AJP - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Vol 236, Issue 5 241-R246, Copyright © 1979 by American Physiological Society
Complementarity vs. reduction as explanation of biological complexity
H. H. Pattee
The classical structure-function relation is presented as an example of an
epistemological complementarity. Complementarity implies that a
satisfactory explanation requires two modes of description, neither
derivable from nor reducible to the other, as well as mutual
incompatibility in a formal logical sense. Complementarity arose from the
difficulty in describing conditional measurement processes in the language
of causal microscopic laws of physics. Biological structure is associated
with description in the language of physical laws, whereas biological
function is associated with description of informational processes, i.e.,
measurement and control, that are complementary in the above sense. An
explicit incompatibility between these two modes of description is that
laws are expressed as rate-dependent equations, whereas informational
processes are expressed as rate-independent nonintegrable constraints. The
functional mode allows a simplification of structurally complex
organization that is essential, not only for explanation, but for
self-description at all levels of biological organization.
