Mapping Theories of Life into Cell Biochemistry, Part III: Beyond Mechanistic Biology

In this three-part interview with Jannie Hofmeyr, we talk about Robert Rosen's pioneering work on the dialectical dynamics underlying living systems, the difficulties of relating his abstract models to cellular biochemistry (and how to overcome them), as well as the wide-ranging implications and continuing importance of Rosen's work for the study of living systems today. In this third and last part of the interview, we go wild and cover a vast number of topics that derive from Jannie's work on Rosen's view of life: dynamics, informational openness, evolution, impredicativity, Turing computability, the limits of formalization, and the potential and perils of a post-mechanistic biology. At the end of this tour de force, we promise, you will see life, the universe, and everything with different eyes. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction and recap 2:26 The dynamic aspects of functional organization 5:32 Dynamic pre-supposition & the historicity of autonomy 7:13 Interpreting other models: Ganti's chemoton & Barbieri's ribotype 10:12 Informational openness & a Red Queen for life 11:53 Nothing in the cell makes sense, except in the light of functional organization 13:12 Kantian wholes & the closure of constraints 16:59 Dialectical systems, recursivity, impredicativity & computability 21:58 Pernicious impredicativity & no largest model of an organism 28:36 The use/mention dichotomy & the problem of realization 32:19 The limits of formalization: Rosen as the Gödel of biology? 37:56 Church-Turing: are organisms algorithmic? 41:34 Beyond control: the metaphysics of a post-mechanistic biology 47:18 Rosennean complexity: from organisms to Gaia (not an organism) 50:15 The perils of a post-mechanistic synthetic biology 58:33 Towards the end, a word about the origin of life 1:01:20 Questions too rarely asked: to see the world with different eyes Works mentioned in this conversation (in order of appearance): 1. Rosen (1991). Life Itself, Columbia University Press. 2. Rosen (2000). Essays on Life Itself, Columbia University Press. 3. Hofmeyr (2017). In: Poli (ed), Handbook of Anticipation, Springer. 4. Hofmeyr (2018). BioSystems 164: 121-127. 5. Hofmeyr (2021). BioSystems 207: 104463. 6. Louie (2020). BioSystems 197: 104179.