EGENIS seminar: "Dissipative structures gone rogue" with Dr Clair Quentin (University of Kent)

These are idiosyncratic systems, generally tied to a specific set of initial conditions. But one such system, life, has by virtue of its adaptive machinery broken free from the conditions from which it emerged and can now subsist in a great number of different environments drawing energy from a great variety of sources and taking on a vast and evolving pageant of different localised forms.  It has, as it were, "gone rogue".  As such is it unique, or are there others? This paper claims that another such structure is the material system of commodities being produced by means of commodities i.e. capital.  The paper proceeds to draw certain alarming (but perhaps, to a biologist, not unfamiliar) conclusions about the place of humans in this other dissipative structure gone rogue.

Venue Byrne House

Virtual: via Zoom

Registration details to follow.