[Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1

Fri Dec 11 11:35:21 CET 2015

Dear colleagues, 

I don’t consider it as fruitful to recycle the argument that society were to be modeled as a meta-biology. The biological explanation can perhaps explain behavior of individuals and institutions; but social coordination more generally involves also the dynamics of expectations. These are much more abstract although conditioned by the historical layer. For example, one cannot expect to explain the trias politica or the rule of law biologically. These cultural constructs regulate our behavior from above, whereas the biological supports existence and living from below. The historical follows the axis of time, whereas the codification (albeit historical in the instantiations) also restructures and potentially intervenes and reorganizes social relations from the perspective of hindsight.

In analogy to codifications such as the juridical ones, scientific knowledge provides the code for technological intervention. This type of knowledge is human-specific; perhaps, we are also able to build machines that mimick it. This technological evolution is going on for centuries. If I look up from my screen, I look into the gardens which have a typical Dutch polder vegetation. The polder was made in the 17th century and replaced the natural ecology of marsh land and lakes. The order of the explanation was thus inverted: the constructed structures (instead of the constructing agencies) increasingly carry the system. The constructs don’t have to be material; see my example of the rule of law. It is not a religion, but a dynamics of expectations. Replacing it with a biology misses the point.

Best,

Loet

  _____  

Loet Leydesdorff 

Professor, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)

 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;  <http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 
Honorary Professor,  <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/> SPRU, University of Sussex; 

Guest Professor  <http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/> Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor,  <http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html> ISTIC, Beijing;

Visiting Professor,  <http://www.bbk.ac.uk/> Birkbeck, University of London; 

 <http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en

From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Nikhil Joshi
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 9:47 AM
To: FIS Group
Cc: Nikhil Joshi
Subject: Re: [Fis] Sustainability through multilevel research: The Lifel, Deep Society Build-A-Thon - 1

Dear Guy and FIS colleagues,

Thank you for your comments and the copy of your article. Your views on the roots of biological systems and their evolution in dissipate systems are very interesting. Your paper reminds me of a paper by Virgo and Froese on how simple dissipative structures can demonstrate many of the characteristics associated with living systems, and the work of Jeremy England at MIT.

Given your research focus and expertise in looking at living systems as dissipative systems, I would appreciate your views and assistance in understanding the energetics involved in the common multilevel organisational pattern (CMOP) (presented in the paper II of the kick-off mail).

At first glance, it appears that different levels in self-organization in living systems  a core dynamic in living systems is comprised of a cycle between a class of more-stable species (coupled-composite species) and a class of less-stable species (decoupled-composite species), see paper II in the kick-off mail.

hence:

Level 1: Molecular self-organization, involves a cycle between oxidised molecules (more stable) and reduced molecules (less stable) in molecular self-organization in  photosynthesis and cellular metabolism [Morowitz and smith]. 

Level 2: Cellular self-orgnaization, involves a cycle between autotrophic species (more stable) and heterotrophic species (less stable) in ecosystems [Stability of species types as defined by- Yodzis and Innes Yodzis, P.; Innes, S. Body Size and Consumer-Resource Dynamics. Am. Nat. 1992, 139, 1151].

Level 3: Social self-self-organization, involves a cycle between kinship-based social groups (more stable) and non-kinship-based social groups (less stable) [Stability of species types as suggested in Paper II, based on an extension of work of Robin Dunbar and others]. 

At level 1 (molecular self-organiztion)- solar energy is stored in the  high-energy reduced molecules. Do you see a possibility that living systems could store energy in cycles involving less stable species at the two other levels (level 2, and 3) as well? (When I speak of stored energy, I am referring to stored-energy as introduced by Mclare, and discussed by Ulanowicz and Ho [Sustainable Systems as Organisms?, BioSystems 82 (2005) 39–51]. 

These are early thoughts and your views are much appreciated. 

Many Thanks,

Warm regards,

Nikhil Joshi

On 01-Dec-2015, at 10:27 pm, Guy A Hoelzer <hoelzer at unr.edu> wrote:

Hi All,

I have been following this thread with interest as much as time permits.  I think multilevel approaches to understanding information flow is an important one.  I also think the structure of natural systems exhibits both hierarchical and heterarchical features.  The hierarchies we formally recognize can be extremely useful, but they are rarely exclusive of alternatives.  Here is a link to a paper Mark Tessera and I published a couple of years ago arguing for one particular hierarchy of multilevel emergence in physical systems connecting lower level physical systems to biological systems:

Tessara, M., and G. A. Hoelzer.  2013.  On the thermodynamics of multilevel evolution.  Biosystems 113:  140–143.

Regards,

Guy

Guy Hoelzer, Associate Professor
Department of Biology
University of Nevada Reno

Phone:  775-784-4860
Fax:  775-784-1302
hoelzer at unr.edu 

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