[Fis] The Constructal Law

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Joseph & FIS colleagues,

My impression on that work is that rather than achieving a universal 
law, it elaborates a very interesting synthesis on multitude of 
physical, biological and engineering themes related with the "flow" 
phenomenon. The author claims that there is a universal natural tendency 
of flow systems to evolve into configurations that provide increasingly 
greater access to the flow. He works very well with different variables 
and parameters that appear with a lot of regularity in those phenomena. 
The hint is that as local optimal configurations of flow are explored, 
successive levels of organization are formed that factically achieve 
very complex optimized designs.

Personally I find very stimulating these views with the caveat that the 
"energy flow" phenomena are not exactly parallel to the information 
flow. They have different constrains. Although information is always 
physical, informational constrains are not the same as physical 
constrains--but please, don't ask me what these differences are; 
probably every informational realm lives within its own world of 
constraints...

Considering that "doing" science is very different from discussing about 
science, or philosophizing, these ideas are very fertile in the former 
acs, and not very interesting yet for the latter (except as a work in 
progress, I think).

best --Pedro

When doing science

Joseph Brenner wrote:
> Dear Pedro,
>
> I would be very interested, and I believe other FISers also, in your 
> views of the seriousness of the constructal law as a fundamental law 
> of nature, as claimed. I thought that for flow to occur it is 
> sufficient to have some kind of energy gradient which must operate in 
> a context of any other forces present. In the case of rain drops, 
> these will include surface tension and so on.
>
> I think a comparison is called for with Gerhard Luhn's 
> Causal-Compositional Concept of Information which also talks about the 
> emergence of new 'laws', or lawful behavior, in the universe. His 
> approach is grounded in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, as is Bejan's, 
> but the Pauli Exclusion Principle is suggested as the driver toward 
> complex systems. Bejan's concepts seem to me more ad hoc, but I am 
> curious to know how they strike others.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Joseph
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" 
> <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
> To: <fis at listas.unizar.es>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 5:27 PM
> Subject: [Fis] The Two Systems
>
>
>> Dear FIS colleages,
>>
>> Thanks for the opinions received. Let us keep thinking about the 
>> issue. On the one side, the fis list was explicitly conceived to be a 
>> helping mechanism for "slow thinking" during the 90's. The Second 
>> Rule was incorporated quite a few years ago, to put an end to nasty 
>> bubbles and unceasing exchanges on trifling matters. It was not only 
>> a matter of too many messages, but also that very influential parties 
>> left the list due to those excesses (eg, Michael Arbib, Otto Rossler, 
>> Eduard Punset).
>> It is interesting that Daniel Kahneman speaks about two  thinking 
>> systems: System 1: Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, 
>> subconscious. System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, 
>> calculating, conscious...
>> Trying to implement the two thinking systems in the same list will 
>> inevitably conduce (given the medium) to the preponderance of the 
>> former. Mixed schemes will be confusing and will not work. Besides, 
>> increasing the number of weekly messages to 3 or 4 will imply that 50 
>> % or 100 % more messages will be received. Not good at all.
>> Solution? Raquel and I are working (slowly, too slowly ) to migrate 
>> from current FIS web pages at the University of Zaragoza to Sciforum 
>> (courtesy from Shu-Kun Lin). It is also possible that we recuperate 
>> ALL exchanges during last 17 years--lost during the ignominious 
>> server crash a few months ago, it would become just anecdote. At 
>> Sciforum we will be able to incorporate complementary spaces where 
>> fast and furious exchanges might be maintained (for those 
>> frequent-post addicts), perhaps useful to accompany the main, quiet 
>> discussion---or maybe the viceversa, the slow thinking serving as a 
>> complement!
>>
>> Well, at the time being, let us continue abiding by the Second Rule, 
>> and let us wait for the changes...  we should also prepare for the 
>> Vienna encounter. By the way, a very interesting meeting refers to 
>> Adrian Bejan's work on the "energy flow" that I mentioned days ago: 
>> the 9th Constructal Law conference will be held in Parma on 18-19 May 
>> 2015, see:
>>
>> http://www.clc2015.eu/
>>
>> best regards to all---Pedro
>>
>>

-- 
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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