146 INTELLIGENT DEVELOPMENT
both very responsive and suitably adaptable under changeable conditions.
Th is contrasts with the rigidity and lack of adaptability in predetermined
states and pro cesses.
A diagrammatic repre sen ta tion is shown in fi gure 5.5. Here a previ-
ously undiff erentiated stem cell is drawn by morphogenic fi elds into one or
another attractor states (cell types). Th e topographical fi gure shows only
three dimensions. In real ity, there will be many more variables in the
multidimensional attractor space.
In this way, we can see that there is nothing radically new about the in-
telligence of development. Th e operational logic among components in
single cells has been extended to regulate interactions among cells. Th at
is how they become coordinated, responding cooperatively to an even
more changeable outside. As before, potential— its form and (now more
extreme) variation—is not encoded in genes but emerges in self- organized
systems. With these general princi ples in mind, let us continue the
story.
FIGURE 5.5
Developing cell (ball) is drawn into one or other fi nal attractor states (cell types) in an
attractor landscape. (From B.D. MacArthur, A. Ma’ayan, and I. R. Lemischka, “Sys-
tems Biology of Stem Cell Fate and Cellular Reprogramming,” Nature Reviews Cell
Biology 10 (October 2010): 672–681. Reprinted with permission.)
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