Could There Be Laws Of Biology?

Physics has such nice equations and universal laws. Could we ever expect to find similar principles or axioms for biology?
Twitter: / subanima_
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SOURCES + FURTHER READING:
www.subanima.org/laws/
Biocosmology: doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2204.0...
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Thank you to Gautam Shine for supporting this video!
#laws #physics #biology

[@gazza6533]

I would argue that the universal laws of physics are the universal laws of biology. Asking universal laws of biology is intrinsically asking to find the physics of huge complex systems.

[@jchin1117]

Right, this video was pointless and a waste of breath and time. Really, really dumb.

[@0.-.0]

Yes, thank you!!!!

[@robertpawlsoky2910]

If physics were not in the habit of redefining itself, refining itself, re-inventing itself it might find some use. But as we are aware, physics is constantly trying to unify itself and really trying to define if the constants of physics are constant across space and time. Let the physicists struggle with themselves about questions of the nature of dark matter (if it exists), quantum gravity, the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, and oh yes the multiverse. That ought to keep them busy for awhile.

[@hedefbogazici4]

@@robertpawlsoky2910 Physic is change? What? We learning about more things and realize that we were wrong about something doesn't mean physic's itself change. For example: Atoms, are atoms all the time. Just we learn that our models doesn't explain something through the time. And we invent new models. Maybe our current model is not %100 true, and it can change in the future. Not because atoms's itself change. But our understanding of atoms change. Our understanding of biology could also change in the future. Like any other field.

[@robertpawlsoky2910]

@@hedefbogazici4 I agree with your statement about things changing. But I think the discussion is about the immutable laws of physics, which there aren’t any. And that has been discussed for sometime AMONG physicists. Surely there have been a number of demonstrations concerning Einstein’s theories but what has kept into the discussion of recent times, is that they must be wrong? Yes, you heard that. And of course there are many problems concerning the nature of the Universe. If one takes the reductionist point of view then one encounters an absurdity that begins with the statement “if we had a computer big enough we could calculate all of the essences of the Universe IN THEORY….even the essence of the computer used to calculate the essence of the Universe. Who thinks of such stuff?

[@hexa3389]

Physics is successful at modeling certain phenomena because it only considers only the shared attributes between objects. Every object in the real world has a mass, position, and momentum and that's everything physics cares about. Once you try to get more concrete by considering special classes of objects like biological systems it becomes harder to do this. For example, what are some properties that are shared by every single cell in the world? Well, there's the physical properties--which is why chemistry is so useful in bio--but besides that there isn't a lot to go on. Furthermore, if you want a differential equation, you need shared attributes that can vary continuously like position and momentum. That's a small subset of an already small pool of shared attributes. In short, physics works by looking at the shared essential attributes between all objects. A more specialized domain like biology cannot do this so instead it studies the essential *differences* between things in its domain.

[@blingpup21]

Brilliant!

[@hasansalihaktas]

Not related but l love your pfp😂

[@Zeegoku1007]

Everyone and everything is made up of fundamental particles. To me, biology is just physics of very complex systems. And speaking of shared attributes, who is to say that they are absolute? You can have an arbitrary attribute that almost all biological entities possess...the main difference between all physical sciences lies at the fact that which one is the most fundamental? And from which subject you can derive, in theory, all other subjects and make them look emergent rather than fundamental. I.e. there's not a single particle that biological beings possess and other inanimate objects don't !

[@benswolo6928]

I would tell you as a soft matter physicist that physics qualities leading to life are phase separation, Brownian motion, and systems with non racemic composition. (Not an even mix of chiral molecules)

[@tantzer6113]

Example of a universal law of biology: if you cut off a mammal’s head and drain all its blood, it’ll die. As Stephen Wolfram notes, what are called universal laws are actually islands of “computational reducibility” within a sea of “irreducibility.” Translation: even in physics, it is not practical to predict most things. That’s also true in biology: most things are not (practically) predictable. But there are islands of predictability (reducibility) within biology as well.

[@crimson4066]

I wrote this in my bio notes lol. Good way of thinking about chaos theory/randomness/chance/predictability

[@seditt5146]

Your initial idea here is fundamentally flawed. We can easily envision an oxygen carrying nutrient solution which totally destroys your argument. Hell in some respects we have done so already with Saline solutions. Also... Whats a Mammal in the grand scheme of things? 100 million - 1 billion years physics still be doin what physics do.... Mammals on the other hand are unlikely to be here to see what physics be doin. At least in there current form yet if humans are around still they will almost surely consider themselves mammals.

[@Drudge_Lord]

​​​@@crimson4066I always like to imagine how the possibility of a quantumly immortal humans existence though so infinitely unlikely TO US, will or has happened at some point lol

[@_______J.Elijah.Lilly________]

If something has 'the head of a lion' and 'the body of a lion', there is no way to tell whether they are 'from the same lion'. I assume they are, but I'm told it's not safe to "assume things". If that happens to be a "re-capitated Lion", I don't assume those are very safe either. is it always safe to assume, one should never make assumptions? Or one should never make assumptions, until at least one other person arrives? ( to gossip with about your assumptions and judgements, "I heard every cell of that lion was from an entirely different lion." "They weren't just decapitating lions, that would be weird, they were doing it for science.")

[@tantzer6113]

“Determinism” doesn’t mean that we can know things in advance. It simply means that everything about the world in the next moment of time is determined by the laws of physics as applied to the world at the present moment (except, of course, for whatever indeterminacy allowed by the laws themselves). The question of whether it’s practical for us to calculate the world at the next moment does not even arise. It’s even irrelevant to the definition of determinism whether there are humans or animals around who might be interested in calculating or predicting things. By the way, Stephen Wolfram’s book, A New Kind of Science, and his concept of “computational irreducibility” are highly germane to this discussion.

[@TheGarrymoore]

Processes in biological systems are correlated, so instead of treating them as independent degrees of freedom (large phase space) one can find that hundreds of degrees of freedom condense on few collective modes (small phase space). Then one can model that. There are many models of that kind predicting the processes fairly well. However, even in physics you have large classes of systems that are not predictable. So, the question is not whether it is physics or biology, but the type of the processes and the level of description/explanation. Understanding does not equal to predicting. The laws alone do not enable prediction of system's behavior. For that you need precise initial and boundary conditions.

[@lucasnoritomi-hartwig3928]

When we consider a pendulum, we don’t consider the possibility of someone interacting with it in anyway while it’s in motion. Why then would we need to consider outside interactions with a bacterial cell in a closed space?

[@100kevinrules]

Because that is not an accurate description of a bacterial cell. Anything derived from that phase space would be completely useless outside of that one specific bacteria in that one specific isolated environment.

[@ani_adios]

​@@100kevinrulesI don't think I'll necessarily be useless. We also never see a pendulum swinging in vacuum nor a singular hydrogen atom, but studying them in such way leads to conclusions which do transfer to the real world.

[@Belti200]

If you ever took a differential equations course you did consider the possibility of someone interacting with the pendulum

[@franciscoarencibiaalbite2435]

The aim of an experiment is often to understand some aspects of reality and for that, the experimenter cannot work directly with reality since it already eludes understanding. Instead, they work with a simplified version of it that they call the experimental model. Mathematical modeling works in the same way. Quantitative modeling is not a contest of mimicking reality (for that you really need to incorporate as much detail as possible as implied in the video). A rule in modeling is, in effect, that you need to increase the level of complexity only when the current version of the model fails to capture the behavior you are modeling. In addition, it is not always necessary to incorporate every detail of reality into the model to make accurate predictions, e.g., the Hodkin-Huxley model of the action potential explains the refractory period without incorporating the true biophysics of the Na-voltage-gated channel. The goal of the application of mathematics to biology is not to derive a LAW of the bio-reality is just to enhance its understanding. The next set of videos provides a recent good example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXLXemarm8yUitU kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZmqcpZ6EjKtpaKs kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKKTenigZ7ulfrc kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnvZZIBjgb2ffqc kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJbXnZSqbcR-lac kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJvCpmasn5WSjq8

[@eduardozanette9236]

Very nice comment! As someone with an agent based modelling perspective, you have made a lot of points I was willing to make.

[@franciscoarencibiaalbite2435]

Thanks!@@eduardozanette9236

[@rayhanalam9651]

I've been pondering the possibility of applying mathematics to biology, wondering if mathematical models could be used to elucidate biological concepts. When I shared these thoughts with my classmates, they burst into laughter, but I remained convinced that there must be answers to these questions. It's quite intriguing how there are others who harbor similarly specific inquiries. This video has assisted me in articulating my thoughts more clearly. Thanks.

[@sidneynatzukajr6099]

In modern biology there are lots of math, statistics is everywhere and other topics like differential equations and graph theory are useful too

[@benswolo6928]

Biological physics sounds like something you should study. The questions of mutation probabilities, locations for gene expression, self assembly, LLPS, etc are our main tools. They’re young (~50 years max), but these fields study things such as the origin of life, progression of disease, etc. We just aren’t at the point to go “this is the equation for a mitochondria”, because of how new our field is, and how complex biology is at the end goalpost.

[@Fizington]

There is an entire branch of mathematics dedicated to biology. It is very interesting. I would recommend reading “Mathematical Biology” by James Murray from Oxford. He is essentially the father of the discipline.

[@nealesmith1873]

Very good idea! If physics is allowed to do physics in a box, you can do the same for biology.

[@chadyonfire7878]

Dude youre gonna blow up , love the overlooked subjects and research u do

[@haldanebdoyle]

Loved it. Though physics totally oversells its ability to predict anything in practice. Just look at a simple three body gravitational system- it is inherently chaotic, and we lack the ability to either measure the initial conditions perfectly or calculate each increment at infinitely small time steps to an infinite number of decimal places. I think applying the reductionist mindset that was relatively successful in physics onto inherently chaotic systems is an example of trying to fight the previous war again and dooming ourselves to failure.

[@SubAnima]

Yeah totally. But strangely a lot of physicists see chaotic systems and still think we can bash them with the reductionism hammer. It doesn't even seem to pose a threat (see 3:00 of kzbin.info/www/bejne/sKG4kJhpn82SfLs ) Jumping to biology hopefully (hopefully!!) makes clear why the reductionism hammer can fail. Thanks for watching :)

[@GreenGiant400]

​@@SubAnimaI do not think reductionism and determinism are the the same thing. Chaos is not reducible to macroscopic deterministic laws because of the sensitivity to initial conditions, yet at the microscopic scale, everything is deterministic

[@The3456718]

Trust me when I say that physicists are acutely aware that taking an absolutist approach to prediction rarely works. In General Relativity, there isn't even a general solution to the TWO body problem. That doesn't stop physicists though. Astronomers can accurately predict the movement of planets in our solar system months or years in advance because they know which variables will produce negligible effects. Not all chaotic systems behave chaotically under the correct initial conditions. Almost all physical laws are like this actually, if you dig more deeply into them. Ohm's Law, friction, and Newtonian gravity are all technically wrong, but none the less extremely useful. Not because they are perfect, but because they reduce complexity without becoming useless for prediction. Sure physics has some universally valid laws, but most work that is done in practice relies on simplifying them. (This is literally what essentially the entire field of solid state physics is) Also, most universally valid physical laws were built FROM reductionist theories. For example, Kepler orbits laying the groundwork for confirming Newtonian gravity. Honestly, I don't have a background in biology, so I don't know what mathematical framework would be useful for it, but I imagine there are aspects of cellular biology that could be simplified to make useful models. Differential equations are an absurdly powerful tool for modeling. And there are dozens of other mathematical concepts that I'm sure would be indispensible to the field. Also, models aren't meant to be perfect. Getting a reproducible result in controlled conditions is not pointless. If your model breaks down, you tweak it, you look for other prevailing factors. And if it comes to it you discard it and start over. Don't get the wrong idea about physicists, sure theorists will chase after the God equation until the sun goes down. But in many cases you'll find that the ones pushing the boundary are the ones in the lab, trying to reduce immensely complex systems of interactions to something comprehensible. All physics is built on observation, just like any other science. Or as Richard Feynmann put it "If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong". Astrophysicists are literally having existential crises as we speak over lambda-CDM because of this. Sorry for writing like an entire book of a youtube comment, but I just wanted to illustrate that reductionism is one of the singularly most powerful tools in physics, and dare I say all of science. Sure, it isn't going to be a perfect (or even good) bedrock for a field, but it is a damn good foothold, and most rock climbers I know don't reach the summit just by jumping and flailing their arms. Sure, in time destiny will gift a Newton or Einstein with a theory that will fundamentally change everything. But in my opinion, the scientist that pushes the boundary of knowledge with "death by a thousand cuts" is equally if not more badass. They operate with humility and curiosity. They have sweaty cries in the shower after shitty days in the lab. And they don't ever fucking give up. There is a reason Isaac Newton said that he stood on the shoulders of giants.

[@NitBeanTheMachine]

This just reads like cope. What are you reading this on?

[@GreenGiant400]

@@Prodigious147 Yes measurements in QM are random but the expectation value of QM operators evolve according to deterministic laws. Since the outcomes of macroscopic systems always involve averages over many particles, the randomness of QM isn't really relevant for (macroscopic) chaotic systems.

[@jaredpeterson5726]

Great video. Roli, Jaeger, and Kauffman's "How Organisms Come to Know the World: Fundamental Limits on Artificial General Intelligence" next? I've been trying to wrap my head around that paper, and I can't quite get there.

[@SubAnima]

It’s certainly on the list. An amazing paper - I want to do something on AI definitely but not exactly sure what the angle will be. People have been asking me to talk about Michael Levin too, but we shall see. Stay tuned, I’ll cover it at some point for sure!

[@calebclark9114]

Very underrated video! Also never thought I’d watch a video with quantum mechanics and biology all in the same video

[@SubAnima]

Thanks so much - have a google of ‘quantum biology’ there’s actually been quite a few direct applications of quantum phenomena in biology. There’s a lecture with Philip Ball on it somewhere also Jim Al-Khalili wrote a book about it - “Life On The Edge.” Anyways, thanks for watching!

[@Hei1Bao4]

There's also the possibility that the protons of DNA can sometimes quantum tunnel causing mutations.

[@knuturwallevik2153]

Amazing work. Love your videos, they are always so informative.

[@SubAnima]

Thanks for watching!

[@rahulsharda3577]

As a psychology postgraduate interested in research, physics envy was a big demotivator when I was a student. However, thanks to this video I feel much more value in the research in fields like ours. I've always been fascinated with Biology and its role in Psychology as the latter stems from the former. And just like Physics aid Chemistry, these concepts of Biology could further aid Psychological research.

[@SabrinaXe]

How is your channel not blowing up already. They’re all so well thought through!!!

[@justinnguyen603]

I agree with the overall premise that it would be essentially "too difficult" to be able to predict everything but that's missing the point of introducing these equations. Mathematical biology aims to model systems. It is really useful for understanding specific systems where you can approximate an isolated system. For example it can be used to investigate congenital defects, strange behaviours of amoebas, and population dynamics. The point is not to model everything, it is to investigate the behaviours of specific systems to gather more insight and knowledge. Your example with the single bacterium does not contain the essential ingredient: context. If we consider the Dictyostelium discoideum amoebas, a single celled organism, then we first ask what do we want to model. You then choose what is important to include for the model. You are right in the video about this point, adding everything is complicated and the end result may not be interpretable. Thats why you start simple and then increase the complexity to suit. Going off the amoeba example, we may want to model the social behaviours of these amoebas because they exhibit a variety of strange behaviours from building stalks, sporing, to aggregation. You then insert simple ideas like gaussian cell dynamics. You then can introduce more complex behaviours like chemotaxis if insufficient. But as you go you confirm the model with observations. The model was built for a purpose and was constructed to be as accurate and as useful as it can be to explain the real phenomenon. This is the real power and use of reductionist thinking, rather than naivety.

[@easygreasy3989]

Thanks for the value ❤. Great vid man. Out. Of the box thinking.

[@evanbailey4781]

Another banger! Your videos are such a great way to introduce people to contemporary ideas in theoretical biology. Keep up the good work man.

[@SubAnima]

Thank you so much, it means a lot!

[@thevocatiousunspeakables709]

In order to have laws of biology, we would need to have a universal definition for what constitutes life. Without that, biology is not able to be reduced at all

[@jordandavis6742]

Why would such a definition be necessary? Why would this preclude anyone from working on theoretical questions?

[@SystemsMedicine]

Hi Vocatious. From my point of view, your comment is simply mistaken. For example, growth curves modeling bacterial growth are a form of ‘simplification’ in biological processes, as are pharmacological dynamics models. There are many other examples. [It would be handy to have a ‘universal’ definition of life, but this is not a requirement to make progress.] Cheers.

[@zb3620]

As a biophysics major, I love this video.

[@PeteQuaint]

@@AndrGus777it’s like physiology, but more physical, I guess. Like blood viscosity, the Frank-Startling law, how much can certain organs expand, how the eyes get light… etc.

[@bobfake3831]

@@PeteQuaint not really, its more about taking physics and applying it to biological systems, eg membranes or how biomechanics makes things move( how big are the forces at what instance?). The nervous system is electrochemical in nature so thats trivially a part of biophysics

[@PeteQuaint]

@@bobfake3831 oh, cool. I only learned medical biophysics so that’s my only frame of reference.

[@zb3620]

@@PeteQuaint We don't do any physiology actually! At my school, it's a basically a physics major with some biology and chemistry electives. In practice, it's mostly used for molecular biology, whether that is in microscopy or protein modeling. Though it's a pretty new field, so people have taken it in all different directions.

[@zb3620]

@@bobfake3831 Yes neurophysics is a huge part of biophysics. It's a loooot of thermodynamics

[@kynnjones8284]

Another tour-de-force of exposition. Hats off to your courage and your ability to do justice to such delicate questions. At some point you really need to address this question: "If the mechanistic metaphor is so wrong, how can one explain ~70 years' worth of successes in molecular biology and biotechnology, fields that arguably arose out of physics envy?" (E.g. James Watson's infamous "Phage Group" at Harvard, etc.) (To be clear, I have my own answers to this question, but I would love to see yours.)

[@lastinqgxminq5684]

Amazing videos man, don’t stop, you’ll be big soon!

[@SubAnima]

Thank you!! Just finished my Masters exams for this semester and have started working on the next one, shouldn’t be too long :))

[@cloudcyclone]

I agree!

[@pedronobre3898]

You're actually really well-read. Great video.

[@energyeve2152]

Amazing topic. This is well done. Thanks for sharing.

[@epsives1699]

Amazing job, I loved this video.

[@gonthedriver]

oh dear, you have reminded me why I wanted to study biology when I was younger. Such a joyful and stimulating content. Thanks a lot

[@SvafarHelgason]

Love your content

[@brendangolledge8312]

Physics is applied math. Chemistry is derived from physics. Biology is derived from chemistry. You can't make fundamental laws of biology because it's not a fundamental subject of reality; it is 2 levels of abstraction above the simplest physical level (physics).

[@prapanthebachelorette6803]

This is actually a good point

[@Matkins85]

Another cameo of Nick Lane's Vital Question. I'd love to see you interview him.

[@SubAnima]

Maybe one day haha :)

[@axelnova123]

What's noxious is the whole field of economics having "physics envy" induced psychosis at a collective level.

[@richardlyman2961]

Ratio L bozo

[@highviewbarbell]

My macroeconomics professor made a big deal about how it's the most scientific soft science and uses real world scenarios, meanwhile in every scenario only like 2 variables are ever considered, and we don't ever use curved lines like real life would be, so we can avoid calculus

[@axelnova123]

@@highviewbarbell Yup, that's my exact experience with economics.

[@shwabbaa]

Economics is a science?

[@sebastianjovancic9814]

​​@@shwabbaa In the modern sense of the English word Science, intimately connected to natural empiricism and the scientific method, no. But in Germanic languages (and a few others) the word for science is Wissenschaft (Vetenskap in Swedish for example), directly translated to Knowledgeship, which encompasses all forms of knowledge acquisition, not only by empirical means using the scientific method.

[@parthvaswani4503]

as a grade 11 science student who's studying Physics, Chemistry , maths AND biology and is planning become a microbiologist , i really never came across "Physics envy " because physics currently makes no sense since we neglect SO MUCH

[@luciolelampyriste2321]

Just another comment to reiterate I'm pretty happy you're making these videos!

[@SubAnima]

Thanks! Glad to see you here again :)

[@nealesmith1873]

Very good video! It seems that "biology in a box" would be the way to start. I think this has already been done to some extent with bioreactors, PCR, population dynamics, etc., always assuming limited interactions with additional actors and factors.

[@guerreiro943]

Damn this is pretty interesting. If you keep making these videos you gonna blow up soon enough

[@lucxski]

I liked this video a lot. Very interesting and thought provoking

[@danvartan]

You can use complex systems modeling to draw laws for biology (or any field) in terms of probability (e.g., agent-based modeling). Deterministic laws don't work with chaotic systems, but that doesn't mean that they have no attractors.

[@djayjp]

You're misusing the term "determinism". Determinism doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what we can know or predict, but rather simply means the principle/assertion that the past determines the future, ie, causality.

[@sauce4335]

Considering that the universe is driven towards increased entropy, the abiotic synthesis of RNA monomers and other organic molecules is all the more interesting. There are unquestionably processes which govern the development of life, just are there are processes which govern attraction between mass.

[@tcaDNAp]

This transformed me as much as seeing the Dalton Board first explained did, in opposite directions

[@rv706]

4:40 "Isolated systems... That's one of the features you need for a model based on differential equations to work properly" - *Not true.* Take for example any Quantum Master Equation (such as the Lindbald equation): it is a differential equation specifically designed to describe _open_ (a.k.a. non-isolated) quantum systems, taking into account unknown interactions with the environment with specified statistical properties. If the system was isolated, we'd already have a great equation for that: the Schrödinger equation! What you need in order to have a model based on (finite order) differential equations is the dynamics being specified by a _local_ operator: this means what a solution does locally around a point doesn't depend on what it does far away. Non-local (in this sense) phenomena might be sometimes described by integral or integro-differential equations. P. S. : great videos! 👍🏼

[@mdtalal3244]

Loved it

[@Rockythemountain]

What about the free energy principle? It doesn’t predict the specific means by which organisms minimize free energy but it is a mathematically elegant application of statistical mechanics to “sentient artifacts” that does seem convincingly universal. It would make a great video too!

[@scrambledneuron_]

i am soooooo glad i found your channel thank youuu!!! you deserve a lottt moree subscribers!

[@valentinussofa4135]

As someone with a biology background, I have to be honest that biology is the most anomalous branch of science in the STEM group. I think this is because biology has its own uniqueness in that the theories that apply in the field of biology are difficult to elevate to the status of law, and will continue to give rise to long debates. We can take the example of one of the oldest theories, the theory of evolution. We can use natural models in biology as examples of modeling in mathematics or other fields of science, but when we practice in biology we will find many unexpected things or anomalies, and that will always be a hot topic for research.

[@williamlowry8809]

Development, niche construction and symbiotic relationships can simply be seen as consequences of the four "drivers" of evolution (I prefer that term to "force", which I think we should leave to physicists). Of course, there is a feedback loop going on, with every new phenotype (including the concepts mentioned earlier, see extended phenotype) created by these drivers influencing how these drivers (in particular natural selection) act upon them (a particular allele might be favored by selection and thus increase in frequency, but this increase in frequency might affect how favorable this allele, or others, are). E: After finishing your video, I do agree with your main point. Since we could not practically access the position and velocity of every particle in the universe and/or compute anything useful out of it, we are bound to make assumptions in every one of our models that must in some way or another not be true. This means we can never be sure that a model will perfectly describe a real situation. Some people might disagree with that and really believe that we could realistically build some mathematical or computational model that perfectly predicts reality, but I think they're most likely a minority. Take Fisher's theorem you mentioned : I can't know for sure, but I would bet when he described it as "fundamental", he still meant it in a mathematical way. I don't think he actually believed it could be applied with 100 percent reliability in a real context.

[@Kolmir]

There is also a law of Computational Irreducibility (from Wolfram MathWorld) which literally disprove the idea that we can ever have a "big enough computer". Case closed :)

[@SubAnima]

Yeah the computational irreducibility/chaos argument can also be played here definitely, but it’s been a well covered topic. I wanted to come at it from a different (hopefully more convincing!) angle to counter universal reductionism. Also strangely, if we follow the “just get a bigger computer” argument through, what is it that these reductionists are suggesting? Once we build the computer there wont be any science left to do right? So why bother doing science at all - just wait for the computer engineers to build better computers! Sounds like a pretty disheartening philosophy of science to me.

[@Kolmir]

@@SubAnima Can't agree more. The approach from the perspective of biological complexity is compelling. And thanks to your explanatory video, I can now share it with my friends to spread the message and help them understand :)

[@SubAnima]

@@Kolmir Thanks great to hear!

[@petersmythe6462]

It's also worth mentioning that the phase space of merely something non-trivial is already too big to meaningfully think about. For example, take an isolated, deterministic system with perfect information, in a known state. The starting position in chess. It's a very mechanical system. We know exactly how it works at the fundamental level. But now ask "what opening move forces a draw rather than a loss?" and you have a question that is beyond the realm of practical knowledge to answer.

[@coupsdestylo]

What you really want is a new law from biology that is true at the deepest level of physics which also solves some paradoxes and changes physics making them re-write some of their equations. Life expresses and is an expression of a reverse entropic force after all it's just bits of the universe looking at itself, tying it down so to speak. It shows up on the observer paradox.

[@bobbyrobles358]

I'm assuming you study (or studied) biology and philosophy. If you are interested in some more philosophy of science stuff, particularly related to cognitive science, I think you would enjoy reading about 4E cognition and neurophenomenology. A good paper to start off is "Neurophenomenology: An introduction for neurophilosophers." by Evan Thompson, Antoine Lutz, and Diego Cosmelli.

[@drfill9210]

Principal component analysis my friend. Reduces dimensionality and tears out the important movers

[@j________k]

I think incomputability is quite a hard boundary of our knowledge and thats before contenting with the intrinsic stocastics of quantum theory. Even our best physics models are always going to be somewhat hand waving.

[@jdrut]

You should read "More is different" by P.W. Anderson (Nobel prize in Physics 1977); it's a short article. I'm surprised you didn't mention it.

[@nickcaruso]

A very bold opinion. Your argument is wily and profound. 🍻

[@kashyapaddepalli3120]

Differential equations exist in Biology as well, but for that I feel we can think of an organism as a collective goo of tendencies not a real organism. The pattern of tendencies is a differential game not the one we may write down maybe because how will we define tendencies as mathematical models. Like considering a cat and a spider for example, both have a very self centred way of existence in a sense that it creeps into every form of their activities. All organisms face the question of self preservation but some choose to incorporate instinct of self preservation in EVERYTHING they do ( Biologists may tell us why they tend to do so ) this becomes a boundary condition. This is one set of differential equation ready add more such tendencies (DEs) together you will have a goo ( boundary condition AKA evolutionary choices for lack of a better world) of tendencies which we name as organisms. In physics physical objects interact for us to have equations of interaction when the interactions are wonky ( biology ) ig we have to be wonky too! To see it like it is. Let me know if I made sense!

[@legojoker7552]

With regard to “other elements intervening, making the model useless” argument: of course that’s the case. The model is built to handle a closed system where you have defined all the necessary factors. Applying a model to something the model wasn’t designed for generally leads to the model predicting poorly, that’s a given. The more relevant factor is how useful is the model, i.e. what class of questions can it answer because it is within the scope of the problems the model was designed for, and *defining* that well. If the class of questions is small or not useful, that will reflect poorly on the utility of the model.

[@Yttrium05]

I have a question. Can physics of complex systems build a base for the laws of biological phenomena? Obviously this is a statistical approach, but it could be a starting point

[@anaisa934]

We were created, we did not evolve, which is much more wonderful. The laws of the universe manage what was created. The forces of creation are not known by us and don't need to be. However, we can rejoice on knowing how the universe works or is maneged.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

😅 I'm an outlier in the comments it seems. You make some fair points but also seem to assume things I don't. Isolated systems are really nothing more than I tool for example. Nothing really works in isolation, but we can learn things from these extremes. A modern example is category theory, effectively studying relationships without any contextual detail. It's sort of another form of abstraction. As far as reduction, this tends to be about finding shared underlying patterns. Optimization would be something akin to that I'm biology.

[@OL9245]

As of most of your videos, you're beating the dead horse. Not that they are not entertaining, well done, and definitely proved you worked hard to make them. But i can't figure out your point. Scale is everything in science. Use the tools that fit the scale of your object.

[@Juniper-111]

I mean, there's more math out there than diff eg. and I don't know what makes something a universal law, but the structure of DNA for instance is (as I understand it) universal within the scope of life on earth.

[@petersmythe6462]

It would either *be* a law of physics (making it practically useless given the problem size and lack of perfect information), or it would need to be in radically different form than anything based on physics. Even trying to get population genetics to not completely break in simulations requires you to be able to identify when things don't have nice statistical properties and split them into things that DO have nice statistical properties.

[@Daniel-ve8oi]

@SubAnima: A nice channel! I tend to agree with @gazza6533. However, I think the current "laws" of biology are not that much different from those of physics (btw most laws of physics are indeed theorems, not axioms). However, the systems that are studied are more complicated and complex than those of physics. Thus, the measurement error as well as the chaotic outcomes of the single parts of biological entities will make them appear less law-like (less correct).

[@ferranarmestarrodrigo5726]

nice vid

[@JohnKRiordan]

What about Kleiber's Law? I think it's explained by gravity, i.e. organisms' mass and the "space-filling" potentialities of three-dimensional space, across time.

[@shiva_kondapalli]

Coould it be that we not yet found better mathematical tools or a more expressive mathematical language to describe biology. Non-hermitian operators for example describe open quantum systems. They may be better suited for biology. Category theory on the other hand, with it's emphasis on morphsims and functors deals with how a part is understood in terms of the whole. It is in some holistic. Perhaps leveraging these tools might help us understand biological systems better?

[@you_just]

this sounds like how we do modern computational physics. we have these huge, fundamental forces that can give you a differential equation for any system, but there are just so many degrees of freedom in real systems that it's not feasible to solve them, or even simulate them. so we study the systems as a whole, separate from the laws, and derive new "laws" based on the emergent properties we see. the laws are still there, the laws are still the same, but they're buried under layers of obfuscation. every field of science is just physics, but with some abstraction layer in between that makes it difficult to use the laws from the previous layer.

[@opubogbenebo6954]

The problem with these discussions is that physics only studies matter, chemistry studies the reactions between matters and biology simply observes. Certainly wocieties have observed some behaviours that have turned out to be time invariant.

[@rajinfootonchuriquen]

The first thing is to assume that reality is stochastic, because there is almost infinite variables, so a "law" need to describe the time-evolution of distributions, instead of position-ish type of measure.

[@armenpoghosyan4998]

Physics is more fundamental this why we have universal laws. Biology is a very specific science that has branched out of physics. Feynman talks about this in his book, where he places math as the language of physics and everything else the branch of physics that has evolved into its own science.

[@Avicerox]

Correct

[@cienciandre]

I haven't watched the video yet and I might sound stupid, but didn't Mendel like, do that? Like, exactly that?

[@seditt5146]

8:20 Yeah, ill bite. It does not matter if its impossible to create that computer as actually solving the equations is irrelevant to the task at hand. We have tons of Physics formulas which can't be solved completely and all differential equations are an approximation.

[@petermartin5030]

Trouble with physics is that the initial state, boundary conditions and material properties at every point in space are never known to infinite precision and even if they were, we can almost never solve them precisely, except in the simplest idealised cases.

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Well, I rather feel like instead of Biology being "unlike physics", mathematics rather needs a full overhauling.

[@SubAnima]

This is definitely an idea that has crossed my mind... What kind of maths that would look like though - I have no idea. Some theorists think category theoretic approaches could be fruitful to describing biology more appropriately. Have a look at Robert Rosen's Life Itself if you're interested in this stuff :))

[@mysticdrgn75]

If you apply a force on the ball from outside the system, then, by definition, Newton's laws of motion no longer apply. You introduced new variables into the system so the equations dont work anymore. I am confused.

[@theWinterWalker]

Lee Smolin is another 🐐 generalist supreme. Much buenos.

[@shadyworld1]

What I have learned: 1- We could model but we can not theorize equations 2- A big Problem in Biology is that it is Not Adhering to “Finite” Laws 3-Another as Big Problem is that Biology have Uncertain amount of Variables that could be Affected by, which over complicate predictability Okay, questions out of curiosity! Why don’t you people try working with “Infinite” Fields of Mathematics to have a more reasonable representation e.g. using “n” sympologigically to represent the infinite possibilities of X where all things that been proven could fall on its range? Also using fields like linear algebra and Spacial geometry (3D geometry) to add more dimension to the graph? And probably Quantum Mechanics would be helpful too, because it gives different perspectives on how we could see and predict variables even under different laws of physics and higher dimensional representations of the state of mater? Probably that might be unorthodox though but you need to manage that like Entrepreneurs do, like embracing thousands of quick wins easy to test and experiment them for validation, and use Design Thinking, Lean Stratup and Everything a Product Manager like myself would use to beat uncertainty with a neat strategy that converts results! I guess you can use those as a framework to accelerate Leveraging AI and Machine learning models that must comply to the proposed mathematical and physics fields, and we might revolutionize everything we know in no time! In only one Condition ☝🏽 We Must “Prioritize” the Research objectives to be serving a Very Objective, Practical and Close to application Problems, because we are not god but we could figure out what we are looking for because we “Need” it to our survival.

[@BinaryDood]

Bio cosmology looks very interesting

[@mitchellbrown-pr5wy]

👍🙌

[@renthearchangel9479]

There are a lot of misgivings about "universal laws" and they almost ignore that universal laws are not *unconditional* laws. In fact, we can say that a lot of "universal laws" in physics are just conditional laws with extremely broad range(s). Let's take an easy example: Newton's laws of motion. Newton's first law of motion immediately prohibits any changes in motion outside of changes in external interactions (what amount to "forces"). This law is inherently conditional: it doesn't apply to situations where "spontaneous internal changes of motion". The fact that it's so broadly applicable is due simply to the fact that the world just happens to operate in such a manner. The same can be said of Einstein's theories of relativity. Though we have to be careful here because special and general theories of relativity themselves *are not laws*, they are "frameworks" for laws. The first postulate of special theory is that all actual laws of nature (in physics) operate in their "simplest form" in all inertial frames (which coincidentally happen to be of the same form, or in mathematics, the same set of equations). This isn't a "universal law", it's almost a mathematical device that for whatever reason is applicable to nature to a great extent. By itself, it doesn't tell us anything about the world, what "animates" the special relativistic descriptions are the actual laws we use. Newton's laws of motion were incorporated into this special postulate. The difference between Einstein's and Newton's physics is the incorporation of the *law of the constancy of light-speed*, which itself is derived from electromagnetic theory (a set of laws concerning electric permittivity and magnetic permeability of space-time). Same thing with general relativity, the same postulate is extended to cases where gravity and non-inertial frames operate. And again, all of general and special relativity theories are themselves conditional: the world has to be a certain way for the descriptions to fit. The underlying presuppositions of general relativity (which are not laws) are why the framework doesn't fit in well with quantum mechanics and their laws: the laws in quantum mechanics cannot be easily smuggled into the general-relativistic *framework* with the prevailing set of laws. Einstein's and Newton's laws wouldn't work at all if the first postulate is just false, or where actual physical laws do not have their simplest form in all inertial frames. Taking these facts in mind, we can say that biology can have "laws", but they are always and everywhere "conditional". I think the real problem with biology isn't to do with the universality aspect but with the "conditions" aspect. It is universal among all breathing biological creatures (especially if we understand them not as "creatures on Earth" but as a particular biochemical structure) that they have the Krebs cycle, but the "conditions" can easily change where the oxygen levels are greatly changed. Note that the "laws" inherent in the Krebs cycle (which are chemical laws) do not change, but merely that they are no longer applicable in the conditions stated by the laws (like what I said previously with the simplest forms in all inertial frames). So, in biology, you can say that you have "universal laws" and contrary to what you said, *so many universal laws* that there can't be a single framework to cover them all.

[@grobble7321]

Isn’t anything physical that happens not a closed system?

[@antiprismatic]

This might be a little to narrowly defined field to try and create sense of. If you look at the behavior of electrical systems and biology you get more overlap because of the concurrent nature of defining flow, aggregation and stimulation. There are also overlaps with plasma physics which is closely relation to the study of electricity because it deals with ionized gases. Water can easily be compared to plasma in that it can break apart ions so we can begin to categorize ways in which biology can be idealized and formulated. There are so many fields in which this is being tampered with and postulated upon. I guess if someone is just trying to get a pay check, genomics is the best bet. But it if is a deeper inquiry in to postulates of cell sentience and proliferation of natural evolution then mad scientist shit is probably to be avoided.

[@shohamsen8986]

Having an isolated system is not really very important. Since you could still come up with an approximate law of how systems evolves when not isolated, by approximating the interaction with the surrounding. The field of thermodynamics studies energy minimization, there the influence of the surrounding on the system is often approximated with one parameter, the temperature of the surrounding. While Newton's law still holds (at a molecular level), the effect is very well described by reporting one number, the average temperature of the surrounding. This goes back to How Newtonian mechanics, though always true, was used to describe thermodynamics by Boltmann. There is a lot of information needed to know things exactly, but the system tends to show some average behaviour based on the most likely outcome. The main point is to find universal laws, because if you find one law that you are sure always holds (this means repeated experimentations havent disproved it), then you can use this to find other laws. You could even find limiting cases of this laws where you replace complex interaction with some average interaction; much in the same vein as how the interactions of the surrounding in thermodynamics is replaced by an average temperature. To give you an example based on the organim going into your cell to form a mitochrondia. You would have the universal law describing how each system behaves, ie, the cell (without the mitochondria) and the mitochondria. If you applied the law to each individual system, the law would give you a very accurate result, so the approximation here is that the system are not interacting. When the organism goes into the cell, then you really have to account for the interaction and the approximation that they re isolated wouldn't hold. Now consider the situation after the organism has entered the cell (without mitochondria) and evolved to become the mitochandira. Now we know that while the actual behaviour is given by considering the interaction between the two, you will be able to approximate the behaviour by consider a new isolated system the cell with a mitochdria. The universal law of biology holds always, but you can construct approximation that would give you a very good result. I think majority of physicists believe that there is some universal law of Biology, and its very important to find this, the field would explode from there on.

[@markojojic6223]

Well, there can be laws if everybody would accept that laws are just some stuff that are wrong only if they can't be disproven.

[@KeenanWilliams777]

“Derive this mf” - scientists probably

[@besarpria]

I like your videos very much, but defining a "universal law" in the sense that there should be atomic-level predictions for all particles is as much cheating as assuming that differential equations are the natural way to formalize a universal law. In fact, we already have many things that come close to being universal laws for biology, including physical laws like thermodynamics which have important consequences in the abstraction level of biology. Also, Integrated information theory could be seen as a universal law (if it turns out correct, which I doubt) and is nothing like the universal law described in the video.

[@StrangeCornersOfThought]

dope

[@NoxAllan]

I'm loving the reggae

[@IXnudge]

your perspective changed my view to life

[@SubAnima]

Glad to hear it!

[@roro-mm7cc]

"Laws" in physics are still really just models and make assumptions. e.g Newton's universal law of gravitation assumes point-like masses, no additional forces, and that the gravitational forces acts instantaneously across space. The law only holds true in this hypothetical scenario and deviations from this are evidence of additional forces etc, which can be investigated. Biologists also have models that apply to hypothetical scenarios e.g Hardy-Weinberg principle. We too compare actual observations to this perfect model and investigate deviations. The only difference is we are cautious enough to not call this a "law". Physicists perhaps have too much confidence in the universal application of their models. E.g When actual observations of the motions of galaxies contradicted their gravitational models, rather than change their model - they conjured up invisible matter (dark matter) to explain this away. Although some attempts have been made at the former.

[@cloudcyclone]

~ 10:30 , what if... we peer into space, and saw an intelligent species on a planet like ours, very similar to us, but a few hundred or thousand years into the future of their development... and if we could somehow observe their planet at the same level we can our own, could we not make new and more accurate assumptions about how biology evolves over time, generally limiting our scope to at least knowing "this happened there from the same start point, so its at least a viable outcome" instead of "anything can happen and we can never know" ? Right?

[@dkosolobov]

The attack on the reductionism in this video seems puzzling to me. The video first hypothesizes a theory of isolated cell and poses it as a hypothetical law of biology. Then the video rightfully argues that this theory is necessarily of limited use as many interesting biological phenomena involving cells are inherently non-isolated. Newton's laws from physics are then depicted as something of a very different nature, as if the interesting phenomena in physics are mostly isolated. However, the author understands clearly that this is not the case, as is shown closer to the end of the video. One can add that even in the applications of Newton's laws to the celestial mechanics of the solar system, for which these laws were initially devised, these laws are of limited use because of the chaotisity of this system. Nevertheless, people develop some limited models that help to study particular chaotic systems (such as the KAM theory applied to the solar system). These theories are derived from other more fundamental laws (such as Newton's), often using some non-rigorous limiting assumptions coupled with mathematical derivations. Of course, the theory of isolated cell won't be a "law" in the same sense as the general relativity, it will necessarily be a "law" of the same kind as "laws" governing models of ideal gas or numerous others from physics. These models in physics are applied having in mind their usage limits. Yes, the fundamental physical laws of nature, if deemed as capable to predict exactly all observable phenomena, can be useful only for gods. Physicists understand this since their work mostly is to devise particular imprecise models that will be indeed useful for predictions in particular cases. But these models are based on or inspired by these fundamental laws of nature. Often the chain of reduction is longer: the new models are based on or inspired by other more general models, similarly developed earlier. Why the same approach cannot be, in principle, applied in biology? The hypothetical theory of isolated cell is of the same kind and it certainly can help to understand and predict some phenomena. If one interprets by the "fundamental law" a law that is never violated under any possible circumstances that may occur in reality, then the deductive theorems of mathematics are exactly laws of this kind. Outside of the math realm, the laws of physics are the closest ones to this formulation (though they are not fundamental yet since they do not involve some observable conditions, like the quantum mechanics "forgets" that gravity exists). The fundamental laws in this sense are the same for biology, chemistry, sociology, etc. However, the antireductionism might argue that, for instance, the laws of chemistry are not less fundamental than the fundamental laws in physics, so why we dismiss ones and prefer others? A usual counterargument is that the laws of chemistry are derived from the laws of physics by limiting assumptions and mathematical derivations (as explained above for models), so they are secondary, in a sense. It is silently assumed that the physical laws cannot be deduced from the laws of chemistry. I'm not convinced that it is the case especially because many confirmations of physical laws were produced by chemical experiments. However, a precise mathematical model of the chemical laws is needed (and not some simplified model but one that includes all observable phenomena involving the processes governed by these laws) in order to show the reverse reduction of physics from chemistry precisely, which is difficult to conceive (however, I'm convinced that it should be possible since the chemical reactions are within the realm of observable, which is explainable in logic, and these observations were used to derive the physics itself; but the endeavour to build the math for this is not worth it since it will be too unusual for the existing scientific tradition). If this is the case, then the reduction to one set of laws or another is a matter of preference. The biology is even farther in this regard from physics and it seems hopeless that its observable phenomena might be described as laws that could be as equally assumed to be fundamental as the laws of physics (and could be reduced by the reduction explained above). On the other hand, apparently, everything observable in biology is a consequence of many years of matter interactions governed by precisely physical laws. This does not add much knowledge to explain the biological phenomena, as was rightfully noted in the video, but on this basis, the reductionism prefers the physics as the supplier of fundamental laws and others are seen as derivatives. Nevertheless, the hypothetical theory of isolated cell could be a useful biological byproduct of this reduction to physics. The biology of course is capable to produce fundamental laws in the form of math theorems (which will be immediately seized by mathematics), the biology might, in principle, find some laws for matter interactions (which will be seized by physicists or chemists). It is impossible for me to imagine how a (close to) fundamental law of a different kind can be born within biology, which will not be of one of these kinds. (I cannot say anything about consciousness, this topic indeed might need some laws of a completely new different kind. However, I doubt that it is within the reach of humans.)

[@sillymesilly]

Yes there’s laws to biology what kind of question is that

[@abidounesaad3780]

You won't know what physics envy is, until you go to medical school

[@waldezurbe]

this is basically critical realism.

[@osmosisjones4912]

Yiur video about Richard Dockins sound like your trying avoid harsh truth . Abd slso how do use that information. Different frame work different decision can be made with the same facts and define political right from left.

[@destroctiveblade843]

I don't know why you expect us physicists to disagree with you. Those who do actual physics know that there are systems so complicated and chaotic that you can never predict their behavior, it's kinda obvious since the moment you are introduced to the double pendulum, then you study fluid mechanics and turbulence, then statistical physics etc. when you have to find a model it's obvious that the more complex your system is the less your model will be accurate, and biological systems are as complicated as it gets.

[@_______J.Elijah.Lilly________]

Could you define laws for the study of life?,.... can you axiomatize biology( holographically or fractally)? (I don't know how to define Differential Equations. on 'Holons' or on 'Fractals'.) ---- Does every set of well-defined, non-degenerate Axioms have its own calculus?, or at least define an Algebra?(I want there to be a Bio-Algebra)-----how about a metric? If an axiomatic system can't define a metric, it can't have a calculus. Or is the problem with "BIO" is that there are too many metrics to track all-at-once?? Like any biological part is self-similar with the whole-archy above it(that transcends and includes it). Like you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop. and the Earth is not just a insignificant speck in an infinite-universe. It is the infinite-universe, in an insignificant speck.

[@blazed-space]

*The Hermetic Laws*

[@JesusOrtiz-bq2pp]

There is a universal law. I call it "Economics". It's also the hardest

[@danielboone8256]

I don’t see how this proves there are no laws of biology. At best, it means that the laws of biology are unknowable to us or we do not know them now but may in the future. Also, how is law even defined in this case?

[@ununun9995]

There are no laws precisely because we cant understand life. Laws are Manmade. However the mechanics of life are there for sure.