From: Kenneth McLeod <kenneth.mcleod@uts.edu.au>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 6:55 AM
Subject: URGENT - Complexity Science at Sydney Uni Wednesday eveningkenneth
To: kenneth.mcleod@uts.edu.au
Dear ATP participants,
On Wednesday this week at 6pm one of the world's leading complexity scholars will speak at Sydney University.
There are only a few places left for this lecture so if you're interested don't delay. Click here to register now.
Professor Stuart Kauffman
The emergence and evolution of life is based on physics but is
beyond physics. Evolution is an historical process arising
from the non-ergodicity of the universe above the level of
atoms. Most complex things will never exist. Human hearts
exist. Prebiotic chemistry saw the evolution of many organic
molecules in complex reaction networks, and the formation of
low energy structures such as membranes. Theory and
experiments suggest that from this, the spontaneous emergence
of self reproducing molecular systems could arise and evolve.
Such “collectively autocatalytic systems” cyclically link
non-equilibrium processes whose constrained release of energy
constitutes “work” to construct the same constraints on those
non-equilibrium processes. Cells yoke a set of non-equilibrium
processes and constraints on the energy released as work to
build their own constraints and reproduce.
Such systems are living, and can propagate their organization
with heritable variations, so can be subject to natural
selection. In this evolution, these proto-organisms emerge
unprestatably, and afford novel niches enabling, not causing,
further types of proto-organisms to emerge. With this,
unprestatable new functions arise. The ever-changing phase
space of evolution includes these functionalities. Since we
cannot prestate these ever new functionalities, we can write
no laws of motion for this evolution, which is therefor
entailed by no laws at all, and thus not reducible to physics.
Beyond entailing law, the evolving biosphere literally
constructs itself and is the most complex system we know in
the universe.
Co-presented by Sydney Ideas with the Centre for Complex Systems and the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science the University of Sydney
Register here: http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/All best wishes, Ken
PS: Here's the link for the project proposal template if you haven't already shared your ideas for 2017 ATP initiatives:
http://www.123contactform.com/
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