Re: The difference between organism and ecosystem...

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Judith,

Thanks a lot for your replies, comments, encouraging
words. A few replies and a question:

Judith Rosen wrote:

> *Fascinating. The notion of a certain balance of 
> planetary/orbital/space-based forces being required for life to 
> spontaneously self-organize in any locale has the right "feel" to it. 
> (Yes, it's a technical term...) The reason it strikes my intuition is 
> because the same sort of balance is reflected in all living systems 
> (which for me means "organisms") here on Earth, and in all complex 
> systems, wherever they may be. So, perhaps it is something about the 
> peculiar balance of various forces here that, collectively, is what has 
> allowed or facilitated the kind of self-organization of systems, 
> underlying the emergence of life. Would you be willing to elaborate a 
> bit more on the various planet-wide or extraplanetary forces which, in 
> your opinion, might be relevant in this kind of situation? *

I too am going largely on intuition and so it is great new
and important corroboration for me that you sense this
too. A few other examples of similar balancing and/or
synergy from seeming opposites/antagonists that have
the same "feel" for me (beyond the ones mentioned, the
composer/decomposer or autotroph/heterotroph
and entropy/syntropy synergies) are 1) male/female,
2) dual hemispheres of brain, 3) binocular parallax and
4) bilateral symmetry.

As for planets and extra-terrestrial thought experiments,
I guess that whatever life is like off-Earth, and as different
as it will likely be, I bet it will still have myriad variations
on this theme of balance or synergy of potentially opposed
forces or tendencies. So I would predict that life elsewhere
would also have organisms only existing and arising in the
interdependent context of ecosystems/communities with
at minimum those two coupled complementary functional
roles, autotrophy and heterotrophy (which also go by
anabolism and catabolism) represented and required for
open-ended, sustained life.

In addition to a balance of gravitation and radiation for
conditions needed for an "endless" hydrological cycle,
which in turn is perhaps necessary for life to emerge, I
forgot to mention that I think a planet(oid) would need
water itself.

> *I have to admit that the physics based terms like "entropy" and 
> referring to various Newtonian laws by number etc. don't mean much to 
> me, so if you could (please?) flesh descriptions out with other 
> terminology, that would be much appreciated.  

I think of 1st law of themodynamics as conservation of
matter and energy - nothing is created or destroyed.
2nd law is entropy - in closed systems, reactions lead to
a loss of energy quality toward eventual "heat death" or
equilibrium. 3rd law I forget. 0th law I think says that
there is an absolute temperature scale with a zero value.
Those are some of the 0, 1, 2, 3 laws of physics/thermo.
I think your father's work on eventual new knowledge
emerging from studies of life will likely require changes
to these laws.

> *You mean, create a system that is "merely" complex, but not alive? I 
> imagine you mean a material system, right? (Because humanity has already 
> done this, otherwise: Language is one example. Mathematics is another 
> one. )*

I was trying to describe an approach to telling the story
of the origin of life as told from the perspective of
ecosystemic/community life as opposed to trying to
imagine how life emerged as cells/organisms.

> *Here's my problem with that: Can you imagine any scenario where one of 
> those forces in a particular locale and scale could be "viewed" as 
> (could behave as) the inverse of itself, in a different scale /in the 
> same locale/? I ask because, while your definition of entropy refers 
> to a tendency toward dissipation of energy-- this is only "a tendency" 
> in the universe under very specific circumstances. There are times, 
> situations, scales, etc. where gravitation (which you call syntropy-- 
> the opposite value of entropy) can act as entropy. And vice, versa. I 
> guess my concern is that I question whether concepts like entropy are 
> what they have been defined as in physics. Physics definitions and 
> laws are based on the circumstances of a timeless void, and this is then 
> held up as the /normal/ case-- that's the way it looks to me, anyway. 
> So, I guess I'm saying that caution is required-- the ancient 
> reductionistic training can sometimes remain as a tripwire, even after 
> we think we've eliminated all suppositions, etc.*

These are good points, cautions and I agree such pitfalls
can seem to arise anywhere and reductionism can be a
seductive trap. Two ways in which I have thought that
entropy (akin to radiation) and syntropy (akin to
gravitation) are themselves interdependent and able to
interconvert is at the extremes. In huge bodies like stars
it seems that gravity and mass aid in if not outright cause
the fission/fusion reactions that in turn cause the
radiation. So it is like the extreme of gravitation leads to
radiation. On the other end, I have heard small snippets
of info here and there about dust clouds in space that
can be "brushed" together by "solar/stellar wind" or the
small forces of light rays/particles as they radiate and
collide with dust particles. Once the dust clouds get
brushed together in a sufficient density (or over a
sufficient size, area, etc., not sure) the clouds can begin
to spin or rotate, which sets other dynamics and maybe
more gravity in motion and if things work out the dust
cloud can collapse to form a new star. Again, at the
extreme of radiation there may be a folding back of one
continuum and conversion to gravitation again.

> *This is a different definition of "community" than I have seen you use 
> before. It differs in some very important ways from your 
> previous definition referring to an ecosystem or the biosphere of Earth, 
> whereby living organisms are components. In this particular usage, the 
> proto-biotic "community," we could say this sentence is referring to a 
> proto-biotic system's organization, could we not?  

Yes I think system would be more likely used and I have
more often used ecosystem. I have just recently using
community more, exploring how it feels and following
some intuitive senses...

> Community, then, is a 
> synonym for "system of a certain type". In other words, I could 
> say that every living organism is a 'community" but not all 
> "communities" are living organisms. Does that fit with your view? 

How is an organism a community? Do you mean inwardly,
or outwardly?

I think of community as multiple "agents" or selves that
have to live and exist together. Inherent in my notion is
some level of diversity - like it takes at least two *different
types* to tango. Two agents or selves that are identical
would be more like a population than a community. The
minimal community of life as I see it is plant or plant-like
life form ("composer") co-existing and co-creating life with
an animal or animal-like or microbe/"decomposer" type life
form. Together the community is alive and has the capacity
to live long and prosper. In isolation and one member of
the community cannot live long and will surely die. Thus
life is a property of the community (perhaps in part, as
well as perhaps in part a property of the individual
members of the community). Hmm...a property that is not
isolated or isolateable to a single scale of organization...

> If 
> I've got it so far, then I don't know how you get from this view of 
> community (which you'll be happy to know has no "gripe" or "beef" with 
> Robert Rosen's view) to later applications of that word.*

Somewhere else recently you wrote/asked how could we
have the community before the organisms, wouldn't that
be like a forest before any trees. This was a brilliant question
to me and it forced to me consider or ask whether again the
issue has been about time and linear/sequential thinking in
terms of "which came first, the organism or the ecosystem
(community)". We could be getting stuck if we have asked
the question the wrong way - what if it is not an either/or,
first/second issue but one of simultaneous co-arising? So
that the organism and the ecosystem/community emerged
together, the parts (organisms) and the whole (community,
ecosystem) arose in a creative synergy event that created
life parts and lifes wholes at the same time and as
intercoordinated and mutually reinforcing?

As for my old comments re: my only beef and gripe with
Robert Rosen being "his" organism focus or unit or life or
"my" (and others') ecosystem focus/unit of life - those
comments by me were dumb. I don't have a beef or gripe,
just that I don't yet understand and at times I get
disappointed when I find things contrary to my own pet
view at the time. In stronger moments I would be more
grateful and acknowledge that his answer in life itself
refers to life as organism is "fascinating" in that it is a
different view than my own, while everything else he
writes (of what I have read, not a huge amount yet)
seems to overlap much better.

Thanks again,

Dan