Emergence in Bio-Molecular Networks?

Christophe Malaterre (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

Bio-molecular networks are often called upon to illustrate emergent properties of living systems. In this contribution, I question such emergentist claims by means of theoretical work on genetic regulatory models and random boolean networks. If the existence of a critical connectivity Kc of such networks has often been coined "emergent" or "irreductible", I propose on the contrary that the existence of a critical connectivity Kc is indeed "deductible" from random Boolean network theory. This conclusion also applies to many other types of formal networks and weakens the emergentist claim attached to bio-molecular networks, and by extension to living systems.

Mots clés: living systems

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Christophe Malaterre. Emergence in Bio-Molecular Networks?. Annual Conference, Dec 2008, Philadelphia, United States. ⟨halshs-00792032⟩