On the Steady State Nature of Evolution,
Learning, Perception, Hallucination and Dreaming
R. FISCHER
With 3 Figures
Abstract
Evolution, learning, perception as well as hallucination and dreaming will be
treated as sequential steps of a single ongoing process which can be visualized as
a logarithmic spiral. Each adaptational step displays an increasing time rate of
change and represents a steady state with less and less space-like and more and
more time-like characteristics, thus implying the involvement of less energy and
more information [9].
Organismic Steady States
The maintenance of steady state between a system and its environment
is the most efficient, orderly state of an irreversible, smoothly-running,
open system. The steady state can, therefore, be defined as a nonequilibrium
state of an open system in which all forces acting on the system are exactly
counterbalanced by opposing forces, in such a manner that all its components are stationary in concentration although matter is flowing through
the system [26].
The steady state relationship offers advantages and imposes limitations.
The most visible limitations on the macroscopic level are size, rate of
change and duration, an interrelated triad which can be dealt with systematically especially in the case of homeothermic mammals. Within these
organisms the production of heat or the 02 consumption per unit surface
area is approximately constant "from the shrew to the whale", since the
metabolic rate relatively decreases with increasing organismic size. It is,
therefore, the metabolic rate at which 02 consumption per unit surface area
proceeds which determines the chronological life-span of the organism.
After HUXLEY [19],
(1)
where M = metabolic rate, k = constant, describing metabolic activity
for one weight-unit (If/ = 1) and n = allometric constant as an exponent
Learning, Perception, Hallucination and Dreaming
R. FISCHER
With 3 Figures
Abstract
Evolution, learning, perception as well as hallucination and dreaming will be
treated as sequential steps of a single ongoing process which can be visualized as
a logarithmic spiral. Each adaptational step displays an increasing time rate of
change and represents a steady state with less and less space-like and more and
more time-like characteristics, thus implying the involvement of less energy and
more information [9].
Organismic Steady States
The maintenance of steady state between a system and its environment
is the most efficient, orderly state of an irreversible, smoothly-running,
open system. The steady state can, therefore, be defined as a nonequilibrium
state of an open system in which all forces acting on the system are exactly
counterbalanced by opposing forces, in such a manner that all its components are stationary in concentration although matter is flowing through
the system [26].
The steady state relationship offers advantages and imposes limitations.
The most visible limitations on the macroscopic level are size, rate of
change and duration, an interrelated triad which can be dealt with systematically especially in the case of homeothermic mammals. Within these
organisms the production of heat or the 02 consumption per unit surface
area is approximately constant "from the shrew to the whale", since the
metabolic rate relatively decreases with increasing organismic size. It is,
therefore, the metabolic rate at which 02 consumption per unit surface area
proceeds which determines the chronological life-span of the organism.
After HUXLEY [19],
(1)
where M = metabolic rate, k = constant, describing metabolic activity
for one weight-unit (If/ = 1) and n = allometric constant as an exponent