Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 7.
Figure 8 . Schematic of a hypothetical three-compartment autocatalytic cycle. (Redrawn from Ulanowicz ,1997 p. 42)LINUS: Well, those clouds up there look ___ ____ ____ a map of the British Hondurus on the Caribean. That cloud up there ____ a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins the famous painter and sculpter, and that group of clouds over there _____ ____ the ___________ of the Stoning of Stephen, I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side.
LUCY: Uh huh that 's very good, what do you see Charlie Brown
CHARLIE BROWN: Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsey but I changed my mind.
In looking at clouds, sand dunes or driftwood we can all see shapes in them. Take a look at Figures 1-7 above and say what shapes you can see in each image.
- Which phrases are simile and which are metaphor?
The importance and origin of analogy and metaphor in science
Reading Comprehension 1Part a)
'In both the arts and sciences the programmed brain seeks elegance, which is the parsimonious and evocative description of pattern to make sense out of a confusion of detail. Edward Rothstein, a critic trained in both mathematics and music, compares their creative processes:
We begin with objects that look dissimilar. We compare, find patterns, analogies with what we already know. We distance ourselves and create abstractions, laws and systems, using transformations, mappings, and metaphors. This is how mathematics grows increasingly abstract and powerful; it is how music obtains much of its power, with grand structures growing out of small details. This form of comprehension underlies much of Western thought. We pursue knowledge that is universal in its perspective but its powers are grounded in the particular. We use principles that are shared but reveal details that are distinct.
Now compare that insight with the following independent account of creativity in the physical sciences. The writer is Hideki Yukawa, who spent his career working on the nuclear binding forces of the atom, making discoveries for which he became the first Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize in physics.
Suppose there is something which a person cannot understand. He happens to notice the similarity of this something to some other thing which he understands quite well. By comparing them he may come to understand the thing which he could not understand up to that moment. If his understanding turns out to be appropriate and nobody else has ever come to such an understanding, he can claim that his thinking was really creative.
Part b)
The arts, like the sciences start in the real world. They then reach out to all possible worlds, and finally to all conceivable worlds. Throughout they project the human presence on everything in the universe. Given the power of metaphor, perhaps the arts began with what may be called the "Picasso effect." The artist is reported by his photographer and chronicler Brassai to have said in 1943:
"If it occurred to man to create his own images, it's becausehe discovered them all around him, almost formed, already within grasp. He saw them in a bone, in the irregular surfaces of cavern walls, in a piece of wood. One might suggest a woman, another a bison, and still another the head of a demon." They have come that route by perception of what Gregory Bateson and Tyler Folk have callled metapatterns, those circles, spheres, borders and centers, binaries, layers, cycles, breaks and other geometric configurations that occur repeatedly in nature and provide easily recognisable clues to the identity of more complicated objects.'
From: Wilson, E.O (1998) Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Abacus, London. pp. 243-244
Questions
Part a)
1)On which of the following subjects is the extract focused?
a) mathematics
b)music
c)Western thought
d) elegance
2) The word elegance in line 1 is closest to which word below?
A) simplicity
B) beauty
C) style
D) loyalty
3)The word "pattern" in line 2 could be best replaced by
a) invention
b) motif
c) graph
d) scheme
4) Where does Edward Rothstein think the source of general principles is located
A) In generalities
B) In details
C) In muscial notes
D) In mathematical equations
5) Write a series of instructions for creating abstractions. Use the the imperative verb form and sequencers.
6) According to Rothstein where does the success of music and mathematics lie?
7) What would be the most accurate title for the quote from Hideki Yukawa
A) How to improve understanding of the unknown from drawing comparisons with the known.
B) The value of analogy.
C) A guide to creative thinking .
D) How to win a Nobel Physics Prize.
8) Complete the following using the quote from Hideki Yukawa using the letters 'x' and 'y'
Hidekai Yukawa was Noble Prize winner in 1949 for physics. He believed that analogy could be used to solve apparently unrelated problems. For example, if we have something that is not understood, let's call it ____ , that is similar to something understood , let’s call it ____, then by comparison we may come to understand ____.
Questions Part B - Thinking laterallly and creatively about Romeo and Juliet
- In your groups consider the following questions and then share the anwers with the class.
- Think about the two film versions again and review what is the same and what is different about them
- Try to find a comparison between the phenomenon of the play modernizing and something in either society or nature.
- Now begin Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension 2
The following reading comprehension is about Systems. The passages come from the latest edition of the reknowned freshman textbook Biology by the late Neil Campbell and Jane Reece. They introduce the concept of systems theory to students. This is a field of study that was for many years relegated to the fringe of science. I remember introducing it to some first year physics students in one English class in France some years ago. They considered the it "du pipeau", a perjorative term which translates as 'something you shouldn't take very seriously'. The final extract from Campbell and Reece (2005) might help explain why they thought this.
Biological Systems are more than the sum of their parts
" The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." That familiar adage captures the important concept that a combination of components can form a more complex organisation called a system. Examples of biological systems are cells, organisms, and ecosystems. To understand how such systems work, it is not enough to have a « parts list », even a complete one. The future of biology is in understanding the behavior of the whole integrated system. (Campbell and Reece, 2005 p9)
The Emergent Properties of Systems
...With each step upward in ...hierarchy of biological order, novel properties emerge that are not present at the level just below. These emergent properties are due to the arrangement and interations of parts as complexity increases. For example, a test tube mixture of chlorophyll and all the other molecules found in a chloroplast cannot perform photosynthesis. The process of photosynthesis emerges from the very specific way in which the chlorophyll and other molecules are arranged in an chloroplast...Emergent properties are neither supernatural nor unique to life. We can see the importance of arrangement in the distinction between a box of bicycle parts and a working bicycle. And while grahite and diamonds are both pure carbon they have very different properties based on how their carbon atoms are arranged. But compared to such nonliving examples , the emergent properties of life are particularly challenging (Campbell and Reece, 2005 p9)
Systems Biology
Biology is turning in an exciting new direction as many researchers begin to complement reductionism with new strategies for understanding the emergent properties of life – how all the parts of biological systems such as cells are functionaly integrated. This changing perspective is analogous to moving from ground level on a certain street corner to an aerial view above a city, where you can now see how variables such as time of day, construction projects, accidents, and trafic signal malfunctions affect traffic dynamics throughout the city.
The ultimate goal of systems biology is to model the dynamic behavior of whole biological systems. Accurate models will enable biologists to predict how a change in one or more variables will impact other components and the whole system...p10
...A number of prominent scientists are promoting systems biology with missionary zeal, but so far, the excitement exceeds the achievements. However, as systems biology gathers momentum, it is certain to have growing impact on the questions biologists ask and the research they design. After all, scientists aspired to reach beyond reductionism to grasp how whole biological systems long before new technology made modern systems biology possible. In fact, decades ago, biologists had already identified some of the key mechanisms that regulate the behavior of complex systems such as cells organisms and ecosystems (Campbell and Reece, 2005 p. 11)
Questions
1) Define 'emergent properties of a system'
A) The attributes that the parts of a system only have when put together.
B)The birth of systems.
C) The independent behavior individual parts of a system.
D) The attributes that a system has that its individual parts do not have.
2 ) The word 'adage' in line 1 can best be replaced with
A) saying
B) axe
C) addition
D)motto
3)Does the adage the "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" refer to "the emergent properties a system"?
A) True
B) False
4) Why do you think the authors say that emergent propertires are not supernatural? Give your opinion.
5) According to the text systems bBiology will
A) replace reductionism.
B) work with reductionism.
C) enhance reductionism.
D) show the importance of reductionism.
6) The primary objective of systems biology is to
A) foretell what is most likely to happen when something happens to components in a biological system.
B) help us understand whole organisms
C) demonstrate the importance of analogies
D) help us understand systems in society such as traffic problems in a city
7) Why are the authors critical of the enthusiasm of researchers trying to advance systems biology?
A) Because they have very few results from their research.
B) Because biologist have had a systems approach for a number of decades and this is nothing really new.
C)Because they force scientists to ask unconventional questions and redseign their experiments.
D) Because scientists dislike enthusiasm in research.
8) 'missionary zeal' could be replaced with
A) religious fervour
B) crusading enthusiasm
C) spiritual devotion
D) extreme fanatasism
Reading Comprehension 3
The following extracts are from a book called Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective by Robert Ulanowicz, one of the scientistific zealots that Campbell and Reece(2005) refer to. In his work he looks for basic principles to explain how natural systems develop and how they maintain themselves over time.
"We have to discover the principles of organization, how lots of things are put together in the same place." (Lewin, 1984:1327). Therefore we begin our search for ordering agencies by considering what sort of interaction might ensue when two processes occur in close proximity to one another. There are three qualitative effects the first process could have on the second, it could be beneficial (+), detrimental (-) or it could have no effect whatsoever (0). The second process could have any of these same effects on the first. ......
Mutualism is defined as (+ +)...we shall take (it) as "positive feedback comprised of wholly positive interactions." Mutualism so defined need not involve only two processes; when more than two elements are involved it becomes "indirect mutualism". A schematic of indirect mutualism among three processes is represented in Figure 8. (see above) The plus sign near the end of the arrow from A to B indicates that an increase in the rate of process A has a strong propensity to increase the rate of B, etc ...In this sense the behaviour of the loop is said to be "autocatalytic", a term borrowed from chemistry meaning "self-enhancing". In any autocatalytisystem, an increase in the activity of any participant will tend to increase the activities of all others as well.
As a first example, atocatalytic configurations...are growth enhancing. An increment in the activity of any member engenders greater activity in all other elements...Far less attention is pais...to the selection pressure that the autocatalytic form exerts on its components. for example, if a random chnage should occurin the behaviour of one member that either (a) makes it more sensitive to catalysis by the preceding element or (b) accelerates its catalytic influenceupon the next compartment, thenthe effects of such alterationwill return to the starting compartment as a reinforcement of the new behaviour. The opposite is also true:...suppose that A, B, and C are three sequential elements comprising an autocatalytic lop and that some new element appearsby happenstance. It is more sensitive to catalysis by A, and provides greater enhancement to the activity C than does B. The D will either grow to overshadow B's role in the loop, or will displace it altogether ...
In like manner one can argue that C could be replaced by some other component E and A by F so that the final configuration D-E-F contains none of the original elements. It is important to notice that the characteristic time (duration) is longer than its constituents. The persistance of form beyond constituents is hardly an unusual phenomenon - one sees it in the survival of corporate bodies beyond the tenure of individual executives or workers, or in plays, like those of Shakespeare, that endure beyond the lifetime of individual actors...
Extracts from Ulanowicz, R. (1997) Ecology, the ascendent perspective. Columbia University Press pp. 41, 42, 46 & 49.
Vocabulary
to remind : to remind someone of something
to remember: to remember something
References
Campbell, N.A and Reece, J.B. (2005)Biology. Pearson - Benjamin Cummings
Hoffman, R(2006)The Metaphor, Unchained. American Scientist 94(5)p.406 Online version:
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-metaphor-unchained
Miller, A. I (1996) Metaphor in Creative Scientific Thought. Creativity Research Journal. Volume: 9. Issue: 3. 113-130
Ulanowicz, R. (1997) Ecology, the ascendent perspective. Columbia University Press
Wilson, E.O. (1997) Consilience, the Unity of Knowledge. Abacus.
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Figure 2. by julien
Figure 3. by Tommok
Figure 4. by Hamed Saber
Figure 5. by levianthor
Figure 6.by annpar
Figure 7. by basket4life
© All copyright Ray Genet 2008
