Recognition that biological systems are stabilized far from equilibrium by self-organizing, informed, autocatalytic cycles and structures that dissipate unusable energy and matter has led to recent attempts to reformulate evolutionary theory. We hold that such insights are consistent with the broad development of the Darwinian Tradition and with the concept of natural selection. Biological systems are selected that re not only more efficient than competitors but also enhance the integrity of the web of energetic relations in which they are embedded. (...) But the expansion of the informational phase space, upon which selection acts, is also guaranteed by the properties of open informational-energetic systems. This provides a directionality and irreversibility to evolutionary processes that are not reflected in current theory.For this thermodynamically-based program to progress, we believe that biological information should not be treated in isolation from energy flows, and that the ecological perspective must be given descriptive and explanatory primacy. Levels of the ecological hierarchy are relational parts of ecological systems in which there are stable, informed patterns of energy flow and entropic dissipation. Isomorphies between developmental patterns and ecological succession are revealing because they suggest that much of the encoded metabolic information in biological systems is internalized ecological information. The geneological hierarchy, to the extent that its information content reflects internalized ecological information, can therefore be redescribed as an ecological hierarchy. (shrink)

A wave of recent work in metaphysics seeks to undermine the anti-reductionist, functionalist consensus of the past few decades in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. That consensus apparently legitimated a focus on what systems do, without necessarily and always requiring attention to the details of how systems are constituted. The new metaphysical challenge contends that many states and processes referred to by functionalist cognitive scientists are epiphenomenal. It further contends that the problem lies in functionalism itself, and that, to (...) save the causal significance of mind, it is necessary to re-embrace reductionism. We argue that the prescribed return to reductionism would be disastrous for the cognitive and behavioral sciences, requiring the dismantling of most existing achievements and placing intolerable restrictions on further work. However, this argument fails to answer the metaphysical challenge on its own terms. We meet that challenge by going on to argue that the new metaphysical skepticism about functionalist cognitive science depends on reifying two distinct notions of causality (one primarily scientific, the other metaphysical), then equivocating between them. When the different notions of causality are properly distinguished, it is clear that functionalism is in no serious philosophical trouble, and that we need not choose between reducing minds or finding them causally impotent. The metaphysical challenge to functionalism relies, in particular, on a naïve and inaccurate conception of the practice of physics, and the relationship between physics and metaphysics. Key Words: explanation; functionalism; mental causation; metaphysics; reductionism. (shrink)

More than one researcher is currently proposing that the notion of information become an important element for defining living systems as well as for explaining conditions that make their origins possible. During the pre-biotic era, the type of compounds encountered would mainly have been very simple in nature and might have been immersed in the natural dynamic of the physical world and in processes of self-organization. It is furthermore quite possible that they formed a relationship between and among certain types (...) of processes that here we are specifically proposing as central for the emergence of cell organization. Consequently, an important initial step towards constructing a theory of biological information is to ask ourselves the question: how do biological systems process information? In this way, we will be contributing to the proposals of this paper where we seek to identify general principles that govern biological computing and that deal with biosemiotic approaches as they are defended in naturalistic normative terms. (shrink)

This is a digest of how various researchers in biology and astrobiology have explored questions of what defines living organisms—definitions based on functions or structures observed in organisms, or on systems terms, or on mathematical conceptions like closure, chirality, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, or on biosemiotics, or on Darwinian evolution—to clarify the field and make it easier for endeavors in artificial intelligence to make progress. Current ideas are described to promote work between astrobiologists and computer scientists, each concerned with living (...) organisms. A four-parameter framework is presented as a scaffold that is later developed into what machines lack to be considered alive: systems, evolution, energy and consciousness, and includes Jagers operators and the idea of dual closure. A novel definition of consciousness is developed which describes mental objects both with and without communicable properties, and this helps to clarify how consciousness in machines may be studied as an emergent process related to choice functions in systems. A perspective on how quantization, acting on nucleic acids, sets up natural limits to system behavior is offered as a partial address to the problem of biogenesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a naturalistic conception of evolutionary progress. I argue that the Waddingtonian notion of adaptability can be embedded meaningfully into a framework which views living things as nonequilibrium structures. This thermodynamic interpretation places great emphasis on the dynamics of environmental change, whereas the classical conceptions are based on equilibrium conceptions of the evolutionary process. What improves in evolution is the ability of living things to stay alive in increasingly heterogeneous environments.

demon thought experiment remains ambiguous even today. One of the most delightful thought It seems that Maxwell originally invoked experiments in the history of physical science is..

Supervenience is a relationship which has been used recently to explain the physical determination of biological phenomena despite resistance to reduction. Supervenience, however, is plagued by ambiguities which weaken its explanatory value and obscure some interesting aspects of reduction in biology. Although I suspect that similar considerations affect the use of supervenience in ethics and the philosophy of mind, I don’t intend anything I have to say here to apply outside of the physical and biological cases I consider.The main point (...) of this paper is that there is a property of biological systems which makes it both misleading and inappropriate to reduce central biological phenomena to the properties of underlying components. Despite this, reductive explanation has been a major source of innovation in biological theory. The apparent tension can be resolved if underlying properties are explanatorily relevant to the higher level phenomena even though the latter are not strictly reducible to the former. Supervenience, I will argue, is not robust enough to deny reduction while supporting explanatory relevance. (shrink)

Examples of successful linguistic communication give rise to two important insights: (1) it should be understood most fundamentally in terms of the pragmatic success of each individual utterance, and (2) linguistic conventions need to be understood as on a par with the non-linguistic regularities that competent language users rely upon to refer. Syntax and semantics are part of what Barwise and Perry call the context of the utterance, contributing to the pragmatics of the utterance. This full and distributed multichannel context (...) determines meaning if anything does. On the standard account of context, context disambiguates the meaning of language, but it is at least as apt in many situations to say that language disambiguates context. In practice, the two work together, sometimes with more emphasis on one than the other. Reference should be understood in pragmatic terms (it is an act) and, since success is often achieved in non-standard, creative ways, any formalisation of pragmatics can only be partial. The need for such an inventive approach to referring traces back to the need for language to be highly efficient, with expressions underdetermining their interpretation. Next, the shared semantic and syntactic regularities, which might seem to be independent of the context of an utterance, should be understood as also being part of that context. Past usage underdetermines how terms can be used since it allows for multiple projections. Successful reference with novel uses that are disambiguated by context can become the ground for new conventions. (shrink)

The free-energy principle states that all systems that minimize their free energy resist a tendency to physical disintegration. Originally proposed to account for perception, learning, and action, the free-energy principle has been applied to the evolution, development, morphology, anatomy and function of the brain, and has been called a postulate, an unfalsifiable principle, a natural law, and an imperative. While it might afford a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between environment, life, and mind, its epistemic status is unclear. Also (...) unclear is how the free-energy principle relates to prominent theoretical approaches to life science phenomena, such as organicism and mechanism. This paper clarifies both issues, and identifies limits and prospects for the free-energy principle as a first principle in the life sciences. (shrink)

Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state (...) to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes. (shrink)

The variation and selection form of explanationcan be prescinded from the evolutionary biologyhome ground in which it was discovered and forwhich it has been most developed. When this isdone, variation and selection explanations arefound to have potential application to a widerange of phenomena, far beyond the classicalbiological ground and the contemporaryextensions into epistemological domains. Itappears as the form of explanation most suitedto phenomena of fit. It is also found toparticipate in multiple interestingrelationships with other forms of explanation. We proceed with (...) an examination of multiplekinds of phenomena, interrelationships withother members of the family of forms ofexplanation, and some novel applications evenwithin the home ground of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

The concept of time is examined using the second law of thermodynamics that was recently formulated as an equation of motion. According to the statistical notion of increasing entropy, flows of energy diminish differences between energy densities that form space. The flow of energy is identified with the flow of time. The non-Euclidean energy landscape, i.e. the curved space–time, is in evolution when energy is flowing down along gradients and levelling the density differences. The flows along the steepest descents, i.e. (...) geodesics are obtained from the principle of least action for mechanics, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics. The arrow of time, associated with the expansion of the Universe, identifies with grand dispersal of energy when high-energy densities transform by various mechanisms to lower densities in energy and eventually to ever-diluting electromagnetic radiation. Likewise, time in a quantum system takes an increment forwards in the detection-associated dissipative transformation when the stationary-state system begins to evolve pictured as the wave function collapse. The energy dispersal is understood to underlie causality so that an energy gradient is a cause and the resulting energy flow is an effect. The account on causality by the concepts of physics does not imply determinism; on the contrary, evolution of space–time as a causal chain of events is non-deterministic. (shrink)

Life is supported by a myriad of chemical reactions. To describe the overall process we have formulated entropy for an open system undergoing chemical reactions. The entropy formula allows us to recognize various ways for the system to move towards more probable states. These correspond to the basic processes of life i.e. proliferation, differentiation, expansion, energy intake, adaptation and maturation. We propose that the rate of entropy production by various mechanisms is the fitness criterion of natural selection. The quest for (...) more probable states results in organization of matter in functional hierarchies. (shrink)

Complex systems are dynamic and may show high levels of variability in both space and time. It is often difficult to decide on what constitutes a given complex system, i.e., where system boundaries should be set, and what amounts to substantial change within the system. We discuss two central themes: the nature of system definitions and their ability to cope with change, and the importance of system definitions for the mental metamodels that we use to describe and order ideas about (...) system change. Systems can only be considered as single study units if they retain their identity. Previous system definitions have largely ignored the need for both spatial and temporal continuity as essential attributes of identity. After considering the philosophical issues surrounding identity and system definitions, we examine their application to modeling studies. We outline a set of five alternative metamodels that capture a range of the basic dynamics of complex systems. Although Holling’s adaptive cycle is a compelling and widely applicable metamodel that fits many complex systems, there are systems that do not necessarily follow the adaptive cycle. We propose that more careful consideration of system definitions and alternative metamodels for complex systems will lead to greater conceptual clarity in the field and, ultimately, to more rigorous research. (shrink)

When we deal with complex things, like human subjects or organizations, we deal with identity – that which makes a person or an organization what it is and distinguishes him/her/it from other persons or organizations, a kind of “self”. Our identity determines how we think about and interact with others. It will be argued in this chapter that the self is constituted relationally. Moreover, when we are in the realm of the self, we are always already in the realm of (...) engaging with and mediating differences – the realm of ethics. The position which will be developed argues that approaching identity as a complex system allows us to resist thinking of identity as an easily identifiable and static entity. Identity is always being constituted within a complex and contingent world, where we have to make choices based on contingent values rather than on universal knowledge or the outcome of rational calculations. As a result, we have to keep in mind that our daily practices always already have an ethical component, and our decisions need to be continually evaluated and re-evaluated in the light of our (and others’) varying identities. (shrink)