Biology, Mathematics, and Reductionism (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, July 09, 2009, 17:29 (5395 days ago)

I just interviewed with a professor who I might work with for my master's dissertation. The project is in an interdisciplinary group of mathematicians, computer scientists and biologists, and consists of an online "social media" type site for biologists. What it will do is allow all the various individual specialists within biochemistry to compile ALL of their collected information. - The grand scope of the project is to move cell biology to that of studying the emergent properties of biological systems, but the first step is to get this information collected and properly situated so that these non-math types can speak in their language while allowing the mathematicians and computer scientists to build the model. - This impacts very directly what we've been talking about in terms of Adler, and the study of systems at large. I was aware of this research but I wanted to bring it up here after I got a little more acquainted with the problem domain. - I'm very interested in throwing my hat into this ring. Reductionism has its place but at some point you need to start exploring the system as a whole--consciousness has its roots in neurons, but what is the interplay that causes it? Already, if you want to know something about cognition, you talk to an AI specialist before a neuroscientist. - There is precious little mathematics devised to study emergent systems, and that makes the prospects of this research monumental as any discovery would be at the ground floor. - Needless to say I'm energized by the prospects...