May 02, 2006: On Contradiction #4: "Contradiction" in Nature
Relationships similar to those of contradiction and dialectical process are recognized in the modern physical sciences, but they are described using different terminologies.
For example, in biology and in control theory (engineering) there is the concept of feedback, a process in which some portion of the output of a system is returned (fed back) to the system, eliciting an inhibited or enhanced response. One instance of feedback regulation in human biology is the interaction of the pituitary gland and the thyroid gland. The pituitary gland secretes a thyroid-stimulating hormone that causes the thyroid gland to produce a number of substances that are used elsewhere in the body. However, one of these substances circulates back to the pituitary and inhibits the level of thyroid-stimulating hormone that is released by the pituitary.
Pehaps the most notable, recent scientific development of a "dialectics of nature" is chaos theory (also known as non-linear dynamics). Chaos theory focusses on the behaviour of systems that have certain types of feedback mechanisms (or recursion relations) and has provided insight into how new system properties emerge as a system develops under non-equilibrium conditions. (i.e., the theory looks at "contradiction" and the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes)
Systems theory (used in both the physical and social sciences) appears to be formulated in an explicitly dialectical way: the structure of any system is seen to consist of "many circular, interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among its components [which are] just as important in determining its behavior as the individual components themselves." (Wikipedia)
