A Dissipative/Replicative Structure: A Macrosystem
(under evolution)
Abstract
Entities such as the Web, mankind, life, the earth, the solar system,
the Milky way, and our universe are viewed as massive
dissipative/replicative structures. This paper will examine the
structure and process of massive dissipative/replicative structures.
In addition, it will examine the concept of massive dissipative/replicative
structures and what are the necessary issues in structuring the scientific
understanding of the phenomena. The methodology of comparative complexity
is suggested to help in the construction and analysis of scientific theories.
This paper will examine the structure and process of massive dissipative/replicative structures. In addition, it will examine the concept of massive dissipative/replicative structures and what are the necessary issues in structuring the scientific understanding of the phenomena. Lastly, I will suggest a methodology that can help in the construction and analysis of scientific theories.
Dis -sipa -tive: dis- = apart,
supare = to throw (to throw apart)
Re -plica -tive: re = again, plicate = to fold
(to refold)
Structure: structura = a fitting together
In particle physics, the word "dissipative" is not use extensively, for they assert that quantum structures are not dissipative. On the other hand, physics tells us there is some equivalence between mass and energy, and quantum structures can exchange energy and often "spontaneously emit" energy in the form of bosons. This use of the word "spontaneous" is analogous to the unjustified finesse in using the phrase "spontaneous generation" taken by pre-Pasteur scientists regarding life. The slight of hand in particle physicist's phrase "spontaneously emit or decay" alerts one to the fact that physical theories cannot explain the underlying process, except by a non-ontological satisfying mathematical operation (quantum mechanics) that mimics the behavior. Because of this, I will generalize the notion of "dissipation" to include the notion of "thermodynamic." That is, "thermodynamic" means to include "dissipative" of energy or matter. Since all physical systems are "thermodynamic," then all systems are "dissipative," including bosons and the universe.
Ilya Prigogine [ Prigogine84, 97] has put forward that dissipative structures do not obey Boltzmann's order principle, because a dissipative structure is not in equilibrium. Moreover, one must admit that the universe is not in equilibrium, it is forever changing: "evolving" as it were. This observation is key to understanding how the "evolution" of the our universe and its embedded structures will proceed. The century old hypothesis of "heat death" of the universe, based on the second law of thermodynamics is no longer the most reasonable scenario because it appears that the universe is a non-equilibrium structure [Smolin97]. It is not clear, what the universe is "dissipating" but in some sense you can imagine it "dissipating" time.
On the other hand, before the evolution of the universe and its embedded structures can be understood, a new method of characterization of the notion of 'system' must be formulated. For one major flaw in the scientific enterprise has been the lack of a methodology for conceptual integration and analysis between "a system" and its context. Viewing the universe as a "closed" or "isolated" system is no longer acceptable.
When examining massive dissipative structures, such as galaxy systems, it is fairly clear now that a significant property of them has been primarily and largely ignored by the scientific community. Massive dissipative structures should be called massive dissipative/replicative structures, for the property of replication of microstructures has been largely de-emphasized in "non living" massive dissipative structures. The classic example is the creation of more atomic nuclei in stars (which is a form of replication). Moreover, certain quanta are considered "elementary particles" and in cosmology are posited, de novo, in the beginning of the big bang. De novo positing of billions of any kind of "string" or "particle," such as leptons, begs the question of their origin. That replication of these structures occurred seems to be a more reasonable hypothesis, even though we may never know how (i.e., the internal mechanism of) replication of the particle or string occurred.
In addition, the property of dissipation has been largely de-emphasized in "living" massive replicative structures (such as Gaia [Lovelock87], Hypersea[ McMenanim94], and Metaman[Stock93]). But the relations between dissipation and replication are crucial in understanding how the world works. One of the problems has been that both processes, dissipation and replication, must go hand in hand when modeling natural systems, but explicit coupling has not been considered before. It is posited that in reality (e.g., our universe), replication and dissipation cannot be separated: one implies the other.
When discussing the creation, evolution, and the underlying nature
of long-term natural entities, there has been a gradual realization that
using reductionistic methods and terminology has lead to an impasse in
understanding. For example, the current crisis in quantum mechanics
(the disconnect with relativity) has lead several researchers [Bohm93,
Smolin97,
Prigogine97,
Rosen91]
to question the underlying characterization. Particle physics has
had to turn to cosmology and astrophysics to help in finding models of
the creation and evolution of the microscopic entities based on
the state of the entire universe. Also recently, the
incompleteness of the neo-darwinian model of evolution has been exposed
by questions posed by researchers, such as, Margulis and Lovelock on the
relationship between the biosphere, the solar system, and life.
The origin of life also seems shrouded in mystery, given that it is highly
possible that the origin of life occurred within the depths of the earth's
crust [Gold98],
where biologists have little clue of the metabolic and genetic processes
of these organisms. Finally, can the future of mankind be addressed
without understanding the role of the Gaia [
Lovelock87] and Hypersea[
McMenanim94] hypotheses and their connection to the future evolution
of the Internet and our future mind children?
On the other hand, scientific progress has been practically synonymous
with the methodology of reductionism and the atomic hypothesis. If science
is practically defined by the notions of "simplifying the problem" and
analysis of the working of the parts of a system, then what techniques
and methodologies are alternatives or additions to this most successful
approach.
There are very few scientists that would admit to being reductionists,
but we all are, to a large degree, inheritors of Newton's
brilliant mistake [Rosen91]. But, besides lamenting the sins
of reductionism [Rosen 91] [Goodwin
96] [Oyama86]
and pointing out its weaknesses, there needs to be a methodology for going
beyond the criticism and helping to generate new ways of understanding
and building conceptual models which include the both the characterization
of context and the "system" of complex phenomena.
Rosen has pointed out the main problem with most scientific work lies in the characterization of the environment of the studied system. Or rather, he points out, the problem is the lack of characterization of the environment or "surrounding" context of the "system," by the "hidden" assumptions in the scientific models. Robert Rosen suggested that current science is missing a major mode of entailment [Rosen91]. Although his argument is convincing for most who are familiar with it (very few know about it), his prescription has been largely ignored. Besides the fact that he suggests unconventional mathematics, category theory, relative to his audience, biologists, one possible reason for the lack of notice is that Rosen does not give a concrete methodology for constructing a theory of "the system" within its context. Although, his approach and technique cannot be faulted, other than for its abstractness and dearth of concrete examples.
Rosen rigorously shows the limits of current analytic science (implicitly including quantum gravity and string theory) symbolized by Newtonian physics and Turing computation. He argues that science are not using all available modes of entailment in its fight against complexity. Current science avoids the why questions, for answering the why question could involve teleology. Reductionistic science unnecessarily avoids asserting final cause because it does not want to be accused of asserting unjustified tautologies (circular reasoning - "finite" or "infinite"). However, in creating theory (a model of reality) which may correspond to reality, one must assert final cause to entail anything of significance. For example, normal boolean logic implies a final cause based on the definition of implies, (p implies (p v ~p)): which is Aristotle's excluded middle, a basis of "discrete logic". Some mathematical systems, such as intuitionistic logic, do not assume the excluded middle. Rosen calls this fabrication of theory, a necessary part of science and mathematics. He asserts that fabrication of the modeling relation (his terminology for his particular representation of "theory") is an art. I assert one can do better by using a methodology, comparative complexity, that systematizes the fabrication and analysis of theory by the precise use of analogy.
In technical terms, comparative complexity is attaching semantics in a disciplined way to essentially syntactic models (homomorphisms -- fabricated tautologies) to interrelate those homomorphisms in a coherent and semantically meaningful way (in the form of a syntactic-semantic model), based on careful observation and analysis of natural systems. Category theory, or topos theory specifically, are examples of a kind of mathematics that can use abstract forms of entailment that can entail final cause, but divorced from semantics they are just another kind of formalism. Formalism are just that, games to be played with no meaning and hence no use. The use comes in marrying syntax and semantics in useful way, so entailment and analogy can be used in a rigorous and meaningful way.
The use of analogy implies crossing between contexts. Unfortunately, the ignoring of context deemed irrelevant, is a mark of the facile scientist. Specialization in specific scientific domains is the characterization of most of science today. Clearly the scientific justification of the biologist to "ignore" phenomena such as quarks and neutrinos and the possible "heat death" of the universe seems justified, because it seems that these types of phenomena have no relevance to biology, i.e., the life systems. However, the notion of dissipative structures, once thought as only strictly relevant to the domain of non-equilibrium chemical thermodynamics, has been shown to be highly relevant to "life" because life is based on non-equilibrium chemical thermodynamics. Suddenly, the evolution of neutrinos, probably related to the evolution the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of the universe, no longer seems as remote to biology as it had before.
The non acceptance, misbelief, or ignorance of Rosen's criticism of limitations of computer science and current physics is also understandable for although quantum mechanics is not ontological satisfying and only accounts for the micro-world of particle physics, it still has the most precise predictive power of all of science. But physicists, are analogous to the biologist, for not seeing the relevance of "life" in helping understand the evolution of the universe and in ignoring phenomena that may give analogous clues to the underlying processes of the big bang, which are hidden by the Planck wall. For example, the question of the "function" of the tau, muon, and electron neutrinos in the big-bang is not answerable in current cosmological theories, for they adhere to the strict Newtonian paradigm dictum: not to ask why questions. But, analogy across seemly disparate but vaguely similar phenomena can give us hints to some of the answers to precise abstract questions not asked by physics.
With the realization that the world is primarily made of dissipative structures, and not equilibrium or linear structures as modeled in physics, the mistake of poor characterization of the surrounding context and its effect on the "system" is even more troubling. For the evolution of a dissipative structure is significantly determined by its surrounding context. Moreover, to the realization that the world is primarily made of replicative structures, even in the non-living part, argues that both Newtonian biology (neo-Darwinism) and Newtonian physics (quantum field theory and relativity) are missing something. On the other hand, we cannot turn to holism or vitalism for they have no useful methods that make scientific sense and do not provide intellectual traction for understanding.
Comparative complexity is the analysis and comparison of analogous fabricated models of natural systems to extract the underlying process-structure of existence. That is, it is important to extract both structure (the how) and function (the why) of the underlying models of natural systems. In its primitive and vaguest form, comparative complexity involves the use of scientific analogs and metaphors between domains of science: this has been going on since the dawn of science. Unfortunately, analogy and metaphor is viewed, with justified skepticism, as "unscientific." But, using the clues suggested by Rosen, there is now a good chance that more precise methods of analogy and metaphor akin to the mathematical category theory can be developed and used to good effect. The idea is to "throw away" the details in terms of "state" and find the correct abstract functions and structures of natural systems depending on the desired level of abstraction and relation to other natural systems, hence their models.
Historically, significant progress has been accomplished by using analogous methods, concepts, and processes of one domain to help in another. For example, Boltzmann viewed himself as the Darwin of physics and proceeded to do evolutionary analysis based on combinatorics of atoms that advanced the field of thermodynamics. Chemists like Dalton viewed themselves as Newtonians in the realm of material substances. W.R. Hamilton made the mechanical analogy from Maxwell's equations for optics. It is also true, there have been many (in fact, probably most attempts) that have less than successful. It is the nature of things that it takes a great deal of time and scientific effort to learn and progress from the incorrect or imprecise analogies, as did previous examples. In addition, bad, imprecise, or poor analogies can have, and have had, negative or terrible impact (Social Darwinism -> Nazism, Political Hegelism -> communism, and Chemical Psychology (Psychiatry)-> the use of cocaine-like drugs like Ritalin on school children). Nevertheless, other notoriously vague and initially incorrect models and ideas, such as Lamarck's acquired characteristics and Hegel's dialectic still have some traction in examining the faults of reductionism and still posing important questions. Stephen Jay Gould's analysis in his book, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, is a excellent example of one way of utilizing both the conceptual misapplication and conceptual correctness of scientific work whatever the source. Although, it is clear significant progress has to be made, still. For example, Gould, despite his wide range of knowledge in biology and his seeming encyclopedic treatment of evolution, one cannot help but be puzzled with the fact he knew Lynn Margulis, but nevertheless, makes no reference to her work in symbiosis -- a vital piece of evolutionary theory. His omission is curious, for it may indicate the inherent difficulty in most scientists correctly recognizing the appropriate metaphors and analogies slightly outside their limited area of expertise.
On the other hand, science, as well as most things connected to the Web, is now proceeding in a much more rapid pace. With the development of the science of complexity, all physical phenomena have some analytic techniques that can be applied. Although just in its beginnings, complexity science with the notions of chaos, order, and the edge-of-chaos are being linked to complex phenomena, such as the living cell, life, and mankind. No longer can scientists and academics dismiss non-linear phenomena as being too difficult. But, there is the danger of just using the poor tools of "physics" to the problem. And there is the risk of the normal obscuring of misplaced or weak analogies, such as attributing oxymoronic generalizations such as "self-organization" or "self-criticality" everywhere.
The biggest problem with studying phenomena is the complexity. Again, even in "simple" entities (they have very little "state" or invariant properties) such as studying "neutrinos," one is forced to consider the evolution of the universe. Reductionistic techniques of the sciences (that is: practically all precise techniques of science) are confronted with "structures" that are processes within processes, within processes, within processes, ad nauseam. Non in-situ analysis is endangered by inadvertent modification or ignoring the effects of one of the underlying processes. For example, the current methodology of renormalization, is just an approximation scheme for particle physics' theories. More recently, the current method of trying to "find" chaotic and ordered processes in natural systems is proceeding with great enthusiasm. But, if entities or "systems" contain both chaotic processes and order processes, which in turn, contain both chaotic and ordered processes, ad nauseam, then how can the analysis proceed?
Supposedly "less reductionistic" techniques of the life sciences, typified by Stephen Jay Gould's historical approach, are not the complete answer either. Gould's artificial separation of the "historical" life sciences with the "repeatable" and experimental sciences, such as physics and chemistry is not useful distinction. Although eloquent and rigorous in most of his reasoning, Gould's supposition that biology is mostly "historical" (in his words: contingent) in nature (hence he can dismiss the applicably of physics) is not founded in a scientific basis. Gould, in restricting his analysis to "life", assumes that "non-life" phenomena or laws have no relevance. Random historical events are thought to rule the domain of life. However, the universe, if we believe the physicist has the same contingency structure (global randomness) as biology. Rosen has pointed out [Chapter 11, Life Itself] that strict evolutionists, such as Gould, are also following the reductionistic dictum of not asking why questions, partly to blunt criticism of the hard sciences, for not being "scientific" enough.
Although biology is more "historical" (this is, dependent on properties
of earth's evolution) than physics (dependent on the properties of the
universe's evolution) and some of the "laws" of evolution may have different
"parameters" in some other "life" supporting planet; nevertheless,
there are still "laws" of evolution that are not currently understood,
and the general form of the "laws" are most likely to be applicable for
all life in the universe. But Gould's main point is valid: that biology
is not just complex physics. That is, the concepts, methods,
and techniques of physics cannot be directly applied without very judicious
understanding of the process structure of biology. Rosen's detailed analysis
elucidates the theoretical limits of the current physical theories such
as current cosmological theories and computational approaches, typified
by fractals, artificial life, and chaos theory. He points out physics
can benefit from metaphors of living systems just as well as biology has
used metaphors from physics and chemistry.
It's a mystery what constitutes matter and how it evolved.
All those being interested, are frustrated by the Planck wall. Because
matter seems to be more process than structure, finding patterns below
the Planck wall is going to be difficult. However, the "history"
of the universe and its embedded process structures have vague
similarities. It highly likely that processes below the Planck wall
exhibit analogous forms at higher levels of complexity. By examining this
"history" of the universe precisely, these similarities, such as the evolution
of galaxies to the evolution life and evolution of cyberspace, common patterns
can be noticed.
The task, then, is to be able to represent and analyze, to as much accuracy as possible, the processes within processes with processes, etc. Armed with a better understanding of phenomena at all levels of complexity and having a methodology of representing nested processes of processes (like Rosen's category theory), then once an underlying a "general" process is understood, it can be used to analyze, any "systems" that have that process embedded.
The general processes, such as chaos and order (in their science of complexity meaning), although very useful in general understanding, cannot be applied without characterizing the specific types of chaos and order. Mathematical models of deterministic chaos assume that the underlying "objects" are infinitely small points. This does not occur in the real world. For example, chaotic particles (particles contained in a chaotic environment, as in the sun) behave differently from chaotic atoms, as in Jupiter: as does chaotic quanta (i.e., quark soup in the big bang). But, there are some common features between chaotic particles and chaotic atoms, which is partially captured by the study of mathematical chaos. The chaos of the atoms in the earth do have some common features of the chaos of the particles in the sun, but there are differences also. Moreover, Prigogine [Prigogine97] and Rosen [Rosen 91] has recently shown that some of the basic assumptions of most particle physics and cosmology are unwarranted both in their models (quantum mechanics) and methods (encoding into Hilbert spaces).
If all "natural structures" in the universe are dissipative/replicative structures 1, then understanding the phenomenology of dissipative/replicative structures is the first order of business, for this is the overall process structure of the all phenomena. The second order of business is understand the phenomena of replicative structures and the relationship between dissipation and replication for each level of material complexity. The task is to characterize, similar to Rosen's methodology, a set of formalizations (informally a metaphor) of a dissipative/replicative structure. The formalizations must include both material and functional characterizations that are related to some degree. This paper will not present a formalization or a set of formalizations, but discuss the important concepts necessary in discovering, formulating, and constructing such a set of formalizations and their relations.
The second part of the first phenomenological issue is what kind of context is the massive dissipative/replicative structure in. Clearly, if the dissipative/replicative structure is growing or shrinking, then the structure is either growing or shrinking because of itself, or the surrounding context is adding or subtracting to the process-structure. It is important to connect, at some level of abstraction, a particular structure within the total context, that is, the universe, both in material and functional terms. The overall analysis of material complexity is the first, and easiest thing to do. The following is a defining the basic structure of material complexity so to give an overarching context.
Three basic regimes within a dissipative/replicative structure in terms of material complexity have been defined: chaos, order, and the edge-of-chaos/edge-of-order.
A Dissipative/Replicative Structure: A Macrosystem
The edge-of-chaos metaphor (and it associated mathematical and computational methods: Crutchfield, Mitchell, and Langton) is useful in describing massive dissipative/replicative structures. Every massive dissipative/replicative structure is on some edge-of-chaos, and some structures are part of multiple levels of edge-of-chaos. A large part of the edge-of-chaos metaphor involves both a macro-process and a macro-structure. But also it includes micro-structures and micro-processes. The combination of macro-process, macro-structure, micro-processes, and micro-structures will be the basis for the metaphor.
The edge-of-order metaphor is a new metaphor borrowed from the edge-of-chaos metaphor, to make crucial link to the other important metaphor of replication and link it to the notion of life, which also applies to non-life phenomena. It is important to realize the edge-of-order is the same as the edge-of-chaos, but viewed from a different point of view. For Darwin's metaphor of evolution can be applied to non-life systems, because some kind of replication exists in these systems.
![[Edge of Chaos Edge of Order]](eofceofo.gif)
The material complexity of the universe can viewed as a processes of successive layers of chaos, order, and the edge of chaos, there by called involution.
Two Levels of Major Material Complexity
In this regard, I define two important classes of dissipative/replicative structures: microsystems and macrosystems. These two classes are dissipative/replicative structures at the major levels of material complexity. They clearly exhibit a property of "self-organization," although what "self-organization" means is problematic. For now I will use the vague (and oxymoronic) notion used in the science of complexity community.
Macrosystems are evolved from being a massive part of the universe and are massive dissipative/replicative structures, such as galaxies, star systems, planets, Gaia, and Hypersea; they being the primary instantiation of "context" from which other massive dissipative/replicative structures are embedded.
Microsystems are the building blocks of our existence, the ordered structured processes that embed invariant information in our world, such as, quanta, particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, families, societies, and cybersocieties. Microsystems are contained within at least one macrosystem, and typically are embedded in several macrosystems and microsystems, which in the configuration of those macrosystems and microsystems constitute their context. Microsystems are also dissipative/replicative structures, although physicists would argue whether quanta are dissipative or replicative. But the physicist has no satisfying ontological explanation of quanta. Again, since the physicist use the English description of "spontaneously emit" or use statistical mathematics to describe quanta, one can use the words "dissipative" or "replicative" depending on the context versus "spontaneously emit or decay" because they very close in their macro behaviors (if you don't know what they consist of).
The third form of dissipative/replicative structure are the subsystems . Those are entities that are not easily defined from simple discrete and finite compositional forms of macrosystems and microsystems, being that they are primarily part of a major material macrosystem or microsystem and their involutionary(evolution of complexity and evolution) status is ambiguous. Their ultimate fate is largely determined by their current position in their surrounding dissipative/replicative context rather than their inherent self-organization.
The current use of the word "system" is typically a subsystem. As for example most people would classify a refrigerator is a "system." However, one does not usually include wires to the power plant, the power plant, and the human society that runs and maintains the power plant, which has a great deal of influence on the "behavior," "causality" and "functionality" of this refrigerator in its actual operation. Some properties of the refrigerator, its color, weight, its storage capacity, its predicted efficiency, etc., are clearly not dependent on this ignored context, but the context does play a part in some situations. Depending on a scientist's goal, what part of the context is ignored or assumed when studying or characterized often goes unexamined.
A big problem in science has been the general use of the word "system" to talk about all of these three types: macrosystems, microsystems, subsystems, and any arbitrary groupings (sometimes more properly called ensembles). When discussing and characterizing these "systems" many of the underlying assumptions about the general properties of these "systems" are not explicitly detailed, often adding to the confusion. A common situation for most science, is the underlying assumptions are long forgotten or never taught so to make progress in application of well proven techniques. The separation of life sciences versus the physical sciences has been largely dictated by different techniques, and those techniques are couched in overlapping words and scientific assumptions.
By analysis and synthesis one can characterize our involution of the universe in terms of major levels of material complexity as follows.
However, the advantages of words, with their inherent semantics being ambiguous, abstract, concrete, and definite cannot be avoided. They are the only things that can refer to things and processes in the real world. Words are the most meaningful things that can serve as encodings and decodings of reality.
Com plex com- with, plex plexus (ply or to fold)
All is flux Heraclitus
If one tried to use the wave model for explaining the universe, one would come up with two major problems. First, the universe does not appear continuous. In fact, continuity is an illusion, because it assumes infinity in the small. Second, the wave model assumes an underlying material existence, which must be at some scale. Mathematically, using the continuous wave model and its associated mathematics, one quickly gets into degenerancies of matching or harmonic frequencies. On the other hand, Ilya Prigogine has analyzed Poincare resonances (degenerancies of waves) and shown how higher level "particles" ("static" dynamic waves) could appear spontaneously based on continuously (in time) ordered interaction of smaller particles (constituting the wave medium). Prigogine also showed how higher level particles would disappear spontaneously when the interaction of smaller particles is continuously (in time) random.
All is atoms and void Democritus
If one tries to finesse the issues of continuity by postulating or measuring structures, in other words: the discrete, the problems don't go away. Hypothesizing the "discrete" always entails the question of 'what constitutes the discrete'? Discreteness assumes infinity in the large. The notion of structure and its extreme form a "point", called "particles" or "quanta" with the real world, must assume either an external definite ordered "state" (for example, position and velocity) or a "probabilistic" or in the extreme an internal indefinite random "state."
Robert Rosen has shown either assumption (continuity or discreteness) leads to a limiting form of entailment. But you can choose when and how to do the intertwining of those assumptions when comparing and contrasting analogous models, or generalizing out the self-referencing, and therefore contradictory (or rather, circular) details.
The formation of structures at radically different scales is not well treated by any known mathematics, certainly not by dynamics or statistical mechanics, for they only treat one or two levels of complexity. Fractals and chaos theory has some notions of scales, but still hasn't addressed a multiple level of complexity aspects in a significant way: that is there is no significant interaction between objects at different scales. Renormalization is the closest to dealing with the issue but is an approximation (it has a finite cutoff value).
Fractals are infinite objects, but when the fractal converges (or diverges to the "small" infinity), one can represent that infinite object with an ideal object centered some "constant" value (typically represented as a "real" number). However, other fractals do not converge, but diverge to various kinds of large "infinity". This dichotomy is related to the two-body and three body problem.
The three body problem does not have a closed form solution (the energy is not integrable: its not finite). Poincare showed this mathematically. In the process, he opened up the door to understanding why the world is complex. Prigogine has elaborated further to relate classical notions of dynamics (read this as "understandable" notions) to why quantum mechanical notions (read this as "measurable" notions) have been successful in measurement but not understandability.
All dissipative/replicative structures must be characterized at all levels of complexity that they contain. At the lowest level of complexity, a material discrete-finite continuity must be assumed, but is also self-contradictory. For all three concepts (discrete, finite, continuity) implicate (continuity, infinite, discrete) their opposite, ala Zeno's paradox. The material basis must be assumed at some scale: discrete and finite, but it is possible one can use the functional basis to ground the local material (small dimensions) to the global functional (large dimensions).
Dissipative/Replicative Structures
Examples:
Macrosystems: Our Universe, Milky Way Galaxy, Sol: Solar
system, Jupiter, Earth, Gaia, Hypersea, Metaman.
Microsystems: a gluon quanta, an electron quanta, a proton particle,
an omega particle, a helium atom, a carbon-12 atom, a water(H2O) molecule,
a prion molecule, a Halococcus cell, a Hyella cell, a Tridacna
organism, a butterfly organism, an ant colony (family), a human family,
a Mayoruna tribe (society), The US government (society), Microsoft corporation
(society), The World Wide Web (cybersociety).
Subsystems: photon, gamma rays, superconducting electron pair,
Einstein-Bose condensate, ion, cation, Ryberg atom, a viriod, a virus,
a gamete, a skin cell, an ant, an orphan, a website, in bankruptcy dot.com
company, a viral email joke.
Caveats:
The Universe is defined by mass, energy, space, and time. Of course, we don't understand what "mass," "energy," "space" and "time" are in terms of other notions. Except the physicists can tell us how to "measure" them. That is physicist's concepts of mass, energy, space, and time are phenomenologically: measures. Physicists know a great about the most likely relationship between them ( in a statistical manner - i.e., we don't know the underlying ontological relationship).
The inherent information embedded in the population can mostly determine the "involution" or "self organization" assuming a relatively (depending on the complexity of population) stable flow energy (communication) into and through the dissipative/replicative structure. There is no such thing as a dissipative/replicative structure that is not embedded and part of a surrounding dissipative/replicative structure. The classic example of pervasiveness of a surrounding dissipative/replicative structure is the expanding the space with the remaining background radiation of the universe.
Besides boundaries of "in/out" there is the boundary of the "large" and "small". The universe's boundary is probably having to do with a self-referencing at the large and small boundary. It is noted that the boundary between the Meta-Universe and the Universe is problematic both in conception and definition. It probably has to do with the confounding of "in/out" with the "large" and "small". For boundary at that level of complexity of the universe, large/small and in/out are probably the same. (For trying to visualize this, read Pregeometric Modeling of Spacetime Phenomenology)
"Organization" is the other part of characterization of communication. The spatial and process distribution within levels of complexity determine the "self-organization" . Macrosystems and microsystems both have self-organization that can be characterized, in a rough-cut manner, by composition of three regimes of matter: chaos, order, and the edge-of-chaos/edge-of-order. The kinds of chaos, order, and the edge-of-chaos/edge-of-order does matter at each level of complexity.
The relationship between "replication" and "dissipation" is crucial here. Dissipation is a form of replication, and replication is a form of dissipation. Dissipation can be viewed as "replicating" randomness (chaos). Replication can be viewed as "dissipating" order. The crucial insight is to realize there are different kinds of chaos and different kinds of order, so there are many forms of dissipation and replication depending what kind of order and chaos are being dissipated or replicated.
It might be assumed that Energy(in the form of light-bosons - photons) maybe the communication between the universe and the meta-universe.
For example, let the context C be the solar system, and the dissipative/structure structure D be the planetary system of Earth (including the moon). The Earth is on the edge-of-chaos relative to the solar system. Currently, the mass and temperature of the sun is conducive to the future "self-organization" of the Earth. Mercury is too close to the sun to be on the edge-of-chaos, so it does not have much of an atmosphere (gas phase) or any liquid phase, and Uranus is too far and is too frozen to be on the edge-of-order of the solar system.
The "populations" within and without a dissipative/replicative structure depends on looking at the level of complexity. In massive dissipative/replicative structures, generally the "chaotic regime" population is 10e7 larger in population to the "edge-of-chaos" population in terms of "mass and energy." What "mass and energy" *is* depends on the complexity. In addition, the "order regime" population is 10e7 larger in population to the "edge-of-chaos" population in terms of "space and time." What "space and time" *is* depends on the complexity.
The general properties of a dissipative/replicative structure depend on the envolution and involution of the structure. In addition, the surrounding context has a great role, depending on what state of context and the relationship with the dissipative/replicative structure in the Chaos/Order scale. Some of these general properties can only be characterized by asking why questions, including the surrounding context. On the other hand, most scientists are only interested in properties or characterization of structures and processes, ignoring the surrounding context. The context is assumed to be in "equilibrium." For example, most biologist are only interested "life" and how it operates. Physicists are interested in "non-life," and how it operates. Few biologists are interested in what is life. That is, what are the general properties of life on earth? Or more specifically, what are the general properties of life, irrespective of our particular example on earth. Biologist see as "what or why life", either impossible or difficult to answer. Besides biology, few physicists are interested in why "non-life". Physicists consider why "non-life" questions (for example, why neutrinos?) not the province of science. However, Robert Rosen has shown the way to possibility of answering some of these why questions by a process of analysis and synthesis, and I further assert that the best way to do this is by examining contexts through comparison of models across disparate natural systems.
If the "temperature" of E is high relative to the major population of E, then most of the mass of E will be in the chaotic regime. If the "temperature" is low relative to the major population of E, then most of the mass of E will in the order regime.
Chaotic regimes are relatively homogenous in population type based on the highest level of material complexity. Chaotic regimes of N level of material complexity do not have any or relatively few entities of N+1. Order regimes are relatively homogenous in population type: order regimes have a majority of N+1 entities, but can have entities of complexity higher than N+1. Within a level of material complexity the chaotic regime has less material complexity in microsystems than the order regime.
The description of Dissipative/Replicative processes is in the context of a global Dissipative/Replicative structure (the so-called multiverse), but at the most primitive level, one cannot talk about what it is constituted of. One must posit almost complete randomness and almost complete order as the context, but the form must have the property of dissipation and replication.
Assumptions:
"Energy" finite (but not measurable), Space&Mass definite,
"Time" not finite.
Replication and Dissipation are complementary as well as entangled.
Distribution is a form of communication through dissipation and replication.
Distribution in energy is: matter (or constant information) in "energetic" motion (random information in process). Distribution in space is a fixed amount of matter (or information) in more space(patterned information in process). Distribution in time and structure is: correlation of "bits" of matter in time (patterned and random information in process).
In other words, communication is the changing of patterned information, whether it be random (nothing pattern) or ordered (something pattern). Dissipation is a form of distribution of communication, where the encoding or decoding of information is based on either communication in energy, time&structure, or space. Replication is a form of distribution of communication, where the encoding or decoding of information is based on either communication in energy, time&structure, or space.
The following is a table is a possible functional description of how
the problem solving metaphor might delineate the functional levels of complexity
in our involution.
| Complexity 0: Multiverse vs Universe: The Problem of Existence and Non-Existence (what to exist => material systems: macro dissipation, micro replication) |
| Complexity 1: Universe vs Galaxy Systems: The Problem of Dissipation and Replication (how to dissipate and how to replicate = time, energy versus space, matter) |
| Complexity 2: Galaxy Systems vs Star Systems: The Problem of Stability and Instability (what to make(replicate) stable and what not to make(dissipate) stable) |
| Complexity 3: Star Systems vs Planet Systems: The Problem of Control and Non-Control (what to control (replicate) and what not to control (dissipate)) |
| Complexity 4: Planet Systems vs Gaia: The Problem of Inheritance and Non-inheritance (what to inherit (replicate) and what not to inherit (dissipate)) |
| Complexity 5: Gaia vs Hypersea: The Problem of Mortality (what to live (replicate) and what to die (dissipate)) |
| Complexity 6: Hypersea vs Metaman: The Problem of Knowledge (what to know (replicate) and what not to know (dissipate)) |
| Complexity 7: Metaman vs Cybersocieties: The Problem of Learning (what to learn (replicate) and what not to learn (dissipate)) |
| Complexity 8: ? |
I suggest comparative complexity as methodology that can help in the analysis and construction of scientific theories. The first part of this methodology is using material complexity to delineate the major levels of complexity in massive dissipative/replicative structures. The second part, the use of functional complexity, has not been developed, but using the hints of Robert Rosen as in his {M,R} model (metabolism and repair), one can build numerous functional models. For example, one can develop the briefly outlined functional complexity levels in the neo-Hegelian model of replication and dissipation discussed above. The next step would be construct of a set of formalizations will involve using material complexity models and functional complexity models and relating those models via reference complexity models.
