Re: Function, unfractionable as first principle

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

[DF]
> Tim,
>
> Again it is hard to avoid terms/ideas like separation, distinction, etc.
> when
> talking about specialization of function, but I would still try to avoid
> these.
> So if the functions remain inseparable/unseparated, unfractionable, still
> integral and unified in some kind of "function space" this is the main
> issue,
> even if there may be some appearance or actual separation in space-time
> space.
>
> With the ecosystemic life approach, there are two major
> transitions to deal
> with. First is the emergence of ecosystemic life in which the
> autotrophic-with-heterotrophic life function differentiates from abiotic
> processes/dynamics/relations (differentiation with continued
> integral unity,

[TG]
What makes the "autotrophic-with-heterotrophic life function" _biotic_,
distinguishable from _abiotic_ processes? I think this is one point that I
keep having trouble with conceptually.

[DF]
> as in mutual causality of abiotic and biotic
> processes/dynamics/relations).
> Second is the emergence of cellular/organismic life in which
> processes like
> HT Odum calls "encapsulation and miniaturization" would have led to a
> structural/functional concentration of life function into sub-ecosystemic
> components as cells/organisms (using Rosen's definition of component,
> "a unit of organization. A part with a function, i.e., a definite relation
> between part and whole." Life Itself). Cells/organisms seem to be complex
> wholes in and of themselves, but in the ecosystemic life view
> they are this
> while also being complex parts/components unfractionable from the whole
> that is life itself.
>
> Your question though is a good one and hints at the impredicative kernel
> in any study of these early steps. Here are two other mentions of the same
> problem, like when is specialization not specialization, when is
> separation
> not separation, where are neat lines between life and environment, etc.
>
> Rosen from (p. 388) "On a logical paradox implicit in the notion of a
> self-reproducing automaton" Bull. of Math. Biophys., Vol.21, 1959,
> p. 387-394:
>
> "According to the definition of self-reproducing automaton given above,
> the range of the automaton cannot be stipulated until the automaton
> itself is given, since the automaton is a member of its own range. Thus,
> neither the mapping *f* [ital.] nor its range can be specified *until the
> other is given*. In other words, the concept of self-reproducing automaton
> requires the concurrent existence of two pieces of information, each of
> which is logically anterior to the other."
>
> Harold Morowitz et al., from (p. 7704) "The origin of intermediary
> metabolism", PNAS vol. 97, no. 14, July 5, 2000, p. 7704-7708:
>
> "The chart of metabolic pathways (1) is an expression of the universality
> of intermediary metabolism. The reaction networks of all extant species
> of organisms map onto a single chart, the great unity within diversity of
> the living world."
>
> and later on the same page...
>
> "All of the possibilities suggest that the metabolic chart or
> parts thereof
> can be traced to the earliest organisms and contain information about
> the chemistry of biogenesis and the prebiotic planet some 4 billion years
> ago. This period is the preenzymatic domain. A paradox to be faced is
> that, at present, enzymes are required to define or generate the reaction
> network, and the network is required to synthesize the enzymes and their
> component monomers."
>
> The reaction network they study is that for the reductive citric acid
> cycle, but they also mention the oxidative citric acid cycle.
>
> Another possible way to look for the complex differentiation of functions
> is to consider how chemical oxidation/reduction reactions are even more
> tighly coupled and unfractionable than living autotrophic/heterotrophic
> functions, and to look at the wiggle room or variation in tightness of
> spatial/temporal/function interdependence in abiotic reactions or such
> early life chemical reactions as the citric acid oxidation and reduction
> reactions.

Dan,
So, then, the questions about these transitions (to your ecosystemic life
(which I am still reluctant to call "life") and cellular life) leads us back
to the question of how to build systems with impredicative relationships
among functions?

I think that Rosen's comments on the paradox in von Neumann's
self-reproducing automata tell us that algorithmic construction of syntactic
elements alone cannot suffice for these goals. In physical terms, this would
seem to mean that forceless Newtonian particles or entities (the equivalent
of referent-less syntactic symbols) directed by physical laws cannot build
such systems. Instead, it requires the utilization of force-carrying
particle or entities (the equivalent of semantic (i.e., referent-laden)
symbols) in order to engender the impredicative relationships.

With regard to Morowitz, I am reminded of the set of figures in Life Itself,
ch. 11, where Rosen describes how an abstract active site could be supported
(scaffolded) by either an internal physical structure or, equally well, by
an external physical structure. in either case, the relationships they
create form the same abstract active site. The fact that those metabolic
processes exist mean that there is at least one way to generate those
processes; however, such processes may also be generated by other means. So,
if such alternate means, or pathways, exist "to synthesize the enzymes and
their component monomers" that are supported or scaffolded from somewhere
else in the environment then no chicken-egg paradox need exist.

I disagree with Morowitz' view at the end of the article
[http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/14/7704]:
"If one wishes to study biogenesis from the bottom up, the first step is to
reason from atoms of the periodic table to those molecules that form the
core of biochemistry, those molecules central to the chart of intermediary
metabolism in chemoautotrophs. ..... We have assumed that biogenesis moves
from simplicity to complexity, from low free energy to high free energy, and
from autotrophy to heterotrophy."

If one begins from this viewpoint, then it seems almost impossible to
generate progressively more elaborate chemistries and functional entities
like enzymes out of sheer chance in Nature. The interesting thing is that
the chemistries - which are themselves physical facts - are essentially
discounted as naturally occurring processes in favor of "atoms of the
periodic table" as both the alleged canonical true domain and origin of
physical processes.

Regards,
Tim