1968/06/21 by Michael Polanyi · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Philosophy and History of Science
paper · doi:10.1126/science.160.3834.1308
openalex publication_date 1968/06/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry. Further controlling principles of life may be represented as a hierarchy of boundary conditions extending, in the case of man, to consciousness and responsibility.