The spontaneous generation idea (on the Human Genetic Evolution Site) was pretty interesting. They brought up an old myth that combining sweaty underwear with corn-husks and leaving them for 21 days would produce mice! At least we know now that mice probably won't appear out of dirty underwear and pure magic. It still is quite fascinating that living things generate and grow, even if we know some of the smaller workings of how this physically happens.
The page on Prokaryotes, Eukaryotes and viruses was pretty interesting as well. It would be pretty cool if us humans could be purely autotrophic; live on pure sunlight and chemical reaction.
The definition on wikipedia of autopoiesis made me think of the undivided whole.
DEFINITION: "An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)"An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)
In a sense wouldn't the system we live in be along these lines?
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Ah the magic of perception and delusion!
Yeh and the idea of the autopoetic 'machine' is more amazing to me due to the fact that it appears to me that the originator of that quote is trying to explain the super-complex and yet amazingly elegant mechanism and dynamism of our reality/universe/holon through his perception of reality as a mechanistic functioning of interrelated yet distinct parts.
Release DEMON! release I say!
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