Marc,

Lets assume that your model of the origin of life is validated experimentally and lets assume that you complete it all the ways to known form of life and that validate experimentally all the steps. Then there will be a finite number of steps from the passage from the non-living to the known primitive form of life. As a whole, all these steps will define a passage from the non-living to the living. It will probably not be possible to identify a critical step demarcating the two realms. We can take the analogy of a two levels house with a stair allowing us to go from the first level to the next. Each step of the stair bring us closer to the second level but we cannot define which step delimit the first level to the second level. It is the whole stair that is necessary.

Louis,

In the daily life (if I dare use this expression in this specific context!) everybody will understand you when speaking of first or second level in a two level house. Surely you don’t need to have a very accurate definition of these levels and you also may say that you are between the two levels in some circumstances.

Still in the daily life, even if the distinction living/non living is a little bit more complex as, as you know, there are (were) native tribes who consider(ed) that rivers, mountains, etc. are (were) ‘living’ things, I agree with you that it is not necessary to have a very accurate definition of the concept.

The situation is totally different when you search for the origin of the products of Darwinian evolution. I think the researcher falls into a trap if he wants to base his research on whatever the definition of ‘life’ he selects. This is because the boundary between living and non-living systems or the hypothetical moment when non living systems would have become living are totally arbitrary and thus cannot lead the researcher in his search. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the hypothesis of the existence of such a boundary or such a moment is not falsifiable as no experiment can be envisaged to prove that it can be wrong.

No!

The evolution of life is the evolution of catalysis.

The work that I have done strongly suggests that ALL living processes are organised as fractal processes of catalysis.

Davia, C.J (June 2006), "Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition", in Tuszynski, J.A, The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection), Springer, pp. 255–292, ISBN 978-3540238904

Recall that the term metaphysics has its origin in the order of Aristotle's books. His

Metaphysics book came AFTER (beyond) his work on Physics. For Aristotle, metaphysics was the study of being (what it means to be). And he starts his metaphysics by observing that All men desire to learn. So learning central to the study of being, its essential and accidental characteristics. That is a good start on coming to terms with the issue of life.

After that, the term metaphysics acquired many interpretations besides the order of Aristotle's books and the study of what it means to be.

James,

I agree with you that the term "metaphysics" is vague.

Actually I use the following definition: everything or hypothesis which cannot be studied within the scientific methodology, i.e., which cannot be tested by any observations and/or experiments; in other words every assertion which is not falsifiable.

Marc,

Based on your very interesting interpretation of metaphysics, that would mean that Kant's schema in his Critique of Pure Reason is actually metaphysics. Taking this a step further, Plato's allegory of the cave would also be considered metaphysics.

Marc,

Most of philosophy would become metaphysics according to your definition. What you meant by 'metaphysics'' was non-scientific in Popper sense.

James and Louis,

Yes, to me, "metaphysics" is a synonym of "philosophy".

Kant's schema in his Critique of Pure Reason as well as Plato's allegory of the cave clearly belong to metaphysics.

To me any rational thought or idea which cannot lead to a hypothesis which is scientifically fasifiable belong to philosophy. As soon as a philosophical hypothesis is testable it is no more a philosophical hypothesis as it becomes a scientific hypothesis.

Marc,

Many thanks for your cogent reply. Notice, however, that Cantor's cardinality of the natural numbers fits your interpretation of metaphysics. So Cantor's notion of infinity would be considered metaphysics. Do you agree?

James,

As you are aware mathematics is not physics.

- Physics directly deals with our physical world. Hypotheses on the physical world need to be tested by observations and/or experiments to be scientific.

- Mathematics is a virtual construction of our mind. It is based on logic. Hence, any mathematical reasoning must be perfectly logical to be correct but has not to deal with the physical world. As deeply commented in the RG thread: "Is mathematics a human contrivance or is it innate to nature?" what is notable with mathematics is its capacity to be used as a very powerful tool in physics.

Cantor's cardinality of the natural numbers is clearly a mathematical object.

Marc,

We agree!

Marc,

Did you read the papers by Giuseppe Longo and al. on life as an extended singularity. Longo tried to distinguish the living from the non-living state of matter along the distinguishing character of their matematical models. You can find many relevant paper under his RG home page.

I personally convinced that a theoretical biological approach of the functional cycle as developed by Von Uexkull is the proper way to go especially for the modeling of your model of life evolution. You can download the pdf of theoretical biology from the net for free. If I find the time this year, I will actually modelize your model in terms of functional cycle evolution.

Louis,

Again, thank you very much for finding interesting papers and now for Bailly & Longo's paper "Extended critical situations: the physical singularity of life phenomena" I didn't know.

Of course I will read it and give you my comments about it.

I would be very much interested in your modeling of my model.

Louis,

I have just finished Bailly & Longo's 2008 paper "Extended critical situations: the physical singularity of life phenomena".

Honestly, I must admit that I am puzzled by the paper.

There are certainly things I find relevant such as:

1. ″A system, to have to evolve within an “extended critical zone … first, must be to find itself at all times far from equilibrium because the maintaining of its organization requires intensive exchanges of energy allowing to maintain an “abnormally” low entropy with regard to the situation of equilibrium″ ;

2. ″This must signify that the hypothesis which consists in associating living phenomena to a zone of extended criticality, if it enables to interpret the permanence and the functioning of organisms, still remains insufficient to describe or to explain the origin. What appears, at this stage, namely by the fact that this hypothesis says nothing about learning capacities″ ;

3. ″As a matter of fact, there are two kinds of entropies that participate to the process. On one side, the thermodynamic production of entropy related to irreversible energy consumption, an entropy which, by this, continually grows [Nicolis, Prigogine, 1992]. On the other, autopoiesis decreases entropy by increasing or maintaining organisation″.

However, I see major issues:

1. First, I think Bailly & Longo totally missed the importance of the evolutionary mechanism which led to the present products of Darwinian evolution. Actually, only once “Darwinian evolution” is cited and only to assert that this mechanism is insufficient to explain th emergence of ‘life’: “Once more, the use of the physics of criticality by Bak, Kauffman, etc, is of great interest. It gives a possible insight into the emergence of life from the inert [Kauffman, 1995]. It enriches the analysis of Darwinian evolution, rooted in selection, by a motor that it was lacking: the construction of order from disorder, on the basis of solely physical considerations″ ;

2. Second, I find the paper unclear and too often metaphysical or even finalist:

a. Unclear: “Thus, autopoiesis may be seen as a way by which the living generates and preserves extended criticality, far from equilibrium, yet in a functionally coherent structure. The qualitatively constant internal environment (in relation to the external environment ) is part of structural stability or stability of the qualitative organization as captured by autopoiesis and departs from cybernetic feedbacks or alike etc.″

b. Metaphysical or even finalist: ″In our view, biological causality needs to integrate some notion of finalism″

On the whole I am quite disapointed by the paper.

I look forward to your comments.

There is a scientific way to grasp the concept ot teleonomy and theological. I recommend a book I am reading: Cognitive Biology by Gennaro Auletta.

Chapters are available on RG pages of Gennaro. He speak French, very friendly and I am having discussion with him.

Louis,

I will try to read what is available from Gennaro Auletta on RG.

However it seems impossible to me to envisage that the concept of teleonomy and/or of theology may have any scientific content (!).

After having commented what I could have read from this author I will be interested in discussing it with you and James.

Louis and Marc,

This is an interesting discussion. I will also start reading about teleonomy.

James and Marc,

Some definitions by:

Gennaro Auletta

Teleonomic and Teleologic Causation in Phylogeny and Ontogeny

Teleonomy is the typical causal process occurring when the organism is able to carve out environmental stimuli that are in principle noxious and a threat for its homeostasis in signals leading its own growth and development. Even if genome and environment are blind to each other such a process establishes a correlation between the two. Teleonmy does not demand goal or any active intervention of the organism as a whole. Teleonomy dominates in phylogenetic processes.

Instead, teleology is that mechanism through which a system exercises an informational control on another system in order to establish an equivalence class (of stimuli, for instance) and select some specific information (e.g. to verify whether a certain type of electron is good for energy storing, for instance) for its metabolic needs. Teleologic causality dominates at the scale of the individual organism and in ontogenetic processes like the building of an environmental niche or any other process through which a ripe organism is able to influence its own environment.

Epigenetic processes can be understood as a trade-off between teleonomy and teleology.

Louis and James,

I read Auletta et al.’s 2009 paper “The Game Of Life Implies Both Teleonomy And Teleology”.

Louis, I see you have already taken the initiative giving us definitions Auletta’s teleonomy and teleology.

Well, the usual definition for teleonomy is:

"Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms that derive from their evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, or generally, due to the operation of a program. Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose” (from Wikipedia 'Teleonomy').

Is this latter definition different from Auletta’s?

In this usual definition there is clearly the notion of “purposefulness” and of “goal-directedness”. However it is specified that these are only “apparent” for the “structures and functions in living organisms” because they “derive from their evolutionary history”.

Autella seems to say the same thing. In their “The Game Of Life Implies Both Teleonomy And Teleology” paper Auletta et al. wrote (page 270): “Teleonomy is a process in which the internal (genetic) program initiates a process in which environmental signals are used as cues for giving rise to structures and functions that are adaptative. In other words it is a process of co-adaptation between an organism and its environment".

Autella et al. say that such a teleonomy is the result of “a process of co-adaptation between an organism and its environment”. Thus, it may be understood that this is the result of the evolutionary history. However Autella et al. specifically use the term “program” in their expression “internal (genetic) program” which is in accordance with the usual definition: “due to the operation of a program” and also “Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose”.

This is a main point on which I disagree with Autella. Like Longo et al. in their 2012 paper “Is Information a proper observable for biological organization?” (page 9) I think that “it is misleading to look for a developmental program or information in the sense of a “code-script” within the genome” and thus, that “the adoption of the information theoretical approach failed to provide biology with a pertinent observable for understanding and measuring organization. On the contrary, the concepts linked to information such as code, program, signal, etc. have hindered the comprehension both of physical dynamics and of biological organization”.

Actually Autella has similar thoughts when he writes “the genome doesn’t contain all the information necessary for the building of the adult organism”. Unfortunately he still insists on using the term “information”.

What about the notion of teleology?

The usual definition for teleology is:

"Teleology applies to ends that are planned by an agent which can internally model/imagine various alternative futures and, enables intention, purpose and foresight" (from Wikipedia 'Teleonomy').

Thus, in this definition, there is clearly the notion of an “agent”. However the agent “internally model/imagine various alternative futures etc.”.

In “The Game Of Life Implies Both Teleonomy And Teleology” Auletta et al. wrote in page 272:

"Teleology may be generally defined as the ability of an individual organism to informationally control another system, for instance its environment, according to the goal of its survival, that is, for preserving and maintaining its metabolic activity. It should be regarded as a top-down causal mechanism since it is related to endogenous processes that the organism carries out during epigeny and ontogeny, in order to satisfy vital needs”

and in page 273: “In other words, in the presence of a stimulus or a signal, an organism «guesses» at the survival-related significance of the source (whether noxious or not, whether survival-promoting or not), and acts accordingly”.

Hence, it seems that for Auletta et al. the internal agent is what he calls “endogenous processes that the organism carries out during epigeny and ontogeny”. For instance such endogenous processes could be “feedback control loops”: “the organism can do this by means of regulative circuits capable of measuring the gap between the current outcome and the «expected» one, which is relative to the goal to be accomplished” (e.g., maintaining a stable glycaemia).

What I find questionable in Auletta et al.’s prose is the anthropomorphism and finalism aspect:

• Example 1: “an organism «guesses» at the survival-related significance of the source”. I would have much preferred if he had said “It is as if an organism «guesses» etc.”;

• Example 2: “Therefore, whenever environmental conditions become extremely challenging or not manageable, the only alternative is to accommodate to the (new) environment”.

Auletta et al. seem to infer that the organism will necessarily adapt itself to the new environment. I think this is the main bias in Auletta et al.’s interpretation.

In the usual evolutionary interpretation a class of organisms will survive in a new environment only if its phenotype is already adapted to it, otherwise it will disappear. This is only possible if, by chance, its genotype has already had the appropriate genotype to lead to the adapted phenotype. Then, of course there is no «guesses» from the organisms, only good or bad luck.

Finally, in their conclusion, Auletta et al. ask the two following questions:

1. “Whether evolution should be regarded as necessarily driven or as merely the product of blind chance?”

2. “What kind of finalism is to be acknowledged in orgznism’s self-production, reproduction, regulation and behavior?”

Their answers are:

1. “it would be a mistake, in our view, to consider this result (i.e., “phylogeny is a teleonomic process and not a goal-directed one”) as the goal driving evolution and therefore targeted in advance”;

2. “In the case of teleological goal-directed behaviors, the goal is to be seen as intrinsic to the organism and it has to be attained within relatively narrow tolerance windows. This confers on teleological processes a genuine finalistic character”.

I agree with Auletta et al.’s first answer (except their assertion that ”phylogeny is a teleonomic process”) as I totally disagree with their second answer. Hence, on the whole, I find rather ambiguous Auletta et al.’s thoughts.

Moreover I find puzzling the fact that “The Game Of Life Implies Both Teleonomy And Teleology” paper seems related to the Gregorian Biblical Press (i.e., as specified in the bottom of the page of the document sent by Gennaro Auletta to me).

Marc,

Although Auletta is using the concept of teleonomy in special and original way, he does not redefine it. He is following a long tradition in biology and Monod in particular.

I found on the same wikipedia page that you quoted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomy

the following quote :

Haldane [in the 1930s] can be found remarking, ‘Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.’ Today the mistress has become a lawfully wedded wife. Biologists no longer feel obligated to apologize for their use of teleological language; they flaunt it. The only concession which they make to its disreputable past is to rename it ‘teleonomy’.

I disagree with Haldane in equating the two concepts but I find his analogy very good.

Should we be surprised to have to discuss teleonomy and teolology given the fact that any organism can be seen as being into an active loop with its unwelt:

-unwelt-sensing-caring-acting-unwel-

(caring : evaluation of what need to be done to maintain self/extendedself lower and higher internalized continuation goals)

The usual cause-effect description that is efficient cause only works when you cut the loop open. But when the loop operate, anything inside the organism or outside in the unwelt is both a cause and an effect. If you bring about the notion that the structure of the loop evolved not only based on previous organisms (loops) but from previous unwelts.

Human language has no problem describing open processes: cause -. effect. Processes that are loop cannot be described easily in language and the very notion of effective causation at the base of cartesian method enters major epistemological difficulties. Since we are condemed to describe reality using language despited all its limitations, it is more challenging to be epistemologically correct in the description of phenomenologies that are in loops.,

Dear contributers to this discussion, whether teleological or not, when it comes to the definition of life, one may consider this an abstract property of certain systems called organisms. But this displaces the question to 'which systems are organisms?' How this question can be solved, and a new approach to a definition of life can be suggested is explained in the following page of my website: http://the-operator-theory.wikispaces.com/Definition+of+life%2C+the+organism%2C+and+death

The argumentation for this new definition is discussed in detail in my recent book "The pursuit of complexity". Kind regards, dr. mult. Gerard Jagers op Akkerhuis

Gerard,

I quickly read the page of your website. Life as a hieararchical laddor of closed loop. Von Uexkull is the first to have formally come up with life as functional cycle, the loop I was referring about in my previous posts. Everybody also agree that the functional cycle has evolved a ladder of funcitional cycle in the process of biological evolution and the gradual specialization and creation of new biological functions. I was also telling Marc that his abiogenesis model could be modeled in this type of framework. What is particularly interesting in Marc's model is that reproduction/growth/metabolism are all combined together. Reproduction is created by the stability limit of the growth of a closed surface. The functional cycle is simplified to its minimum expression in Marc's model. Its model is a minimal closure system. Marc, when I was talking about formulating your model in terms of evolutionary functional cycle, I was thinking describing your abiogenesis model as the gradual differentiation into a hiearchy of functional cycle of the multiple aspect of life closure from a minimal functional cycle closure system that exists around the thermal vents. So many aspects of metabolisms that will evolve later are already provided free as part of the thermal vent unwelt.

Louis,

IMO there is a problem with the term 'biology':

1. In 'biology' there is the prefix 'bio' which means 'life';

2. As I claim in this thread 'life' is not a scientific concept because it is not fasifiable;

3. Actually physics, which means "knowledge of nature" in greek, is the essential science for understanding the physical world;

4. In particular physics is perfectly suitable to understand the process of Darwinian evolution;

5. If however a term is deemed useful to characterize the knowledge of the products of Darwinian evolution I propose 'excelexiology' which comes from the ancient greek and could mean 'science of the products of Darwinian evolution'.

Marc,

I think that Darwinian evolution does not come in the intial stage of biological evolution. There is a intial stage where species do not even exist. There exist a lot of initial varieties within an uniform hopitable unwelt around the vents. Then gradually and collectively some of the primary method to leave the confines of the thermal vent unwelt will allow a gradual unwelt differentiation and thus adaptation in different niche.

Why did the RNA and DNA evolve? Not necessarily for reproduction at first. Maybe RNA and DNA evolved a a kind of shared protein public library to maximize cooperation and will become later use to stabilize certain ontogic process.

Just food for thoughts.

Louis,

Indeed I disagree with you when you say "Darwinian evolution does not come in the intial stage".

Actually you add "of biological evolution": it seems you infer that Darwinian evolution is different from what you call "biological" evolution: how do you describe the process you call "biological" evolution?

As you know I accurately specify which conditions are necessary and sufficient to allow the emergence of Darwinian evolution and of course reproduction is one these conditions. Are you able to define the conditions for the emergence of your "biological" evolution?

By the way did you read my 2013 paper "On the thermodynamics of multilevel evolution" (see attached)? If yes, what are your comments?

Regarding RNA I say that what has preceded the emergence of nucleic acids was able to allow RNA emergence, as my model is able to predict it.

Hence, according to my model, nucleic acids were not indeed responsible for the reproduction of the vesicles when they have emerged for the first time inside the vesicles.

Article On the thermodynamics of multilevel evolution

Life is much more than a metaphysical construct, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics and natural selection both play important roles in its emergence and proliferation.

To me, Maturana and Varela's Autopoiesis (with a few minor tweaks to explain the emergence of autopoiesis at different hierarchical levels of structure) provides an effective definition of what it means to be living. Darwinian selection as described by Karl Popper in his later works on evolutionary epistemology plays a major role even in the first emergence of autopoietic systems from a lifeless environment:

o Popper, K.R. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. London, Oxford Univ. Press, 380 pp;

Popper, K.R. 1994 [1969]. Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem: In Defence of Interaction (ed. Notturno, M.A.). Routledge, London.

Selection and evolution require some kind of evolving block universe as described by Smolin and Ellis et al:

o Smolin, L. 2001. The present moment in quantum cosmology: challenges to the arguments for the elimination of time. [Slightly revised version of an essay published in Time and the Instant, Robin Durie (ed.) Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2000], arXiv:gr-qc/0104097, pp 29 - http://tinyurl.com/lnfdxpn

o Smolin, L. 2013. Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to the Future of the Universe. Allen Lane, London;

o Ellis, G.F.R., Rothman, T. 2010. Time and spacetime: the crystallizing block universe. International Journal of Theoretical Physics 49, 988–1003 - http://tinyurl.com/oatrbmd;

o Ellis, G.F.R. 2012a. Space time and the passage of time. [for] Springer Handbook of Spacetime. Petkov V. (ed). Springer, Heidelberg - http://tinyurl.com/ljvwqhe;

Ellis, G.F.R. 2012b. Top-down causation and emergence: some comments on mechanisms. Interface Focus 2, 126–140 - http://tinyurl.com/qbrjc45;

Ellis, G.F.R. 2013. The arrow of time and the nature of spacetime. - http://tinyurl.com/oy48zju.

Heredity is a consequence of selective pruning and the constraints of history as reflected in Stuart Kauffman's idea of the "adjacent possible":

o Kauffman, S.A. (1996). Investigations: The Nature of Autonomous Agents and the Worlds they Mutually Create. Working Papers of Santa Fe Institute. 96-08-072 - http://tinyurl.com/2b4ky6l. [Published as Investigations. Oxford Univ. Press, New York (2000)];

o Kauffman, S.A. 2003. Molecular autonomous agents. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 361:1089-1099 - http://tinyurl.com/279n8sl;

o Kauffman, S.A., Logan, R.K., Este, R., Goebel, R., Hobill, D., Shmulevich, I. 2008. Propagating organization: an enquiry. Biology and Philosophy 23:27-45 - http://tinyurl.com/m3doe39.

Depending on the level of organization and the complexity of the autopoietic system, heredity (i.e., the knowledge to solve problems of life) is always carried in instantaneous structure plus (usually) encoded nucleic acid polymers, and (in social organizations) culturally transmitted knowledge.

I have thoroughly discussed how these ideas go together in a working paper (attached) and in earlier publications leading up to the latest work that consider the emergence and the roles of different forms of knowledge in living systems at several different levels of organization:

o Hall, W.P., Else, S., Martin, C., Philp, W. 2011. Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition and knowledge - http://kororoit.org/PDFs/WorkingPapers/HallEtAl-Working0001.pdf;

o Vines, R., Hall, W.P. 2011. Exploring the foundations of organizational knowledge. http://kororoit.org/PDFs/WorkingPapers/VinesHall-Working0003.pdf;

o Hall, W.P., Nousala, S. 2010. Autopoiesis and knowledge in self-sustaining organizational systems - http://tinyurl.com/yztsq4t;

o Nousala, S., Hall, W.P. 2008 Emerging autopoietic communities – scalability of knowledge transfer in complex systems - http://tinyurl.com/25khr3o;

o Hall, W.P. 2006 Emergence and growth of knowledge and diversity in hierarchically complex living systems - http://tinyurl.com/p2fl7;

o Hall, W.P., Dalmaris, P., Nousala, S. 2005. A biological theory of knowledge and applications to real world organizations - http://tinyurl.com/qflam;

o Hall, W.P. 2005. Biological nature of knowledge in the learning organization - http://tinyurl.com/lqz3q;

o Hall, W.P. [1966]. Is the Plastid an Endosymbiont - http://tinyurl.com/29mlkh7.

I'm happy to get feed back on and respond to questions on any of these papers, but otherwise I won't contribute a lot to this conversation because I am heavily engaged in writing a hypertext book that is at least in part on this subject.

Article Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition a...

William,

Another part of the mix in the life of a human is risibility (ability to laugh).

William,

Thank you for this impressive bibliography although somewhat heterogeneous.

I read your paper "Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition and knowledge".

However your exact definition of 'life' is still unclear to me: could you summarise it here for us?

Marc ,

I will read your paper on thermodynamics and I will comment after.

Christopher,

I read your paper "Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition".

If I understand your thesis you think you have found a universal definition of ‘life’ based on the processes of catalysis.

However, even after having carefully read your paper, I find unclear your definition of ‘life’, except that you say that “life is a catalytic process" (page 16). Thus, I would be grateful if you could summarize your full definition of ‘life’ here for us.

My working definition from the 1960s when I was teaching introductory biology: "Living things are metabolizing, self-regulating, self-perpetuating, dynamic systems". The following paragraphs are extracted from a manuscript I am currently working on with minor revisions.

Varela - Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979: p 13):

'An autopoietic system is organized (defined as a unity [i.e., an entity]) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components that:

(1) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and

(2) constitute it (the machine [i.e., the entity]) as a concrete [i.e., definable] unity in the space in which they [the components] exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.'...

Although I have minor differences with Maturana and Varela's depiction of autopoiesis ('self + production'), the most comprehensive and discriminating definition of life is from Varela et al. 1974. Life = autopoiesis.

Varela et al. (1974) listed six criteria that taken together they considered to be necessary and sufficient conditions for recognizing a system to be autopoietic and therefore living:

• Bounded (“the unity [entity] has identifiable boundaries”). In this Varela et al. were primarily concerned that the entity could be discriminated by an external observer. To me this criterion should read, “the entity has self-identifiable boundaries”. Note: in living cells the boundary is a semi-permeable membrane, perhaps protected by a cell wall.

• Complex (“there are constitutive elements of the unity, that is, components”).

• Mechanistic (“the component properties are capable of satisfying certain relations that determine in the unity the interactions and transformations of these components”). In other words, the complex entity is dynamic, such that components show causal interactions driven by energy dissipation.

• Self-referential or self-differentiated (“the components that constitute the boundaries of the unity constitute these boundaries through preferential neighborhood relations and interactions between themselves, as determined by their properties in the space of their interactions”). That is, the boundaries of the system are determined by the structural relationships the entity’s components.

• Self-producing (“the boundaries of the unity are produced by the interactions of the components of the unity, either by transformations of previously produced components, or by transformations and/or coupling of non-component elements that enter the unity through its boundaries ”). Note that there is no implication here that the entity is physically closed against exchanges of matter and energy.

• Autonomous (“all the other components of the unity are also produced by interactions of its components as in [the statement above], and … those which are not produced by the interactions of other components participate as necessary permanent constitutive components in the production of other components”).

The properties of autopoiesis are “embodied” in the persistent “organization” of the network of dynamic interactions among the components of a system that perpetuates autopoiesis while its instantaneous structure changes continually as matter and energy pass through it. In this it must be understood that the autopoietic system is a dynamic system open to fluxes of matter and energy, maintaining something approaching a “steady state” that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium by continually dissipating extropy in the flow of energy through it to drive linked processes in the organized system that maintain autopoiesis against the entropic tendency). In this picture, “energy” may be in the form of energy rich compounds (i.e., “food”), “materials” may be raw material for synthetic processes, “components” may be already complex materials that only need slight modification, “observations” represent perturbations impacting the entity, “actions” represent compensatory activities triggered by the observations that serve to perpetuate the autopoietic state.

I believe these criteria are sufficiently diagnostic that they should suffice to determine whether extraterrestrial systems and various extremophiles can be considered living or not. For example, viruses are not living in their own rights because they fail the criteria of autonomy and self-production because they require the apparatus of a living cell in order to produce more virus.

Obviously, as life emerges there are borderline cases as emergent systems acquire the capacity for self-regulation and self-production.

I hope this answers your question. Given the complexity of the phenomena of life, to unambiguously discriminate between life and non-life requires something more than a single sentence.

William,

Thank you for this long answer although I expected a summary.

Actually my main questioning was about whether you included notions in your definition such as the ones of “reproduction” and/or of “heritability”.

This is because, in your 2011 paper “Physical Basis for the Emergence of Autopoiesis, Cognition and Knowledge”, on one hand you noticed that “Maturana and Varela exclude the capacity for reproduction and evolution that are often included in definitions of life from their definition of autopoiesis, noting that sterile entities such as worker bees and mules are clearly living” and on the other hand you specified that “unfortunately, from my point of view as an evolutionary biologist, it is also evident from their later works that neither author had a clear understanding of genetics or evolutionary theory. In any event Maturana and Varela’s limited approach to autopoiesis has led to a general neglect in attempts to understand the role of evolutionary time in relation to the physical sustainability of autopoietic systems”.

Now I understand that these ‘living’ entities clearly have no ability to evolve according to the definition of ‘life’ you specify.

Then, I have the following 2 questions:

1. Which scenario do you propose which would have led to the emergence of such complex entities?

2. How would these entities have evolved if they had no ability to reproduce and to show some heritability?

Marc,

Re my statement that "Maturana and Varela exclude the capacity for reproduction and evolution...", this is an example of trying to (over) simplify my writing. What I should have written is that Maturana and Varela specifically choose not to include the capacity for reproduction and evolution in their definition of life. As a consequence, they largely left the dimension of generational or evolutionary time out of their discussions of autopoiesis. Certainly most autopoietic entities do reproduce and evolve when followed along the axis of historical time.

Generalizing the plausible scenarios from which autopoiesis/life may emerge involve too many ideas to easily present in a forum like this. If nothing else, I need to use graphics. However, I am in the midst of extracting the "Interlude" section of my draft hypertext book: "Application Holy Wars or a New Reformation - A Fugue on the Theory of Knowledge" to circulate as a separate document for comments and discussion. In this I include an update of ideas from my latest papers - referenced earlier in this thread. In the next few days the extract will be published to a publicly shared Dropbox folder, and I will let you know the link when I do so. In the mean time, an older version of the incomplete book draft, plus a preview presentation and a couple of other extracts are available on https://www.dropbox.com/sh/odx80z06k1bsbb4/_qzxo1aXmy.

Your last question, "How would these entities have evolved if they had no ability to reproduce and to show some heritability?" is easy to answer.

Re-production ensures that copies (with some variations due to "copy errors") of the same basic knowledge exist in many different individuals. The loss of a few individuals due to extreme perturbations beyond their self-regulatory capacity to compensate does not mean that the history of the whole lineage is lost. In other words, this is how natural selection works. Only the histories of (presumably detrimental) variation subsequent to the last reproduction events are lost.

Without reproduction, the lineage may change through time as it successfully compensates for the various perturbations it encounters in its history. However, it is inevitable that sooner or later, something will happen that it cannot sufficiently compensate for - that results in the disintegration of the autopoietic entity. The disaggregated components no longer carry in their interactions with each other and the world the historical thread of past solutions to problems. I.e., the structural knowledge that held the autopoietic system together vanishes with the disaggregation.

Regards,

Bill

Bill,

I am sorry to say that sentences like "Without reproduction, the lineage may change through time as it successfully compensates for the various perturbations it encounters in its history" look very odd to me. How can you speak of 'lineage' without reproduction?

Marc,

This may be a communication difficulty based on differences between our respective paradigms (in a Kuhnian sense).

The usage may seem odd if you have not thought much about what living things look like over a span of time. However, I can't think of another word that as clearly expresses the idea.

Even though the causal connections between components of an autopoietic system change from one instant to the next, the overall network of causal interactions among the components in state space remains within an attractor basin where autopoiesis is perpetuated from one instant to the next. The assemblage follows a time-line or lineage (in other words the living thing remains living over a span of time).

Without reproduction the lineage does not branch, however it is still a lineage tracing from one instant to the next. With reproduction the lineage forms a branching structure. If reproduction is clonal the branching is simple and open, with some branches ending at various instants in time with the loss of autopoiesis. If reproduction is sexual or involves other forms of lateral information exchange the lineage's branches form a complexly anastomosing structure where a bundle of branches deriving from a common ancestry may join to produce new branches before they break. Here we can talk of the lineage of a gene pool at a higher level of organization above the individual.

Regards,

Bill

Bill,

Sure, there is indeed a strong communication difficulty between us.

Usually a 'lineage' means "the descendants of a common ancestor considered to be the founder of the line" (from Google: "The Free Dictionary").

The way you use this term is confusing as it corresponds to the change over time of a given complex structure you call an "autopoietic" system which is not able to reproduce.

Of course everything changes over time:

1) The most usual change for a given structure is to progressively vanish over time. This is what Guy Hoelzer and I call "level-1 evolution" in our 2013 paper (I would be happy, if you read it, to have your comments about it: see attached).

It involves monotonic and deteriorative change in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.

2) However I agree with you that there exist open systems which are able to exchange matter and energy with their external environment and can be constructive, as long as their activity creates more entropy than order in the smallest closed system within which the open system resides (Nicolis and Prigogine, 1977). These systems that actively maintain or increase their level of organization by using matter and free energy obtained from the external environment may be called self-organizing (SO) systems because the order of the system is constructed by the internal dynamics of the system itself (Smith, 2008). The potential for the emergence of SO dissipative structures exists wherever there are sufficiently concentrated spatial gradients in free energy (Hoelzer et al., 2006). For example convection cells and votices (e.g., thunder storms and tornadoes) forming in the atmosphere when heat builds up at the earth’s sur-face are familiar examples of such simple SO systems (Hoelzer et al., 2006).

This is what we call "level-2 evolution".

3) We claim that higher levels of evolution and particularly "Darwinian" evolution (i.e., "level-4 evolution") call for systems with the ability to reproduce.

Bill, you say on one hand, "autopoietic" systems do not reproduce according to Maturana and Varela to whom you refer for your definition of 'life', and on the other hand, "most autopoietic entities do reproduce and evolve when followed along the axis of historical time". Is it a consistent speech?

Marc,

Thanks for your continuing commentary. However, I will delay responding further until I have finished putting my theoretical "Interlude" onto the Web - which should be finished sometime this afternoon or tomorrow (Melbourne, Australia time).

In the interim, what Varela et al. wrote (that I agree with) is that reproduction is not one of the six criteria they consider to be among the necessary and sufficient conditions for a complex system to be considered to be autopoietic (giving worker bees and neurons as examples of clearly living things that do not reproduce). This does not deny the fact that many autopoietic systems do reproduce, and that, as I noted in my previous response, reproduction is essential for Darwinian evolution over the long term.

Regards,

Bill

Marc et al.,

I have published my draft Interlude section (that includes some contextual material relating to the book as a whole) to RG. See

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257811192_INTERLUDE__Time_Dynamics_Life_and_the_Emergence_of_Complexity?ev=prf_pub

I have also read your paper on the thermodynamics of multi-level evolution, and find little to disagree with. Although we are looking at the emergence of evolutionary processes from different points of view, I think we reach similar conclusions. Where we differ is at what point there is enough "heredity" that natural selection can begin to shape the evolution of a "lineage". My grounding in Popper's epistemology (specifically his ideas about world 2) and Maturana and Varela's concept of autopoiesis bring to my attention the importance of heritable "knowledge" embodied in the causal networks of dynamic structure. Given any kind of inheritance, natural selection can work to shape it. If I have not argued this clearly in my Interlude, please let me know.

Continuing my previous response to your note from 3 days ago: By definition, autopoietic systems are composed of many interacting components. These may be complex in their own rights (e.g., macromolecules) that may decay or be lost from the higher level system of autopoiesis and thus require replacement by self-productive activities of the autopoietic system in order to maintain its autopoietic dynamics. It may be that none of the individual components that are causally involved from time to time in a given autopoietic system remain causally connected to that system over its entire life span. However, the "level 2" evolving system retains an individuality over that life span that I refer to as an evolving lineage. This lineage may bifurcate and proliferate or dissipate depending on circumstances.

If we are considering the emergence of autopoietic systems in the transition of level 2 to level 3 evolution, I think we are in agreement that the initial kind of reproduction is passive and circumstantial (e.g., fragmentation by shearing forces). Nevertheless, whether the perturbation leads to disintegration of the vesicle or reproduction will depend on details of its composition, that most likely will be "inherited" by those fragments retaining composition that supports the continuation of autopoiesis. As referenced in my Interlude, Segré & Lancet 2000; Segré et al. 2000, 2001a; Wu & Higgs 2008, etc. call this "compositional inheritance". Bentolila 2005 develops a similar concept called "live memory". If there is any kind of inheritance, natural selection can work on it.

Re your evolution and thermodynamics paper, although you mention composition, I see no references to literature on compositional inheritance. I also note that although you discuss maximization of entropy, you do not cite works by Salthe and Annila on "maximum entropy production".

Regards,

Bill

Chapter INTERLUDE ― Time, Dynamics, Life, and the Emergence of Complexity

Bill,

Thank you for your “Interlude” chapter (from your book entitled “A Fugue on the Theory of Knowledge”).

I am happy that you find little to disagree with my paper on the thermodynamics of multi-level evolution and I agree that the major point on which we differ is the extent to which there is enough "heredity" that natural selection can begin to shape the evolution of a "lineage".

However there is another point on which we deeply differ: the concept of ‘knowledge’. Actually I don’t agree with Popper when he splits the world into three categories (from Wikipedia “Popper's three worlds”):

• World 1: the world of physical objects and events, including biological entities;

• World 2: the world of mental objects and events;

• World 3: objective knowledge.

I am actually a reductive physicalist according to whom mental things do exist and are a kind of physical thing and thus I claim that everything is physical so that there is nothing over and above.

Moreover I cannot understand a notion such as “objective” knowledge. IMO the notion of ‘knowledge’ like the one of “information” are specific to the human language (as the notion of ‘life’). I share Howard Pattee’s approach when he asserts that “a molecule doesn’t become a message because of any particular shape or structure or behavior. A molecule becomes a message only in the context of a larger system”. Thus, notions such as “message” or “sign” gain meaning only through a specific class of organisms. For instance specific molecules (e.g. proteins, miRNAs) have not the same meaning in different phyla (e.g. Arthropoda versus Chordata) because they have different functional properties in the body of the organisms of each phylum. Hence, to me, the expression “objective knowledge” is an oxymoron.

When reading your papers I find your approach too theoretical. Actually I don’t see what could have been your “autopoietic” systems practically speaking when they would have emerged for the first time. In your “Interlude” chapter you don’t describe any specific model of these, do you?

Then, I don’t see how you are able to propose a specific hypothesis to be tested by any observations and/or experiments: what do you think about it?

Bill,

I gave a very brief look at your manuscript. I intend to return to it. Two authors (you did not put them in your references) could be of interest to you: Vigotsky for his tool of the mind concept and Bergson for his concept of time as creation.

Ah oui! Bergson et l'élan vital ...

Marc,

Wikipedia: Élan vital was coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Elan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness.

I read:

- Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889)

-Matière et mémoire. Essai sur la relation du corps à l'esprit (1896)

- L'Évolution créatrice (1907)

The tone of your reply sudgest that you disqualify Bergson from any scientific discussion.

Bergson is worth reading. He was very much in tune with the science of his time and in my opinion in many respect ahead of it. He is the first that realized (in my opinion) that the time of physics , the spatialized time, the time of clock cannot be the time of our experience, a time that flow center in the now.

He is one of my favorite philosopher. I do not endorse all of Bergson's idea but I recommend reading him to anyone. He was the number one French philosopher in first twenty year of the 20th century, he disappeared almost completely from the scene and in the last twenty years he is re-emerging like a good wine.

In Science a living thing is considered alive if it meets all the following:

They are Complex and Organized (formed by cells or be a cell)

They are irritable to stimuli

Regulating metabolic processes through homeostasis

Grow and develop

They reproduce

Their populations are related, adapt and evolve to its external environment

In the case of a definition from suprascience: Life is all manifested and unmanifested; unmanifested matter-energy is only at rest but never static; In the manifested life is divided into conscious life and life does no have conscious, but they have all the information patterns guided by the universal mind for free expression (how do you explain the great capacity of a cell to do everything it does? Does cell has its brainiac? DNA or RNA actually ordered all those functions as if by magic?

Andrei,

You assert that there is only one definition of life "in Science": what are your references?

All the característics that I mentioned it is a sumary of a lot of texts of Biology, but this is the one that I using :Solomon, E., Martin, C., Martin, D.W. 2015.Biology, 10th Edition. Ed. Interamerican Mc Graw Hill . 1440 pages. I gave no definition for the context of science just said what characteristics are used to find out if something supposedly has life or not according to science. But I agree that it is rather difficult to define life.

Andrei,

Your definition is not a bad one (of very many based on similar criteria). However, I think it can be defined at a much more fundamental that is still not metaphysical.

My approach is detailed in my 2011 paper, "Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition and knowledge", linked here.

Regards,

Bill

Article Physical basis for the emergence of autopoiesis, cognition a...

Dear Dr Tessera,

I am very pleased that you have read my work.

As is argued in the paper that life maintains its organisation as a consequence of the way in which it mediates transitions to more favourable thermodynamic states.

The principle agent of catalysis is a special type of wave - a soliton.

These waves are found at every scale in biology and are implicated in processes as diverse as muscle function and cognitive processes.

The key to understanding these waves is the fact that they are also information carriers - their robustness results as a direct consequence of the fact that they embody information relating to their boundary conditions as part of their dynamic structure.

There is evidence to suggest that both biological functioning and biological development are controlled by these waves - thus - bioenergetics = bioinformatics.

The strength of the theory lies in the fact that it represents a significant simplification of the the biological process and its evolution. It provides a model of cognition and also explains the extraordinary robustness of living processes without recourse to additional principles.

You might find these papers useful.

Article The Candle and the Flame:- Structure, Energy, Information an...

Data Minds, Brains & Catalysis: A theory of cognition grounded in...

Marc

We are alife, we are conscious, we naturally recognized life and consciousness yet these most familiar of all realities are the most difficult to define in a scientific manner. This difficulty has been called the hard problem of consciousness and by analogy we could called the hard problem of life.  In both case my position is the same, there are no such hard problems because these are not conceptual realities.  A scientific concept is model or a machine and not that exist is machine-like or reducible to a scientific concept.