The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984, the first Macy conferences were in the 1940s, Smuts wrote Holism and Evolution in 1926, Aristotle had three types of soul… what’s new about this?
I didn’t anticipate that anyone might think I meant that holism itself was a novel idea, biological or otherwise. To clarify: it’s not. It has a long history. But most modern versions can be traced back to the Manhattan Project, which some would consider surprising. Recently, the same basic version of biological holism has popped up in several different fields. This convergence, or consilience if you will, is interesting if only because consilience in science is interesting in general.
The historical background was provided as context for those who might need it. I’ve heard people say here before that holism is something of a collective blindspot. So why not bring it up for discussion?
Daniel Dennett and Michael Levin have been promoting this view recently. Friston’s free energy principle is also a recent development. Flack et al’s notion of the information hierarchy is also new. So is Morowitz and Smith’s work on energy flow. And the England group’s work on dissipation-driven organization. Big-picture syntheses that fit conveniently into this framework such as The Systems View of Life, Dance to the Tune of Life, Experiences in the Biocontinuum, and Incomplete Nature have all made recent appearances. Some might find it interesting to consider all of this in terms of the difficulties in making sense of nonlinear systems, which is why I framed it as such. It’s an old problem with novel developments.
The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984, the first Macy conferences were in the 1940s, Smuts wrote Holism and Evolution in 1926, Aristotle had three types of soul… what’s new about this?
I didn’t anticipate that anyone might think I meant that holism itself was a novel idea, biological or otherwise. To clarify: it’s not. It has a long history. But most modern versions can be traced back to the Manhattan Project, which some would consider surprising. Recently, the same basic version of biological holism has popped up in several different fields. This convergence, or consilience if you will, is interesting if only because consilience in science is interesting in general.
The historical background was provided as context for those who might need it. I’ve heard people say here before that holism is something of a collective blindspot. So why not bring it up for discussion?
Daniel Dennett and Michael Levin have been promoting this view recently. Friston’s free energy principle is also a recent development. Flack et al’s notion of the information hierarchy is also new. So is Morowitz and Smith’s work on energy flow. And the England group’s work on dissipation-driven organization. Big-picture syntheses that fit conveniently into this framework such as The Systems View of Life, Dance to the Tune of Life, Experiences in the Biocontinuum, and Incomplete Nature have all made recent appearances. Some might find it interesting to consider all of this in terms of the difficulties in making sense of nonlinear systems, which is why I framed it as such. It’s an old problem with novel developments.
FWIW I find the book by Smith and Morowitz to be staggeringly illuminating.
I absolutely agree. It’s a new way of looking at life.