Ontic openness: An absolute necessity for all developmental processes

Abstract

The physicist Walter M. Elsasser is mostly known for his work on the Earth's magnetism. Less attention has been paid to his efforts toward identifying what are the real differences between physical and biological systems. One essential distinction he recognized was that physical systems are largely homogenous while biological systems always revealed what he called ordered heterogeneity. Calculation of the possible configurations of such heterogeneous systems almost always leads to combinatorial explosions and to what Elsasser referred to as immense numbers. Such calculations have the consequence that any such systems are necessarily unique – mathematically speaking they represent one-sets.

Another consequence is that immense numbers automatically introduce enormous uncertainty and indeterminacy into the system. Such systems are said to be ontically open. Applying this perspective to the genome and employing the notion of informational entropy reveals a common drive behind all development. This means that both conventional Darwinian evolution as well as the genomic mistakes that are believed to lie behind processes like aging and diseases can be interpreted against the background of one and the same process.

At the same time the approach demonstrates how Darwinian evolution encompasses other notions such as Kauffman's “adjacent possible” (Kauffman, 1995, Kauffman, 2000) and Eldrege's and Gould's “evolution via punctuated equilibria” (e.g., Eldredge and Gould, 1972, Gould and Eldredge, 1977).

Introduction

In the literature two antagonistic concepts of entropy and information are used concurrently, often in very confusing manner and sometimes even conflated as if they were synonymous.

The source of the confusion dates back to Shannon's expropriation of the Boltzmann–Gibbs formulation for thermodynamic entropy as quantification of the positivist sense of information. These two concepts have opposing meanings and have been applied to a wide range of organizational forms often to contradictory ends. Unlike with the second law requiring ever-increasing thermodynamic entropy, no clear statement can be made concerning the evolutionary trend of the Shannon index.

One major issue needs to be resolved: Is the information (viz. entropy) of a system increasing or decreasing with time? The organismic theory launched by W.M. Elsasser, with its associated concepts of ontic openness, heterogeneity and immense numbers offers a resolution to this apparent problem.

In short, biological systems differ from purely physical systems in that the former are highly heterogeneous while the latter are largely homogenous (Bateson, 1972). Calculation of the combinatorial possibilities among the entities of a heterogeneous system leads to numerical explosions. The number of possibilities reaches orders of magnitude that no longer convey any physical meaning. Anything can and will happen, i.e., such complex systems are fundamentally unpredictable and said to be ontically open. As a result, the concept of ontic openness requires another metaphysic – one that can apply beyond the realm of finite or even infinite systems (Ulanowicz, 2009).

As will later be demonstrated, systems that are ontically open can proceed in either of two directions – they can increase or decrease in informational entropy, depending on the measure chosen. In fact, the concept of openness reveals a fundamental drive among all biological systems (Deacon, 2011) – which in turn prompts the following legitimate question.