Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
According to the Principle of the Evolution-Development Complementarity,
Statement 14.7, these seemingly opposite views of Dobzhansky and Fordor and
Piatelli-Palmarini may reflect the complementary aspects of life.
Laughlin might have come to disbelieve in the relevance of evolutionary
explanations for living structures and processes perhaps because to him evolution
is a phenomenon secondary to emergence: that is, all that is needed to understand
life is the concept of
emergence
, just as all collective properties of condensed
matter physics can be so accounted for (see Row 1 in Table
14.8
), although, as he
admits, they cannot (yet) be derived mathematically from the basic laws of physics.
In contrast to such a view, we can as equally well justify the claim that “emergence”
and “evolution” are intimately linked as indicated in Fig.
14.2
, not only in biology
but also in physics. In other words, it may be legitimately asserted that collective
properties of matter such as superconductivity and superfluidity
emerge
from a
large amount of matter through
cosmological evolution
just as life has
emerged
from a large number of material components through
biological evolution
. (Super-
conductivity and superfluidity may be unique to our Galaxy, just as life may be
unique to the Earth among many similar planets in the Universe.) It seems thus
reasonable to conclude that “emergence” is impossible without “evolution,” since
“evolution” provides the mechanism of “emergence,” or equivalently, that “emer-
gence” can be viewed as a consequence of “evolution.”
Evolution is here understood as a complex system of physicochemical processes
involving both
variations
of the properties of the evolving system and the
selection
of systems by their environment solely based on system's characteristics. A corol-
lary of the above assertion would be that, if evolution is regarded as an
antitheory
(defined by Laughlin as ideological thinking that leads to “the explanation that has
no implications and cannot be tested” (Laughlin 2005, p. 168), so necessarily would
emergence be an antitheory. That is, there seems to be no difference between
physicists explaining the collective properties of condensed matter in terms of
“emergence” and biologists explaining living processes in terms of the concept of
“evolution.” Both (
tokens
) may belong to the same
type
of logical reasoning.
As already mentioned, it is possible that evolution is a general phenomenon in
our Universe and as such applies not only to physics and biology but also to the
mental and spiritual worlds, as indicated in the last row of Table
14.8
.
Table
14.8
incorporates the idea of I. Prigogine (1917-2003) that there are two
(and only two) types of structures in the physical universe - “equilibrium structures”
two entities are postulated to serve the role of Precursor Y for Property X in physical
and biological evolutions. The 3
3 symmetry of the table entailed coining a new
term to label the Precursor Y for Property X in the spiritual/mental evolution (see the
last row). “Nouons” (from Greek “nous” meaning mind) is recommended for
the precursor of the mental and spiritual qualities.
It is here assumed that, when a
large number of independent minds work together and cooperate, a new human
phenomenon emerges which can be identified with the mental and the spiritual.
Salthe (1993, 1996) advanced the following definitions (reflecting current
usage in biology):
(1) development
¼
predictable directional change and
