LIFE AS A DISSIPATIVE STRUCTURE. A METABLETIC EXPLORATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH RESEARCH

This paper elaborates on the attempts in medical science to tackle complex or non-linear phenomena at the microscopic scale by a process of linearization. Questions of predictability and computability of stochastic phenomena are at the basis of the extrapolation of molecular interactions from the microscale to the macroscale of the cellular machinery and of the multicellular organism. The effects of this linearization procedure not only are observed in the handling of cellular processes in medicine, but also generate consequences at the population level in the organization of public health. The notion of dissipative structure thus is inferred at several levels of organization. This paper is centered around the discovery of the (messenger) RNA concept by the Brussels Rouge-Cloître Group, a discovery that played a key-role in the postwar developments of molecular biology and genomics, and consequently also in epidemiology and vaccine development. In the footsteps of the philosophy of Peter Sloterdijk, the conceptual framework of immunology not only is found to constitute a medical discipline, but it is also identified as a group-forming (neuro-) semantic mechanism. As such it forms a target in AI-generated networks. A final note is added to the need and urgency of limitations set to the exploitation of these semantic mechanisms, for the sake of human social cohesion.