TY  - GEN
ID  - cogprints4895
UR  - http://cogprints.org/4895/
A1  - G., Nagarjuna
TI  - Towards a Model of Life and Cognition
Y1  - 2004/08//
N2  - This essay argues for an alternative scientific foundation for accounting complex phenomena like life, cognition and evolution. The approach taken to the problem is neither reductionism, not emergentism (holism), but a third alternative called  assimilationism.  The analysis based on the alternative foundation   indicated some counter intuitive implications like: chemical   reactions can happen independent of heat under idealized   conditions; all systems, including non-living, counteract   perturbations to exist; non-living systems are more open than the   living.

   Outline: There are abundant building blocks that are systems but   not atoms, which perturb each other.  The building blocks are   heterogenous (have different functional interfaces). There are   mainly two kinds interactions: identity preserving (IP) and   identity transforming (IT) interactions. Given only IP interactions   the system would reach high entropy --- first tendency.  Given only   IT interactions the system would reach a crystalline state ---   second tendency.  The actual world is a function of these two   tendencies.  All beings (living as well as non-living) are open,   and their adaptation in an environment is an expression of their   invertibility of the two tendencies.  Living beings are part of a   special dialogically invertible space made by amphipathic agents   like water molecules on the one hand and agents with multiple   interfaces like biomolecules with possibilities of interacting   among their own functional interfaces on the other. This space   makes possible for a dialogical opposition of the two tendencies:   distribution and collection of energy. Thus, living being is   described to be a neither-nor-state, between the two extremes. The   characteristic of this space is to maintain the state by   replacement, reproduction, recycling or feedback. The abundance of   little loops produce highly efficient work cycles, minimizing   external energy dependence. A self-reproducing network of such   beings manages to engulf a process and a counter process within the   network of a being, to counteract the two `deadly' tendencies. A   living being is capable of displaying behavioral changes without   undergoing change in identity.  Thus, living beings are   interpreted to be more closed than non-living, for they can neither   resist nor repair interactions. And this logic continues to operate   recursively to explain physiology, epigenesis, evolution,   adaptation, complexity, autonomy and cognition. 

   The initial cognitive base of a living being is rooted in the   invertibility of the perturbations from the environment. It is   hypothesized that this repairing process itself becomes the   difference, and the processes that are induced in turn within the   system generate a differentiation of difference, which is   defined as knowledge. However, this knowledge is implicit, and    cannot account for conscious cognition, which is explicit.

AV  - public
KW  - life
KW  -  cognition
KW  -  philosophy of biology
KW  -  cognitive science
KW  -  thermodynamics
KW  -  open systems
KW  -  living state
KW  -  foundations of life
KW  -  theoretical biology
KW  -  invertibility
KW  -  self-organization
KW  -  biological roots of cognition
KW  -  autopoisis
KW  -  self-reproduction
KW  -  metaphysics
KW  -  ontology
KW  -  evolution
KW  -  adaptation
KW  -  complexity
KW  -  measure of complexity
KW  -  autonomy
KW  -  knowledge
KW  -  evolution of complex systems
KW  -  Darwin
KW  -  natural selection
KW  -  logic of construction
KW  -  perturbation
KW  -  invertibility
ER  -

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