Re: A New Kind of Science

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Posted by Scott Ellis (216.87.95.64) on June 10, 2002 at 23:50:46:

In Reply to: Re: A New Kind of Science posted by Christopher on June 10, 2002 at 12:04:14:

There is one quality of life that is ubiquitous. That is, a living being must contain organized complexity, or information. It is clear that this requires a local increase in energy, or to be more precise, a local decrease in entropy. Entropy is a physical term which describes the disorder in a system, and for a closed system (that nothing enters or exits) entropy always increases. Living things are by no means closed systems, so they experience a local decrease in entropy at the expense of their environment. But a living being with the ability to ask the question "why am I here?" must contain an incredible amount of order, or a very low local entropy.

All living things eventually die. But Nature and Life go on. Life can be defined as the local decrease in entropy that enables the constant cycling of the suns energy that maintains all living organisms, through their lives and in perpetuity through their generations. Nature then is the sum total of these local entropy decreases. And this total decrease not only persists through time but keeps getting larger through the reproduction of living things.

Insofar as the sun is a perpetual motion machine, then so is Life. And everything that happens in the sun is ultimately caused by gravity. So we find gravity is the prime mover of the energy flow we call Life, flowing forever through the whole fabric of Nature.

The energy of sunlight is absorbed in individual packets or quanta called photons by chlorophyll, the color pigment in green plants. This energy in each quantum goes into an excited electron, which, in the course of falling back to the ground state, travels around the body, its energy meted out to support all vital activities such as growth and differentiation, sensations, and movements.
When animals feed on plants or on other animals, they are taking in the energy stored in the food to serve their own growth and development and all the activities that constitute being alive. Hence, the energy absorbed from the sun is circulated a long way round all the organisms in the biosphere, with fractions of the total being lost as heat on the way till finally it becomes spent, or reaches the ground state. The energy cycle is accompanied by the parallel cycling of chemicals. It leaves no doubt that all life is a dynamic unity, it is the consequence of sunlight streaming through an open system, to maintain it far away from thermodynamic equilibrium.
Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1960), a founding father of modern biochemistry, had a nice way of putting it: that life is an interposition between two energy levels of an electron: the ground state and the excited state, and furthermore, as it is the electron that goes round the circuit, life is really a little electric current going round and connecting up all nature with the sun and the earth. This fundamental unity of physics and biology has indeed inspired a lot of people who felt that here was the key to unlocking the mystery of the living state. But as Szent-Gyorgi remarked then, and it is still largely the case now, biochemistry and molecular biology do not address such questions.
In physics to sustain oneself is to keep far away from thermodynamic equilibrium, which is death by another name. The pre-requisite for keeping away from thermodynamic equilibrium is to capture energy in order to persist.
To do so, an organism needs physical barriers that separate inside from the outside, though not completely. It also needs a dynamic structure that enables it to store as much energy and material as possible, and to use the energy and material most efficiently and rapidly, with the least amount of waste and dissipation.
The organism has solved those problems over billions of years of evolution. It has an obvious nested physical structure. All the highly specialized functions are perfectly orchestrated, depending on the way energy is metabolized.
It turns out that energy is metabolized in cycles, which can be thought of as dynamic boxes, and they come in all sizes from the very fast to the very slo couple of comments...
: I would have to disagree with your statement about life being a true perpetual motion machine. If you don't put some effort into it, life dies. It takes hard work and enery to keep life going, and even more hard work and energy to bring order to life. It may take the form of something natural, like evolution or a food chain, or something as purposeful like washing the dishes or taking out the trash, but in every case there needs to be some energy expended to keep life ordered and thriving.
: Without that input of energy there would be a buildup of waste, failed species, toxins, disorder, decay, and death. Life uses up resources. During that process do we produce more resources than we use? Only then would life be a perpetual motion machine.
: I think that using math and simulations to model / predict / decribe life is definitely cool and may certainly lead to new discoveries, but I just can't help thinking that there is some random element in life that cannot ever be simulated. Not really. Have you ever watched a movie with CG effects and thought, "wow, cool, that looked pretty real, I could tell it wasn't real but it certainly looked good." That's what I'm getting at. No matter how close a simulation gets there's some undefinable aspect that sets life apart from a simulation.
: As I said, I haven't had the chance to read your links yet. Possibly Wolfram addresses some of the things I just mentioned. I'll take a look.
: Thanks!
:
: : Hello All,
: : Wanted to make sure you all know about this. It is very exciting indeed!
: : Stephen Wolfram is the man behind Mathematica, the ubiquitous math software you are probably familiar with. Do you know those computer "life simulators?" Where you apply an algorithmic rule to an initial condition and it shows how the organisms evolve? Wolfram has taken that idea and shown that it is actually the correct way to model nature. Therefore, mathematics is just an artifice and has led Science down a dead end. Algorithms, not mathematics, express the true "language" of the universe.
: : http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html
: : http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml
: : http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1
: : http://www.wolframscience.com
: : http://www.stephenwolfram.com/
: : If he is right, this is the beginning of a true revolution in Science.
: : It is interesting to note that Life is a clear violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy. In life and evolution there is a natural increase in order, which is a decrease in entropy. Life is a perpetuating system... a true perpetual motion machine.
: : If the basic rules that govern life and evolution (algorithms) also govern the physical world, then it becomes conceivable that a physical/mechanical system could be made to operate in a perpetually repeating cycle.
: : Scott

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: There is one quality of life that is ubiquitous. That is, a living being must contain organized complexity, or information. It is clear that this requires a local increase in energy, or to be more precise, a local decrease in entropy. Entropy is a physical term which describes the disorder in a system, and for a closed system (that nothing enters or exits) entropy always increases. Living things are by no means closed systems, so they experience a local decrease in entropy at the expense of their environment. But a living being with the ability to ask the question "why am I here?" must contain an incredible amount of order, or a very low local entropy. : All living things eventually die. But Nature and Life go on. Life can be defined as the local decrease in entropy that enables the constant cycling of the sun’s energy that maintains all living organisms, through their lives and in perpetuity through their generations. Nature then is the sum total of these local entropy decreases. And this total decrease not only persists through time but keeps getting larger through the reproduction of living things. : Insofar as the sun is a perpetual motion machine, then so is Life. And everything that happens in the sun is ultimately caused by gravity. So we find gravity is the prime mover of the energy flow we call Life, flowing forever through the whole fabric of Nature. : <blockquote> : The energy of sunlight is absorbed in individual packets or quanta called photons by chlorophyll, the color pigment in green plants. This energy in each quantum goes into an excited electron, which, in the course of falling back to the ground state, travels around the body, its energy meted out to support all vital activities such as growth and differentiation, sensations, and movements. : When animals feed on plants or on other animals, they are taking in the energy stored in the food to serve their own growth and development and all the activities that constitute being alive. Hence, the energy absorbed from the sun is circulated a long way round all the organisms in the biosphere, with fractions of the total being lost as heat on the way till finally it becomes spent, or reaches the ground state. The energy cycle is accompanied by the parallel cycling of chemicals. It leaves no doubt that all life is a dynamic unity, it is the consequence of sunlight streaming through an open system, to maintain it far away from thermodynamic equilibrium. : Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1960), a founding father of modern biochemistry, had a nice way of putting it: that life is an interposition between two energy levels of an electron: the ground state and the excited state, and furthermore, as it is the electron that goes round the circuit, life is really a little electric current going round and connecting up all nature with the sun and the earth. This fundamental unity of physics and biology has indeed inspired a lot of people who felt that here was the key to unlocking the mystery of the living state. But as Szent-Gyorgi remarked then, and it is still largely the case now, biochemistry and molecular biology do not address such questions. : In physics to sustain oneself is to keep far away from thermodynamic equilibrium, which is death by another name. The pre-requisite for keeping away from thermodynamic equilibrium is to capture energy in order to persist. : To do so, an organism needs physical barriers that separate inside from the outside, though not completely. It also needs a dynamic structure that enables it to store as much energy and material as possible, and to use the energy and material most efficiently and rapidly, with the least amount of waste and dissipation. : The organism has solved those problems over billions of years of evolution. It has an obvious nested physical structure. All the highly specialized functions are perfectly orchestrated, depending on the way energy is metabolized. : It turns out that energy is metabolized in cycles, which can be thought of as dynamic boxes, and they come in all sizes from the very fast to the very slow, from the global to the most local. Biologists have wondered why biological activities are predominantly rhythmic or cyclic, and a lot of effort has gone into identifying the center of control, all to no avail. : Cycles pervade the organism because they make thermodynamic sense. Cycles involve perpetual returns to the same state, they give dynamic stability as well as autonomy. Cycles also enable the activities to be coupled, or linked together, so that those yielding energy can transfer the energy directly to those requiring energy, and the direction can be reversed when the need arises. These symmetrical, reciprocal relationships are most important for sustaining the system. That’s how our metabolism and physiology is actually organized: closing the cycle and linking up. : </blockquote> : <a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/tswl.php">http://www.i-sis.org.uk/tswl.php</a> : <a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gaia.php">http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gaia.php</a> : <a href="http://wanglab.ccs.brandeis.edu/~miller/anthrop.html">http://wanglab.ccs.brandeis.edu/~miller/anthrop.html</a> : Best, : Scott : : : Scott, : : Just shootin from the hip here, didn't read the links you provided yet but wanted to make a quick couple of comments... : : I would have to disagree with your statement about life being a true perpetual motion machine. If you don't put some effort into it, life dies. It takes hard work and enery to keep life going, and even more hard work and energy to bring order to life. It may take the form of something natural, like evolution or a food chain, or something as purposeful like washing the dishes or taking out the trash, but in every case there needs to be some energy expended to keep life ordered and thriving. : : Without that input of energy there would be a buildup of waste, failed species, toxins, disorder, decay, and death. Life uses up resources. During that process do we produce more resources than we use? Only then would life be a perpetual motion machine. : : I think that using math and simulations to model / predict / decribe life is definitely cool and may certainly lead to new discoveries, but I just can't help thinking that there is some random element in life that cannot ever be simulated. Not really. Have you ever watched a movie with CG effects and thought, "wow, cool, that looked pretty real, I could tell it wasn't real but it certainly looked good." That's what I'm getting at. No matter how close a simulation gets there's some undefinable aspect that sets life apart from a simulation. : : As I said, I haven't had the chance to read your links yet. Possibly Wolfram addresses some of the things I just mentioned. I'll take a look. : : Thanks! : : : : : Hello All, : : : Wanted to make sure you all know about this. It is very exciting indeed! : : : Stephen Wolfram is the man behind Mathematica, the ubiquitous math software you are probably familiar with. Do you know those computer "life simulators?" Where you apply an algorithmic rule to an initial condition and it shows how the organisms evolve? Wolfram has taken that idea and shown that it is actually the correct way to model nature. Therefore, mathematics is just an artifice and has led Science down a dead end. Algorithms, not mathematics, express the true "language" of the universe. : : : <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html</a> : : : <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml">http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml</a> : : : <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1">http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1</a> : : : <a href="http://www.wolframscience.com">http://www.wolframscience.com</a> : : : <a href="http://www.stephenwolfram.com/">http://www.stephenwolfram.com/</a> : : : If he is right, this is the beginning of a true revolution in Science. : : : It is interesting to note that Life is a clear violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy. In life and evolution there is a natural increase in order, which is a decrease in entropy. Life is a perpetuating system... a true perpetual motion machine. : : : If the basic rules that govern life and evolution (algorithms) also govern the physical world, then it becomes conceivable that a physical/mechanical system could be made to operate in a perpetually repeating cycle. : : : Scott

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Comments:	: There is one quality of life that is ubiquitous. That is, a living being must contain organized complexity, or information. It is clear that this requires a local increase in energy, or to be more precise, a local decrease in entropy. Entropy is a physical term which describes the disorder in a system, and for a closed system (that nothing enters or exits) entropy always increases. Living things are by no means closed systems, so they experience a local decrease in entropy at the expense of their environment. But a living being with the ability to ask the question "why am I here?" must contain an incredible amount of order, or a very low local entropy. : All living things eventually die. But Nature and Life go on. Life can be defined as the local decrease in entropy that enables the constant cycling of the sun’s energy that maintains all living organisms, through their lives and in perpetuity through their generations. Nature then is the sum total of these local entropy decreases. And this total decrease not only persists through time but keeps getting larger through the reproduction of living things. : Insofar as the sun is a perpetual motion machine, then so is Life. And everything that happens in the sun is ultimately caused by gravity. So we find gravity is the prime mover of the energy flow we call Life, flowing forever through the whole fabric of Nature. : <blockquote> : The energy of sunlight is absorbed in individual packets or quanta called photons by chlorophyll, the color pigment in green plants. This energy in each quantum goes into an excited electron, which, in the course of falling back to the ground state, travels around the body, its energy meted out to support all vital activities such as growth and differentiation, sensations, and movements. : When animals feed on plants or on other animals, they are taking in the energy stored in the food to serve their own growth and development and all the activities that constitute being alive. Hence, the energy absorbed from the sun is circulated a long way round all the organisms in the biosphere, with fractions of the total being lost as heat on the way till finally it becomes spent, or reaches the ground state. The energy cycle is accompanied by the parallel cycling of chemicals. It leaves no doubt that all life is a dynamic unity, it is the consequence of sunlight streaming through an open system, to maintain it far away from thermodynamic equilibrium. : Albert Szent-Gyorgi (1960), a founding father of modern biochemistry, had a nice way of putting it: that life is an interposition between two energy levels of an electron: the ground state and the excited state, and furthermore, as it is the electron that goes round the circuit, life is really a little electric current going round and connecting up all nature with the sun and the earth. This fundamental unity of physics and biology has indeed inspired a lot of people who felt that here was the key to unlocking the mystery of the living state. But as Szent-Gyorgi remarked then, and it is still largely the case now, biochemistry and molecular biology do not address such questions. : In physics to sustain oneself is to keep far away from thermodynamic equilibrium, which is death by another name. The pre-requisite for keeping away from thermodynamic equilibrium is to capture energy in order to persist. : To do so, an organism needs physical barriers that separate inside from the outside, though not completely. It also needs a dynamic structure that enables it to store as much energy and material as possible, and to use the energy and material most efficiently and rapidly, with the least amount of waste and dissipation. : The organism has solved those problems over billions of years of evolution. It has an obvious nested physical structure. All the highly specialized functions are perfectly orchestrated, depending on the way energy is metabolized. : It turns out that energy is metabolized in cycles, which can be thought of as dynamic boxes, and they come in all sizes from the very fast to the very slow, from the global to the most local. Biologists have wondered why biological activities are predominantly rhythmic or cyclic, and a lot of effort has gone into identifying the center of control, all to no avail. : Cycles pervade the organism because they make thermodynamic sense. Cycles involve perpetual returns to the same state, they give dynamic stability as well as autonomy. Cycles also enable the activities to be coupled, or linked together, so that those yielding energy can transfer the energy directly to those requiring energy, and the direction can be reversed when the need arises. These symmetrical, reciprocal relationships are most important for sustaining the system. That’s how our metabolism and physiology is actually organized: closing the cycle and linking up. : </blockquote> : <a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/tswl.php">http://www.i-sis.org.uk/tswl.php</a> : <a href="http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gaia.php">http://www.i-sis.org.uk/gaia.php</a> : <a href="http://wanglab.ccs.brandeis.edu/~miller/anthrop.html">http://wanglab.ccs.brandeis.edu/~miller/anthrop.html</a> : Best, : Scott : : : Scott, : : Just shootin from the hip here, didn't read the links you provided yet but wanted to make a quick couple of comments... : : I would have to disagree with your statement about life being a true perpetual motion machine. If you don't put some effort into it, life dies. It takes hard work and enery to keep life going, and even more hard work and energy to bring order to life. It may take the form of something natural, like evolution or a food chain, or something as purposeful like washing the dishes or taking out the trash, but in every case there needs to be some energy expended to keep life ordered and thriving. : : Without that input of energy there would be a buildup of waste, failed species, toxins, disorder, decay, and death. Life uses up resources. During that process do we produce more resources than we use? Only then would life be a perpetual motion machine. : : I think that using math and simulations to model / predict / decribe life is definitely cool and may certainly lead to new discoveries, but I just can't help thinking that there is some random element in life that cannot ever be simulated. Not really. Have you ever watched a movie with CG effects and thought, "wow, cool, that looked pretty real, I could tell it wasn't real but it certainly looked good." That's what I'm getting at. No matter how close a simulation gets there's some undefinable aspect that sets life apart from a simulation. : : As I said, I haven't had the chance to read your links yet. Possibly Wolfram addresses some of the things I just mentioned. I'll take a look. : : Thanks! : : : : : Hello All, : : : Wanted to make sure you all know about this. It is very exciting indeed! : : : Stephen Wolfram is the man behind Mathematica, the ubiquitous math software you are probably familiar with. Do you know those computer "life simulators?" Where you apply an algorithmic rule to an initial condition and it shows how the organisms evolve? Wolfram has taken that idea and shown that it is actually the correct way to model nature. Therefore, mathematics is just an artifice and has led Science down a dead end. Algorithms, not mathematics, express the true "language" of the universe. : : : <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html</a> : : : <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml">http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml</a> : : : <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1">http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1</a> : : : <a href="http://www.wolframscience.com">http://www.wolframscience.com</a> : : : <a href="http://www.stephenwolfram.com/">http://www.stephenwolfram.com/</a> : : : If he is right, this is the beginning of a true revolution in Science. : : : It is interesting to note that Life is a clear violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy. In life and evolution there is a natural increase in order, which is a decrease in entropy. Life is a perpetuating system... a true perpetual motion machine. : : : If the basic rules that govern life and evolution (algorithms) also govern the physical world, then it becomes conceivable that a physical/mechanical system could be made to operate in a perpetually repeating cycle. : : : Scott
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