摘要:

AbstractThis paper introduces the new evolutionary paradigm born of the synthesis of Darwinism and thermodynamics. It also introduces this volume, whose theme is the integration of life and social process with physical law. The sense of this expansion is as follows: Darwinism has come under intense scrutiny in recent years, from several fields. These range from statistical mechanics to developmental biology. In this paper, I will discuss the direction the revision of the Darwinian program is taking through thermodynamics, which is the science of irreversible process and self‐organization. My objective is to show the coherence of life with the rest of natur

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060301

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractBy Boltzmann's widely accepted reduction of the second law to a stochastic collision function, transformations from an incoherent to a coherent state are ‘infinitely improbable’. Yet it is precisely the transformation of the incoherent into the coherent, the progressiveemergence of new levels ofmacroscopic constraints, that has brought, and continues to bring, the visible universe into being. Whether in ecosystem succession, the emergence of hydrodynamic structures, morphogenesis, 4GY of bioevolution, cognitive and cultural evolution, or cosmic evolution as a whole of which all the rest are part, the observed behavior is the same: Spontaneous and successive symmetry‐breaking coupled with the progressive attraction of matter away from equilibrium to time‐independent limit sets through the selection of some highly reduced (coherent) subset of accessible microstates,Ms, from some much larger initial (incoherent) set,Mn.This immediately raises the question of where, given the known laws of physics, such progressive goal‐directed behavior can come from, viz., (i) what universality governs the instability (symmetry‐breaking) of the incoherent regime; and (ii) what extremum principle governs the selection of microstates on the attractor? It is shown that alaw of maximum entropy productioncan be reached deductively from the second law of thermodynamics with an assumption of the ontological irreducibility of nonlinear behavior, and inductively from the study of simple physical systems where the usual explanatory mechanisms, e.g., genes, brains or other ‘maker’, are clearly absent and therefore cannot be invoked. This law is seen as the cornerstone to a theory of general evolution within which biological and cultural evolution are special cases. As a result, a great proportion of the behavior generally believed to be generic to either biological or cultural systems is shown instead to be generic to the physics of the exp

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060302

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractScalar hierarchies represent the structure of the world of matter in motion, the overall extensive system. Subsystems within this undergo changes that can be dichotomized into development and evolution (individuation). At a higher scalar level these modes of change are united under the rubric ‘self‐organization’. Development finds a very general, indeed, lawful description in non‐equilibrium thermodynamics discourse. Subsystems in the scalar hierarchical world are all dissipative structures. In their development at least living dissipative structures traverse a specification hierarchy of increasingly intensive being. At a higher temporal scalar level, developing dissipative structures form ontogenetic trajectories, the seat of self‐organization. At these higher scalar levels ontogenetic trajectories multiply to fill space as the dissipative structures that make them up access more and more geographical coordinates in a thrust outward toward what can be called a virtual thermodynamic eq

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060303

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractA significant characteristic of post‐Newtonian science is its exclusion of all but material and mechanical causalities. There is reason to question whether such minimalism is sufficient to describe living processes. Paradoxically, a strict material/mechanical stance may engender unnecessary anthropomorphism. By admitting autopoiesis as an example of formal cause at work in living system, a more sufficient and natural description of biological phenomena results. Furthermore, recent advances in the analysis of networks provide a quantitative framework for identifying the effects of formal causes at the system leve

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060304

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe Central Dogma of molecular biology describes the one‐way flow of information from DNA to RNA to protein, but it excludes the possibility of proteinaceous infectious agents (prions) such as those implicated in certain neurological diseases like scrapie and Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease. Rather than carrying genetic information like viruses, prions appear to carry functional information which they use to alter the meaníng of host genes during their cycle of replication. Prions represent an important counter‐example to the accepted theories of molecular genetics, in which biological specificity is determined completely by macromolecular sequence information. Criticism of the proposition that organisms can be constructed from their genes leads to the conclusion that the neo‐Darwinian interpretation of the theory of evolution is seriously deficient, especially in relation to the prebiotic phase. It is suggested that the evolutionary emergence and development of biological function, orteleopoiesis, is as important a determinant of biological evolution as the mutation and selection of genetic inf

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060305

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractA self‐organizing trigger‐flow model is proposed to analyse the reproduction of slaughters and massacres by the state of Guatemala representing a ‘ladino’ (non‐indigene), against the Mayan indigenes population that comprises about 50% of the total. The process has evolved through many centuries and is based on a combination of mutual fear between the two ethnicities, but is triggered by the actions at the state level that bring reactions by the indigenes against the local ladino population which, in turn transmits its fear through the state leaders who again resort to

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060306

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractAs an economic system grows and develops, several key processes occur. Growth means greater population and larger markets, allowing the economy to diversify. Economic development leads to improvements in infrastructure, including transportation networks, which facilitate trade and encourage specialization.In this paper we examine the effects of economic evolution on the structure of 22 national economies, with particular emphasis on their levels of industrial diversification, and how this process affects the international economic system.Our results show a clear tendency for a nation's specialization to decrease over time as development occurs, but only up to a point. The degree of specialization falls more slowly over time in virtually every case, with specialization tending to increase again in several of the most developed economies. Greater specialization means greater interdependence; increasingly, a change in a distant economy has effects in seemingly unrelated places due to these interconnections. A key consequence of this is an increasing need to take a systems approach in economic analysis.

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060307

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractStandard dynamical models of self‐organizing urban systems give good representations of the process by which spatial order appears, but do not address the question of the evolution of the functional structure. Simulation experiments with hierarchical systems show that system dynamics at one level may affect system structure at another, and that dynamic instability leads to a concentration of activity in a large central business district, which in turn creates a structural instability that is rectified by the appearance of a new functional entity at a new hierarchical level—the planned centre. However, dynamic system models have inherent limitations when used to address the question of structural evolution. Neural network models are thus introduced as an explicit representation of a process by which structure appears and evolves in response to functional requirements. From this point of view, the city is seen as creating and modifying its own functional organization in order to deal with the stream of events that constitutes urban life. For this approach to be fully satisfactory, the emergent structure must embody a representation of itself and its environm

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060308

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe conceptual development of evolutionary theory is examined from the perspective of scientific research traditions whose core (natural selection for the Darwinian tradition) is preserved by changing auxiliary assumptions. For the Darwinian tradition, there have been three phases to this process. The original Darwinism defined natural selection in terms of a dynamic equilibrium between population growth and scarcity. Selection acts on individual organisms and returns to equilibrium. The conceptual challenge of Mendelian genetics was accommodated in neo‐Darwinism by shifting to a statistical formulation via population genetics, in which natural selection and equilibrium were redefined statistically and thereby preserved. Current ferment in evolutionary theory has come from attempts to integrate self‐organizing systems dynamics, such as the origin of life, development, and ecology, into an adequate theoretical framework. This can be accomplished by changing to non‐equilibrium background assumptions guided by the principles of irreversible thermodynamics. Natural selection is reconceived in terms of process and pattern of energy flow guided by internalized information. What is selected are differential patterns of energy flow that contribute to the stability and coherence of the whole systems of which they are a

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060309

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0731-7239    

DOI:10.1002/sres.3850060311

出版商:John Wiley&Sons, Ltd.    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY