Registered: Feb 2004
Posts: 152

Could you imagine a world to which Darwin’s model of evolution does not apply?

Let’s turn first to the French biologist Lamarck who claimed that traits acquired during life may be inherited. For instance Giraffes which have to stretch their necks to reach leaves high in trees, have offspring with slightly more elongated necks. This version of Lamarckism is naïve and refuted by any living Jew. Ever since the time of Abraham all Jews in the history were circumcised yet none of their offspring was ever born without a foreskin (prepuce). Although the macro-world does not follow Lamarck’s model, in the micro-world Lamarckism is still relevant.


Neo-darwinism is based on three pillars:
1. Each living entity has a genetic memory which contains a blueprint of the organism that is manifested by its phenotype.
2. Genetic memory cannot be affected by any organ in the organism. It is “deaf” to the outside world, and may change only randomly (mutation).
3. Blueprint changes affect the chances of the individual to survive. Actually the environment "selects" the best fitting individuals.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...esisbetween.htm

Now imagine a world in which life lacks a genetic memory. Obviously offspring would have inherited traits acquired during the life of its ancestors. Such a condition existed on earth when it was covered by the “primeval soup”. According to the Russian biologist Aleksandr Oparin, life on earth developed through gradual chemical evolution of carbon-based molecules floating in the primeval soup. As these molecules polymerized they gradually started replicating and their offspring inherited their acquired traits. DNA may have appeared much later (after million years) whereupon Darwin’s model became relevant. (Liane Gabora, J. Theoret. Biol. 241: 443 - 450, 2006)

Does this imply that the establishment of genetic inheritance made Lamarck’s model irrelevant? Not at all. Neo-Darwinists claim that genetic memory is “deaf” to the outside world. Which seems to me even more ridiculous than the hope that in the future Jews will be born without a foreskin. Since all processes in the organism continuously interact why should they spare the blueprint? Genetic memory is influenced by other organs. Lamarckism is ready for its comeback.

I favor the view that life on earth appeared from outer space. (panspermia).
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...tyofliving.htms

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##Gershom,

I like this! Welcome back.

Now you say “Lamarckism” is ready for a come back.
You said that the micro world would be more of a domain for this type of “memory” to transfer,

“Genetic memory is influenced by other organs. Lamarckism is ready for its comeback. “

The influence upon the genetic memory, very interesting..
And you consider that this is actually taking place?
What entities interact with the blueprint beyond RNA?

an experiment I come up with is that we can continually encode a specific gene, we encode the RNA over and over and over never ceasing, and we see if this causes any change in the blueprint.

What other elements interact with the blueprint?
And if a macro scale phenomena is to be represented in the micro world, then what other ways besides the encoding of RNA would you relate to this macro scale phenomena in terms of the blueprint?

__________________
A great revolution is at hand, but this is just a metaphor.

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Emergence is an attribute of complex processes (systems). As a complex process evolves new structures and patterns emerge. They are novel, unpredictable and cannot be deduced from the parts which make the process. The new pattern is generally associated with a new behavior of the process (system) that was not pre-programmed. We ought to realize that most complex systems are ongoing processes which evolved from some initial condition. The only complex system which was created as such is outlined in the first chapter of Genesis.

Nevertheless we read that “Biology (including biological evolution) can be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of chemistry. Chemistry (including the evolution of both elements and molecules over time) can be viewed as an emergent property of the laws of physics. Most of the laws of physics themselves as we experience them today appear to have emerged during the course of time making emergence the most fundamental principle in the universe and raising the question of what might be the most fundamental law of physics from which all others emerged”. (Wikipedia)

This kind of emergence is different from the above. Biology, chemistry and physics, do not exist as such in nature. They are theoretical constructs (hierarchies) to describe nature and as such they are static. Here emergence means a transformation which cannot be deduced from laws of the lower scientific hierarchy. Nevertheless many scientists do not distinguish between the two kinds of emergence. They claim that when nature becomes more complex it selects its novel (emerging) behavior from a huge domain of the possible, by pruning the less advantageous. This domain of the possible is purely theoretical. Nature does not select anything it simply emerges. Yet these theoreticians lack the necessary concepts to describe this kind of emergence. They even claim that the pruning rules are consequences of the laws of science, and so will work universally.

We may thus distinguish between two views of complexity:
1. Platonic, which regards complexity as invariant.
2. Process oriented, which regards complexity as evolving.

The first still applies traditional physical concepts to complex processes, e.g. entropy, or random walk. Yet real processes do not “walk randomly” and measures like entropy fail to predict their behavior. Nevertheless these “Platonists” enforce their view on the interpretation of bio-medical complexity which seems to me unfortunate.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...ess.htm#entropy
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...ness.htm#cadont

Cellular automata offer an opportunity to investigate the evolution of process complexity and its emerging behavior.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca167.htm
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca178.htm

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Death is a term that is used to describe the permanent ending of life. Since life is manifested by complexity we may ask whether “death” is applicable also to other complex processes. First we ought to realize that most if not all complex systems are actually complex processes. Complexity is not created as such, it evolves from less complex conditions.

Some complex processes never die, e.g. the weather, which exists as long as our earth does. The weather does not die it only mutates. Today’s weather is not sensitive to initial conditions. It is an ongoing process and obviously lacks initial conditions. For the same reason it is immune to butterfly effects. The same applies to life as such which appeared on earth eons ago and will never die. It is organized as a super-organism, called Gaia which encompasses all life processes. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...utionofgaia.htm

Apparently other complex processes, e.g. economy, stock market or even the internet will exist as long as we will. They will not die, only mutate. We may thus generalize and assume that processes which depend on life will hardly ever die.

How come that the human, the hallmark of life actually dies? The definition of death depends on our viewpoint. Whether we regard man as an isolated process, which started during fertilization, or as a part in a more general process known as food chain. It is defined as: A succession of organisms in an ecological community that constitutes a continuation of food energy from one organism to another as each consumes a lower member and in turn is preyed upon by a higher member. (Answers.com). Gaia may be regarded as a web of food chains.

Plants serve as food chain origins. They apply sun energy to polymerize simple inorganic molecules, e.g. water and carbon dioxide. All other members in the food chain are incapable of polymerizing inorganic molecules. They require simple organic molecules like sugars or amino acids. Complexity evolves by polymerization of simple organic molecules. When a member of the food chain dies, its complexity is degraded to simple complex building blocks which serve as initial conditions (primers) for the complexity generation of the next member (process) in the chain. Death of a chain member is far from being an annihilation, it is a mutation.

The human destiny is expressed by Rabbi Akavya Ben Mahalel: "Reflect upon three things and you will never come to sin: Know from where you came, to where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give an accounting.
" 'From where you came' - From a putrid drop; 'To where you are going' - To a place of dirt, maggots, and worms; 'And before whom you are destined to give an accounting' - Before the King of Kings, The Holy One, Blessed Be He."

The putrid drop initiates a process known as a human being . When his time has come he mutates into a different process. From the Gaia perspective the place of dirt, maggots, and worms is a process in the food chain which takes care of the dead individual and prepares his remnants as primers for the next chain member. Death is actually a process mutation. Not “dust to dust, or ashes to ashes”, which are essentially inorganic and cannot serve as primers for life. Maggots, worms, microbes and fungi, keep the food chain ticking.

More on this in a Hebrew poem: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/poems/mavet.html

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“Physicists come from a tradition of looking for all-encompassing laws, but is this the best approach to use when probing complex biological systems?” This question was posed by Evelyn Fox Keller in an essay published in Nature (Nature 445, 603 (8 February 2007)). Does biology have laws of its own that are universally applicable?

“Today, biologists are faced with an avalanche of data, made available by genomics and by the development of instruments that track biological processes in unprecedented detail. To unpack how proteins, genes and metabolites operate as components of complex networks, modeling and other quantitative tools that are well established in the physical sciences — as well as the involvement of physical scientists — are fast becoming an essential part of biological practice.”

Apparently traditional mathematical tools are of little help to deal with biological complexity. Physicists yearn for some kind of a law which might serve as a starting point in their effort. Evelyn Fox Keller is concerned that biologists often pay little attention to debates in the philosophy of science, like whether there are laws of biology. As if these issues were solved in the exact sciences.

All these so called laws of physics are no more than models that were extremely successful in describing many aspects of our reality and fail to untangle the complexity of life. Yet life is an essential part of our reality which cannot be ignored anymore. In his book Phenomenon of Life (1) Hans Jonas states that most of what we encounter on the surface of earth is intimately intertwined with the dynamics of life. A fact which was hitherto ignored by the exact sciences, which attempt to understand (describe) life by reducing it non life (matter).

In order to proceed the exact sciences ought to get rid of their conceptual crutches, which they regard as universal laws. Like Newton’s “laws” which have been always irrelevant to biological processes.

Physics as a fable: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/physicsfable.html

References

1. Hans Jonas The Phenomenon of Life- Toward a Philosophical Biology
Northwestern University Press Evanston Ill 2001

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One of those question that I see asked over and over, is how can there be highly complex life without some prior highly complex agent to create it.


Here’s the truth of the matter, the complexity we observe developing is only a temporal view of a cognitive system that contains a duality, one of temporal time and one outside the field of time, Eternity.

Complexity in all its form does not exist as a temporal design, but as an eternal form. A singularity. Order is inherent, moving toward the eternal.
Remember the movement of time from past to future is our experience. According to basic laws of physics there is no clear distinction between to two, outside our cognitive experience.

What we observe as time and movement between a simple ordered state and higher ordered state is merely a cognitive movement between the two aspects of time, one of eternity, Were all things are complete whole forms and the temporal state of becoming.

To anthropomorphize an omnipresent intelligent force that builds from the ground up, existing in the field of temporal time, tinkering as it goes, negates the eternal principle.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

The noun alpha and omega has 2 meanings:: : the first and last; signifies God's eternity,
the basic meaning of something; the crucial part

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Temporal: Man
Let me approach this from architectural view point. When we build a structure using regular geometry, small mistakes in the initial measurements will be amplified as the construction progresses, until a point is reached were the initial small instability surpasses and overwhelms the stability factors causing a catastrophic collapse, destroying the intended design.

Eternal: God
Now edge of chaos with dynamics of a dissipative physical components is were this scenario happens in reverse.
The instant all the physical and dynamic elements arrive they cause a catastrophic constructive collapse toward a higher ordered state. ( “Eternal true forms” ) This state of creative instability is referred to as “edge of chaos” Coined by Doyne Farmer this state exist between the chaotic regime and the order regime. These attractors self-construct, by drawing energy and order from its environment.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


This scenario is central to evolution, it is how biological systems self organize, and evolve.

It is also counter intuitive because it is diametrically opposed to how we believe the universe operates.

--------------------
All creation or destruction of forms, or morphogenesis, can be described by the disappearance of the attractors representing the initial forms, and their replacement (by capture) by the attractors representing the final forms. Rene Thom

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Chris! The arguments which you raised may be investigated within three realms: Theology, metaphysics, and science.

1. Theology: God or Brahman is the eternal and timeless and cannot be grasped by us. He therefore decided to present himself in a manner that we can grasp. You may chose one of the following possibilities:
1a Hinduism: What we observe is Maya or illusion
1b Pantheism: What we observe are manifestation of God (Spinoza)
1c All what He wants us to understand is inherent in His creation (Genesis).

You state that: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Answer: Since you have a beginning and an end you are mortal.

Contrary to what you claim, complexity does not exist in the eternal realm since we cannot grasp the eternal and yet we grasp complexity.

2. Metaphysics: The “higher ordered state” is a Platonic idea, represented on earth by a “simple ordered state”

3. Science: The name of the game is to investigate your statements scientifically. This is what the present thread is about. You are invited to examine some ideas which were presented here before.

http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca/complexity.htm

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My argument was intended to be scientific, by straddling what we know about time, complexity and chaos.
The alpha omega quote I’m referring to eternity as central organizing point. An attractor, creating a field of temporal movement.
This dynamic can be observed in the relationship between a black hole and all other celestial spheres in our galaxy. This central singularity creates a stable but cyclical field around it.
These cycles are the key to generating complexity.

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“What Computers Still Can't Do” written by the philosopher Hubert L Dreyfus (1) exposes the shortcoming of Artificial Intelligence (AI), like the claim that in order to act intelligently people must have a model of the world in their mind. Which is known as mental representation of the world. According to Herbert Simon this model is a system of symbols which serve as representations of reality, and since computers manipulate symbols they may act intelligently like people. Dreyfus maintains that disembodied machines cannot mimic human intelligence and hitherto he was right. The embodiment concept is discussed elsewhere.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...fartificial.htm

One may argue that today’s computers, are still too slow for such a task. What about computer systems, like the WEB? Might the WEB act intelligently? “Not at all!” says Dreyfus, since the WEB is disembodied. True, it has some embodiment, like SKYPE or VOIP yet this is not enough. The WEB is only a tool and not an intelligent machine.

What Dreyfus fails to realize is that the WEB is a living system embodied by its users. So why can’t it be intelligent? Elsewhere I mentioned other living systems, like the stock exchange which cannot be labeled as intelligent. What kind of embodiment is required to make an intelligent system?

At the time when AI (artificial intelligence) was named by John McCarthy, Wittgenstein's philosophical investigations came out against mental representations. Heidegger had already done so in 1927 with “Being in Time”. Yet the AI researchers still ignore it. They are followed by neuroscientists who place mental representations into the brain. Other regard the brain as a computer. A neural net of representations. They ought to wake up from their Cartesian slumber and turn to phenomenology which is the motto of the present trail.

An intelligent machine can be created only if adopting the viewpoint of phenomenology, which criticizes the notion of mental representation. Yet phenomenology does not point the way to the creation of an intelligent machine. It only explains why Cartesian reductionism is wrong. Nevertheless it is a basis from which AI ought to continue. To me phenomenology is a way to tackle complexity. Embodiment is an attribute of a complex system. It can be realized even in a relatively simple two CA system.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca167.htm
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca143.htm
References

1. Hubert L. Dreyfus What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason
ISBN 0-262-54067-3
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/pe...eyfus-con0.html

Last edited by Gershom Zajicek M.D. on 03-22-2007 at 06:01 AM

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Complex systems may be divided into three qualitative groups:
1. The whole is the sum of its parts, e.g. molecules of an ideal gas, or the set of integers.
2. The whole is more than the sum of its parts:
2a Like water in a container (at room temperature). Its molecules are not dispersed randomly. Each water molecule is a dipole, and tends to partially align itself with other molecules.
2b Or the following sentence :” My information content is more than the sum of the letters in me”
2c Wolfram CA classes 3 and 4 (p. 231)
3 The whole controls its parts (and is obviously more than the sum of its parts). Such systems obey the allometric law , or power law, which describes the relationship between the whole (W) and its parts (p). Like in the following equation: p = a * W ^ b or Log[p] = Log[a] + b * Log[W].

Kleiber (1930) described the relationship between the mass (M) of an organism and its basal metabolic rate (BMR) which applies to the majority of animals, BMR= a * M ^ 0.75 . Thus a cat, having a mass 100 times that of a mouse, will have a BMR roughly 31 times greater than that of a mouse.

Since all living systems obey similar relationships, the allometric law may be regarded as their attribute. However it is observed also in some non-living complex systems. The law indicates that living systems are constrained by a relative shortage of vital substances like oxygen which drives the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and determines the size of an animal. Since oxygen is scarce, the organism controls its distribution among the organs. Brain is the most privileged, then come the kidneys, heart muscles and bones. The power law thus indicates that the whole actually controls its parts. It has a wisdom which is called here Wisdom of the Body (WOB).

WOB has two meanings: 1. It is the set of interacting processes, and 2. It is an optimizing principle. Processes in the body interact so as to keep it optimal.

WOB in CA: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca/ca93.htm
Allometric law in cancer: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...cmetastasis.htm

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A recent essay, “Rules of engagements “ by Doyle and Csete, published in Nature (1) starts with the following sentence:: “Complex engineered and biological systems share protocol-based architectures that make them robust and evolvable, but with hidden fragilities to rare perturbations.” I agree with the authors that “engineers can learn from biology” and wonder whether they grasped the essence of biological (life) complexity. The authors assure us that:” Biological systems are robust and evolvable in the face of even large changes in environment and system components, yet can be extremely fragile to small perturbations. Such universally robust yet fragile (RYF) complexity is found wherever we look.” True, life is universally robust but is it really fragile? Take for instance diabetes and cancer which the authors regard as: “conditions resulting from faulty biological control mechanisms, normally so robust as to go unnoticed.” Even the authors imply that these diseases are far from being fragile. So what led them astray.

It all started when Descartes proposed that man is a complex machine (with a soul). From then and onward physicists and engineers applied their concepts to handle complexity. Newton applied his “laws” to the real world. Then came Laplace's clockwork universe, which despite its immenseness could be generated from some simple laws. Yet the artificial world supporting us and our culture became more and more complex. Suddenly we realized that the weather is essentially unpredictable and found relief in the theory of chaos and its butterfly effect. Ignoring the fact that real butterflies do not initiate hurricanes. Nevertheless life’s complexity was explained by its terms.

Chaos: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...oesnotexist.htm

The computer provided a mechanistic explanation of our brain. And then came the Internet, which is more complex than any computer and inspired the authors to tackle life’s complexity. Although “Chaos, fractals, random graphs and power laws inspire a popular view of complexity . . . . A different, more rewarding take on complexity focuses on organization, protocols and architecture” . . . . “So biologists can learn from engineering. The Internet is an obvious example of how a protocol-based architecture facilitates evolution and robustness.” The authors conclude:” All life and advanced technologies rely on protocol-based architectures.”

Indeed the Internet is protocol driven, yet what about the stock exchange with its internet dependency, is it also a protocol based complex system? If it were I might devote my time to search for a protocol to make me rich. Life is far more complex than the stock exchange. And yet the authors want us believe that: “All life and advanced technologies rely on protocol-based architectures.” Advanced technologies, yes, but not life! There is a limit to the complexity of protocol based systems and since life is not protocol based it is far more complex. In order to progress the authors and engineers ought to investigate how life’s complexity emerges without relying on protocols.

Why not turn our attention to a simple two CA system called proliferon, and ask the authors to define protocols that control its behavior.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca167.htm


===References===

1 John Doyle & Marie Csete
Rules of engagement
Nature 446, 860 (19 April 2007)

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Ask any expert what is aging and you get the following answer: Aging is a gradual deterioration of physiological function with increasing age, associated with decreasing performance, and increasing probability of mortality. You may not find anything wrong here because you were raised to regard aging as a deterioration. It is a Cartesian heritage according to which the organism as a sophisticated machine whose components deteriorate randomly. Its aging is studied within the realm of Reliability Theory.

In order to prolong the life of a machine you equip it with redundant components so that when one dies the other takes its place. Reliability-theory experts believe that aging is driven by an ongoing (random) deterioration of vital genes. In order to attain old age you ought to be equipped with redundant vital genes.

Hitherto demographic models seemed to support this view, since from the age of 20y and onward the mortality rate known as Gompertz equation rises exponentially, exactly as in malfunctioning machines. Then came an “unpleasant” surprise. People lived longer and when they passed the age of 85 years their mortality rate started declining (!). Beyond the age of 100y the mortality rate approaches asymptotically a constant value. In other words, if you cross the age of 80y and you are still healthy, your chances to cross the 100y mark continually improve. Instead of celebrating the initiation of longevity, scientists were disappointed since all their models fail.

Don’t despair, soon they will adapt their models and theories to the new reality and the human organism will continue deteriorating at their will. They are still mesmerized by the machine metaphor and fail to realize that aging is not driven by random deterioration of components. Actually aging is a creative process. Suppose that you follow the growth of a newborn without realizing that occasionally it may die. You may now regard it as a living system whose properties emerge. Like the weather, a living system that never dies. Would you regard weather as a system of randomly deteriorating components? The same applies to our organism. It is a set of interacting processes called here WOB (Wisdom of the Body), that are continually rejuvenated and hardly ever deteriorate.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...stconcepts.html

The organism is driven by an independent process, destruction, which it continually attempts to repair. As long as the destruction rate is less than the repair rate, the organism continues living and when destruction gains the upper hand it dies.

Aging is an ongoing process by which WOB attempts to creatively withstand external threat. What appears to us as age deterioration is a successful attempt to sustain life. The appearance of a healthy elderly is a token of his capability to handle external threat. So, despite an external threat our fate lies in our hands.

Late life mortality
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...femortality.htm
How to slow down aging:
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...wdownaging.html
Aging in CA
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca/ca63.htm
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/papers/ca1/ca165.htm

Last edited by Gershom Zajicek M.D. on 07-21-2007 at 07:12 AM

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Reading the fat NKS book I wondered what bugs him? The central idea is obvious, you can generate complexity with simple programs. Then you read about emergence of order from randomness (Chapter 6) which I like less, as explained earlier in this thread.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...s/compFrame.htm

Recently in a short article which appeared in his blog
http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/09/my_...unive.html#more
Wolfram spelled out what really bugged him: “Physicists often like to think that they're dealing with the most fundamental kinds of questions in science. But actually, what I realized back in 1981 or so is that there's a whole layer underneath.” It is governed by very simple rules that can generate all sorts of rich and complex behavior.

Then came the first question: “. . what about our physical universe? Could it be operating according to one of these simple rules? “Of course, that's not at all how most of today's physicists like to think. They like to imagine that by pure thought they can somehow construct the laws for the universe--like universe engineers” In other words they continue being Platonists searching for the truth in the world of ideas. Might this imply that Wolfram is somewhat different?

“So in a sense we have to go below space and time--to more fundamental primitives. What might these be?” A network of interacting programs in which space and time do not apply. Such a network does not exist in a space. “There is not a ‘space’ there but a bunch of points.” Which are actually connections. The programs exchange pieces of the network. “And in general each possible sequence of rule applications might correspond to a "different branch of time".”

Then comes the hammer:” But now we're deriving something like that for the universe: we're saying that these networks with almost nothing "built in" somehow generate behavior that corresponds to gravitation in physics.” He then mentions two ideas alien to physics: 1. That physical theories could emerge from something more fundamental and 2. “. . our whole universe and its complete history could be generated just by starting with some particular small network, then applying definite rules.”

All these ideas so weird to physicists simply indicate that Wolfram started thinking biologically. His small network might be regarded as a mathematical zygote from which our theoretical universe emerges.

We are told that Wolfram developed Mathematica for studying these “weird” ideas. Why not create a tool which will model a simple causal network of programs which exchange pieces of the network. As a starter he might consider my proliferon.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper.../comp2Frame.htm

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Now that we embraced Wolfram as a biologist, let’s see what kind of biologist he is.
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...s/compFrame.htm

Biological phenomena may be explained within two frameworks : Reductionistic and Holistic. The first applies physical reasoning to explain life, and is known as Cartesian reductionism. The other explains life as a whole and is less concerned with reduction. Its philosophy is outlined in : Hans Jonas The Phenomenon of Life- Toward a Philosophical Biology
Northwestern University Press Evanston Ill 2001 Here are some examples; R and H stand respectively for reductionism and holism:

The Gene: R: Unit of heredity which determines physical-chemical processes in the body. DNA -> RNA -> protein.
H: Is a manifestation of complex network interacting with processes of the body. It might be likened to a typewriter which types the four letters, ATGC yet the typing mechanism is also part of the gene.

Brain: R: Brain electrical activity (action potentials) accounts for our reasoning. In the future, reasoning will be read off this activity. H: The electrical activity is an epi-phenomenon of a vast and complex biochemical machinery which includes neurons and glia (supporting cells). It is embodied, which means that the entire organism participates in neural activity.

Evolution: R: Results from the selection by the environment of individuals carrying beneficial genes. H: Is the evolution of the food chain network, otherwise known as Gaia.
An in depth explanation is provided here: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...lexityFrame.htm

Reductionism paved the way to today’s technological innovations. However it fails to explain important phenomena of modern life, e.g., Economy, weather, and global warming. The Black-Sholes equation won’t make you rich. Apparently the holistic approach of Warren Buffet is more effective. The Lorenz attractor shows that a system of differential equations cannot predict weather and ends in chaos. The babble about global warming results from the lack of holistic mathematical tools, which hopefully Mathematica will provide.

Since Wolfram drove my attention to CA, I devoted my research to evaluate their potential for holistic explanation of biological phenomena. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...s/compFrame.htm
Now Wolfram came with an even more intriguing concept: A simple causal network of programs which exchange pieces of the network. Will this gem be presented to us in the next Mahematica edition?

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We were pleased to read that a three color machine is the simplest possible universal Turing machine and congratulate the winner who proved it.
http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/10/the...e_simplest.html
At this occasion we turn again to NKS Chapter 12 and read: “In essence, therefore, the Principle of Computational Equivalence introduces a new law of nature to the effect that no system can ever carry out explicit computations that are more sophisticated than those carried out by systems like cellular automata and Turing machines.” Reading this we wonder whether this “law of nature” applies also to life?

What we perceive around us is change. An ongoing and continuous change to which even Kant’s “the thing in itself” does not apply. There is not a thing out there, only change. Fortunately we are equipped with two faculties for handling this change: A memory to store it and a mind to interpret it. For interpreting change, mind applies innate and acquire memories. While the change there is essentially continuous our mind freezes and makes it discrete.

Wolfram regards change as a process, which may be regarded as a computation, assuring us that “all processes, whether they are produced by human effort or occur spontaneously in nature, can be viewed as computations” and “Computational Equivalence applies to essentially any process of any kind, either natural or artificial.” Therefore the “Principle of Computational Equivalence can be viewed in part as a new law of nature.”

Wolfram thus presumes that this “law of nature” governs also change. A Platonic idea which we mortals cannot grasp since it is obscured by change. So far so good, yet what about continuity? Cellular automata and most of the other computational systems that are discussed in his book are discrete. Does it imply that the change that surround us is also discrete?

Wolfram: “It is my strong suspicion that at a fundamental level absolutely every aspect of our universe will in the end turn out to be discrete. And if this is so, then it immediately implies that there cannot ever ultimately be any form of continuity in our universe that violates the Principle of Computational Equivalence.”

Wolfram: “In a sense the most basic defining characteristic of continuous systems is that they operate on arbitrary continuous numbers. But just to represent every such number in general requires something like an infinite sequence of digits. And so this implies that continuous systems must always in effect be able to operate on infinite sequences.”

What Wolfram prefers to ignore is that mathematics, be it discrete or continuous is a way to describe change, and cannot fully reproduce the continuity of the change that surrounds us. Thus Computational Equivalence is far from being a new law of nature. It is a creation of Wolfram’s mind which is busy interpreting the ongoing continuous change. It may be regarded as an important law of mathematics, a valuable tool for modeling phenomena of nature, but not a law of nature.

Vive la petite difference!
http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...s/compFrame.htm

Last edited by Gershom Zajicek M.D. on 12-25-2007 at 06:14 AM

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