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Judith wrote:
...Environments don't cause life; complexity does.
...
Do you really want to consider a (mystical???) "environment" without the
"complexities" it consists of? What would it be? the empty stage asking for the
props?
Further on you pointed this out clearly in quoting RR-opinions.
I just don't understand what is "alive" meaning? the model of the
restricted DNA-stuff? extracted from the rest of it?
I would shorten JohnK's excellent definition by
2 letters:
{...ecosystems must be considered a partially fractionable
concept, ..."
into:
"partially fractional" and consider it semantic.
Furthermore the statement
... To kill an organism is to simplify its organization.
refers to the model-view of a limited (1) organization we carry -
restricted from the "rest" which expands the 'killed' model into much wider
complexities - you may say: other 'life processes' (?).
Even in the restricted views of C-H2O biology (sciences).
But - alas - that's the way we learned to think....
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 8:33
AM
Subject: Re: machine, organism,
life
Hey John K-- nice to "hear" your voice on the list again. And
interesting points you bring up:
> I think this issue of ecosystem vs organism is very much a
chicken-egg
> problem like structure vs function. We keep getting these
infinite
> regresses from our epistemic duality perspective
I agree that the two co-exist and are linked in an evolutionary
sense such that the environment is reflected in the organization of the
organisms that evolved within it. But this begs the question; What is the
difference between "environment" and "ecosystem"? In my view, which I believe
is consistent with my father's, the environment is what living organisms are
not completely separable from, whereas ecosystem and all other terms that
relate to life in an environment (like "biosphere") pertain to the interaction
of living organisms and all other influences (like weather, sunshine,
etc) within an environment. What Dan Fiscus and I were discussing,
then, is not really the chicken/egg question but the
environment/chicken question.
It was the chicken/egg question that my father answered via
(Rosennean) complexity-- that reproduction is included within
metabolism/repair in an (M,R)-System. Thus, the answer to the chicken/egg
question is that they entail each other because they are alive.
This is not true of the environment/organism question. Environments don't
cause life; complexity does. Complexity also causes atom formation, and hence
by extension; environments. Complexity refers to organizational properties
that are inherent in this universe. Therefore, it can be said that complexity
causes both environments and organisms, which together (in my view) equal
"ecosystems".
> So, it seems to me that ecosystems must be considered a
partially
> fractionable concept, somewhat intermediary between physical
systems and
> organisms. When we attempt to fractionate an organism in
essence we are
> then analyzing an ecosystem, and corresponding we lose
important aspects of
> the organism in doing so.
I think the above is brilliant and reinforces the view that it is
the organizational aspect that is being referred to when we use a word like
"organism" or "ecosystem". To kill an organism is to simplify its
organization. It becomes something else; an environment in which living
organisms interact or an "ecosystem". What Dan described in his
post as being responsible for life and for evolution is what my father
called "complexity". It is that organizational aspect that has causal
implications yet is not a material "thing" in itself.
Judith
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