Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
relatively short timescale characteristic of individual life spans. In contrast, PEI
occurs over a much longer timescale determined by the life span of populations or
species. In Sect.
14.4
, the former timescale was referred to as the
synchronic time
and the latter as the
diachronic time
. Hence, we may refer to IEI as
synchronic
interactions
and PSI as the
diachronic interactions.
(For related discussions, see
Since all physical interactions are force-mediated, “physical interactions” and
“synchronic interactions” are synonymous. There are four forces in nature -
gravitational, electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces. The electromagnetic and
weak forces are often combined as the electroweak force. Forces and energies are
mathematically related to each other through the Second Law of Newtonian
mechanics. Hence, “force-mediated” and “energy-mediated” can be used inter-
changeably. “Code-mediated” processes include all template-mediated processes
in molecular and cell biology such as enzymic catalysis, replication, transcription,
translation, receptor-mediated processes, and signal transduction in cell. These
interactions are referred to as “diachronic interactions” because it takes a long
time for the codes involved to develop and change, relative to the time it takes for a
code to effectuate its functions, for example, as a template for copying activities.
What goes on in biological systems (i.e., enzymes, cells, tissues, animals, plants,
etc.) obey the laws of physics and chemistry just as what goes on in nonbiological
systems (e.g., rocks, machines, mountains, stars) do. But what distinguishes
biological systems from nonbiological systems is the rules, codes, and conventions
embodied in their boundary conditions or structures that harness or constrain the
operation of the laws of physics and chemistry to accomplish their goals (see Row 4
in Table
15.3
) (Bernstein 1967, Polanyi 1968, Pattee 1982, 2008). In other words,
biology has two complementary aspects - law-governed and the rule-governed as
pointed out by Pattee (182, 2008). Thus, it seems natural to divide biology into two
branches, for example,
chemical biology
vs.
evolutionary biology
(see Row 5 in
Table
15.3
), depending on which of these two aspects of biology is being emphasized.
The dichotomy of the
law-governed
and
rule-governed
aspects of biology
seems to be first recognized and has been systematically investigated by Pattee
(1968, 1969, 1982, 1995, 1996, 2001, 2008) under the rubric of the
symbol-matter
complementarity
during the past several decades. In (Ji 1999b), I referred to
Pattee's idea as the “von Neumann-Pattee principle of sign-matter complemen-
tarity” (VPPSMC) and pointed out the close theoretical relation existing between
VPPSMC and the
information-energy complementarity
(IEC) or the
gnergy princi-
mentarity from quantum mechanics to biological phenomena including the
operation of enzymes and molecular machines in living cells.
The
von Neumann-Pattee principle of sign-matter complementarity
(Pattee 1982,
2008, Ji 1999b) and the information-energy complementarity (Ji 1991, 1995) may be
viewed as theoretical attempts to integrate both law-governed (i.e.,
causal
) and rule-
governed (i.e.,
codal
) aspects of biology. A similar view has been expressed by
Barbieri (2003, 2008a, b, c) who has been attempting to integrate the
syntactic
and
semantic
aspects of molecular biology under the umbrella of
biosemiotics
in
