This is to say, not just up into
the complexities of organisms where, in Whitehead's terms, we seek life lurking in the interstices [PR 105 - 6], nor down into the magical realm of quarks with charm, but focused on chemistry.
While it is true that very suggestive metaphysical arguments can be drawn from the reality of form, the intelligibility of the universe, consciousness, the laws of physics, or (most importantly) ontological contingency, the mere biological complexity of this or that organism can never amount to an irrefutable proof of anything other than the incalculable
complexity of that organism's phylogenic antecedents.
Speaking to this same point a bit later, he notes that «the increasing
complexity of the organism is... due theoretically... to the necessity of complexity in the nervous system» (CE 274).
While one can not read evolution into the first chapter of Genesis, the gradually increasing
complexity of the organisms reflected in each day of creation shows at least a dim awareness of growth, development, complexification.
Where does
complexity of our organism and behaviour come from?
Transgenic and gene knockout / knockin technologies have become important experimental tools for assigning functions to genes at the level of whole
complexity of organism, creating models of genetic disorders, evaluating effects drugs and toxins, thus helping to answer fundamental issues in basic and applied research.
Stand back and appreciate the infinite
complexity of your organism.
Not exact matches
The «irreducible
complexity» or if one part
of the
organism is removed, then it would not work properly, like an eye or a wing.
Structures found in nature are too complex to have evolved step - by - step through natural selection [the concept
of «irreducible
complexity «1]: Natural selection does not require that all structures have the same function or even need to be functional at each step in the development
of an
organism.
This was not to be one further elucidation
of Whitehead's «philosophy
of organism,» but Leclerc's own detailed recounting
of how we must recover a few basic presuppositions if we are ever to elucidate a philosophy
of nature worthy
of our post-Whiteheadian era — an era unhappily determined to grapple with the
complexities of contemporary science by leaving Whitehead aside.
In various experiments with various conditions, scientists have been able to create a wide range
of cell - like structures
of increasing
complexity on the road toward a simple self - replicating
organism.
Highly evolved
organisms of a social species who have outdone their already remarkably intelligent primate relatives in intelligence and
complexity of social structure.
The range
of possible activity is determined by the
complexity of the nervous system, both on a sensory as well as a motor level (MM 41)-- sensory in that with a system
of low
complexity, an
organism is simply not aware
of the vast variety
of movements in the material field, motor in that the variety
of responses necessary for free activity are not materially accessible (MM 19, 43).
The fourth distinctive characteristic is a biological
organism that can not survive unless sustained by the resources
of a complex culture, therefore an
organism that has evolved not like other
organisms by eliminating the unfit in the struggle with the physical environment, but by eliminating those
organisms unfit to absorb and sustain the
complexities of a culture progressively accumulated through the sequence
of many generations.
The development
of an
organism fit to embody a culture
of growing
complexity seems to have been completed about 50,000 years ago.
With Leibniz, Hartshorne maintains that some
organisms are governed by a «dominant entelechy» that serves as a center
of perception and activity (Monadology # 70); other
organisms, and all inorganic wholes (e.g. chemical compounds and minerals), have insufficient organizational
complexity to act or feel «as one.
We anticipate some sort
of growth toward increased
complexity: increasingly larger organic macromolecules, then the convergence
of many macromolecules to constitute a simple living system, either as a cell with its protective wall and vital nucleus or as some functional analogue, then the convergence
of many cells to form larger
organisms.
The process
of transcendence went on, evolving multicelled
organisms of greater and greater
complexity, from the plant
organism to the animal one.
It is unfortunately true that, contrary to his intention, that newspaper article has been understood by many in the US to be directly supportive
of the so - called «intelligent design» hypothesis, which invokes divine design through the detection
of instances
of supposedly irreducible
complexity (i.e. un-evolvable
organisms).
Developments in the «new biology,» which deals with wholes
of increasing
complexity in the organization
of interrelated parts rather than with discrete and isolated segments, especially in molecular biology and the growing field
of ecology, with its discoveries about the basic interdependence
of living
organisms with other living
organisms and with its larger environmental context, have further undermined these traditions assumptions.
With the increase in
complexity new entities emerge — the classical world out
of the quantum world, molecules and chemical processes out
of atomic structures, simple living
organisms out
of complex molecular structures.
Thus,
complexity in types and relations between acts
of minding may have grown exponentially with the evolution
of «higher»
organisms as the imaginative element in the construction
of reality became more socially diffused; i.e. as the construction
of reality became more participatory - negotiary in character.
The progression from each stage to the next involves a process «
of increasing differentiation and
complexity of organization that endows the
organism, social system, or whatever the unit in question may be with greater capacity to adapt to its environment than... its less complex ancestors.
On such a theory, therefore, composites
of various grades
of complexity would have the status
of being actual physical existents in their own right, and not as such «reducible» to their ultimate constituents — as in the theory
of material atomism, molecules and biological
organisms are reducible to the ultimate constituents.
Evolution is how all
of the existing
complexity of living
organisms arrived at their current state via completely random mutations and entirely naturalistic processes.
The higher up we go on the evolutionary ladder, the greater the
complexity of the physical
organism, the more conceptual autonomy we find.
This
of course allows things to have properties that are nonphysical, perhaps, certain physical aggregates with a high degree
of systemic unity and organizational
complexity, such as biological
organisms and computing machines, may exhibit nonphysical properties.
In this sense every step in the evolution
of a new
organism (be it an increase or decrease in
complexity) is in Whitehead's terminology «a creative advance into novelty» (PR 222).
His reason for saying this is that if you look at
organisms, not just at the beginning, when life had its minimal
complexity, but at any subsequent time in evolutionary history, there is no evidence that these
organisms in the course
of time led to more complex creatures.
In other cases, different concentrations
of morphogen elicit different responses, and it is this type
of gradient that is most important for providing an increase in the
complexity of the developing
organism.
In the face
of such
complexity, «we started to have the idea to collaborate with the
organisms» instead
of starting from scratch, says Bozkurt.
As the research team noted in its report in the journal Science, the enormous
complexity of the Mimivirus's genetic complement «challenges the established frontier between viruses and parasitic cellular
organisms.»
The
complexity of mammals led Kandel to try to find a simpler
organism to use in his studies.
The study, published in Nature, highlights the real
complexity of the genetic interactions that lead to adult
organisms» phenotypes (physical forms), helps to explain how natural selection influences body form and leads towards much more realistic virtual experiments on evolution.
Yet much
of the document in fact focused on the debatable desirability
of the goals
of synthetic biology, and on the need to acknowledge the
complexities and uncertainties involved in designing novel living
organisms — issues which concern many
of those working in synthetic biology and which can and should be the subject
of open debate.
«The most significant pattern in the history
of life is the progressive net increase in
complexity of structure and dynamics that has occurred in
organisms and the ecosystems in which -LSB-...]
In mutation - driven evolutionary theory, evolution is a process
of increasing or decreasing an
organism's
complexity.
«Cyberspace is the only place I could imagine that could hold the
complexity of gene interaction that really describes an
organism,» says Brody, who poured 6 months
of 17 - hour days into the project.
The idea that the simplest
organism may not have come first upends the popular notion
of an evolutionary march toward
complexity.
«The
complexity of higher
organisms doesn't appear to be due to a higher number
of genes, but in the more complex ways that those higher
organisms use those genes,» says James Galagan
of the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in Cambridge, who led the research team.
The phrase is a fine combination
of old - fashioned sexism and convenient biology - speak which, by reducing human individuals to a biological
organism, «man», sweeps away social
complexities and confines debate to the simplicities
of what we often call «nature».
This significantly increases the number
of proteins a single gene codes for, and is thought to explain much
of the
complexity in higher - order
organisms.
Adding some
complexity to the seemingly simple life
of a single - celled
organism, researchers have found that a green alga uses snippets
of RNA to control its genes.
Research is funded at all levels
of biological
complexity from biomolecules to the interactions between
organisms.
The mission
of the HFSP is to promote, through international cooperation, basic research focused on the elucidation
of the sophisticated and complex mechanisms
of living
organisms at all levels
of complexity: from individual biomolecules up to interactions between
organisms.
The use
of bacteriophage also provided an opportunity for experiments with a primitive living
organism that could be studied without anatomic
complexities.
Many researchers assumed the
organism was too simple to serve as a good model when studying the
complexities of neurodegenerative diseases.
Recent advances in sequencing cnidarian transcriptomes have revealed the unexpected genetic
complexity of these morphologically simple basal
organisms.
That is why it works with an interdisciplinary scientific team focused on understanding the
complexity of life, starting with the genome and the cell, and working up to complex
organisms and their interactions with the environment, while also providing a comprehensive vision
of genetic diseases.
Today, in the post-genomic era, we need to study and understand biological phenomena and systems in their full
complexity, in terms
of the sequence and functions
of the genomes
of organisms.