Biological complexity: homeostasis (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 25, 2018, 15:23 (2003 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Not desperate, but insistent to reverse each time you downplay as again here. Each econiche is carefully balanced naturally as long as as top predator is not displaced. It is a form of natural homeostasis.

dhw: Yes, each econiche is balanced so long as it is balanced, and when it is not balanced it is replaced by another econiche. And the new econiche is balanced until it is not balanced...And you moan about the tautology of “natural selection”!

DAVID: Not a tautology, but a continuum of balance as you have stated.

dhw: It is NOT a continuum. It constantly changes!

The concept is the requirement for balance is the constant continuum, not the individual parts of each balanced system .

DAVID: Maintaining any living organism requires a balance of a large variety of living mechanisms in that organism.

dhw: Obviously. And when the balance is disturbed, the organism falls ill and/or dies. What is your point? You have not answered my question “what balance”? There is no such thing as THE balance which life maintains. Balance changes as conditions change, and diversity results from change – it does not “maintain THE balance”.

DAVID: Obvious as you state above: as long as every living system is in balance the organism stays alive. It requires constant work.

dhw: Yes, you might as well say that every organism is alive until it’s dead. And you still haven't answered my question "what balance"?

A recent study I did not present roughly described the maintenance of life as on a critical edge of stability and chaos. I didn't post it because it was a poor attempt to describe life, which is in constant production of balancing proteins requiring a constant input of energy.

DAVID: Back to humanizing God as being bored.

dhw: Back to your purposeful God whose possible purpose we mustn’t discuss, although he is like us but is not like us.

DAVID: The problem is He is not as human as you would like to propose.

dhw: And may I ask how you know this?

I could ask you the same question: how do you know God has a human side?