Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Accordingly, the specific way in which the units achieve self-maintenance
and self-reproduction is deeply entangled with the recursive relations among
them. Given all that, the temporal unfolding (evolution) of this system is such
that the kinds (species) change according to the transformations of the boundary
conditions of the self-maintenance and self-reproduction of their units (individual
organisms), which in turn are the result of the recursive interactions at the
populational and ecological level. The variation possibilities of (both) individual
components and populations are, in principle, open, but the whole evolutionary
system is not.
29
This set of relations would constitute the nucleus of the form of evolution
that we know in current life, namely, Darwinian evolution. Let us summarize
the requirements for a Darwinian system.
(1) At the level of the individual components: They have to posses an internal
organization such that (a) they can reliably self-reproduce the common basic
informational organization (CBIO) that characterizes them as individual
agents; (b) this CBIO has to admit an unlimited variety of forms, which
(c) they will indefinitely and reliably reproduce.
(2) At the global level, the populationally and ecologically generated boundary
conditions will act on a particular variety of forms (but never on the CBIO).
The effective variability of these forms (unfolded in time) depends on these
boundary conditions, and in turn, these ones ultimately depend on the way
the former interact with each other, recursively, so that the whole system
achieves long-term SM.
(3) This long-term SM of the whole system is (as a consequence of these
two previous requirements) necessarily an open process not subject to any
pre-determined upper bound of organizational complexity
30
(except to the
energetic-material restrictions imposed by a finite environment and by the
universal physico-chemical laws
31
). (See Fig. 2)
Notice that we have used the term “system” instead of “organization” for this
set of relations. The reason is the following: Whereas in any of the cases where
we have used the term organization there is a form of closure, the evolution-
ary 'self-maintenance' never closes. It is essentially an open-ended process.
29
Until new properties of the components giving rise to new forms of interaction capable to generate new
forms of SM (societies, technologies, etc ) emerge, and this way, the fundamental biological organization
would be transcended.
30
As any more complex form would not be preserved unless it were compatible with this organizational
structure.
31
This implies an endless process of creation of new organizational forms. There are, however, certain
restrictions in this huge unlimited space (body plans, internal SO laws, etc.) but, on the other hand, these
restrictions can act as a set of new rules that create new primitives and relations allowing new forms of
increasingly complex organizations.
