacy
This separation can readily be applied to process networks.13 In general, networks
SC
represent amalgams of constraint and indeterminacy: Any one node in a network usually is constrained from interacting with most of the others. At the same time, it remains
M AN U
indeterminate which of the nodes still accessible to the given one will next be contacted. IT allows the quantitative assessment of the degree of order (constraint) and freedom (indeterminacy) that inheres in any given network.
When the quantification of relative order and disorder was applied to ecological trophic networks, it was surprising to discover that ecosystems do not progress to the most
TE D
ordered (efficient) configurations possible, but rather towards a balance between constraint (40%) and reliability (60%).14 Common sense indicates that systems cannot endure at either extreme of order or disorder, although the actual balance is likely to be
EP
different for, say, organisms (more order) and economic systems (more freedom).
AC C
7. Reality as dialectic
What such balance reveals is an ongoing tension between mutually exclusive tendencies at play in living systems. That is, the prevailing dynamic is not one of uniform progression towards some maximal efficiency, but instead a Heraclitean dialectic between order building and decay. Half of this dialectic mirrors the importance that Eastern thought places on the nonexistent, and the full dynamics are congruent with the Chinese tension between Yin (freedom) and Yang (constraint). With its roots in both Western and Eastern philosophies, process ecology offers the possibility of a more equitable common developmental road towards progress in science.15
5
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Furthermore, the change in perspective towards processes is radical enough to demand reassessment of the metaphysical assumptions that have guided science since the dawn of the Enlightenment. If necessary, the foundations need be amended to accommodate the
RI PT
new image of reality.16 It’s not that the dynamics of a heterogeneous world make the
timeless domain of physics obsolete, but rather that the latter now becomes a sub-domain of a wider conception. For it is becoming increasingly clear that the physical world is the outcome of a developmental process that bears all the markings of an expanded
SC
evolutionary narrative:
After the Big Bang, a very subtle asymmetry (reportedly one in 109) led to the formation
M AN U
of more matter than anti-matter.17 Contemporaneous with the formation of equilibrium material forms at the time of the Recombination (ca. 370,000y after the BB), nonlinearities (feedbacks) arose in space-time to separate the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces from the more generalized force. Through successive feedback forms grew quite stable on their own, and their interactions (forces) grew precise, until
TE D
the physical world with its accompanying laws and constants eventually took shape. As Mark Bickhardt and Donald Campbell wrote, “...quantum field processes have no existence independent of configuration of process ... it is patterns of process all the way
EP
down, and all the way up."18
AC C
8. New perspective – new image of life
What the new perspective means for biophysics and molecular biology is only gradually emerging. The need for metaphysical reform has already been mentioned. To reiterate Noble, less attention should be paid to DNA/RNA per se and more towards the dynamics of the configuration of processes that read and edit the material genome. Necessary also is a mathematics that can address the world of processes with the same generality and elegance that Newton, Leibniz and Euler provided for early physics. Popper’s recommendation was that we need to develop a “calculus of conditional probabilities”.
6
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
The new evolutionary drama is both challenging and uplifting. Its challenge lies in the fact that the cosmos is open and indeterminate. Although precise prediction will remain impossible, methods can be developed to assess Kauffman’s “adjacent possible” in a statistical sense. On the positive side, the new narrative restores balance to humanity’s
RI PT
place in the cosmos. Natural selection no longer involves only elimination, but is driven by a mutualism that is more fundamental than even competition.19 Heat death is no longer the exclusive fate of the cosmos.20
SC
Finally, the new narrative is more universal and inclusive than a physics-only
perspective. It rests not only on Western Enlightenment principles, but equally on
M AN U
Milesian thought and the Eastern I Ching. It moves science onto a truly global stage,
AC C
EP
TE D
where it can be recognized as the creation of all humanity.
7
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Kauffman, S.A., 2008. Reinventing the Sacred. A New View of Science, Reason, and the Sacred. New York: Basic Books.
2
Elsasser, W.M. 1981. A form of logic suited for biology? In Robert Rosen, ed., Progress in Theoretical Biology, 6: 23–62. New York: Academic Press.
3
Longo, J., M. Montévil and S.A. Kauffman. 2012. No entailing laws, but enablement in the evolution of the biosphere. ArXiv:1201.2069.
4
Elsasser, W. M. 1969. Acausal phenomena in physics and biology: A case for reconstruction. American Scientist 57: 502–16.
5
Roger Lewin interviews Sidney Brenner in: Lewin, R. 1984. Why is Development so Illogical? Science 224:1327-1329.
6
Popper, K.R. 1990. A World of Propensities. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes.
7
Lindeman, R. L. 1942. The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology. Ecology 23:399–418.
8
Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
9
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1995. Utricularia’s secret: the advantage of positive feedback in oligotrophic environments. Ecological Modelling 79:49-57.
M AN U
SC
RI PT
1
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1997. Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective Columbia University Press, New York.
11
Russell, B. 1960. An Outline of Philosophy, New York: Routledge.
12
Ulanowicz, R.E., 2016. Process Ecology: Philosophy Passes into Praxis Process Studies 45.2:72-95.
13
Rutledge, R. W., B. L. Basorre, and R. J. Mulholland. 1976. Ecological stability: an information theory viewpoint. Journal of Theoretical Biology 57: 355–71.
14
Ulanowicz, R.E. 2009. The dual nature of ecosystem dynamics. Ecological Modelling 220:1886-1892.
15
Xu, Z., G. Cheng, R.E. Ulanowicz, X. Song, X. Deng and F. Zhong. In Press. The Common Developmental Road. National Science Review XX:xxx-xxx.
16
Ulanowicz, R.E 2009. A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton Templeton Foundation Press, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 196p
17
Chaisson, E. J. 2001. Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
AC C
EP
TE D
10
8
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Bickhardt, M. H., and D. T. Campbell. 1999. Emergence. In P. B. Andersen, C. Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann, and P. V. Christiansen, eds., Downward Causation, 322–48. Aarhus, DK: Aarhus University Press.
19
Ulanowicz, R.E 2009. A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton Templeton Foundation Press, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 196p
20
Ulanowicz, R.E. 2009. Increasing entropy: Heat death or perpetual harmonies? Design and Nature & Ecodynamics 4(2):1-14.
AC C
EP
TE D
M AN U
SC
RI PT
18
9
S0079-6107(17)30178-5
DOI:
10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.07.008
Reference:
JPBM 1239
To appear in:
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology
Received Date: 0079-6107 0079-6107 Revised Date:
0079-6107 0079-6107
Accepted Date: 0079-6107 0079-6107
Please cite this article as: Ulanowicz, R.E., Towards a more global understanding of development and evolution, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (2017), doi: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.07.008. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
2017 CFP JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathematics: The Necessary Conjunction of Western and Eastern Thought Traditions for Exploring the Nature of Mind and Life
RI PT
Towards a More Global Understanding of Development and Evolution Robert E. Ulanowicz 1. An Incomplete Narrative
SC
Most acknowledge that the ascendancy of Western science owes largely to the
formulation of the four force laws of physics. As Nobel Laureates Stephen Weinberg, David Gross and Murray Gell-Mann agree, “All causality is from below, and there is
M AN U
nothing down there but the [force] laws of physics.”1 Little wonder, then, that contemporary biology clings to the goal of reducing biology to the laws of physics.
In his introduction to the 2015 issue in this series, Denis Noble extolled how much progress had been made under this reductionistic hypothesis. Nevertheless, he noted,
TE D
“Something is missing!” For example, as one moves up the hierarchy to ecology, those missing features become central to the scientific narrative, because attempts at mechanical treatments of whole ecological systems have been notable for their lack of
EP
success.
AC C
2. Life not derivative of physics
Noble also astutely puts his finger on a major difference between physics and biology: The former is essentially timeless, whereas irreversible time plays a prominent role in biodynamics. Disparate dimensions also mirror a logical disconnect, as cogently portrayed by Walter Elsasser, who noted that Whitehead and Russell over a century ago had demonstrated that the force laws of physics can be logically mapped onto operations among homogeneous sets. Elsasser concluded, therefore, that any putative laws of heterogeneous biology cannot resemble those of physics.2
1
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
In addition, Elsasser noted that, in order to be universal, physics had to deal entirely with homogeneous systems, such as mass, charge, energy, etc. Biology, by strong contrast, is all about massive heterogeneity. In order to apply the homogeneous methods of physics to heterogeneous biology, separate variables must be defined for each distinguishable
RI PT
biotic element and the boundary values for the many variables must be woven into a closed, coherent statement.
Unfortunately, the combinatorics among many categories makes the boundary statement
SC
“unprestateable”3. Epistemologically, the problem cannot be formulated in closed form, because the combinations of compound events quickly exceed the estimated maximum of 10106 simple events that conceivably could have occurred over the whole universe since
M AN U
the Big Bang.4 The laws of physics fail the ontological test as well. Combinations of the half-dozen or so physical laws number in the hundreds, whereas those among the manifold biotic variables readily become hyper-astronomical. Hence, any combined conditions among physical laws are likely to be equally satisfied by many, or at least a few, different combinations. The laws of physics are not broken, they continue to
TE D
constrain, but they lose their power to determine outcomes.
3. The contingent origins of order
EP
Bluntly stated, the desire to explain biology fully in terms of physical laws is fatuous. But how, then, to explain the manifest order in nature, if not via laws? To be sure, empirical
AC C
correspondence between genomes and phenotypic traits is enormously helpful in codifying organic order. But as Noble aptly pointed out, “DNA on its own does nothing!” Furthermore, as Sidney Brenner long ago noted, the correspondence is not determinate5, and recent advances in epigenetics only underscore that result. What, then, accounts for organization in living systems?
A possible way forward might be to face up to the obvious difference between biology and physics and treat the former as an irreversible process instead of timeless dynamics. As Karl Popper ecstatically exclaimed, “We are not things, but flames … nets of
2
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
chemical pathways!”6 While, interest in networks has burgeoned over the past two decades, the bulk of current work searches ensembles of binary connections only for mechanical reasons why certain patterns are observed. Only rarely is attention paid to networks of processes and the altered causality that emerges when multiple processes
RI PT
interact.
A notable exception to the mechanical perspective has been the field of ecology, where for the past seventy-five years networks of relationships among trophic processes (who
SC
eats whom, and at what rate?) have been the focus of ongoing research.7 In particular, the question has been raised, “What drives the dynamics of ecosystem network development?” In response, an observation by Gregory Bateson becomes key, “In
feedback generates order.
M AN U
general, random inputs to causal cycles generate non-random outputs.”8 That is, causal
4. Non-mechanical dynamics of development
TE D
One particular type of feedback, when impacted by manifold contingencies, gives rise to decidedly non-mechanical outcomes. Autocatalysis, or indirect mutualism, is a circumstance whereby processes uniformly benefit one another in cyclical fashion. For example, in nutrient-poor waters the carnivorous aquatic plants in the family Utricularia
EP
provide a surface on which filamentous algae can prosper because they are held stationary in a stream of oncoming dissolved nutrients. Those nutrient-rich algae attract
AC C
populations of micro animals, like copepods and water fleas, which feed on them, and occasionally these animals are captured in the utricles of the host plant, providing sustenance to the Utricularia.9
The positive reinforcement ubiquitous in autocatalysis means that any contingent change in any element of the cycle that happens to augment its contribution to the dynamic will be rewarded, and vice-versa. That is, autocatalysis exerts an endogenous and facultative selection pressure upon all its components that also tends to stabilize the overall dynamic. Furthermore, any change that brings more resources into a component so that it can
3
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
function more effectively will likewise be rewarded. Over time, the net result will appear as “centripetal” flow whereby the system gathers progressively more resources into its orbit.10 The phenomenon is obvious, for example, in relatively nutrient-rich coral reefs
RI PT
that exist in the midst of a virtual oceanic desert.
Centripetality is a ubiquitous feature of living systems, and yet it appears on almost no list of the attributes of life. By way of exception, Bertrand Russell pointed to what he called “chemical imperialism” as the “drive behind all of evolution”!11 Order, then,
SC
grows in autocatalytic fashion as an historical series of “frozen contingencies”. Such
development is nonrandom, but indeterminate. Its exact sequence is not determined by
M AN U
the physical force laws. They do constrain what can happen, but are unable to specify a particular contingent pathway – numerous variational principles involving homogeneous properties (e.g., maximum entropy production) notwithstanding.12
5. Eastern perspectives on causality
TE D
This heuristically straightforward but obscure dynamic departs in several respects from the common Neo-Darwinian narrative. Selection is endogenous and facultative. Directionality is progressive, but indeterminate. Unlike the linear progression of physical reductionism, which eschews Aristotelian circular causality, process ecology is grounded
EP
upon circular phenomena – a key feature of Eastern thought.
AC C
Yet another deficiency of physics with respect to living phenomena is its overwhelming positivism. As Bateson also pointed out, physics deals almost exclusively with what exists. Statements concerning what is missing are rare (e.g., the Pauli Exclusion Principle). In Zen fashion, what is missing from heterogeneous systems can drastically affect system dynamics. In ecology, for example, a missing predator or prey item can significantly alter the dynamics of a population.
Fortunately, a sub-discipline of mathematics, information theory (IT), is predicated on what does not exist. Claude Shannon’s fundamental formula (formally identical to an
4
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
earlier one by Ludwig von Boltzman) quantifies the lack of certainty. It can be resolved into two separate but formally similar terms, the first of which reveals the degree of constraint in a distribution and the second, its residual degree of freedom (lack of
RI PT
constraint).
6. Networks as metaphors for entwined constraint and indeterminacy
This separation can readily be applied to process networks.13 In general, networks
SC
represent amalgams of constraint and indeterminacy: Any one node in a network usually is constrained from interacting with most of the others. At the same time, it remains
M AN U
indeterminate which of the nodes still accessible to the given one will next be contacted. IT allows the quantitative assessment of the degree of order (constraint) and freedom (indeterminacy) that inheres in any given network.
When the quantification of relative order and disorder was applied to ecological trophic networks, it was surprising to discover that ecosystems do not progress to the most
TE D
ordered (efficient) configurations possible, but rather towards a balance between constraint (40%) and reliability (60%).14 Common sense indicates that systems cannot endure at either extreme of order or disorder, although the actual balance is likely to be
EP
different for, say, organisms (more order) and economic systems (more freedom).
AC C
7. Reality as dialectic
What such balance reveals is an ongoing tension between mutually exclusive tendencies at play in living systems. That is, the prevailing dynamic is not one of uniform progression towards some maximal efficiency, but instead a Heraclitean dialectic between order building and decay. Half of this dialectic mirrors the importance that Eastern thought places on the nonexistent, and the full dynamics are congruent with the Chinese tension between Yin (freedom) and Yang (constraint). With its roots in both Western and Eastern philosophies, process ecology offers the possibility of a more equitable common developmental road towards progress in science.15
5
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Furthermore, the change in perspective towards processes is radical enough to demand reassessment of the metaphysical assumptions that have guided science since the dawn of the Enlightenment. If necessary, the foundations need be amended to accommodate the
RI PT
new image of reality.16 It’s not that the dynamics of a heterogeneous world make the
timeless domain of physics obsolete, but rather that the latter now becomes a sub-domain of a wider conception. For it is becoming increasingly clear that the physical world is the outcome of a developmental process that bears all the markings of an expanded
SC
evolutionary narrative:
After the Big Bang, a very subtle asymmetry (reportedly one in 109) led to the formation
M AN U
of more matter than anti-matter.17 Contemporaneous with the formation of equilibrium material forms at the time of the Recombination (ca. 370,000y after the BB), nonlinearities (feedbacks) arose in space-time to separate the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces from the more generalized force. Through successive feedback forms grew quite stable on their own, and their interactions (forces) grew precise, until
TE D
the physical world with its accompanying laws and constants eventually took shape. As Mark Bickhardt and Donald Campbell wrote, “...quantum field processes have no existence independent of configuration of process ... it is patterns of process all the way
EP
down, and all the way up."18
AC C
8. New perspective – new image of life
What the new perspective means for biophysics and molecular biology is only gradually emerging. The need for metaphysical reform has already been mentioned. To reiterate Noble, less attention should be paid to DNA/RNA per se and more towards the dynamics of the configuration of processes that read and edit the material genome. Necessary also is a mathematics that can address the world of processes with the same generality and elegance that Newton, Leibniz and Euler provided for early physics. Popper’s recommendation was that we need to develop a “calculus of conditional probabilities”.
6
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
The new evolutionary drama is both challenging and uplifting. Its challenge lies in the fact that the cosmos is open and indeterminate. Although precise prediction will remain impossible, methods can be developed to assess Kauffman’s “adjacent possible” in a statistical sense. On the positive side, the new narrative restores balance to humanity’s
RI PT
place in the cosmos. Natural selection no longer involves only elimination, but is driven by a mutualism that is more fundamental than even competition.19 Heat death is no longer the exclusive fate of the cosmos.20
SC
Finally, the new narrative is more universal and inclusive than a physics-only
perspective. It rests not only on Western Enlightenment principles, but equally on
M AN U
Milesian thought and the Eastern I Ching. It moves science onto a truly global stage,
AC C
EP
TE D
where it can be recognized as the creation of all humanity.
7
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Kauffman, S.A., 2008. Reinventing the Sacred. A New View of Science, Reason, and the Sacred. New York: Basic Books.
2
Elsasser, W.M. 1981. A form of logic suited for biology? In Robert Rosen, ed., Progress in Theoretical Biology, 6: 23–62. New York: Academic Press.
3
Longo, J., M. Montévil and S.A. Kauffman. 2012. No entailing laws, but enablement in the evolution of the biosphere. ArXiv:1201.2069.
4
Elsasser, W. M. 1969. Acausal phenomena in physics and biology: A case for reconstruction. American Scientist 57: 502–16.
5
Roger Lewin interviews Sidney Brenner in: Lewin, R. 1984. Why is Development so Illogical? Science 224:1327-1329.
6
Popper, K.R. 1990. A World of Propensities. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes.
7
Lindeman, R. L. 1942. The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology. Ecology 23:399–418.
8
Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
9
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1995. Utricularia’s secret: the advantage of positive feedback in oligotrophic environments. Ecological Modelling 79:49-57.
M AN U
SC
RI PT
1
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1997. Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective Columbia University Press, New York.
11
Russell, B. 1960. An Outline of Philosophy, New York: Routledge.
12
Ulanowicz, R.E., 2016. Process Ecology: Philosophy Passes into Praxis Process Studies 45.2:72-95.
13
Rutledge, R. W., B. L. Basorre, and R. J. Mulholland. 1976. Ecological stability: an information theory viewpoint. Journal of Theoretical Biology 57: 355–71.
14
Ulanowicz, R.E. 2009. The dual nature of ecosystem dynamics. Ecological Modelling 220:1886-1892.
15
Xu, Z., G. Cheng, R.E. Ulanowicz, X. Song, X. Deng and F. Zhong. In Press. The Common Developmental Road. National Science Review XX:xxx-xxx.
16
Ulanowicz, R.E 2009. A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton Templeton Foundation Press, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 196p
17
Chaisson, E. J. 2001. Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
AC C
EP
TE D
10
8
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Bickhardt, M. H., and D. T. Campbell. 1999. Emergence. In P. B. Andersen, C. Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann, and P. V. Christiansen, eds., Downward Causation, 322–48. Aarhus, DK: Aarhus University Press.
19
Ulanowicz, R.E 2009. A Third Window: Natural Life beyond Newton Templeton Foundation Press, West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 196p
20
Ulanowicz, R.E. 2009. Increasing entropy: Heat death or perpetual harmonies? Design and Nature & Ecodynamics 4(2):1-14.
AC C
EP
TE D
M AN U
SC
RI PT
18
9