Re: Life without evolution/evolution without life

[Howard Pattee <***>]

Judith,
I?ll continue the discussion in the same style.

[Judith] On the subject of 'evolution before life arose/existed'; I
wouldn't call that evolution.

[Howard] OK, I?ll use your definition, but it seems to me that this just
displaces the problem. How do you define when life arose?

[Judith] Incidentally, I would say that my father was after much more
than "a causal, explanatory model of life"-- He was after the truth; a full
understanding of why living things are alive.

[Howard] Incidentally, I would say that your father is not alone in seeking
the truth. What exactly would a full understanding require ?much more? of
besides full (Aristotelean) causal explanations?

[Judith] I think the explanation for evolution must be in Complexity, not in
anticipatory systems, per se. Anticipatory behavior is an emergent property
of complex systems that have crossed a threshold of complexity in their
level of organization. It is the same threshold that has life on one side
of it and non-life on the other.

[Howard] Many of us are seeking understanding of this threshold. But what
if we can show that the threshold of complexity necessary for evolution
requires anticipatory behavior?

[Judith] I instinctively think the crux of the matter is right here: The
threshold that has life on one side of it and non-living complex systems on
the other side... That threshold is something that I would want to study if
I were going into biology now.

[Howard] Your instinct is very good. Von Neumann was of the same opinion.
He said, ?There is thus this completely decisive property of complexity?
that he saw as a threshold below which things degenerate and above which we
have ?explosive synthesis.? He then formulated very reasonable conditions
for this threshold. It led to a form of self-replication that would permit
open-ended evolution, and it turns out that this is the way real cells
work.

[Judith] Something embodied in that threshold causes so many new
properties to emerge from complex systems that I suspect it's going to be
extremely important to figure out the mysteries.

[Howard] Many people now agree. Von Neumann showed that the essential
embodiment that allows endless emergent properties is the non-dynamic
symbolic description of the cell we call the genome. This recognition of
symbols as distinct from dynamics has given rise to both the new field of
biosemiotics  http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/sharov/biosem/geninfo.html
as well as many artificial life studies.

I think it was unfortunate that Bob began early in his career to claim that
von Neumann?s argument was faulty. Bob?s logic was correct. He found what
would have been a formal paradox. But von Neumann was not talking formal
logic. He was making an informal analogy. In any case, Burton Guttman
(Bull. Math. Biophysics, 28, 191-193, 1966) showed that Bob?s paradox
disappears if replication has errors, and if evolution is to occur it must
have errors (mutations).

Unfortunately, Bob never engaged his critics, and so even though he
discussed the requirement of error for life, he continued to miss von
Neumann?s fundamental argument why the evolution of complexity requires
symbolic (non-dynamic) memory as distinct from state-determined dynamics.

Bob even came close to von Neumann?s point. In Anticipatory Systems  Bob
recognized that genes require two distinct processes: ?(a) a replicative
process whereby genetic information is transmitted to descendants, and (b)
a decoding process comprising a transcription step and a translations step
[protein synthesis]? (AS, p. 315). But the following discussion shows he
did not see von Neumann?s essential argument.

Howard