Multiscale Thinking

Why or why not?

Some might say that bacteria and their prokaryotic cousins, like molecular ideologues, blabber what they think willy-nilly*. They will probably be all that's left of earth life when evolution of our sun begins to evaporate the oceans. But the eukaryotic cells of plants and animals, although more fragile, can do cool stuff like make people! Who knows what might be possible if we learn to express idea codes so that they too are informed to processes on multiple scales of space, time and organization. It's easier said than done, but saying it may be an important step.

* At least in comparison to the fancy methods for regulating expression that eukaryotes have in place.

What?

These figures provide clues to what we mean by multiple scales of space, time, and organization:

Where?

One place to look is in places where threads converge, problems proliferate, new fields emerge & disciplines disrupt, as in ...

• Nanoscience – where chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, medicine, CSI, ethics & complex system studies of emergence run together,
• Astrobiology – where Chaisson’s cosmic evolution (the natural history of invention) intersects our distant past & our distant future, and
• Informatics – where the code-based sciences (genetics, computer science, linguistics), thermal physics, journalism, non-linear networks & statistical inference join up.

How?

At UM-StL you might start by playing with and commenting on:

• some empirical observation exercises in multiscale...
  • ...time [anyspeed] [wiki],
  • ...space [nano] [powers], and
  • ...organization [spider].
• some rubrics for scientific interaction,
• the fleas on fleas on fleas journal for scientific reporting w/peer review,
• possibilities for multiscale values, and
• the long-term InfoNanoAstroBio (INAB) challenge.