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Author Topic:   THE SIMPLICITY OF THE COMPLEX SYSTEMS - essay about origin of Life
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 1 of 29 (394948)
04-14-2007 6:55 AM


Originally I plan to post an essay about Origin of Life in which: "...the widely accepted paradigm that "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" is challenged. It is argued that no system properties emerge, but a cumulative effect and interaction in the system just reveals the part’s hidden properties that cause a perception of Emergence phenomena. A system acts as a “litmus paper” and a “magnifying glass” that just reveal the element’s properties not observable otherwise.
Based on this approach, the explanation of the living system phenomenon is proposed that Consciousness is the fundamental property of Matter that is just not observable in the non-living systems. Consciousness property of subatomic Matter is not recognized by fundamentally incomplete quantum mechanics theory. Consciousness property of Matter also is not observable in the thermodynamically equilibrium systems. However if a system steered far enough from an equilibrium and past a critical point, a non-equilibrium system will emerge. The further development of these systems in the direction out from equilibrium will reveal the property that causes the phenomenon we call - LIFE".
However, Administrator suggested that I should narrow my discussion, so I extracted from this essay the introduction section:"IS WHOLE MORE THAN SUM OF ITS PARTS?" that is presented below. If you want to read this essay, you may find it at http://www.iscid.org/...rs/Iosim_ComplexSystemSimplicity.pdf
IS WHOLE MORE THAN SUM OF ITS PARTS?
I have always been intrigued by the fact that such a mysteriously complex system, as a living cell, consists of components - organelles and macromolecules - which behavior have been routinely explained in term of chemistry and physics. My curiosity eventually led me to a hypothesis about emergence of Life, but unfortunately, this hypothesis undermines the widely accepted Holistic paradigm often referred as "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." In this discussion I would like to explain why I have problem with this paradigm.
There are two major radically different approaches to explain living systems - Reductionism and Holism.
According to Reductionism, all properties and the complexity of the system could be derived from studying its parts and their interactions. Reductionism accepts that in many cases it was not currently possible for science to make such deduction and predictions - this shortcoming is a reflection of the state of the art in science. For example, it took thousands of years to reduce the enormous variety and complexity of motions and dynamics around us, to the simple Newtonian mechanics.
During the first half of the 20th century the shift in paradigm occurred. Reductionism, as was concluded, is a limited methodological tool applicable to the simple systems only, but to solve the complex phenomena, like Life, the new Holistic approach is more adequate. Holism declares that the essential properties of a system as a whole could not be explained using properties of its elements, because "The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” According to this paradigm, some systems, especially Biological, are so COMPLEX that their behavior are EMERGENT and cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone.
British emergentists of the late-nineteenth century worked out a comprehensive emergentist picture using classical examples from basic chemistry: “When chemical ingredients are mixed together the resultant compounds (Whole) has a property that cannot be found in the original ingredients”. However the underlying chemical reactions in these examples are completely reducible to basic chemistry and physics and nothing unexplained emerges in this case. So, why an explanation of chemical reactions need an Emergence semantic is a mystery to me. Emergence, as scientific category, in my opinion, is appropriate only to designate unexpected and unexplained phenomenon of the system development. However, after being explained, this phenomenon should loose status of Emergence.
Within Holism, Emergence is treated as an objective scientific category, and numerous but unsuccessful attempts were made to scientifically define and even measure it. However, as I see it, Emergence is just a reflection of a subjective human perception. For example, if we ask habitants of some town, that had undergone a significant transformation, to describe these changes, the description depends on whom you ask: one who just came back after being absent many years will describe the changes in term of sudden transformation and emergence, but one who lives there all the time will describe it in term of gradual development.
I have a similar problem with the enormously popular science of Complex Systems that also treats Complexity as an objective and measurable category. For a long time, the numerous attempts to define Complexity were made, but without noticeable result. As with Emergence, the main problem with Complexity is its subjectivity, because it reflects our insufficient knowledge and inability to comprehend observed phenomena or a problem. Therefore Complexity should not be used as an absolute scientific category, but relative to observer only. For example, what is more complex: to build a house, surgically remove an appendix, or solve a linear differential equation? The answer depends on whom you ask - Carpenter, Surgeon, or Mathematician.
My growing suspicion of Holism led me to reexamine evidences supporting this paradigm. However instead of credible evidences, I found the numerous examples that just demonstrate a lack of critical thinking.
For example, according to Holism, “Emergence is associated with dynamic systems whose behavior cannot be predicted from knowledge about the parts IN ISOLATION.” However, it is important to understand that an ISOLATED part will not exhibit any properties at all. When we refer to an experiment on an isolated part, it is actually not isolated. Instead, the part is placed in the controlled environment and is subjected to specific interaction that reveals the property specific to this interaction. A problem arises when the part has a property we do not know about, so we never intentionally subject the part to specific interaction that could reveal this property. If within a natural system this part participates in an interaction that reveals this property, we often claim that this system exhibits new properties emergence.
A good example that demonstrates the properties that are observable only during interaction is electrical charge. We know that an electron possesses an electrical charge, but we cannot observe this property unless the electron interacts with another charged particle. We do not declare that the charge property of the electron emerges during interaction with another charged particle. Instead we know that the electron always posses the charge (whether we observe it or not) and reveals this property only while interacting with another charged particle.
There is, however, a unique case, where the system property indeed could not be predicted from examining its part - this case is the Universal Gravity phenomenon. The gravitational force is the property of elementary particles but it cannot be directly observed, because it is extremely small: for an electron it is equal to 10E-39 of electrical forces. However, this property being accumulated into the macro system starts to play a dominant role in Space. I think that the gravitation force of a macro system could be the best evidence in favor of Emergence phenomenon, and the systems theorists loose their best opportunity by not including it in the foundation of the system theory. Putting aside an irony, the lesson of this example is that by describing properties of a system through the properties of its parts, it is critical to not overlook a property having a very low level of intensity. In general, we never should claim complete knowledge of a part, because we cannot subject it to all possible experimental conditions or observe it in all natural systems.
Another typical “evidence” that laid a foundation of the Emergence paradigm I found in the book “The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems” by Capra Fritjof. The following segment was used to illustrate this concept: “The taste of sugar as a system phenomena could not be found in the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms that constitute sugar components." In this example the whole was limited to sugar only and the very crucial element of the system is missing - SOMEONE who tastes the sugar and constitutes the sugar taste property.
The majority of examples, the system approach based on, omits the invisible SOMEONE who designed, tests, observes or designates the processes. Without this SOMEONE, the system properties as taste of sugar would not exist at all. Omitting the creator or user of the system is the far most common mistake in the system approach. For example, a complex computer is built of the simple semiconductor components and it seems that the “computational intelligence” of the computer is a new emerging phenomenon, because it cannot be found in its parts. However, the complexity of the computer is also due to Property (complexity) of HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, which was not seen while we were observing the computer. This HUMAN INTELLIGENCE is also one of the system’s component and his/her properties determine the Complexity of the semiconductor components, the complex wiring of logic components, and sophisticated algorithms. In other word, there are no emerging properties in this example and the properties of a computer (Whole) could be reduced to the properties of its elements that include the creators of this computer.
It seems that irresistible attractiveness of the Holistic paradigm causes many reducible to underlining rules phenomena, like Cellular Automaton (CA), to be included into the list of Irreducibly Complex and Emergence phenomena. It is often claimed that CA exhibits symptoms of Emergence phenomenon, because CA may generate a complex, unpredictable pattern that cannot be determined without performing actual computations. If this type of unpredictability is a symptom of Emergence phenomena, any natural number A, resulted from B + C, also belongs to emergence phenomenon, because A is unpredictable without performing an actual calculation!!! While observing the complex pattern of CA, it is important to remember that it results not of a simple rule only, but of applying a very complex tool also - a computer (or human intelligence, if modeling/calculation is performed manually) to reveal the result. Therefore, the complexity of the observable pattern includes also a complexity of a computational process and eventually a human intelligence, not visible while we observe the CA pattern.
Another classic example of Emergence phenomenon is an ant colony. “Despite the limited repertoire of the individual agents - the ants - the colony exhibits a remarkable flexibility in probing and exploiting its surroundings. Somehow the simple laws of the agents generate an emergent behavior far beyond their individual capacities”.
My problem with this example is - what do we know about ant’s individual capacity? What was done to reveal ant’s complexity? Did we examine an assumption that complexity of ant colony is due to accumulated complexity of the individual ants, the same way as the enormous sophistication of the Human civilization is due to a limited intelligence of Human-Beings. By the way, a Human would hardly demonstrate any intelligence, if He or She would be studied and treated the same way as we study bugs in a jar. To reveal an intelligence of any creature we need to create a special circumstance - an intelligent type of interaction that occurs in the social system.
The phenomenon of self-organizing bifurcation dissipative systems and their spatial resemblance with living systems challenges our imagination. These phenomena are widely used as an example of Irreducible Complexity and Emergence. These systems are studied very extensively, however regardless Holistic terminology, these phenomena have being explained (reduced) to the underlying processes of chemistry of non-linear thermodynamics.
I am challenging the Holistic paradigm, not only because of lack of compelling evidences. My biggest concern is that this paradigm, if incorrect, will focus Life sciences in the wrong direction delaying the answer to the ultimate question - What is Life? Over the past hundred of years, holistic approach has produced a large body of theories; however, I did not notice its impact into understanding a living system phenomenon. Instead Holism fills a void between Dead Mater and Life with a metaphysical concept of Emergence and vague terminology.
To summarize my main point I am concluding that: No new system properties emerge, but interactions in the system just reveal the part’s hidden properties. A system acts as a “magnifying glass” and a “litmus paper” that reveals properties of the parts not observable otherwise. This means that a nature of complex things could be reduced* to the nature of sums of simpler or more fundamental things and therefore a WHOLE IS EQUAL TO THE SUM OF ITS PARTS.
*Do not mix it up with the narrow interpretation of Reductionism that reduces to the well KNOWN laws of the Physics and Chemistry”. I will return to this point in future discussions.
Mark Iosim
P.S. I know that I am a lousy communicator, and not only because English is my second language. If you find some questionable words or expressions that make my point unclear, please let me know.
Edited by miosim, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by MartinV, posted 04-14-2007 8:19 AM miosim has replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 4 of 29 (394957)
04-14-2007 10:00 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by MartinV
04-14-2007 8:19 AM


IS THE WHOLE MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS?
Quote:
“I don't know what a progress physics made last years but according Einstein's relativity we were unable to distiguish gravity force from force due acceleration. So I think gravity is not good example considering the fact that grativity constant can probably change during time (according Dirac and some other nowadays scientists too).”
It is possible that my example of gravity property is not up to date with modern physics. I probably oversimplified it to demonstrate the simple case when a property of part could not be observed, but in the system this properties, being accumulated, became observable. Could you help me to revise this example to be more up to date or may be you know other similar and simple example?
Quote:
“Anyway in time being I am convinced that studying lower levels (reductionism) did not help in biology to underestand higher ones. . studying what is behind scene/stage doesn't help us to underestand what is Shakspeare play about either. Studying genome sequences do not explain mimicry patterns on wings - their meaning, their evolution etc ...”
Reductionism you are referring to, is what I call a narrow interpretation of Reductionism where we attempt to reduce a system property to the SUPPOSE to be WELL KNOWN properties of elements or underlaying mechanisms. However, if we admit that everything we know today about Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is fundamentally incomplete, we would understand why reduction approach is failing to explain a gap between dead Matter and Life or between Molecular Biology and Evolution.
Actually, my post is nothing to do with subject of Evolution and was posted here by mistake. Instead it should belong to ORIGINAL OF LIFE section; I am trying to fix it, by negotiating with Administrator.
Originally I plan to post an essay about Origin of Life (that may answer some of your concerns), but Administrator suggested that I should narrow my discussion. As a result, I extracted from this essay the introduction section that just demonstrates existing System approach may lead Life Sciences into wrong direction.
If you want to read this essay you may find it at http://www.iscid.org/...rs/Iosim_ComplexSystemSimplicity.pdf
Mark
P.S. I am a new member and still learning. I haven’t yet figure out how to enclose a quote into a Box, as you did.
Edited by miosim, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by MartinV, posted 04-14-2007 8:19 AM MartinV has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Brad McFall, posted 04-14-2007 10:23 AM miosim has replied
 Message 7 by MartinV, posted 04-14-2007 11:49 AM miosim has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 6 of 29 (394960)
04-14-2007 11:02 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Brad McFall
04-14-2007 10:23 AM


Re: Regarding your PS
...................Thank you Brad.............................

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 Message 5 by Brad McFall, posted 04-14-2007 10:23 AM Brad McFall has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 18 of 29 (399475)
05-05-2007 8:59 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by 42
04-27-2007 9:43 AM


42,
Sorry for a late respond. I didn’t realize that this thread is still “alive”.
I expect you've read far beyond introductory chaos theory but "Deep Simplicity" by John Gribbin is quite an inspiring read.
I am not expert in the chaos theory and will try to read recommended by you book.
Since any system made of more simple systems requires integration/coordination of those smaller systems, this integration in space time and function is of itself not a part: hence more than parts is required. I'm probably missing the point.
The “ . integration/coordination of those smaller systems . ” (another word interaction among elements) are due to the properties of this elements and not to additional "ingredients" in the system. However if we decide to treat the element's properties that are revealed in the system during interaction, as additional "ingredients" we may state that "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" and this is fine with me.
However the criticized in my essay paradigm, is actually not about “whole and sum of its parts”, but that the ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES OF A SYSTEM, AS A WHOLE COULD NOT BE EXPLAINED USING PROPERTIES OF ITS ELEMENTS - and this is what I challenge.
Indeed, the system often reveals a property that wasn’t observable in isolated elements. But it is critical to understand that properties of elements may not be observable in isolation, but in the system only. The interactions in the system just reveal the part’s hidden properties. A system acts as a “litmus paper” and a “magnifying glass” that let us observe properties of the parts that are not observable otherwise.
The most important is a practical implication of the proposed methodological (reductionist) approach: if a system reveals the properties, which can not be reduced to the known element's properties, it means that some element's properties are hidden and ADDITIONAL EFFORTS to discover them are necessary. The Holistic methodology, in this case, directs to search some sorts of organizational principles to explain the system phenomenon.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by 42, posted 04-27-2007 9:43 AM 42 has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 19 of 29 (399486)
05-05-2007 10:29 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by MartinV
04-27-2007 7:19 PM


Martin,
Sorry for late respond. I relied on e-mail notification, but now I learned a lesson.
That reminds me of the pillar of the marxistic teaching of (somehow very mysterious) "change of quantity into quality". This was probably Hegel concept anyway.
I am originally from Kiev (emigrated in 1990), so I am familiar with Hegel concept "change of Hegel into quality". Hegel, as I remember, regarded this principle as a starting point in investigating of, what we call today an “Emergent” system phenomenon. However, he pointed, that as we progress in understanding of this phenomena qualitative description must be replaced by quantitative one.
. marxists-structuralist . from around 1980 denying from materialistic point of view even the 2nd law in living organisms .
As I remember, the official teaching of that time was that there is no contradiction between 2nd law and living system, as long as a system is open.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by MartinV, posted 04-27-2007 7:19 PM MartinV has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 20 of 29 (399496)
05-06-2007 12:14 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by Fosdick
04-27-2007 7:33 PM


Re: whole>parts
Hoot Mon
General question relevant to the OP: Is water more than oxygen and hydrogen?
By responding to “42” I just realized what causes confusion about this paradigm. Its description "THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS" reflects a linguistic properties of human perception, as follow:
System = elements + interactions*.
However, this description is differ from this paradigm's actual meaning - “A WHOLE COULD NOT BE EXPLAINED USING PROPERTIES OF ITS ELEMENTS”
Therefore I may answer to your question as follow: Yes, water, as a human perception, is more than oxygen and hydrogen, but in the same time all property of water are reducible to properties of oxygen and hydrogen.
I think, that we should divorce meaning of this Holistic paradigm from its causing confusion “propagandistic” description.
*In my description: System = interacting_elements.
Edited by miosim, : Formating
Edited by miosim, : No reason given.

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 Message 12 by Fosdick, posted 04-27-2007 7:33 PM Fosdick has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Brad McFall, posted 05-06-2007 12:14 PM miosim has replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 22 of 29 (399606)
05-06-2007 10:57 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Brad McFall
05-06-2007 12:14 PM


Re: if whole>parts
If the water is biological or biology is the object of the question then blaming a sound aspect of human physiology as receiving a system among some sum of "elements" and interactions rather than your preferred sum of intractability seems to affect a conflation of any "increase" in forms vs "increase" in size IF both genes and atoms are considered material therefore.
I cannot intellectualize, like you do, and prefer to keep communication as simple as possible to avoid misunderstanding.
What I am trying to say that the actual meaning of the Holistic paradigm -“A WHOLE COULD NOT BE EXPLAINED USING PROPERTIES OF ITS ELEMENTS” is not the same as its clever (but distorted) popular interpretation - “THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS". Therefore this interpretation should not be used to perform an analysis of system phenomena.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Brad McFall, posted 05-06-2007 12:14 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by Brad McFall, posted 05-07-2007 7:08 AM miosim has replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 24 of 29 (399699)
05-07-2007 1:29 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Brad McFall
05-07-2007 7:08 AM


Re: if whole>parts
Brad,
When you wrote “A WHOLE COULD NOT BE EXPLAINED USING PROPERTIES OF ITS ELEMENTS”" can the would "can" replace "could"? . When you use the word "could" I do not know if you are referring to anything I wrote or if it meant to be associated with your other sentence
I think I can. When I used “could” instead of “can’ I didn’t expect any deep meaning in this usage. I just followed my intuition about what correct grammar should be in this case. I didn’t referred to anything you wrote - can you explain what is the diference between COULD and CAN in this particular case. Please, direct me to your previous posting, were you used it.
The same grammatical structure (COULD) was used in the following statement from http://www.complexsystems.org/...ications/pdf/emergence3.pdf
“ . The basic claim of emergent evolutionists that wholes had irreducible properties that COULD NOT BE fully understood or predicted by examining the parts alone . ”
(By the way, I like this article and even agree with cited above Holistic statement, because “by examining the parts alone” we cannot learn their properties that are critical to understand a system phenomenon.)
Are you a logical positivist? . Are you familiar with Gold's ideas in linguistics . ?
I have no idea what is a "logical positivist" and I am not familiar with Gold's ideas in linguistics. I have to admit that I have a limited knowledge in many areas, and especially in philosophy. Looks like I need to spend some time to overcome some gaps in my education. I will be back on all of these including the link to Wolfram, when I done.
Thank you for opportunity to learn
Mark
Edited by miosim, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Brad McFall, posted 05-07-2007 7:08 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Brad McFall, posted 05-07-2007 7:54 PM miosim has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 26 of 29 (399764)
05-07-2007 9:35 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Fosdick
04-27-2007 7:33 PM


Re: whole>parts
Hoot Mon
General question relevant to the OP: Is water more than oxygen and hydrogen?
I responded already to this question (Message 20), but I would like to revisit it, because this is a very typical rhetorical Holistic argument
As we know, a quality of question often determines a quality of answer. The question that ask to compare the water (the way we experience it every day) with atoms of oxygen and hydrogen (abstract notion that we have no experience with) is missleading.
The correct question would be: Is molecular of water is more than one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen, interacting among each other?
Try to answer this question now.
Edited by miosim, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Fosdick, posted 04-27-2007 7:33 PM Fosdick has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 27 of 29 (399908)
05-08-2007 8:57 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Brad McFall
05-07-2007 7:08 AM


Re: if whole>parts
Brad asked
Are you a logical positivist?
After checking with Wikipedia about Logical Positivist I concluded that I am quite an opposite type. My main analytical tool is Intuition and not a Logic, which in my opinion is a limited, “short ranged” tool applicable only to the well defined area of our knowledge, but outside of our common knowledge, (what it is a Life phenomenon) is unable lead to a new idea. However, when a time to communicate our finding, we have to build a bridge between what we learned and common knowledge, but if we overload this “bridge” with not comprehended messages or too many radical ideas (like I did in the full version of my essay) it will collapse.
. Are you familiar with Gold's ideas in linguistics .
I check the link you provided, and understood why my use of symbol caused confusion. No, I didn’t intended to intrude into area of mathematical linguistics.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Brad McFall, posted 05-07-2007 7:08 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Brad McFall, posted 05-08-2007 9:10 PM miosim has not replied

  
miosim
Member (Idle past 5678 days)
Posts: 57
From: NH, USA
Joined: 04-07-2007


Message 29 of 29 (403503)
06-03-2007 2:16 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Brad McFall
04-27-2007 5:57 PM


ISCID forum
I am discussing my hypothesis about emergence of life in more details on ISCID forum http://www.iscid.org/...ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000686-p-37.html", so if any body interested see my posting there dated 03 June 2007 11:13.

This message is a reply to:
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