Key Takeaways
- Common theme – explains complex/complicated objects by breaking down to its simplest parts and begin by explaining these
- Common theme – emergence, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
- Gribbin describes many of the shared, common components of life and different systems
- Chaos begets complexity, complexity begets life
- World starts with the simple and eventually leads to the complex
- Chaos and complexity based on two simple ideas – sensitivity of a system to its given starting condition and feedback
- There are simple, orderly laws underpinning the confusion of the world
- Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell (electromagnets), Einstein (genera/specific relativity), Fourier (Law of transfer of heat), Rumford (heat is work), Joule / Helmholtz (conservation of energy), Clausius (entropy), Boltzman (over time, gas averages out in a container), Poincare (solar system orbits are stable, periodic; foundations of chaos), Lorenz (butterfly effect), Turing (cryptography, AI, embryonic development)
- Near fractal self-symmetry is pervasive in living organisms
- DNA is more of a recipe than a blueprint – much simpler, more elegant as it doesn’t have to have everything planned out, simply the base of what is needed
- Turing mechanism – embryo experiences chemical reaction from actuators and inhibitors which leads to whatever the recipe calls for (stripes, spots, hands, hair, etc.)
- Nature’s power law – smaller events (earthquakes) occur predictably more than larger events (earthquakes) but both at random
- Power law a deep universal truth affecting people, weather, earthquakes, economy, etc. (1/f noise)
- Fractals are scale invariant (look the same no matter if microscopic or macroscopic view)
- No large triggers are needed for earthquakes or other power laws. Happen randomly but larger ones with much less frequency
- Same size triggers don’t cause same size events
- All life built on networks – interconnections between simple parts that make up the complex system (emergence of life from non life)
- Kauffman’s theory about emergence due to network effects
- Also, genes control machinery of cell and genes can turn on/off other genes. That is why it is so difficult to cure anything because one gene is interconnected to everything else
- Humans are the most complicated things and even we run on very simple rules
- Darwinian evolution – genes get passed down, some mutations, more species with each generation
- The most interesting things happen on the edges of chaos
- Natural for simply systems to organize at the edge of chaos
- Evolution has no aim, it simply helps species fit the niches they’re in. Species do not get better or worse at surviving, simply are better/worse at surviving particular niche in a particular time
- Living systems reduce entropy – how we are looking for life in other planets
- Gaia Hypothesis – Earth is a self-regulating system
- Clouds are extremely important for Earth’s thermal regulation
- If we find life abroad, very likely it is made of simply building blocks working together in one connected, self-regulated network
- Carbon plays such a key role in life because it can combine chemically with as many as four other atoms at once (CHON)
- Boundary between life and non-life is very blurry
- Humans are the most complicated things in the world but still made of the most common materials
What I got out of it
- Interesting read and I’ll remember that interesting things happen at the edge of chaos as chaos leads to complexity which leads to life
