The Biology Thread

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And chemistry.

[LMNO]

Yeah, point taken.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I looked it up and the dude who coined the term was George Eliot's boyfriend! Crazy.

[minuspace]

What was it about entropy that you wanted to understand in terms of emergence?  The interesting thing about chaos IMHO is that patterns emerge from apparent disorder.  That provides a foundation to explain how entropic systems can also 'move against the arrow of time' to manifest the emergence of order.  I'm no expert on chaos theory, but it seems like a good alternative starting point.  The math usually discourages me.

Chaos isn't the same thing as entropy, and the writings I've seen about emergence and chaos don't address the specific chemical and physical conditions and phenomena I'm interested in.

[minuspace]

I'm starting to get a feeling that we may now be forced to write most of the books we want to read

[Nephew Twiddleton]

What was it about entropy that you wanted to understand in terms of emergence?  The interesting thing about chaos IMHO is that patterns emerge from apparent disorder.  That provides a foundation to explain how entropic systems can also 'move against the arrow of time' to manifest the emergence of order.  I'm no expert on chaos theory, but it seems like a good alternative starting point.  The math usually discourages me.

Chaos isn't the same thing as entropy, and the writings I've seen about emergence and chaos don't address the specific chemical and physical conditions and phenomena I'm interested in.

Apparent order and apparent disorder aren't really workable definitions within the context of biology in relation to entropy and chaos, near as I can tell.

[minuspace]

Cool.  Could the capacity of DNA to maintain and replicate itself be considered an apparent tendency toward order?  Clearly this is not my field, I just thought it would work to view complex biological systems as a definition of emergence in the face of entropy.  I'll brush up on it once Nigel finishes the reading list.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Cool.  Could the capacity of DNA to maintain and replicate itself be considered an apparent tendency toward order?  Clearly this is not my field, I just thought it would work to view complex biological systems as a definition of emergence in the face of entropy.  I'll brush up on it once Nigel finishes the reading list.

It's not really apparent order so much as order. Mutations aren't apparent disorder so much as actual mistakes that can cause cell death or pretty serious disease. They're not really points that either make sense or don't make sense based on our perceptual biases. Entropy is the loss of energy in the form of heat, and you can't get it back. You have to keep pumping energy into a cell in order for it not to fall apart. These things aren't really up for interpretation.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Maybe better words to use in context is organization and disorganization, so that philosophical connotations don't enter in. Apparent order is better used for a scientific model, which might not be 100% accurate but gives you the gist of what's going on. For example, how people generally picture an atom. It's not accurate but it's informative enough to give let you understand what's going on.

[minuspace]

Entropy is the loss of energy in the form of heat

True.  Thermodynamically, entropy is heat loss, although that is primarily understood in terms of dispersion.  The heat is only "lost" because it does [not] obey the orders of Maxwel' Deamon.  I mean it's not like I don't sympathise with errant energy quanta trying to escape oppressive regimes

[Ed.]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This article, though short, discusses what I'm interested in: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/11/4/993

[minuspace]

Very cool stuff, although initially somewhat "brute-force" in their articulation of "recognition"

What will be argued here is that the scope of recognition processes between parts is increased when preceded by their dispersal, which multiplies the number of encounters and creates a richer potential for recognition.

Very interesting, reading it now.  Funny how B.Testa is like de facto authority on subject.  With "Dissolvence" the only other paper I found was also his - my browser won't let me see it:
http://idc311-www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065249097800032
(More about drug research or something)

And, of course, the cellular automata approach:
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/3/2/27

--- Back to the text at hand----

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/11/4/993

So, first read initially started me thinking that increasing the number and variety of encounters, by dispersion, does not immediately obtain greater probability of recognition.  I think the discriminating factor would have to the repetition of particular encounters.  Although by dispersion the number of encounters increases, their repetition, discrimination and recognition would only increase at the expense of variety...

Then I realize that might be addressed by "The Kullback-Lieber Divergence", although I have no idea why.  Then my understanding of Top-Down" in the context of submersion indicates that I should probably give this a second pass...  Sleepy time now.

[minuspace]

This definition of "Dissolvence" made the top-down notion of submersion turn and click:

Far from being a destruction, dissolvence is understood here as a creative process in which information is generated to fuel the process of self-organisation of complex systems, allowing them to appear and evolve to higher states of organisation and emergence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This definition of "Dissolvence" made the top-down notion of submersion turn and click:

Far from being a destruction, dissolvence is understood here as a creative process in which information is generated to fuel the process of self-organisation of complex systems, allowing them to appear and evolve to higher states of organisation and emergence.

Yeah, that right there is the line of thinking I'm interested in. I found and ordered a book, I'll post about it when I read it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

NEW TOPIC: How fucking adorable (as well as informative) is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWuWjbeO-Y