By VINOD K. WADHAWAN - NIRMUKTA
Added: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Bala for the link.
Original link

In this concluding part of the series on complexity I recapitulate the basic ideas about complexity, and then revisit the questions about the origin of the universe we live in, the origin of life, and the origin of consciousness. The bottom line is that the word ‘origin’ should be replaced by ‘evolution.’ And what evolves with time is complexity, resulting in the emergence of new properties or phenomena which could not have been anticipated.

17.1 Recapitulation of the Main Ideas in Complexity Science

With reductionism comes the conviction that a court proceeding to try a man for murder is “really” nothing but the movement of atoms, electrons, and other particles in space, quantum and classical events, and ultimately to be explained by, say, string theory.

Stuart Kauffman (2006)

1. Classical microscopic laws of physics are characterized by determinism and time-reversal symmetry. Determinism means that if the position and the momentum of a particle are known at any instant of time, then the laws of classical mechanics determine the position and momentum at all instants of time, both future and past. The success of space missions is an example of the applicability of the deterministic equations of motion to simple (or simplifiable) systems (in contrast to complex systems). Simple systems have the linearity feature: The inevitable imprecision in our knowledge of the physical parameters of such a system does not lead to disastrous or runaway consequences in our predictions about the mechanics of the system.
2. By contrast, chaotic systems, though deterministic, are governed by nonlinear equations of motion, and consequently we cannot predict their behaviour far into the future. Chaos is an example of the fact that determinism does not necessarily imply predictability.
...
Continue reading

TAGGED: SCIENCE

---

Tweet