From Atoms to Living Systems

Analecta Husserliana Vol. 110, 711-727., 2011

Acknowledging that Nature is one unified whole, we expect that physics and biology are intimately related. Keeping in mind that physics became an exact science with which we are already familiar with, while, apparently, we do not have at present a similar knowledge about biology, we consider how can we make useful the clarity of physics to shed light to biology. The next question will be what are the most basic categories of physics and biology. If we do not want to cut laws of Nature into different parts, we obtain a constraint, and the remaining part of physics will be the input data to the equations of physics. In these terms, our question will be: if we keep biological laws intact, as indivisible units, what remains in case of biology? This approach, just because it is more fundamental, has significant consequences for philosophy, and obviously offers a new conceptual framework considering the relation between the ontopoietic principle of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and the biological principle. The quintessence of science, namely, the first essentially complete scientific world picture is presented in a detailed form.

Semiotics, 2011

The inherited Newtonian notions of matter, and what constitutes it, shaped our worldview for many centuries. Yet revolutionary discoveries in physics in the twentieth century overturned a longstanding belief that regularities in the natural world are attributable to specific universal laws that govern the natural realm. The formulation of Chaos theory in the 1960s, (now subsumed into complex System Theory more broadly) and the discovery of fractal mathematics in the 1980s by Mandelbrot in particular, proved that the natural world is unpredictable and that it organises itself in patterns and shapes according to simple mathematical rules which have the unique property of feedback. An important aspect of chaos theory is that self-organisation of natural patterns derives from mindless natural processes where information is to be understood in mechanistic terms. However, in recent years, an alternative view has been proposed by developing theories in quantum information theory (Davies, 2010) and biosemiotics (Hoffmeyer 1996, 2008, 2010; Kull, 2010; Favareau, 2009). In the former, information replaces mass and energy as the fundamental reality of the universe; in the latter information is redefined as semiosis. In neither case is information understood as a mechanical process, but rather as a natural one. Biosemiotics describes this as the active exchange of meaning among living organisms. In this paper I explore the concept of information from a biosemiotic perspective drawing on the theory of semiosis proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce in the 19th century, in order to argue that, despite much understandable scepticism, the natural realm could be understood as ‘minded’, and as such could help in overcoming the distinction traditionally drawn between nature and culture.

Proceedings MDPI, 2022

: This paper argues that life is best understood in light of a physics of the immaterial. Life is not properly seen or touched, for instance, but conceived, imagined, intuited. In order to rightly grasp life in general, we need not reduce it in any sense, hence its counterintuitive character. The claim is based on five arguments: life is much more a process than a series of components; the first law of thermodynamics is important in thinking about processes; life entails a twofold perspective that opens up the window, so to speak, to the possible rather than only the actual; living beings are not machines in any sense of the word (biological hypercomputation); and life is an autopoietic or self-organized phenomenon. Some conclusions are drawn at the end.

Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti : Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali, 2009

Following the ancient Hermetic aphorism solve et coagula, we investigate the nature of the interface between physics and biology by moving up and down the different temporal and spatial scales which enter the description of natural phenomena. Various indications seem to support both the existence of such an interface and the possibility of finding methods, languages, and targets shared by such two disciplines. However, this possibility becomes remote if one moves further and further from the microscopic level of atoms and molecules (and, correspondingly, of molecular biology). We conclude that the biologically founded epistemology proposed by Maturana and Varela as well as cultural anthropology and sociology cannot yet be treated with the methodology of physics.

This presentation aims to show the impact of modern biology and genetics on the modern perception of organic life and to show organic life as a new field of power, repression and antagonism. Whilst the science of biology, understood as a power institution, goes even deeper into the molecular structure of the cell and establishes new instances of biopower, the vitalistic approach argues that the organic life cannot be expressed as simply a set of biochemical reactions. The standpoint of modern cell biology will be the main area of criticism; the notions such as selfish gene, Darwinistic evolutionism and the individualist apprehension of life will be questioned. The main line of argumentation will concern the question of the technology and language of modern genetics, which allow for life to be a purely scientific phenomenon which can be manipulated, organised and structured (biotechnology, bio-enhancement, gene therapy). The theories of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari will be used in order to criticise this one-sided approach to life. Firstly, the notion of the ‘Body without Organs’ will be applied to understand the potentialities of the cell and the body from a new perspective that presents life as an expressive but not wholly comprehensible and objectively structured fact. Secondly, the idea of biopower will allow a new critique of the biological discourse that establishes life as a field of intervention and manipulation which can be later modified and controlled with technical means. Finally, from these two points of view, a new perspective of analysing life will emerge that will reject the understanding of life as an information and as a possible field of manipulation and enhancement.

The article formalizes the composition and structure of the natural systems, and their physical measurements. The article identifies a new property of the natural systems called the Most Important Property of the Natural Systems (MIPNS). MIPNS represents an indivisible unity of the material and nonmaterial. When applied to the fundamentals of material world, MIPONS confirms dualism, and rejects monism and pluralism. The natural systems consist of the material matter-energy and nonmaterial entropyinformation substances. The two substances cannot exist in isolation from each other. The two substances are well connected with the two principles of thermodynamics, space, and time, forming the inseparable "Great triad of pairs," which is the fundamental bases of the universe.

In the framework of materialism, the major attention is to find general organizational laws stimulated by physical sciences, ignoring the uniqueness of Life. The main goal of materialism is to reduce consciousness to natural processes, which in turn can be translated into the language of math, physics and chemistry. Following this approach, scientists have made several attempts to deny the living organism of its veracity as an immortal soul, in favor of genes, molecules, atoms and so on. However, advancement in various fields of biology has repeatedly given rise to questions against such a denial and has supplied more and more evidence against the completely misleading ideological imposition that living entities are particular states of matter. In the recent past, however, the realization has arisen that cognitive nature of life at all levels has begun presenting significant challenges to the views of materialism in biology and has created a more receptive environment for the soul hypothesis. Therefore, instead of adjudicating different aprioristic claims, the development of an authentic theory of biology needs both proper scientific knowledge and the appropriate tools of philosophical analysis of life. In a recently published paper the first author of present essay made an attempt to highlight a few relevant developments supporting a sentient view of life in scientific research, which has caused a paradigm shift in our understanding of life and its origin [1]. The present essay highlights the uniqueness of biological systems that offers a considerable challenge to the mainstream materialism in biology and proposes the Vedāntic philosophical view as a viable alternative for development of a biological theory worthy of life.

Progress in Biophysics & Molecular Biology, 2015

Susan passed away while the final editing of the issue was being completed. She was a mathematical biologist herself, and a co-discoverer (Brown, DiFrancesco, Noble, 1979) of the channel that became the target for the successful angina drug, ivabradine (Servier). Preparing this ambitious Special Issue has challenged everyone involved: authors, reviewers, and guest editors. The editors solicited contributions from many leading figures in a broad array of scientific and philosophical disciplines, with emphasis on phenomenological approaches to philosophy (Section I). The motivating force was the conviction that if we could find a viable bridge for the gap between the "two cultures" 1 of science and philosophy, fundamental problems in each camp could be addressed more fruitfully than ever before, and a new kind of science be born. We believe the unprecedented cross-fertilization of ideas from this initiative may furnish seeds from which that new, better integrated, and more effective approach to science may arise. This Special Issue consists of forty papers. For each one, multiple reviewers were solicited, with at least one reviewer from each "culture" (a scientist and a philosopher). In many cases, several rounds of revision were carried out. Needless to say, this required great patience and dedication of all participants. The editors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of our authors, and of our anonymous reviewers, who worked long and hard on the papers we sent them with no compensation for their efforts. We also wish to thank the Elsevier editorial and production team for the support they gave us in bringing this project to fruition. We hope the reader will find this effort to marry science and philosophy both meaningful and enjoyable. We would now like to offer a synoptic overview of the Special Issue, section by section and paper by paper.

Life amazes us by continuous changes out of its material structures themselves. As a phenomenon, the capacity to grow according to an incorporated orderliness and to react according to internal criteria, thus to perform a certain degree of autonomy, distinguishes alive structures from structures of inanimate matter, whose changes are determined fully by external forces. What the changes are attributed to (genes, vital force, eidos, etc.) is another question. The life sciences seek forms of life and thus presuppose a principle of what life is, which is conceptually not clarified yet. Grasping adequately this principle requires a totally secure conceptual basis; our approach is an attempt in this sense. The means for achieving this is a non-compromised analysis of the laws that determine conceptual structures in referring to the natural forms of processual order (laws and forces). The basis is Aristotelian, and the focus on strict completeness, processuality, and agency. The mental process of this analysis yields a set of four fundamental categories that are universally applicable and allow thus in principle a full coverage of the phenomena: 'law', 'force', 'disequilibriabilty of force structures', and 'equilibrium of all forces in a force structure'. They cover in one continuum all processes, from those in material matter to those in consciousness, and are thus relevant for more fields than the life sciences can cover as yet. Following no idée fixe about 'objects', they show the origin of life as not limited to first aminoacid reactions or first living cells.

* This paper was originally written as part of a teaching assistantship and has subsequently become a personal reference. I learned most of this stuff by trial and error, so it may contain inefficiencies, inaccuracies, or incomplete explanations. If you find something here suboptimal or have suggestions, please let me know. Until at least 2009 I can be contacted at [email protected].