“If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order. Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all.”
Source: At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (1996), p.112
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Stuart Kauffman 14
American biophysicist 1939Related quotes

my hatred of history as a refuge for be-nothings
Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 11
Book II, ch. 36 (p. 211)
The Ladder of Perfection (1494)

“We see in order to move; we move in order to see.”

About Governance

“Number the priests in the very chair of Peter,
And see in that order of fathers who succeeded the other”
Venite fratres, si vultis ut inseramini in vite;
Dolor est cum vos videmus praecisos ita jacere.
Numerate sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede;
Et in ordine illo Patrum quis cm successit videte.
Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbae inferorum portae. (PL 43:30 [http://books.google.com/books?id=SXPYAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PT3]).
Publications of the Catholic Truth Society (1895), Catholic Truth Society, London, vol. 24, p. 42. http://books.google.com/books?id=uIYQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42
Alternate translation: Come brethren, if you have a mind to be ingrafted in the vine,
It is a pity to see you lopped off in this manner From the stock.
Reckon up the prelates in the very see of Peter;
And in that order of fathers see which has succeeded which.
This is the rock over which the proud gates of hell prevail not. (A reference to Matthew 16:18 http://biblehub.com/matthew/16-18.htm.)
Our Church, Her Children and Institutions (1908), Henry Coyle, et al, Angel Guardian Press, Boston, Mass. P. 98. http://books.google.com/books?id=WaposfecSRUC&pg=PA94
Psalmus Contra Partem Donati - Psalm Against the Donatists (c. 393)
Context: Come, brethren, if you wish to be engrafted in the vine.
It grieves us to see you thus lie cut off.
Number the priests in the very chair of Peter,
And see in that order of fathers who succeeded the other.
This is the rock which the proud gates of hell overcome not.

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, PIGEONHOLING PEOPLE