Re: Function, unfractionable as first principle

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

[DF]
>
> Tim,
>
> Thanks a lot. Very good info. But I think that Rosen (if I understand him)
> would not agree with that quote by Martinez, which suggests that the M
> and R (or catabolic, anabolic) processes are *decomposable*. This to me
> would be more in line with unfractionability and Rosen complexity.

[TG]
Hmm, I didn't read Martinez as suggesting that the two processes were
fractionable in his use of the word "decomposable". But that is a very good
point.

[DF]
> This
> is also my view of the origin of life, that these two functions are
> inseparable
> and that their unity and mutual causality at the origin of life
> enabled the
> later creation of cells and organisms. Cells/organisms seem even more
> easily
> decomposable, separable or fractionable into two types (plant, animal) or
> even independent "free-living" cells and organisms, but I suggest this
> is only
> a superficial appearance of independence or fractionability and
> that if you
> do simple thought experiments it is easy to see and show that no cell or
> organism is self-sustaining on its own, that the smallest unit of life
> that is
> self-sustaining and self-reproducing is an ecosystemic team with those two
> original functions coupled, integral, intact in their unity.
>
> Here's another quote for you, from Rashevsky :
>
> "First one or a few biological functions becomes specialized, then others.
> Some general rule must now be looked for, which determines the sequence
> of different steps. Again we have some clues in observation. The earliest
> specialization seems to be in the separation of the two groups of
> biological
> functions, the animal and vegetative."
>
>  From (p 339) "Topology and life: in search of general mathematical
> principles in biology and sociology", N. Rashevsky, Bulletin of
> Mathematical
> Biophysics, Vol. 16, 1954, p 317-348.
>
> Other places in the article Rashevsky (as for Rosen) considers cells and
> organisms as the basic unit of life, but quotes such as this, and Rosen's
> M-R models combined with the principle of unfractionability, suggest to me
> that prior to the specialization into separately indentifiable
> functions of
> autotrophy and heterotrophy these functions were inseparable and unified.

[TG]
If these functions existed already, then what does "specialization" mean
here? Does it mean separation of these functions into separate spatial
structures?

[DF]
> This pre-separation era is the interesting period for me, and I
> think it the
> time of ecosystemic life, before cells and organisms existed but when life
> was going strong and and an unfractioned, undifferentiated "life function"
> was busy generating these now-common structures. This primordial life
> function would have been Rosen complex, a coupled complementary
> function of  autotrophy-heterotrophy, metabolism-repair or
> catabolism-anabolism.