Author: Evgenii Rudnyi
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Entropy and Miscibility Gap: Tutorial for Biologists
Main Points Introduction Recently I have written a small text Schrödinger’s Order, Disorder and Entropy and discussed it on the biosemiotic list. During discussion, there was a suggestion to consider a solution with a miscibility gap. In this case, a homogeneous mixture spontaneously decomposes to two different solutions with different concentrations of components. In this text,…
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Muddle Puddle with Entropy in Biology
One paragraph from J. Scott Turner, Biology’s Second Law: Homeostasis, Purpose, and Desire. In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology I should say that the book is good and the chapter actually is also not bad. Yet, this paragraph speaks for itself: p. 192 “At its most general, the disequilibrium that characterizes a living system…
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Addiction: The View from Rat Park
In an interview of Alexis Pietak, I have heard about Rat Park and now I have found information in Internet. Bruce K. Alexander Addiction: The View from Rat Park http://globalizationofaddiction.ca/articles-speeches/rat-park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park.html “In the 1960s, some experimental psychologists began to think that the Skinner Box was a good place to study drug addiction. They perfected techniques that…
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Prigogine: The new alliance
I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, The new alliance, Scientia 112 (1977) Part One – From Dynamics to Thermodynamics: Physics, the Gradual Opening towards the World of Natural Processes, 319-332. Part Two – An Extended Dynamics: towards a Human Science of Nature, 643-653. I like the beginning of the first part where the problem is formulated…
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The Uses of a Screwdriver Cannot be Listed Algorithmically
A quote from Stuart A. Kauffman, Foreword: Evolution beyond Newton, Darwin, and Entailing Law. In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology p. 9 “Here is the first ‘strange’ step. Can you name all the uses of a screwdriver, alone, or with other objects or process? Well, screw in a a screw, open a paint can, wedge…
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Christian Roots of Modern Science
From my discussion. 15.04.2013 19:47 The modern science seems to have strong roots in Christianity. You may want to look at Edward Dolnick, The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World The book nicely shows that god has played the crucial role in the scientific revolution of the…
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Erwin Schrödinger and Negative Entropy
A critique of the metaphor of negative entropy. Entropy as disorder in the 19th century. Schrödinger: Order, disorder and entropy. Discussion: Order and disorder. Understanding chemical reactions.
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Peirce on Mind and Matter
Peirce’s quote that I have found in Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake: “Matter is merely mind deadened by the development of habit to the point where the breaking up of this habits is very difficult.” Below is another quote given by Søren Brier on the biosemiotics list: “But what is to be said of the property…