Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
principles would appear). Accordingly, the fundamental problem can be stated
this way: 'How can a system be organized such that (given certain specific but
probable conditions
4
) it can generate higher degrees of complexity, and, at the
same time, is capable of retaining this new complexity?'
As for the first requirement, we should conceive a set of prebiotically plausible
boundary conditions capable of driving a variety of chemical (see next point)
systems where the maintenance of the process is (at least in a very simple sense)
a consequence of the very organization of the system, namely, a self-maintaining
system (SMS). Although such systems had to be probably preceded by many
other systems whose maintenance was essentially driven by boundary conditions
much more complex than themselves, the appearance of SMS is the fundamental
starting point for a sustainable process of increase in complexity. For, if the
retention of new complexity in a SMS were mainly dependent on an increasingly
complex set of external conditions, we would be only transferring our problem
(namely, the natural, prebiotic origin and maintenance of increasingly complex
forms of organization) to the external environment. Accordingly, the starting
point should be a self-maintaining (SM
5
) organization, namely, a system in
which it is the organization itself (rather than external conditions) that explains
the maintenance of the process. This leads us to the second requirement.
As for the second condition, the way in which the system realizes its own
maintenance has to be nontrivial. By a nontrivial form of self-maintenance
(henceforth, NTSM), I mean those systems where there are many simple inter-
actions involved in its realization and (also many) ways to achieve it. In other
words, the system has to be capable of increasing the number of different func-
tional relations (within an integrated whole). In the next section we will see how
this can be done.
These two requirements should be entangled, namely, the very organization
plays some role on itself, such that it creates new internal differences; and some
of these organizational differences may later play a new functional role. For
instance, a new form of organization (say, a self-enclosing autocatalytic network)
might be preserved because it allows a more stable form of maintenance.
But what kind of self-maintaining organization is at the same time minimal
(i.e., the simplest) and capable to increase in complexity? This is the kind of
organization that I call 'nontrivial SM'. Let us examine this question in several
steps. First, I shall characterize what is a trivial form of SM. Second, I will
consider the necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a NTSM. And finally,
I will discuss the (minimal) organizational requirements for NTSM.
4
In terms of what the physical and chemical evolution of the universe can create in certain places during
reasonable temporal periods.
5
The term SM is usually referred to in studies of the organization of chemical systems (because of the
constructive character of these systems), whereas in physical systems the usual term is self-organization. But
here, I am using the term SM generically, as equivalent to SO.
