Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Form, philosophy: A. Form traditionally is an antonym of matter or content. Form is the structure or arrangement of something. It is the way that something is organized or composed. Form can be found in art, music, literature, architecture, nature and language. See also statue/clay, exterior/interior, Wholes, Parts, Dualism, Substance, Substrate, Change, Process.
B. In logic it comes to the form in which statements must be expressed in order to allow conclusions. See also Fine-grained/coarse-grained, Completeness, Theories, Systems, Formalism._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Stephen Jay Gould on Forms - Dictionary of Arguments
I 44 Form/nature/physics/Gould: D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1942) prophetically argued that organisms are directly formed by physical forces. (1) I 260 Form/life/organism/evolution/physics/Gould: stability is created by the fact that a living being is large enough to penetrate into an area where gravity surpasses the forces that take place on the surface. As the ratio of surface to volume decreases with growth, an increasing size is the safest way into this area. The Earth's physical environment contains numerous habitats, which are only available to organisms that are larger than single-celled organisms. The multicellularity probably originated in several places independently of each other. It has the two main features of analogue similarity: 1. It is relatively easy to reach and both highly adaptable and flexible as well as 2. the only possible route to the benefits it brings. With the exception of ostrich eggs, individual cells cannot grow very large. I 261 The multicellularity has probably arisen even within the individual kingdoms several times. Most biologists believe that it occurs in plants and fungi through amalgamation. These organisms are the descendants of protist colonies. (Protists: unicellular organisms, see Terminology/Gould). For example, some Volvox colonies with a fixed number of cells are regularly arranged. The cells may differ in size and the reproductive function may be limited to those of them located at a pole. I 264 Larger animals have such a low ratio of outer surface to volume that they need to form internal organs to increase the available surface area. I 288 Ratio of surface to volume: the ratio of surface to volume is very high in small organisms. Heat is generated by the volume of the body and radiated at its surface. Therefore warm-blooded animals have a particularly high energy requirement. Field mice, for example, must eat all the time. The ratio was so low for the large dinosaurs that they could get by without an insulation layer. I 311 Form/life/physics/size/Gould: the character of Morgan in E. L. Doctorow's "Ragtime" was wrong when he thought that large mammals were geometric copies of their smaller relatives. Elephants have relatively larger brains and thicker legs than mice. He is right in that larger animals are often similar to smaller relatives in the same group. Galileo already gave a classic example: the strength of a leg is a function of the cross-section. The weight that the legs have to carry varies with their volume. In order for the bodily functions to remain the same, animals must change their form when they become larger: this is the "scaling theory". E. g. from crab spider to tarantula, the scale of relatives reaches up to a thousand times the body weight of the smallest specimen. Here too, the scale runs regularly: the duration of the heartbeat increases only 4/10 times as fast as in relation to the body weight. I 312 Small animals move through life much faster than large ones, their heart beats faster, they breathe more frequently, their pulse is faster, their "fire of life "burns" faster: in mammals, the metabolic rate increases by only three quarters as fast as the body weight. Smaller ones tend to live shorter than large ones. I 313 However, the homo sapiens lives much longer than a comparable mammal of the same size: See Neoteny/Gould. The importance of the astronomical time is by no means to be denied; animals must measure it in order to survive. I 315 Breathing time and heartbeat increase about 0.28 times faster than body weight; the body weight can be reduced, leaving mammals of any size to breathe once at about 4 beats. For all mammals, regardless of their size, they also breathe about 200 million times during their lifetime, the heart beats about 800 million times. I 318 ff There are magnetotactic bacteria that orient themselves according to the fields and move accordingly. They thus resist the mechanism of Brownian movement. It was discovered that the magnets are distributed in the body of the bacteria in the form of about 20 small particles. Question: why is there this distribution of magnetism on particles, and why are these particles about 500 Angstrom large (1 Angstrom = 1 ten millionth of a millimetre). They form a chain in the body of the elongated bacteria. I 320 If these particles were a little smaller (about one-fifth smaller) then they would be "superparamagnetic", i. e. a magnetic reorientation of the particles could be effected at room temperature. If, on the other hand, they were twice as large, for example, the particles would form their own magnetic range within the particles, pointing in different directions. What can such a small creature do with a magnetic field? The room for movement during the few minutes of their existence is probably only a few centimetres. It does not really matter which way it goes. It can now be decisive for a bacterium to move downwards. Now gravity can be felt at least as well without a magnetic field. However, this only applies to large organisms. I 322 Insects and birds live in a world dominated by forces that affect the surface. Some of them can run on water or hang down from the ceiling because the surface tension is so strong and the gravitation is relatively weak. Gravity is hardly a problem for insects and not at all for bacteria. - - - IV 17 Forms/biology/Gould: Darwin: thesis: form follows function. IV 19 It is the question of how a form develops continuously. IV 27 Adaptation: we should not conclude that Darwin's assumed adaptability to a local environment has unrestricted power to generate theoretically optimal designs for all situations. The natural selection can only use existing material. This is the classic dilemma of evolutionary theory. IV 151 Forms/evolution/Gould: perhaps the most difficult problem of evolution is: how can new complex forms (not just single adaptive advantageous features) be created when every single form requires thousands of individual changes and when intermediate stages do not produce viable specimens? Solution: new forms do not need to be created piece by piece, but a development program is started in a coordinated manner by activating a "main switch". IV 337 Form/organisms/evolution/Gould: surfaces grow with the square of length, volumes with the third power of length and thus much faster. Therefore, compared to their volume, small animals have a large surface area (and must eat more). 1. D' Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Onb Groth and Form, 1917, Cambridge University Press, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6604798M/On_growth_and_form. (access date 12.01. 2018)_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gould I Stephen Jay Gould The Panda’s Thumb. More Reflections in Natural History, New York 1980 German Edition: Der Daumen des Panda Frankfurt 2009 Gould II Stephen Jay Gould Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. Further Reflections in Natural History, New York 1983 German Edition: Wie das Zebra zu seinen Streifen kommt Frankfurt 1991 Gould III Stephen Jay Gould Full House. The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, New York 1996 German Edition: Illusion Fortschritt Frankfurt 2004 Gould IV Stephen Jay Gould The Flamingo’s Smile. Reflections in Natural History, New York 1985 German Edition: Das Lächeln des Flamingos Basel 1989 |
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