Difference between revisions of "General Theory of Living Systems"

Revision as of 09:24, 19 June 2018

Full Title or Meme

In order to understand or design any successful, continuing digital ecosystem, there must first be a general theory of living systems that we can use a template to build such a theory.

Context

In 1978 James Grier Miller attempted a General Theory of Living systems ^[1] which proposed rigid taxonomies of levels of complexity and common processes contained in each level. As with all taxonomies of living systems, this one necessarily has very fuzzing boundaries which help a new learner, but which become an undue burden if carried to extremely fine detail. None-the-less, this page will continue in Miller's path and try the same taxonomic approach, but first a short description of alternate methods.

In 1979 Douglas Hofstadter started making the case that natural thinking involved "chunking" small ideas together to make a smaller number of classes of objects ^[2] that hide the details in ways that were currently in process in "object oriented programming. He continued this line of development into the use of fluid analogies in our own thought as a model for how computer networks should work.^[3] Analogies (which we make constantly, relentlessly and mostly unconsciously) are what allow categorization to happen. "Our minds are constructed with an unlimited quality for 'chunking' primordial concepts, which then become larger concepts." As an example the word "hub," as in "Denver is the hub for United Airlines," brings to mind a large linked network of concepts that are "chunked" together to make up the commonly used term. Other examples range from basics like "wheel" and "node" to higher-order concepts like "spoke" and "network." Higher-order concepts are assembled from lower-order concepts. He believes there no fundamental difference in thinking with basic concepts and very large concepts because we don't "see" inside them. We build concepts by putting several concepts together and putting a membrane around them and giving that a name. Kind of miraculously these [interior] concepts disappear into the named high-order concept.

While high-level languages and object-oriented programming (OOP) were present in the early days of computing (e.g. MAD and Smalltalk), they did not capture a significant mind-share of working programmers until the release of Java in 1996. With OOP languages, encapsulation or information hiding became a recognized feature of computer system architectures. While this sound like "chunking", one of its purposes was to hide details. Whereas living systems create abstract chunks, information hiding created pieces that were sealed and did not expose details of the implementation. So information hiding does not allow for level crossing and does not share the capability in open systems for higher level systems to directly interface with lower level systems. Since this is a general theory, we cannot assume that information hiding is necessary or appropriate, although privacy advocates might disagree.

In 2007 Cleland and Chyba wrote a chapter in Planets and Life:^[4] "In the absence of such a theory, we are in a position analogous to that of a 16th-century investigator trying to define 'water' in the absence of molecular theory." ... "Without access to living things having a different historical origin, it is difficult and perhaps ultimately impossible to formulate an adequately general theory of the nature of living systems"

Bayesian Identity Proofing provides the means for a collection of authentication and verification steps to be validated.

Problems

Human cognitive process are limited.

Cognitive Overload

Cognitive Dissonance

Solutions

Taxonomy of Levels of connected Systems

Grier's 19 "proceses" that work at all levels

The colored boxes highlight the ones that deal with energy or manner, not the primary focus of this presentation.

ingestor, distributor, converter, producer, storage, extruder, motor, supporter The processors of information are: input transducer, internal transducer, channel and net, timer (added later), decoder, associator, memory, decider, encoder, output transducer.

References

1. ↑ James Grier Miller Living Systems 1978 ISBN 978-0070420151
2. ↑ Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid Vintage
3. ↑ Douglas R. Hofstadter, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought 1995 ISBN 978-0465024759
4. ↑ Woodruff, T. Sullivan; John Baross. Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology. October 8, 2007 Cambridge University Press.