---
title: "Incomplete Nature"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:32:47.944742+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Maximum entropy production: The organized structure of a morphodynamic system forms to facilitate maximal entropy production. In the case of a Rayleigh–Bénard cell, heat at the base of the liquid produces an uneven distribution of high energy molecules which will tend to diffuse towards the surface. As the temperature of the heat source increases, density effects come into play. Simple diffusion can no longer dissipate energy as fast as it is added and so the bottom of the liquid becomes hot and more buoyant than the cooler, denser liquid at the top. The bottom of the liquid begins to rise, and the top begins to sink - producing convection currents.
Two systems: The significant heat differential on the liquid produces two homeodynamic systems. The first is a diffusion system, where high energy molecules on the bottom collide with lower energy molecules on the top until the added kinetic energy from the heat source is evenly distributed. The second is a convection system, where the low density fluid on the bottom mixes with the high density fluid on the top until the density becomes evenly distributed. The second system arises when there is too much energy to be effectively dissipated by the first, and once both systems are in place, they will begin to interact.
Self organization: The convection creates currents in the fluid that disrupt the pattern of heat diffusion from bottom to top. Heat begins to diffuse into the denser areas of current, irrespective of the vertical location of these denser portions of fluid. The areas of the fluid where diffusion is occurring most rapidly will be the most viscous because molecules are rubbing against each other in opposite directions. The convection currents will shun these areas in favor of parts of the fluid where they can flow more easily. And so the fluid spontaneously segregates itself into cells where high energy, low density fluid flows up from the center of the cell and cooler, denser fluid flows down along the edges, with diffusion effects dominating in the area between the center and the edge of each cell.
Synergy and constraint: What is notable about morphodynamic processes is that order spontaneously emerges explicitly because the ordered system that results is more efficient at increasing entropy than a chaotic one. In the case of the Rayleigh–Bénard cell, neither diffusion nor convection on their own will produce as much entropy as both effects coupled together. When both effects are brought into interaction, they constrain each other into a particular geometric form because that form facilitates minimal interference between the two processes. The orderly hexagonal form is stable as long as the energy differential persists, and yet the orderly form more effectively degrades the energy differential than any other form. This is why morphodynamic processes in nature are usually so short lived. They are self organizing, but also self undermining.

=== Teleodynamics ===
A teleodynamic system consists of coupling two morphodynamic systems such that the self undermining quality of each is constrained by the other. Each system prevents the other from dissipating all of the energy available, and so long term organizational stability is obtained. Deacon claims that we should pinpoint the moment when two morphodynamic systems reciprocally constrain each other as the point when ententional qualities like function, purpose and normativity emerge.

==== Autogenesis ====

Deacon explores the properties of teleodynamic systems by describing a chemically plausible model system called an autogen. Deacon emphasizes that the specific autogen he describes is not a proposed description of the first life form, but rather a description of the kinds of thermodynamic synergies that the first living creature likely possessed.

Reciprocal catalysis: An autogen consists of two self catalyzing cyclical morphodynamic chemical reactions, similar to a chemoton. In one reaction, organic molecules react in a looped series, the products of one reaction becoming the reactants for the next. This looped reaction is self amplifying, producing more and more reactants until all the substrate is consumed. A side product of this reciprocally catalytic loop is a lipid that can be used as a reactant in a second reaction. This second reaction creates a boundary (either a microtubule or some other closed capsid like structure), that serves to contain the first reaction. The boundary limits diffusion; it keeps all of the necessary catalysts in close proximity to each other. In addition, the boundary prevents the first reaction from completely consuming all of the available substrate in the environment.
The first self: Unlike an isolated morphodynamic process whose organization rapidly eliminates the energy gradient necessary to maintain its structure, a teleodynamic process is self-limiting and self-preserving. The two reactions complement each other, and ensure that neither ever runs to equilibrium - that is completion, cessation, and death. So, in a teleodynamic system there will be structures that embody a preliminary sketch of a biological function. The internal reaction network functions to create the substrates for the boundary reaction, and the boundary reaction functions to protect and constrain the internal reaction network. Either process in isolation would be abiotic but together they create a system with a normative status dependent on the functioning of its component parts.

== Work ==
As with other concepts in the book, in his discussion of work Deacon seeks to generalize the Newtonian conception of work such that the term can be used to describe and differentiate mental phenomena - to describe "that which makes daydreaming effortless but metabolically equivalent problem solving difficult."  Work is generally described as "activity that is necessary to overcome resistance to change. Resistance can be either active or passive, and so work can be directed towards enacting change that wouldn't otherwise occur or preventing change that would happen in its absence." Using the terminology developed earlier in the book, work can be considered to be "the organization of differences between orthograde processes such that a locus of contragrade process is created. Or, more simply, work is a spontaneous change inducing a non-spontaneous change to occur."