Beyond Reductionism: The Biology of Complexity, Chaos & Emergence
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Is reductionism inadequate to explain many important phenomena in biology and other sciences? We may define reductionism as the idea that systems can be decomposed into more elementary parts which combine under definite rules to produce the whole. How does reductionism fail in biological systems? How and why is reductionsim still useful in the sciences including biology? What is the nature of the successes and failures of reductionism in science?
How do aperiodic deterministic systems show that predictiveness is impossible in many systems? If variability is inherent in some systems, how can we think of such dynamical systems scientifically? If predictiveness in science fails, how can we understand the world? In fractal systems (scale-free), can their measurable "dimension" characterize their variability? Can science explain the aperiodic and variable after all?
What is the nature of the new ideas of chaoticism and complex systems which attempt to describe how complex properties emerge from components whose combinations are too unpredictable to encompass precisely?
How can the emergence of complexity develop from simple and unintelligent parts?
What can we learn about the nature of science from the development of complexity science as first documented for the general reader in James Glick's Pulitzer Prize winning book "Chaos: Making a New Science"?
It is recommended, but optional, that participants watch the two highlighted Robert Sapolsky videos below. The James Glieck book "Chaos" is strictly supplementary and is not recommended for this discussion. If you do not have time to watch the videos, I'd recommend reading either my notes or Jon Dakins' notes or both.
• 1h 37m Robert Sapolsky video on reductionism and chaoticism. Read my extensive notes summarizing the video (https://plus.google.com/104222466367230914966/posts/USvWtt8ufxM). Read Jon Dakins' notes summarizing the video (http://robertsapolskyrocks.weebly.com/chaos-and-reductionism.html).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njf8jwEGRo
• 1h 42m Robert Sapolsky video on the biology of emergence and complexity. Read my extensive notes summarizing the video (https://plus.google.com/104222466367230914966/posts/5avVU3c1jLv). Read Jon Dakins' notes summarizing the video (http://robertsapolskyrocks.weebly.com/emergence-and-complexity.html).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ZuWbX-CyE
• James Gleich's award winning 1987 book "Chaos: Making a New Science" is required reading for Sapolsky's students and he references it frequently in the above two lectures. We will only discuss a few of its pages, namely, the ones that Sapolsky explains in the videos. So, I would recommend watching the Sapolsky videos instead of reading the book.
Beyond Reductionism: The Biology of Complexity, Chaos & Emergence