Morphological Parameters in Evolution

[Thunderbird]

Buffy: species that developed it that we all have as a common ancestor.

 

Current genome research has suggested the phyla arose separately, simultaneously and abruptly, from a common "primordial pond" of genetics. (Senapathy) (Independent Birth of Organisms, Genome Press, 1994).

 

 

 

 

 

Conversely, patterns re-appear all over the place, and have nothing to do with common provenance. There really is no similarity between the spirals of a galaxy--which are density waves--and hurricanes--which are moving structures. All of the physics of the two systems is entirely dissimilar. Because Fibonacci is such a fundamental and easily generatable sequence, its not in the least bit surprising that they both look like that.

 

Furthermore, it doesn't take much of a change that's either a random decision point or an environmental change to radically alter even where the local maximums are in a complex system, leading to radically different points of convergence.

 

While I agree that its possible--indeed, I argue *too easy*--to find points of convergence, I find a lot less significance in this than the author of that quote does.

 

The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns,

Buffy

 

 

 

Its a property of *our* universe, but if your goal is to say that its "inevitable" given an infinite amount of time is a fallacy of probability: It may be highly improbable, but there is always a possibility that in an infinitely long instance of a specific universe, that tails will never occur in *every* coin flip forever. As a result, if this is your definition of "inevitability" then its not mathematically complete....

 

Life is a "property" of our universe, it is a definite "probability" in universes that share our own universe's physical parameters, but it is not by definition "inevitable," even given an "infinite" amount of time!

 

I'm pretty well versed in Chaos and Complexity, but I'm also painfully aware of the desire of the human mind to see common patterns and incorrectly infer linkages between them: that's a human trait that is extremely useful, but unfortunately sometimes highly misleading....

 

Keep going: I'm probably still missing something in what you're saying....

 

There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on,

Buffy

 

:candle:Here is some light:candle:

Complex Systems

 

The American biologist Stuart Kauffman is the prophet of "complex" systems. Kauffman's quest is for the fundamental force that counteracts the universal drift towards disorder required by the second law of Thermodynamics. His idea is that Darwin was only half right: systems do evolve under the pressure of natural selection, but their quest for order is helped by a property of our universe, the property that "complex" systems just tend to organize themselves. Darwin's story is about the power of chance: by chance life developed and then evolved. Kauffman's story is about destiny: life is the almost inevitable result of a process inherent in nature.

Kauffman's first discovery was that cells behave like mathematical networks.

 

In the early 1960s, Monod and others discovered that genes are assembled not in a long string of instructions but in "genetic circuits". Within the cell, there are regulatory genes whose job is to turn on or off other genes. Therefore genes are not simply instructions to be carried out one after the other, they realize a complex network of messages. A regulatory gene may trigger another regulatory gene that may trigger another gene… etc. Each gene is typically controlled by two to ten other genes. Turning on just one gene may trigger an avalanche of effects.

 

The genetic program is not a sequence of instructions but rather a regulatory network that behaves like a self-organizing system.

 

By using a computer simulation of a cell-like network, Kauffman proved that, in any organism, the number of cell types must be approximately the square root of the number of genes.

 

He starts where Langton ended. His "candidate principle" states that organisms change their interactions in such a way to reach the boundary between order and chaos.

 

For example, the Danish physicist Per Bak studied the pile of sand, whose collapse under the weight of a new grain is unpredictable: the pile self-organizes. No external force is shaping the pile of sand, it is the pile of sand that organizes itself.

 

Further examples include any ecosystem (in which organisms live at the border between extinction and overpopulation), the price of a product (which is defined by supply and demand at the border of where nobody wants to buy it and where everybody wants to buy it). Evolution proceeds towards the edge of chaos. Systems on the boundary between order and chaos have the flexibility to adapt rapidly and successfully.

 

Living organisms are a particular type of complex adaptive systems. Natural selection and self-organization complement each other: they create complex systems poised at the edge between order and chaos, which are fit to evolve in a complex environment. At all levels of organization, whether of living organisms or ecosystems, the target of selection is a type of adaptive system at the edge between chaos and order.

 

Kauffman's mathematical model is based on the concept of "fitness landscapes" (originally introduced by Sewall Wright). A fitness landscape is a distribution of fitness values over the space of genotypes.

 

Evolution is the traversing of a fitness landscape. Peaks represent optimal fitness. Populations wander driven by mutation, selection and drift across the landscape in their search for peaks. It turns out that the best strategy for reaching the peaks occurs at the phase transition between order and disorder, or, again, at the edge of chaos. The same model applies to other biological phenomena and even nonbiological phenomena, and may therefore represent a universal law of nature.

 

Adaptive evolution can be represented as a local hill climbing search converging via fitter mutants toward some local or global optimum. Adaptive evolution occurs on rugged (multipeaked) fitness landscapes. The very structure of these landscapes implies that radiation and stasis are inherent features of adaptation. The Cambrian explosion and the Permian extinction (famous paradoxes of the fossil record) may be the natural consequences of inherent properties of rugged landscapes.

 

Kauffman also noted how complex (nonlinear dynamic) systems which interact with the external world classify and know their world through their attractors.

 

Kauffman's view of life can be summarized as follows: autocatalytic networks (networks that feed themselves) arise spontaneously; natural selection brings them to the edge of chaos; a genetic regulatory mechanism accounts for metabolism and growth; attractors lay the foundations for cognition. The requirements for order to emerge are far easier than traditionally assumed.

 

The main theme of Kauffman's research is the ubiquitous trend towards self-organization. This trend causes the appearance of "emergent properties" in complex systems. One such property is life.

 

There is order for free.

 

Far from equilibrium, systems organize themselves. The way they organize themselves is such that it creates systems at higher levels, which in turn tend to organize themselves. Atoms organize in molecules that organize in autocatalytic sets that organize in living organisms that organize in ecosystems.

 

The whole universe may be driven by a principle similar to autocatalysis. The universe may be nothing but a hierarchy of autocatalytic sets.

 

 

Autonomous Systems

 

The Chilean neurologist Francisco Varela has adapted Maturana's thought to the theory of autonomous systems, by merging the themes of autonomy of natural systems (i.e. internal regulation, as opposed to control) and their informational abilities (i.e., cognition) into the theme of a system possessing an identity and interacting with the rest of the world.

 

The organization of a system is the set of relations that define it as a unity. The structure of a system is the set of relations among its components. The organization of a system is independent of the properties of its components. A machine can be realized by many sets of components and relations among them. Homeostatic systems are systems that keep the values of their variables within a small range of values, i.e. whose organization makes all feedback internal to them.

 

An autopoietic system is a homeostatic system that continously generates its own organization (by continously producing components that are capable of reproducing the organization that created them). Autopoietic systems turn out to be autonomous, to have an identity, to be unities, and to compensate external perturbations with internal structural changes.

 

Living systems are autopoietic systems in the physical space.

 

The two main features of living systems follow from this: self-reproduction can only occur in autopoietic systems, and evolution is a direct consequence of self-reproduction.

 

Every autonomous system is organizationally closed (they are defined as a unity by their organization).

 

The structure constitutes the system and determines its behavior in the environment; therefore, information is a structural aspect, not a semantic one. There is no need for a representation of information. Information is "codependent". Mechanisms of information and mechanisms of identity are dual. The cognitive domain of an autonomous system is the domain of interaction that it can enter without loss of closure.

 

An autonomous unit always exhibits two aspects: it specifies the distinction between self and notself, and deals with its environment in a cognitive fashion.

 

The momentous conclusion that Varela reaches is that every autonomous system (ecosystems, societies, brains, conversations) is a "mind" (in the sense of cognitive processes).

[freeztar]

Thunderbird,

 

You *really* need to cite your sources. If you cannot give a web link, then at least give the simplest attribution possible, the Author's name and the name of the publication.

 

I appreciate your apparent enthusiasm on the subject of evolution, but in order to have a coherent discussion, we must pick a topic and collectively "chew on it". If you'd like to talk about the roles of genomes in evolution, or complex systems, then those would make for good threads by themselves.

[Thunderbird]

As a sculptor and left brain dominate this may be the reason I love these models so much. They speak to the beauty of nature and I find them inspiring. This is one of my favorite quotes on form and morphology. :phones:

 

 

 

Morphology is not only a study of material things and of the forms of material things, but has its dynamical aspect ... in terms of force, of the operations of energy. This is a great theme. Boltzmann, writing in 1886 on the second law of thermodynamics, declared that available energy was the main object at stake in the struggle for existence and the evolution of the world" D'Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form, 1917

..to (in)form buildings with thematic meaning, they must convey a gestalt, the whole must be more than the sum of the parts, and there must also be an ambiguity and paradox immanent within that gestalt, as a tension. (And quoting Heckscher on composition...) It is the taut composition which contains contrapuntal relationships, equal combinations, inflected fragments, and acknowledged duality's. It is the unity which maintains, but only just maintains, a control over the clashing elements which compose it. Chaos is very near, its nearness, but its avoidance, gives ...force" Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

[Buffy]

I've done a little bit of research on Periannan Senapathy's book "Independent Birth of Organisms" which is a self-published book, and it appears he has not been able to get it into any peer-reviewed journals.

 

The first review I found from Gert Korthof says in part:

Self-taught biologist Senapathy presents his extraordinary solution to one of the biggest problems in biology in an overconfident way and is unaware of quite a few biological facts which happen to cause deep trouble for his theory.

 

Now none of this means that he's not on to something, but it does mean that I take anything you're quoting from his work with a gigantic block of salt.

 

I've already pointed out some key problems with the approach, and if you're into "visualizing" while ignoring the details, I can assure you that some of the prettiest pictures have no relationship to reality!

 

You might want to read some of the criticism of his work before you put all your chips on his theory.

 

Certainly Chaos and Complexity theory talk about "convergence" and this is a validated and useful concept, but if you carry it too far, all you're doing in generating interesting plot points for a science fiction story.

 

We do like to talk about speculative stuff around here, but if you want to have a real discussion about it you're going to have to dive down into the details and deal with the objections that Freeztar and I have brought up above. Just printing more excerpts that are tenuously related and regarding that a response just makes us frustrated. You don't have to be a scientist to do any of this, but you do have to address the objections *in your own words*.

 

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth,

Buffy

[Thunderbird]

I have quoted many scientist that have the same veiw I have, but they are being dissmised, just as well I think I've reached a point of departure from this particular subject.

[Buffy]

I have quoted many scientist that have the same veiw I have, but they are being dissmised,

Actually, the only one you've brought up who makes statements that I question the veracity of is Periannan Senapathy, and that is because he's making claims that are directly contradicted by experimental data.

 

And as I've said above, the quotes from experts in Chaos and Complexity theorists I agree with, but I expressed the opinion that you're conflating their statements as supporting those of Mr. Senapathy, and that seems to me to be an unreasonable step.

just as well I think I've reached a point of departure from this particular subject.

That's too bad, because its at this point of finding the data and discussing what theories that that data supports in which science gets really interesting!

 

If "more established" scientific theories were never challenged by these kinds of "alternative theories" we'd have a lot less reason to think that any of them are true!

 

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer, :phones:

Buffy

[Thunderbird]

 

I can assure you that some of the prettiest pictures have no relationship to reality!

 

Buffy

 

 

Inspiration, and the ability to seek out the artistic beauty in the world, which is about order and symmetry seems to be an advantage to the scientific mind. Measuring, categorizing, and the such are central of course, but without the gift of insight of the artistic mind the road to understanding the universe becomes no more than a well worn path of the consensual herd. :eek_big:

 

Albert Einstein once said; " Knowledge is experience; anything else is just information".

[HydrogenBond]

I would like to return to morphology and energy. Genetics has a potential built into it. It is not straight forward, and measureable in a calorimeter. But this potential leads to a cascade affect that will define a growing lifeform.

 

Where this potential differs from most of nature, is it causes an increase in system energy potential. If one started with both a fertilized ovuum and a complete mature lifeform, and place them both in calorimeters, the mature lifeform will contain more energy. Most of nature moves toward lower energy, especially in an oxidizing environment, but the DNA makes it possible for life, to move toward higher energy.

 

If you look at the transition from cold blooded to warm blooded animals, the warm blooded animals burn more calories, pound for pound, i.e., time averaged. The earth is an oxidizing environment, such that storing potential energy within life, increased the potential with O2. The logical result of increased genetic potential was a higher metabolic potential to compensate for the O2. An analogy is trying to produce a high energy metal like sodium in an oxidizing environment. As its potential increases with the oxygen, the rate of reaction will continue to rise.

 

As far as morphology, evolving forms are indicative of improvements in genetic potential, increasing the ratio of potential increase to energy consumption, time average over all the cells. The brain is at the top of the list as far as energy consumption. Brain structures are at the highest potential and therefore creates the greatest potential with the earth's oxidation. This is the final push for the DNA's catalytic energy. The DNA is not heading toward highest calories stored or burnt, but toward the highest ratio of stored potential energy to consumption. These are your strong animals that are going to dominant their environment and breed. While any improvement that prolongs survival keeps the ratio going longer.

[freeztar]

...

 

As far as morphology, evolving forms are indicative of improvements in genetic potential, increasing the ratio of potential increase to energy consumption, time average over all the cells.

 

This is a vague statement.

 

The brain is at the top of the list as far as energy consumption. Brain structures are at the highest potential and therefore creates the greatest potential with the earth's oxidation. This is the final push for the DNA's catalytic energy.

 

Huh?

 

Final?

"DNA's energy"?

What exactly are you trying to say?

 

The DNA is not heading toward highest calories stored or burnt, but toward the highest ratio of stored potential energy to consumption. These are your strong animals that are going to dominant their environment and breed. While any improvement that prolongs survival keeps the ratio going longer.

 

The DNA is not "heading" anywhere, evolution is.

Whatever creates the best fitness is the "DNA decider". So this "ratio idea" of yours seems unscientific to me. Are you speculating or do you have a source for your ideas? Or a source to back up your ideas?

[Thunderbird]

If you look at the transition from cold blooded to warm blooded animals, the warm blooded animals burn more calories, pound for pound, i.e., time averaged. The earth is an oxidizing environment, such that storing potential energy within life, increased the potential with O2. The logical result of increased genetic potential was a higher metabolic potential to compensate for the O2. An analogy is trying to produce a high energy metal like sodium in an oxidizing environment. As its potential increases with the oxygen, the rate of reaction will continue to rise.

 

As far as morphology, evolving forms are indicative of improvements in genetic potential, increasing the ratio of potential increase to energy consumption, time average over all the cells. The brain is at the top of the list as far as energy consumption. Brain structures are at the highest potential and therefore creates the greatest potential with the earth's oxidation. This is the final push for the DNA's catalytic energy. The DNA is not heading toward highest calories stored or burnt, but toward the highest ratio of stored potential energy to consumption. These are your strong animals that are going to dominant their environment and breed. While any improvement that prolongs survival keeps the ratio going longer.

 

Great job Hydro:applause: this is one of those true measurements that are born from logic and intuition. I've been accused of seeing patterns in evolution that do not exist by those who to me seem myopic. Information like DNA can only be studied when we take into account trends, patterns and relationships. This is the paradigm shift from the mechanistic to the system view.

 

Energy is one true measuring device.

Thermodynamics is the study of the economics of these system, and I appreciate that you have pointed out for me that from a biological standpoint one of evolutions primary basins of attraction is not just the optimum physical form, but more precisely the most energetically advanced.

[freeztar]

Well, you know what they say about leading horses to water...

[Buffy]

I've been accused of seeing patterns in evolution that do not exist by those who to me seem myopic. Information like DNA can only be studied when we take into account trends, patterns and relationships. This is the paradigm shift from the mechanistic to the system view.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking for trends, patterns and relationships. The only thing I've pointed out is the simple dictum:

 

Correlation is not equivalent to Causation

/forums/images/smilies/banana_sign.gif

 

Something you seem to be insisting is not the case, and that is one of the most common *systemic* fallacies in science.

 

Now I'm not trying to inhibit your "freedom to innovate"--coming up with new potential theories is a great thing--but even staying solely at a higher systemic view, *ignoring* countervailing parts of the system often will lead you off on a wild goose chase unless you come up with at least a partial explanation of *why* you can ignore them.

 

In this particular case, you're pointing out that:

Energy is one true measuring device. Thermodynamics is the study of the economics of these system...

...which of course it is, but again you're ignoring the fact that the interaction with the environment almost completely governs the impact of that measurement.

 

Energy is indeed a huge morphological advantage, but the environment makes sure that we aren't all evolved to be hummingbirds! Obtaining energy is expensive and it becomes more so as bodies increase in size. Size is also a huge morphological advantage, but if there is not enough consumable energy, the organism must either decrease in size or lower their metabolic rate, and thus moving *away* from a local optimum emphasizing high energy.

 

Moreover, when the next Ice Age comes, high-energy life forms will all go extinct.

 

Are you really going to argue that the statement "high-energy morphologies are always superior" can be made while ignoring the "inconvenient" environmental issue?

 

Or am I merely being "mechanistic?" :eek2:

 

I absolutely agree with the notion that there are optimums, but ignoring *why* something appears optimal and insisting that because it appears optimal it will continue to be optimal in *all* situations, then you're not raising things "up a level," you're just creating a fallacious truism.

 

I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please, :)

Buffy

[Thunderbird]

 

Moreover, when the next Ice Age comes, high-energy life forms will all go extinct.

 

 

Buffy

 

Buffy, I think your missing the point Hydro brought up. High-energy is not the point, its energetically advanced or superior economics. Man can survive a cold climate because we have a large brain. The energy it uses can measured to the ratio of what it produces i.e. {central heating} as apposed to the energy it would take to say...... migrate.

[Thunderbird]

Let me be clear on the last post central heating as in home heating technology.

 

This was not said by Hydro but implied by his extrapolation.

[Buffy]

Buffy, I think your missing the point Hydro brought up. High-energy is not the point, its energetically advanced or superior economics.

No, just emphasizing a different aspect of high-energy that is intended as a counter-example. I apologize that that wasn't obvious: the point is that yes, there is a local optimum around investing energy in a brain, but there's a different optimum around simple high output.

 

My point being that its all about what you want. Many people like the high power-to-weight ratio of tweakers, but I like the off-the-line advantage of massive V8's. Which one is best? It depends on the track!

 

Now it sounds like you're actually agreeing with me:

Man can survive a cold climate because we have a large brain. The energy it uses can measured to the ratio of what it produces i.e. {central heating} as apposed to the energy it would take to say...... migrate.

There are two strategies that different morphologies would follow for survival. But where I disagree is in the *valuation* of "what it produces" and that "central heating" is inherently superior to "migration."

 

The basic argument you guys are making is that a brain is an inherently superior evolutionary development, But if so, wouldn't you expect to see it develop independently in other genera? Just doing a sampling of species, it would appear that evolution has decided that a small brain (sharks, cockroaches, birds) is a *more* successful adaptation because it does not waste energy on developing abstract thinking.

 

That we have found a local optimum with a very big brain is also not surprising, but its development was allowed by a very moderate environment that allowed it to develop initially as a very wasteful growth that consumed lots of energy and at least initially gave back very little, possibly *only* advantageous in its early stages as a heat reservoir!

 

As Eclogite asked in another thread, isn't this argument you're making Teleological? If not, why the persistent search for finality and absolutes free of all constraints?

 

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth, :eek2:

Buffy

[Thunderbird]

No, just emphasizing a different aspect of high-energy that is intended as a counter-example. I apologize that that wasn't obvious: the point is that yes, there is a local optimum around investing energy in a brain, but there's a different optimum around simple high output.

That's the point we just made!

My point being that its all about what you want. Many people like the high power-to-weight ratio of tweakers, but I like the off-the-line advantage of massive V8's. Which one is best? It depends on the track! Buffy

 

 

 

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Buffy, I think your missing the point Hydro brought up. High-energy is not the point, its energetically advanced or superior economics. Man can survive a cold climate because we have a large brain. The energy it uses can measured to the ratio of what it produces i.e. {central heating} as apposed to the energy it would take to say...... migrate.

 

 

 

Now it sounds like you're actually agreeing with me:Buffy

You did not advance anything of the sort, thermodynamics as a measuring device :eek2: it was hydro and I.

There are two strategies that different morphologies would follow for survival. But where I disagree is in the *valuation* of "what it produces" and that "central heating" is inherently superior to "migration." Buffy

OK thats silly:hihi:

 

The basic argument you guys are making is that a brain is an inherently superior evolutionary development, But if so, wouldn't you expect to see it develop independently in other genera? Just doing a sampling of species, it would appear that evolution has decided that a small brain (sharks, cockroaches, birds) is a *more* successful adaptation because it does not waste energy on developing abstract thinking.

 

I don't know, you ever see that movie with the genetically engineered smart shark pretty scary.:):

 

As Eclogite asked in another thread, isn't this argument you're making Teleological? If not, why the persistent search for finality and absolutes free of all constraints? Buffy

Yea he's attempting to test me in the ye ole your a creationist argument, boring:sleep2:

Buffy;

All physical laws have form, and while I'd argue they have no "purpose"--that starts to imply "intent" of a "creator" which is unnecessary to justify the way things are--they "function" in many ways, and those functions have implications for the exact properties that are observed in the Universe.

 

 

Thunderbird;"Purpose" "intent" "creator" is in quote's why? I have not used these words, and certainly not implying creationism. This is a dissusion on science

 

Buffy; why the persistent search for finality and absolutes free of all constraints?

I do not think your debating this subject fairly by stating skewed view points then attributing them to me. Please try not stating conclusions that are not mine, and please do not take credit for post made by me as agreeing with you. . Thank you.

is a *more* successful adaptation because it does not waste energy on developing abstract thinking. Buffy

Your make your point very well.

 

 

 

 

My point being that its all about what you want. Many people like the high power-to-weight ratio of tweakers, but I like the off-the-line advantage of massive V8's. Which one is best? It depends on the track! Buffy

Again you make my point, with global warming if we do not use our brains and switch to tweakers we may find ourselves on an energitic evolutionary Down trend.

[CraigD]

Man can survive a cold climate because we have a large brain. The energy it uses can measured to the ratio of what it produces i.e. {central heating} as apposed to the energy it would take to say...... migrate.

Let me be clear on the last post central heating as in home heating technology.

To be sure I understand your statements, I’ll paraphrase:

By allowing us to engineer – from artifacts as simple as wood-heated huts to ones as advanced as nuclear-electric centrally heated, insulated modern homes, as well as “high-intensity” agriculture - our brains allow us to obtain much more energy than they consume, or would need to spend in physical effort without these abilities.

Correct?

 

If so, I agree. I think it’s a conventional given that the tremendous success of humans – as measured by our population – is due to the artifact building, use, and management ability afforded us by our power-hungry (about 20 W, vs. about 100 W for the whole body) brains. This is such an entrenched idea that various folk have suggested that a better name for our species than Homo sapiens (litterally “man the knowing”) is Homo faber (“man the maker”) or something similar. This shift in perception of the distinction between humans and other animals appears to me to be increasingly pronounced as research indicates that many animals think, and know, as much or more, quantitatively, as humans, yet none (AFAIK) build even the most basic machines or use fire, few use even simple found tools, fewer still even slightly improve found tools. Our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, despite being found tool users, have effectively no inclination or ability to build the simplest shelters – let alone equip them with central heating.