Meaning...

The world is alive, searching for meaning.  In doing so, meaning evolves.  For it is not something you find.  It is something you create.

Paradox...

Without reducing matter to mind or mind to matter, consider that these are two sides of a single polarity. The dynamics generate a paradox, the very heart of dialectics.

When acting as awareness, this "energy gestalt" is at the receiving end of an information exchange. Tapping its rich environment, which at the moment is operating at the other end of the spectrum. The more complex the feedback mechanism the more advanced the life form it supports.

Identity morphs as its perceived form is reflected back. The genesis of in-form-ation.

Everything, of one nature, inseparable, though distinct.

Clinging to a consistent identity is fleeting. Attempts to apprehend this fluid reality leads only to contradiction. How often has history proven this, both individually and collectively?

Dialectic Suchness...

Dialectics; the cyclic exchange of arguments and counter-arguments. Could this be ingrained in the fabric of the universe? Like the "anomaly" that was in "The Matrix" movies. Is this why various arguments for the nature of reality never seem to find an adequate toehold? Whether those arguments are for subjectivity or objectivity, free will or determinism, theism or atheism, and on, and on.

We subsequently are left with an eternal interaction flowing on no fixed frame of reference. Becomings, not things. Unity hidden in apparent duality. Not opposites, more a polarity, transitive.

What manifests is constantly being transformed by this very nature. Not matter nor mind. Neither this, nor that, nor neither, nor both. Just so. Suchness.

Subjective Universe...

Since the early 20th century, the scientific view has been that we live in a subjective universe. Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity back then when experimental evidence showed that the speed of light remained constant as the Earth moved.

Einstein's theory posited that all observers will measure the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second, regardless of their speed or their direction. In order for this to hold, the measurement of time must not be objective in its own right; but subjective.

This point was proven later by two atomic clocks. The most accurate time devices available. When one is left stationary and the other speeding around the world, a discrepancy will arise. If time were objective, they would be the same. But time passes slower the faster one goes through Einstein's space-time...even though an observer of either clock would not have noticed it.

A subjective universe. No God's objective view. Perhaps. But this can be a very powerful enabler. You, along with everything else, are subjectively weaving the tapestry. It's a reflection of us all. The maxims "think globally, act locally" and "do unto others as you'd have done unto you" apply with added veracity.

Artificial...

A team of US scientists has taken the next step in synthetically reproducing the blueprint of life, DNA. The effort has involved five years of research in perfecting new methods and techniques. The team at the J. Craig Venter Institute envisions potential remedies for illness and global warming. This is considered the second step in a three-step process to create a synthetic organism. The final stage will attempt to create a form of bacteria based purely on the synthetic genome. Initially, the nucleonic material will be placed in an established cell.

Whereas the human genome has some 30,000 genes, the scientists are targeting a synthetic sequence of just 580 genes. Yet if autopoietic processes can be established our notions on life may have to adapt. The tag will be "artificial life". But just what is artificial? Artificial vs. Spontaneous. Shaped vs. Created.

Helen Wallace, a spokesperson for GeneWatch UK, while acknowledging the technical feat, noted we are some way away from artificial life. Yet what remains is a type of genetic engineering that has the potential in the future to allow humans to make much bigger genetic changes.

Novelty...

Wherein lies the source of novelty?

It is the source of novelty asking the question.

Oneself...

The self has many senses,

and yet it is still considered oneself.

As It Is...

All is as it is.

There is inherent wisdom as it is.

Reflection…

An essence of you is expressing through everything.

And an essence of everything is novelly expressing through you.

Symbiosis...

Life on Earth is said by science to have begun some 3.5 billion years ago. During those initial years, bacteria continually transformed the Earth's surface and atmosphere, its temperature and chemical composition. In the process, life's essential facilities of respiration, photosynthesis, motion, and fermentation became established.

Remarkably, in spite of an estimated 25% increase in the Sun's heat over the years, the Earth's surface temperature has remained hospitable for life. Through subtle cooperation, the various lines of bacterial life prevailed. The global trading of their genes (DNA recombination) is said to have arisen. This is one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology.

Moreover, it was discovered only recently that the mitochondria within cells carry their own genetic material. They replicate independent of the host cell. Lynn Margulis gradual came to realize that "unruly genes" such as these were, in fact, distinct living organisms that could be traced back to bacterial forefathers. Talk about recycling! The waste of one cell constituent became the food for another. The cell on the whole generally without waste.

So one can see the driving force in evolution shifting to co-evolution. The drama proceeds through a subtle interplay of competition and cooperation, creation and mutual adaptation.

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.

Pattern of Life...

While I was away, Paul Martin of Original Faith noted that some blogs make us think. I think perception is the driving force behind life. We have senses, emotions, and intuitions for a reason. We interpret them to maintain our own stability, our continuity in fact. We also know what we like and try to manifest a world around us to our liking.

The very pattern of absorbing and assimilating changes, or more obtusely disturbances, is the essence of our very growth. What would life be without novelty? The fascinating emergence of new arrangements and new forms of behavior are integrally entwined with self-organizing systems in response mode.

There is great fluidity and flexibility in autopoietic systems comprised of many networked components. Their distributive makeup allows them to be resilient. Individual components selectively respond to disturbances and pattern their activity accordingly. The system as a whole develops its own ability for reaching homeostasis. Diversity in the components is viewed as a strength.

For instance, a diverse ecosystem will be resilient because it contains many species with overlapping ecological functions that can partially replace one another. Even when a particular species is destroyed by a catastrophe so that a link in the network is broken, a diverse community will be able to survive and reorganize itself, because other links in the network can at least partially fulfill the function of the destroyed species.

Yet the overall balance is key. Every species has a runaway tendency and therefore the potential of undergoing an exponential population growth when not kept in check by various balancing interactions within the system. Exponential runaways will appear only when the ecosystem is severely disturbed. What ensues we label "weeds" or "pests". In the human body we label it "cancer". The whole system becomes threatened.

On a planetary basis, there has been a striking pattern in the repeated occurrence of catastrophes followed by intense periods of growth and innovation. Plants may owe photosynthesis to atmospheric hydrogen depletion. Animals may owe breathing to to an oxygen crisis and resulting bacterial response.

The configuration of relationships within a system is also important.

As humans we know little about ecosystems. Anthropocentric, we have a great propensity to disrupt them. Scarily, we have little understanding towards restoring their balance. Our eyes may be cast on the growth and innovation that will follow. Yet lacking true foresight, the diversified niche that has our back may be on the casualty list.

I think Aldo Leopold put it well...

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it does otherwise."

So, I'll be the one you'll find planting trees this weekend.

Unplug...

Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Or, in my case, friends don't let friends get wrapped in science. A birthday card said: “None of the scientific states of matter apply to love; and yet, nothing matters more.” I liked the play on the word matter. I like the wisdom better.

We don't need philosophy to tell us its important to be good. However you define that. We don't need science to tell us diversity is good, so is sustainability, recycling, and harmony. Science is not needed to make these credible. No, my friends can tell me that.

So, I’m gonna take the red pill (in Matrix parlance) and unplug.

Characteristics...

There are three principle characteristics that sum up an autopoietic system. First, they exhibit self-organization in the spontaneous emergence of new structure and behavior. Next, they demonstrate adaptation via internal feedback loops. And finally, their affairs can only be described mathematically by non-linear equations.

A magnificent example of an autopoietic system is the biological cell. Given that, I highly recommend the illustrated guide The Way Life Works by Mahlon Hoagland and Bert Dodson. You will not walk away feeling insignificant as some science elicits.

A subtle but important point in the definition of autopoiesis is that an autopoietic network is not a set of fixed relations among static components, like the development of a crystal. Rather it is a set of relations among processes of production. This production continually regenerates its very self in maintaining a stable organization. If the processes stop, so does the organization.

Mathematically, autopoietic systems operate on the "edge of chaos" as envisioned in non-linear dynamics of Chaos Theory. This is far from the entropic equilibrium of linear thermodynamics. In fact, the autopoietic network is constantly drawing from the external environment to maintain its organizational stability. This distinction is fascinating in its own right, considering equilibrium and stability are commonly equated with one another.

The non-linear connections are checked by internal feedback loops across processes. Without this balancing effect, exponential runaways would ensue, threatening the whole.

I've been frustrated in the past with finding "purpose". I kinda chuckle now. Purpose to me appears to be its own adaptive feedback loop, defying a cast answer. “Being” is a more practical focus, while purpose divines its way.

Autopoiesis...

This was said of autopoiesis. I can only smile, he said upon return...

"When the flow of energy and matter though them increases, they may go through new instabilities and transform themselves into new structures of increased complexity."

Fritof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), p. 89

Autopoiesis ("self-making") refers to the characteristic of "living" systems to continuously renew themselves and to self-regulate this process in such a way that the integrity of their constitution is stable. All components of an autopoietic network are produced by other components in the network. In this, the entire system is organizationally closed, yet open with regard to the flow of energy and supplies. Whereas a mechanical device is geared to the output of a separate product, the product of a autopoietic system is simply itself.

The concept of autopoiesis views organisms as active agents within the framework of evolutionary change and not just passive effects of natural selection. Case in point...the metabolism of a living cell combines order and activity in a way that defies description by mechanistic science. It involves thousands of chemical reactions, all taking place simultaneously to transform the cell's nutrients, synthesize it basic structures, and eliminate its waste products. Metabolism is a continual, complex, and highly organized activity.

Of this, the clockwork world of the eighteenth century, and the linear world for the nineteenth and early 20th century is refreshingly opening to the non-linear and adaptive dynamics of natural systems.

Systems Theory...

Within the many domains of science lies a theory that I am particularly drawn to. You see, I have a strong background in systems thinking; building upon connectedness, relationships, and context, albeit with technology. To that end, I work off a generalist's knowledge of building blocks, but focus more on integration and principles of organization.

In fact, the root of the word 'system' is derived from the Greek synhistanai, meaning "to place together".

Systems theory itself is a multi-disciplinary scientific study whose goal is to derive and formulate principles that may have different ancestry, but have some degree of commonality to many fields of scientific inquiry.

The basis of this rides heavily on the view that all phenomena manifest as a web of interrelated elements, forming systems. Also, that these systems, whether electrical, chemical, biological, technical, or social, demonstrate patterns, behaviors, or properties that offer insight into complex phenomena. Ultimately advancing on a unified perspective.

Whereas science's assertive nature is expansive, competitive, quantitative, and dominating, the systems side of the house is more integrative and tends towards conservation, cooperation, quality, and networking.

Systems theory is the genesis of Autopoiesis, which I had not heard of until recently, but found intriguing enough that I wanted to give it a bit of exposure here.

But then...reality set in.

Yes, what an interesting dynamic our lives would be if they physically do interpenetrate one another. Yes, fantasizing about this dynamic lifts my spirits and adds significance to experiencing and to reaching out to others. Yes, sometimes it is just to listen to them in quiet reflection. Always, to see a bit of oneself in others. Oftentimes something that could not be fully anticipated. Yes, but then there's reality.

I didn't anticipate needing a break, but I do.

Composition...

I don't know if it happens to everyone, but there was a period of time when I inquired into the composition of God. Perhaps "spirit" is a better term, because in a round-about way this applies to we spiritual beings as well. Even still, a quantum aware whole.

Anyway, for God to exist in its own right, the minimal list of attributes that came to me were "self-reflecting", "self-referencing", "self-organizing", and "self-replicating".
Ahh the mind of a systems nut.

Self-reflecting, because being One, it had to be able to perceive itself.
Self-referencing, because it had to keep track of its focus within the history of its self-reflection.
Self-organizing, because it had to arrange these affairs to effect context and meaning.
Self-replicating, because, well, I exist, and though being a part of God, I wouldn't describe myself as being God. So, somehow, an expression of God produced me.

Continuing from that, I recognized myself as an open-system, dependent on the environment outside myself. Yet that is not true of God, so I found novelty fascinating. I imagined God as a closed-system, being One that is. So how did novelty ever arise? Wouldn't God get rather bored? So, in addition, I posited the attribute I label "self-perturbation". Something had to upset the apple cart. Undoubtedly, not a flattering label, but that is what I came up with. Googling it, I see it has been used elsewhere, so a patent isn't pending on my part. Damn.

Of this exercise, I came to realize the essence of life was experiencing. And so, from that point on, I've always admired my experiences, the good and the bad, because, to me, they were the spice of life.

There is a scientific theory called "Autopoiesis" that I am going to spend a little time with. Science is coming to understand one of these attributes, self-organization. To treat life as a science to some threatens its very essence. What informs the senses of one is lost on others. Such is the nature of life.