Nick, I downloaded Nick Lane's Vital Question book a couple months back. From a quick skim I got the sense it was a nice review of much of the work going on around non-equilibrium thermodynamic origin of life explanations by the "Seventh Day Ventists" (eg second law arguments for the emegence of life via gradient dissipation around deep sea vents). In addition to reviewing this work, Dr. Lane has original contributions as well. I would recommend it for anyone as a great introduction.
In fact our own Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz (who just passed last month) work is mentioned in Vital Question. You might check out Eric's recent talk at the Aspen Institute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cwvj0XBKlE) which addresses a couple questions that came up at FRIAM yesterday. In particular, I think the talk much more elegantly describes the shift to defining life as an ecological pattern from the prior emphasis on the individual organism. on "are viruses alive" Eric challenges the meaning of a "living thing" https://youtu.be/0cwvj0XBKlE?t=48m21s Also Eric's SFI public lecture from a few years back is very relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMqwgkXguw _______________________________________________________________________ stephen.gue...@simtable.com <stephen.gue...@simtable.com> CEO, Simtable http://www.simtable.com 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828 twitter: @simtable On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 10:09 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Dear Friammers, > > > > Today’s meeting of the Mother Church got back to our old discussions of > complexity, gradients, and the origin of life. In that connection I urged > everybody to read Nick Lane’s, *THE VITAL QUESTION: Energy, evolution, > and the origins of complex life.* The fundamental theory is that life > was scaffolded by the microstructure and energy flows taking place in deep > ocean vents called “white smokers”. I am curious to know if others have > read this book, and what you might think of it. > > > > Nicholas S. Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > > Clark University > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
