Biological complexity: homeostasis (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 23, 2018, 12:19 (2009 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DAVID’s comment (under “animals eat fruit”): Fascinating interdependence in the balance of nature, which is beautifully illustrated in this article. Note 'red in tooth and claw' is not involved. Lots of balance in nature is not competitive killing.

dhw: It’s about time you caught up with Lynn Margulis, who pointed out 50 years ago that cooperation was just as important as competition.

DAVID: I been touting balance of nature all along, and you've down played it!

It is interdependence or cooperation between organisms that is highlighted, as opposed to competition. As I keep pointing out, your “balance of nature” changes with every success and every failure. I really don’t know why you are so desperate to tout it.

TONY: I think homeostasis is wrong. I think it is the wrong way to look at the problem, because it is by definition static, and I see no real evidence to support that if we look across the long reaches of time, integrating all that we know from a multitudes of sciences from biology to geology.

I agree. There may be long periods of stasis, but then the balance shifts and new forms take over. You talk later of intentionality and of chaos versus order. On the micro level, every organism is balanced or ordered until it becomes unbalanced and disordered (e.g. through disease and death). On the macro level, every ecosystem and solar system is balanced and ordered until for whatever reason it becomes unbalanced and disordered. The theist sees the order and says: “Look at the design”, and the atheist sees the mixture of order and disorder and says: “That’s how Nature works.”

TONY: There is definitely some form of forward progress, an epoch moving forward with some underlying current of intentionality. I do not find the concept of macro-evolution to be solid enough, either in terms of evidence or explanatory power, to couple biological life's unique interaction with its host planet to transform the planet from a molten, gaseous, barren planetoid into a rich, varied, habitable, thriving ecosystem. It is as if every single living thing that ever existed, whether it realized it or not, whether it intended to or not, contributed to the development of the world as a whole. Humanity differs in that we possess the ability to look into the future and delay our gratification in order to reach ever higher. Call it a sacrifice.

I agree that we can talk of forward progress in terms of barren gases to ecosystems, from single cells to multicellularity, from invertebrates to vertebrates, from apes to humans. That’s what some of us would call evolution, both micro and macro. You see intentionality behind everything because you believe in a designing God. An atheist sees a natural progression without intentionality. Humanity differs in far more ways than our ability to delay gratification, but I don’t know why you suddenly switch from the whole world to humans.

David: Homeostasis in biologic science simply means sustaining the current status of the organism. You are carrying the idea beyond its original meaning and I agree that the arrival of living organisms on the Earth transformed the planet while creating a balance of nature which is critical for living organisms to continue. And life's diversity must be present to maintain the balance.

What “balance” does life maintain? As above, the diversity, linked to constantly changing conditions, is what keeps CHANGING the balance!

DAVID: Gleick's book,Chaos, 1987, points out how much order is really hidden in chaos. I have no disagreement with your points. What I see built-in into the history of the Earth is a drive to complexity and improvement of conditions, wich I think demonstrates God's work.

TONY: I think that much of 'chaos' is simply order that we don't understand yet. But I still can't help thinking that some chaos is introduced and is necessary for life.

I also see a drive to complexity and improvement, though simplicity survives without improvement in the form of bacteria. And I agree that some “chaos” (e.g. environmental change) is necessary for evolution, since the alternative would be stasis. If there is a God, one might regard the chaos as integral to the interest of the great spectacle (how boring it would be if everything was predictable). If there is no God, order and chaos are the natural outcome of first cause energy and matter constantly forming and re-forming themselves.