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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals with the issue of complex life styles in biology. When you look at the extraordinary contrivances of nature, it is natural to wonder why they exist. Some lifestyles and some developmental paths of creatures appear to be peculiarly tortuous. The double fertilization development of Angiosperm plants is an example, as is the life cycle of some marine creatures and parasites. This is a look into some of these cases in the hope of coming to so e global conclusions about why they exist. View in LinkedIn

"COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS (CAS) Theory: "The study of complex, nonlinear, interactive systems which have the ability to adapt to a changing environment. Such systems are characterized by the potential for self-organization and exist in a nonequilibrium environment. CAS's evolve by random mutation, self-organization, the transformation of their internal models of the environment, and natural selection." https://lnkd.in/dBCZ5hh View in LinkedIn

IRREVERSIBLE EXPLOITATION. "Complex life styles are often adaptations that exploit transient opportunities for growth or dispersal. Metamorphosis is the process whereby the organism irreversibly switches its adaptations from one of these functions to the other. Reproduction can occur in either the growth or the dispersal stage." http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096903?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents View in LinkedIn

SIMPLICITY BEGETS COMPLEXITY. "I’m starting to think that true artificial intelligence is not going to be a mathematically complex program expressly designed towards a pre-determined product, but rather an emergent behavior of a very simple ruleset." https://lnkd.in/dQV-Tkj View in LinkedIn

ABRUPT CHANGE. "I here apply the term complex life cycle to a life history that includes an abrupt ontogenic change in an individual's morphology, physiology, and behavior, usually associated with a change in habitat. The changes that accompany metamorphosis are often sufficiently radical for an ecologist to declare that the species sequentially occupies two niches." https://lnkd.in/du7CT4T View in LinkedIn

QUESTION: "Where does complexity come from? A: Complexity emerges from very simple rules." http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?EmergentBehavior View in LinkedIn

REDUCED COMPLEXITY. "In several independent trematode families, individual species reduced their life cycle to two or even only one host. As several independent reduction events occurred, strong selective forces seem to drive the evolution of reduced life cycles." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.00895.x/full View in LinkedIn

LOW PROBABILITY. "The researchers’ results also show that this is the only way organisms can evolve...Calculations imply [that] the probability of the digital organisms getting that complex all at once is astronomically small." https://lnkd.in/dvEXJwm View in LinkedIn

TRUNCATED COMPLEXITY. "Complex life cycles are a hallmark of parasitic trematodes. In several trematode taxa, however, the life cycle is truncated: fewer hosts are used than in a typical three-host cycle, with fewer transmission events. Eliminating one host from the life cycle can be achieved in at least three different ways. Some trematodes show even more extreme forms of life cycle abbreviations, using only a mollusc to complete their cycle, with or without sexual reproduction." https://lnkd.in/dBG63dR View in LinkedIn

EXAPTATION OF OLD ERRORS. “Complex features arise by building on simpler features. The functions use bits and pieces of older functions, then tweak them here and there to get the new function." https://lnkd.in/dvEXJwm View in LinkedIn