Kauffman Stuart, Roli Andrea
Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Campus of Cesena, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, I-47522 Cesena, Italy.
Entropy (Basel). 2021 Nov 6;23(11):1467. doi: 10.3390/e23111467.
The evolution of the biosphere unfolds as a luxuriant generative process of new living forms and functions. Organisms adapt to their environment, exploit novel opportunities that are created in this continuous blooming dynamics. Affordances play a fundamental role in the evolution of the biosphere, for organisms can exploit them for new morphological and behavioral adaptations achieved by heritable variations and selection. This way, the opportunities offered by affordances are then actualized as ever novel adaptations. In this paper, we maintain that affordances elude a formalization that relies on set theory: we argue that it is not possible to apply set theory to affordances; therefore, we cannot devise a set-based mathematical theory to deduce the diachronic evolution of the biosphere.
生物圈的演化展现为新生命形式和功能的繁茂生成过程。生物体适应其环境，利用在这种持续蓬勃发展的动态中产生的新机会。可供性在生物圈的演化中起着根本性作用，因为生物体可以利用它们实现通过遗传变异和选择达成的新的形态和行为适应。这样，可供性所提供的机会便转化为不断出现的新适应。在本文中，我们认为可供性无法通过依赖集合论的形式化来描述：我们认为将集合论应用于可供性是不可能的；因此，我们无法设计出一种基于集合的数学理论来推导生物圈的历时演化。
