Biologists define us humans, as well as almost all other animals, fungi, and even many bacteria as heterotrophs--which means we can't make our own food. Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, on the other hand, are defined as autotrophs, or more specifically, photoautotrophs, which means that they make their own food from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight.
We get our nutrition from plants. Even extreme carnivores who might eat nothing but meat really get their nutrition from plants--it's just that they get it by eating animals who eat plants, or even animals who eat animals who eat plants. This is what's meant by eating lower on the food chain. At the base of that chain is plants (and algae, etc).
In my last post (Cellular Respiration, 5/10/12), I talked about why we need oxygen and ended with the question: 'where does the oxygen come from?' From plants, of course. Plants and algae and cyanobacteria.
It's believed that Earth's original atmosphere was mostly methane, and the first organisms were anaerobic. Cynobacteria came along and began giving off oxygen, which triggered what is sometimes called the 'Great Oxygenation Event' or the 'Oxygen Catastrophe'--where some of the oxygen caused rust and mineral formation, some of the oxygen combined with the methane to form carbon dioxide, and some of the oxygen stayed in free form. This killed off much of the aerobic population and allowed the formation of oxygen breathing creatures.
Plants (etc) keep oxygen in the atmosphere and, as I said, feed us as well. In my last post I gave the formula: C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O, which means we take in glucose (and other carbohydrates) and oxygen and break them down into carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis allows plants to do the opposite, to take carbon dioxide and water and using the energy from sunlight, make them into glucose and oxygen. The formula for photosynthesis is the reverse: 6 CO2 + 6 H2O → C6H12O6 + 6 O2.
Photosynthesis is a two part operation. First the plant collects light using the 'light-dependent reactions', then it feeds the generated energy into what's called the Calvin cycle or even the 'dark reactions' (because light isn't needed for this).
So here's another question, similar to why do we need oxygen and where does the oxygen come from: Why are plants green?
Light, as you may know, is made of a spectrum of colors. We see black when something absorbs the entire spectrum of light, and we see white when something rejects (or reflects) the full spectrum. The spectrum goes from red to blue and purple--and apparently the colors at either end have the most useful energy for the plants. The plants look green to us because that's what's in the middle and what the plants can't use. The chloroplasts of the plants are filled with pigments that pull in the red and the blue and reflect back green (chlorophyll), as well as pigments that pull in other parts of the spectrum and reflect back yellow (xanthophyll) or orange (carotene)--this is why, when the chlorophyll disappears in the fall, leaves turn yellow or orange.
All of these pigments collect photons from the light and pass them to a 'Reaction Center' which uses the energy to excite electrons from the hydrogen in water (H2O) to send along an electron transport chain (similar to what I talked about in my last post). The protons are sent through various pumps and the oxygen is given off as a waste product. (Yes, this is the oxygen we breathe.) It also uses the energy from the electron transport and the proton powered pumps to create ATP and NADPH--which, as I explained in my last post, are just ways of storing energy.
The Calvin Cycle is sort of like the Krebs cycle in reverse. It takes in carbon dioxide and the reconstituted hydrogen from the electron transport system (and the energy from the ATP and NADPH created by the system) and uses them all to form sugars.
All this happens in the chloroplasts of plants. It also happens in the chloroplasts of algae. Something similar happens in cyanobacteria, but they don't have chloroplasts--in fact, the theory is that cyanobacteria were absorbed by the ancestors of plants and algae and became the chloroplasts.
Again, plants take in carbon dioxide and water and give off oxygen as well as creating sugars, starches, proteins, etc. We breathe in the oxygen and eat the nutrients from plants and breathe out carbon dioxide and pee out water--which is what the plants can use. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are connected in a cycle that basically keeps the whole planet alive. This is why I think learning this stuff is important. As I heard someone once say, every time you breathe, you should thank a plant.
Quote of the Day: "On a global scale, the collective productivity of the minute chloroplasts is prodigious; it is estimated that photosynthesis makes about 160 billion metric tons of carbohydrates per year... No other chemical process on the planet can match the output of photosynthesis. And no other process is more important than photosynthesis for the welfare of life on Earth." - Neil Campbell and Jane Reece
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Biology 101: Cellular Respiration
Take a deep breath. Now what just happened?
Okay, you took in air and the oxygen in it was absorbed by your lungs and travelled through your bloodstream to your cells. Now what? What do your cells want oxygen for?
Cells (as I put in my last post) are complex organisms, always in motion, always working. That work is powered by the mitochondia (also called 'the powerhouses of the cell'). The process of energy production that they do is called cellular respiration.
Cellular respiration is a process that converts a molecule of sugar (glucose)--or some other energy source: carbohydrate, protein, or fat--and six molecules of oxygen into six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water. (The chemical formula is C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O.) It actually consists of three processes: glycolysis, the citric acid cycle (aka the Krebs cycle), and something called oxidative phosphorylation (aka the electron transport chain).
Glycolysis is the process where glucose (or some other carbohydrate/protein/fat) is broken down into the chemical pyruvate. It takes place in the fluid of the cell (which is called the cytosol). This is done as a first step and is in itself a complex process that creates a small amount of energy in the form of molecules of ATP and NADH. Basically the cell uses these molecules as ways to store energy, sort of like little batteries that can be plugged in and used when energy is needed. Once glycolysis is complete a couple of things can happen.
The most likely (in our bodies, anyway) thing to happen next is that the pyruvate enters the citric acid cycle. This is a really complex circle of reactions that take the pyruvate and break it down into carbon dioxide and water. It takes place in the mitochondria in our cells and whether it happens or not is decided by whether there is oxygen available or not.
If there isn't oxygen available (either because this is happening in a muscle that can't get oxygen quickly enough or because we're talking about yeast or bacteria), alternatively cells can use fermentation, which creates a lot of waste products--lactic acid in the case of your muscles, and which is why they become sore after hard work, as well as what happens from the bacteria in yogurt, and alcohol in the case of yeast, and people drink the waste products.
Assuming that the citric acid cycle happens, a few more energy molecules (ATP, NADH, and FADH2) are created. But the real energy pay-off is from the third part of the respiration process. This is called oxidative phosphorylation which breaks down the hydrogen from the glucose (or whatever) into electrons and protons (which is all hydrogen is, an electron and a proton) and sends the electrons along an electron transport chain in the membrane of the mitochondrion (the singular of mitochonria) and pumps the protons back and forth through the membrane. The whole process of the electrons travelling along the transport system reminds me of electricity (ie, electrons flowing through a wire). And the process creates a whole lot of ATP, which is what powers all the work your cells do.
Now here's what keeps it going. At the end of that transport chain is a molecule of oxygen. Oxygen is, in this case, the electron acceptor--it's what attracts the electrons and keeps them flowing through the transport chain. I think of it almost like a magnet--it strongly attracts the electrons and keeps the whole thing running. When the electrons and protons arrive, they combine back to hydrogen and then combine with the oxygen to form water (H2O). Then you pee out the extra water (and breathe out the carbon dioxide created in the citric acid cycle).
I've quoted a couple of times the line that "you can only live 3 minutes without air, you can live 3 days without water, and you can live 3 weeks without food." (See Air, 5/7/09, and Water, 5/10/09.) We need water to keep everything fluid in our bodies. Here is why we need food and air. We need food for those molecules of glucose (etc) to start the process of cellular respiration. And we need air to supply the oxygen to finish the process of cellular respiration. And, as you can tell by the fact that we can make it three weeks without food, but only three minutes without air, we really need that oxygen.
So, now that you know why we need oxygen, another question is, where does the oxygen come from? That's the topic of my next post.
Quote of the Day: "...When your muscles are doing lots of work, they need lots of ATP. Your cells make ATP by doing cellular respiration. In order to make ATP, you need oxygen to accept electrons at your electron transport chain. So, as you use up your ATP in your muscles, you breathe faster to bring in more oxygen, so you can have more oxygen in you mitochondia to accept more electrons, to make more ATP. This is why you breathe.
"Everything you already knew about breathing, such as bringing oxygen to your lungs and having your red blood cells carry it around your body, is all true, but that's really more about how you get oxygen to your cells, not why your cells need it. The why is all about electron transport chains. Really. And if you're denied oxygen for some reason, you die because no oxygen = no final electron acceptor = no ATP = no cellular work = cells cease to function = death." - René Fester Kratz
Okay, you took in air and the oxygen in it was absorbed by your lungs and travelled through your bloodstream to your cells. Now what? What do your cells want oxygen for?
Cells (as I put in my last post) are complex organisms, always in motion, always working. That work is powered by the mitochondia (also called 'the powerhouses of the cell'). The process of energy production that they do is called cellular respiration.
Cellular respiration is a process that converts a molecule of sugar (glucose)--or some other energy source: carbohydrate, protein, or fat--and six molecules of oxygen into six molecules of carbon dioxide and six molecules of water. (The chemical formula is C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O.) It actually consists of three processes: glycolysis, the citric acid cycle (aka the Krebs cycle), and something called oxidative phosphorylation (aka the electron transport chain).
Glycolysis is the process where glucose (or some other carbohydrate/protein/fat) is broken down into the chemical pyruvate. It takes place in the fluid of the cell (which is called the cytosol). This is done as a first step and is in itself a complex process that creates a small amount of energy in the form of molecules of ATP and NADH. Basically the cell uses these molecules as ways to store energy, sort of like little batteries that can be plugged in and used when energy is needed. Once glycolysis is complete a couple of things can happen.
The most likely (in our bodies, anyway) thing to happen next is that the pyruvate enters the citric acid cycle. This is a really complex circle of reactions that take the pyruvate and break it down into carbon dioxide and water. It takes place in the mitochondria in our cells and whether it happens or not is decided by whether there is oxygen available or not.
If there isn't oxygen available (either because this is happening in a muscle that can't get oxygen quickly enough or because we're talking about yeast or bacteria), alternatively cells can use fermentation, which creates a lot of waste products--lactic acid in the case of your muscles, and which is why they become sore after hard work, as well as what happens from the bacteria in yogurt, and alcohol in the case of yeast, and people drink the waste products.
Assuming that the citric acid cycle happens, a few more energy molecules (ATP, NADH, and FADH2) are created. But the real energy pay-off is from the third part of the respiration process. This is called oxidative phosphorylation which breaks down the hydrogen from the glucose (or whatever) into electrons and protons (which is all hydrogen is, an electron and a proton) and sends the electrons along an electron transport chain in the membrane of the mitochondrion (the singular of mitochonria) and pumps the protons back and forth through the membrane. The whole process of the electrons travelling along the transport system reminds me of electricity (ie, electrons flowing through a wire). And the process creates a whole lot of ATP, which is what powers all the work your cells do.
Now here's what keeps it going. At the end of that transport chain is a molecule of oxygen. Oxygen is, in this case, the electron acceptor--it's what attracts the electrons and keeps them flowing through the transport chain. I think of it almost like a magnet--it strongly attracts the electrons and keeps the whole thing running. When the electrons and protons arrive, they combine back to hydrogen and then combine with the oxygen to form water (H2O). Then you pee out the extra water (and breathe out the carbon dioxide created in the citric acid cycle).
I've quoted a couple of times the line that "you can only live 3 minutes without air, you can live 3 days without water, and you can live 3 weeks without food." (See Air, 5/7/09, and Water, 5/10/09.) We need water to keep everything fluid in our bodies. Here is why we need food and air. We need food for those molecules of glucose (etc) to start the process of cellular respiration. And we need air to supply the oxygen to finish the process of cellular respiration. And, as you can tell by the fact that we can make it three weeks without food, but only three minutes without air, we really need that oxygen.
So, now that you know why we need oxygen, another question is, where does the oxygen come from? That's the topic of my next post.
Quote of the Day: "...When your muscles are doing lots of work, they need lots of ATP. Your cells make ATP by doing cellular respiration. In order to make ATP, you need oxygen to accept electrons at your electron transport chain. So, as you use up your ATP in your muscles, you breathe faster to bring in more oxygen, so you can have more oxygen in you mitochondia to accept more electrons, to make more ATP. This is why you breathe.
"Everything you already knew about breathing, such as bringing oxygen to your lungs and having your red blood cells carry it around your body, is all true, but that's really more about how you get oxygen to your cells, not why your cells need it. The why is all about electron transport chains. Really. And if you're denied oxygen for some reason, you die because no oxygen = no final electron acceptor = no ATP = no cellular work = cells cease to function = death." - René Fester Kratz
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Biology 101: Cells
Cells are the basic unit of biology. All living things (except viruses, and it's debatable whether they're alive) are made of cells--or are cells themselves. Some creatures are unicellular (consisting of one cell--examples are bacteria, amoebas, and diatoms) and others are multicellular (such as plant and animals).
While the cell structure of some unicellular beings (such as bacteria) is fairly simple, the structure of the cells of protozoa, fungi, plants, and animals are very similar and very complex. When I first started learning about cell structure, I had trouble believing all those little things (called organelles) really existed.
The cell is basically a huge chemical factory, constantly busy, constantly in motion. It's filled with these organelles, such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and, in plants, chloroplasts.
One of the interesting things about these organelles, is where they came from; how did cells become so complex? One theory about some of the organelles--in particular, the mitochondria (the energy source for the cells) and chloroplasts (which contain the chlorophyll in plants)--is that they were originally bacteria that were taken in by cells. The mitochondria and chloroplasts even have their own separate DNA.
Besides organelles, cell have membranes that surround the cell and many of the organelles and, suprisingly (at least to me), they have their own skeleton. The membrane is particularly intriguing since it not only protects the cells (or organelles) but is also very involved in biochemical processes as well as regulating transport of materials across its boundary.
The mitochondria (and particularly the membrane of the mitochondria) and the chloroplasts are involved in two of the most important processes for all life on earth: cellular respiration and photosynthesis. I will talk about these in my next two posts.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this. Each of us is a walking conglomerate of millions of these cells. At this minute, they are all in action in your body. Think of it. Who you are is the sum of all these cells--the cells make up your organs and your organs make up the body you call you. All our thoughts are electrical impulses traveling through these cells. It makes me appreciate the Buddhist ideas of 'dependent origination' and having no separate, permanent self.
Quote of the Day: "Cells are the smallest living things and they have all the properties of life, including reproduction, response to environmental signals, a need for energy, and the release of waste products. ...
"All living things are made of cells. All cells are built out of the same materials and function in similar ways, showing the relationship of all life on Earth." - René Fester Kratz
While the cell structure of some unicellular beings (such as bacteria) is fairly simple, the structure of the cells of protozoa, fungi, plants, and animals are very similar and very complex. When I first started learning about cell structure, I had trouble believing all those little things (called organelles) really existed.
The cell is basically a huge chemical factory, constantly busy, constantly in motion. It's filled with these organelles, such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and, in plants, chloroplasts.
One of the interesting things about these organelles, is where they came from; how did cells become so complex? One theory about some of the organelles--in particular, the mitochondria (the energy source for the cells) and chloroplasts (which contain the chlorophyll in plants)--is that they were originally bacteria that were taken in by cells. The mitochondria and chloroplasts even have their own separate DNA.
Besides organelles, cell have membranes that surround the cell and many of the organelles and, suprisingly (at least to me), they have their own skeleton. The membrane is particularly intriguing since it not only protects the cells (or organelles) but is also very involved in biochemical processes as well as regulating transport of materials across its boundary.
The mitochondria (and particularly the membrane of the mitochondria) and the chloroplasts are involved in two of the most important processes for all life on earth: cellular respiration and photosynthesis. I will talk about these in my next two posts.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this. Each of us is a walking conglomerate of millions of these cells. At this minute, they are all in action in your body. Think of it. Who you are is the sum of all these cells--the cells make up your organs and your organs make up the body you call you. All our thoughts are electrical impulses traveling through these cells. It makes me appreciate the Buddhist ideas of 'dependent origination' and having no separate, permanent self.
Quote of the Day: "Cells are the smallest living things and they have all the properties of life, including reproduction, response to environmental signals, a need for energy, and the release of waste products. ...
"All living things are made of cells. All cells are built out of the same materials and function in similar ways, showing the relationship of all life on Earth." - René Fester Kratz
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Biology 101: An Introduction
This has been a rough year for me. (More on this much later.) While trying to put together a community of sorts, I've been spending my spare time (what else?) reading.
Reading about community? Consensus decision making? Social change? Spiritual paths?
Well, yes, but mostly I've been reading about biology.
It started with me finding a recent, detailed college biology textbook in with the free books at my very local recycling center. I realized that if I was interested in taking care of people, health stuff, nutrition, growing food, plants, and ecosystems, these all had to do with life, and therefore, biology.
At my house, you can often find me at one kitchen table or another, reading a biology book (or several)--slowly poking my way through the big textbook as I eat lunch or dinner (always stopping if there's a housemate to talk with), really trying to learn this stuff. I have been supplementing the textbook with all sorts of other books on the various aspects of what I'm studying at the particular moment. I'm making my way systematically through the book. I've gone through biochemistry, cell structure, metabolism, cell communication, cell respiration, and photosynthesis. I'm now working my way through genetics.
I think that some of what I've been learning is important enough to put in this blog. Since one of the things I think is most important in social change is taking care of people and meeting their needs, I think that having some knowledge of how people work and the natural world works, can be useful in this.
Feel free to skip the next bunch of posts if most of this doesn't interest you (hopefully you skip things that don't interest you here anyway) but my hope is that social change activists and other people concerned about people might want to learn a little of what we're made of and what keeps us alive.
Quote of the Day: "Life can be explained by its underlying chemistry, just as chemistry can be explained by its underlying physics. But the life that emerges from the underlying chemistry of biomolecules is something more than the collection of molecules. ... once these molecules came to reside in cells, they began to interact with one another to generate new processes, like motility and metabolism and perception, processes that are unique to living creatures, processes that have no counterpart at simpler levels. These new, life-specific functions are referred to as emergent functions.
"...I once again revert to my covenant with Mystery, and respond to the emergence of Life not with a search for its Design or Purpose but instead with outrageous celebration that it occurred at all. I take the concept of miracle and use it not as a manifestation of divine intervention but as the astonishing property of emergence. Life does generate something-more-from-nothing-but, over and over again, and each emergence, even though fully explainable by chemistry, is nonetheless miraculous." - Ursula Goodenough
Reading about community? Consensus decision making? Social change? Spiritual paths?
Well, yes, but mostly I've been reading about biology.
It started with me finding a recent, detailed college biology textbook in with the free books at my very local recycling center. I realized that if I was interested in taking care of people, health stuff, nutrition, growing food, plants, and ecosystems, these all had to do with life, and therefore, biology.
At my house, you can often find me at one kitchen table or another, reading a biology book (or several)--slowly poking my way through the big textbook as I eat lunch or dinner (always stopping if there's a housemate to talk with), really trying to learn this stuff. I have been supplementing the textbook with all sorts of other books on the various aspects of what I'm studying at the particular moment. I'm making my way systematically through the book. I've gone through biochemistry, cell structure, metabolism, cell communication, cell respiration, and photosynthesis. I'm now working my way through genetics.
I think that some of what I've been learning is important enough to put in this blog. Since one of the things I think is most important in social change is taking care of people and meeting their needs, I think that having some knowledge of how people work and the natural world works, can be useful in this.
Feel free to skip the next bunch of posts if most of this doesn't interest you (hopefully you skip things that don't interest you here anyway) but my hope is that social change activists and other people concerned about people might want to learn a little of what we're made of and what keeps us alive.
Quote of the Day: "Life can be explained by its underlying chemistry, just as chemistry can be explained by its underlying physics. But the life that emerges from the underlying chemistry of biomolecules is something more than the collection of molecules. ... once these molecules came to reside in cells, they began to interact with one another to generate new processes, like motility and metabolism and perception, processes that are unique to living creatures, processes that have no counterpart at simpler levels. These new, life-specific functions are referred to as emergent functions.
"...I once again revert to my covenant with Mystery, and respond to the emergence of Life not with a search for its Design or Purpose but instead with outrageous celebration that it occurred at all. I take the concept of miracle and use it not as a manifestation of divine intervention but as the astonishing property of emergence. Life does generate something-more-from-nothing-but, over and over again, and each emergence, even though fully explainable by chemistry, is nonetheless miraculous." - Ursula Goodenough
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Complexity Once More
I recently re-read the book Complexity by Michell Waldrop. Once again I was taken with many of the ideas of these researchers--especially the idea that "...living systems always seem to emerge from the bottom up, from a population of much simpler systems." They talk about how "...since it's effectively impossible to cover every conceivable situation, top-down systems are forever running into combinations of events they don't know how to handle."
Building things from the bottom up (or as I've been putting it, "Rebuilding the World from the ground up") is what I see us needing to do--it's the only way I can think of to create "a World that Works for Everyone."
But the scientists and theorists in the book go on to talk about focusing on "...ongoing behavior instead of a final result." They point out that "...living systems never really settle down." And they make the point that social systems, as well as biological systems, need to be on what they call 'the edge of chaos' in order to function well. Systems that are too orderly (Doyne Farmer, one of the scientists being interviewed, cites Stalinist USSR and "the Big Three automakers in Detroit in the 1970s") become "rigidly locked in to certain ways of doing things" and therefore vulnerable. But systems that are too chaotic (Farmer points to the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the horrors of the industrial revolution in the UK, and the laissez-faire economics that led to the savings and loan collapse in the US in the 1990s) don't work either. "Common sense, not to mention recent political experience, suggests that healthy economies and healthy societies alike have to keep order and chaos in balance--and not just a wishy-washy, average, middle of the road kind of balance, either. Like a living cell, they have to regulate themselves with a dense web of feedbacks and regulation, at the same time that they leave plenty of room for creativity, change, and response to new conditions."
This reminds me of what sustainability folks call 'resilience'--creativity and adaptibility with built in redundancy so that there is room to deal with problems.
One more thing (among many) that I was taken with was some of the ideas on learning and behavior change. John Holland is a computer scientist that became fascinated with neuroscientist Donald Hebb's ideas on learning and the brain. It's all about synapses and connections but you can take the ideas on wiring as metaphorical as well as literal. What several of the complexity theorists (including Doyne Farmer, referenced above) were coming to believe is that "...the behavior of the network as a whole is determined almost entirely by the connections." In this way learning is about changing the connections, and the idea is that "...you can change them in two different ways. The first way is to leave the connections in place but modify their 'strength'. This corresponds to what Holland calls exploitation learning: improving what you already have. ... The second, more radical way of adjusting the connections is to change the network's whole wiring diagram. Rip out some of the old connections and put in new ones. This corresponds to what Holland calls exploration learning: taking the risk of screwing up big in return for the chance of winning big."
Unfortunately, I know about some of this personally as I've taken several risky chances in my attempts to build community where I've ended up screwing up big--although one time I think I ended up winning big when a bunch of us were able to set up a well functioning community that lasted five years. I also think that if we are going to build a new way of living we are going to have to "Rip out some of the old connections and put in new ones." And, yeah, it's risky. But it may be the only way to really change things. But that's why (when there is as much chance of screwing up as getting what we want) we will need to build small adaptive systems (communities, cooperative businesses, small farms, demonstration models, etc) many of which will fail. It's the way that emergence works--and it's the way natural systems evolve.
Building resilient, adaptive little systems on the edge of chaos as an ongoing process that never settles down. Not easy, but it's the only way that I can see to create change. Observe, take small steps, build simple systems--and who knows what will emerge from there.
Quote of the Day: "...it means that you observe, and observe, and observe, and occasionally stick your oar in and improve something for the better. It means you try to see reality for what it is, and realize that the game you are in keeps changing, so that it's up to you to figure out the current rules of the game as it's being played. ...you stop being naive, ...you stop adhering to standard theories that are built on outmoded assumptions about the rules of play... You just observe. And where you can make an effective move, you make a move." - Brian Arthur (from the book Complexity)
Building things from the bottom up (or as I've been putting it, "Rebuilding the World from the ground up") is what I see us needing to do--it's the only way I can think of to create "a World that Works for Everyone."
But the scientists and theorists in the book go on to talk about focusing on "...ongoing behavior instead of a final result." They point out that "...living systems never really settle down." And they make the point that social systems, as well as biological systems, need to be on what they call 'the edge of chaos' in order to function well. Systems that are too orderly (Doyne Farmer, one of the scientists being interviewed, cites Stalinist USSR and "the Big Three automakers in Detroit in the 1970s") become "rigidly locked in to certain ways of doing things" and therefore vulnerable. But systems that are too chaotic (Farmer points to the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the horrors of the industrial revolution in the UK, and the laissez-faire economics that led to the savings and loan collapse in the US in the 1990s) don't work either. "Common sense, not to mention recent political experience, suggests that healthy economies and healthy societies alike have to keep order and chaos in balance--and not just a wishy-washy, average, middle of the road kind of balance, either. Like a living cell, they have to regulate themselves with a dense web of feedbacks and regulation, at the same time that they leave plenty of room for creativity, change, and response to new conditions."
This reminds me of what sustainability folks call 'resilience'--creativity and adaptibility with built in redundancy so that there is room to deal with problems.
One more thing (among many) that I was taken with was some of the ideas on learning and behavior change. John Holland is a computer scientist that became fascinated with neuroscientist Donald Hebb's ideas on learning and the brain. It's all about synapses and connections but you can take the ideas on wiring as metaphorical as well as literal. What several of the complexity theorists (including Doyne Farmer, referenced above) were coming to believe is that "...the behavior of the network as a whole is determined almost entirely by the connections." In this way learning is about changing the connections, and the idea is that "...you can change them in two different ways. The first way is to leave the connections in place but modify their 'strength'. This corresponds to what Holland calls exploitation learning: improving what you already have. ... The second, more radical way of adjusting the connections is to change the network's whole wiring diagram. Rip out some of the old connections and put in new ones. This corresponds to what Holland calls exploration learning: taking the risk of screwing up big in return for the chance of winning big."
Unfortunately, I know about some of this personally as I've taken several risky chances in my attempts to build community where I've ended up screwing up big--although one time I think I ended up winning big when a bunch of us were able to set up a well functioning community that lasted five years. I also think that if we are going to build a new way of living we are going to have to "Rip out some of the old connections and put in new ones." And, yeah, it's risky. But it may be the only way to really change things. But that's why (when there is as much chance of screwing up as getting what we want) we will need to build small adaptive systems (communities, cooperative businesses, small farms, demonstration models, etc) many of which will fail. It's the way that emergence works--and it's the way natural systems evolve.
Building resilient, adaptive little systems on the edge of chaos as an ongoing process that never settles down. Not easy, but it's the only way that I can see to create change. Observe, take small steps, build simple systems--and who knows what will emerge from there.
Quote of the Day: "...it means that you observe, and observe, and observe, and occasionally stick your oar in and improve something for the better. It means you try to see reality for what it is, and realize that the game you are in keeps changing, so that it's up to you to figure out the current rules of the game as it's being played. ...you stop being naive, ...you stop adhering to standard theories that are built on outmoded assumptions about the rules of play... You just observe. And where you can make an effective move, you make a move." - Brian Arthur (from the book Complexity)
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Ishmael
This is another book review that for some reason I never posted.
At the beginning of last year, I wrote a post on Daniel Quinn's book, Beyond Civilization (see Beyond Civilization, 1/3/11). Daniel Quinn has written a bunch of books but the one that first got him some attention was Ishmael, which won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 1991 aqnd was published in 1992. Having seen dozens of references to it and having heard from several people how important it was to them, I have just read it.
Ishmael is the story of a guy who answers a personal ad for a teacher seeking a pupil and finds that the teacher is a 500 pound gorilla who communicates telepathically (yes!) and describes two cultures, one that Ishmael (the gorilla) calls 'the Takers' and one that he calls 'the Leavers'. The Takers believe that they are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process and are meant to rule the world, where the Leavers (or tribal folks) are content to just be another part of the natural world. All this is teased out of Ishmael's pupil by means of Ishmael's questions--most of the book is a sort of Socratic dialogue.
It's not the best written book. The style of this story reminds me of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories that I used to read when I used to read mysteries. The voice of the anonymous narrator seems to me a lot like Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the Wolfe stories. (And there is the fact that, like Wolfe, Ishmael has considerable weight.)
But it's an important book. Not because it's unique, but because it has been so widely read.
I doubt that Daniel Quinn would think of himself as an ecofeminist--nor do I think most ecofeminists would think of him as one either. For one obvious thing, Ishmael uses the term 'man' to refer to human beings throughout the book. Nevertheless, I was reading Ishmael at the same time as I was reading various ecofeminist authors and felt like there was a strong similarity of emphasis. As it says in the novel: "The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'" "In order to make himself the ruler of the world, man first had to conquer it." "Man is conquering the deserts, man is conquering the oceans, man is conquering the atom, man is conquering the elements, man is conquering outer space." Many ecofeminist writers have written very similar things, even including the use of the word 'man'--although in an ironic sense that Daniel Quinn doesn't use.
The point of this book, and, I believe, the point of most ecofeminist writing, is that in trying to rule the world we are destroying it, and we cannot live without the world. Thus the book suggests we need a new story and that we can learn much of that story from 'the Leavers', the tribal peoples of the world, who live as a part of nature rather than trying to dominate it. The book in many ways reminds me of Chellis Glendinning's book My Name is Chellis & I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (see my review in One with Nature 1: Recovery, 12/26/08). Like Chellis, Daniel Quinn looks at hunter-gatherer tribes as a model for re-learning how to live in harmony with the natural world.
I know that Ishmael has been very influential for many people. And it really doesn't matter that many other writers (including most of the ecofeminists, and the permaculture people, too, for that matter) are saying the same things. This is a message that needs to be put out again and again and again. It's not just about climate change, or rainforest destruction, or peak oil, or whatever issue you want to name. We are dealing with a systemic issue and we need to rethink everything. We need to think--as I would put it--how we can live simply, sustainably, equally, cooperatively, and even communally. Yes, and we need to think how we can live tribally. Because we are on the verge of destroying the planet and minor reforms are not going to cut it. (Not to mention that people are treating each other very badly, and it's about time that changes too.) As Daniel Quinn puts it, "You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live." Well, as Quinn and many other people are insisting, it's time to create a different system. It's either that or say goodbye to everything.
Quote of the Day: "The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated..." - Daniel Quinn
At the beginning of last year, I wrote a post on Daniel Quinn's book, Beyond Civilization (see Beyond Civilization, 1/3/11). Daniel Quinn has written a bunch of books but the one that first got him some attention was Ishmael, which won the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 1991 aqnd was published in 1992. Having seen dozens of references to it and having heard from several people how important it was to them, I have just read it.
Ishmael is the story of a guy who answers a personal ad for a teacher seeking a pupil and finds that the teacher is a 500 pound gorilla who communicates telepathically (yes!) and describes two cultures, one that Ishmael (the gorilla) calls 'the Takers' and one that he calls 'the Leavers'. The Takers believe that they are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process and are meant to rule the world, where the Leavers (or tribal folks) are content to just be another part of the natural world. All this is teased out of Ishmael's pupil by means of Ishmael's questions--most of the book is a sort of Socratic dialogue.
It's not the best written book. The style of this story reminds me of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories that I used to read when I used to read mysteries. The voice of the anonymous narrator seems to me a lot like Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the Wolfe stories. (And there is the fact that, like Wolfe, Ishmael has considerable weight.)
But it's an important book. Not because it's unique, but because it has been so widely read.
I doubt that Daniel Quinn would think of himself as an ecofeminist--nor do I think most ecofeminists would think of him as one either. For one obvious thing, Ishmael uses the term 'man' to refer to human beings throughout the book. Nevertheless, I was reading Ishmael at the same time as I was reading various ecofeminist authors and felt like there was a strong similarity of emphasis. As it says in the novel: "The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'" "In order to make himself the ruler of the world, man first had to conquer it." "Man is conquering the deserts, man is conquering the oceans, man is conquering the atom, man is conquering the elements, man is conquering outer space." Many ecofeminist writers have written very similar things, even including the use of the word 'man'--although in an ironic sense that Daniel Quinn doesn't use.
The point of this book, and, I believe, the point of most ecofeminist writing, is that in trying to rule the world we are destroying it, and we cannot live without the world. Thus the book suggests we need a new story and that we can learn much of that story from 'the Leavers', the tribal peoples of the world, who live as a part of nature rather than trying to dominate it. The book in many ways reminds me of Chellis Glendinning's book My Name is Chellis & I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization (see my review in One with Nature 1: Recovery, 12/26/08). Like Chellis, Daniel Quinn looks at hunter-gatherer tribes as a model for re-learning how to live in harmony with the natural world.
I know that Ishmael has been very influential for many people. And it really doesn't matter that many other writers (including most of the ecofeminists, and the permaculture people, too, for that matter) are saying the same things. This is a message that needs to be put out again and again and again. It's not just about climate change, or rainforest destruction, or peak oil, or whatever issue you want to name. We are dealing with a systemic issue and we need to rethink everything. We need to think--as I would put it--how we can live simply, sustainably, equally, cooperatively, and even communally. Yes, and we need to think how we can live tribally. Because we are on the verge of destroying the planet and minor reforms are not going to cut it. (Not to mention that people are treating each other very badly, and it's about time that changes too.) As Daniel Quinn puts it, "You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live." Well, as Quinn and many other people are insisting, it's time to create a different system. It's either that or say goodbye to everything.
Quote of the Day: "The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated..." - Daniel Quinn
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Mycelium
At this point, what's going onto this blog is a mishmash of stuff I'm thinking about, stuff I've wanted to post for a while, stuff that just occurs to me, and random stuff I think might be useful. Among other things, I'm going through stuff I meant to put in the blog but somehow never did. This is a book review I wrote a long time ago and never posted.
Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets bears the subtitle "How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World". He isn't kidding; Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms and mycelium are the best means of saving the planet. I'm not quite as much of a fanatic about mushrooms (or any single 'solution') but reading this book has made me believe that mushrooms and mycelium should be an important part of rebuilding the world.
Mushrooms come from mycelia (the plural of mycelium) which are long, white, underground, threadlike cellular structures that run through the soil. The mycelia form a network through the earth that can grow as large as 2,400 acres, as was found in Oregon and dubbed the largest organism in the world.
These mycelial networks help explain things like 'fairy circles' where a perfect circle of mushrooms will grow in the woods. The explanation is that they are all interconnected by their mycelia. Mushrooms are often described as 'the fruiting bodies', (that is, the reproductive organs) of mycelia--they contain the spores that can be carried off by animals enjoying the mushrooms, thus helping to spread the mycelia.
The first chapter in the book is devoted to mycelial networks, comparing them to the connections in the brain and in the internet, and even dark matter in the universe. It seems a bit much but the accompanying photographs show how similar the patterns of these various things are. From there Stamets goes into the life cycle of mushrooms and the various types of mushrooms. He discusses the medicinal use of mushrooms and devotes an entire section to what he terms 'Mycorestoration', using mushrooms and mycelia to restore the world through filtering out toxins, remediation of poisoned soil, helping to grow back forests, and even to develop natural pesticides. The final section of the book concentrates on how to grow mycelia and mushrooms--with a last chapter of the book on 'Nutritional Properties of Mushrooms'.
Like I said, this book didn't convert me to mycofanaticism but it did make me aware of the contributions that mycelia make to the ecosystem. If you want to enrich your ecological awareness or perhaps just want to know how to grow mushrooms, this is a great book to look through.
Quote of the Day: "There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the great recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. ...
"Since most insects are fungus loving and are excited by spores, they appear as mushrooms ripen and overmature. Vertebrates from squirrels to bears to people seek mushrooms as food. Bacteria use rotting mushrooms as a rich base for growth, further freeing nutrients and releasing a cascade of microbes that destroy the structure of mushrooms as they melt into the soil. This bacterial influx predisposes habitats for the emergence of plant communities. Ultimately, nature fosters complex partnerships of interdependence...
"Nature loves communities." - Paul Stamets
Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets bears the subtitle "How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World". He isn't kidding; Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms and mycelium are the best means of saving the planet. I'm not quite as much of a fanatic about mushrooms (or any single 'solution') but reading this book has made me believe that mushrooms and mycelium should be an important part of rebuilding the world.
Mushrooms come from mycelia (the plural of mycelium) which are long, white, underground, threadlike cellular structures that run through the soil. The mycelia form a network through the earth that can grow as large as 2,400 acres, as was found in Oregon and dubbed the largest organism in the world.
These mycelial networks help explain things like 'fairy circles' where a perfect circle of mushrooms will grow in the woods. The explanation is that they are all interconnected by their mycelia. Mushrooms are often described as 'the fruiting bodies', (that is, the reproductive organs) of mycelia--they contain the spores that can be carried off by animals enjoying the mushrooms, thus helping to spread the mycelia.
The first chapter in the book is devoted to mycelial networks, comparing them to the connections in the brain and in the internet, and even dark matter in the universe. It seems a bit much but the accompanying photographs show how similar the patterns of these various things are. From there Stamets goes into the life cycle of mushrooms and the various types of mushrooms. He discusses the medicinal use of mushrooms and devotes an entire section to what he terms 'Mycorestoration', using mushrooms and mycelia to restore the world through filtering out toxins, remediation of poisoned soil, helping to grow back forests, and even to develop natural pesticides. The final section of the book concentrates on how to grow mycelia and mushrooms--with a last chapter of the book on 'Nutritional Properties of Mushrooms'.
Like I said, this book didn't convert me to mycofanaticism but it did make me aware of the contributions that mycelia make to the ecosystem. If you want to enrich your ecological awareness or perhaps just want to know how to grow mushrooms, this is a great book to look through.
Quote of the Day: "There are more species of fungi, bacteria, and protozoa in a single scoop of soil than there are species of plants and vertebrate animals in all of North America. And of these, fungi are the great recyclers of our planet, the mycomagicians disassembling large organic molecules into simpler forms, which in turn nourish other members of the ecological community. ...
"Since most insects are fungus loving and are excited by spores, they appear as mushrooms ripen and overmature. Vertebrates from squirrels to bears to people seek mushrooms as food. Bacteria use rotting mushrooms as a rich base for growth, further freeing nutrients and releasing a cascade of microbes that destroy the structure of mushrooms as they melt into the soil. This bacterial influx predisposes habitats for the emergence of plant communities. Ultimately, nature fosters complex partnerships of interdependence...
"Nature loves communities." - Paul Stamets
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