Dimensions Missing from Ecology

Philosophies

Ulanowicz, Robert E.¹ 

[1] University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, MD 20688, USA

关键词: agonism;    apophasis;    autocatalysis;    centripetality;    contingency;    endogenous selection;    heterogeneity;    indeterminacy;    process;   

DOI  :  10.3390/philosophies3030024

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Ecology, with its emphasis on coupled processes and massive heterogeneity, is not amenable to complete mechanical reduction, which is frustrated for reasons of history, dimensionality, logic, insufficiency, and contingency. Physical laws are not violated, but can only constrain, not predict. Outcomes are predicated instead by autocatalytic configurations, which emerge as stable temporal series of incorporated contingencies. Ecosystem organization arises out of agonism between autocatalytic selection and entropic dissolution. A degree of disorganization, inefficiency, and functional redundancy must be retained by all living systems to ensure flexibility in the face of novel disturbances. That physical and biological dynamics exhibit significant incongruencies argues for the formulation of alternative metaphysical assumptions, referred to here as “Process Ecology”.

【 授权许可】

CC BY