Introducing James Barham; Parts 5 & 6 (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 20, 2015, 19:26 (3382 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Part 5 does not seem to me to add anything to the discussions we have already had, though I regard emergence as a very fruitful subject.-It is a lead in to a very complicated view of how life persists in the organism.- http://jamesabarham.com/my-blog/39-seeing-past-darwin-vi-f-e-yates-s-homeodynamics-I constantly refer to feed-back:-> "Yates's idea was to apply some of the concepts of qualitative dynamics to the problem of understanding the stability of living systems---in particular, physiological feedback systems. In order to understand why Yates's ideas are so original, it is important to understand that the conventional way of modeling the "homeostatic" behavior of various physiological systems is by means of an altogether different set of ideas---those of cybernetics, or feedback-control theory."-Adaptation:-> "'Robustness' refers to the ability of a living system to return to an earlier functional regime following perturbation, while "plasticity" means the ability to find a novel functional regime that maintains overall system viability, in case a perturbation is so great as to make a robust response impossible.-> "According to this way of using the terms, the ability of a broken bone to heal would be an example of robustness, while the ability of a dog to shift to a three-legged gait upon losing a limb would be an example of plasticity."-Metabolism works in cycles, organized as required:-> "we recognize that most physiological processes are periodic, or cyclical, in nature. This is no mere accident, but rather is a deep insight into the nature of living, as opposed to nonliving, systems. In Yates's words:-> "In any persistent system, whose operations are sustained over periods of time very long compared to the characteristic process and interactional times within it, cyclic energy transformations must be present. Certain processes must occur again and again if the system is to persist. Otherwise we would observe only relaxational trajectories to equilibrium death. Thus, limit cycle--like, nearly periodic, oscillatory behavior is the signature of energy transformations in open, complex, thermodynamic systems"-Built-in mathematical system:-> "Finally, perhaps the most important aspect of homeodynamics---at least from a philosophical perspective---is the way it helps us to rationalize the phenomenon of teleology.-> "Teleology---or goal-directedness, or purposiveness---is a manifest property of practically all biological phenomena. It has been considered anathema since the time of Francis Bacon, because it has seemed impossible to square with ordinary physical causation. Homeodynamics is valuable, above all, as a way of reconceptualizing teleology in biology.-> "Traditionally, teleology has been considered unacceptable because it seems to presuppose either "backwards causation" or else a mind capable of forming conscious intentions.-> "The former is unacceptable because it seems impossible that a non-actual, future state of affairs (the goal state) should causally influence the present. The latter is unacceptable because most biological systems apparently lack a mind in the relevant sense of a capacity for forming conscious intentions.
 (my bold)
> "Homeodynamics solves this riddle by injecting the mathematical apparatus of nonlinear dynamics into the discussion, which introduces the element of virtuality. Virtuality---a notion well attested in physical science---is built into the concept of an attractor, in regard both to equifinality and to metastability."-Note he removes 'mind', which is my point.-His conclusion:-> "'I have attempted to provide a glimpse of a general, physical "theory" (more correctly, an heuristic) for a fundamental understanding of the complex dynamic character of energetic metabolic networks and their regulations. The heuristic, [homeodynamics], is free of unjustified intentional or "smart" elements, of vitalisms, or of Kiplingesque Just So Stories about causalities. It is synoptic and level-independent. It supports both reductionist and holistic approaches to complex systems and avoids two dominant intellectual constraints of recent times, viz., genetic determinism from molecular biologists, and the notion that contemporary particle physics has the wherewithal to come up with a "theory of everything.'"