Two types of questions

I just read the phrase “perennial questions” in a book review and got the idea that this common phrase, when linked to types of plants by analogy, is really very rich with meaning and value. So…as for plants, perhaps there are essentially two types of questions – annual, and perennial. And, just as plants usually pick one or the other mode to operate by, and associated species (pollinators, herbivores, etc.) co-evolve and attune themselves to each plant’s chosen type (annual or perennial) when designing a relationship with that plant, maybe people similarly choose between annual and perennial types of questions when deciding and designing a relationship with the world. I love perennial questions…like What is life? Why am I here? Where do I fit in? and related ones.

I guess we could add bi-ennial questions (who will be our rep to congress) and quadrennial ones (who will be our president)…but still…either long term (eternal, unanswerable in any absolute sense) and short term (based on circumstances of the day and place, readily answerable) seem like reasonable, solid, robust categories or types of questions. What do you think? DF

Russian paradigm of life

Found this paper by searching through Google Scholar for papers that had cited my 2001/2002 multi-part paper on the ecosystemic life hypothesis. Both humbling and hopeful to read that I failed to cite a huge body of work by Vernadsky and others when I wrote my papers, while also it seems more important than ever to continue this general thread of research, theory and work. I have Vernadsky’s book, Biosphere, and will use this article by Lekevicius (or Lekevieius?) to aid my next article, now in draft form. Nice to find at the start of a new year. If any troubles getting the PDF of the article (it seemed readily available to me), let me know and I can assist. DF

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.115.8645&rep=rep1&type=pdf

New article

This article came from a PhD chapter. If you would like an electronic copy, let me know.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.05.006

One thing I think is cool and important about this ecological network analysis (ENA) paper is that the approach leads to a model of a natural system with humans inside rather than external. Thus the modeling and modeler’s perspective is a view from the inside of a complex system, a food web, an ecological network that is able to bring humans into material existence. In my grandiose hopes and wishes that also seeks to praise and promote the leadership work of the ENA school, I think this can be as profound as Darwinian evolution theory – because both provide a new perspective on where humans fit in to the great scheme of the world. The human food web also helps answer the great questions from a new angle, so that Who am I? Where did I come from? Where do I fit into the world? all can be answered partly based on the energy, carbon, nitrogen or other currencies that flow through a community-ecosystem to help create each individual and each generation of human beings.

Two words

Only time for two words/links…time crunching…

synergy

http://www.complexsystems.org/index.html

syntropy

http://www.sintropia.it/

Dan

Competition and Cooperation

Lynn Margulis (and perhaps a co-author) wrote somewhere (I will find the citation) something to the effect of “Life did not conquer the Earth by combat, but by networking”. Margulis contributed the endosymbiont theory of evolution and also is co-founder of Gaia theory. She is an advocate of respect for microbes. She also co-authored a coffee table book, “What is Life?” This is my favorite question. Dr. Margulis is one of my heroes.

Networking as a verb in Margulis’ comment is essentially cooperation. I see her work to support my view that cooperation is equally as important as competition in the original and fundamental nature of life. If cooperation is such a fundamental essence of life, then we will need to understand it, use it, model it to understand the origin of life, the evolution and development of life over past historical time, and the evolution and development of life going forward into the future.

I saw a mission statement once on a NASA Astrobiology (or related) website that said their group mission was “To understand life from origin to destiny”. Then later that mission statement disappeared from webspace. Well…it is back…because that is my mission.

Dan

A Third Window – New Book

This book by Bob Ulanowicz is the real deal. A Third Window:

http://www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=136

Bob creates and develops a theory of life and nature sure to transform everything from physics to society. Thank you, Bob.

Getting started

Four of our family watched Charlotte’s Web on a miniature TV this evening. It was such a great movie, after such an incredibly radiant and humble book, that I was inspired to dive in to get ecosystemics.org – THE BLOG – started. Charlotte proved so eloquently and succinctly the power of words and communication, and I hope to follow humbly in her footsteps.

This blog - my contributions to it – I hope to be about an ecosystemic perspective on life. I have written about this elsewhere, as have many others, and I sincerely believe that consideration of “life as ecosystem” as an equally valid and fundamental unit, basis, mental model or shared focus with “life as organism” (or life as cell, life as individual, etc.) can help us solve our current wicked suite of chronic and systemic environmental problems.

A starter thought for now: Darwinian evolution seems to focus quite heavily on competition – survival of the fittest. And this is tied to a unit of life, unit of selection, or unit of evolution as something like species, organism or even genome. An ecosystemic paradigm of life will elevate cooperation to equal standing with competition. It will result in a foundational, physical, relational and pragmatic instantiation of the Golden Rule. In essence the opposite or complement of competition may move to the foreground as necessary explanatory principle and generic characteristic of the creative organizational power of life.

The web of ideas around ecosystemic life are many and intricately woven. I want to spin them out over some time…stay tuned…any comments appreciated.

Dan

Placeholder…test post

Not much better than hello world, really, but here is a test post #1. Hello Todd…if you are checking on it…

Dan Fiscus