Homeostasis as the Mechanism of Evolution

Abstract

Homeostasis is conventionally thought of merely as a synchronic (same time) servo-mechanism that maintains the status quo for organismal physiology. However, when seen from the perspective of developmental physiology, homeostasis is a robust, dynamic, intergenerational, diachronic (across-time) mechanism for the maintenance, perpetuation and modification of physiologic structure and function. The integral relationships generated by cell-cell signaling for the mechanisms of embryogenesis, physiology and repair provide the needed insight to the scale-free universality of the homeostatic principle, offering a novel opportunity for a Systems approach to Biology. Starting with the inception of life itself, with the advent of reproduction during meiosis and mitosis, moving forward both ontogenetically and phylogenetically through the evolutionary steps involved in adaptation to an ever-changing environment, Biology and Evolution Theory need no longer default to teleology.

Replicating and Cycling Stores of Information Perpetuate Life

“…[55] However, these changes are often lost after a few generations, [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] ensuring preservation of the ancestral configuration (see Ref. [105] for a discussion of homeostasis and evolution).…”

The resolution of ambiguity as the basis for life: A cellular bridge between Western reductionism and Eastern holism

“…The stress caused leakage of calcium from the ER into the cytoplasm, and the peroxisomes exploited lipids to ‘buffer’ that intracellular calcium (Case et al, 2007). It can thereby be advanced that the ubiquitous ability of PPARγ agonists to prevent fibrosis (Deng, Xiong and Cheng, 2012) characterizes an ancient homeostatic problem-solving mechanism in accord with the First Principle of Physiology (Torday, 2015a). …”

“…Biology can consequently be understood as the self-referential application of mechanistic tools originating within First Principles of Physiology, dynamically purposed towards pragmatic solutions set against an ever-changing environment (Torday, 2016b). All living phenomena that have been individually categorized as separable processes of homeostasis (Torday, 2015a), pleiotropy (Torday, 2015b), or heterochrony (Torday, 2016) can finally be appraised as means as opposed to ends in coping with the ambiguity that characterizes the circumstances of all living things. Within a self-referential construct, problem solving is life’s imperative, and the information that it has available has its conspicuous limitations.…”

“…Such constrained boundaries enabled life as a negentropic state that exists far from thermodynamic equilibrium, as first defined by Schrodinger (1944). This pseudo-physical state is sustained within the interior milieu of this membrane-bound compartment through homeostatic regulation (Torday, 2015a) as the reciprocating hub between the negentropic moment of the cellular interior and an ever-changing external environment. Therefore, homeostasis is a dynamic process realized through chemiosmosis that serves to maintain a range of far from equilibrium states within the boundary limits of the cell.…”

Untitled

“…It is a robust, dynamic, intergenerational, diachronic (acrosstime) mechanism for maintenance, perpetuation, and modification of physiological structure and function. 1 During the process of human evolution, an enormous variety of mechanisms were selected in order to keep physiological functions within tightly regulated and controlled limits. Neurally-mediated anticipatory responses, also named cephalic phase responses (CPR), and microcirculatory regulation are examples of these mechanisms.…”