Mapping Theories of Life into Cell Biochemistry, Part II: The Self-Manufacturing Cell
Channel: Dialectical Systems
Date: 23/05/2022

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.

This second part explores Jannie's extensions and revisions of Rosen's model to clarify the role of mechanism and of formal cause, to dissect self-manufacture into fabrication & assembly, and to map the model onto the metabolism of the cell.

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction and recap
2:14 From hierarchical cycles to closure to efficient causation
7:21 An alternative version of Rosen's diagram
10:58 Hofmeyr's (F,A) system (Fabrication, Assembly)
18:51 Integrating formal cause and the problem with RepRap
20:39 Von Neumann's universal constructor: self-manufacture
25:22 Synthesizing the (F,A) model
30:03 Dynamics and evolution, closure vs openness
37:04 How to make the model match a cell
39:04 Biochemistry at last! And a non-localizable component of the cell
46:32 Scaling up organization
47:30 Realizing closure in cellular biochemistry
52:14 The self-manufacturing core of the cell
56:25 Synthetic and analytical aspects of the model
59:40 Rosen's central insights still stand! But some revision required

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. Rosen (1972). In: Rosen (ed), Foundations of Mathematical Biology, Academic Press.
4. Hofmeyr (2017). In: Poli (ed), Handbook of Anticipation, Springer.
5. Hofmeyr (2018). BioSystems 164: 121-127.
6. Hofmeyr (2021). BioSystems 207: 104463.