Complexity…

Complexity theory is rather young. But in the short time it has been around, it has yielded a number of interesting parallels in respect to living systems. Like possibly modeling how cells differentiate during development. Or modeling how the initial stages of life on Earth may have developed.

Regarding cell differentiation, its interesting that the genetic information in the cells of a fetus are roughly identical, and yet cells specialize in different ways to form muscles, organs, bones, nerves, etc. So genetic information alone does not provide an explanation on how cells differentiate. Biologists conclude from this that it is different genes in each that are active, but how. Stuart Kauffman, a biologist and notable complexity aficionado, observed that cell differentiation is akin to "state cycles" within dynamical models.

What is a state cycle? Think of a formula that derives its next position from the previous position. At some point a new position will fall on a point in its past "trajectory". From then on the formula will recursively cycle back to this spot. In complexity theory, this is referred to as an "attractor" and the loop as a state cycle. Kauffman is simply inferring that the developing cells may be nudged from one attractor to another by an internal perturbation (agitation or disturbance) or a perturbation from a neighboring cell.

Regarding the initial stages of life, here Kauffman theorizes that catalytic molecular reactions in the "primordial soup" grew at a natural rate. At some point they reached critical mass, known in complexity terms as a "phase transition", and closure suddenly produced autocatalytic sets. An autocatalytic set, as definition would have it, is a collection of molecular reactions that are able to catalyze the sets own production (sound vaguely familiar, recall Autopoiesis).

To illustrate the point, Kauffman's book, At Home in the Universe, uses an analogy with 400 buttons and some thread. Visualize randomly connecting two buttons with thread, then randomly two more, and so on. At first, you're likely to thread fresh buttons. In time you'll add connections to a button. As you approach the ratio of 0.5 threads to buttons, the size of the connected cluster will reach a phase transition where a giant conglomeration will emerge if you were to pick up one of the buttons. Viewed as a graph, the cluster rarely grows at first as it’s unlikely a button is already threaded. It suddenly spikes at the phase transition. Then it levels off once again as new connections only marginally add to the conglomeration.

Kauffman excitedly proclaims "we the expected". Now you will probably see holes in the analogy. Kauffman addresses a few in the book. I didn't care to belabor the point here.

Actually, in the two examples what I found was surface complexity traded in for deep simplicity. It briefly made me think of a seed, which I once considered waiting for a wafting animating force, now just an autocatalytic state cycle. Leaching water and minerals kick off the animation.

And yet, the complexity with which these images can be manipulated within my little pea brain astounds me. In the end, I just feel more connected to everything else. Common principles, added complexity, different expression. More beauty in the world.

Emergence...

In comments a while back, I posed the question "Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?" Reading about "emergent properties" and complexity theories was a little too abstract for me to get my mind around. Then a simple analogy popped into mind.

Consider two individuals, each with a key to a safety deposit box...as usual the two distinct keys are required to open the box. Individually, their ability to open the box is zero. Each only has one key and two are needed. The sum of the parts then, of their individual abilities, is zero. Yet, if the two can connect with one another, the ability to open the box "emerges".

Now, expand that to many individuals, many connections. So often, life is approached as a zero sum game...with winners and losers. Survival of the fittest. However, a fresh look, considering emergence, alludes to a non-zero sum game as well. Perhaps this is why I find the source of novelty fascinating and look upon emergence as a perspective on that.

Aside, I like to explore the ecology of living systems. I have always enjoyed leaving the city behind and exploring woods, streams, fields, and lakes. There is something to interacting with nature, to connecting, relating, belonging. Veins and rivers. A system within a system.

Stress on the environment, on society, on ourselves, brings me back to emergence. My own deep stirrings are for a world that will never be the same. These are not necessarily good or bad. A portion of the world is simply being enacted within. Senses, intuitions, and emotions ebb and flow. What can I say...a new moment emerges.

Backtrack...

"I'm not hiccuping...it's hiccuping me". This was a child's response to a mother's command to stop hiccuping. I recalled this quip in reconsidering my position on free will.

Human beings are essentially storytellers. We observe an event and then consciousness comes up with a likely narrative to explain it. The illusion compels an aura of control, of truth.

Yet, I no longer doubt that consciousness is a stage, an adaptive feedback stage, upon which life is more or less played out. It is just part and parcel of a whole that features recursive dialogues with everything else such that it is impossible to determine ultimate causes of behavior.

I clearly have causal power, the typed characters of this blog entry can attest to that. However this may not come from some mysterious will, but from the complex and dynamic relationship that occurs between systems within systems, between my internal world and the external world. It is proximate cause. Sound enough to hang responsibility on, for ultimate cause extends back ad infinitum and possibly disappears all together.

So, things may be deterministic at the design level. But, we operate at the physical level. Minus a "departure" point, true oneness (if it exists) has a more solid footing. Compassion has a mirror. And, lest I become despondent, emergence sets up on the horizon.

Autonomy...

My thoughts are scattered. So much to say and yet so little. So much in the sense that I enjoy dialogue. So little in the sense that I hold other's untarnished experiences dear.

Where will this baffling conscious experience of "energy" lead? Physicists like Eugene Wigner recognized consciousness as an essential aspect of future theories of matter. Yet to comply, physics will have to contend with its entrenchment in mathematical precision. So, I set physics aside.

Our appearance of independence is deceiving. There shouldn't be any doubt how interconnected we all are. We have the autonomy to exert cause, but not to determine effect. That right lies with each perspective. In this regard, others can be looked upon as coaches, even still mirrors. Hope would have it that they are a guiding rather than interfering influence. Yet, we are the true player on the field of our "inner world". The whole offers possibilities, causes. Each part chooses effect.

With the rapid spread of ideas, cultural evolution has greatly sped up the rate of change within the environment. As self-organizing systems we are bombarded with the stress. How true is the maxim that the ideas that got us here may not be the ones to keep us here?

For me, I see the need to take another look and make choices that contribute to the well being of the life system as a whole. To develop a natural sense of connectedness to the whole of life.

Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela while forming their thoughts around autopoietic systems recognized the role of structural coupling. Structural coupling is the term for the structure-determining engagement of a given system with either its environment or another system. Such a coupling fosters the unpredictable nature of living systems that I contend extends down to the level of quantum awareness and therefore reject simplified deterministic cause and effect.

So the question becomes sustainability. As Lester Brown observed "A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations." It is unfortunate how, over time, society as a whole has lost its roots in a diverse natural living world. Obviously, that's subjective of one who rejects the notion of a separate identity with the goal of dominating and subduing the environment.

We are not separate from our environment or anything else for that matter. We are simply a unique strand in the web of life. We are all embedded in, and ultimately dependent upon, the cyclical processes of our very nature. Multiple manifestations of an inherent unity.

Projected enough. Time to step back and listen again.