Homeodynamics
Encyclopedia
Homeodynamics is a living systems theory, one of many that have emerged in recent years - which promise to open up new ways of thinking about and understanding our world and ourselves. Below is a quote describing the reason for the origins of Homeodynamics.
Steven Rose
, Professor of Biology and Neurosciences at the Open University, wrote in his book, LIFELINES: Biology, Freedom, Determinism (1998 Penguin, p 17):
"HOMEODYNAMICS - One of the dominating motifs in biological thinking was provided by the physiologist Claude Bernard in Paris in the 1850s. Bernard, who among many other discoveries carried out some of the earliest systematic studies on what were later to become known as enzymes and hormones, saw living systems as explicable neither by vitalism (the belief that there existed some special 'life forces' beyond the reach of chemistry or physics) nor by mechanism. "He regarded stability as a major organizing physiological principle, and emphasized the constancy of what he described as the milieu interieur - the 'internal environment' - of multicellular organisms, their tendency to work to regulate this environment in terms of temperature, acidity, ionic composition and so forth. This capacity he saw as providing a stable context in which the individual cells of the body can function with a minimum of disruptive turmoil. "Seventy years later the American physiologist Walter Cannon generalized Bernard's concept by introducing the term homeostasis - the tendency of a regulated system to maintain itself close to some fixed point, like the temperature of a room controlled by a central heating system and a thermostat. No modern textbook account of physiological or psychological mechanisms fails to locate itself within this homeostatic metaphor. But the metaphor of homeostasis constrains our view of living systems. "Lifelines are not purely homeostatic: they have a beginning at conception, and an end at death. Organisms, and indeed ecosystems, develop, mature and age. The set points of homeostatic theory are not themselves constant during this trajectory but change over time. The organism switches its own thermostat. Organisms are active players in their own fate, not simply the playthings of the gods, nature or the inevitable workings-out of replicator-driven natural selection. To understand lifelines, therefore, we need to replace homeostasis with a richer concept, that of homeodynamics."
Steven Rose
Steven Rose
Steven P. Rose is a Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London.-Life:...
, Professor of Biology and Neurosciences at the Open University, wrote in his book, LIFELINES: Biology, Freedom, Determinism (1998 Penguin, p 17):
"HOMEODYNAMICS - One of the dominating motifs in biological thinking was provided by the physiologist Claude Bernard in Paris in the 1850s. Bernard, who among many other discoveries carried out some of the earliest systematic studies on what were later to become known as enzymes and hormones, saw living systems as explicable neither by vitalism (the belief that there existed some special 'life forces' beyond the reach of chemistry or physics) nor by mechanism. "He regarded stability as a major organizing physiological principle, and emphasized the constancy of what he described as the milieu interieur - the 'internal environment' - of multicellular organisms, their tendency to work to regulate this environment in terms of temperature, acidity, ionic composition and so forth. This capacity he saw as providing a stable context in which the individual cells of the body can function with a minimum of disruptive turmoil. "Seventy years later the American physiologist Walter Cannon generalized Bernard's concept by introducing the term homeostasis - the tendency of a regulated system to maintain itself close to some fixed point, like the temperature of a room controlled by a central heating system and a thermostat. No modern textbook account of physiological or psychological mechanisms fails to locate itself within this homeostatic metaphor. But the metaphor of homeostasis constrains our view of living systems. "Lifelines are not purely homeostatic: they have a beginning at conception, and an end at death. Organisms, and indeed ecosystems, develop, mature and age. The set points of homeostatic theory are not themselves constant during this trajectory but change over time. The organism switches its own thermostat. Organisms are active players in their own fate, not simply the playthings of the gods, nature or the inevitable workings-out of replicator-driven natural selection. To understand lifelines, therefore, we need to replace homeostasis with a richer concept, that of homeodynamics."