Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Editors' preface
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I An overview of the contributions of John Archibald Wheeler
- Part II An historian's tribute to John Archibald Wheeler and scientific speculation through the ages
- Part III Quantum reality: theory
- Part IV Quantum reality: experiment
- Part V Big questions in cosmology
- Part VI Emergence, life, and related topics
- 26 Emergence: us from it
- 27 True complexity and its associated ontology
- 28 The three origins: cosmos, life, and mind
- 29 Autonomous agents
- 30 To see a world in a grain of sand
- Appendix A Science and Ultimate Reality Program Committees
- Appendix B Young Researchers Competition in honor of John Archibald Wheeler for physics graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty
- Index
27 - True complexity and its associated ontology
from Part VI - Emergence, life, and related topics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Editors' preface
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I An overview of the contributions of John Archibald Wheeler
- Part II An historian's tribute to John Archibald Wheeler and scientific speculation through the ages
- Part III Quantum reality: theory
- Part IV Quantum reality: experiment
- Part V Big questions in cosmology
- Part VI Emergence, life, and related topics
- 26 Emergence: us from it
- 27 True complexity and its associated ontology
- 28 The three origins: cosmos, life, and mind
- 29 Autonomous agents
- 30 To see a world in a grain of sand
- Appendix A Science and Ultimate Reality Program Committees
- Appendix B Young Researchers Competition in honor of John Archibald Wheeler for physics graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and young faculty
- Index
Summary
True complexity and the natures of existence
My concern in this chapter is true complexity and its relation to physics. This is to be distinguished from what is covered by statistical physics, catastrophe theory, study of sand piles, the reaction diffusion equation, cellular automata such as “The Game of Life,” and chaos theory. Examples of truly complex systems are molecular biology, animal and human brains, language and symbolic systems, individual human behavior, social and economic systems, digital computer systems, and the biosphere. This complexity is made possible by the existence of molecular structures that allow complex biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, and proteins with their folding properties and lock-and-key recognition mechanisms, in turn underlying membranes, cells (including neurons), and indeed the entire bodily fabric and nervous system.
True complexity involves vast quantities of stored information and hierarchically organized structures that process information in a purposeful manner, particularly through implementation of goal-seeking feedback loops. Through this structure they appear purposeful in their behavior (“teleonomic”). This is what we must look at when we start to extend physical thought to the boundaries, and particularly when we try to draw philosophical conclusions – for example, as regards the nature of existence – from our understanding of the way physics underlies reality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Science and Ultimate RealityQuantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity, pp. 607 - 636Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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