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I've been thinking about this while I slept, apparently... It's
still on my mind this morning! The point at which complexity or complex systems
seem to make the change where natural phenomena become
information seems to be the same threshold at which complexity creates
life. However, it seems to me that this is only true for organically derived,
evolved, complex systems. The systems human beings create, like a computer
internet for example.... seem to have a whole 'nother relationship with
phenomena, data, and "information".
In organisms, the stability of the organization of that level of
complexity (ie; a living organism's ability to maintain its
internal environment within necessary parameters) seems to be what
also makes possible the generation of relationships that turn
outside phenomena into information. In other words, this is when
percepts begin to have indirect causal effects on organismal
processes. It looks to me (not being an ecologist or biologist, just an
observer) that the difference between an automatic process and a process
where information has been created and utilized is the level of complexity
of the system. The higher the level of complexity in an organism, the
more capacity for relationships there is, and information plays a bigger and
bigger role up the scale.
One question I have about smaller complex systems, like the atom
(which bears on the "three-body problem"): What are the similarities and
differences in the relationships formed between an atom and its environment
compared with the relationships between an organism and ITS environment?
The stability of complex systems even below the threshold for life is inherent
in atomic structure-- (which my father probably would prefer to call
"atomic organization"; structure being too static a word to apply to a complex
system, really)-- That stability allows atoms to adapt and evolve in certain
ways similar to the way organisms adapt and evolve. For example, an atom can
absorb particles and continue to keep its basic organization, with certain
changes to relationships within the atom (adaptation/evolution?). I don't see
that the relationship between the atom and its environment could be
characterized as a relationship where phenomena becomes "information".
Thus, it looks to me that complexity below a threshold has
"automatic" interaction with its environment. Complexity above that threshold
has both automatic and "volitional" interaction with anything outside itself and
within itself... Volitional implies the metamorphosis of phenomena to
information. It seems to me that this is a key feature of biological systems. Is
it a defining feature? Do all organisms possess the ability to turn phenomena
into information? Does this partly explain the "internal predictive model" that
my father discussed in Anticipatory Systems? Life emerges at the
same threshold at which anticipatory behavior emerges, so it would make
sense.
Judith
Judith
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