farketmemiz.bsky.social

31 octobre 2026 21:14

@djnicholson.bsky.social's paper, however, can easily be read as one single prolongated attempt to breathe life into the in many ways degenerated concept of an 'organism'. prove me wrong.

Nic 💀 "skull" 💀 Dav

nicholdav.bsky.social

31 octobre 2026 11:34

I'm so tired of forming opinions relative to AI, but: this bit from the conclusion of this new paper from @djnicholson.bsky.social on Weiss' conception of systems in biology really made me rethink the role of theory link.springer.com/article/10.1... Formalisms crapped out by LLMs are useless alone

Kevin Mitchell

wiringthebrain.bsky.social

28 octobre 2026 20:55

It is good to see something like that emphasised in the paper: "A developmental system possesses a certain ‘genetic endowment’ which provides ‘boundary conditions’ that shape its developmental trajectory, allowing sufficient latitude for non-genetic factors to jointly co-constitute the process"

Kevin Mitchell

wiringthebrain.bsky.social

28 octobre 2026 20:55

You can't dissociate length and width in their contributions to the area of a rectangle - that doesn't make sense. But it DOES make sense to ask *across a population of rectangles* how much variation in width or in length contributes to variance in area

Kevin Mitchell

wiringthebrain.bsky.social

28 octobre 2026 20:53

I really enjoyed this paper by @djnicholson.bsky.social on Paul Weiss's long-neglected contributions to Systems Thinking in biology.