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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 21 Sep 2013

Taken: 06 Jul 2011

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Daisies

Daisies
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
For Ralph Abraham, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Abraham_(mathematician) the Santa Cruz mathematician, a good model is the “daisy world” of James E, Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, proponents of the so called Gaya hypothesis, in which the conditions necessary for life are created and maintained by life itself in a self-sustaining process of dynamical feedback. The daisy world is perhaps the simplest imaginable version of Gaia, so simple as to seem idiotic. “Three things happen,” as Abraham put it, “white daisies, black daisies, and unplanted desert. Three colours: white, black, and red. How can this teach us anything about our planet? It explains how temperature regulation emerges. It explains why this planet is a good temperature for life. The daisy world model is the terrible model, but it teaches how biological homeostasis was created on earth.

White daisies reflect light, making the planet cooler. Black daisies absorb light, lowering he albedo*, or reflectivity, and thus making the planet warmer. But while daisies “want” warm weather, meaning that they thrive preferentially as temperatures rise. Black daisies want cool weather. These qualities can be expressed in a set of differential equations and the daisy world can be set in motion on a computer. A wide range of initial conditions will lead to an equilibrium attractor – and not necessarily a static equilibrium.

“It’s just a mathematical model of a conceptual model, and that’s what you want – you don’t want high-fidelity models of biological or social system.,” Abraham said. “Youjust put in the albedos, make some initial planting, and watch billions of years of evolution go by. And you educate children to be better members of the board of directors of the planet.” ~ Page 279

*the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet or moon. ~ 279

CHAOS
7 weeks ago. Edited 7 weeks ago.

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