-
-
adaptation
-
Maturana (1978) distinguishes between two distinct classes or categories
of adaptation -- ontogenic adaptation and evolutionary adaptation. Both
categories of adaptation "...arise through the selection of the
structures that permit the autopoiesis of the living system in the
medium in which it exists." (Maturana, 1978, p. 38) The difference is
based on the fact that ontogenic adaptation is the "...coupling of the
changing structure of a structurally plastic autopoietic unity to the
changing structure of the medium..." (Maturana, 1978, p. 38), whereas
evolutionary adaptation is the "...history of successively produced,
historically connected unities generated through sequential reproductive
steps..." (Maturana, 1978, p. 38) Adaptation "...always results from
sequences of interactions of a plastic system in its medium that trigger
in the plastic system structural changes or changes of state that, and
any instant, select in it a structure that either matches (is
homomorphic to) the structure of the medium in which it operates
(interacts or behaves) as such a system, or disintegrate it."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 39)
Cf. : ontogenic adaptation, evolutionary adaptation
-
admissible symbolic descriptions
-
Varela (1979) draws a distinction between operational explanations and symbolic explanations (Cf. comparison
under the entry for explanation). Although he
notes a preference for operational description / explanation in dealing
with autonomous systems, he also points out that (a) strict adherence to
this approach might be problematically dogmatic, and (b) symbolic forms
of description / explanation can be economical (compared to the sort of
literal or mechanistic generative simulation required for the
operational approach).
He then explores the question of when and how
symbolic explanations are permissible and useful in addressing
autonomous systems. The first step is scrutinizing the notion of a symbol, because "...in order to
understand fully how the cognitive domain of such a system can operate
and be modified, we must look at the dynamic regularities that arise
within the system and that can be treated as symbolic events." (Varela,
1979, p. 81) This leads to delineation of two primary features of
'symbols' in natural systems, of which the one relevant here is:
"Internal Determination. An object or event is a symbol
only if it is a token for an abbreviated nomic chain that occurs
within the bounds of the system's organizational closure.
In other words, whenever the system's closure determines certain
regularities in the face of internal or external interactions and
perturbations, such regularities can be abbreviated as a symbol, usually
the initial or terminal element in the nomic chain."
(Varela, 1979, pp. 79-80)
Varela then invokes the example of nitrogen base triplets 'encoding' an amino acid in a cell's protein sequences. This is 'encoding' only in the sense that the triplet's occurrence is correlated with a repetitive pattern discernible in the actual / causal (i.e., 'operational') dynamics of the cell. "But such a dynamic pattern occurs entirely within the bounds of the cell's closure; the cell itself contains the 'interpretation' for the symbol. We then chose the triplet as the symbol for the amino acids by abbreviating the long sequence of chemical steps from the internal recursion where such chemical reactions normally operate." (p. 80)
In (seemingly arbitrarily) associating triplets with amino acids, an observer is using a sort of explanatory shorthand by ignoring at least some of the operations which realize the pattern of dynamics thus denoted. "To the extent that this ignoring is based on the regularities of the dynamics of an autonomous system, this symbolic description is admissible, and it plays a useful role in the study of autopoietic systems on a larger time scale ... In the molecular examples of admissible symbols, their underlying causal chains are still apparent and accessible, and we can switch from one type of description to the other with a certain ease." (p. 80)
Cf. : explanation, operational explanations, symbol, symbolic explanations
-
aggression
-
As delineated in contradistinction with love: "... the domain of those
behaviors through which the other arises denied as a legitimate other in
coexistence with oneself." (Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
-
allo-
-
A combinatoric term derived from the Greek allos ("other; different") and used to generate a
variety of terms in autopoietic theory such as allo-referred, allonomy, allopoiesis, allopoietic, etc.
In this usage, the prefix allo- typically serves to contrast a root term with another instanced
prefixed by auto-.
Cf. : auto-
-
allo-referred (systems)
-
An early construct used by Maturana to denote those systems "...that could only be characterized
with reference to a context." (Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xiii) The opposite of self-referred
(systems).
-
allonomy
-
A term with the literal meaning of "external law", synonymous with the
notion of "control". The opposite of autonomy (in the sense of
"self-law"). (Varela, 1979, p. xi) Varela uses this term to
distinguish a duality of "control" (or capacity for control) evidenced
by systems -- i.e., those which are "controllable" from without
(allonomy) and those whose control is a function or effect of their own
constitution (autonomy).
In The Embodied Mind (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991), the term heteronomy is apparently used as a synonym for allonomy.
Cf. : autonomous description, autonomy , control, control description, heteronomy
-
allopoiesis
-
A term formed by the combination of allo- ("other") and -poiesis
("creation"). The state or character of systems whose operation results
in something other than the maintenance of their defining organization .
This term is mainly invoked to establish a contrastive alternative to
the autonomy and autopoiesis evidenced by living systems (the primary
focus of Maturana and Varela's work).
Cf. : allopoietic machine / system
-
allopoietic machine / system
-
Systems which "...have as the product of their functioning something
different from themselves." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135; Varela,
1979a, p. 15). Such systems can be defined as components of a subsuming
supersystem in which they play the part of a functional contributor. By
virtue of this "component" status, allopoietic machines can be described in terms of "purpose" (their role in the larger context), and
they may be ascribed "inputs" and "outputs" (with respect to that same
context). Allopoietic machines are therefore delineated with respect to
a teleology -- something not ascribable to an autopoietic unity . They are therefore members of the class of
allo- referred systems (to use Maturana's early terminology).
Allopoietic machines are therefore construed as such icogdo
an observer. They "...have an identity that
depends on the observer and is not determined through their operation,
because its product is different from themselves; allopoietic machines
do have an externally defined individuality." (Varela, 1979, p. 15)
This last feature derives from the fact that an allopoietic machine's
"boundaries are specified by an observer, who by specifying its input
and output surfaces, specifies what pertains to it in its operations."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 81; Cf. : Varela, 1979, p. 15)
"Since the changes that allopoietic machines may suffer without losing
their definitory organization are necessarily subordinated to the
production of something different from themselves, they are not
autonomous." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 80; Varela, 1979, p. 15)
Since the ascription of allopoiesis is a functional attribution, "...an
observer can describe an autopoietic component of a composite system as
playing an allopoietic role through the realization of the larger system
that it contributes to realizing through its autopoiesis." (Varela,
1979a, p. 52). Such an ascription neither addresses nor negates the
autopoietic status of the machine so treated. "In fact, autopoietic and
allopoietic descriptions of a system are complementary pairs, depending
on the observer's needs. They are a particular instance of ... the
universal duality between autonomous and control descriptions..."
(Varela, 1979, p. 16) Cf. : autopoietic machine.
Cf. : allopoiesis, allopoietic role, autonomy , autonomous machine, autopoiesis , autopoietic machine / system, purpose
-
allopoietic role
-
A term used to denote the functional participation of a system
(especially an autopoietic system) in
a larger supersystem, such that the participating system can be
characterized by an observer as an allopoietic machine or submachine serving as a component of the supersystem. Phrased another
way, an observer ascribes an allopoietic role to a system (participating
in a subsuming network or system) when the operation of the subject
system (in the context of the subsuming one) appears to have a purpose other than the maintenance of its (the
subject system's) own organization .
Because (by definition) an autopoietic machine's function is defined and
determined by its own organization (and the maintenance of that
organization), any analogous reference to an autopoietic role is
descriptively meaningless.
Cf. : allopoietic machine, autopoietic machine, machine, submachine
-
ambience
-
A general term used to denote the medium or milieu in which living
systems are realized. (Cf. Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela,
1980, p. 9) More specifically, the ascription of 'ambience' connotes
that within which a subject unity is embedded. This implies that
whatever character the ambience may evidence interpenetrates or subsumes
both the subject unity and whatever else is apprehended as its environs.
Such observer-ascribed "environs" are distinguished in the literature
(when distinguished at all) as the environment. As such, 'ambience' comes close to
being a construct connotative of an objective substrate for an
observer's distinction / eduction of a given subject unity.
Ultimately, however, neither Maturana nor Varela explicitly embrace this
connotation of objective status. Because their delineation of
'ambience' is qualified with respect to realization, the ambient ascribed by an observer of a living system's
ontogeny is a descriptive construct of the observer, and not a
definitive feature of the system's organization . (See Also:
Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 99) Varela (1979) occasionally
refers to this construct as ambient.
For the sake of illustration, it is safe to say that ambience is equivalent in connotation to that which
Winograd and Flores (1986) denote as the specific construct 'medium':
"...[W]e use the term 'medium' rather than 'environment' to refer to the space in which an
organism exists. This is to avoid the connotation that there is a separation between an entity and its
'environment.' An entity exists as part of a medium, not as a separate object inside it."
(Winograd & Flores, 1986, p. 43, footnote 7)
Winograd and Flores' connotation of 'medium' being all-subsumptive (i.e., of both the system and
its environs) matches the connotations given 'ambience' by Maturana and Varela (1980).
NOTE: In later (e.g., post-1985) writings, Maturana has commonly employed the term medium
as an apparent surrogate for environment, although some passages can be interpreted as connoting
something more like ambience. As such, it is not safe to blindly equate Maturana's later allusions
to 'medium' with either Winograd and Flores' precise usage of that term or to Maturana and
Varela's (1980) precisely-delineated construct of 'ambience.'
Figure AmbEnv illustrates the variant delineations of 'ambience', 'environment', and 'medium'. This figure is located within the entry for 'environment'.
Cf. : ambient, environment, medium
-
ambient
-
A synonym for ambience occasionally used by Varela in Principles of Biological Autonomy
(1979).
Cf. : ambience
-
analytic (explanatory paradigm)
-
A label used by Varela (1979, p. 10) to connote rational explanations
framed with respect to reduction of phenomena to atomic elements. A
synonym for scientific reductionism. The opposite of synthetic
explanatory approaches.
-
"Anything said is said by an observer."
-
A famous (and thematically central) quotation attributable to Humberto
Maturana. This declaration set the stage for constructing a theory of
cognition which focuses upon the cognitive system which both evidences
this "cognition" and which is in fact attempting to describe and explain
it. It occurs in the earliest documents of the literature base:
Neurophysiology of Cognition (Maturana, 1970a, p. 4) and Biology of
Cognition (Maturana, 1970b, reprinted as the first section of
Autopoiesis and Cognition - Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 8).
This phrase is sometimes quoted as "Everything said is said by an
observer...", as in the passage: "Everything said is said by an observer
to another observer who can be himself or herself." (Cf. Maturana, 1978)
Cf. : observer
-
asymmetry
-
A term used by Varela (1979, p. 101) to denote the form of duality for which his Star statement / operator applies -- i.e., a form in which the two terms are reciprocally related across levels of referentiality (as opposed to within one such level -- i.e., symmetry).
A more detailed overview of the context for this dichotomy (as well as Figure SymAsym illustrating it) can be found in the entry for Star.
Cf. : complementarity, Star, symmetry
-
auto-
-
A combinatoric term derived from the Greek auto- (connoting "self";
"same") and used in the generation of much of the theory's terminology.
In this usage, auto- typically distinguishes a root term from the
complementary prefix allo- ("other") to denote reference or
applicability to the same object or process (as opposed to a
distinguishable other).
Cf. : allo-
-
autonomous description
-
Per Varela (1979), one of the two major classes of system description (the other being control
descriptions).
-
autonomous machine (system)
-
Any machine / system exhibiting autonomy (in Varela's specific sense).
A member of the class which subsumes autopoietic systems. This general
class is defined by organizational closure in these systems'
constitution. In the following two definitions (with some variation in
phrasing), Varela states autonomous systems are:
A. "...mechanistic (dynamic) systems defined as a unity by their
organization. We shall say that autonomous systems are organizationally
closed. That is, their organization is characterized by processes such
that (1) the processes are related as a network, so that they
recursively depend on each other in the generation and realization of
the processes themselves, and (2) they constitute the system as a unity
recognizable in the space (domain) in which the processes exist."
(Varela, 1979, p. 55)
B. '...defined as a composite unity by a network of interactions of
components that (i) through their interactions recursively regenerate
the network of interactions that produced them, and (ii) realize the
network as a unity in the space in which the components exist by
constituting and specifying the unity's boundaries as a cleavage from
the background...' (Varela, 1981a, p. 15)
Cf. : autonomy , autopoiesis , autopoietic machine / system, organizational closure
-
autonomy
-
-
1.
-
The definitive quality of the class of systems subsuming autopoietic
systems. This general class is defined by organizational closure in
these systems' constitution. The concept is defined indirectly, through
definition of the autonomous machine / system which exhibits this
quality. The difference between autonomy and autopoiesis is that
autopoietic systems must produce their own components in addition to
conserving their organization and specifying their boundaries in the
space of realization.
-
2.
-
"Autonomy is the distinctive phenomenology resulting from an autopoietic organization: the realization of the autopoietic organization is the product of its operation."
(Varela, Maturana & Uribe, 1974, p. 188)
In the early literature, a label connoting "The condition of
subordinating all changes to the maintenance of the organization.
Self-asserting capacity of living systems to maintain their identity
through the active compensation of deformations." (Maturana & Varela,
1980, p. 135) In this early, generic sense the term connoted "...the
central feature of the organization of the living" (Maturana, in Maturana & Varela,
1980, p. xvii; also see Maturana, 1980a, p. 45) Although it is
obviously closely related, this early usage of the term should not be
construed as precisely synonymous with Varela's (1979) more rigorous
(and distinct) usage (1. above).
-
3.
-
In generic usage, the notion of self-guidance or self-control -- literally, "self-law." (Varela,
1979, p. xi). The opposite of allonomy or control.
Regardless of the specific above-cited nuance employed, 'autonomy' is the central principle or heuristic around which Maturana and Varela's theories revolve. As a subject for scientific enquiry, 'autonomy' entails a significant divergence from conventional models and techniques. Much of Varela's solo work during the 1970's concentrated on developing new tools with which to address systems as autonomous machines. In doing so, he laid out a map relating (a) the characterization of a system (in and of itself) as either autonomous or allonomous (subject to extrinsic control) versus (b) the mode of representation by which said system is modeled (either in terms of its closure or its observed interactions). This summary overview of the methodological landscape is reproduced in Table CharRep below.
TABLE CHARREP:
Varela's Overview of System Characterization versus System Representation
|
Adapted from Varela (1979)
(p. 206, Table 13.1)
|
BASIS FOR REPRESENTATION:
|
BASIS FOR
CHARACTERIZATION:
|
Closure
|
Interaction
|
|
Autonomy
|
-
identity
-
connectivity
-
indefinite recursion
-
eigenbehavior
-
stability
|
-
perturbations - compensations
-
cognitive domain
-
resilience
-
ontogenesis
|
|
Control
|
-
coordination of parts
-
hierarchical levels
-
finite recursion
-
signal flow
-
state transitions
|
-
black box
-
dissipative structures
-
input - output
|
Table CharRep is but a sketch of elements methodologically relevant to the study of systems as autonomous unities. The reader is invited to compare this Table's contents in relation to (e.g.) the dichotomy between the recursive and behavioral views of particular unities, the distinction between symbolic and operational explanations, and other constructs concerning observation / description / explanation.
Cf. : autonomous machine / system, autopoiesis , autopoietic machine (system), closure, Closure Thesis, organizational
closure
-
autopoiesis
-
-
1.
-
The theoretical construct definitive of the manner of operation of that
class of systems that includes living systems. This term, combined from
the Greek auto- (self) and poiesis
(creation/production), was coined by Maturana in (approximately) 1972
(Cf. Maturana's comments in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xvii). Often loosely
translated as 'self-creation' or 'self-production', the term connotes
the process or dynamic by which an autopoietic machine / system maintains its autopoietic organization (via
intrinsic processes of production of components realizing this
particular organization). More specifically, autopoiesis is attributed to a
machine (delineated as a a network of processes)
which through that network of processes produces the components that:
"(1) through their interactions and transformations continuously
regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that
produced them; and
(2) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in
which they [the components] exist by specifying the topological domain
of its realization as such a network."
(Varela, 1979, p. 13)
In the primary literature, autopoiesis is not directly defined as a
process. Instead it is defined indirectly, on the basis of how an 'autopoietic machine'
operates. There are, in fact, very few instances in the primary literature where 'autopoiesis' is substantively treated in and of itself, and then only as a process characteristic of 'self-production' or 'homeostatic organization' -- constructs themselves framed mechanicistically with respect to the subject system's architectonics. For example, Varela (1979, pp. 24-26) comes closest to addressing 'autopoiesis' directly in the course of discussing productions of relations in a given system:
"What makes this system a unity with identity and individuality is that all the relations of production are coordinated in a system describable as having an invariant organization. In such a system any deformation at any place is compensated for ...by keeping its organization constant as defined by the relation of the productions that constitute autopoiesis. The only thing that defines the cell as a unity (as an individual) is its autopoiesis, and thus, the only restriction put on the existence of the cell is the maintenance of autopoiesis."
(Varela, 1979, p. 26, emphasis in the original)
"...[A]utopoiesis may arise in a molecular system if the relations of production are concatenated in such a way that they produce components specifying the system as a unity that exists only while it is actively produced by such concatenation of processes. This is to say that autopoiesis arises in a molecular system only when the relation that concatenates these relations is produced and maintained constant through the production of the molecular components that constitute the system through this concatenation."
(Varela, 1979, pp. 26-27)
NOTE: Given the above distinctions and qualifications about the nature and origin of the construct 'autopoiesis', the details on what makes a composite unity (system)
'autopoietic' are therefore to be found under the entries for autopoietic machine and autopoietic organization.
The strict, though indirect, definition of autopoiesis proposed in the early papers was
intended to provide a basis for overcoming vague or problematical
characterizations of living systems -- particularly those which represented vitalistic explanation of biological phenomena. As Maturana (1980a, p. 45) put it,
the construct of autopoiesis:
"...resulted from the direct attempt ... to provide a complete
characterization of the organization that makes living systems
self-contained autonomous unities, and that makes explicit the relations
among their components which must remain invariant under a continuous
structural transformation and material turnover."
This passage reinforces the viewpoint that it is the constitutive organization of an autopoietic system which is primary in delineating autopoiesis. This is reflected even in the less formal popular account given in The Tree of Knowledge (Maturana & Varela, 1987, 1992):
"When we speak of living beings, we presuppose something in common between them; otherwise we wouldn't put them in the same class we designate with the name 'living.' What has not been said, however, is: what is the organization that defines them as a class? Our proposition is that living beings are characterized in that, literally, they are continually self-producing. We indicate this process when we call the organization that defined them an autopoietic organization."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 43, emphasis added)
Having said that, Maturana and Varela proceed (as they have consistently done in the more formal literature) to delineate the autopoietic organization as the basis for 'indicating' the process of 'autopoiesis.'
These last quotations illustrate a point which has proven somewhat problematical over the years. As mentioned at the outset, 'autopoiesis' has in fact been delineated and formally defined in terms of the constitution and operational character of an autopoietic machine or system. This definitional approach was entirely consistent with the mechanicistic perspective from which Maturana and Varela initially proceeded. To have invoked an ephemeral 'autopoiesis' (e.g., as a processual or qualitative referent) would have arguably entailed sliding into the sort of vitalistic explanation which they explicitly opposed and stringently avoided.
In other words, 'autopoiesis' is an abstract construct known solely in relation to a machine / system of a particular constitution which maintains its key constitutive character over time. Strictly speaking, autopoiesis has not been positively defined as a type of process in and of itself, even though it is clear in the context of its primary literature (e.g., Maturana & Varela, 1980) that it is the dynamic or process evidenced by, and reciprocally preservative of, the autopoietic organization / autopoietic machine. Nonetheless, it became common practice (even on occasion by Maturana and Varela themselves) to allude to 'autopoiesis' as a rhetorical shorthand connoting (in terms of process) the constitutive and operational details of a particular system. This is most evident when addressing the dynamics of an autopoietic system -- i.e., when the processes manifest in the autopoietic network comprise the referential foreground, and the mechanics of the network itself are relegated to the background.
Given the above-cited conditions, it is possibly understandable, though definitely somewhat ironic, that this indirectly- or allusively-defined shorthand term should become the de facto label for the essence of Maturana and Varela's work, as well as a common label for that work itself (Cf. 2. below). So long as such invocations retain (or at least can be linked to) the sort of mechanicistic context in which the process 'autopoiesis' is definitively framed, this is not problematical. What is problematical is explanatory invocation (and reliance upon) the process or dynamic of 'autopoiesis' absent this context. To invoke 'autopoiesis' (e.g., as 'self-production') without concomitantly explaining the constitutive elements of the system(s) for which such invocation is made, is to deny any basis for evaluating the applicability of the construct (as it was defined originally). The most well-known example of such an invocation would be that of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who adopted 'autopoiesis' as a processual construct in analyzing social systems, yet never (to date) bothered to explain what in his view are the key constitutive elements (e.g., 'organization', 'structure') by which such an application might be assessed in terms of Maturana and Varela's clear-cut definitional criteria.
The explanatory risk in invoking 'autopoiesis' absent attention to the machine / system manifesting it has two distinguishable (but admittedly intertwined) components. The first is that an observer may simplistically project the feature 'autopoiesis' onto a unity with which she has insufficient or imperfect observational engagement upon which to base its ascription. Phrased another way, stripping the processual construct away from the machine manifesting it opens the possibility of its mistaken attribution to something only partially or indirectly observed. Varela (1979) provides some illustration for this type of risk in writing of recognizing an autopoietic system (as distinct from autonomous systems in general):
"In general, the actual recognition of an autopoietic system poses a cognitive problem that has to do both with the capacity of the observer to recognize the relations that define the system as a unity, and with his capacity to distinguish the boundaries that delimit this unity in the space in which it is realized (his criteria of distinction). Since it is a defining feature of an autopoietic system that it should specify its own boundaries, a proper recognition of an autopoietic system as a unity requires that the observer perform an operation of distinction that defines the limits of the system in the same domain in which it specifies them through its autopoiesis. If this is not the case, he does not observe the autopoietic system as a unity, even though he may conceive it."
(Varela, 1979, p. 54)
The second, but related, explanatory risk has to do with ascribing autopoiesis to systems with which the observer / explainer may have 'proper' observational engagement, but for which the observer ignores addressing the key features of the autopoietic organization by which the process of autopoiesis is defined. Varela (1979) also addresses this issue in passing, during his discussion of ascribing autopoiesis to other (autonomous) systems (i.e., systems of similar apparent constitution or apparent mode of operation, but not 'living systems'). Varela notes that other systems, being autonomous, entail:
"...assertion of the system's identity through its functioning in such a way that observation proceeds through the coupling between the observer and the unit in the domain in which the unity's operation occurs.
What is unsatisfactory about autopoiesis for the characterization of other unities ... is also apparent from this very description. The relations that characterize autopoiesis are relations of productions of components. ... Given this notion of production of components, it follows that the cases of autopoiesis we can actually exhibit, such as living systems or model cases ..., have as a criterion of distinction a topological boundary, and the processes that define them occur in a physical-like space...
Thus, the idea of autopoiesis is, by definition, restricted to relations of productions of some kind, and refers to topological boundaries. These two conditions are clearly unsatisfactory for other systems exhibiting autonomy." [...of which Varela specifically mentions animal societies and human social institutions -- Ed.]
(Varela, 1979, p. 54, emphasis in the original)
The difference between autonomy and autopoiesis is that autopoietic
systems must produce their own components in addition to conserving
their organization . Autonomous machines need only exhibit organizational closure, and they are
not required to produce their own components as part of their operation.
Cf. : allopoiesis, allopoietic machine, autopoietic machine, machine.
-
2.
-
A label sometimes used to denote the body of Maturana and Varela's theoretical work.
Cf. : autopoiesis theory, autopoietic theory, theory of autopoiesis.
-
autopoiesis theory
-
A label for the body of Maturana and Varela's theoretical work,
occurring rarely in the writings of other authors alluding to their
theories.
Cf. : autopoiesis (2.), autopoietic theory, theory of autopoiesis.
-
autopoietic closure
-
A term invoked by Maturana (1978) in summarily characterizing
autopoietic systems. He states autopoietic closure "... is the
condition for autonomy in autopoietic systems in general, and that it
"... is realized through a continuous structural change under conditions
of continuous material interchange with the medium." With regard to the
thermodynamic constraints relevant to the physical space, "...
autopoietic closure in living systems does not imply the violation of
these constraints, but constitutes a particular mode of realization of
autopoiesis in a space in which thermodynamic constraints are valid."
This term is used only within one paragraph in this paper, and as such
it's somewhat difficult to discern whether it is being used as (a) a
summary term for the 'mode of closure' evidenced in autonomous /
autopoietic systems generally, or (b) a specific analogue to more
clearly delineated constructs such as operational closure or
organizational closure. Because the term is invoked specifically to
discuss autonomy , one might make a case that it connotes organizational
closure. However, there is no evidence beyond this to suggest such a
linkage between the two constructs.
Cf. : closure, operational closure, organizational closure
-
autopoietic machine (system)
-
A machine / system which is a member of the class of autonomous systems
and which meets the requirement of being organized (defined as a unity )
as a network of processes of production, transformation and destruction
of components that produces the components which:
(i) through their interactions and transformations regenerate and
realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and
(ii) constitute it as a concrete unity in the space in which they exist
by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a
network. (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135, Cf. : Varela,
1979, p. 13)
Any unity meeting these specifications is an autopoietic machine /
system, and any such autopoietic system realized in the physical space is a
living system. The particular substantiation of a given unity -- its
structure -- is not a sufficient factor for making the system "living".
The key feature of a living system is maintenance of its organization,
i.e, preservation of the relational network which defines it as a
systemic unity. Phrased another way, '...autopoietic systems operate as
homeostatic systems that have their own organization as the critical
fundamental variable that they actively maintain constant.' (Maturana,
1975, p. 318)
Varela, Maturana & Uribe (1974) provide a concise set of criteria for determining a machine is an autopoietic machine, arranged as a 6-point key by which one may proceed step-by-step in evaluating autopoiesis for a given unity.
This key is available in the form of the Autopoiesis Checklist at this Website:
http://www.enolagaia.com/Checklist.html
Autopoietic machines are the opposite of allopoietic machines, which are
defined in terms of a purpose other than maintenance of their own
organization. However, an observer can ascribe allopoietic
( allo-referred) status to an autopoietic machine within a subsuming
context. Autopoietic machines may be described or manipulated as
components of "...a larger system that defines the independent events
which perturb them ... [and] can in fact be integrated into a larger
system as a component allopoietic machine, without any alteration in its
autopoietic organization." (Varela, 1979, p. 16) (See Also:
higher-order, second-order, third-order) Conversely, an
observer may analytically decompose an autopoietic machine, treating
each of its "...partial homeostatic and regulatory mechanisms as
allopoietic machines (submachines) by defining their input and output
surfaces." (Varela, 1979, p. 17) Such a decomposition does not sum up
(as a collection of allopoietic submachines) to an appropriate
description of autopoietic machines, because it "...does not reveal the
nature of the domain of interactions that ... [autopoietic machines] ...
define as concrete entities operating in the physical universe."
(Varela, 1979, p. 17)
Cf. : autonomy , autopoiesis , autonomous machine (system), machine
-
autopoietic network
-
A term used by Varela (1979, p. 13) to denote that "...particular network of processes (relations)
of production of components ..." which characterizes an autopoietic machine / system.
-
autopoietic organization
-
The generic term denoting the organization characterizing autopoietic
machines / systems. The term "...simply means processes interlaced in
the specific form of a network of productions of components which
realizing the network that produced them constitute it as a unity."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 80)
Cf. : living organization, organization , organization of the living
-
autopoietic space
-
"An autopoietic organization constitutes a closed domain of relations
specified only with respect to the autopoietic organization that these
relations constitute, and thus it defines a space in which it can be
realized as a concrete system, a space whose dimensions are the
relations of production of the components that realize it."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135)
Note that this "autopoietic space" is not isomorphic with the general physical space which is the context for
realization of the composite unity . Perhaps the best interpretation is
to consider an autopoietic space to be analogous to a state space (a
depictive construct for a system's attributes). Maturana and Varela
(1980, pp. 90 ff.) ascribe three dimensions to the autopoietic space,
corresponding to the three classes of relations of production.
Cf. : domain, relations of production, space
-
autopoietic system
-
A synonym for autopoietic machine.
See autopoietic machine
-
autopoietic theory
-
A label for the body of Maturana and Varela's theoretical work. This
label was chosen by Whitaker (1992) to denote this work, and it is the
label of choice used in The Observer Web.
Cf. : autopoiesis (2.), theory of autopoiesis, autopoiesis theory, biology of cognition, Santiago
theory
-
autopoietic unity
-
A synonym for autopoietic machine used particularly in Varela, Maturana & Uribe (1974).
See autopoietic machine
-
-
background
-
A term occasionally invoked in the sense of 'foreground vs. background' to connote that from which a unity is brought forth via an act of distinction. For example:
"The fundamental operation that an observer can perform is an operation
of distinction, the specification of an entity by operationally cleaving
it from a background."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 55)
As such, this term is used more or less colloquially, and not as a formal alternative to (e.g.) ambience or medium.
-
basic circularity
-
A term occasionally invoked to connote the necessarily circular /
cyclical nature of an organizationally-closed system or an aspect
thereof. This term appeared frequently in the early literature with
respect to living systems. (e.g., Maturana, 1970a, p. 5; Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. xiv, 9, 11, 18)
"All the peculiar characteristics of the different kinds of organisms
are superimposed on this basic circularity and are subservient to it,
securing its continuance through successive interactions in an always
changing environment." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 5)
For a living system, "...its identity is maintained as long as the basic
circularity that defines the system as a unit of interactions remains
unbroken." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 5)
Cf. : circularity, circular organization
-
behavior
-
-
1. (With respect to a system observed):
-
"Any operation or change in operation of an organism in relation to an environment, in any domain in which the observer distinguishes this operation or change in operation, is a behavior or action in this domain."
(Maturana, 1989)
The "...changes of a living being's position or attitude, which an observer describes as movements or actions in
relation to a certain environment." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 136)
As such, behavior is an observer-ascribed
description of the observed system's apparent transformations within the similarly observer-dependent environment in which the observation occurs.
"...[T]he behavior of an organism is only a description that the observer does of a sequence of postural changes (structural) that the organism exhibits in relation to the medium in which it is observed. These postural changes are expressions of the structural dynamics of the organism, and they appear with the participation of the nervous system when it exists."
(Maturana, 1987, p. 322)
This last quoted passage points to the necessity of bearing in mind that behavior (as ascribed by an observer) must be qualified with respect to the same phenomenal domain juxtaposition as applies to any observation of a composite unity. The following passage illustrates this point, as Maturana discusses the linkage of the living system's two phenomenal domains of realization (as both simple and composite unity) through the cognitive domain of the observer:
"Behaviour, as a relation between a living system operating as a whole and the medium operating as an independent entity, does not take place in the anatomical/physiological domain of the organism, but depends on it. In other words, anatomical/physiological phenomena are necessary for behaviour to happen, but do not determine it because they are involved in the operation of only one of the participants of the dynamics of relations that constitutes it, namely, the living system. It is only the observer that conserves a double look by attending simultaneously, or in succession, to the structural dynamics of a system and to its relations as a whole, who can speak of a generative relation between the processes of the structural dynamics of a living system (anatomy and physiology) and the phenomena of its domain of behaviour."
(Maturana, 1995)
We often overlook these observer-dependent factors when we take
observations of an organism's / system's apparent transformations to
support an explanation of those
transformational events in mentalistic or psychologistic terms. By doing so, we are in fact projecting onto the observed transformational events an explanatory mechanism which is an artifact of our observation. Maturana provides a lucid illustration of this in discussing perception:
"Since the observer distinguishes the organism as a system that moves in a medium, conserving necessarily its structural correspondence with it (adaptation) ... , the observer can distinguish behaviors that appear in the organism associated to its interactions. It is in this context of the association between behavior and medium configured by this distinction that the word perception is habitually used, supposing that such behaviors emerge from the determination of the organism (or of its nervous system), in the level of the sensorial encounter, by an external object."
(Maturana, 1987, p. 322)
The expansion of this basic construct to encompass complex behavioral phenomena proceeds with regard to the typical allusions to circularity and domanial qualification:
"Every kind of behavior is realized through operations that may or may
not be applied recursively. If recursion is possible in a particular
kind of behavior and if it leads to cases of behavior of the same kind,
then a closed generative domain of behavior is produced. There are many
examples: Human dance is one, human language, another."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 52)
-
2. (With respect to the observer):
-
The "... referential and deterministic sequence of states of nervous
activity, in which each state determines the next one within the same
frame of reference." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 52) More generally,
Maturana characterizes the fundament for an ascription of "behavior"
(1. above) as the ongoing mediation of the nervous
system between the organism's receptor and effector surfaces.
(Cf. Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 26)
-
3.
-
A term used in the more or less colloquial sense of an organism's
"function" or "performance." (Cf. Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela,
1980, p. 31)
-
4.
-
In one specific case, 'behavior' appears as a synonym for conduct (from which this term is more commonly distinguished). This occurs in Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 139):
"(v) Conduct or behaviour. The interactions in which it is seen to
enter as well as the active relations that a living system is seen to
adopt while operating (realizing its autopoiesis) within a given
context, and which are described by an observer with reference to this
context, constitute its conduct or behaviour."
Perhaps the most concentrated treatment of "behavior" -- particularly
insofar as it is a phenomenon subject to observation -- is to be found
in Maturana and Guiloff (1980). In this paper, the authors make a
distinction between those behaviors which an observer might distinguish
as acquired / learned versus innate / instinctive. They take care to
point out that this distinction has no necessary bearing on the
fundamental explanation of behavior put forth in autopoietic theory:
"If two living systems have isomorphic structures, then their respective
domains of states as well as their respective domains of perturbations
are also isomorphic, regardless of whether the structure of one living
system was inherited while the structure of the other was acquired
during its ontogeny. The result is that these two living systems under
isomorphic systems of perturbations undergo isomorphic changes of states
that are seen as equivalent conducts by an observer."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 139)
In both cases, the observed behavior of each system is a result of their
structure-specified responses to perturbation. This structural determination is the central (and only)
explanation needed in the context of autopoietic theory.
"...[T]he distinction that we make between instinctive and learned
behaviours has significance only if referred to the different origins of
the individual structures of the organisms concerned (instinctive if
inherited and learned if acquired during ontogeny), and not to the
manner in which the structure of an organism determines its behaviour."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 139)
Cf. : behavioral coupling, conduct, domain of behavioral phenomena
-
behavioral coupling
-
A phenomenon attributed to (e.g.) two autopoietic systems such that:
"...the autopoietic conduct of an organism A becomes a source of
deformation for an organism B, and the compensatory behavior of organism
B acts, in turn, as a source of deformation of organism A, whose
compensatory behavior acts again as a source of deformation of B, and so
on recursively until the coupling is interrupted."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 120)
For all practical purposes, this term can be considered an informal
synonym for reciprocal structural
coupling, albeit it a synonym framed from a distinct referential
vantage. The primary basis for differentiating the constructs is that
one is framed with respect to behavior and the other with respect to
structure . The focus of the former is the organism's attitudinal (or
other parametric) status with respect to its discerned environment, and the focus of the latter is the
internal constitution of the organism.
The complementarity of referential framing evident between behavioral
and structural coupling is analogous to that between deformation and
perturbation. Perhaps it is no more than a derived effect of the
literature's "ontogeny", but it's interesting to point out that the
canonical 1970's treatments of behavioral coupling typically invoke
deformation, whereas the more numerous treatments of structural coupling
typically invoke perturbation. Crudely put for the sake of
illustration, the former case invokes a structural status to explain
something framed as an event, while in the latter case invokes an event
to explain something framed with regard to the participating systems'
structures.
Cf. : structural coupling, deformation, perturbation, consensual domain
-
behavioral view
-
One of the subcategories of cognitive point of view delineated by Varela.
As discussed by Varela (Goguen & Varela, 1978; Varela, 1979), one of two alternative observational vantages on a system and its operation(s) (the other being recursive view). The behavioral view "...reduces a system to its input-output performance or behavior, and reduces the environment to inputs to the system..." and the "...effect of outputs on environment is not taken into account...". In contrast, (with respect to a given system) the recursive view "...emphasizes the mutual interconnectedness of its components..." and "... arises when emphasis is placed on the system's internal structure." (Goguen & Varela, 1978, p. 34; Varela, 1979, p. 86)
"...[T]he behavioral view arises when emphasis is placed on the environment, and recursive view arises when emphasis is placed on the system's internal structure.
If [via the recursive view -- Ed. ] we stress the autonomy of a system Si ... then the environmental influences become perturbations (rather than inputs) which are compensated for through the underlying recursive interdependence of the system's components ... Each such component, however, is treated behaviorally, in terms of some input-output description.
The recursive viewpoint is more sophisticated than the behavioral, since it involves the simultaneous consideration of three different levels [i.e.: component / system-whole / environment -- Ed. ], whereas the behavioral strictly speaking involves only two [i.e.: system-whole / environment -- Ed. ]. ... [E]xpressing interest in how the system achieves its behavior through the interdependent action of its parts adds a new distinction, between the system and its parts."
(Goguen & Varela, 1978, p. 34)
The cognitive point of view (CPOV) conforming to the behavioral view is illustrated in Tableau BehView.
A summary illustration of the dichotomy between behavioral and recursive views can be found in Figure CPOV.
Both these illustrations can be accessed on the Inside versus Outside Focus File here at the Observer Web.
http://www.enolagaia.com/UnityInOut.html
Although the foundation for the behavioral / recursive view dichotomy can be discerned in the primary literature going back to Maturana (1970a), it is neither so explicitly addressed, nor even invoked, as in the Varela sources cited here. Maturana's subsequent analyses of phenomena such as languaging and (most particularly) the hierarchical evolution of self-consciousness through recursive linguistic behavior could have been considerably more lucid had this (or an equivalent) logical accounting for indexicality been employed.
Cf. : cognitive point of view, recursive view
-
being
-
-
1.
-
A term which appears colloquially in The Tree of Knowledge (Maturana & Varela, 1992) as an apparent synonym for 'object', 'entity', and/or 'unity'. Cf. p. 40:
"The act of indicating any being, object, thing, or unity involves making an act of distinction ... Each time we refer to anything ... we are specifying a criterion of distinction, which indicates what we are talking about and specifies its properties as being, unity, or object."
-
2.
-
Used in a more specific sense, a term connoting a specimen of a living system -- typically in the phrase "living being".
Nowhere in the primary literature is 'being' defined in such a way as to give it any special connotation distinct from 'unity' or 'entity'. Similarly, the primary literature does not explicitly address 'being' in any specific sense as an ontic unit (i.e., a being) or as an ontological state or quality of existence (i.e., being). As such, the often-suggested parallels or linkages between autopoietic theory and (e.g.) Heideggerian phenomenological philosophy are not explicitly suggested by any invocation of the term 'being' by Maturana and/or Varela.
Cf. : entity, unity
-
biological explanation
-
"A reformulation in terms of processes subordinated to autopoiesis, that is, a reformulation in the
biological phenomenological domain." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135)
-
biological phenomenology
-
A term for the phenomenology characteristic of living systems,
i.e.,"...the phenomenology of autopoietic systems in the physical
space..." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135) Biological phenomenology is
a specific instance of the general class of mechanical phenomenology --
"...a phenomenology of relations between processes realized through the
properties of components" (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 112), and not the
properties themselves. Varela (1979, p. 31) focuses the scope of
application for this term when he claims, "All the biological
phenomenology is necessarily determined and realized through individuals
(that is, through autopoietic unities in the physical space), and
consists in all the paths of transformations that they undergo, singly
or in groups, in the process of maintaining invariant their individual
defining relations."
"...[A]utopoietic unities specify biological phenomenology as the phenomenology proper of those unities with features distinct from physical phenomenology. This is so, not because autopoietic unities go against any aspect of physical phenomenology -- since their molecular components must fulfill all physical laws -- but because the phenomena they generate in functioning as autopoietic unities depend on their organization and the way this organization comes about, and not on the physical nature of their components (which only determine their space of existence."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 51)
Given this focus by Varela, the attribution of a biological
phenomenology to a composite unity will be contingent on the level of
composition at which autopoiesis is realized. In other words, a composite unity which either (a) subsumes components which (in and of themselves) exhibit autopoiesis and/or (b) exhibits autonomy as a whole may or may not exhibit a biological phenomenology, subject to certain conditions:
"[I]f a new unity is
produced that is not autopoietic, its phenomenology, which will
necessarily depend on its organization, will be biological or not
according to its dependence on the autopoiesis of its components, and
will accordingly depend or not depend on the maintenance of these as
autopoietic units. If the new unity is autopoietic, then its
phenomenology is biological and obviously depends on the maintenance of
its autopoiesis, which in turn may or may not depend on the autopoiesis
of its components."
(Varela, 1979, p. 31)
This passage is not restricted to higher-order autopoietic systems, in
which autopoiesis is realized at two or more levels of composition. A
higher-order autopoietic system would be of the sort addressed in the
final sentence -- where the composite unity is autopoietic, provided the
maintenance of the composite depended on the autopoiesis of its
(autopoietic) components.
Cf. : component, higher-order (autopoietic system), biological phenomenon, mechanical phenomenology, phenomenology, statical phenomenology
-
biological phenomenon
-
The label for a subject of enquiry whose character is contingent upon,
of reflective of, the constitutive nature of living systems. Although
the usage of the term is more or less informal, it is important because
it denotes the particular interpretive stance from which all of
autopoietic theory proceeds.
The earliest paper in the primary literature (Maturana, 1970) begins by
stating, "Cognition is a biological phenomenon and can only be
understood as such; any epistemological insight in the domain of
knowledge requires this understanding." (p. 3) This opening
declaration paved the way for the theoretical development of the biology
of cognition. Once the core construct of autopoiesis was introduced and
fleshed out, biological phenomena themselves would then be delineated
with respect to the product of their scrutiny:
"... [A] phenomenon is a
biological phenomenon only to the extent that it depends in one way or
another on the autopoiesis of one or more physical autopoietic unities."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135)
[Biological phenomena] "...are
necessarily phenomena of relations between processes which satisfy the
autopoiesis of the participant living systems. Accordingly, under no
circumstances is a biological phenomenon defined by the properties of
its component elements."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 113)
"...[A] biological phenomenon will be any phenomenon that involves the autopoiesis of at least one living being."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 52)
Cf. : biological phenomenology
-
biology of cognition
-
A label for the corpus of Maturana and Varela's seminal work during the 1970's. This label is the
preferred nomenclature of Maturana and his colleagues in Chile.
Cf. : autopoiesis (2.), autopoiesis theory, autopoietic theory, Santiago theory, theory of autopoiesis
-
boundary
-
The interface which demarcates the extent of a system / unity in
contrast to its subsuming medium of realization. For example, "the
organism ends at the boundary that its self-referring organization
defines in the maintenance of its identity." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980,
p. 20)
The recourse to "boundaries" is based on the idea that autopoietic
systems, through their processes of self-production, delineate a
"topology" in the space of their operations. If the observer observes
an autopoietic entity with respect to the dimensions in which its
processes of topological production are manifested, this topological
boundary is discernible via the closure of the entity's constituent
processes. As such, the construct of "boundary" connotes the
self-circumscription of an organizationally-closed system in the context
of its environment (as ascribed by an
observer). A "boundary" is not, then, strictly held to be a discernible
"sheath" or "shell" (i.e., a bounding component of the system's
structure ), though such structural manifestations of the system's
boundary may be evident.
-
-
calculus of indications
-
The label for the logical system introduced by George Spencer Brown in his book Laws of Form (1969; 1994), predicated upon the operator termed a 'mark' which denotes a distinction between 'marked' and 'unmarked' states. Varela (e.g., 1975, 1979; Varela & Goguen, 1978), by equating Spencer Brown's 'mark' with an operational viewpoint on distinction, explored the calculus of indications as a candidate tool for applying autopoietic theory. In doing so, Varela found it necessary to introduce a new logical operator denoting 're-entry' (within a nested series of marks) of a subsumed / subsequent mark back into the series at a point corresponding to a subsuming / precedent mark. The composite system of Spencer Brown's calculus, as augmented by Varela, was labeled the extended calculus of indications (ECI). According to Varela & Goguen (1978), even this ECI proved unwieldy in application (albeit sound logically). These two authors then sketched a reformulation of the extension of Spencer Brown's work to address the distinction of systemic unities as wholes. This subsequent modification of the calculus of indications was labeled the complete calculus of indications (CI).
Though intriguingly salient to autopoietic theory, the calculus of indications is external to the primary corpus of autopoietic theory, and it will not be discussed in any further detail within the Encyclopaedia. Readers interested in exploring this substantial campaign by Varela are encouraged to read Laws of Form, Principles of Biological Autonomy (Varela, 1979), and/or the papers cited herein. Additional materials relevant to the calculus of indications are listed in the Observer Web's Bibliography and Guide to Internet Resources.
-
causality
-
A notion which appears in some of Maturana's earliest writings, but
which he strenuously excised thereafter, because it was inadequate and
misleading. "It was inadequate because the notion of causality is a
notion that pertains to the domain of descriptions, and as such it is
relevant only in the metadomain in which the observer makes his
commentaries and cannot be deemed to be operative in the phenomenal
domain, the object of the description." (Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
xviii)
More specifically, Maturana considered it misleading because it obscured:
- "... the actual appreciation of the sufficiency of the notion of property as defined by the distinctive
operation performed by the observer when specifying a unity ...
- ... the understanding of the dependency of the identity of the unity on the distinctive operation
that specified it.
- ... the understanding of the phenomenal domains as determined by the properties of the unities
that generate them
- ... the non-intersection of the phenomenal domains generated by the operation of a composite
unity as a simple unity in a medium and by the operation of its components as components."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xviii, vertical spacing added for readability)
-
changes of state
-
A term used colloquially throughout the primary literature to denote transformations or transitions undergone (or potentially undergone) by a composite unity. Only later has this term come to be treated as a specific piece of terminology in itself:
"We call the structural changes that occur in a system with conservation of organization, changes of state; and those that occur with loss of organization, disintegrations."
(Maturana, Mpodozis & Letelier, 1995)
-
circular organization
-
An early (and generic) label describing the essentially recursive,
cyclical nature of living systems (Cf.
circularity). According to Maturana, the notion of this "circular
organization" was the conceptual seed for what would later be formally
termed autopoiesis (Cf. Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
xvii). The following passage indicates that what was originally termed
"circular organization" in essence became the formal term organization :
"Living systems as they exist on earth today are characterized by
exergonic metabolism, growth and internal molecular replication, all
organized in a closed causal circular process that allows for
evolutionary change in the way the circularity is maintained, but not
for the loss of the circularity itself. ... This circular organization
constitutes a homeostatic system whose function is to produce and
maintain this very same circular organization by determining that the
components that specify it are those whose synthesis or maintenance it
secures. ...Furthermore, this circular organization defines a living
system as a unit of interactions and is essential for its maintenance as
a unit ..."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 9)
Cf. : autopoiesis , circularity, homeostasis, organization
-
circularity
-
-
1.
-
A term employed to connote closure, particular with respect to form
(e.g., organization ) or dynamics (e.g., operations or processes). The
construct of "circularity" occurs frequently in the literature as a
description for a process or path which is closed upon itself (in the
sense of eventually returning to the point of its origin). This in turn
sets the stage for a necessary cyclicity in systems exhibiting such
circular form: "The circularity of their organization continuously
brings them back to the same internal state (same with respect to the
cyclic process)." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 10)
Because autonomous and autopoietic systems exhibit organizational
closure, circularity and cyclicity are important aspects of their
description. "It is the circularity of its organization that makes a
living system a unit of interactions, and it is this circularity that it
must maintain in order to remain a living system and to retain its
identity through different interactions." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 5;
Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 9) This explains why Maturana made
circularity a central theme beginning with his earliest writings on a
novel approach to analyzing living systems. "All the peculiar
characteristics of the different kinds of organisms are superimposed on
this basic circularity and are subservient to it, securing its
continuance through successive interactions in an always changing
environment." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 5)
Because such systems are self-organizing, -referential, -maintaining,
etc., their operations cannot be fully explained without recourse to
circularity. As such, "circularity" is a generic explanatory theme
necessitated by the form of Maturana and Varela's approach, and it is a
necessary theme in approaching self-organization . Jantsch (1980,
Chapter 10) extensively explores circularity (and cyclicity) in this
general sense.
Cf. : basic circularity, circular organization,
-
2.
-
A term connoting a paradoxical state of referential or explanatory
"looping" -- specifically, that state of affairs confronting all
scientific studies of cognition -- that the object of study (the human
"mind") is also the instrument by which that study is conducted.
Maturana alludes to this sense of circularity most succinctly in saying
of cognition and language (as instruments of addressing cognition and
language themselves):
"These two experiential conditions are my
starting point because I must be in them in any explanatory attempt;
they are my problem because I choose to explain them; and they are my
unavoidable instruments because I must use cognition and language in
order to explain cognition and language."
(Maturana, 1988a)
The most specific label for this particular sense (of referential / explanatory paradox) is fundamental circularity.
-
3.
-
A term used to negatively characterize a path of argumentation or course of reasoning -- typically on the figurative basis of said path's 'circling back on itself' to explain or demonstrate something which in fact was employed earlier as a foundational element. An example is the common colloquial indictment of 'presuming as given that which one sets out to prove'. Given the above-cited basic and fundamental circularities which Maturana and Varela's chosen foci entail, critics of their work have often claimed that their proffered line(s) of explanation, by virtue of following the circular contours of their subject matter, are guilty of this presumptively erroneous / fallacious method.
Frankly, most such charges appear to derive from a confusion of explanatory circularity (i.e, 'circular reasoning') with the above-cited intrinsic forms of circularity. To be fair, however, some further comments should be offered as a more substantive basis for rebuttal. Because Maturana's formulations of 'reason', 'rationality', and 'theory' all rely on the general construct of 'explanation', these comments will be framed with regard to this last, and most relevant, topic.
To the extent that 'circular reasoning' is isomorphic with 'explaining exactly what you already assume', one might well rebut such claims by pointing out that a priori assumptions (objects, values, claims) are relegated by Maturana (e.g., 1991) to the class of philosophical explanations -- the opposite of the class of scientific explanations into which he claims his theories properly fall. To the extent 'circular reasoning' connotes pre-specification of what is to be addressed, one must concede this is an intrinsic component of Maturana's scientific method (as the first element in his criteria of validation for scientific explanations). However, this would lead to 'circular reasoning' only to the extent that the phenomenon initially specified as the focus of explanation was itself employed as a component of its own explanation. Maturana specifically forbids such a thing when he writes: "A proposed explanation which explicitly or implicitly includes the phenomenon to be explained as a feature of the proposed system [i.e., model offered as the explanatory hypothesis -- Ed.], is not a scientific explanation." (Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 137)
-
class
-
Several of the theoretical constructs (e.g., domain) are delineated with
respect to "classes" of (e.g.) interactions. In this sense, the term
"class" appears in the literature with its colloquial meaning of a
delineating or definitive set. Most specifically, the construct of
organization is repeatedly stated to define the "class" or "class
identity" of the system to which it pertains.
"The organization of a system, then, specifies the class identity of a
system, and must remain invariant for the class identity of the system
to remain invariant: if the organization of a system changes, then its
identity changes and it becomes a unity of another kind."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xx)
"...[T]he organization of a composite unity specifies the class of
entities to which it belongs. It follows that the concept or generic
name that we use to refer to a class of entities points to the
organization of the composite unities that are members of the class."
(Maturana, 1978)
Another allusion to "class" concerns the character of cognition afforded
by an autopoietic system's circular organization, "... which treats
every interaction and the internal state that it generates as if it were
to be repeated, and as if an element of a class. (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela,
1980, pp. 49-50) Most specifically, when we as observers distinguish a
composite unity , we are in effect distinguishing a class. "This
situation, in which we recognize implicitly or explicitly the
organization of an object when we indicate it or distinguish it, is
universal in the sense that it is something we do constantly as a basic
cognitive act, which consists no more and no less than in generating
classes of any type." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 43)
Both the cited general and specific intersections of "class" and
cognition imply a primary generality of orientational / referential /
distinction-making behavior. Phrased another way, this implies that the
observer observes from a fundamentally general stance, rather than
lacing together multiple specific instances to arrive at the general.
This implication is nowhere more explicitly reinforced than when
Maturana and Varela state "... functionally, for a living system every
experience is the experience of a general case, and it is the particular
case, not the general one, which requires many independent experiences
in order that it be specified through the intersection of various
classes of interactions." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 49-50)
These allusions to "class" are invoked for the purposes of discussion
and explanation. Nowhere in the literature is there an extensive
treatment of whether (much less how) this could relate to (e.g.)
discernment of "classes" by an observer in (e.g.) ordering her cognitive
domain, making inferences, etc. As such, the notion of "class" is not
pursued (to any great extent) in the direction of linking it to
set-theoretical notions descriptive of cognitive (particularly
inferential) phenomena. Such discussion is limited to only a few
instances (e.g., Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 49 ff. -- Cf. :
inference)
This relatively low attention to developing the role of "class" in
autopoietic theory is not surprising, given that a dominant theme of the
theory is the autonomy of the subject system. From such a perspective,
it is sufficient to invoke the "class"-like character of interaction as
the basis for behavioral / orientational flexibility. Fuller treatment
of "class" in a formal (particularly a set- theoretic) sense lies beyond
the scope of autopoietic theory's focus, because it would entail (a)
requisite characterization of that lying beyond or outside the
autonomous system, and (b) an allusion to some abstract feature of class
subsumption -- in effect what Varela calls a symbolic description.
Cf. : inference, organization , unity
-
class identity
-
A term used to connote the character of a system as being one of (possibly multiple) such unities
defined by its organization .
Cf. : class, identity, organization
-
closed system
-
A traditional cybernetics term connoting a system which is hermetically
isolated with respect to environmental influence (e.g., impervious to
external "feedback"), and hence not responsive or adaptive to its medium
over time. The opposite of an "open system" (in the same traditional
terminology).
Critics of Maturana and Varela have interpreted the
defining closure of autonomous / autopoietic systems to indicate these
are "closed systems" in the traditional sense. This is quite simply not
the case, and results from (a) a misinterpretation of Maturana and
Varela's terminology and (b) inattention to the manner in which the
explanatory constructs underlying a traditional ascription of system
"openness" (e.g., feedback) are addressed in autopoietic theory.
"Please note that when we speak of organizational closure, by no means do we imply interactional closure, i.e., the system in total isolation. We do assume that every system will maintain endless interactions with the environment which will impinge and perturb it. If this were not so, we could not even distinguish it."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 294, emphasis in the original)
Cf. : closure, feedback, organizational closure, stability
-
closure
-
The quality or property of a descriptive network N such that one or
another of the constituent elements of N (depicted or described as
mappings onto N) interconnect wholly within the confines (explicit or
implicit) of N itself. This circumscribes the set of constituent
elements (or a collective designatum depicted through this set) such
that its extent corresponds to the extent of N. In a complementary
fashion, this circumscription induces (or is intended to portray) a
circumscription of N itself on the basis of the depicted constituent(s).
The stereotypical examples in the literature are: (1) operational closure (where N is a network of constituent operations); and (2)
organizational closure (where N depicts the network of processes
constituting a system's organization ).
It is important to note that this property of 'closure' does not make
autonomous / autopoietic systems 'closed' in the classic cybernetic
sense of isolated from the environment or
impervious to environmental influence. 'Closure' doesn't mean
autonomous systems are unresponsive; it only means that their changes of
state in response to changes in their medium are realized and propagated
solely within the network of processes constituting them (as they are
defined). The difference has more to do with the way a system is
defined than how that system (once defined) operates.
"Please note that when we speak of organizational closure, by no means do we imply interactional closure, i.e., the system in total isolation. We do assume that every system will maintain endless interactions with the environment which will impinge and perturb it. If this were not so, we could not even distinguish it."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 294, emphasis in the original)
A fuller explanation of this point can be obtained in Varela (1979, pp.
56 ff.), who frames the issue in terms of delineating a systemic unity
such that the scope of the defined unity subsumes all processes which
operationally define it. For example, in organizational closure the
network of defining processes is internal to the system as
circumscribed. This includes those processes of system "feedback",
which in traditional cybernetics are defined as external to a system --
in either the sense that (a) they are channels for "information" from
without (i.e., the 'environment') or (b) they are defined as extrinsic
or secondary to the constitutive nature of the system.
Cf. : feedback, organizational closure, operational closure, stability
-
Closure Thesis
-
"Every autonomous system is organizationally closed."
(Varela, 1979, p. 58, emphasis in the original)
"Every system-whole is organizationally closed."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 293)
The Closure Thesis is a central component of Varela's solo theoretical work of the 1970's. Both the 'system-whole' and 'autonomous system' constructs cited above denote composite unities of the sort which 'systems theory' has taken as its topical focus. The emphasis on organization clearly derives from the seminal work in delineating autopoietic machines, and the usage of that term is entirely consistent with its invocation here. The Closure Thesis represents an axiomatic basis upon which to extend the notion of 'organization' and its closure as evidenced in those systems (both natural and artificial) of interest to the stature of a feature definitive of those same systems. The following excerpt from Varela & Goguen (1978) summarizes the rationale for such an extension:
"Question: What have we learned from the descriptions of system-wholes in the last decade? Answer: That in order to account for the coherence of the observed systems, their constitutive interactions must be mutual and reciprocal, so as to become an interconnected network.
There seems to be plenty of evidence to substantiate this view of system-wholes. The traditional source of examples has been living systems. Surely in them the circularity of interconnectedness is more striking than anywhere else, both topologically and functionally. But, biological systems are not unique in this respect, and the current interest in ecological wholeness and world models are testimony to our growing understanding of this. ...
In terms of organization, then, empirical observation reveals that the system-wholes are organizationally closed: their organization is a circular network of interactions rather than a tree of hierarchical processes.
Conversely, then, if we are trying to make more precise our notion of a whole, we propose to make these empirical results a guideline. That is, we propose to take the circular and mutual interconnectedness of organization, or organizational closure, as the characterization of system-wholes."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, pp. 292-293, emphasis in the original)
This thesis was then developed in the light of organizational closure itself as well as the corollary constructs of (a) criteria of distinction / indication (by which a system-whole is identified by an observer), and (b) stability (as specifically re-defined). After addressing the criticisms typically leveled at their approach (cf. Note below), they conclude:
"In summary: we have the three interrelated notions of criteria of indication, systemic stability, and organizational closure. They appear related thus: given a criterion for distinction, system-wholes can be identified by their stable properties, and empirical experience tells us that such stability is due to organizational closure. Whence the Closure Thesis, that can be now restated in a second, less compact form:
Every (distinguishable) system-whole is (distinguishable through its stable properties arising from it being) organizationally closed."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 295)
NOTE: For more detailed discussion of Varela & Goguen's rebuttal of two conventional criticisms as they apply to the Closure Thesis, i.e.: (a) 'Are organizationally closed unities 'closed systems'?'; and (b) 'Aren't 'inputs' and 'outputs' necessary components of a system?', refer to the entries for operational closure and feedback, respectively.
By declaring the Closure Thesis and exploring its ramifications, Varela (alone and in concert with J. Goguen) generated a basis for critiquing classical cybernetics / engineering approaches to systems. In these earlier approaches, the systems' essential circularity is not acknowledged, or is acknowledged only in terms of imperfect constructs such as feedback. By not addressing circularity as an intrinsic element of their models, adherents of these approaches are left to lay out specifications of a system in 'linear' terms / referents -- a tactic only made possible by 'punctuating' (to use Bateson's terminology) circular paths and flows with constructs such as 'input' and 'output' so as to filter out circularity in favor of more tractable (if less faithful) models and schemata. Given the distortions which may ensue, this 'punctuation' may be more properly considered 'puncturing'.
The Closure Thesis requires one to prioritize the subject system's organizational closure, which in turn mandates direct attention to this circularity. What, then, might this connote for reforming systems analysis and engineering?
"The Closure Thesis, we submit, is a methodological guideline: if you are to study a system, assume it has a closed organization, analyze individual pathways until a reconstruction of the network is obtained, and then putting all of these circuits together simultaneously, see what kinds of stability they can generate. The i/o [i.e., input/output -- Ed.] approach is, in fact, a moment in this process, insofar as we fix certain modes of interaction with a purpose in mind."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 318)
Cf. : closure, feedback, organization, organizational closure, operational closure, stability, system, system-whole
-
coding
-
"A notion which represents the interactions of the observer, not a
phenomenon operative in the observed domain. A mapping of a process
that occurs in the space of autopoiesis onto a process that occurs in
the space of human beings (heteropoiesis) and, thus, not a reformulation
of the phenomenon."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 135)
The term "coding" is generally used to denote the symbolic
inter-mappings associated with a cognitivist view of communication
(e.g., the metaphor of the tube). The autopoietic account of
communication as languaging denies that coding is the essence of such
communicative interactions.
Cf. : communication, language, languaging, metaphor of the tube
-
cognition
-
"Cognition is a biological phenomenon and can only be understood as such; any epistemological
insight in the domain of knowledge requires this understanding."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 3)
"Any understanding of the cognitive process must account for the observer and his role in it."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 4)
These two declarations from the earliest document in the literature base
succinctly delineate the foundation for Maturana and Varela's
autopoietic account of those events or phenomena we term "cognition".
First, whatever cognition may be, it is most definitely a biological
phenomenon -- i.e., it is a characteristic of those systems we label
"living", and which have been made the province of biological science.
Second, there is no explanation for "cognition" which avoids being
discerned, analyzed, or expressed by one of the living systems
manifesting that selfsame phenomenon. Addressing cognition as an
impersonal or objective subject, absent grounding in the unavoidable
groundedness of experience, cannot possibly encompass the topic.
Maturana and Varela proceeded from the perspective of individual
organisms' cognitive activities as a function of their embodied
experience. For them, cognition is a consequence of circularity and
complexity in the form of any system whose behavior realizes maintenance
of that selfsame form. This shifts the weight of discussion from
discernment of those active agencies and replicable actions through
which a given process ("cognition") is conducted (the viewpoint of
cognitivism) to the discernment of those features of an organism's form
which determine that entity's engagement with its milieu. In other
words, cognition is a matter of interacting in the manner(s) in which
one is capable of interacting, not processing what is objectively there
to be seen. "Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a
process is a process of cognition." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 13)
In this view, cognition is a consequence of (structurally-realized and
structurally-determined) interactions. "A cognitive system is a system
whose organization defines a domain of interactions in which it can act
with relevance to the maintenance of itself, and the process of
cognition is the actual (inductive) acting or behaving in this domain."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 13) More specifically:
"... for every living system the process of cognition consists in the
creation of a field of behavior through its actual conduct in its closed
domain of interactions, and not in the apprehension or the description
of an independent universe. Our cognitive process (the cognitive
process of the observer) differs from the cognitive processes of other
organisms only in the kinds of interactions into which we can enter, ...
and not in the nature of the cognitive process itself."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 49)
In other words, the foundation for the autopoietic view of cognition is
not "information" as some quantum commodity available in the environment. Owing to this, autopoietic theory
diverges from some interpolations of J. J. Gibson's (e.g., 1979)
otherwise similar ecological approach (Cf. Varela,
Thompson & Rosch, 1991, pp. 202-204). Unlike cognitivism, autopoietic
theory does not rely upon a formalizable model of information or symbol
processing (Cf. Varela, et al., 1991) to describe
cognition as information processing or communication as a matter of
coding. Autopoietic theory also diverges from "classical" cybernetics
in the sense that it does not treat system behavior as being regulated
by a traffic in "information" -- e.g., "feedback" -- See Also:
Varela, 1979, p. 56).
Cf. : class, cognitive domain, description, explanation, inference, language, languaging, observer
-
cognitive domain
-
"The domain of all the interactions in which an autopoietic system can
enter without loss of identity is its cognitive domain; or, in other
words, the cognitive domain of an autopoietic system is the domain of
all the descriptions which it can possibly make"
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 119)
This latter allusion to descriptions primarily applies only to an
autopoietic system which can operate as an observer.
It is sometimes difficult to maintain a clear distinction between a
system's cognitive domain and its domain of interactions (" the domain
of all the deformations that it may undergo without loss of autopoiesis"
(Ibid.)) or its phenomenological domain. This confusion derives in
large part from the generality of their definitions. A phenomenological
domain is a general explanatory construct denoting the realm specified
by the properties of a unity or one or more classes of unities
(Cf. Varela, 1979, pp. 46-47). Crudely stated, the
phenomenological domain is the domain in which the unity is extant in
and of itself -- the totality of its context of simple or static
realization, and the background to its dynamic realization. A domain of
interactions is a distinct explanatory construct denoting the realm
specified by "...the particular mode through which its autopoiesis is
realized in the space of its components, that is, by its structural
coupling." (Varela, 1979, p. 47) Crudely stated, the domain of
interactions is the domain in which the unity can act (change; undergo
deformation). A cognitive domain, crudely stated, is the domain in
which the unity can, and does, adapt in the course of its ontogeny.
Cf. : cognition, domain of interactions, description, phenomenological domain
-
cognitive phenomenon
-
A term employed colloquially to denote those capacities we associate
with perception, thinking, and other aspects of a human's abilities --
particularly those aspects conventionally treated as symbolic
information processing under the rubric of cognitivism. The
personally-ascribed elements or events evidencing the character of
semantic phenomena. A good illustration of this usage can be found in
Maturana (1980a, p. 46), where he states an emphasis on systemic
autonomy requires that one:
"...treat cognitive phenomena (such as language or perception) as
structural phenomena by formulating them as phenomena of ontogenic or
phylogenic adaptation, resulting from ontogenic or phylogenic structural
selection, rather than as phenomena of transfer of information,
communication, or meaning. These, as semantic phenomena, cannot be
handled by biology."
Cf. : semantic phenomena
-
cognitive point of view / cognitive viewpoint
-
A pair of terms used by Varela to denote the particular perspective, viewpoint,
or vantage established and maintained by an observer (-community) in the
course of enquiry. The initial definition is given with respect to the form 'cognitive point of view':
"...[T]he establishment of system boundaries is inescapably associated
with what I shall call a cognitive point of view, that is, a particular
set of presuppositions and attitudes, a perspective, or a frame in the
sense of Bateson ... or Goffman ...; in particular, it is associated
with some notion of value, or interest. It is also linked up with the
cognitive capacities (sensory capabilities, knowledge background) of the
distinctor. Conversely, the distinctions made reveal the cognitive capabilities of the distinctor. It is in this way that biological and social structures exhibit their coherence..."
(Varela, 1979, p. 85; Goguen & Varela, p. 32)
Because the phrase 'cognitive point of view' is more commonly invoked by Varela than 'cognitive viewpoint', this will be the term employed for discussion herein. For the sake of economy, it will be abbreviated CPOV.
A CPOV, therefore, circumscribes the particular 'layout' or 'topology' of an observer's observing situation. This circumscription specifies the focus of observational engagement (i.e., where the observer's 'referential cross hairs' are targeted), and this in turn specifies the topology of the observer's immediately-accessible domain of referentiality. These constraining or qualifying features are best illustrated in the context in which the CPOV was originally introduced. In Goguen and Varela (1978), the discursive focus was on "...the role which distinction plays in the creation and recognition of systems." (Goguen & Varela, 1978, p. 32) As such, they introduce and employ the notion of CPOV in the course of delineating how such observational constraints set the stage for a hierarchy of system levels (of discernment). This in turn set the stage for discussion of issues such as the dichotomies of autonomy / control and recursive / behavioral views on a system and its operations.
I've prepared a graphic summary illustration of this construct, including comparison of the behavioral and recursive subcategories.
This illustration can be accessed on the Inside versus Outside Focus File here at the Observer Web.
http://www.enolagaia.com/UnityInOut.html
Cf. : behavioral view, observer, observer-community, phenomenology, phenomenological domain, recursive view
-
cognitive system
-
"A cognitive system is a system whose organization defines a domain of
interactions in which it can act with relevance to the maintenance of
itself ..."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 13)
This is the basis for the process of cognition, as delineated in
autopoietic theory. It is important to note that this basic definition
frames capacity for cognition in terms of a system's formal character
(its organization ) insofar as this is reflected in the scope of events
into which it can enter while maintaining this character. This divorces
autopoietic theory's notion of cognition from those elements most
commonly cited in conventional, cognitivistic accounts: "information",
'symbols', and the "processing" of these things as the hallmark of
cognitive activity.
Cf. : cognition, cognitive domain
-
cognitive viewpoint
-
A synonym for cognitive point of view.
-
communication
-
-
1. [General usage]
-
Those "...coordinated behaviors mutually triggered among the members of
a social unity." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 193) The phenomenon
ascribed to the inter-organism behavioral coordination which an observer
construes as communicative. (Cf. Maturana &
Varela, 1992, p. 195)
-
2. [Specific usage, in contrast with simple "interaction"]
-
In this more specific usage, the term "communication" is employed to
analyze what distinguishes "communicative" behaviors (See Also:
1.).
In this usage, communication is behavior entailing orientation which is
contrastively opposed to simple or automatic "interaction" wherein
interactors are basically triggering each other's responses. In
communication (in this sense), one organism orients "...the behavior of
the other organism to some part of its domain of interactions different
from the present interaction, but comparable to the orientation of that
of the orienting organism." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 27) Note that
the orientation of interest is not necessarily to some external
referent, but to some distinguishable subregion of the domain of
interactions. "This can take place only if the domains of interactions
of the two organisms are widely coincident; in this case no interlocked
chain of behavior [i.e., no "interaction" in the simple sense -- Ed.] is
elicited because the subsequent conduct of the two organisms depends on
the outcome of independent, although parallel, interactions. (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana
& Varela, 1980, pp. 27-28)
Cf. : orientation
-
communicative
-
An attribution for "...those behaviors which occur in social coupling."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 195) Roughly speaking, one could associate
communicative behaviors with second-order structural coupling, although
Maturana and Varela don't make such an ascription in any strong or
exclusive way.
-
communicative domain
-
"A chain of interlocked interactions such that although the conduct of
each organism in each interaction is internally determined by its
autopoietic organization, this conduct is for the other organism a
source of compensable deformations."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
Cf. : consensual domain, structural coupling, perturbation.
-
communicative explanations
-
A term used by Varela (1979) as a synonym for symbolic explanations.
Cf. : explanation
-
compensation
-
The term applied to connote the manner in which a unity responds to
perturbations / deformations while maintaining its organization , its
identity, and its integrity. The exogenous influences that the system
thus survives are compensable. These are 'compensable' in the senses
that (a) there is a range of 'compensation' bounded by the limit beyond
which each system ceases to be a functional whole (i.e., it
disintegrates) and (b) each compensatory iteration is impelled (to
occur) by and/or affected (in its manner of accomplishment) by the
status resultant from prior events in the unity's ontogeny.
Compensation is not "absolute" in the sense that any or all arbitrary
parameters or ordering arrangements are recovered after deformation /
perturbation. With regard to autopoietic systems in particular,
compensation is sufficient if the unity or system's organization is
preserved:
"...[A]ny deformation at any place is not compensated by bringing the
system back to an identical state of its components as it would be
described by projecting it upon a three-dimensional Cartesian space;
rather it is compensated by keeping its organization constant as defined
by the relation of the relations of production of relations of
constitution, specification, and order which constitutes autopoiesis.
In other words, compensation of deformation keeps the autopoietic system
in the autopoietic space."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 92-93)
Cf. : perturbation, , ontogeny, compensatory change
-
compensatory behavior
-
That behavior of a system which effects a compensation with respect to
perturbations or deformations. This construct is specifically invoked
in discussing behavioral coupling among two or more autopoietic systems,
wherein:
"...the autopoietic conduct of an organism A becomes a
source of deformation for an organism B, and the compensatory behavior of organism B acts, in
turn, as a source of deformation of organism A, whose compensatory behavior acts again as a
source of deformation of B, and so on recursively..."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 120)
Cf. : behavioral coupling, compensation, deformation, perturbation, structural coupling
-
compensatory change
-
The changes an autopoietic system may effect or undergo while
maintaining its identity and integrity. (Cf.
Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 99 ff.) Phrased another way -- all those
modifications which a given system may tolerate via compensation (i.e.,
without disintegration). The two subclasses of compensatory change are
conservative change and innovative change. Because this construct
pertains to the status or character of the system (as opposed to the
event(s) which affect it), it is closely linked to the notion of
deformation.
Cf. : compensation, deformation, perturbation, conservative change, innovative change
-
complementarity
-
-
1.
-
A relation between descriptions such that they comprise a mutually
defining duality -- i.e., that one is the obverse of the other, but
neither is entirely addressable in isolation. Varela (1979)
characterizes this duality as being based on "...how things are put
together and related through our descriptions, not losing track of the
fact that every 'it' can be seen on a different level as a process." (p.
100)
Varela (1976; 1979, pp. 99 ff.) spends a great deal of effort in characterizing the seemingly paradoxical manner in which complementarity recurs in systems-oriented enquiry. He distinguishes between (a) Hegelian-type dualities in which the elements' dichotomy is manifest within one level of reference / description and (b) those recursively resolvable dualities in which an apparent conflict of type (a) is resolved in terms of the conflicting elements constituting a unifying term at a 'higher' level. Type (a) complementarity is the type most widely addressed in 19th and 20th century studies. Type (b) complementarity is the object of Varela's Star schema.
-
2.
-
Any of the pairs of unities, constructs or attributes exhibiting
complementarity (1.). A synonym for complementary pair.
Cf. : asymmetry, complementary pair, Star, symmetry
-
complementary pair
-
Any of the pairs of constructs or attributes exhibiting complementarity (1.). A synonym for
complementarity (2.).
-
complex system
-
A phrase employed in Varela, Maturana & Uribe (1974) as an early label for composite unity.
"Every unity can be treated either as an unanalyzable whole endowed with constitutive properties which define it as a unity, or else as a complex system that is realized as a unity through its components and their mutual relations."
(Varela, Maturana & Uribe, 1974, pp. 187-188)
As such, this single invocation of the term does not provide a strong basis for equating it with the later usage of 'complex systems' generally as the subject matter of 'complexity studies.'
-
component
-
A term typically used generically to denote a discernible element
participating in the composition of a composite unity . This term's
ubiquitous occurrence in the primary literature is an indicator of its
importance (which goes largely unaddressed). For example, it is in
terms of relations among such "components" that compensatory change is
delineated. Most importantly, it is in terms of "components" that
definitions (particularly the earlier definitions) of the living
organization are framed (Cf. Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela,
1980, pp. 48-49). As such, the "components" which constitute an
autopoietic system are due that label on the basis of their actual
participation in the realization of the system's autopoietic character,
and not on the basis of an observer's ascription of their componential
status with respect to the discerned unity. Because the subunits that
an observer discerns in a composite unity ("parts", per Maturana --
Cf. : Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 48-49) derive from
distinctions in her cognitive domain, they are not manifest in the same
domain or space in which the discerned unity realizes (e.g.)
autopoiesis. This qualification also pertains to the relations ascribed
as holding among those parts -- the very relations which delineate the
unity as a whole and define its (possibly autopoietic) character.
Analyses of composite unities (e.g., "systems") are therefore qualified
with regard to two dichotomies among categories of explanatory
phenomena, viz.: (a) "components" as essential constituents versus
"parts" as sub-unities discerned by the observer; and (b) the "relations
of production" definitive of an autopoietic machine versus what I shall
term the "relations of discerned composition" by which the observer
attributes part / whole relationship(s). (Cf.
Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 48-49) This explanatory "gap" cannot be
overcome:
"In principle a part should be definable through its
relations within the unit that it contributes to form by its operation
and interactions with other parts; this, however, cannot be attained
because the analysis of a unit into parts by the observer destroys the
very relations that would be significant for their characterization as
effective components of the unit."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 49)
NOTE: In this cited passage, Maturana is apparently using the term
"unit" to mean the unity being analyzed (as discerned by the analyzing
observer).
This "fractured" set of definitory constructs would seem to call into
question both the epistemological status of the observer's analysis and
the ontological status of the system(s) analyzed. Maturana's resolution
is to ascribe the part / whole relationships entirely to the descriptive
domain of the observer.
"Accordingly, in a strict sense a unit does not have parts, and a unit
is a unit only to the extent that it has a domain of interactions that
defines it as different from that with respect to which it is a unit,
and can be referred to only ... by characterizing its organization
through the domain of interactions which specify this distinction. In
this context, the notion of component is necessary only for
epistemological reasons in order to refer to the genesis of the
organization of the unit through our description, but this use does not
reflect the nature of its components."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 49)
This point is reinforced in a discussion of the explanatory nature of
the key relations of specificity and relations of order which define an
autopoietic space. These relations are stated to be explanatory
necessities in ascribing autopoiesis, but they are not to be taken as
literal reflections of an ontological status.
"...[W]hen we speak about relations of specification we refer to the
specification of components in the context of that which defines the
system as autopoietic. Any other element of specificity that may enter,
however necessary it may be for the factibility [factual
characterization] of the components, but which is not defined through
the autopoietic organization, we take for granted. Similarly ...
(r)elations of order refer to the establishment of processes that secure
the presence of the components in the concatenation that results in
autopoiesis. No other reference is meant, however conceivable it may be
within other perspectives of description."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 89)
Cf. : part, context, description, organization , unity
-
composite unity
-
In the primary literature, the preferred term for a unity which can be
distinguished as being constituted by a set of integral components. It
is with respect to this term that the key concepts of organization ,
structure , and autopoiesis are framed. In fact, "...only a composite
unity has structure and organization, a simple unity does not."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xx) A composite unity can be construed as
a simple unity which has been made subject to subsequent operations of
distinction:
"If we recursively apply the operation of distinction to a [simple]
unity, so that we distinguish components in it, we respecify it as a
composite unity that exists in the space that its components define
because it is through the specified properties of its components that we
observers distinguish it."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xix)
"A composite unity is a unity distinguished as a simple unity that
through further operations of distinction is decomposed by the observer
into components that through their composition would constitute the
original simple unity in the domain in which it is distinguished. A
composite unity, therefore, is operationally distinguished as a simple
unity in a metadomain with respect to the domain in which its components
are distinguished because it results as such from an operation of
composition."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.iii.)
It is important to bear in mind that the notion of composite unity
connotes a duality of distinguishability (as a whole; as a coherent set
of components) on the part of an observer, which does not necessarily
imply any absolute correspondence of referentiality in terms of (e.g.)
space of discernment or constitutional integrability. The space or
domain of eduction for a composite unity is not (and arguably cannot be)
the same as that for the simple unity to which it corresponds. This is
well-illustrated with respect to autopoietic systems:
"...[I]f an autopoietic system is treated as a composite unity, it
exists in the space defined by its components, but if it is treated as a
simple unity the distinctions that specify it as a simple unity
characterize its properties as a simple unity, and define the space in
which it exists as such a simple unity."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xix)
...and it applies to the general case of any composite unity:
"The organization of a system defines it as a composite unity and
determines its properties as such a unity by specifying a domain in
which it can interact (and, hence, be observed) as an unanalyzable whole
endowed with constitutive properties. The properties of a composite
unity as an unanalyzable whole establish a space in which it operates as
a simple unity. In contrast, the structure of a system determines the
space in which it exists as a composite unity that can be perturbed
through the interactions of its components, but the structure does not
determine its properties as an unity."
(Maturana, 1978)
As such, any scientist:
"... must distinguish two phenomenal domains when observing a composite
unity: (a) the phenomenal domain proper to the components of the unity,
which is the domain in which all the interactions of the components take
place; and (b) the phenomenal domain proper to the unity, which is the
domain specified by the interactions of the composite unity as a simple
unity."
(Maturana, 1978)
....and such scientific observation of a living system entails two
particular such phenomenal domains. This duality of domains of observation in turn distinguishes the manner (for each of the alternatives) in which the observer / scientist may observe (and hence, describe and explain) the subject system.
"...the first phenomenal domain, in which the interactions of the
components are described with respect to the living system that they
constitute, is the domain of physiological phenomena; the second
phenomenal domain, in which a living system is seen as if it were a
simple unity that interacts with the components of the environment in
which its autopoiesis is realized, is the domain of behavioral
phenomena."
(Maturana, 1978)
"If the observer chooses to pay attention to the environment, he treats the system as a simple entity with given properties and seeks the regularities of its interaction with the environment, that is, the constraints on the behavior of the system imposed by its environment. ... On the other hand, the observer may choose to focus on the internal structure of the system, viewing the environment as background -- for example, as a source of perturbations upon the system's autonomous behavior. From this viewpoint, the properties of the system emerge from the interaction of its components."
(Varela, 1979, p. 85)
For most intents and purposes, the term 'composite unity' can be
considered a synonym for 'system' (in colloquial usage) as it appears in
the primary literature. In its colloquial usage, the classical
cybernetics construct 'system' is always a composite unity. The
canonical definitions of 'system' (e.g., by von Bertanlanffy) intersect
solely with the convergence of parts into a discernible whole. The
reverse (that they intersect with respect to deconstruction of the whole
into specifiable parts) is not always tenable -- at least to the extent
that one assumes integrability to be a defining attribute of a "system."
This is largely because the notion of dynamic integrality typically
presumed in invoking "systems" is not, in fact, a portion of the
canonical definitions for that term. This issue was raised during the
early days of the cybernetics movement, but its resolution was not
accomplished by the time the construct 'system' had passed into popular
usage.
As such, the most defensible ascribed correspondence between composite
unity and 'system' is contingent upon a vantage from which the latter is
taken as a whole.
"...[W]e can always treat a composite unity as a
simple unity that does not exist in the space of its components, but
which exists in a space that it defines through the properties that
characterize it as a simple unity."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xix)
Cf. : organization , simple unity , structure , system, system-whole, unity
-
computer gestalt
-
A synonym for gestalt of the
computer (Varela 1979, pp. xiii ff.) -- i.e., the metaphor by which
the human mind is equated with a symbol-processing Turing machine.
Therefore: A synonym for the metaphorical basis of computational
cognitivism.
-
conduct
-
-
1.
-
A specific analytical term employed to circumscribe the character of an
autopoietic system's behavior. It denotes any of the "...changes that
an organism undergoes while maintaining its autopoiesis. ... The conduct
of an organism is revealed to an observer by the changes that it causes
in the ambience (including the observer) in which it exists." (Maturana
& Varela, 1980, p. 124)
-
2.
-
In more colloquial usage, a synonym for behavior in the most general
sense. Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 139) explicitly equate the two
terms: "(v) Conduct or behaviour. The interactions in which it is
seen to enter as well as the active relations that a living system is
seen to adopt while operating (realizing its autopoiesis) within a given
context, and which are described by an observer with reference to this
context, constitute its conduct or behaviour."
Cf. : behavior
-
connotation / connotative
-
Generally, these terms are used in their colloquial sense of "to imply
or suggest" above and beyond any explicit signification. Most
specifically, Maturana's (e.g., 1978) account of languaging is
predicated on linguistic interaction being connotative (as opposed to
denotative) in its nature, such that "...its function is to orient the
orientee within his cognitive domain, and not to point to independent
entities ..." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 30) The reader is best
advised to review Maturana (1970b), reprinted in Maturana & Varela (1980), pp. 13-14; 26-29, for a
complete exposition.
Cf. : denotation / denotative, description, linguistic behavior, languaging, orientation
-
consciousness
-
Maturana's account for consciousness is developed on the basis of recursion, linguistic behavior, and distinction, as those constructs are specifically defined within autopoietic theory. The provision for consciousness dates back to the first delineation of the observer as a system capable of interacting with its own states as if they were perturbations triggered by the medium. However, it is only in later years that Maturana made this explicit by addressing 'consciousness' directly.
"...[T]he experience that we connote as we use the word consciousness, is one of self distinction as we distinguish ourselves making distinctions. And I maintain that that experience takes place as we operate in the distinction of the operation of distinction that recursively associates our bodyhood with the operations of distinction in which we participate as we operate in language alone or in our interactions with others. In other words, I consider that consciousness takes place as a particular relational dynamics when an organism operates as participant in a domain of recursive distinctions in language, and that it is not an entity or the property of an entity. I also consider that in order to be able to ascribe consciousness or self awareness to the operation of an organism, an observer must be able to claim that the organism to which he or she makes the ascription operates in second and third order recursive distinctions in language. Or, still other words, I claim that consciousness is an ascription that an observer makes to a living system if he or she thinks that its behaviour can only be understood as the self distinction of a self-distinction."
"Consciousness is not localized in the nervous system or in the body in general, it is lived as an experience in self consciousness, and it is lived only as long as there is in the living being that lives it the operationality that makes it arise as a fourth recursion in languaging. Furthermore, consciousness is lived as it is lived as an experience, and cannot be handled as an entity, or as a process, or as an operation in the nervous system, nor can it be attached to any structural feature of the nervous system, even though if the structure of the nervous system is altered the experience of consciousness is also altered or disappears."
(Maturana, 1995)
The allusions to specific 'orders' of recursion in linguistic behavior refer to the model Maturana provides in the above-cited essay, which outlines a progression of 'levels' or 'orders' by which recursion generates successively higher orders of behavioral engagement. For a more detailed illustration of this model, see the entry for self-consciousness.
Cf. : linguistic behavior, languaging, self-consciousness
-
consensual / consensuality
-
The term 'consensual' appears prominently in the core literature -- especially in Maturana's solo essays on linguistic behavior and related / derivative topics. In its earliest invocations, 'consensuality' was mainly invoked in explaining 'communicative' behaviors as they are reformulated from a mechanicistic vantage (e.g., Maturana, 1978), and consensual domain is one of the key constructs in that account. As such, 'consensuality' is commonly taken to refer to reciprocal structural coupling among languaging systems / organisms. While this is its primary manner of invocation, the term does have a more general basis:
"I call the behavior through which an organism participates in an ontogenic domain of recurrent interactions, consensual or linguistic according to whether I want to emphasize the ontogenic origin of the behavior (consensual), or its implications in the present state of the ongoing interactions (linguistic)."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.a.)
Accordingly, 'consensuality' is not limited in scope to linguistic interactions. It is the basis upon which languaging operates, when consensual action or activity appears (from an observer's vantage) to serve as a referent for further action / activity in the consensual domain thus established:
"When one or more living systems continue their co-ontogenic structural drift through their recurrent interactions in a consensual domain, it is possible for a recursion to take place in their consensual behavior resulting in the production of a consensual coordination of consensual coordinations of actions. If this were to happen, what an observer would see would be that the participants of a consensual domain of interactions would be operating in their consensual behavior making consensual distinctions upon their consensual distinctions, in a process that would recursively make a consensual action a consensual token for a consensual distinction that it obscures. Indeed, this process is precisely what takes place in our languaging in the praxis of living."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.b.)
Cf. : consensual distinction, consensual domain, linguistic behavior, languaging, self-consciousness
-
consensual distinction
-
A term used (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 121) to denote those
distinctions drawn within a linguistic domain and subsequently employed
as referential / orientational foci -- i.e., those
linguistically-generated states which (through recursive interaction)
can be addressed as the foci of further interactions. Because these
consensual distinctions are "second-order" in the sense of being
predicated on more basic distinctions, they constitute a metadomain
"...that appears to an observer as a domain of interactions with
representations of interactions." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 121)
The ascription of such a metadomain is a defining attribute of an
observer.
Cf. : consensual domain, distinction, linguistic domain, observer
-
consensual domain
-
A joint domain established during interaction between two
structurally-coupling systems., which constitutes ".. a domain of
interlocked (intercalated and mutually triggering) sequences of states,
established and determined through ontogenic interactions between
structurally plastic state-determined systems." (Maturana, 1975, p.
316)
"When two or more autopoietic systems interact recurrently, and the dynamic structure of each follows a course of change contingent upon the history of each's interactions with the others, there is a co-ontogenic structural drift that gives rise to an ontogenically established domain of recurrent interactions between them which appears to an observer as a domain of consensual coordinations of actions or distinctions in an environment. This ontogenically established domain of recurrent interactions I call a domain of consensual coordinations of actions or distinctions, or, more generally, a consensual domain of interactions, because it arises as a particular manner of living together contingent upon the unique history of recurrent interactions of the participants during their coontogeny."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.a.)
Because consensual domains are defined both by the structures of
their participants and the history by which they came to exist, they are
not reducible to descriptions framed only in terms of either.
"In each interaction the conduct of each organism is constitutively
independent in its generation of the conduct of the other, because it is
internally determined by the structure of the behaving organism only;
but it is for the other organism, while the chain [of interactions]
lasts, a source of compensable deformations that can be described as
meaningful in the context of the coupled behavior."
(Varela, 1979, pp. 48 - 49)
Cf. : coupling, structural coupling, linguistic domain
-
conservative change
-
The subclass of compensatory change in an autopoietic system subsuming
those instances where only intercomponential relations change (e.g., in
response to perturbation). The opposite of innovative change.
Cf. : compensatory change, innovative change
-
constituted objectivity
-
The label for an explanatory path addressing cognitive process which
qualifies explanation with respect to the biological foundations of the
living system(s) exhibiting cognition. A synonym for objectivity-in-parenthesis. The
opposite of transcendental
objectivity (or objectivity-without- parenthesis).
-
constitutive ontology
-
A label indirectly employed in Maturana (1988a) to denote a fundamental
referential stance (i.e., an ontology) consistent with the explanatory
path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, and lying within the domain of
constitutive ontologies which this explanatory path entails. This
specific term is directly quoted rarely, and its connotations are
presented indirectly through the other cited terminology. In context, a
constitutive ontology is the alternative to a transcendental ontology
(as those terms are specifically used in the cited paper).
-
constitutive relations
-
-
1.
-
In specific usage, a synonym for relations of constitution (Cf.
Maturana and Varela, 1980, pp. 90-91)
-
2.
-
This term is occasionally employed rhetorically to generally connote the
relations through which a systemic unity is composed, without apparent
allusion to the strict usage of 1. above.
-
constructivism
-
"For the constructivist, the dreams of reason denote a common denominator running through our language and logic, manifest as a wish for what we call 'reality' to have a certain shape and form. The wish has several dimensions.
...
Radical constructivism challenges this wish, thus taking on the
unpopular job of shattering the fantasy of an objective reality.
Constructivists argue that there are no observations -- i.e., no data, no
laws of nature, no external objects -- independent of
observers. The lawfulness and certainty of all natural phenomena are
properties of the describer, not of what is being described. The logic
of the world is the logic of the description of the world."
(Segal, 1986, pp. 3-4)
'Constructivism' is the general label for an epistemological position which (a) denies that individual knowledge directly accesses and unequivocally mirrors an 'objective reality' verbatim and (b) claims that individual knowledge is instead 'constructed' by the observer in response to the medium, but in terms and on terms of the observer's own constitutive features (e.g., modes of operation, conceptualizations, conceptual capacities).
NOTE:
Because Ernst von Glasersfeld's 'radical constructivism' is the most widely-known example (as opposed to an autonomous subcategory) of 'constructivism', information about 'constructivism' generally (including von Glasersfeld's views) is given here, and the Encyclopaedia entry for radical constructivism will concentrate on those points specific to von Glasersfeld's work and its relation to autopoietic theory. As such, citations from von Glasersfeld addressing 'radical constructivism' are invoked here as generally descriptive of 'constructivism' per se.
What is Constructivism?
The term 'constructivism' has been employed for some time in Western philosophy with connotations distinct from the epistemological constructivism discussed here. In addition, it has served as the label for one loose (or multiple similar -- take your pick) schools of thought and/or practice in the arts and architecture. What concerns us here is its current denotation of an epistemological stance, illustrated by the following representative passages:
"It is an unconventional approach to the problems of knowledge and knowing. It starts from the assumption that knowledge, no matter how it be defined, is in the heads of persons, and that the thinking subject has no alternative but to construct what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience. What we make of experience constitutes the only world we consciously live in. It can be sorted into many kinds, such as things, self, others, and so on. But all kinds of experience are essentially subjective, and though I may find reasons to believe that my experience may not be unlike yours, I have no way of knowing that it is the same."
(Glasersfeld, 1995, p. 1)
"It deals with a topic that was already known to the pre-Socratics, but which in our day is gaining increasing practical importance, namely, the growing awareness that any so-called reality is -- in the most immediate and concrete sense -- the construction of those who believe they have discovered and investigated it. In other words, what is supposedly found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him; the invention then becomes the basis of his world view and actions."
(Watzlawick, 1984, p. 10 (Foreword))
"Radical constructivism is uninhibitedly instrumentalist. It replaces the notion of 'truth' (as true representation of an independent reality) with the notion of 'viability' within the subjects' experiential world. Consequently it refuses all metaphysical commitments and claims to be no more than one possible model of thinking about the only word we can come to know, the world we construct as living subjects."
(Glasersfeld, 1995, p. 22)
Why is Constructivism a Difficult Perspective to Espouse?
Adopting a constructivistic epistemology requires a commitment of effort and patience on the part of scholars and students. This derives from the fact that Western philosophy (and the natural and social sciences which reflect it in their foundations) has been predicated on the presumption of a single objective reality whose assumed unequivocality has served as the 'fulcrum' for most of its theoretical underpinnings and, hence, its practical accomplishments. As such:
"Constructivism in its pure, radical sense is incompatible with traditional thinking. As different as most philosophical, scientific, social, ideological, or individual world images may be from one another, they still have one thing in common: the basic assumption that a real reality exists and that certain theories, ideologies, or personal convictions reflect it (match it) more correctly than others."
(Watzlawick, 1984, p. 15 (Introduction))
"Radical constructivism, thus, is radical because it breaks with convention and develops a theory of knowledge in which knowledge does not reflect an 'objective' ontological reality, but exclusively an ordering and organization of a world constituted by our experience."
(Glasersfeld, 1984, p. 25)
Who Exemplifies Constructivism?
In this section will be listed some representative examples of constructivist scholars. The criteria for inclusion in this listing include citation of (or linkage to) second-order cybernetics / autopoietic theory, explicit commitment (as opposed to vague allusion) to 'constructivism' as delineated here, and provision of substantial work which may prove fruitful for students of autopoietic theory to explore.
-
Precursors
-
Ernst von Glasersfeld (cf. his entry below) has been the constructivist most explicit in describing his 'line of descent' from and parallels with other thinkers. The following are the ones to whom he gives particular credit:
- George Berkeley (whose 'solipsism' von Glasersfeld believes has been unfairly exaggerated)
- Giambattista Vico
- Immanuel Kant (for the noumena/phenomena distinction and the priority of the a priori categories)
- Silvio Ceccato
- Percy Bridgman (with respect to operational delineation of concepts)
- Jean Piaget (whom von Glasersfeld identifies as his most important influence)
- Edmund Husserl (with respect to elementary constructs)
- Hans Vaihinger
Lynn Segal, in his book focused on constructivism (1986) adds to this list (e.g.):
- Gregory Bateson
- Warren McCulloch
- Erwin Schrödinger
...and no list would be complete without mentioning the gestalt psychologists (e.g., Köhler), von Uexküll's biological research (now re-emerging as the basis for biosemiotics), and Merleau Ponty (the philosopher most explicitly linking epistemology and behavior to embodiment). Although arguably not a pure 'constructivist' himself, Richard Rorty has provided the single most cogent and detailed critique of objectivistic representationalism in his 1979 book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
-
von Foerster
-
Heinz von Foerster is a key figure in the development of second-order cybernetics (in which the observer is taken to be an intrinsic component of any adequate description of a system) and in the trend toward constructivism within cybernetics and intersecting fields. A long-time colleague and friend of Maturana (who did research at von Foerster's Biological Computation Laboratory, University of Illinois), it was von Foerster who encouraged Maturana to write his emerging ideas in the form of a paper (Maturana, 1970a). Working on the issue(s) of systemic cognitive processes, it is von Foerster who first elucidated many of the constructs and positions which we now associate with 'constructivism' in the context of systems theory and cybernetics. Many of von Foerster's writings are difficult to obtain. Luckily, his classic essay 'On Constructing a Reality' is reprinted in Watzlawick (1984), and Segal (1986) is wholly focused on the development of constructivism with regard to von Foerster and his colleagues. These two publications fortunately make von Foerster reasonably accessible to the interested reader.
-
von Glasersfeld
-
Ernst von Glasersfeld (e.g., 1984; 1995) is the best-known current exponent of a constructivist epistemology. His radical constructivism has continuously evolved during his long career in psychology and education (cf. Glasersfeld, 1995). His seminal explorations of epistemological issues were undertaken in the context of learning, and the results originally published focused on education -- particularly mathematics education. Von Glasersfeld has been the constructivist most explicit in describing his 'line of descent' from prior thinkers, and the one most outspoken in contextualizing constructivism with regard to other work in Western philosophy and science. His 1995 book Radical Constructivism is a good overview of his career and his radical constructivism. Cf. the entry for radical constructivism.
-
Watzlawick
-
Paul Watzlawick is a well-known scholar and writer in the areas of psychology and psychotherapy. His interests in interpersonal communication led him progressively toward constructivistic orientations on epistemology. His 1976 book How Real is Real? is an excellent critique of epistemological objectivism for the popular audience. His edited collection The Invented Reality (Watzlawick, 1984) is perhaps the best available compendium on constructivist thinking.
-
Kelly
-
The American psychologist George Kelly (1955) developed a pragmatic perspective on everyday knowledge he termed constructive alternativism. Based on this, he devised a structural theory of personal epistemology based on personal constructs -- bipolar dimensions along which entities (elements) may be ranked. Kelly also developed a methodology (within the context of psychotherapy) for eliciting and refining a subject's personal constructs interactively -- repertory grid technique (RGT) -- which has been successfully applied in venues as formal as knowledge engineering for artificial intelligence design. Although Kelly explicitly avoided getting entangled in philosophical issues to any great depth, the person-specificity of the constructs he analyzed is readily mapped onto the general stance of epistemological constructivism. As such, Kelly is often cited as an example of constructivist thinking -- albeit one more concerned with practical applications (in psychotherapy) than in philosophy per se.
Cf. : epistemology, radical constructivism, solipsism
-
context
-
Generally, this term is used in its conventional sense of something
surrounding or environing a referential object that adds to or gives
that object its significance. However, Maturana makes it clear that
"context" is generated in (and limited to) the cognitive domain of an
observer capable of recursively making distinctions atop her basic
process of distinction by which that object is brought forth.
"The
entity characterized is a cognitive entity, but once is is characterized
the characterization is also subject to cognitive distinctions valid in
the metadomain in which they are made by treating the characterization
as an independent entity subject to contextual descriptions."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xxiii)
Hence, the "meaning-giving" function attributed to the notion of
"context" is itself a function of the observer's recursive cognitive
process, not an extrinsic attribute of the environment in which the object is discerned.
This observer-induced characterization of "context" derives directly
from the autopoietic analysis of the nervous system and its functions:
"...[I]n general, the organization and structure of a living system (its
nervous system included) define in it a 'point of view', a bias or
posture from the perspective of which it interacts determining at any
instant the possible relations accessible to its nervous system.
Moreover, since the domain of interactions of the organism is defined by
its structure, and since this structure implies a prediction of a niche,
the relations with which the nervous system interacts are defined by
this prediction and arise in the domain of interactions of the
organism."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 21)
In other words, the focusing of signification is directly contingent
upon the embodiment of the observer.
Cf. : the discussion of the environment as the prime "context" for
"beholding an autopoietic system" in its [distinct] ambience -- Maturana
& Varela (1980, pp. 99). In this regard, the increasingly prevalent (in
later years) tendency to employ medium in ways which blur the
distinctions among these more strictly-defined constructs has some
bearing on this view of context.
Figure AmbEnv illustrates the basic relations among ambience, environment, and medium (vis a vis variant delineations in the relevant literature). This figure is located within the entry for 'environment'.
Cf. : the discussion of the evaluation of relations of specificity and relations of order in a
"context" (as delineated above), based on their status as referential notions pertaining to an
observer (as opposed to relations of constitution). (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 89)
Cf. : the discussion of purpose being evaluable only
within a context (as defined above) which is provided by an observer and
is extant only in her cognitive domain. (Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp.
85-86)
Cf. : ambience, environment, medium
-
control
-
As used generically, the condition in which a system is guided or
deterministically influenced from without -- a synonym for allonomy, and
the opposite of autonomy (3.) (Cf. Varela, 1979,
pp. xi ff.)
Cf. : allonomy, autonomy , control description
-
control description
-
Per Varela (1979), one of the two major classes of system description
(the other being autonomous descriptions). In control description, the
system is described / characterized in terms of it being
deterministically influenced or guided by extrinsic factors.
Cf. : allonomy, autonomous description, autonomy , control description
-
cooperative conduct
-
A term employed by Maturana (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 32) to connote
interactional behavior associated with (underlying?) linguistic
interaction via a consensual domain. See the closing citation in the
entry for cooperative domain (of interactions).
-
cooperative domain (of interactions)
-
A term used on two occasions (Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 50, 57) to
connote (p. 50) the interactional domain upon or from which a consensual domain arises or perhaps (p. 57) the consensual domain itself. On the
first occasion, Maturana describes the function of language as "... the
creation of a consensual domain of behavior between linguistically
interacting systems through the development of a cooperative domain of
interactions." (p. 50) On the second occasion he again defines the
function of language, but this time stating it as "...the creation of a
cooperative domain of interactions between speakers through the
development of a common frame of reference." (p. 57 -- note the
omission of any allusion to consensual domain) In the first instance,
it would appear reasonable to construe this "cooperative domain" as a
transitional step to, or a basis for, a consensual domain (with the
boundary conditions of the transition unspecified). In the second
instance, it would appear to do no violence to the passage to replace
the term "cooperative domain of interactions" with "consensual domain."
If there is a distinction to be made between a cooperative domain of
interactions and a consensual domain, it would reasonably be based upon
a distinction between general interactional behavior and specifically
linguistic interactional behavior. Such a division is (weakly) alluded
to in two passages in which Maturana states:
"Consensus arises only through cooperative interactions in which
the resulting behavior of each organism becomes subservient to the
maintenance of both."
and
"...[B]ecause the outcome of the interaction is determined in the
cognitive domain of the orientee regardless of the significance of the
message in the cognitive domain of the orienter, the denotative function
of the message lies only in the cognitive domain of the observer and not
in the operative effectiveness of the communicative interaction. The
cooperative conduct that may develop between the interacting organisms
from these communicative interactions is a secondary process independent
of their operative effectiveness."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 32)
Cf. : consensual domain, domain of interactions
-
coordination
-
A term used more or less in its colloquial sense connoting 'orderly or harmonious arrangement', which has come to be the predominant referent for the basis of Maturana's account of language and languaging.
"When two or more autopoietic systems interact recurrently, and the dynamic structure of each follows a course of change contingent upon the history of each's interactions with the others, there is a co-ontogenic structural drift that gives rise to an ontogenically established domain of recurrent interactions between them which appears to an observer as a domain of consensual coordinations of actions or distinctions in an environment. ... I speak of coordinations of actions or coordinations of distinctions, according to whether I want to emphasize what takes place in the interaction in relation to the participants (coordinations of actions), or what takes place in the interactions in relation to an environment (coordinations of distinctions)."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.a)
As Maturana's reformulation of 'language' evolved, his original reliance on constructs such as 'cooperative domain of interactions' and 'structural coupling' faded in preference to the now-familiar 'coordinations of coordinations' (of action or beahvior). The seminal 1978 paper 'Biology of Language' in fact uses the term 'coordination' only once, and then generically:
"The conditions under which a conversation takes place (common interest,
spatial confinement, friendship, love, or whatever keeps the organisms
together), and which determine that the organisms should continue to
interact until a consensual domain is established, constitute the domain
in which selection for the ontogenic structural coupling takes place.
Without them, a consensual domain could never be established, and
communication, as the coordination of noncreative ontogenically
acquired modes of behavior, would never take place."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 55, emphasis added)
As time went on, 'coordination' (of action / behavior) became a discrete construct at the center of Maturana's explanation of 'language'. By 'discrete' I mean that instead of referring to 'coordination' (a process, as is insinuated in the 1978 quote above) Maturana is speaking of 'coordinations' (unit manifestations of such a process, as in the 1988b passage quoted first in this entry). The following passages illustrate the progression during the decade following the seminal 1978 paper:
"The objects that two conversing observers describe, arise as such only in language as a manner of ontogenic coordination of conduct that results in some organisms from their ontogenic structural drifts in reciprocal structural coupling ... In other words, objects arise only in the particular coontogenic history of recurrent ontogenic coordination of conduct that language is (see Maturana, 1978, and Maturana and Varela, 1980)."
(Maturana, 1983, Section F.)
"Our world of cognition through perception is like that: we bring forth a world of distinctions through the changes of state that we undergo as we conserve our structural coupling in the different media in which we become immersed along our lives, and then, using our changes of state as recurrent distinctions in a social domain of coordination of actions (language), we bring forth a world of objects as coordinations of actions with which we describe our coordinations of action."
(Maturana, 1983, Section H.)
"An observer claims that language, or better, languaging, is taking
place when he or she observers a particular kind of flow (that I shall
describe below) in the interactions and co-ordinations of actions
between human beings. As such, language is a biological phenomenon
because it results from the operations of human beings as living
systems, but it takes place in the domain of the co-ordinations of
actions of the participants, and not in their physiology or
neurophysiology."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 45)
"When two or more autopoietic systems interact recurrently, and the dynamic structure of each follows a course of change contingent upon the history of each's interactions with the others, there is a co-ontogenic structural drift that gives rise to an ontogenically established domain of recurrent interactions between them which appears to an observer as a domain of consensual coordinations of actions or distinctions in an environment. This ontogenically established domain of recurrent interactions I call a domain of consensual coordinations of actions or distinctions ... Furthermore, because an observer can describe such a domain of recurrent interactions in semantic terms, by referring the different coordinations of actions (or distinctions) involved to the different consequences that they have in the domain in which they are distinguished, I also call a consensual domain of interactions a linguistic domain. ... I speak of coordinations of actions or coordinations of distinctions, according to whether I want to emphasize what takes place in the interaction in relation to the participants (coordinations of actions), or what takes place in the interactions in relation to an environment (coordinations of distinctions)."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.b.)
'Coordination of action' is not, in the final analysis, an atomic construct (even though it has been progressively employed as if it were). A 'coordination of action / behavior' in the linguistic domain is a relational phenomenon reliant upon other relational phenomena realized in the bodyhood of the languaging subject. To refer to linguistic phenomenon solely in terms of such 'coordinations' is to employ a shorthand nomenclature concentrating on the behavioral / interactional aspects of the subject system without delving into the details of its structure and mechanics. There is no innate problem with such shorthand unless it obscures the relational phenomena upon which the conduct labeled by an observer as a 'coordination' is predicated. That there is something underpinning 'coordination' is well-illustrated by the following remark:
"In fact, aphasias and apraxias are, according to what I have said, necessary consequences of localized lesions that interfere with the generation, in the nervous system, of the relations of activity that give rise to the particular sensory-effector correlations involved in the coordinations of actions that constitute the human operation in a linguistic domain."
(Maturana, 1983, 'Note Added in Proof' / afterword)
Cf. : behavior, consensual, consensual domain, language, languaging, linguistic behavior, recursion, structural coupling
-
copying
-
A subclass of reproduction which is attributed "...whenever a given
object or phenomenon is mapped by means of some procedure upon a
different system, so that an isomorphic object or phenomenon is realized
in it." (Maturana and Varela, 1980, p. 100)
Cf. : replication, reproduction, self-reproduction
-
cosmology
-
The label Maturana prefers to apply to his theoretical work (as opposed
to a "philosophy"). Cf. Maturana's comments in Maturana & Varela (1980,
p. xviii); Simon (1985). There is no place in the literature where the
specific connotations of this label are explicitly explained, nor is
there sufficient evidence upon which to compare it against either (a)
Maturana's elaborated distinctions between scientific explanations and
philosophical explanations or (b) Maturana's elaborated distinctions
between the explanatory paths of objectivity-in-parenthesis and
objectivity-without-parenthesis.
-
coupling
-
A generic term for dynamic intersystem engagement involving reciprocal
effect, manifest "whenever the conduct of two or more unities is such
that the conduct of each one is a function of the conduct of the
others." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136) This is qualified by the
provision that the coupling unities maintain their identity throughout
the engagement so labeled: "Coupling arises as a result of the mutual
modifications that interacting unities undergo in the course of their
interactions without loss of identity." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
107)
The most important application of this term is structural coupling,
wherein the coupling engagement reciprocally affects the structure of
each engaged system. A closely related, but distinctly framed,
construct is behavioral coupling.
Cf. : behavioral coupling, structural coupling
-
creativity
-
The ascribed result of the unavoidably generative nature of the
observer's "bounded but unlimited" cognitive domain. Owing to the
constitutive recursion in the cognitive domain, the observer "...can in
an endless recursive manner interact with representations of his
interactions and generate through himself relations between otherwise
independent domains." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 51)
-
criteria of validation
-
-
1. (...of scientific explanations)
-
Maturana's (1978; 1988a; 1988b) label for a set of four operational conditions which, if satisfied in the praxis of living of an observer, circumscribe the course of scientific method and the basis for acceptance (i.e., 'validation') of a scientific explanation. The criteria of validation thus delineate the standard by which explanations generated in (Maturana's formulation of) scientific method are judged viable.
Table CriofVal below provides a summarization of Maturana's primary expositions on the criteria of validation, as they appear in the three above-cited essays. It is interesting to note how, over the course of a decade, the description of each condition becomes (a) more qualified in general and (b) qualified with respect to other evolving constructs (e.g., praxis of living).
TABLE CRIOFVAL:
Criteria of Validation for Scientific Explanations
(per Maturana: 1978; 1988a; 1988b)
|
Maturana (1978)
p. 28
|
Maturana (1988a)
pp. 34-35
|
Maturana (1988b)
4.i.A
|
|
(A) SETTING THE EXPLANATORY FOCUS
|
|
[O]bservation of a phenomenon that, henceforth, is taken as a problem to be explained
...
[T]he observer specifies a procedure of observation that, in turn, specifies the phenomenon
that he or she will attempt to explain.
|
The specification of the phenomenon to be explained as a feature of
the praxis of living of the observer through the description of what he
or she must do to experience it.
|
The specification of the phenomenon to be explained through the stipulation of the operations that a standard observer must perform in his or her praxis of living in order to also be a witness of it in his or her praxis of living.
|
|
(B) GENERATING AN EXPLANATORY HYPOTHESIS
|
|
[P]roposition of an explanatory hypothesis in the form of a
deterministic system that can generate a phenomenon isomorphic with the
one observed
...
[T]he observer proposes a conceptual or concrete system as a
model of the system that he or she assumes generates the observed phenomenon.
|
The proposition in the praxis of living of the observer of a
mechanism that as a consequence of its operation would give rise in him
or her to the experience of the phenomenon to be explained.
|
The proposition, in the domain of operational coherences of the praxis of living of a standard observer, of a mechanism, a generative mechanism, which when allowed to operate gives rise as a consequence of its operation to the phenomenon to be explained, to be witnessed by the observer also in his or her praxis of living. ... [T]he phenomenon to be explained and its generative mechanism take place in different nonintersecting phenomenal domains in the praxis of living of the observer.
|
|
(C) POSITING RAMIFICATIONS OF THE EXPLANATORY HYPOTHESIS
|
|
[P]roposition of a computed state or process in the system specified
by the hypothesis as a predicted phenomenon to be observed
...
[T]he observer uses the proposed model to compute a state or a process
that he or she proposes as a predicted phenomenon to be observed in the
modeled system.
|
The deduction from the mechanism proposed in (b) and of all the
operational coherences that it entails in the praxis of living of the
observer, of other phenomena as well as of the operations that the
observer must do in his or her praxis of living to experience them.
|
The deduction, that is, the computation, in the domain of operational coherence of the praxis of living of the standard observer entailed by the generative mechanism proposed in (b), of other phenomena that the standard observer should be able to witness in his or her domain of experiences as a result of the operation of such operational coherences, and the stipulation of the operations that he or she should perform in order to do so.
|
|
(D) SUBSEQUENT OBSERVATION / ASSESSMENT OF THE EXPLANATORY HYPOTHESIS
|
|
[The observer] ... attempts to observe the predicted phenomenon as a
case in the modeled system. If the observer succeeds in making this
second observation, he or she then maintains that the model has been
validated and that the system under study is in that respect isomorphic
to it and operates accordingly.
|
The actual experience by the observer of those additional phenomena
deduced in (c), as he or she perform in his or her praxis of living
those operations that, according to what has also been deduced in (c),
would be generated in it as he or she realises them.
|
The actual witnessing, in his or her domain of experiences, of the phenomena deduced in (c) by the standard observer who actually performs in his or her praxis of living the operations stipulated also in (c).
|
Source material in the above table is quoted directly from the cited essays.
|
-
2. (...of philosophical explanations)
-
In contrast to the detailed treatment given scientific explanation over the years, Maturana is much broader in describing the criteria of validation for philosophical explanations:
"The criteria of validation of the explanations entailed in a philosophical theory can be many, provided they are internally logically consistent."
(Maturana, 1991)
Insofar as philosophical explanations are predicated on logical descent from a priori principles or tenets, their 'criteria of validation' are built into their starting point(s) and/or their method of derivation. The relative lack of creative and generative capacity Maturana ascribes to philosophical explanation (as a process) minimizes the necessity of describing a mechanism for obtaining or ensuring validation (beyond the reliance on a priori bases and presumptively coherent and complete rules / modes for derivation).
NOTE: Both the singular (criterion of...) and plural (criteria of...) forms occur in Maturana's writings. Perhaps because he most commonly refers to the set of criteria listed above, the plural form is the one most frequently encountered.
Cf. : The entry for theory, which provides a more detailed comparison of scientific versus philosophical explanations / theories.
Cf. : explanation, scientific explanation, scientific method
-
criterion of acceptability
-
That standard by which an observer assesses an explanation as either
viable or not. To serve as an explanation (reformulation of the
listener's praxis of living), the listener "...accepts or rejects a
statement as a reformulation of a particular situation of his or her
praxis of living with elements of other situations of his or her praxis
of living..." and thus "...determines whether that statement is or is
not an explanation." In doing this, the listener "...accepts or rejects
a reformulation of his or her praxis of living as an explanation
according to whether or not it satisfies an implicit or explicit
criterion of acceptability that he or she applies through his or her
manner of listening." This is an essential characteristic of an
observer's explanatory operations: "...we observers never listen in a
vacuum, we always apply some particular criterion of acceptability to
whatever we hear (see, touch, smell...or think), accepting or rejecting
it according to whether or not it satisfies such criteria in our
listening." (quoted passages are taken from Maturana, 1988a, p. 28)
The criterion of acceptability is intimately linked to this manner of
listening (a stance or disposition in the awaiting of an answer /
explanation). The particular manner of listening in which a listener
evaluates or receives a candidate explanation will entail a particular
criterion of acceptability, and it will circumscribe (a)the set of
viable (acceptable) explanations as well as (b) the set of observers of
similar acceptance (and hence agreement).
NOTE: Both the singular (criterion of...) and plural (criteria of...) forms occur in Maturana's writings. Perhaps because he most commonly refers to a unary benchmark for acceptability, the singular form is the one most frequently encountered.
Cf. : explanation, manner of listening
-
criterion of distinction
-
A constraining or circumscriptive effect specified in the course of making a reference which
"...indicates what we are talking about and specifies its properties as
being, unity, or object." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 40). Given an act of distinction:
"To be sure, there are many ways to perform this subdivision of our experience. But some criterion of distinction is always present. Given some criterion, we distinguish and recognize things such as animals, galaxies or families. Some system-wholes appear to be quite universally distinguished (e.g., persons); others (e.g., nations) seem more variable. Every culture will select quite specifically which are the predominant criteria of distinction ..."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 293, emphasis in the original)
As used here, a criterion of distinction connotes a projective sort of circumscription which derives from an act of reference. This derivative or projective connotation distinguishes a criterion of distinction from a criterion of acceptability (of an explanation) in the sense that the latter is (or, at least, not uniquely other than) "given" -- i.e., not contingent upon a given situation per se.
Cf. : distinction, unity
-
criterion of internal connectivity (of a theory)
-
"A theory is an explanatory system that interconnects many otherwise apparently unrelated phenomena (experiences), which is proposed as a domain of coherent explanations that are woven together with some conceptual thread that defines the nature of its internal connectivity and the extent of its generative applicability in the domain of human actions. As such, a theory is valid for those who accept both the criterion of validation of the explanations that it entails, and the criterion of internal connectivity that makes it a fully coherent conceptual system."
(Maturana, 1991)
Just as a criterion of validation is the standard for what makes an explanation valid (for a given mode of explanation), the criterion of internal connectivity is the standard (or set of standards) for what makes a topically-coordinated set of explanations (i.e., a theory) valid with respect to the given mode of explanation.
Maturana employed this construct as a tool to differentiate between 'scientific' and 'philosophical' theories. More details on this dichotomy are given under the entry for theory.
Cf. : explanation, theory
-
cultural behavior
-
"...the transgenerational stability of behavioral patterns ontogenically
acquired in the communicative dynamics of a social environment."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 201)
-
culture
-
Autopoietic theory's initial concentration on the architectonics of systems (e.g., their organization and structure) has led many to attempt application of Maturana and Varela's work to those human collectives which are delineated architectonically -- i.e., social systems, or 'societies' as these terms are employed in traditional sociology. The viability of such applications is left to the judgment of the reader (Cf. the entry for social systems). Whatever may be said for or against the applicability of Maturana and Varela's theories to social systems (taken as systems), there is little doubt that the individual-oriented cognitive and interactional aspects of autopoietic theory provide interesting points from which to address the persistent collective phenomenon emergent from human interactivities in the course of participants' praxes of living -- i.e., culture.
"A culture is a network of conversations that define a way of living, a way of being oriented in existence in the human domain, and involves a manner of acting, a manner of emotioning, and a manner of growing in acting and emotioning. One grows in a culture by living in it as a particular way of being human in the network of conversations that defines it. Because of that, the members of a culture effortlessly live the network of conversations that constitute it, as a natural and spontaneous background, like the one which is given and in which one finds him/herself by the simple fact of being, independently of the social as well as non-social systems to which one can belong."
(Maturana, 1989)
One aspect of a culturally-defined 'way of living' is the manner in which the cultural network of conversations operates to delineate its particularly-accepted 'manner(s)' by which participants enact their membership in a given culture. Varela & Goguen (1978) allude to one means for accomplishing this in terms of setting acceptable or conventional criteria of distinction by which the essential distinctions underlying cognitive and conversational activity are made and/or recognized:
"To be sure, there are many ways to perform this subdivision of our experience. But some criterion of distinction is always present. Given some criterion, we distinguish and recognize things such as animals, galaxies or families. Some system-wholes appear to be quite universally distinguished (e.g., persons); others (e.g., nations) seem more variable. Every culture will select quite specifically which are the predominant criteria of distinction ..."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 293, emphasis in the original)
-
-
deformation
-
A term used to denote situational change induced in a system's state or
structural configuration. "Deformation" is employed as an analogue to
the construct of perturbation in describing the viable interactions of
an autopoietic system. The terms are essentially applied to the same
phenomena, and their invocations constitute nothing more than two
slightly different "slants" or "perspectives" on those phenomena being
explained. The terms differ in their explanatory focus, with
"deformation" referring to configural shifts in the system perturbed,
and "perturbation" referring to the action or event which induces such
"deformation". Phrased crudely, "deformation" is an effect (discerned
with respect to a subject system), while the associated "perturbation"
is (at least to an observer) its cause.
Owing to the fact that deformation (in contrast to perturbation) refers
to the subject system rather than to an event impinging upon it, this
term is heavily invoked in discussion of a system's (particularly an
autopoietic system's) ontogeny -- its history of structural
transformation. A good illustration of this is Varela's (1979, p. 32)
framing of both the potential and actualized ontogeny of an autopoietic
system with respect to deformations which the system may withstand
without loss of identity.
Deformation of an autopoietic system without loss of identity requires
that the system's organization be preserved. The range of compensable
changes which the system may tolerate without disintegration is
therefore determined by the system's organization. In other words,
although deformation is evidenced by change (even if only transient) in
the system's structure , the range or scope of allowable / tolerable
deformation is circumscribed with regard to its organization.
Because the manner and course of deformation will serve as primary
evidence in observing a system's behavior, it is important to point out
that deformation is not restricted to changes impelled by factors
exogenous to the subject system. Because of the closure exhibited by
autopoietic systems (e.g., the closure of the human nervous system),
they are capable of deformation as a result of their own behavior.
"There are two sources of deformations for an autopoietic system as the
appear to be to an observer: one is constituted by the environment as a
source of independent events in the sense that these are not determined
by the organization of the system; the other is constituted by the
system itself as a source of states that arise from compensations of
deformations, but that themselves can constitute deformations that
generate further compensatory changes."
(Varela, 1979, p. 32)
This appearance (to the observer) results in a distinction between the
system's and the observer's perspective on ontogeny (as a succession of
deformations and compensatory changes). "In the phenomenology of the
autopoietic organization these two sources of perturbations are
indistinguishable, and in each autopoietic system they braid together to
form a single ontogeny." (Varela, 1979, p. 32) In contrast, to the
observer this ontogeny "...partly reflects [the system's] history of
interactions with an independent environment." (Ibid.)
Cf. : compensation, compensatory change, perturbation, ontogeny
-
denotation / denotative
-
Generally, these terms are used in their colloquial sense of "explicitly
and directly referencing an independent objective entity." More
specifically, Maturana's (e.g., 1978) account of languaging is
predicated on language being connotative rather than denotative. This in part derives from the fact that denotation (as an integral component of conventional explanations of communicative behavior) cannot, once you think about it, be considered as primary or fundamental:
"A language, whether in its restricted or
in its generalized form, is currently considered to be a denotative
system of symbolic communication, composed of words that denote entities
regardless of the domain in which these entities may exist. Denotation,
however, is not a primitive operation. It requires agreement or
consensus for the specification of the denotant and the denoted. If
denotation, therefore, is not a primitive operation, it cannot be a
primitive linguistic operation, either. Language must arise as a result
of something else that does not require denotation for its
establishment, but that gives rise to language with all its implications
as a trivial necessary result."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 50)
Maturana's exposition of
linguistic behavior (Cf. Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 13-14; 26-29) specifically elaborates on the denotative / connotative distinction when it draws a contrast between the denotative character of
behaviors through which a cognitive system (organism) encounters its
niche and those more 'connotative' behaviors via which an observer may
orient another in the course of linguistic behavior within a consensual domain. Denotation, rather than serving as the foundation for such interactivity, is instead a convenient way of describing it:
"Within a consensual domain the various components of a consensual
interaction do not operate as denotants; at most, an observer could say
that they connote the states of the participants as they trigger each
other in interlocked sequences of changes of state. Denotation arises
only in a metadomain as an a posteriori commentary made by the observer
about the consequences of operation of the interacting systems."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 50)
Cf. : description, linguistic behavior, languaging, orientation
-
description
-
Maturana (1970b -- reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980) distinguishes
between Description ("first-order" behaviors realized between an
organism and the domain of interactions it circumscribes within its
medium -- i.e., its niche) and descriptions ("second-order" denotative,
communicative behaviors icogdo an observer). Given the circularity of
the nervous system's architecture, an organism may couple with
(distinguish among, hence observe) its own behaviors (Descriptions) as
unit entities. Such a coupling is realized "between organism and
self-observing organism", so to speak (whereas the Descriptions are
manifested in a domain realized between organism and medium). As such,
an observer reflecting on her internally-educed behavior(s), like an
observer of phenomena wholly extrinsic (i.e., completely realized in the
medium), is operating with strict regard to descriptions. The use of
the term "description" (in its specific denotative sense) will hereafter
be taken to mean description as distinguished by Maturana (1970b).
The distinction between 'Description' and 'description' is a key to the
original theoretical development of linguistic behavior as a matter of
reciprocal orientation among interactors. The reader is best advised to
review Maturana (1970b), reprinted in Maturana & Varela (1980), pp. 13-14; 26-29. In later writings (most particularly those of Maturana) this second-order sense of 'description' becomes the unique sense employed. For example:
"...[A]ll participants in a language domain can be observers with respect to the sequences of coordinations of actions in which they participate, constituting a system of recursive distinctions in which systems of distinctions become objects of distinction. Such recursive distinctions of distinctions in the happening of living in language that bring forth systems of objects, constitute the phenomenon of description. As a result, all that there is in the human domain are descriptions in the happening of living in language which, as happenings of living in language, become objects of descriptions in language."
(Maturana, 1988b, 9.v.)
Cf. : distinction, linguistic behavior, languaging, object, orientation
-
destructive change
-
A construct defined implicitly by the definition of domain of destructive changes as any of "...
those structural changes that a unity can undergo with loss of
organization and therefore with loss of class identity." (Maturana &
Varela, 1992, p. 97) Any change (of structural state) which results in disintegration.
-
destructive interaction
-
As defined implicitly by defining the domain of destructive interactions, any of "... those
perturbations that result in a destructive change." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 97) As defined implicitly by defining the instantaneous domain of the
possible destructive interactions for a given composite unity, any of "... the different structural configurations of the
medium that it admits at that instant in interactions that trigger in it
its disintegration ...." (Maturana,1988b, 6.v.)
-
disintegration
-
-
1.
-
The termination of a composite unity
occurring when its organization is
disrupted beyond preservation of the character which defined that unity in its distinction.
(Cf. Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xxi) Phrased another
way, disintegration occurs when the system's organization is modified or
disrupted to the point that it cannot maintain the circularity of internal states prescribed in its
initial distinction (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980,
p. 10). Maturana (1978) defines disintegration as "... changes of
structure with loss of identity...".
This last version highlights one of the problems in addressing
disintegration -- i.e., whether or not the essential indexicability
(i.e., identity ) is preserved. The notion of
what is the "identity" for a given composite unity must naturally be
qualified with the circumstances of its discernment by an observer. It is the organization of a composite
unity which determines its class identity,
but the primary literature is never really clear on whether this factor
(organization) somehow uniquely "identifies" a composite unity. It
would seem straightforward to propose that it is the composite unity's
structure (i.e., the specific components
realizing it) which is by definition unique, and therefore uniquely
indexicable. However, nowhere in the primary literature is this
proposition explicitly stated.
-
2.
-
A term for a change of state resulting in loss of a composite unity's defining organization. In this sense, the term is used to connote that which leads to disintegration (1.), rather than the event itself. For example:
"We call the structural changes that occur in a system with conservation of organization, changes of state; and those that occur with loss of organization, disintegrations."
(Maturana, Mpodozis & Letelier, 1995)
It is this sense of the term which is invoked in Maturana's definition of instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations.
-
distinction
-
"Behind the simplest idea of a system, stands the basic act of splitting the world in what we consider separable and significant entities."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 293)
A very central notion in Maturana and Varela's work is distinction.
"The basic cognitive operation that we perform as observers is the
operation of distinction." (Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xix). As the
fundamental act of cognitive operation, distinction affords an observer
the ability to "...specify a unity as an entity distinct from a
background, characterize both unity and background with the properties
with which this operation endows them, and specify their separability." (Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xix)
"A distinction splits the world into two parts, 'that' and 'this', or 'environment' and 'system', or 'us' and 'them', etc. One of the most fundamental of all human activities is the making of distinctions. Certainly, it is the most fundamental act of system theory, the very act of defining the system presently of interest, of distinguishing it from its environment."
(Varela, 1979, p. 84)
"The fundamental operation that an observer can perform is an operation
of distinction, the specification of an entity by operationally cleaving
it from a background. Furthermore, that which results from an operation
of distinction and can thus be distinguished, is a thing with the
properties that the operation of distinction specifies, and which exists
in the space that these properties establish."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 55)
"An observer makes distinctions through operations that cleave a continuum and bring forth entities as distinguishable unities or wholes, specifying them and the background in which they exist. The observer exists by making distinctions of distinctions, and brings itself forth by making such distinctions in a recursive manner..."
(Maturana, 1983)
"The basic operation that an observer performs in the praxis of living
is the operation of distinction. In the operation of distinction an
observer brings forth a unity (an entity, a whole) as well as the medium
in which it is distinguished, and entails in this latter all the
operational coherences that make the distinction of the unity possible
in his or her praxis of living."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.ii.)
Because the operation of distinction is thus characterized as the
mechanism of eduction for any object of reference, it follows that
autopoietic theory prioritizes the observer's vantage over any pre-given
ontic absolute as the foundation for description and explanation.
"Unity distinction ... is not an abstract notion of purely conceptual
validity for descriptive or analytical purposes, but is an operative
notion referring to the process through which a unity becomes asserted
or defined: the conditions that specify a unity determine its
phenomenology." (Varela, 1979, p. 31; Cf. : Maturana
& Varela, 1980, p. 96) This establishes a reciprocity of dependence
between observer and observed -- a constraint which necessarily
illuminates and mandates that reference to unities be qualified with
respect to the context of discernment on the part of the observer and
the context within which that unity is discerned as a coherent or unary
focus.
The two senses in which the term "distinction" is employed both refer to
this process of a unity 's assertion or definition. They differ in that
one (1.) refers to the process by which a unity is defined by an
observer, while the other (2.) invokes a unity's self-distinction
through the topological effect(s) of its organizational closure.
-
1.
-
The act or process by which an observer recognizes a unity .
Paralleling Spencer Brown (1969), Maturana and Varela use the term
"distinction" to denote -- "...the pointing to a unity by performing an
operation which defines its boundaries and separates it from a
background." (Maturana, 1975, p. 325) Varela (1979a, p. 84) explains:
"A distinction splits the world into two parts, 'that' and 'this', or
'environment' and 'system', or 'us' and 'them', etc. ..Certainly, it is
the most fundamental act of system theory, the very act of defining the
system presently of interest, of distinguishing it from its
environment." This parallels in spirit the statements of Bateson (Mind
and Nature: A Necessary Unity, New York: Bantam, 1988, p. 29):
"...(P)erception operates only upon difference. All receipt of
information is necessarily the receipt of news of difference..." Varela
differentiates this sense of the term from 2. (below) by labeling it
conceptual (1979, p. 30).
Distinction effects a complementary recognition of both unity and
background. Through distinction, the observer
"...specifies a unity as
an entity distinct from a background and a background as the domain in
which an entity is distinguished. An operation of distinction, however,
is also a prescription of a procedure which, if carried out, severs a
unity from a background, regardless of the procedure of distinction and
regardless of whether the procedure is carried out by an observer or by
another entity."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xxii)
Distinction constrains the domain of discourse, because the act of
distinguishing specifies (even if only implicitly) both something
referred to and the context in which it is manifest as such. Because a unity is brought forth only through distinction, "...each time we refer to a
unity in our descriptions, we are implying the operation of distinction
that defines it and makes it possible." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p.
40)
-
2.
-
The act or process by which a unity effects or asserts its own
separability from its ambience or background. This sense of
"distinction" highlights the manner in which an autonomous / autopoietic
system establishes, as the topological manifestation of its
organizational closure, a literal or functional boundary delineating its
extent with respect to its ambience. Varela differentiates this sense
of the term from 1. above by labeling it physical (e.g., when realized
in the physical space). (1979, pp. 30-31)
This second connotation of distinction pertains to the manner in which a
unity may, through its own character or operation, accentuate its
capacity for distinguishability from the ambience. This should not be
taken to mean that an autonomous system necessarily "distinguishes
itself" in the sense that it is somehow operating as an observer
observing itself. Nor does it necessarily imply that self-assertion in
the sense described above automatically controls the distinction of that
same unity by an (external) observer. It would be safe, however, to
note that such self-assertion would increase the probability of an
(external) observer's distinctions corresponding to the unity's "self-
distinctions" to the extent that (a) both sets of distinctions are
manifest in a given phenomenal domain (including the intersection of two
largely distinct phenomenal domains through the observer) and (b) this
phenomenal domain was the same (or largely intersected with the one) in
which the observer's distinction (of the self-asserting unity) was
realized.
Cf. : criterion of distinction, unity
-
diversity
-
"Variations in the mode in which identity is maintained." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
-
domain
-
A key concept extensively applied in Maturana and Varela's writings.
The term generally connotes a 'realm' or 'sphere' circumscribing:
-
the relations among observed systems and the unities (medium) with which
they can be observed to engage (e.g., phenomenological domain) or
-
the foregoing plus all potential states of relation and/or activity
among the given unities (e.g., domain of interactions).
With respect to the phenomenology of living systems, the term is applied
as a illustrative descriptor for the "world brought forth" -- a
circumscription of experiential flux via reference to current states and
possible trajectories. Maturana and Varela define a number of domains
in developing autopoietic theory's formal aspects into a
phenomenological framework.
Domains are most typically introduced to circumscribe exclusive realms
or sets -- i.e., they serve as categorization constructs for sorting out
unities and phenomena. The functional definition of domains by the
unities and/or relations constitutive of them makes them definitional
constructs which generate (by implication regarding entitative status,
interrelationship, or prospective occurrence) their own discrete
referential extent. This definitional reliance upon the constitutive
elements provides a basis for differentiating domains in terms of
differentials among unities and/or relations. As such:
"...[D]ifferent domains cannot explain each other because it is not
possible to generate the phenomena of one domain with the elements of
another; one remains in the same domain. One domain may generate the
elements of another domain, but not its phenomenology, which in each
domain is specified by the interactions of its elements, and the
elements of a domain become defined only through the domain that they
generate."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 55)
Owing to this "exclusivity", epistemological issues must be qualified
with respect to both (a) the cognitive domain of the observer and (b)
the domain(s) with which the observer is engaged at a given moment.
"Any nexus between different domains is provided by the observer who can
interact as if with a single entity ..." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
55) In so interacting, the observer can generate any of a potentially
unlimited set of relations. These relations "... as states of neuronal
activity arising from concurrent interactions of the observer in
different domains (physical and relational) constitute the elements of a
new domain in which the observer interacts as a thinking system, but do
not reduce one phenomenological domain into another." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana &
Varela, 1980, p. 55)
The term "domain" typically insinuates a realm of dynamics. Maturana
and Varela conventionally reserve the term space for the static context
in which unities are delineated. However, there are occasional
instances in the literature where "domain" and "space" are apparently
used as interchangeable terms denoting a general "realm" or "sphere" or
"set". See the discussion under space (2.).
Cf. : space, domain of *, cognitive domain, explanation, phenomenological domain.
-
domain of allowable perturbations
-
A term used by Varela (1979, p. 33) to connote the set of all perturbations which a system can
tolerate without disintegration.
Cf. : disintegration, domain of perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions,
instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible
disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of behavioral phenomena
-
A term used by Maturana to denote the phenomenal domain of a living
system, taken as a simple unity -- i.e., that domain "...in which a
living system is seen as if it were a simple unity that interacts with
the components of the environment in which its autopoiesis is
realized..." (Maturana, 1978) The corresponding phenomenal domain for a
living system, observed as a composite unity , is the domain of
physiological phenomena.
Cf. : phenomenal domain, unity , simple unity , domain of physiological phenomena, behavior
-
domain of changes of state
-
One of four domains specified by the structure of a unity --
specifically, the class of "...all those structural changes that a unity
can undergo without a change in its organization; i.e., with
conservation of class identity." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 97)
Without using this particular label, Varela (1979, p. 13) characterizes
the construct as: "... the domain of the deformations that the system
can withstand without loss of identity (that is, maintain its
organization) is the domain of changes in which it exists as a unity."
Cf. : domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, domain of perturbations, domain of states, instantaneous domain of the
possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible
perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible
disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of
state
-
domain of compensations
-
A term used by Varela (1979, p. 16) as an apparent synonym for domain of changes of state or domain of allowable
perturbations.
Cf. : domain of changes of state, domain of allowable perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations,
instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible
changes of state
-
domain of constitutive ontologies
-
A domain of fundamental explanation circumscribed by adherence to the
explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis -- i.e., qualification of
explanations for cognitive capacities with respect to the biological
character of the living system evidencing them. Constitutive ontologies
make "existence" contingent upon the observer's acts of distinction
within her praxis of living (as opposed to the objectivity presumed in
the domain of transcendental ontologies associated with the path of
objectivity-without-parenthesis). Within this domain, that which
validates explanations for an observer "...is the actual operational
coherences that constitute them in his or her praxis of living,
regardless of the criterion of acceptability used." (Maturana, 1988a, p.
33)
The label "constitutive" derives from the claim that an observer
"constitutes" her 'reality' through her praxis of living. This
"constitutive" character affords the potential for diverse explanations,
no one of which can claim primacy by virtue of "objectivity." Maturana
introduces these points by laying out three claims pertaining to
observers operating under the rubric of constitutive ontologies:
-
"...[E]verything that the observer distinguishes is constituted in its
distinction, including the observer him- or herself, and it is as it is
there constituted." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 33)
-
"...[E]ach domain of explanations, as a domain of reality, is a domain
in which entities arise through the operational coherences of the
observer that constitutes it..." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 33)
-
"...[I]n the domain of constitutive ontologies there are as many
different legitimate domains of reality as domains of explanations an
observer can bring forth through the operational coherences of his or
her praxis of living, and everything an observer says pertains to one."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 33)
This last point entails a position that "...every statement that an
observer makes is valid in some domain of reality, and none is
intrinsically false." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 33) This contrasts with the
exclusivity of "validation" presumed in the domain of transcendental
ontologies associated with the path of objectivity-without-parenthesis.
In that other path, explanations or statements which conflict with (or
fail support from) the presumptively "objective" universum are dismissed
or denigrated as "false."
Cf. : domain of transcendental ontologies, explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis
-
domain of destructive changes
-
One of four domains specified by the structure of a unity -- specifically, the class of "... all those
structural changes that a unity can undergo with loss of organization and therefore with loss of
class identity." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 97)
Cf. : domain of changes of state, domain of destructive interactions, domain of perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations,
instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of destructive interactions
-
One of four domains specified by the structure of a unity -- specifically, the class of "... all those
perturbations that result in a destructive change." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 97)
Cf. : perturbation, domain of changes of state, domain of destructive interactions, domain of perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the
possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of existence
-
This term is most closely associated with (and most explicitly
discussed) in two of Maturana's papers published in the same year
(1988a; 1988b). Although both papers cover much of the same theoretical
territory, their tones and foci are notably divergent. In both
contexts, Maturana employed the terms "domain of existence" and "domain
of reality" to connote an analogue to the unary "objective" world (the
universum) which serves as the foundation for the explanatory path of
objectivity-without-parenthesis and its associated domain of
transcendental ontologies. In Maturana (1988a), these two labels are
used almost colloquially (i.e., without unique definition or denotative
specification), and they appear in places to serve as
nearly-interchangeable terms. In the other cited paper, however, it
would appear that "domain of existence" is taken to be the more general
and/or more formal of the two:
"...[E]very distinction specifies a domain of existence as a domain of possible distinctions; that is,
every distinction specifies a domain of existence as a versum in the multiversa, or, colloquially,
every distinction specifies a domain of reality."
(Maturana, 1988b, 10.vi.)
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis,
constitutive ontology, transcendental ontology, domain of reality, universum, multiversum
-
domain of explanations
-
A term employed by Maturana (e.g., 1988a, p. 28) to connote that set or
realm of explanatory answers (reformulations of the listener's praxis of
living) which may (or can) fulfill the implicit or explicit criterion of
acceptability by which the answer(s) are evaluated as explanations for a
given question. Such a domain of explanations is defined
(circumscribed; specified) by a "...manner of listening of the observer
that constitutes a criterion for accepting explanatory reformulations of
the praxis of living..." (Ibid.)
Cf. : explanation, praxis of living, manner of listening, criterion of acceptability
-
domain of interactions
-
"The set of all interactions into which an entity can enter..."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 4). In later writings, this is usually qualified
to subsume all interactions into which the entity can enter without loss
of its organization (i.e., without disintegrating). By the time of Autopoiesis and Cognition, the definition had been fleshed out as follows:
"The domain of interactions of an autopoietic unity is the domain of all
the deformations that it may undergo without loss of autopoiesis. Such
a domain is determined for each unity by the particular mode through
which its autopoiesis is realized in the space of its components, that
is, by its structure. It follows that the domain of interactions of an
autopoietic unity is necessarily bounded, and that autopoietic unities
with different structures have different domains of interactions."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 118-119)
Cf. : cognitive domain; phenomenological domain, instantaneous domain of the possible
destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of ontogenic adaptations
-
A term used in Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 141) to denote that domain
pertaining to structural coupling between a structure-specified system
and its medium. For this class of ontogenic structural coupling, the
construct is an analogue to the consensual domain pertaining to
structural coupling between / among organisms.
Cf. : consensual domain, ontogeny, structural coupling
-
domain of ontogenic transformations
-
The set of all the historical paths of change that an autopoietic unity
can traverse, given the form of its autopoietic realization and the
phenomenology thus determined. "The domain of the homeostatic
trajectories through which it can maintain its autopoiesis." (Maturana
& Varela, 1980, p. 97) "[T]he domain of the homeorhetic trajectories
through which it can maintain its autopoiesis." (Varela, 1979, p. 31)
Cf. : biological phenomenology, domain of interactions, domain of changes of state
-
domain of perturbations
-
One of four domains specified by the structure of a unity --
specifically, the class of "... all those interactions that trigger
changes of state." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 97) This construct
therefore has a broader scope than that of domain of allowable
perturbations.
Cf. : domain of allowable perturbation, domain of changes of state, domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain
of the possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of physiological phenomena
-
A term used by Maturana to denote the phenomenal domain of a living system, taken as a composite unity -- i.e., that domain
"...in which the interactions of the components are described with
respect to the living system that they constitute..." (Maturana, 1978)
The corresponding phenomenal domain for a living system, observed as a simple
unity , is the domain of
behavioral phenomena.
Cf. : phenomenal domain, unity , composite unity , domain of behavioral phenomena
-
domain of reality
-
A term used to denote the realm of ultimate ontological (as opposed to
ontic) referentiality, particularly as it pertains to the explanatory
path of objectivity-in-parenthesis. This term is most closely
associated with (and most explicitly discussed) in two of Maturana's
papers published in the same year (1988a; 1988b). Although both papers
cover much of the same theoretical territory, their tones and foci are
notably divergent. In both contexts, Maturana employed the terms 'domain
of existence' and "domain of reality" to connote an analogue to the unary
"objective" world (the universum) which serves as the foundation for the
explanatory path of objectivity-without- parenthesis and its associated
domain of transcendental ontologies. In Maturana (1988a), these two
labels are used almost colloquially (i.e., without unique definition or
denotative specification), and they appear in places to serve as
nearly-interchangeable terms. In the other cited paper, however, it
would appear that "domain of existence" is taken to be the more general
and/or more formal of the two:
"...[E]very distinction specifies a domain of existence as a domain of
possible distinctions; that is, every distinction specifies a domain of
existence as a versum in the multiversa, or, colloquially, every
distinction specifies a domain of reality."
(Maturana, 1988b, 10.vi.)
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis,
constitutive ontology, transcendental ontology, domain of existence
-
domain of relations
-
"[T]he set of all relations (interactions through the observer) in which
an entity can be observed..." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 4; Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela,
1980, p. 8) This construct does not connote an 'objective' logical or
referential space, because it "...lies in the cognitive domain of the
observer." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 4) In the earliest accounts of an
observer's eduction of a unity / entity, the domain of relations was
linked to this fundamental act through the domain of interactions
entailed in it. "An entity is an entity if it has a domain of
interactions; and if it has a domain of interactions, it has a domain of
relations." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 4)
This term occurs infrequently, and then only in the earliest
publications. As time went on, it faded from the literature, as did the
domain of relations' invocation in describing the observer's eduction of
unities.
Cf. : domain of interactions, interaction, entity, unity , unit of interactions
-
domain of states
-
A phrase occurring in Maturana and Guiloff (1980) apparently connoting
that set of system states corresponding to or specified by that same
system's domain of transitions of states. That domain comprising those
states which the system "...may adopt at any instance of internal or
external perturbation." (Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 138)
Cf. : domain of changes of state, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions, instantaneous domain of the
possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
domain of transcendental ontologies
-
A domain of fundamental explanation circumscribed by adherence to the
explanatory path of objectivity-without-parenthesis -- i.e., ultimate
reference to a unary and objective universum to which all observers are
presumed to have access directly via perception and / or indirectly via
reason. Within this domain, an observer:
"...claims that his or her
explanations are validated by their reference to entities that he or she
assumes to exist independently of what he or she does. Matter, energy,
God, Nature, mind, consciousness, and so on, can be such entities, and
there can be as many different transcendental ontologies as different
kinds of entities different (or the same) observers may assume to exist
independently of what they do, to validate their explanations."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 32)
For Maturana, objectivity entails exclusivity: "...different
transcendental ontologies are exclusive, and each constitutes all that
there is, specifying as it is brought forth by the observer the only
objective domain of reality that he or she accepts as a foundation for
his or her explaining." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 32) This exclusivity is a
result related to that exclusivity by which
objectivity-without-parenthesis affords a presumptive basis for
demanding obedience by virtue of "objectivity." Statements,
propositions, and / or explanations framed so as to fall outside the
referential scope of a transcendental ontology (as well as those which
conflict with or fail support from it) are rejected or denigrated as
"false."
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-without-parenthesis, universum, parenthesis
-
domain of transitions of states
-
A phrase occurring in Maturana and Guiloff (1980) as an apparent synonym
for domain of changes of state
-- i.e., that domain circumscribing all the transformations which the
given system may undergo without disintegration.
Cf. : domain of changes of state, domain of perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible destructive
interactions, instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations, instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations, instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state
-
drift
-
The term or construct 'drift' appears repeatedly in the literature as a description for the manner in which ongoing (apparent) adaptation or evolution in a given factor or character is determined locally by conditions of the subject system (typically a living system) over time, and not determined 'globally' by virtue of some overriding teleological or optimizational mechanism.
"In daily life, such a course of structural change in a system contingent
on the sequence of its interactions in the medium in which it conserves
organisation and adaptation is called 'drift'."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 46)
A variety of types of such drift are invoked -- particularly in The Tree of Knowledge -- all of which play on this theme of local determination effecting change. The variation among these related terms is a variation of denotation for the factor or characteristic whose change is being explained by this construct.
Cf. : natural drift, ontogenic drift, phylogenetic drift, structural drift
-
-
eigenbehavior
-
"Eigenbehaviors can be characterized as the fixed points of certain transformations. Consider an operation a, from a domain A to itself, a: A --> A. A fixed point for a is a value v ...[occurring in the range of A] ...such that a(v) = v."
(Varela, 1979, p. 171)
Much of Varela's attention during the mid-to-late 1970's was directed toward exploring mathematical means for addressing systemic autonomy, closure, and resultant forms of operation. One of the problems in modeling systems exhibiting closure and autonomy is that they are so characterized on the basis of the 'coordination' of their constituent elements and processes in manifesting the whole, as well as a 'simultaneity' (as opposed to a linear sequentiality) of the constituent processes in operation. Varela's (1979) approach to this modeling problem proceeded from the following basis:
"The self-referential and recursive nature of a network of processes, characteristic of the autonomy of natural systems, is captured by the invariant behavior proper to the way the component processes are interconnected. ... The (fixed-point) invariance of a network can be related explicitly to the underlying recursive dynamics; the component processes are seen as unfoldment of the unit's behavior."
(Varela, 1979, p. 170)
To address such invariant behaviors of a subject system, Varela proposed the label eigenbehavior:
"The name seems justified on several counts. First, the prefix 'eigen' carries from the German the connotation of 'proper' and 'self', and eigenbehavior is properly or self-determined behavior, i.e., autonomy. Second, the compound is a generalization consistent with the standard use of 'eigenvalue' and 'eigenvector' in linear algebra to denote certain fixed points of linear maps. Thirdly, in at least two fields the term eigenbehavior has been proposed to denote, in particular instances, exactly what from our point of view is a solution to some system's closure. [Jerne in immunology; von Foerster in cybernetics -- Ed.]"
(Varela, 1979, pp. 170-171)
-
emotion
-
As delineated by Maturana (e.g., 1988a, p. 42): "... body dispositions
for actions..." -- i.e., basal inclinations reflective of the emoting
organism's embodiment, its situated circumstances, and those potential
acts determined by that embodiment as (so) situationally perturbed.
From the biologically-focussed explanatory path of
objectivity-in-parenthesis, an emotion ascribed to an observed organism
by an observer "... through the distinction of a particular
configuration in the flow of its actions is a particular dynamics of
inner body dispositions (which, of course, includes the nervous system)
that determines the domain of actions in which that being can operate at
that moment." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 42)
It is important to note that this definition links the notion of 'emotion' to a specific referential ground with respect to the emotive organism's biological constitution, and not to an abstracted or transcendental state or orientation.
"In daily life we distinguish different emotions when looking at the actions and corporal posture or behavior of another being, whether it is our self, another person or a non-human animal. Furthermore, we also know that in daily life every emotion implies that only certain actions are possible to the person or animal that exhibits them. For these reasons, I maintain that what we distinguish as emotions, or what we connote with the word emotion, are corporal dispositions that specify at every moment the domain of actions of an animal (human or non human)..."
(Maturana, 1989)
"What we distinguish in daily life as we distinguish emotions are kinds
of relational behaviors, not particular doings. And what we connote
biologically as we speak of emotions referring to ourselves or to other
animals, are body dynamic dispositions (involving the nervous system and
the whole body) that determine what we or they can do or not do, in what
relations we or they can enter or not enter, at any moment. As a result,
different emotions can be fully characterized as different domains of
relational behaviors or as dynamic body dispositions for relational
behaviors."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
The simple fact that Maturana alludes to emotions at all perhaps explains why his cognitive theories have engendered widespread interest (and even enthusiasm) in psychotherapeutic circles.
Cf. : emotioning, mood
-
emotioning
-
A term used by Maturana to denote the ongoing course of those "bodily dispositions for action" which constitute emotions.
"...[E]motioning, as a flow of one emotion to another, is a flow of one domain of actions to another."
(Maturana, 1989)
Emotioning, then, connotes the ongoing or dynamic flow of experience with respect to emotions. The trajectory of emotion(s) which manifests this flow is the conceptual basis for addressing consensual interactivity. The instance of this most deeply explored by Maturana is that flow of human social activity (languaging) associated with language. For example:
"When we move within language in interactions with others, our emotions change according to an emotioning which is the function of the history of interactions that we have lived and in which our emotioning emerged as an aspect of our coexistence with others outside and inside languaging. At the same time, with the flow of our emotioning in a path that has resulted from our history of common life inside and outside language, we change our domain of actions and, therefore, the path of our languaging and of our reasoning changes."
(Maturana, 1989)
Cf. : emotion, language, languaging
-
enaction
-
"A history of structural coupling that brings forth a world" (Varela et al., 1991, p. 206). This is the term for the reciprocal process by which (1) an observer educes unities from her medium within the limits of her phenomenology (i.e., as constrained by her embodiment) and (2) the ontogenic coupling results in incremental regularization in the structure of the observer (her embodiment).
"The fundament of an enactive account is not an objective ontological substrate, but the phenomenology of the individual. Varela et al. (1991) define enaction in terms of two intertwined and reciprocal factors: (1) the influence of an actor's embodiment in determining the trajectory of behaviors; and (2) the historical transformations which generate emergent regularities in the actor's embodiment. These two aspects can be mapped onto two different usages of the English verb 'enact'. First is 'to enact' in the sense of 'to portray, to bring forth something already given and determinant of the present', as in a stage actor enacting a role. The second is 'to enact' in the sense of 'to specify, to legislate, to bring forth something new and determining of the future', as in a government enacting a new law. Objectivism makes its focus the first sense of enactment -- there is a pre-given world structuring and regulating the actor. Radical subjectivism takes as its focus the opposite sense of the term -- the existential enactor determines the world. When the actor (enactor) is herself reciprocally enacted, these processes intersect at a nexus which, if reified, might provide an obvious focus for enquiry. However, as Varela et al. (1991) point out, this nexus is ephemeral and groundless -- always simultaneously enacting and being enacted."
(Whitaker, 1992, p. 109)
"As a result, Varela et al. (1991, p. 116) describe their enquiry as concerning "...the processual transformation of the past into the future through the intermediary of transitional forms that in themselves have no permanent substance."
(Ibid., footnote 237)
The groundlessness and reciprocity of enaction make it a difficult position to describe, much less defend, in the context of conventional Western views on (e.g.) epistemology. For centuries, the fundamental orientation to cognition has been how the organism can apprehend, decipher, and interact with an objective world whose ontological status is the presumptive firmament for all such enquiry. The recent work in constructivism (the epistemological position most commonly attributed to Maturana and Varela's work) emphasizes the innate capacities of the observer in apprehending a 'reality' neither denied nor claimed capable of direct knowledge. Such an approach (while certainly more attuned to Maturana and Varela's theories) may nonetheless be construable as lying one step off the 'middle way' which enaction purports to describe. One early clue to such a potential point of difference can be found in Varela (1984b), in which he can be interpreted as implying a distinction between constructivism (a la von Glasersfeld) and the 'middle way' he was already promoting. (Cf. the entry for epistemology -- especially Table Epist1)
Cf. : constructivism, enactive approach, enactive cognitive science, epistemology
-
enactive
-
An adjectival term introduced by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) to
denote what they perceive as a third (neither radically objectivist nor
radically subjectivist) orientation to cognition and its study. This
term was selected "...to emphasize the growing conviction that cognition
is not the representation of a pregiven world by a pregiven mind but is
rather the enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of
the variety of actions that a being in the world performs."
(p. 9)
-
enactive approach
-
A term used colloquially in The Embodied Mind (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991) to denote their proposed stance on cognition -- one based on a 'middle way' between the conventionally-presumed extremes of objectivism and subjectivism. By relying on a fundamental critique of representationalism combined with evidence from empirical science, the "...enactive approach takes seriously, then, the philosophical critique of the idea that the mind is a mirror of nature but goes further by addressing this issue from within the heartland of science."
-
enactive cognitive science
-
The mode or perspective for cognitive studies proposed and propounded by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch in their 1991 book The Embodied Mind. Although the principles underlying enactive cognitive science clearly derive (at least in part) from autopoietic theory (by way of Varela), there are actually few points of reference to Maturana and Varela's earlier work.
Enactive cognitive science is presented as a third alternative to the currently-prevalent schools of thought labeled cognitivism and emergence. The former is that perspective emphasizing symbolization, representationalism, and the computer as a metaphor for a cognitive system. The latter is that perspective emphasizing behavioral / configurational emergence in parallel distributed networks, and this formal model inspired by the neural system as a metaphor for a cognitive system.
Because the definition of enactive cognitive science is accomplished primarily through comparisons and contrasts with the other two paradigms, it is best explained in the same manner. I have prepared two tables presenting the general and the specific comparative analyses presented in The Embodied Mind. The first (Table ECS1) offers a summary overview of the three cognitive science traditions. The second (Table ECS2) provides a summary of how these three traditions address the key questions which the authors delineated as the criteria for cognitive science as a coherent explanation.
These tables are available on the Enactive Cognitive Science in Context Focus File page here at The Observer Web.
http://www.enolagaia.com/ECSTables.html
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Encyclopaedia Autopoietica
-
-
1.
- The document you are currently reading.
-
2.
-
An ostentatious title employed with humorous intent to denote a
compendium of lexically-arranged information compiled by Dr. Randall
Whitaker on the theoretical work of Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco
J. Varela (autopoietic theory) and its derivatives.
-
Encyclopaedia Britannica
-
-
1.
- A prestigious reference publication whose claim to comprehensivity is compromised by persistent refusal to make any mention of autopoiesis. (As reported in The Observer).
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2.
-
A paradigmatic exemplar of an ostentatious label, and the inspiration for the title of this document.
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entity
-
A term which occurs mainly in the colloquial sense of an object, thing
or other discrete referent. In this colloquial usage, the term entity
occurs throughout the primary literature, most
particularly in Maturana's solo papers. This usage by Maturana dates back to his earliest papers on the biology of cognition:
"The observer beholds
simultaneously the entity that he considers ... and the universe in
which it lies ..."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 4)
"It is an attribute of the
observer to be able to interact independently with the observed entity
and with its relations; for him both are units of interaction
(entities)."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 8 [originally from Maturana,
1970b])
This last citation illustrates an interesting point. In the earliest
published literature, Maturana emphasized the linkage between an
'entity' and the interactions via which the observer engaged and/or
educed it. This is the basis for equating entities with units of
interactions:
"For the observer an entity is an entity (a unit of interactions) when
he can describe it. To describe is to enumerate the actual or potential
interactions and relations of the described entity. ... An entity is an
entity if it has a domain of interactions ... The observer can define an
entity by specifying its domain of interactions; thus, part of an
entity, a group of entities, or their relations can be made units of
interactions (entities) by the observer."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 4)
These allusions to an entity's domain of interactions, etc., would seem to be secondarily derivative (and hence distinguishable, if not distinct) from the more essential eduction or apprehension by which the observer discerns such an indexicable referent as (e.g.) a unity.
With regard to the more recent literature, any distinction between 'entity' and 'unity' remains unspecified, and may be considered inoperative. Maturana (in particular) has consistently used this term in his
post-1985 writings, returning to his original habit of invoking the term as an apparent surrogate for " unity ". For example:
"In the operation of distinction an observer brings forth a unity (an
entity, a whole) as well as the medium in which it is distinguished..."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.ii.)
"A unity (entity, object) is brought forth by an act of distinction."
...and "distinction" is fundamental to:
"[T]he act of indicating any being, object, thing, or unity..."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 40, italics in the original)
This apparent synonymity is reinforced by the fact
that there is little or no evidence to be found in these later writings that
distinguish "entity" from 'unity', either in denotation or connotation. As a result, one is left to wonder
if "entity" (especially as used by Maturana post-1985) connotes the
observer-dependent status (of distinction / discernment) which
explicitly qualifies the earlier term 'unity' and helps to distinguish
it from the more colloquially-denotative usages of "entity."
For example, consider the following passage (from Maturana, 1988a, p.
32), wherein he states that an observer operating within the domain of
transcendental ontologies (and hence subscribing to the explanatory path
of objectivity-without-parenthesis):
"...claims that his or her
explanations are validated by their reference to entities that he or she
assumes to exist independently of what he or she does. Matter, energy,
God, Nature, mind, consciousness, and so on, can be such entities, and
there can be as many different transcendental ontologies as different
kinds of entities different (or the same) observers may assume to exist
independently of what they do, to validate their explanations."
In this
particular passage, it is unclear whether "entity" is (a) used simply as
a generic label for "any referent" or (b) specifically denotative of
referents assumed to exist independently of the observer.
Based on the evidence of Maturana's earliest and latest writings on the
subject, it would appear that 'entity' most commonly connotes a unity . If there is a distinction to be drawn between
these two terms (as used by Maturana over his career), it would be that
only in the earliest literature (e.g., Maturana: 1970a; 1970b) is
'entity' clearly equated with something observer-educed and therefore
observer-contingent. Owing to (a) less detailed background
specifications (for basic terms and concepts) in the most recent
publications as well as (b) occasionally ambiguous allusions (Cf.
above-cited passages) it is easy for a newcomer to overlook the
observer-specified characteristics consistent with the most longstanding
connotations of the term. This entails the risk that the newcomer would
equate the term (especially as used by Maturana) with the colloquial
usage connotative of objective existence (i.e., independence from the
observer). However, the reader is referred to Maturana's (e.g., 1983)
treatment of 'objects' to see that
observer-contingency is still very much an explicit aspect of definition for even these most generic of referents.
There is one final point to be made in comparing 'entity' and 'unity'.
Although 'unities' are subcategorized into simple unities and composite
unities, the literature evidences no such distinction made among
'entities'. The most defensible position is that most typically
'entity' is an analogue for simple unity .
Cf. : unity , simple unity , composite unity , object
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environment
-
-
1.
-
A specific term applied to denote the observer's delineation of the
referential background within which an organism is observed to operate.
"The observer beholds simultaneously the entity that he considers (an
organism, in our case) and the universe in which it lies (the organism's
environment)." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 4) This is not the same as the
ambience in which the organism is actually manifest, and it is
definitely distinct from the niche specified by the observed organism's
organization . In the later literature (particularly Maturana's
post-1985 writings) the related term medium is sometimes used as an
apparent analogue to environment (though in other cases such parallel
connotations are not so readily apparent -- Cf. :
entry for medium).
An observer "brings forth" an ascribed environment in the course of
educing a unity or entity. As such, the environment is not an a priori
referential or ontological background extrinsic to the act of
observation. Instead, it is generated as an indexicable referent in the
course of observation. This is evident in the following passages:
"The observer beholds simultaneously the entity
that he considers (an organism, in our case) and the universe in which
it lies (the organism's environment)."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 4)
"The
environment is defined by the classes of interactions into which the
observer can enter and which he treats as a context for his interactions
with the observed organism. The observer beholds organism and
environment simultaneously and he considers as the niche of the organism
that part of the environment which he observes to lie in its domain of
interactions."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 10-11)
"Every structure determined system exists in a medium. ... The part of the medium in which a system is distinguished, that is, the part of the medium that is operationally complementary to it, I call its niche. The niche is always specified and obscured by the system which is the only one that can reveal it. Furthermore, I call environment the part of the medium that an observer sees surrounding a system while this obscures its niche."
(Maturana, 1983, Section D.)
Figure AmbEnv:
Variant Delineations / Connotations for Ambience, Environment, and Medium
Figure AmbEnv illustrates the ambience / environment distinction as it
is outlined in Autopoiesis and Cognition (Maturana & Varela, 1980). An
observer distinguishes a unity (in this case, a simple unity ) from the
ambience. The operation(s) of distinction by which the observer does
this cleaves the unity from the contiguous background (ambience), thus
leaving the "remainder" (as engaged by the observer) to referentially
serve as an backdrop "environing" the unity. This environment, as a
referential / indexical background, serves as the context in which the
observer observes the unity.
As a description in the observer's cognitive domain, the environment is
distinct from the ambience engaged by the organism and the niche
delineated by such engagement.
"Niche and environment, then, intersect
only to the extent that the observer (including instruments) and the
organism have comparable organizations, but even then there are always
parts of the environment that lie beyond any possibility of intersection
with the domain of interactions of the organism, and there are parts of
the niche that lie beyond any possibility of intersection with the
domain of interactions of the observer."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 10-11)
Cf. : ambience, medium, niche, context
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2.
-
The term 'environment' is sometimes used rhetorically in its colloquial
sense of a setting within which a system operates -- i.e., that which environs the system.
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epistemology
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Autopoietic theory, in accordance with its origins within scientific biology, developed without much explicit linkage to numerous other fields upon which its tenets impinge. Perhaps the most obvious such field is philosophy. The primacy of the observer in autopoietic theory makes epistemology a central focus -- so much so that the theory might well be characterized as being grounded epistemologically rather than ontologically. The philosophical (especially the epistemological) ramifications of Maturana and Varela's work have been the focus of the majority of commentary directed at the theory.
To be fair, it can be said that (in the primary literature up through 1980), neither Maturana nor Varela expended any great effort to link or contextualize their theories with established and/or more familiar philosophical positions. As a result, it is no surprise that deconstructing and critiquing autopoietic theory from the standpoint of philosophy has become a major sport.
Although Maturana and Varela's relative silence is essentially complete with respect to conventional ontological issues, there are isolated places in the primary literature where explicit references to other epistemological positions are cited. The most explicit of these is Varela (1984b), in which he provides (p. 217, footnote 14) a sketch of four epistemological positions spanning the range from objectivism (requiring only direct perception) to outright solipsism. In the context of this article, Varela is attempting to delineate a "middle way" which he proposes can be pursued (presumably, the 'middle way' presented as the focus of enactive cognitive science in the 1991 book The Embodied Mind).
This delineation is pursued by reference to four stances or perspectives ranging from that one implicit in the representationist programme all the way to the other extreme of outright solipsism. Varela's relative ordering of selected positions (converted into tabular form) is presented in Table Epist1.
TABLE EPIST1:
A Mapping of Epistemological Positions
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POSITION
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CITED PROPONENT(S)
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DESCRIPTION
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Direct Perception
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J. J. Gibson; H. Barlow
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'Information' is inherent in the environment, and the neural system operates as a device for picking up / receiving this 'information'
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|
Computational / Representational
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Cognitive psychology, AI (e.g., J. Fodor, D. Marr)
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Computational description of cognition in terms of symbolic representations and logical manipulations over these representations
|
"THE MIDDLE LINE"
(between representationalism and solipsism)
|
|
Constructivism
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E. von Glasersfeld
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Primacy of interpreter's "internal guidance" over environmental factors
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|
Solipsism
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Berkeley
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Everything is in the interpreter's head
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[ This table, based on Whitaker (1992), is derived from Varela (1984b), p. 217, footnote 14 ]
|
One particular issue should be noted with respect to the table above. In the cited article, Varela was arguing for "a dialectical middle way ... between the Scylla of representationism and the Charybdis of solipsism, by planting ourselves firmly in the middle." (Varela, 1984b, p. 217) The most commonly cited epistemological analogue to autopoietic theory is von Glasersfeld's radical constructivism. Although von Glasersfeld has made some points about the correspondences between his work and that of Maturana and Varela, this favor has yet to be returned in kind. In fact, the brief allusion to von Glasersfeld in the article cited here is the most substantive such allusion written by either Maturana or Varela. In citing von Glasersfeld in the above-illustrated taxonomy, Varela writes of this position 'constructivism': "In this position one is already at the other side of the middle line..." (Varela, 1984b, p. 217, footnote 14) One might ask if von Glasersfeld's lying 'at the other side of the middle line' connotes that he (and, by implication, his radical constructivism) is: (a) positioned at some distance (no matter how small) from the 'middle way' Varela is promoting, and (b) if so, on what basis Varela distinguishes his preferred position from von Glasersfeld's. One clue (which surfaced years later) might be that by the time Varela's 'middle way' had evolved into the notion of enaction it entailed a groundlessness of primary reference (e.g., 'world', 'observer') with which constructivism (to the extent it is 'grounded' in the individual and her capabilities) could be seen to conflict.
Within the scant written corpus addressing both von Glasersfeld and Maturana / Varela, this is the only point at which an apparent disjunction is insinuated. In other writings (from both camps), and in writings of third parties referring to both, there are no substantial indications of a disjunction perceived by anyone concerned.
Cf. : constructivism, radical constructivism, representation, representationist programme, solipsism
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essence (of a system)
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An early term denoting what later came to be formalized as organization .
Like the similar tentative label 'theory' (of a system), this term was later abandoned in favor of 'organization.'
Cf. : organization , theory 2. (of a system)
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ethics
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"Every human act takes place in language. Every act in language brings forth a world created with others in the act of coexistence which gives rise to what is human. Thus every human act has an ethical meaning because it is an act of constitution of the human world. This linkage of human to human is, in the final analysis, the groundwork of all ethics as a reflection on the legitimacy of the presence of others."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 247)
Because autopoietic theory is grounded in the biological nature of living systems, it addresses ethics only to the extent that criteria for ethical behavior derive from (or at least are suggested by) that biological perspective. It is Maturana who has most frequently and explicitly addressed ethical issues as they pertain to the biology of cognition. The most highly-elaborated 'ethical' analysis Maturana has developed to date concerns the tacit authority / power claims implicit in accepting and operating within the explanatory path of objectivity-without-parenthesis. The reader is referred to the Encyclopaedia entry for that explanatory path, in which the summarization of this issue will serve as an example of deriving ethical standpoints from the biology of cognition.
Ethical matters are also addressed in enactive cognitive science (cf. Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, pp. 239; 245-254), but to date these have been approached with respect to general conditions relating to the epistemological dichotomy between nihilism and objectivism.
Cf. : objectivity-without-parenthesis
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evolution
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The "history of change in the realization of an invariant organization
embodied in independent unities sequentially generated through
reproductive steps, in which the particular structural realization of
each unity arises as a modification of the preceding one (or ones)
which, thus, constitutes both its sequential and historical antecedent."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
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evolutionary adaptation
-
That subcategory of adaptation (ongoing determination of structural
states permitting a living system's continued autopoiesis ) which
pertains to a set of such living systems comprising a successive order
connected by a history of reproduction.
Cf. : adaptation, ontogenic adaptation
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explanation
-
"An explanation can be characterized as a form of discourse that intends to make intelligible a phenomenal domain that has been recorded. ... [W]hen some domain is deemed explained, and thus rendered intelligible, it is so in reference to a social group of observers."
(Varela, 1979, p. 66)
"A reformulation of a phenomenon in such a way that its elements appear
operationally connected in its generation."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980,
p. 136)
More specifically (with respect to scientific method):
"...[A]n explanation is always an intended reproduction or reformulation
of a system or phenomenon, addressed by one observer to another, who
must accept it or reject it by admitting or denying that it is a model
of the system or phenomenon to be explained."
(Maturana, 1978)
An explanation is always a "reformulation" in the sense that its
generation by an observer occurs in the domain(s) in which that observer
engages the phenomenon being explained, which is not the same as the
domain in which the phenomenon is manifested (Cf.
the exclusivity among domains). As a result, "it is the simultaneous
logical isomorphism of the new element (relations) [among
observer-conjoined domains of interaction] with their source systems
through their mode of origin (class intersection) that gives the new
domain thus generated (descriptions) its explanatory capacity."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 55)
In other words, explanations are categorically distinct from their
subject phenomena. This is a key point which is often blurred even among adherents of autopoietic theory, and which is typically ignored in conventional positivistic sciences.
"An explanation is always a reproduction, either a
concrete one through the synthesis of an equivalent physical system
[e.g., a model or simulation], or a conceptual one through a description
from which emerges a system logically isomorphic to the original one,
but never a reduction of one phenomenological domain into another. An
adequate understanding of this irreducibility is essential for the
comprehension of the biological phenomena, the consensual domains that
living systems generate, and their conjoined evolution."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 55)
This non-isomorphism between the explained and the explanation is
typically transparent in the course of our praxis of living. Immersed
in this praxial flow, we tend to overlook "...that our experience is
that we find ourselves observing, talking or acting, and that any
explanation or description of what we do is secondary to our experience
of finding ourselves in the doing of what we do." (Maturana, 1988a, p.
26) This oversight occurs "...because we normally collapse the
experience upon the explanation of the experience in the explanation of
the experience." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 27)
The most basic explanation of explanatory method given by Maturana
necessitates two fundamental operations on the part of the explaining
observer: "...(a) the specification (and distinction thereof) of the
system (composite unity) or phenomenon to be explained; and (b) the
identification and distinction of the components and the relations
between components that permit the conceptual or concrete reproduction
of the system or phenomenon to be explained." (Maturana, 1978)
As time has gone on, Maturana has increasingly invoked the notion of
explanation in introducing and contextualizing his presentations on the
biology of cognition. This invocation typically characterizes
explanation in terms of posing "...questions that demand an explanation
for their answer." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 27) This establishes a
situation in which "...we become pacified only when we find an
explanatory answer to our question." (Ibid.)
A necessary aspect of this situation is that the questioner (original
questioner, or another who takes up the question) must have some
criteria for acceptance of an answer for it to suffice as such an
explanatory (and hence terminal) answer. The questioner (or other
awaiting an explanatory answer) "...accepts or rejects a statement as a
reformulation of a particular situation of his or her praxis of living,
...[and]...determines whether that statement is or is not an
explanation." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 28) This evaluation is accomplished
based on "...whether or not ...[the answer]... satisfies an implicit or
explicit criterion of acceptability that he or she applies through or
her manner of listening." (Ibid.) Finally, the establishment or
adoption of such criteria of acceptability (be they implicit or
explicit) entails qualifications with respect to the observer(s)
awaiting an answer: "[E]ach manner of listening of the observer that
constitutes a criterion for accepting explanatory reformulations of the
praxis of living defines a domain of explanations, and the observers who
claim to accept the same explanations for their respective praxes of
living." (Ibid.) In the context of the biology of cognition, the most
pertinent such "manner of listening" discussed would be the explanatory
paths differentiating analyses of cognition.
The summary above outlines the general notion of 'explanation' in autopoietic theory, and its continual importance to Maturana's ongoing writings on cognition, languaging, and social behavior. There is, however, much more to this theoretical framework's development of ideas on 'explanation'. In the following sections, some of the more specific categories of explanation are introduced and described.
Analytic versus Synthetic Explanatory Paradigms (Varela, 1979)
In Principles of Biological Autonomy, Varela alludes to the classical philosophical distinction between analytic and synthetic paradigms. Based on his comments on these (and other) issues, Table AnavsSyn has been assembled to illustrate the relationship of these perspectives to constructs discussed here in the Encyclopaedia. Of particular importance are the parallels that can be drawn between the analytic / synthetic, recursive / behavioral (view), and composite / simple (unity) dichotomies. Linking the connotations of these differentially-framed distinctions provides a basis for sorting out their interrelationships as they pertain to observation of a system (e.g., for scientific purposes).
TABLE ANAVSSYN:
Analytic versus Synthetic Explanatory Paradigms (based on Varela, 1979)
|
|
ANALYTIC
|
SYNTHETIC
|
|
SCOPE OF EXPLANATIONS
|
Framed with respect to reduction of phenomena to atomic elements
|
Framed with respect to the totality of the phenomenon being explained
|
|
EXAMPLES
|
|
Scientific reductionism
Functional/structural decomposition
|
Holism
Integrated systems analysis
|
|
CHARACTERIZATION OF SUBJECT SYSTEM
|
|
Subject as composite unity
|
Subject as simple unity
|
|
TYPICAL COGNITIVE POINT OF VIEW
|
|
Recursive view
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Behavioral view
|
Operational versus Symbolic Explanations (Varela, 1979)
In his 1979 book Principles of Biological Autonomy, Varela spends much time outlining a categorizational scheme for explanations (particularly as they pertain to science generally, and studies of living systems specifically). In fact, the differentiation of explanatory classes and the characterization of autopoietic theory with respect to these classes arguably form an essential theme of this key book.
Varela differentiates between two broad categories -- operational explanations and symbolic explanations. The general contrasts between these two classes are outlined in Table OpvsSym below.
TABLE OPVSSYM:
Varela's (1979) Comparative Analysis of Operational vs. Symbolic Subclasses of Explanation
|
|
Explanation (In General)
|
-
"A form of discourse that intends to make intelligible a phenomenal domain that has been recorded." (Varela, 1979, p. 66)
-
Entails reformulation or reproduction of this recorded phenomenon in conceptual terms
-
Entails that the conceptual terms employed are deemed appropriate
|
|
|
|
Operational Explanation
|
Symbolic Explanation
|
|
Terms of reformulation and categories employed belong to the same domain as the system(s) generating the phenomenon |
Terms of reformulation and categories employed belong to a context encompassing the system(s) generating the phenomenon |
|
Proposes conceptual or concrete system(s) / components reproducing the phenomenon in the same referential context (on the same terms) as the phenomenon being explained
|
Alludes to conceptual system(s) / components describing the phenomenon in a subsuming referential context
|
|
Observer provides explanatory links / nexuses consistent with the subject phenomenon's domain of manifestation
|
Observer provides explanatory links / nexuses extrinsic to the subject phenomenon's domain of manifestation
|
Demonstration / Simulation
(Even if only conceptually / notionally manifested)
|
Representation / Mapping
(Not necessarily grounded in domain of manifestation)
|
|
Necessarily reflects nomic linkages
|
Need not reflect nomic linkages
|
Varela employs the dichotomy between operational and symbolic explanations in a balanced fashion -- going so far as to discuss the two as complementary rather than antagonistic positions.
Scientific versus Philosophical Explanations (Maturana, 1991)
Over the course of the years, Maturana (e.g., 1978; 1988a; 1988b) has elaborated his version of scientific method -- the process by which scientific explanations are generated. By 1991, this framework was sufficiently mature that he was in a position to contrast it with the class of philosophical explanations. The delineation of these two explanatory classes ties into a host of other elements of his theories, not the least of which is the distinction between the explanatory paths of objectivity in / without parenthesis. More details on the better-developed of these two theoretical classes (the scientific) can be found under the entries for scientific method. A summary comparison of the two can be found under the entry for theory.
Cf. : domain of explanations, praxis of living, explanatory path, parenthesis
-
explanatory hypothesis
-
A term employed in Maturana's delineation of scientific method to denote that model or mechanism which is proposed or put forth as an explanation for a phenomenon. After the initial step of identifying the phenomenon of interest, the second step of the method's path is "...proposition of an explanatory hypothesis in the form of a deterministic system that can generate a phenomenon isomorphic with the one observed." (Maturana, 1978, p. 28) As elaborated some 10 years later:
"The proposition, in the domain of operational coherences of the praxis of living of a standard observer, of a mechanism, a generative mechanism, which when allowed to operate gives rise as a consequence of its operation to the phenomenon to be explained, to be witnessed by the observer also in his or her praxis of living. This generative mechanism, that is usually called the explanatory hypothesis, takes place in the praxis of living of the observer in a different phenomenal domain than the phenomenal domain in which the phenomenon to be explained is witnessed, and the latter as a consequence of the former stands in an operational metadomain with respect to it. Indeed, the phenomenon to be explained and its generative mechanism take place in different nonintersecting phenomenal domains in the praxis of living of the observer."
(Maturana, 1988b, 4.i.A)
Cf. : criteria of validation, explanation, scientific method
-
explanatory path
-
A term used (especially in Maturana, 1988a) to denote a composite or
encompassing viewpoint or perspective -- most particularly the
fundamental stance adopted in providing an explanation for human
cognitive capacities.
An explanation is accepted or rejected by an observer on the basis of
the "manner of listening" which derives from the criteria for
acceptability via which she explicitly or implicitly responds to
possible such explanations. The most relevant example of such a "manner
of listening" is the mutually exclusive pair of explanatory paths which
Maturana (1988a) claims as fundamental for an observer seeking
explanation of her cognitive capacities. In the explanatory path of
objectivity-without-parenthesis (or transcendental objectivity), the
observer accepts her cognitive features without qualification with
respect to their biological roots. In the explanatory path of
objectivity-in-parenthesis (or constituted objectivity), the observer
approaches her cognitive features with explicit regard to her own
biological character and her cognitive capacities' biological fundament.
The single most detailed discussion of these constructs is to be found
in Maturana (1988a), in which he provides (p. 32) one of his rare illustrations
(termed the ontological diagram) laying out the relationships between
these two modes of explanation.
Cf. : explanation, objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis, constituted objectivity, transcendental objectivity, ontological diagram
-
extended calculus of indications (ECI)
-
The label for George Spencer Brown's calculus of indications, as augmented by Varela (1975; 1979) with a logical operator for re-entry within a series of marks (denotative of distinctions) by a subsumed / subsequent mark into a mark subsuming / precedent in the series. Varela & Goguen (1978) note that this extended calculus (in its original form) still had shortcomings (for addressing systems) and further elaborate it into a complete calculus of indications (CI).
Cf. : calculus of indications
-
-
factibility
-
A term used (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 89) to denote the "factual
characterization" of an autopoietic system's constitutive components.
Cf. : component
-
feedback
-
Varela's construct of organizational closure is not to be confused with
the traditional cybernetic construct of "feedback" or "feedback loops".
The two concepts are entirely distinct "...to the extent that [feedback]
requires and implies an external source of reference, which is
completely absent in organizational closure." (Varela, 1979, p. 56)
These concepts intersect only in cases where a network of "feedback
loops" constitutes a network meeting the criteria for organizational
closure. The notion of externally-generated feedback as a definitory
characteristic would make a systemic unity allo-referred (to use
Maturana's early terminology) and preclude it from being autonomous (or,
therefore, autopoietic):
"...one of the central intentions of the study
of autopoiesis and organizational closure is to describe a system with
no input or outputs (which embody their control or constraints) and to
emphasize their autonomous constitutions; this point of view is alien to
the Wienerian idea of feedback simpliciter."
(Varela, 1979, p. 56)
Indeed, it is Varela's contention that the notion of 'feedback' was immediately recognized for its capturing of some aspect(s) of a whole system's characteristic circularity, but that 'information-oriented' interpretations of the concept have obscured rather than illuminated that circularity over time. This can be seen as a failure in acknowledging and theoretically pursuing:
"...the interdependence between the need to consider whole system, and the correlated necessary appearance of circular interactions of processes. We do not feel that the full impact of this cognitive issue has been fully realized. When Wiener brought to the foreground the feedback idea, not only did it become immediately recognized as a foundational concept, but it also raised major philosophical questions as to the validity of the cause-effect doctrine. The picture seemed closer to a circular causation, where one can deal only with the ensuing totality and its manifested stability. In other words, the nature of feedback is that it gives a mechanism, which is independent of particular properties of components, for constituting a stable unit. And from this mechanism, the appearance of stability gives a rationale to the observed purposive behavior of systems and understanding teleology. ... Since Wiener, the analysis of various types of systems bears this same generalization: whenever a whole is identified, its interactions turn out to be circularly interconnected, and cannot be taken as linear cause-effect relationships if one is not to lose the system's characteristics..."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 316)
Cf. : circularity, self-referred, allo-referred, closure, organizational closure, stability
-
function
-
A "...notion that arises in the description made by the observer of the
components of a machine or system in reference to an encompassing
entity, which may be the whole machine or part of it and whose states
constitute the goal that the changes in the components are to bring
about." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136; Varela, 1979, p. 64) As such, 'function' is an
ascription made by an observer to describe the apparent purpose or
teleonomy operant for a composite unity or some subset thereof.
As is the case for 'purpose', 'function' must always be recognized as an aspect of the observer's description of a machine / system, and not a constituent feature of the machine / system itself.
"In saying that a function of P is F, we must pay closer attention to the character of F. It must be something like 'circulation', 'support', etc. All these notions suppose a larger, more embracing conceptual scheme: circulation in something, support of something. A functional description necessarily includes a larger context to which F makes reference."
(Varela, 1979, pp. 64-65: 'F' substituted for the Greek 'phi' owing to HTML coding and display constraints)
"...[N]o matter how direct the causal connections may be between the changes of state of the components and the state in which they originate in the total system, the implications in terms of design alluded to by the notion of function are established by the observer and belong exclusively to his domain of description. Accordingly, since the relations implied in the notions of function are not constitutive of the organization of an autopoietic system, they cannot be used to explain its operation."
(Varela, 1979, p. 65)
Cf. : allopoiesis, allopoietic machine / system, purpose, teleonomy.
-
fundamental circularity
-
A phrase used by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) to connote the
seemingly paradoxical state of any scientific enquiry into cognition --
the very capacity through which that enquiry is conducted. As these
authors introduce it: "Minds awaken in the world. We did not design
our world. We simply found ourselves with it; we awoke both to
ourselves and to the world we inhabit. We come to reflect on that world
as we grown and live. We reflect on a world that is not made, but
found, and yet it is also our structure that enables us to reflect upon
this world. Thus in reflection we find ourselves in a circle: we are
in a world that seems to be there before reflection begins, but that
world is not separate from us." (p. 3) Varela alludes to this
fundamental circularity in his Afterword to the second (1992) edition of
The Tree of Knowledge.
This fundamental circularity makes for problems in analyzing living
systems and their cognitive capacities. Maturana alludes to these
problems in describing his difficulties in formulating a satisfactory
account for these phenomena (Cf. the Introduction
to Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp xi ff.), and he explicitly addresses it
when he writes of cognition and language as both object and means of
enquiry:
"...I must be in them in any explanatory attempt; they are my problem
because I choose to explain them; and they are my unavoidable
instruments because I must use cognition and language in order to
explain cognition and language."
(Maturana, 1988b)
This fundamental circularity of subject matter and mode of enquiry calls
into question the objectivism which provides the tacit basis for
conventional cognitive studies. Because the only fixed reference point
for such enquiry is the fact of the enquirer herself, autopoietic theory
proceeds from the explanatory foundation of the observer, and both
cognition and language are explained within this theory based upon
characterization of the observer as a living system.
Cf. : circularity
-
-
generative mechanism
-
The mechanicistic denotation for the model proposed in the course of developing a scientific explanation. A synonym for explanatory hypothesis.
-
gestalt of the computer
-
A phrase (attributed to Rosenberg, 1974) which Varela invokes (1979, pp.
xiii ff.) to connote metaphorical equivalence between the human mind and
a computer -- i.e., the metaphor dominant in cognitivism.
Cf. : computer gestalt
-
ground space
-
A term introduced in Maturana (1978) to denote that space specified by a composite unity, and which in turns specifies the interactions into which that given unity can be observed to participate:
"...[T]he ultimate and basic space
that a composite unity can describe in a consensual domain is the space in which its components
exist; the space in which its components exist determines the ultimate domain of interactions
through which a composite unity can participate in the generation of a consensual domain."
"...[This]... ultimate space that the components of a composite
system define is for such a system its ground space. Men, in particular,
specify their ground space, the space which they define as composite
unities by describing their components through their interactions
through their components, as the physical space."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 57)
As such, 'ground space' is a general delineation for any space manifesting the role / specifications which in the case of living systems are attributed to the physical space. Maturana (1978) is the only paper in which this construct is explicitly delineated.
Cf. : space, physical space
-
-
heteronomous (systems)
-
Any of "...the class of systems that are driven from the outside, that are defined in terms of external mechanisms of control..." (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 138)
Cf. : allonomy, heteronomy
-
heteronomy
-
A term used by Varela to denote the status or character of systems subject to external control -- i.e., the opposite of autonomy. This is apparently a synonym for allonomy. The use of the prefix hetero- here (in opposition to auto-) parallels its usage in the dyad 'heteropoiesis / autopoiesis'. Like the term 'heteropoiesis', 'heteronomy' is basically introduced to illustrate a dichotomy, then exiled into non-invocation.
-
heteropoiesis
-
"The space of human design." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136). This
term is applied to denote those processes that produce something other
than themselves and which are directed at or by a pre-specified purpose or teleonomy. Because such processes (a) generate something
other than their own constituent components and (b) are defined with
respect to an extrinsic teleology (not connected with the maintenance of
the acting system's organization ), they are not autopoietic.
Cf. : allopoiesis, autopoiesis , purpose, teleonomy
-
higher-order (autopoietic system)
-
A label for composite systems containing autopoietic systems as
constituent elements, and which exhibit autopoiesis themselves.
Higher-order autopoietic systems are predicated upon a discrete form of
composability, because the constituent autopoietic systems must continue
to realize their individual autopoietic characters (as well as
participating in the higher-order system) for the attribution to
pertain.
"If a system is realized through the coupling of autopoietic unities and
is defined by relations of production of components that generate these
relations and constitute it as a unity in some space, then it is an
autopoietic system in that space, regardless of whether the components
produced coincide with the unities that generate it through their
coupled autopoiesis. If the autopoietic system thus generated is a
unity in the physical space, it is a living system. If the autopoiesis
of an autopoietic system entails the autopoiesis of the coupled
autopoietic unities that realize it, then it is called an autopoietic
system of higher order."
(Varela, 1979, p. 51)
Cf. : second-order, third-order
-
historical coupling
-
A term used to frame discussion of the diachronic (ontogenic) path of
transformations that the nervous system undergoes with respect to its
ambience (which includes the organism in which it is embedded /
embodied). Cf. : Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp.
130-132.
Cf. : ambience, ontogeny
-
historical phenomenon
-
"A process of change in which each state of the successive states of a
changing system arises as a modification of a previous state in a causal
transformation and not de novo as an independent occurrence."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
Cf. : ontogeny
-
homeostasis
-
This construct is often used in cybernetics to connote a system's
maintenance of one or more distinguishable variables (parametrizable
features) under conditions of dynamic change. As such, it insinuates
stability over time and under duress. This term was often invoked in
the literature of the 1970's to refer to invariance in a composite unity
-- specifically with regard to maintenance of that set of relations
comprising its organization . For example: "...an autopoietic machine
is a homeostatic (or rather a relations-static) system that has its own
organization (defining network of relations) as the fundamental
invariant." (Varela, 1979, p. 13)
The above-cited passage clearly qualifies its invocation of
'homeostasis' with respect to an invariance of relations. This has not
always been made clear enough in the literature that readers have
distinguished Maturana and Varela's usage of the term from others. As a
result, 'homeostasis' has, like 'closure', become one of the words most
likely to confuse or misorient readers. Over the years, reference to
'homeostasis' has been phased out of the literature.
-
homeostatic machines
-
Those machines (systems) that exhibit "the condition of maintaining
constant or within a limited range of values some of their variables."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136) One succinct definition of an
autopoietic machine is as a homeostatic machine whose "constant
variable" is its own organization .
-
-
icogdo
-
This is a shorthand term introduced in Whitaker (1992) to expedite the
problematically continual qualification with respect to the cognitive domain of an observer. The term icogdo translates as "in the cognitive
domain". Used as a preposition, it denotes reference to a particular
observer (icogdo X = "in the cognitive domain of X"). Used as an
adverb, it qualifies a statement with respect to some observer (X
appears icogdo = "X appears thus in the cognitive domain of any observer
in the given context").
-
identity
-
A term typically used in its colloquial sense of that uniquely indexable
character or referential locus which specifies one entity from all
others. In this colloquial sense, the term appears in such passages as:
"Whenever the structure of a composite unity changes and its
organization remains invariant, the identity of the entity remains the
same and the unity stays unchanged as a member of its original class..."
(Maturana, 1978)
This term approaches formal terminological status in the sense that it
is a persistent construct invoked in describing living systems as
exhibiting continuity under conditions of change. For example:
"A living system defines through its organization the domain of all
interactions into which it can possibly enter without losing its
identity, and it maintains its identity only as long as the basic
circularity that defines it as a unit of interactions remains unbroken.
Strictly, the identity of a unit of interactions that otherwise changes
continuously is maintained only with respect to the observer, for whom
its character as a unit of interactions remains unchanged."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 9-10; Cf. : Maturana, 1970a, p. 5)
"The identity of an autopoietic unity is maintained as long as it
remains autopoietic, that is, as long as it, as a unity in the physical
space, remains a unity in the autopoietic space."
(Varela, 1979, p. 32)
Perhaps most indicative of this connotation (of continuity under dynamic
change rather than indexicability) is a passage from Maturana's earliest
paper, in which he discusses how a circular organization entails
(figuratively) a prediction of subsequent interaction(s) sufficiently
similar to prior ones which have been critical in maintaining the system
so organized. If such a 'prediction' is realized "...the system
maintains its identity (integrity) ..." (Maturana, 1970a, p. 6)
Nowhere in the literature is the ascribed equivalence between 'identity'
and form / configuration so definitively stated.
In the above-cited passages, "identity" is related to more formal
constructs such as domain of interactions, organization , circularity,
space, and observer. However, "identity" itself is never defined
specially within the context of autopoietic theory. This is perhaps
most puzzling with respect to organization , which is taken to be that
which defines a given composite unity (e.g., to an observer). If
organization defines that unity -- at least to the extent that the unity
is an exemplar of a given class -- one might well wonder what (if any)
extension(s) or qualifications to the construct of organization might
serve to pin down "identity" as something more than a common term. The
linkage between organization and identity is found throughout the
primary and secondary literature, evidenced strongly in passages such
as: "By organization Maturana refers to the relations between
components that give a system its identity ... Thus, if the organization
of a system changes, so does its identity." (Mingers, 1995, p. 29)
While it is generally safe to treat occurrences of this term as
colloquial, one must bear in mind that "identity" (as a colloquial term)
is never explicitly linked into the formal definitions of (e.g.) unity
or entity (as static constructs). The above-cited passage from Maturana
(1970a) clearly equates 'identity' with 'integrity' (of a system's form
/ configuration under conditions of dynamic change), but this is hardly
a solidly positive definition. The other citations above are indicative
of the relatively informal usage this term receives in the later (and
more popular, hence most widely- known and cited) literature. As a
result, there is no clear-cut basis for attempting to leverage the
theory (i.e., via inference of consequences) employing the informality
of this term's usage as a fulcrum.
Cf. : composite unity , entity, individuality, organization , unity
-
illusion
-
A term given specific employment by Maturana (1988a) to denote an
orientation or claim or explanation which is at odds with a listener's
stance with respect to a presumably unary, objective, and unequivocal
"reality." In this usage, illusion is a construct which has meaning
only within the confines of the explanatory path labeled
objectivity-without-parenthesis -- i.e., that explanatory path which is
grounded in the presumption of a single universum available for
equivalent inspection or apprehension by multiple observers.
"The distinction we usually make between illusion and perception is based in the understanding that perception is the experience of capture of a reality independent of the observer, while illusion is an experience that we live "as if" it was perception, but that occurs in an inadequate connection with an external reality."
(Maturana, 1987, p. 323)
"Illusion", then, is the explanation invoked to account for apparent
"perceptual mistakes" made by a living system which orients / responds
to something which is not (at least to the ascribing observer) a matter of fact. As a result,
"illusion" carries a negative connotation of error (in the path of objectivity-without-parenthesis),
and it can be invoked in the interpersonal power games which this path
affords (See Also: objectivity-without-parenthesis).
In the alternative explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, such
"illusion" is not a conflict between the subject's perception and the
objective 'reality' from which said perception presumably results, but
rather "...the statement of a distinction listened at from a domain of
reality different from that in which it takes place and where it is
valid, and the experience of an illusion is an expression in the
observer of his or her confusion of explanatory domains." (Maturana,
1988a, p. 32) Indeed, within this explanatory path one must concede
living systems' "...inability to distinguish in experience what we
distinguish in daily life as perception and illusion." (Maturana,
1988a, p. 29)
More broadly:
"...[W]e cannot distinguish between what we call an
illusion, a hallucination, or a perception: illusion, hallucination,
and perception are experientially indistinguishable. ... Our
incapacity to experientially distinguish between what we socially call
illusion, hallucination, or perception, is constitutive in us as living
systems, and is not a limitation of our present state of knowledge."
(Maturana, 1988b, 5.0.)
The purported distinction among these classes of phenomena derives not
from some a priori status, but rather from the manner in
which their explanation is framed with respect to a referentially
distinct metadomain. "It is only through the use of a different
experience as a metaexperiential authoritative criterion of distinction,
either of the same observer or of somebody else subject to similar
restrictions, that such a distinction is socially made." (Maturana,
1988b, 5.0.) We engage phenomena through our explanations, but these
explanations are always at least one step removed from the phenomenon
being explained. There can be no ultimate or final reference point for
explanation owing to the fact that "...regardless of the circumstances
under which it occurs, its classification as a perception or as an
illusion is a characterisation of it that an observer makes through a
reference to another different experience that, again, can only be
classified as a perception or as an illusion through reference to
another one..." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 30)
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis,
perception
-
indication
-
Following the usage of George Spencer-Brown in his 1969 book Laws of Form, Varela employs the notion of 'indication' in his own 1979 book Principles of Biological Autonomy. Given a distinction, an indication is "...a marking of one of the two distinguished states as being primary ('this', 'I', 'us', etc.)..." (Varela, 1979, p. 84) This notion of 'primary' (i.e, a notion entailing 'value') is alluded to in generalizing the delineation of this construct:
"The act of distinction reveals a twofold aspect of the observer-community. On the one hand, it reveals the way in which such a distinction is accomplished: the criteria of distinction. On the other hand, it reveals the intention in selecting such criteria of distinction -- the relative value of the distinction. ...
A distinction cannot exist without its concomitant value. The distinction thus becomes an indication, i.e., an indication is a distinction that is of value. The indicative aspect of any distinction is of central importance because it is what enables the distinction to be changed throughout the history of the observer-community. This is so to the extent that values arise out of the continual self-interpretation of inquiring communities, which reinterpret the traditional or given indications in a partially redundant, but always partially innovative, way. Indications evolve within the uninterrupted process of the hermeneutic circle..."
(Varela, 1979, pp. 107-108)
-
individuality
-
"Maintenance of identity by an autopoietic machine independently from
its interactions with an observer." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
This in turn depends upon the construct of identity -- something which
has no unique or special definition within the context of autopoietic
theory. As such, the construct of "individuality" is best regarded as
informal nomenclature used in passing.
Cf. : identity
-
inference
-
Owing to its non-symbolic orientation, autopoietic theory does not treat
cognition as information processing. As such, there is little in the
literature which directly addresses the notion of "inference" as an
analytical or creative information processing function -- the manner in
which it is treated in cognitivistic accounts of (e.g.) artificial
intelligence and cognitive science. To the extent that inference is
mentioned in the literature, it is linked to the notion of class as a
character of generality delineated with respect to a unity's
organization . In the autopoietic account:
"...[I]nductive inference is a necessary function (mode of conduct) that
emerges as a result of the self-referring circular organization which
treats every interaction and the internal state that it generates as if
it were to be repeated, and as if an element of a class. Hence,
functionally, for a living system every experience is the experience of
a general case, and it is the particular case, not the general one,
which requires many independent experiences in order that it be
specified through the intersection of various classes of interactions.
... Inductive inference as a structural property of the living
organization and of the thinking process, is independent of history, or
of the relations between past and present that belong only to the domain
of the observer."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 49-50)
The above passage may seem a bit cryptic on first reading. If one were
to trace it back to its origins in Maturana (1970a), the linkage between
'inference' and circular organization becomes clearer. In that seminal
paper, Maturana employs prediction as an device for illustrating the
character of a dynamically self-maintaining system with a circular
organization. Such an organization "... implies the prediction that a
necessary interaction that took place once will take place again."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 6) Only through such repetition of necessary
interactions can the system avoid disintegration. Naturally, this
doesn't mean that the exact same interaction occurs on any repetition,
only that a sufficiently similar interaction occurs. This 'sufficient
similarity' loosens the constraint of exactness and opens up the
possibility for any of a number of possibly similar / sufficient
interactions -- i.e., a dynamically-circumscribed analogue for a set.
"...[T]he predictions implied in the organization of the living system
are not predictions of particular events but of classes of interactions.
Every interaction is a particular interaction, but every prediction is
a prediction of a class of interactions that is defined by those
features in its members which will allow the living system to retain its
circular organization ... This makes living systems inferential
systems."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 6)
This earlier exposition more clearly exposes the sense in which the
later (1980) version of 'inference' is invoked. There should be no
confusing of this sense of 'inference' with the colloquial usage of the
term to connote a rationally or logically deterministic progression
through a series of abstractions.
Cf. : class, cognition, organization , prediction
-
in-formation
-
"We can define in-formation as the admissible symbolic descriptions of the cognitive domains of autonomous systems. We shall always write it with the hyphen to convey the differences of this view from that of information in the computer gestalt."
(Varela,1979, p. 266: italics in the original)
In-formation is Varela's label for a perspective on information which is qualified / modified with respect to the mechanicistic, autonomy-oriented stance developed by himself and Maturana in autopoietic theory. A summary of the general critique of traditional views which motivated this reformulation can be found in the Encyclopaedia entry for 'information'. Of the two primary authors on autopoietic theory, it is Varela alone who has gone beyond the criticism / dismissal of conventional notions of 'information' to specify an alternative or analogue framed with regard to this theoretical framework. The most explicit material on this reformulation is to be found in his 1979 book Principles of Biological Autonomy, where he justifies the variant terminology as follows:
"If we want to make apparent a difference in interpretation, it is quite difficult to use the same words and not be misled by the connotations that they have acquired in common and scientific parlance. The word 'information' (like the word 'order') has been so much associated with representational connotations that it would seem hopelessly lost for any other interpretation."
(Varela, 1979, p. 265)
In one of the literature's rare employments of summary illustration, Varela offers a table in which he contrasts in-formation and information. He differentiates these as extrema in a spectrum, characterized as follows:
"On the one end there is information as referential, instructional, representational. One the other end there is in-formation as constructed, nonreferential or codependent, conversational."
(Varela, 1979, p. 266)
Table (In-/In)formation below is a direct transcription of Varela's illustration.
TABLE (IN-/IN)FORMATION:
Varela's (1979, p. 266) Comparison of In-formation and Information
|
|
In-formation
|
Information
|
|
In-formation is coherence or regularity, viability
|
Information is a mapping or correspondence
|
|
Extrinsic, not operational but only relative to an observer who establishes the uses
|
Intrinsic, operational
|
|
Unity is defined autonomously, and relates to it as perturbations
|
Relation to a unity is through allonomous inputs
|
|
Environment or world is defined through invariances relative to the system's operation
|
Requires a fixed, given world or environment
|
|
Observer-community is, explicitly, what detects the regularities
|
Does not include observer explicitly
|
|
In-formation is always interpretation
|
Information is instructive
|
|
Generated by structural coupling
|
Generated by definition
|
Cf. : admissible symbolic descriptions, symbol
-
information
-
The colloquial construct for "meaningful data", as used in daily
conversation and in cognitivistic literature. Maturana and Varela
concentrate on "information" as a flawed explanatory device for
analyzing the phenomenology of living systems. More specifically, they
criticize the explanatory line which assumes that (apparent) adaptation
of organisms to achieve closer consonance with an environment is to be
evaluated from the perspective that "... their organization represents
the 'environment' in which they live, and that through evolution they
have accumulated information about it, coded in their nervous systems.
Similarly it has been said that the sense organs gather information
about the 'environment', and through learning this information is coded
in the nervous system." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 6)
Maturana and Varela explicitly reject the cognitivist view of cognition
as information processing.
"This would mean that such inputs or outputs are part of the definition
of the system, as in the case of a computer or other machines that have
been engineered. To do this is entirely reasonable when one has
designed a machine whose central feature is the manner in which we
interact with it. The nervous system (or the organism), however, has
not been designed by anyone... (T)he nervous system does not 'pick up
information' from the environment, as we often hear... The popular
metaphor of calling the brain an 'information-processing device' is not
only ambiguous but patently wrong."
(Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 169)
Maturana and Varela attribute the capacity for functional discrimination
to the organism's structure , not to an internal manipulation of
extrinsic 'information" or "signals', as the cognitivist viewpoint would
have us believe. In fact, their organizationally- and
structurally-oriented account of living systems does not require
recourse to a conventional notion of "information". From a perspective
focusing upon a system's autonomous nature, any "...bit of information
is relative to the maintenance of a system's identity, and can only be
described in reference to it ... In this sense information is never
picked up or transferred, nor is there any difference whatsoever between
informational and noninformation entities in a system's ambient."
(Varela, 1979, p. xiv)
An illustrative example of this approach can be found in the treatment
given systemic relations of specificity which are often addressed with
respect to an "information" construct. Maturana and Varela explain the
realization of these relations in terms of the system itself.
"Notions
such as coding and transmission of information do not enter in the
realization of a concrete autopoietic system because they do not refer
to actual processes in it. Thus, the notion of specificity does not
imply coding, information or instructions; it only describes certain
relations, determined by and dependent on the autopoietic
organization..."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 90)
The most extensive discussion of 'information' (in its usual sense, and
as it must be reformulated with respect to a cognitive system's
autonomy ) in the literature is to be found in Principles of
Biological Autonomy (Varela, 1979). Although much of this
discussion covers points which can be found explicitly in, or directly
inferred from, (e.g.) Autopoiesis and Cognition (Maturana &
Varela, 1980), Varela's solo treatment adheres more closely to a
comparative analysis of 'information' per se. A reformulation of
'information' is one of the central foci delineated in the book's
Preface, wherein Varela summarily declares:
"...information -- together
with all of its closely related notions -- has to be reinterpreted as
codependent or constructive, in contradistinction to representational or
instructive. This means, in other words, a shift from questions about
semantic correspondence to questions about structural patterns."
Phrased another way, the autopoietic account must re-frame the
phenomenon connoted by the conventional construct 'information' from
something abstract, symbolic, and extrinsic (to the cognitive system) to
something grounded and intrinsic to the system which is 'informed'.
"...[W]e are talking literally about in-formare: that
which is formed within. In-formation appears nowhere except in relative
interlock between the describer, the unit, and its interactions."
(Varela, 1979, p. xv)
Varela (1979) takes the time to delineate what he sees as critical differences between this in-formation and 'information' as that term is conventionally used in everyday conversation.
Naturally, this structural stance has a bearing on the autopoietic
account for communication. Maturana's construct of languaging is
formulated in direct opposition to the conventional (cognitivistic)
account of language as "... a denotative symbolic system for the
transmission of information." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 30) The
necessity for such a reorientation is motivated by an explanatory or
epistemological flaw in the conventional (symbolic processing) account.
Such an account "...would demand the pre-existence of the function of
denotation as necessary to develop the symbolic system for the
transmission of information, but this function is the very one whose
evolutionary origin should be explained." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
30)
This reformulation of the phenomena to which the explanatory device of
"information" has previously been applied requires a significant amount
of reflection to digest (Cf. Stafford Beer's
comments in the Preface, Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 68-69). The
critical point in this digestion process is an acceptance that the
relevant behavioral, cognitive, and social phenomena of interest can be
comprehensively explained (in the autopoietic account) without recourse
to an inferred abstract "information" construct (in the sense in which
the term is most conventionally used).
Although the above-delineated critique of conventional notions of 'information' can be found throughout the primary literature (in varying degrees), the reformulation of this problematically biased construct in accordance with autopoietic theory has been pursued by Varela alone -- especially in his 1979 book Principles of Biological Autonomy. The outline of that reformulated construct is found in the Encyclopaedia entry for Varela's name for it -- in-formation.
Cf. : coding, cognition, communication, in-formation, language, languaging, representation
-
innovative change
-
The subclass of compensatory change in an autopoietic system which
subsumes those instances where the system's constituent components
change (as opposed to changes in the relations among those components --
conservative change).
-
inquiring community
-
A term used by Varela (e.g., 1979, pp. 72, 77) to denote a set or group
conducting an enquiry. A rhetorical construct which is more
specifically defined (with respect to autopoietic issues) in terms of an
observer-community.
-
instantaneous domain of the possible changes of state (of a composite unity)
-
A descriptive construct pertaining to composite unities, determined by a given composite unity 's structure :
"[T]he domain of all the structural changes that it may undergo with conservation of organization
(class identity) and adaptation at that instant; I call this domain the instantaneous domain of the
possible changes of state of the composite unity."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.v.)
Cf. : domain of allowable perturbations, domain of changes of state, domain of compensations,
domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, domain of interactions, domain of ontogenic transformations, domain of perturbations, domain of states, domain of transitions of states
-
instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations (of a composite unity)
-
A descriptive construct pertaining to composite unities, determined by a
given composite unity 's structure :
"[T]he domain of all the structural changes that it may undergo with
loss of organization and adaptation at that instant; I call this domain
the instantaneous domain of the possible disintegrations of the
composite unity."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.v.)
Cf. : disintegration (2.), domain of allowable perturbations, domain of changes of state, domain of compensations,
domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, domain of interactions, domain of ontogenic transformations, domain of perturbations, domain of states, domain of transitions of
states
-
instantaneous domain of the possible perturbations (of a composite unity)
-
A descriptive construct pertaining to composite unities, determined by a
given composite unity 's structure :
"[T]he domain of all the different structural configurations of the
medium that it admits at that instant in interactions that trigger in it
changes of state; I call this domain the instantaneous domain of the
possible perturbations of the composite unity."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.v.)
Cf. : domain of allowable perturbations, domain of changes of state, domain of compensations,
domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, domain of interactions, domain of ontogenic transformations, domain of perturbations, domain of states, domain of transitions of
states
-
instantaneous domain of the possible destructive interactions (of a composite unity)
-
A descriptive construct pertaining to composite unities, determined by a
given composite unity 's structure :
"[T]he domain of all the different structural configurations of the
medium that it admits at that instant in interactions that trigger in it
its disintegration; I call this domain the instantaneous domain of the
possible destructive interactions of the composite unity."
(Maturana,1988b, 6.v.)
Cf. : domain of allowable perturbations, domain of changes of state, domain of compensations,
domain of destructive changes, domain of destructive interactions, domain of interactions, domain of ontogenic transformations, domain of perturbations, domain of states, domain of transitions of
states
-
instructive interactions
-
A class of interaction which would pertain if "... the state a system
adopts as a result of an interaction were specified by the properties of
the entity with which it interacts." (Maturana, 1978) A type of
interaction in which "...the structural changes that a system undergoes
as a result of an interaction with an independent entity are specified
by this independent entity..." (Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 139)
Phrased another way, instructive interactions are those which are
entirely deterministic given the properties and states of two or more
interacting systems. Structure- determined systems are not
deterministically influenced by others, therefore the notion of
instructive interaction does not pertain to systems (e.g., living
systems) as they are characterized by autopoietic theory. Maturana and
Guiloff label such systems' interactions as selective interactions.
This has a bearing on an observer's ability to engage and explain
subject systems. "Systems that undergo instructive interactions cannot
be analyzed by a scientific procedure. In fact, all instructable systems
would adopt the same state under the same perturbations and would
necessarily be indistinguishable to a standard observer." (Maturana,
1978) Within the perspective of autopoietic theory (and particularly
Maturana's version of scientific method), "...any description of an
interaction in terms of instructions (or of information transfer) is, at
best, metaphorical; it does not reflect the actual operation of the
systems involved as objects of scientific description and study. "
(Ibid.)
It is important to note that instructive interactions correspond to the
characterization of communication espoused by cognitivism (the dominant
paradigm underlying cognitive psychology and cognitive science since the
1960's). The "information processing" perspective underlying
cognitivistic approaches emphasizes what can only be termed instructive
interactions, where the 'receiver' adopts a state determined by the
state of the 'sender' as projected via the 'message'. This view of
language concentrates on '...a denotative system of symbolic
communication, consisting of words that denote entities regardless of
the domain in which these entities may exist.'(Maturana, 1978, p. 50)
Such an approach overlooks the fact that "Denotation ... requires
agreement -- consensus for the specification of the denotant and the
denoted." (Ibid.)
Cf. : interaction, languaging, metaphor of the tube, selective interaction, structure-determined
system, communication, communicative *
-
intelligence
-
The sole exploration of the notion of 'intelligence' in the primary
literature is the 1980 paper by Maturana and Gloria Guiloff ('The quest
for the intelligence of intelligence'). Although it stands alone, the
depth to which this article analyzes 'intelligence', both in its
conventional connotations and as reformulated in terms of the organism's
ontogenic structural coupling, makes it sufficient to the task. Not
surprisingly, 'intelligence' (as the term is conventionally invoked) is
taken to be an observer-ascribed facility invoked to explain an
organism's conduct in lieu of reference to that organism's ontogeny and
its structure which determines that ontogeny.
In contrast to the conventional view, Maturana and Guiloff set off to
replace the question "What is intelligence?" with the
alternative question "How is intelligent behaviour
generated?. This replacement derives from their alternative
orientation to the entire issue of 'intelligence', which is based on two
points:
"... (i), that there is a class of behaviour exhibited by
animals in general, and by man in particular, that involves the
interactions of two or more organisms or the interactions of an organism
and its medium, that an observer calls intelligent behaviour; and
(ii), that the word intelligence is used by the observer to
make a connotative reference to the relations and changes of relations
that take place between the systems participating in this behaviour,
without denoting a particular property or attribute of the individual
organisms, or without denoting a particular feature of the individual
performances."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 137)
In effect, the entire context of explanation is shifted away from that typical approach in which "...intelligent behaviour is viewed as a manifestation of a property of the acting organism..." and to a position from which "...intelligent behaviour is viewed as a conduct whose peculiarity consists in that it is enacted in a particular context as a result of a particular history of interactions of the acting organism with other organisms or with its medium." (Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 137) This shift of vantage affords the following positions:
"...[T]he behaviour of an organism which entails the establishment of,
the expansion of, or the operation within a domain of ontogenic
structural coupling already established, is that to which we refer to
when speaking of intelligent behavior."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 141)
"Intelligence has to do with consensuality, intelligence is not
primarily the capacity to solve problems, but it is the capacity to
participate in the generation, expansion, and operation in consensual
domains as domains of coordinations of behaviors through living
together. Problem solving takes place as an operation in a domain of
consensuality already established, so it is secondary to consensuality,
not prior to it."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
This redefinition leads to five summary implications:
-
"Intelligent behaviour is necessarily always contextual, and the context is defined by the consensual domain, or the domain of ontogenic adaptation, in which it takes place."
-
"Any attempt (by an observer) to measure intelligence in an organism would necessarily result in an estimation of the extent of its participation in the domain of consensus, or in the domain of ontogenic adaptation, that he specifies by accepting or refusing its observed conduct as a case of intelligent behaviour."
-
"Anything that an observer may say about the heritability of intelligence is necessarily a function of what he may say about the heritability of the plastic structures that participate in the structural coupling ..."
-
"All the cases in which the word intelligence or its derivatives are used in ordinary daily life in our present western cultural tradition, refer to situations that actually involve the establishment of a domain of ontogenic structural coupling or the operation within such a domain."
-
"All systems that may undergo ontogenic structural coupling are capable of intelligent behavior. Any restriction of the use of the word intelligence and related ones to a subset of these systems, is justified only by human art."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 141)
In a 1996 paper, Maturana and G. Verden-Zöller postulate that the evolutionary expansion of human 'intelligence' (as reformulated above) is intrinsically linked to the concomitant development of love as a defining human orientation of trust and acceptance.
-
interaction
-
-
1.
-
A term for the dynamic holding between two or more
mutually-influencing unities. "Whenever two or more unities, through the
interplay of their properties, modify their relative position in the
space that they specify, there is an interaction." (Maturana, 1978)
Such interaction is qualified with respect to the space within which the
interacting unities specify (and, hence, in that space in which they can
be engaged and observed). "Whenever two or more composite unities are
treated as simple, they are seen to be realized and to interact in the
space that they specify as simple unities; however, if they are treated
as composites unities, then they are seen to interact through the
properties of their components and to exist in the space that these
specify." (Ibid.)
-
2.
-
A term used more generally to denote a dynamic which does not
constitute communication -- i.e., a dynamic characterized by
mutually-triggered responses of direct effect, as opposed to mutual orientation in which the participating systems are operating in parallel
within their respective domains of interaction or cognitive domains.
In this sense, all behavior is delineated in terms of observed interactions between a unity and its environment. This more general sense of the term is the one entailed in the emphasis on treating a subject unity / system as a 'unit of interactions' in the early literature.
Cf. : behavior, communication, instructive interactions,
mutual orientation, orientation, selective interaction, unit of interactions
-
interactional closure
-
A term occurring in Varela & Goguen (1978) to denote the character of isolation from influence / interaction which describes a closed system (in the nomenclature of classical cybernetics). This attribution of operational exile is often mistakenly attributed to Maturana and Varela's delineations of autonomous / autopoietic systems, by means of an erroneous phenomenal equivalence drawn between the architectonics and the operation of such systems.
"Please note that when we speak of organizational closure, by no means do we imply interactional closure, i.e., the system in total isolation. We do assume that every system will maintain endless interactions with the environment which will impinge and perturb it. If this were not so, we could not even distinguish it."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 294, emphasis in the original)
In fact, the interactional character of autonomous / autopoietic unities such as living systems has been a key explanatory topic from the beginning. It is interesting to note that in the earliest literature, Maturana emphasized a focal composite unity of interest in terms of its being a unit of interactions. Perhaps it is in part because this mode of delineation faded from the literature by the mid-1970's that the accusations of interactional closure have been so common.
Cf. : closed system, closure, interaction, unit of interactions
-
-
-
knowledge
-
"Knowing is effective action, that is, operating effectively in the domain of existence of living
beings."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 29)
In contrast with cognitivistic perspectives (wherein "knowledge" is a
quantum commodity of symbolizable elements), autopoietic theory defines
"knowledge" as a projected evaluation by some observer: "We admit
knowledge whenever we observe an effective (or adequate) behavior in a
given context, i.e., in a realm or domain which we define by a question
(explicit or implicit)." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 174). "The
question, 'What is the object of knowledge?' becomes meaningless. There
is no object of knowledge. To know is to be able to operate adequately
in an individual or cooperative situation." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980,
p. 53).
"All doing is knowing and all knowing is doing."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 27)
-
-
language
-
"...[L]anguage is now used to refer to any conventional system of
symbols used in communication. A language, whether in its restricted or
in its generalized form, is currently considered to be a denotative
system of symbolic communication, composed of words that denote entities
regardless of the domain in which these entities may exist. Denotation,
however, is not a primitive operation. It requires agreement or
consensus for the specification of the denotant and the denoted. If
denotation, therefore, is not a primitive operation, it cannot be a
primitive linguistic operation, either. Language must arise as a result
of something else that does not require denotation for its
establishment, but that gives rise to language with all its implications
as a trivial necessary result. This fundamental process is ontogenic
structural coupling, which results in the establishment of a consensual
domain."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 50)
At its most general level, Maturana characterizes natural language as
"... the system of cooperative consensual interaction between
organisms." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 31) As such, language is
reconsidered as connotative (as opposed to denotative), meaning that
"... its function is to orient the orientee within his cognitive domain
without regard for the cognitive domain of orienter." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana &
Varela, 1980, p. 32) The functional role of language, then, is "...the
creation of a cooperative domain of interactions between speakers
through the development of a common frame of reference, although each
speaker acts exclusively within his cognitive domain..." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana &
Varela, 1980, p. 57) or "... the creation of a consensual domain of
behavior between linguistically interacting systems through the
development of a cooperative domain of interactions." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana &
Varela, 1980, p. 50)
As Maturana's reformulation of 'language' evolved, the allusions to 'cooperative domain of interactions' and 'structural coupling' faded in preference to the now-familiar 'coordinations of coordinations' (of action or beahvior). The seminal 1978 paper 'Biology of Language' in fact uses the term 'coordination' only once:
"The conditions under which a conversation takes place (common interest,
spatial confinement, friendship, love, or whatever keeps the organisms
together), and which determine that the organisms should continue to
interact until a consensual domain is established, constitute the domain
in which selection for the ontogenic structural coupling takes place.
Without them, a consensual domain could never be established, and
communication, as the coordination of noncreative ontogenically
acquired modes of behavior, would never take place."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 55, emphasis added)
By the time another decade had passed, however, 'coordinations' had become the primary explanatory construct underlying 'language':
"...[L]anguage is a biological phenomenon
because it results from the operations of human beings as living
systems, but it takes place in the domain of the co-ordinations of
actions of the participants, and not in their physiology or
neurophysiology. Languaging and physiology take place in different and
non intersecting phenomenal domains. Or, in other words, language as a
special kind of operation in co-ordinations of actions requires the
neurophysiology of the participants, but it is not a neurophysiological
phenomenon."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 45)
"Language as a biological phenomenon consists in a flow within recurrent interactions that constitute a system of consensual coordinations of behavior (see Maturana 1978 and 1988). From this results that language as a process does not happen in the body (nervous system) of the participants in the flow, but in the space of recurrent consensual coordinations of behavior."
(Maturana, 1989)
The characterization of language as a matter of reciprocal coupling in a consensual domain to orientational effect requires diminishing (if not denying) the explanatory importance of the symbols and symbolization by which the phenomenon has been most commonly addressed. To equate Maturana's dynamic, behavioral account with elements of this more conventional approach concentrating on the tokens employed (e.g., phonemes, syntactic patterns, etc.) is a categorical error. This is not to say that such tokens are irrelevant -- only that they are corollaries to the manner in which humans interact via language.
"No behavior, no particular gesture or corporal posture constitutes in itself an element of language, but it is part of it only insofar as it belongs to a recursive flow of consensual coordinations of behavior. So, words are only those gestures, sounds, behaviors or corporal postures, which participate as consensual elements in the recursive flow of the consensual coordinations of behavior that constitute language. Words are, therefore, ways of consensual coordinations of behavior."
(Maturana, 1989)
"...[L]anguage is not a domain of
abstractions or symbols, it is a concrete domain of coordinations of
coordinations of concrete doings, and symbols and abstractions are secondary
to language."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
Maturana has concentrated on the subject of linguistic interaction more
so than has Varela. This difference is significant enough that Varela
(1989; also Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 7, Figure 1.1) categorize
Maturana in terms of his linguistic leaning. The most concentrated and
definitive analyses of linguistic interaction from an autopoietic
perspective are therefore to be found in the writings of Maturana --
especially Maturana (1978). The most detailed treatment of language
with respect to the alternative explanatory
paths of objectivity-in-parenthesis and objectivity-without-parenthesis
is perhaps that of Maturana (1988a).
The decade intervening between these papers resulted not in disjunct
explanations, but in quite discernible differences in the focus, scope,
and perhaps the depth of those explanations. The 1978 paper provides a
detailed explanation of language as it arises as consensually
orientational behavior between / among interacting autopoietic / living
systems. The 1988 paper provides a broader contextualization of this
account of language that establishes its place within the biologically-
focussed purview or stance of Maturana's theories. Phrased another way,
the 1978 paper presents an explanation for the 'mechanics' of language,
while the 1988 article (and subsequent ones) discuss the broader
ramifications of that explanation without detailed review of those
'mechanics.'
In Maturana's later (e.g., post-1985) writings, 'language' has emerged
as something of a 'given' - - an explanatory fulcrum upon which many key
concepts are leveraged. It could be argued that in this later period,
language has effectively supplanted autopoiesis as the primary basis of
explanation. This reflects more of a shift in the phenomena being
explained (e.g., away from living systems generally to the human praxis
of living in particular) than a shift in either the basic explanatory
stance or the details of the explanation per se. In the primary
literature of the theory's first decade (e.g., Maturana, 1970a, Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana
& Varela, 1980), living systems were the object of explanation, and
language was explained as a capacity of a living system operating as an
observer. This corresponds to the tone and direction of the earliest
theoretical work: to explain living systems in terms of their form
with strict regard to a mechanicistic perspective.
This orientation or focus is well-illustrated in the following passages from the best early paper on language:
"Linguistic behavior is behavior in a consensual domain. When linguistic
behavior takes place recursively, in a second-order consensual domain,
in such a manner that the components of the consensual behavior are
recursively combined in the generation of new components of the
consensual domain, a language is established."
(Maturana, 1978, pp. 50-51)
"For an observer, linguistic interactions appear as semantic and
contextual interactions. Yet what takes place in the interactions within
a consensual domain is strictly structure-determined, interlocked
concatenations of behavior."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 52)
Note that the mode of explanation proceeds from the general notion of linguistic behavior (a construct defined in terms of the mechanics of structural coupling in a consensual domain) to specify what it is that a 'language' may be.
In Maturana's latter
writings, the reader more typically finds that the observer's praxis of
living is the main object of explanation, and the observer is defined in
terms of language. This reflects a progressive 'opening up' of the
explanatory / theoretical work (at least by Maturana) to address salient
aspects of 'everyday life.' For example, consider the following passage:
"...[L]anguage is a biological phenomenon because it results from the
operations of human beings as living systems, but it takes place in the
domain of the co-ordinations of actions of the participants, and not in
their physiology or neurophysiology. Languaging and physiology take
place in different and non intersecting phenomenal domains. Or, in other
words, language as a special kind of operation in co-ordinations of
actions requires the neurophysiology of the participants, but it is not
a neurophysiological phenomenon."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 45)
Note that a decade later, the vantage point has shifted somewhat, and that the definition of what a 'language' may be is framed with respect to (observed) coordinations of behavior among participants, without any 'bottom-up' explanatory allusions to the sort of 'mechanics' from which the earlier paper proceeded.
This simultaneously increasing focus on language and decreasing
recantation of details on the 'mechanics' has opened up the potential
for newcomers to seize on the centrality of language in Maturana's
account for our praxes of living without quite grasping the substantial
and novel body of explanation (e.g., from the 1970's) of what such
'language' is. This potential has sadly been realized in all-too-common
instances where newly-arrived adherents have embraced Maturana's focus
on language, while carrying along their previous notions of what
language is -- some of which fall squarely within that set of
instructive interactions or symbolic 'information processing' that are
explicitly refuted by Maturana and Varela.
Cf. : languaging, connotation, cooperative domain of interactions, consensual domain, denotation,
orientation
-
languaging
-
Maturana views language as the archetypal illustration of a human
consensual domain. Linguistic interaction is a venue for action,
coupling the cognitive domains of two or more actors. This is reflected
in Maturana's preference for discussing "languaging" (an activity) as
opposed to "language" (a symbolic schema).
The primary function of linguistic interaction is therefore not
conveyance of 'information quanta', but the mutual orientation of the
conversants within the consensual domain realized by their
interactivity. 'communication' becomes a matter of mutual orientation
-- primarily with respect to each other's behavior, and secondarily
(only via the primary orientation) with respect to some subject. This
is extremely important for delimiting the constraints on an observer's
analysis of communicative interactions. In today's conventional (e.g.,
cognitivistic) approaches, such interaction is described as a semantic
coupling -- a process by which each of the observed interactors computes
the appropriate response state from some informative input from the
other. Maturana warns that this is not warranted:
"(a) because the notion of information is valid only in the descriptive
domain as an expression of the cognitive uncertainty of the observer,
and does not represent any component actually operant ... and
(b) because the changes of state of a [structurally] determined system,
be it autopoietic or not, are determined by its structure , regardless of
whether these changes of state are adequate or not for some purpose that
the observer may consider applicable."
(Maturana, 1975, p. 322)
This moves linguistic interaction to a conceptual base whose elements
apply to a much broader range of actors and interactions than symbolic
data. The structural coupling of the participating organisms is the
only operative element -- all other items treated in descriptions of
linguistic behavior are secondary. How, then, can one account for the
seemingly secure framework within which we ordinarily consider
conversation to occur -- shared lexicons, objective meanings, and
syntactic conventions? Maturana claims: (1) such a question is biased
in its presumption that such a framework objectively exists, and (2)
such regularities are imposed by an observer:
"If recursion is possible in a particular kind of behavior ... a closed
generative domain of behavior is produced. ... What is peculiar about a
language, however, is that this recursion takes place through the
behavior of organisms in a consensual domain. In this context, the
superficial syntactic structure or grammar of a given natural language
can only be a description of the regularities in the concatenation of
the elements of the consensual behavior. ...This superficial syntax can
be any, because its determination is contingent on the history of
consensual coupling ... (T)he 'universal grammar' of which linguists
speak as the necessary set of underlying rules common to all human
natural languages can refer only to the universality of the process of
recursive structural coupling."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 52)
This structurally-oriented reformulation of language in terms of consensual behavior is not limited in scope to the observable social interactivity among discursants. In other words, languaging is not some abstract, purely 'social' behavior which occurs 'between' structurally-determined systems; it is instead a phenomenon which is also operationally manifest 'within' each such system:
"To language is to interact structurally. Language takes place in the domain of relations between organisms in the recursion of consensual coordinations of consensual coordinations of actions, but at the same time language takes place through structural interactions in the domain of the bodyhoods of the languaging organisms. In other words, although languaging takes place in the social domain as a dance of recursive relations of coordinations of actions, interactions in language as structural interactions are orthogonal to that domain, and as such trigger in the bodyhoods of the participants structural changes that change as much the physiological background (emotional standing) on which they continue their languaging, as the course that this physiological change follows. The result is that the social coordinations of actions that constitute languaging, as elements of a domain of recursive operation in structural coupling, become part of the medium in which the participant living systems conserve organization and adaptation through the structural changes that they undergo contingent to their participation in that domain. ... As the body changes, languaging changes; and as languaging changes, the body changes. Here resides the power of words. Words are nodes in coordinations of actions in languaging and as such they arise through structural interactions between bodyhoods; it is through this interplay of coordinations of actions and changes of bodyhood that the world that we bring forth in languaging becomes part of the domain in which our ontogenic and phylogenic structural drifts take place."
(Maturana, 1988b, 9.v.)
The reclassification of communicational behavior from conceptual
commerce to mutual orientation expands the range of behaviors we may
consider as 'communicative'. The autopoietic view of language is not
constrained to coded symbols for the manner in which interactors couple.
'The richness attained by a language ... depends necessarily both on
the diversity of behaviors that can be generated and distinguished by
the organisms that participate in the consensual domain.' (Maturana,
1978, p. 51) By disengaging interaction from lexical reference and
grammatical performance, the autopoietic model implicitly allows for all
manner of non-verbal or extra-verbal signalling -- a scope more akin to
semiotics than mainstream linguistics.
Cf. : communicative *, metaphor of the tube, structural coupling, linguistic domain
-
learning
-
" If the structural coupling of the organism to its medium takes place
during its ontogeny, and if this structural coupling involves the
nervous system, an observer may claim that learning has taken place
because he or she observes adequate behavior generated through the
dynamics of states of a nervous system whose structure has been
specified (selected) through experience. If, in these circumstances, the
observer wants to discriminate between learned and instinctive behavior,
he or she will discover that in their actual realization, both modes of
behavior are equally determined in the present by the structures of the
nervous system and organism, and that, in this respect, they are indeed
indistinguishable. The distinction between learned and instinctive
behaviors lies exclusively in the history of the establishment of the
structures responsible for them.
Any description of learning in terms of the acquisition of a
representation of the environment is, therefore, merely metaphorical and
carries no explanatory value. Furthermore, such a description is
necessarily misleading, because it implies a system in which instructive
interactions would take place, and such a system is, epistemologically,
out of the question. In fact, if no notion of instruction is used, the
problem becomes simplified because learning, then, appears as the
continuous ontogenic structural coupling of an organism to its medium
through a process which follows a direction determined by the selection
exerted on its changes of structure by the implementation of the
behavior that it generates through the structure already selected in it
by its previous plastic interactions. Accordingly, the significance that
an observer may see a posteriori in a given behavior acquired through
learning plays no part in the specification of the structure through
which it becomes implemented. Also, although it is possible for us as
human beings to stipulate from a metadomain of descriptions an aim in
learning, this aim only determines a bias, a direction, in a domain of
selection, not a structure to be acquired. This latter can only become
specified during the actual history of learning (ontogenic structural
coupling), because it is contingent on this history. A learning system
has no trivial experiences (interactions) because all interactions
result in a structural change, even when the selected structure leads to
the stabilization of a given behavior." (Maturana, 1978, p. 45)
-
linguistic
-
The attribution for a communicative
behavior "...that arises in an ontogenic structural coupling between
organisms and that an observer can describe in semantic terms."
(Maturana and Varela, 1992, p. 209)
As such, this term is employed to point to those phenomena which have heretofore been analyzed as semantic phenomena, even though the autopoietic analysis of these phenomena is framed from an alternative explanatory perspective. This rhetorical tactic has the advantage of orienting newcomers and other readers to 'linguistic' topics without requiring a major investment in new nomenclature. However, it has the disadvantage of leaving the casual reader with an impression that the character of linguistic phenomena addressed by autopoietic theory is in some sense isomorphic with the manner in which conventional explanations have been framed (e.g., in terms of quantum 'information' transfer). Perhaps this is one basis for the recurring suggestions that communicative networks (from conversations to the Internet) are themselves 'autopoietic'.
Examples: linguistic behavior(s); linguistic interaction(s)
Cf. : semantic, semantic coupling
-
linguistic behavior
-
-
1. [in passing, somewhat colloquial usage...]
-
Any of those behaviors which are conventionally construed as 'communicative' and explained as semantic phenomena -- i.e., as exchanges of a quantum 'information' commodity or as instances of semantic coupling.
-
2. [in more precise usage...]
-
"Linguistic behavior is behavior in a consensual domain. When linguistic
behavior takes place recursively, in a second-order consensual domain,
in such a manner that the components of the consensual behavior are
recursively combined in the generation of new components of the
consensual domain, a language is established."
(Maturana, 1978, pp. 50-51)
In more precise usage, the term 'linguistic behavior' denotes those behaviors which entail consensual coordinations of (coordinations of...) behavior -- i.e., those behaviors whose domain of effectuation is best construed as involving relations within the organizationally / operationally closed nervous system of the observer, as opposed to those behavioral interactions involving structural coupling between the observer and her environment / medium (to which most particular invocations of the term 'behavior' refer). This more focused usage of the term dates back to Maturana's earliest writings on language and languaging. What has changed is that as time has gone on, the term is used more and more in this specific sense (and less for passing denotation of 'that behavior we conventionally treat as communicative').
Phrased another way, linguistic behavior is typically that behavior manifested by the observer recursively coupling with her own states in such a manner as to couple within the 'virtual domain' of her organizationally / operationally closed embodiment. The connection of this notion to that of the 'observer' is illustrated in Maturana and Varela's definition of the observer as:
"A system that through recursive interactions with its own linguistic
states may always linguistically interact with its own states as if with
representations of its interactions."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 137)
As such...
"Linguistic behavior is orienting behavior; it orients the orientee within his cognitive domain to interactions that are independent of the nature of the orienting interactions themselves."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 30)
Just as the foundation for the realization of linguistic behaviors is the organizational and operational closure of the nervous system, the foundation for the mode of operation entailed in linguistic behaviors is recursion. It is recursive linguistic behavior which provides for the progressive 'steps' or 'levels' by which Maturana (1995) outlines the generation of self-consciousness as a higher-order phenomenon predicated on mechanistic operations in a system with closure. (Cf. the entry for self-consciousness for more details on this outline).
Cf. : language, languaging, linguistic, recursion, self-consciousness
-
linguistic domain
-
-
1.
-
In specific usage,this term connotes that consensual domain in which linguistic phenomena are realized between or among observers. In other words, a consensual domain referenced with strict regard to linguistic interactivity.
"[A]... consensual domain of communicative interactions in which the
behaviorally coupled organisms orient each other with modes of behavior
whose internal determination has become specified during their coupled
ontogenies."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 120)
"[A]... consensual domain in which the coupled organisms orient each other in their internally
determined behavior through interactions that have been specified during their coupled
ontogenies."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
-
2.
-
In more general / casual usage, this term is invoked to connote the realm of linguistic phenomena, particularly as they pertain to a given organism, as in: "...the domain of all its linguistic behaviors." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 209)
Cf. : consensual domain, linguistic.
-
linguistic interaction
-
Any of those interactions which are conventionally construed as 'communicative' and explained as semantic phenomena -- i.e., as exchanges of a quantum 'information' commodity or as instances of semantic coupling.
Cf. : linguistic
-
living organization
-
A term occasionally employed (typically in the earliest literature) to
denote the organization characteristic of living systems -- i.e.,
autopoietic organization.
"The circular organization in which the components that specify it are
those whose synthesis or maintenance it secures in a manner such that
the product of their functioning is the same functioning organization
that produces them, is the living organization."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted as Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 9)
"The living organization is a circular organization which secures the
production or maintenance of the components that specify it in such a
manner that the product of their functioning is the very same
organization that produces them."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 48)
Cf. : autopoietic organization, organization , organization of the living
-
living system
-
As defined by Maturana and Varela -- an autopoietic system realized in
the physical space. As such, a living system is a "... homeostatic
system whose homeostatic organization has its own organization as the
variable that it maintains constant through the production and
functioning of the components that specify it, and is defined as a unit
of interactions by this very organization." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
48) The necessary attribute of circular organization which underlies
this explanation is clearly stated in the earliest paper in the
literature base:
"Living systems as they exist on the earth today are characterized by
exergonic metabolism, growth, and replication (and reproduction), all
organized in a closed causal circular process that allows for
evolutionary changes in the way the circularity is maintained, but not
for the loss of the circularity... This circular organization determines
that the components that specify it be those whose synthesis it secures.
Hence, its circular nature is essential for its maintenance and its
operation as a unit."
(Maturana, 1970a, p. 5)
Working from this basis, Maturana and Varela generated the formalisms
permitting them to recast living systems in terms of a systemic
perspective with a systematic framework. As a result, within the context of autopoietic theory, living systems are composite unities ('systems'), subject to the descriptive and explanatory qualifications entailed in the theory's specific delineation of those constructs:
Living systems, as all systems are, are structure determined composite entities that exist in two non-intersecting phenomenal domains, namely: a) the domain of operation of their components, that is, the domain of their structural dynamics; and b) the domain in which they interact and relate as totalities, that is, the domain in which they are wholes and operate (exist) as such. ... In the particular case of living systems, these two phenomenal domains are the domains of its anatomy and physiology, and its domain of behaviour, respectively (Maturana 1987)."
(Maturana, 1995)
Cf. : autopoiesis , autopoietic machine / system, physical space
-
love
-
"Love consists in opening a space of existence for an other in coexistence with oneself in a particular domain of interactions. As such love is expression of a spontaneous biological congruence and has no rational justification: love takes place because it takes place and lasts as long as it lasts. Also love is always at first sight, even when it appears after circumstances of existential constraints that force recurrent interactions; and this is so because it takes place only when there is an encounter in structural congruence, and not before. Finally, love is the source of human socialization, not a result of it, and anything that destroys love, anything that destroys the structural congruence that it entails, destroys socialization. Socialization is the result of operation in love, and takes place only in the domain where love takes place."
(Maturana, 1985)
'Love' has, since the mid-1980's, become an increasingly focal topic within Maturana's writings. The term is employed by Maturana to connote an attitude or orientation of open acceptance -- particularly as it pertains to another or others. This construct (as Maturana develops it) is grounded in the biology of the organism. The dynamics of ontogenic structural coupling in consensual domains provides the basis for the phenomenon of 'love' among humans, in that the:
"...condition of spontaneous dynamic reciprocal fitting that gives rise to recurrent interactions with conservation of individual organization and reciprocal adaptation along the ontogeny of living systems, while it lasts, is the phenomenon that we call love in the human domain. Or, in other words, I am saying that love is the spontaneous dynamic condition of acceptance by a living system of its coexistence with another (or others) living systems, and that as such love is a biological phenomenon that requires no justification: love is a spontaneous dynamic reciprocal fitting, a happening that either takes place or does not."
(Maturana, 1985)
"...[L]ove is the domain of those behaviours or dynamic
body dispositions through which another arises as a legitimate other in
coexistence with oneself..."
"Love is a manner of relational behavior through which the other arises
as a legitimate other (as an other that does not need to justify his or
her existence in relation to us) in a relation of coexistence with
oneself."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
As such, 'love' is given a relatively specific connotation within the scope of autopoietic theory -- one which should not be lightly equated with commonly-associated connotations such as (e.g.) eros or romance.
"...[L]ove is not a virtue, or something special, it simply is a
biological phenomenon as the domain of those behaviors through which
social life arises and is conserved; it is simply the biological
dynamics that constitutes trust and mutual acceptance in body and
spiritual relations of nearness and intimacy."
"We are not talking about love as a virtue or as something good from a
moral, religious, or philosophical perspective. We are talking biology,
we are talking about our animal constitution as the particular kind of
primates that we are as members of an evolutionary trend centered around
the conservation of the biology of love and the expansion of
intelligence. Love is the grounding of our existence as humans, and is
the basic emotioning in our systemic identity as human beings."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
Framed with respect to consensuality and acceptance, this delineation of 'love' can be linked to human evolution, particularly as it has manifested a trend toward sociality.
"The evolutionary history of our lineage as a history of the
conservation of a neotenic trend in the biology of love, is a history of
social life also centered on consensuality and cooperation, not on
competition or aggressive strife. As such our evolutionary history is a
history of expansion of the capacities for consensuality, and, hence, of
expansion of intelligence."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
This closing allusion to 'intelligence' can be adequately evaluated only with regard to the manner in which that common term is reformulated in autopoietic theory (cf. the entry for intelligence; Maturana & Guiloff, 1980). In this reformulated view, intelligence (to the extent it is relatively metrizable) is proportional to the degree to which an organism is capable of operation in a domain of ontogenic structural coupling. In the case of languaging humans, it is proportional to the degree to which an organism operates (or can operate) in a consensual domain. The emphasis on consensuality provides a point of linkage between intelligence and love (as both are reformulated by Maturana and his collaborators):
"The only emotion that expands intelligence is love, and this is so
because intelligence has to do with the acceptance of the legitimacy of
the other and the expansion of the possibility for consensuality that
such acceptance entails."
(Maturana & Verden-Zöller, 1996)
Furthermore, this 'sociality' which has evolved among humans is not the motivation for 'love', but rather the result of this co-orientational capacity:
"If love occurs, there is socialization, if it does not occur, there is no socialization. Furthermore, I am also saying that as such love is expression of a spontaneous structural congruence that constitutes a beginning that can be expanded or restricted, and even disappear, in the coontogenic structural drift that begins to take place when it takes place. And, since I say that social phenomena are the phenomena that take place in the spontaneous coontogenic structural drift, I am also saying that love is the fundament of social phenomena and not its consequence, and that social phenomena in any domain of interactions last only as long as love lasts in that domain."
(Maturana, 1985)
Cf. : emotion, consensual domain, intelligence, social phenomena
-
-
machine
-
"A unity in the physical space, defined by its organization, which
connotes a non-animistic outlook; and whose dynamisms is apparent."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136)
In the literature, the term 'machine' is sometimes apparently used as a
synonym for 'system' (as that term is colloquially used). However, in
Maturana and Varela (1980), the term 'system' is reserved as a general
label for any discernible composite unity (Cf.
system), and the reader is advised to bear in mind that this apparent
synonymity is constrained to the scope of the term 'composite unity' as
it is delineated in the literature. The reliance on the notion of
'machine' in the early writings derives directly from Maturana and
Varela's stance of mechanicism. The reliance on 'machine' as an
explanatory construct is extremely important in the context of
establishing and maintaining such a mechanistic perspective.
"In saying that living systems are 'machines' we are pointing to several
notions that should be made explicit. First we imply a nonanimistic
view ... Second, we are emphasizing that a living system is defined by
its organization, and hence that it can be explained as any organization
is explained, that is, in terms of relations, not of component
properties. Finally, we are pointing out from the start the dynamism
apparent in living systems and which the word 'machine' or 'system'
connotes."
(Varela, 1979, p. 7)
Cf. : composite unity , mechanical phenomenology, mechanical phenomenon, mechanicism,
mechanistic explanation, organization , system
-
manner of listening
-
A phrase employed by Maturana (1988a) to denote a receptive stance or
mode of apprehension in which an observer entertains potential
explanations and accepts or rejects them according to whether or not
they satisfy an implicit or explicit criterion of acceptability. A
given manner of listening will specify (or at least circumscribe the set
subsuming) the criterion of acceptability which must be satisfied. In
other words, the manner of listening and the criterion of acceptability
are mutually entailing. Because of this, each such manner of listening
"...defines a domain of explanations, and the observers who claim to
accept the same explanations for their respective praxes of living."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 28)
This construct (and its associated constructs) set the stage for
analyzing those explanatory paths by which an observer may address
living systems' cognitive capacities (including her own). The paths of
objectivity-in-parenthesis and objectivity-without-parenthesis represent
"...two fundamental kinds or manners of listening for explanations that
an observer may adopt according to whether he or she asks or does not
ask for a biological explanation of his or her cognitive abilities."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 28)
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, criterion of acceptability
-
materiality
-
A term used by Varela (1979, p. 10) to establish the basis for
distinguishing between subclasses of a synthetic explanatory paradigm.
The term denotes physical realization or character -- i.e., the quality
of being realized in the physical space.
Cf. : physical space, synthetic (explanatory
paradigm)
-
materially synthetic (explanations)
-
Those explanations of phenomena which are synthetic (as opposed to analytic) and which allude to or concern the materiality of the phenomenon being explained.
Cf. : Varela (1979, p. 10)
Cf. : analytic (explanatory paradigm), explanation, materiality, synthetic (explanatory paradigm)
-
Maturana, Humberto R.
-
The theory labeled biology of cognition or autopoietic theory derives
from the innovative work of Humberto R. Maturana, a biologist who
received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1958. In 1969, he first
elaborated his emerging perspective on living systems and their
cognition in the seminal paper Neurophysiology of Cognition (Maturana,
1969). From 1969-70 he served as a visiting professor at the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in the Biological Computer Lab. During the
1970's, Maturana (solo and/or in conjunction with his student and
colleague Francisco J. Varela) developed the formal components of the
theory for which he is known. Pushing beyond the original scope of
neurophysiology and biology, Maturana extended the theory to explain
human interactivity (languaging) and those modes of social conduct which
linguistic behavior affords. During the 1980's, Maturana's work was
increasingly admired in the psychotherapeutic community (especially
among family therapists), and much of his later writings address
subjects of import to this community -- e.g., aesthetics, love, and
education.
Currently professor of biology at the University of Chile in Santiago,
Maturana was awarded the Premio Nacional de Ciencias (Chile's National
Science Prize) in 1994. He continues through the date of this writing
as a very active scholar, writer, and lecturer considered to be the
focal "leading edge" cognitive theorist by (e.g.) Gregory Bateson, James
Lovelock, and Fritjof Capra.
Professor Maturana has always emphasized his status as a biologist, and
that his work proceeds from a biological perspective.
-
mechanical phenomenology
-
"The phenomenology generated by relations between processes realized
through the properties of components." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p.
137) One of the two major classes of explanatory phenomenologies (the
other being statical phenomenology) (Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 112
ff.). Mechanical phenomenology subsumes the biological phenomenology
which specifically pertains to autopoietic living systems.
Cf. : machine, mechanicism, biological
phenomenology, phenomenology, statical phenomenology.
-
mechanical phenomenon
-
A phenomenon which is defined in terms of relations among processes
realized through the properties of components (as opposed to the
components' properties themselves). (Cf. Maturana
& Varela, 1980, pp. 112 ff.) The class of phenomena addressed via
mechanical phenomenology. The class subsuming biological phenomena,
which are accordingly addressed via biological phenomenology.
Cf. : biological phenomenology, biological phenomenon, mechanical phenomenology
-
mechanicism
-
The fundamental approach taken by Maturana and Varela in addressing
living systems: ".. a biological outlook which asserts that the only
factors operating in the organization of living systems are physical
factors, and that no non-material vital organizing force is necessary."
(1980, p. 137) An explanatory stance from which "...[n]o forces or
principles will be adduced which are not found in the physical
universe." (Varela, 1979, p. 6)
Varela goes somewhat farther in characterizing such an approach as
"...nothing more or less than the essence of a modern mechanicism." The
problem is that this position is not necessarily isomorphic with the
'mechanism' or 'mechanistic approach' attributed (typically in the
course of criticism) to a variety of reductionist, rationalistic
enterprises. The term 'mechanism' has a substantial history in
philosophy, during which it has fallen subject to multiple nuanced
subdefinitions. Neither Maturana nor Varela have explicitly gone beyond
the general sort of comments cited above to precisely state which of
these philosophical nuances may or may not pertain to their own usage of
the term.
Cf. : machine, mechanical phenomenology, mechanical phenomenon, mechanistic explanation
-
mechanism
-
-
1.
-
A label for the focal referent generated in a scientific explanation, when operating in accordance with the scientific method (at least as delineated by Maturana).
"We modern natural scientists accept a given proposition as a scientific
explanation of a particular situation of our praxis of living as
observers (or phenomenon to be explained), only if it describes a
mechanism that produces that situation or phenomenon as a consequence of
its operation..."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 34)
On a casual reading, the invocation of 'mechanism' may appear to connote any abstraction of causal or similar influence. However, in circumscribing scientific explanations as being limited to structure-determined systems, Maturana appears to use this term in a very literal sense:
"A dynamic structure determined system, that is, a structure determined
system constituted as a system in continuous structural change, is a
mechanism. In these circumstances, to claim that the criterion of
validation of a scientific explanation is centred around the proposition
of a mechanism that gives rise to the phenomenon to be explained as a
consequence of its operation is to claim that science can only deal with
structure determined systems. Or, in other words, to claim that a
scientific explanation entails the propositions of a mechanism that
generates the phenomenon to be explained, is to claim that the observer
can propose scientific explanations only in those domains of operational
coherences of his or her praxis of living in which he or she
distinguishes structure determined systems."
(Maturana, 1988a, pp. 36-37)
It is not entirely clear whether: (a) the above-cited passage implies absolute circumscription of an ascription of 'mechanism' to composite unities solely; or (b) the apparent equivalence drawn between 'mechanism' and 'structure-determined system' is itself limited to the case of scientific explanation vis a vis such systems (e.g., living systems). This seeming ambiguity is reinforced by the fact that the explanatory mechanism is necessarily manifest in a phenomenal domain distinct from that in which the explained phenomenon is realized. (Cf. Maturana, 1988a, pp. 36 ff.)
Cf. : scientific explanation, scientific method
-
2.
-
The more common label for the general philosophical perspective or approach embraced by Maturana and Varela as mechanicism. If there is any basis upon which Maturana and/or Varela distinguish their espoused 'mechanicism' from 'mechanism', it is not detailed in the literature.
-
3.
-
To the extent that it is apparently employed to denote a dynamic structure-determined system (cf. the above-cited passage from Maturana, 1988a), a possible synonym for machine. However, such an apparent equivalence is explicitly discernible only in the above-cited passage.
-
mechanistic explanation
-
One of two alternative classes of explanation which an observer may
invoke in addressing living (and hence cognitive) systems (the other
being vitalistic explanation). This dichotomy is most explicitly laid
out in Maturana (1978), wherein he differentiates the two based on the
focal characteristic of the phenomenon being explained that is
emphasized in the observer's explanation. In a mechanistic explanatory
mode, the emphasis is on the relations evident in the subject of study,
while in the vitalistic explanatory mode, the emphasis is on properties
of the subject (or its discerned subcomponents).
"In a mechanistic explanation, the observer explicitly or implicitly
accepts that the properties of the system to be explained are generated
by relations of the components of the system and are not to be found
among the properties of those components. The same applies to the
mechanistic explanation of a phenomenon, in which case the observer
explicitly or implicitly accepts that the characteristics of the
phenomenon to be explained result from the relations of its constitutive
processes, and are not to be found among the characteristics of these
processes. ... In a mechanistic explanation the relations between components are necessary ..."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 30)
Maturana illustrates mechanistic explanation with the equation of a
body's summary weight with the collective weight of its components.
"The relation sum, applied to the components as defined by their
property weight, determines the property weight of the body." (Maturana,
1978)
The emphasis on relations ties into a corresponding attention to the
organization of the composite unity which is being explained. Because
the subject's organization is by definition a set of relations (e.g.,
among components and/or processes) " a mechanistic explanation is an
explicit or implicit subject dependent statement that entails, or
describes, the organization of a system." (Maturana, 1978)
Because mechanistic explanations rely upon relational delineation, they
should be (if properly executed) resistant to the potential pathology of
phenomenal reduction -- i.e., the drawing of unwarranted explanatory
equivalence between phenomenal domains specified in observation. "The
reality described through mechanistic explanations ... implies the
possibility of an endless generation of nonintersecting phenomenal
domains as a result of the recursive constitution (organization) of new
classes of unities through the recursive novel combinations of unities
already defined. For epistemological reasons, then, mechanistic
explanations are intrinsically nonreductionist." (Maturana, 1978)
Cf. : explanation, phenomenal domain, phenomenal reduction,
vitalistic explanations
-
mechanistic system
-
A term implicitly used in passing as a synonym for structure-specified
system (i.e., structurally- determined system) in Maturana & Guiloff
(1980, p. 137).
Cf. : structurally-determined, structure-specified
-
medium
-
A term typically used in the general sense of that ambience within which
an organism / system is manifest and within which it operates as a unity
(Cf. Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xx). However, if
and when used in this sense, 'medium' is not synonymous with environment, which connotes that surrounding
(i.e., "environing") context discerned by an observer in her
interactions with the given organism / system.
"Every structure determined system exists in a medium. This condition of existence is, necessarily, also a condition of structural complementarity between system and medium in which the interactions of the system in the medium are only perturbations. If structural complementarity is lost, if there is a single destructive interaction, then the system disintegrates and does not exist. This necessary structural complementarity between structure determined system and medium that I call structural coupling, is a condition of existence for every system. The part of the medium in which a system is distinguished, that is, the part of the medium that is operationally complementary to it, I call its niche. The niche is always specified and obscured by the system which is the only one that can reveal it. Furthermore, I call environment the part of the medium that an observer sees surrounding a system while this obscures its niche."
(Maturana, 1983, Section D.)
It is important to bear in mind that 'medium' is employed to connote
something which may or may not correspond to ambience (in its strict
definition), and that as the venue for perturbation 'medium' has
connotations which are often colloquially ascribed to an 'environment'
(a term which has a more restricted meaning in the context of Maturana
and Varela's theories). For example, in discussing structural
plasticity and structural
determination, Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 138) write of a system
maintaining its autopoiesis that "...structural changes are compensated
in such a manner that the system continues its life (autopoiesis) in the
perturbing medium..." In this passage, it is unclear (a) whether the
ambience / environment distinction is
important, and (b) if so, to which side of that terminological divide
the phrase "perturbing medium" refers. This becomes still more
confusing when, in the section immediately following, these authors
speak of an autopoietic system having
"...recurrent plastic interactions with entities of its external medium,
living or not, and with its own states (its internal medium)..."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 138)
To give another example, in explaining the critical notion of
organization , Maturana (1978) states "...nothing is said about the
medium in which an autopoietic system may exist, or about its
interactions or material interchanges with the medium..." As was the
case for the above-cited passages, it is unclear whether in this case
'medium' connotes 'ambience' or (more probably) 'environment'. This potential ambiguity persists in more recent literature, as in the following passage concerning systems:
" The elements that do not belong to a system but with which the elements of the system may interact and relate, form an operational medium in which the system exists as a composite unity."
(Maturana, Mpodozis & Letelier, 1995)
Occasionally, it would appear a colloquial usage of 'medium' is treated
as equivalent with another construct, such as domain of interactions
(Cf. Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xxi). For
example, in discussing the boundary constraint of disintegration on
structural coupling, Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 139) refer to
"...the medium (system of perturbations) within which a system
operates..." Finally, in later writings Maturana has tended to employ
the term 'medium' as an apparent synonym for the environing realm with
which a unity couples -- i.e., as an apparent analogue for environment.
To summarize, 'medium' is a key construct with some arguably fluid
occurrences in the literature base. As an analogue for 'ambience', the
term 'medium' is used with a generality that approximates that of a
'space.' As an analogue for a given ' domain', the term's usage would
seem to be subject to those features distinguishing a domain from a
space. Finally, as an analogue for 'environment', the term comes
closest to being the sort of descriptive construct of a given observer
as is context (as that term is specifically used in Maturana and Varela,
1980).
As such, one can invoke different occurrences in the literature to
support distinct connotations of the term 'medium.' Such contradictory
connotations raise a risk in invoking the term at all. This is most
potentially problematical where this term is employed as analogue to
both ambience and environment -- two
constructs specifically differentiated for the purpose of maintaining
clear referential segregation between (a) reference to the ontic context
of a unity (ambience) and (b) the observer's observed context for the
unity and its operations (environment). To
profligately use 'medium' without clearly stating it as implying
'ambience', 'environment', or something else simply blurs the
distinctions between at least two very important frames of reference.
In discussing Maturana's general principles, Winograd and Flores (1986)
make a specific qualification of their usage of 'medium':
"...[W]e use the term 'medium' rather than 'environment' to refer to the
space in which an organism exists. This is to avoid the connotation
that there is a separation between an entity and its 'environment.' An
entity exists as part of a medium, not as a separate object inside it."
(Winograd & Flores, 1986, p. 43, footnote 7)
This definitively makes 'medium' a synonym for the more strictly
delineated term 'ambience' (as used in Maturana & Varela, 1980).
Allusion to Winograd and Flores' version, therefore, affords an
opportunity to clarify one's intent in employing these terms.
On the other hand, reliance upon Winograd and Flores (regarding this
issue) also entails risk. Owing to the fact that many folks' initial
introduction to autopoietic theory is through Winograd and Flores, there
is a substantial potential for newcomers to carry these authors' own
qualification forward as if it were isomorphic with Maturana and/or
Varela's usage. Although this qualification parallels those places
where Maturana and Varela equate 'medium' with 'ambience', it must be
borne in mind that this is only one of the connotations to be found in
the primary literature. As such, considerable caution should be
employed in using 'medium' without explicit qualification of the
author's connotations.
Figure AmbEnv graphically illustrates the variant delineations of 'ambience', 'environment', and 'medium' as discussed here. The figure is located within the entry for 'environment'.
It is also interesting to note that in those cases where the extent or
"corpus" of the unity is being distinguished from its environs
(regardless of that 'medium' or 'ambience' subsuming both), no one has
seen fit to introduce a label for the complement of 'environment'. If
the 'environment' lies outside the extent of the given unity, what is
the label for the 'negative space' occupied by the unity itself? Is
such a label needed? Is it even of any possible use?
Cf. : ambience, domain, environment, space
-
metadomain
-
A construct occasionally introduced to denote a "virtual" or
"higher-order" domain generated through the recursive nature of the
observer, with respect to an operation of distinction in an original
domain (upon which the metadomain is based), and within which the
observer can refer to the product of that distinction as if it were a
discrete entity. For example, an observer:
"...characterizes a unity by stating the conditions in which it exists
as a distinguishable entity, but he cognizes it only to the extent that
he defines a metadomain in which he can operate with the entity that he
characterized."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xxiii)
An even more specific allusion (with respect to composite unities)
occurs in the following passage:
"A composite unity is a unity
distinguished as a simple unity that through further operations of
distinction is decomposed by the observer into components that through
their composition would constitute the original simple unity in the
domain in which it is distinguished. A composite unity, therefore, is
operationally distinguished as a simple unity in a metadomain with
respect to the domain in which its components are distinguished because
it results as such from an operation of composition."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.iii.)
Perhaps the most extensive reference to metadomains occurs in discussing
explanations. For example, Maturana writes:
"[W]hatever we say about
how anything happens takes place in the praxis of our living as a
comment, as a reflection, as a reformulation, in short, as an
explanation of the praxis of our living, and as such it does not replace
or constitute the praxis of living that it purports to explain. Thus, to
say that we are made of matter, or to say that we are ideas in the mind
of God, are both explanations of that which we live as our experience of
being, yet neither matter nor ideas in the mind of God constitute the
experience of being that which they are supposed to explain.
Explanations take place operationally in a metadomain with respect to
that which they explain."
(Maturana, 1988b, 4.0.)
Cf. : domain, distinction, explanation
-
metaphor of the tube
-
A construct attributed as the conventional description for
communication. According to this construct: "...communication is
something generated at a certain point. It is carried by a conduit (or
tube) and is delivered to the receiver at the other end. Hence there is
a something that is communicated, and what is communicated is an
integral part of that which travels in the tube." (Maturana & Varela,
1992, p. 196)
Cf. : the "conduit metaphor" of Michael Reddy (The
conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about
language, in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1979, 284-324).
-
mood
-
A specific instance of emotion ascribed by an observer to an observed
organism "... in which the observer does not distinguish directionality
or possibility of an end for the type of actions that he or she expects
the other to perform." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 42)
Cf. : emotion, emotioning
-
multiversum (plural = multiversa)
-
A label used by Maturana (1988a) to denote the plurality of legitimate
"realities" available to an observer within the explanatory path of
objectivity-in-parenthesis. In this explanatory path, an observer
"...realises that he or she lives in a multiversa, that is, in many
different, equally legitimate, but not equally desirable, explanatory
realities..." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 31) Elsewhere, Maturana (1988b,
10.vi.) labels a single such "explanatory reality" a versum. This
construct is the opposite of the single, all-subsuming universum which
is the presumptive foundation and the resultant mandatory focus in the
explanatory path of objectivity-without- parenthesis.
Cf. : universum, explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, constituted objectivity,
objectivity-without-parenthesis, versum
-
mutual orientation
-
Reciprocal orientation among interacting cognitive systems --
particularly in the context of linguistic behavior or languaging.
Cf. : linguistic behavior, languaging, orientation
-
-
natural drift
-
A term coined by Maturana and Varela ca. 1984 to denote the non-deterministic trajectory of apparent change. To illustrate, in addressing epistemological issues Varela states:
"The origin of knowledge (and the making of sense) therefore does not resemble the design of a system which is optimized to match a given external standard. We could say it resembles, rather, a tinkering, a dynamic sculpting, a building of structures from the materials available to an organism that it puts together as they appear in a drift which follows one of many possible paths. In this process, any actual path of tinkering will arise from the process of natural drift. The key to this process is that the consequences of any interactions are to be found, not in the nature of the perturbation that triggered them, but in the way the structure compensates for such interactions according to its dynamic landscape ... A path of natural drift is a history of internal validations of interactions by an autonomous entity ..."
(Varela, 1984b, p. 219, italics in the original)
The above-cited example is of drift with respect to ontogeny. More broadly, Maturana and Varela applied the notion of natural drift to phylogeny in explaining their non-optimizational view of evolution. They use the metaphor of water drops falling upon a peaked hill (cf. Maturana & Varela, 1992, pp. 107-108), and the ongoing variation in the courses of those drops' flow down the hillside, to illustrate how natural drift -- although determined solely by the character of the drops themselves as presented with affordances for flow -- appears to an observer as a phenomenon of increasing variation.
Whether invoked for explanation of ontogenic or phylogenetic change, 'natural drift' is essentially a shorthand way of stating that local conditions of the subject system (e.g., its autopoietic / autonomous features) determine under environmental perturbation a course of proliferation which to an observer may appear to be a process determined or optimized with respect to a more global frame of reference.
Cf. : ontogenic drift, structural drift
-
niche
-
That portion of the ambience with which a living system interacts. "The
niche is defined by the classes of interactions into which an organism
can enter." (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 11) In other words, the
organism's "... organization implies a prediction of a niche, and the
niche thus predicted as a domain of classes of interaction constitutes
its entire cognitive reality.' (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 11) As
such, a niche is a functionally-ascribed domain, and it cannot be
defined independently of the living system(s) that specifies and
realizes it. (Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 9) In concurrent and later
writings, the notion of the interactional domain so prescribed is
typically labeled domain of interactions. In later writings, the notion
of a circumscribed 'cognitive reality' is usually denoted by the
separate label of cognitive domain.
Based on the qualification with respect to a domain of interactions,
"niche" is a construct distinct from environment, which denotes the observer's
delineation of the medium in which an organism is observed to operate.
"Niche and environment, then, intersect only to the extent that the
observer (including instruments) and the organism have comparable
organizations, but even then there are always parts of the environment
that lie beyond any possibility of intersection with the domain of
interactions of the organism, and there are parts of the niche that lie
beyond any possibility of intersection with the domain of interactions
of the observer."
(Maturana, 1970b: reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980, pp. 10-11)
Cf. : cognitive domain, domain of interactions, environment, phenomenological domain
-
nomic
-
An adjectival term employed by Varela (1979) in differentiating between operational explanations and symbolic explanations. Varela uses the term 'nomic' in the sense of 'lawlike' (cf. p. 66) to connote the notion of regular ('lawlike') relationships following onto one another in constituting the phenomenon being explained. Particularly in analyzing symbolic explanations, Varela utilizes this term in phrases such as 'nomic links' and 'nomic chains', which are invoked to connote a course or path proceeding in accordance with such lawlike relationships. Where there is a difference between operational and symbolic explanations, it lies in the fact that (a) operational explanations presume such a course of nomic transitions and are framed with regard to them, whereas (b) symbolic explanations presume "...that phenomena occur through a certain order or pattern, but the fundamental focus of attention is on certain moments of such an order, relative to the inquiring community." (Varela, 1979, pp. 66-67)
Cf. : explanation, operational explanations, symbolic explanations
-
nonmaterially synthetic (explanations)
-
Those explanations of phenomena which are synthetic (as opposed to
analytic) and within which the materiality of the phenomenon being
explained "... is implied but is, as such, irrelevant". (Varela, 1979,
p. 10)
As such, Varela ascribes to autopoietic theory the nature of a
nonmaterially synthetic explanation: "The definitory element of living
unities is a certain organization (the set of interrelations leading to
a given form of transitions) independent of the structure, the
materiality that embodies it; not the nature of the components, but
their interrelations." (Varela, 1979, p. 10)
Cf. : analytic (explanatory paradigm), explanation, materially synthetic (explanations), organization ,
structure nonmaterially synthetic (explanations)
-
-
object
-
Those discrete referents conventionally treated as objects extant in an 'objective world' are reformulated in autopoietic theory in terms of indexicable coordinations (of coordinations...) of behavior on the part of a languaging system (i.e., an observer).
"... [W]e bring forth a world of distinctions through the changes of state that we undergo as we conserve our structural coupling in the different media in which we become immersed along our lives, and then, using our changes of state as recurrent distinctions in a social domain of coordination of actions (language), we bring forth a world of objects as coordinations of actions with which we describe our coordinations of action. Unfortunately we forget that the object that arises in this manner is a coordination of actions in a social domain, and deluded by the effectiveness of our experience in coordinating our conducts in language, we give the object an external preeminence and validate it in our descriptions as if it had an existence independent from us as observers.
(Maturana, 1983, Section H.)
"...[O]bjects arise in language as consensual coordinations of actions that operationally obscure for further recursive consensual coordinations of actions by the observers the consensual coordinations of actions (distinctions) that they coordinate. Objects are, in the process of languaging, consensual coordinations of actions that operate as tokens for the consensual coordinations of actions that they coordinate. Objects do not pre-exist language."
(Maturana, 1988b, 8.ii.b.)
"Objects arise in language as consensual coordinations of actions that in a domain of consensual distinctions are tokens for more basic coordinations of actions, which they obscure. Without language and outside language there are no objects, because objects only arise as consensual coordinations of actions in the recursion of consensual coordinations of actions that languaging is. For living systems that do not operate in language, there are no objects; or in other words, objects are not part of their cognitive domains."
(Maturana, 1988b, 9.iv.)
As such, the predication of descriptions and explanations on discrete 'objects' in the world -- our typically manner of describing and explaining -- has proven so 'effective' in mutually orienting and operationally coordinating ourselves in our praxis of living (individually and collectively) that we overlook the processual character of their discernment and formally embrace the 'shorthand' of treating such 'objects' as if they 'existed' in some ontically absolute sense.
The linkage of 'objects' with the observer outlined above parallels and reinforces the observer-dependent aspects of explanations given (particularly in the core literature) for the construct of 'unity' (both simple and composite). It also provides evidence that Maturana's personal tendency to use the term 'entity' rather than 'unity' does not connote anything violating the observer-contingent character attributed to the latter, which must be considered a synonym (or at least a subset) of 'object'.
Cf. : distinction, entity, self-consciousness, language, languaging, linguistic behavior, unity, recursion
-
objectivity
-
A term which Maturana evolved during the 1980's to specifically connote a manner of addressing the 'world' in our praxes of living such that cognitively differentiable subcomponents of our medium (perceptual objects) are treated as if they were discrete objects existing independently of our engagement with and discernment of them.
"Objects arise in language as consensual coordinations of actions that in a domain of consensual distinctions are tokens for more basic coordinations of actions, which they obscure. Without language and outside language there are no objects, because objects only arise as consensual coordinations of actions in the recursion of consensual coordinations of actions that languaging is. ... Since we human beings are objects in a domain of objects that we bring forth and operate upon in language, language is our peculiar domain of existence and our peculiar cognitive domain. Within these circumstances, objectivity arises in language as a manner of operating with objects without distinguishing the actions that they obscure. In this manner of operating, descriptions arise as concatenations of consensual coordinations of actions that result in further consensual coordinations of actions which, if performed without distinguishing how objects arise, can be distinguished as manners of languaging that take place as if objects existed outside of language."
(Maturana, 1988b, 9.iv.)
It is important to note that this sense of 'objectivity' (as 'propensity for discrete referentiality') differs from more common usages of the term (e.g., as 'an independent and unbiased manner'). Yet it is this sense which properly serves as the basis for (e.g.) 'objectivity-in/without-parenthesis'.
Cf. : distinction, entity, self-consciousness, language, languaging, linguistic behavior, unity, recursion, object
-
objectivity in parenthesis (also objectivity-in-parenthesis)
-
A phrase connoting that (in the context of the biology of cognition, and
particularly with respect to explanations of cognition and language)
conventionally-presumed "objective" statements about an "objective"
world are qualified with respect to the observer who is explaining
cognition and language. The fundamental circularity which makes these
phenomena both (a) objects of explanation and (b) instruments of that
selfsame explanatory activity would seem to leave one without a solid
foundation in reformulating (i.e., explaining) the praxis of living
within which these phenomena are primary elements.
Maturana's own approach to this apparent paradox is to qualify existence
with respect to the observer and her operations of observation (i.e.,
her biological constitution as the fundament for her cognitive and
linguistic processes). This contravenes the objectivistic presumptions
of conventional enquiry (i.e., objectivity without parenthesis), on the
grounds that if such an alternative explanatory stance "... questions
the properties of the observer, if it asks about how cognition and
language arise, then it must ... take as constitutive that existence is
dependent upon the biology of the observer." (Maturana, 1988b, 5.i.)
This, then, is Maturana's espoused vantage for addressing cognition and
language:
"...I shall proceed without using the notion of objectivity to validate
what I say; that is, I shall put objectivity in parentheses. In other
words, I shall go on using an object language because this is the only
language that we have (and can have), but ... I shall not claim that
what I say is valid because there is an independent objective reality
that validates it. I shall speak as a biologist, and as such I shall use
the criterion of validation of scientific statements to validate what I
say, accepting that everything that takes place is brought forth by the
observer in his or her praxis of living as a primary experiential
condition, and that any explanation is secondary."
(Maturana, 1988b, 5.ii.)
The explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis entails commitment to
3 primary or axiomatic positions on the part of the observer:
"a) that he or she is, as a human being, a living system;
b) that his or
her cognitive abilities as an observer are biological phenomena because
they are altered when his or her biology is altered; and
c) that if he
or she wants to explain his or her cognitive abilities as an observer,
he or she must do so showing how they arise as biological phenomena in
his or her realisation as a living system."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 29; vertical spacing added for readability)
As a secondary or corollary commitment in this path, the observer must
accept any and all constitutive features of living systems -- most
particularly their imputed inability to distinguish (within the scope of
their experience) between perception (i.e., apprehension of something
objectively existent) and illusion (a misapprehension of something
objectively existent). This has the effect of opening the doors for
multiple -- even infinite -- viable or valid explanations, as well as an
equivalent diversity of explanatory domains. As such, this explanatory
path allows for a multiversum instead of a unary universum.
The inability to distinguish between perception and illusion derives
from the observer's unary domain of interactions, including those
interactions with her own states within her closed nervous system.
Phrased another way, if all operations of the observer in her cognitive
domain are of a uniform type or character, there would be no a
priori method by which she could discern those (purportedly)
externally-impelled from those internally-impelled. As a result, any
experience's "...classification as a perception or as an illusion is a
characterisation of it that an observer makes through a reference to
another different experience that, again, can only be classified as a
perception or as an illusion through reference to another one..."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 30)
Where the path of objectivity-without-parenthesis predicates "valid
cognition" upon achievement of congruence between some internal state or
conceptualization and the presumptively "objective" external world,
objectivity-in-parenthesis situates the focus of congruence within the
ongoing experience of the observer. As such, "...existence is
constituted with what the observer does, and the observer brings forth
the objects that he or she distinguishes with his or her operations of
distinction as distinctions of distinctions in language." (Maturana,
1988a, p. 30)
This in turn means that discrete referents (e.g., "objects" in the
observer's environing medium) are not so much indexicable subcomponents
of something "out there" as congruent intersections among the domains
and operations immersing the observer coincident with their discernment.
"[T]he objects that the observer brings forth in his or her operations
of distinction arise endowed with the properties that realise the
operational coherences of the domain of praxis of living in which they
are constituted." Insofar as this "constitution" is contingent upon the
observer's acting in language, those "objects" which are presumed to
evidence "perception" [receipt and re-presentation of something entirely
extrinsic to the cognizing observer] instead evidence the coherences
precipitating from that observer's state and stance.
According to Maturana (Cf. 1988a), these points
lead to three conclusions:
-
"Each configuration of operations of distinctions that the observer
performs specifies a domain of reality as a domain of operational
coherences of his or her praxis of living..." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 31)
For such a domain of reality, the particular "objects" populating it are
brought forth in terms of such coherences, which establish the
contextual basis for engagement. "[F]or example, the domain of physical
existence is brought forth as a domain of reality through the recursive
application by the observer in his or her praxis of living of the
configuration of operations or distinctions constituted by measurements
of mass, distance, and time." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 31)
-
"Each domain of reality constitutes a domain of explanations of the
praxis of living of the observer as this uses recursively the
operational coherences that constitute it to generate explanatory
reformulations of his or her praxis of living." (Maturana, 1988a, p.
31) In other words, the manner of constitution of the domain of reality
in turn specifies or prescribes that set or range of explanations which
the observer may potentially acknowledge as relevant to the given
circumstance. This occurs through the linkage between (a) the
operational coherences within an observer's praxis of living by which
she brings forth the given domain of reality and (b) those coherences
which pertain to the observer's reformulation of her praxis of living by
way of explanation. Maturana illustrates this linkage by noting "...the
recursive application of the operational coherences of the praxis of
living of the observer that constitute the physical domain of existence
[Cf. : 1) above -- Ed.] as the criterion of
acceptability for the explanatory reformulation of the praxis of living
of the observer constitute the domain of physical explanations."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 31)
-
"Although all domains of reality are different in terms of the
operational coherences that constitute them and, therefore, are not
equal in the experience of the observer, they are all equally legitimate
as domains of existence because they arise in the same manner as they
are brought forth..." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 31) This affords a
multiplicity of legitimation or validation in explaining experience, and
it claims a uniform "face validity" for the multiversa which the path of
objectivity-in-parenthesis portends.
NOTE: The ontological diagram (Cf. Maturana, 1988a, p. 32) illustrates the relationships between the two
explanatory paths.
Cf. : explanatory path, objectivity-without-parenthesis, praxis of living, constituted objectivity,
transcendental objectivity, multiversum, universum, perception,
illusion, domain of reality, ontological diagram, parenthesis
-
objectivity without parenthesis (also objectivity-without-parenthesis)
-
A phrase connoting the presumptive stance that statements made about an
"objective" world independent of the explaining observer have actual
validity -- i.e., such statements are not diluted by qualification of
that "objective" status with respect to (a) that observer's biological
constitution or (b) whatever apprehensional or interpretative
peculiarities derive from her immersion in her praxis of living
(experience). The explanatory path which is the alternative to
objectivity in parenthesis / parentheses, and a synonym for
transcendental objectivity.
In this explanatory path, "...the observer implicity or explicitly
accepts his or her cognitive abilities, as such, as his or constitutive
properties, and he or she does so by not accepting, or by rejecting, a
complete enquiry into their biological origin." (Maturana, 1988a, p.
28) By denying or avoiding this enquiry into the nexus at which the
subjects of interest (cognitive capacities) and the instruments by which
they are pursued (cognition and language) meet, the observer must look
somewhere else for the fundament upon which to base analysis. Under the
rubric of transcendental objectivity, the observer "...implicitly or
explicitly assumes that existence takes place independently of what he
or she does, that things exist independently of whether he or she knows
them, and that he or she can know them, or can know of them, or can know
about them, through perception or reason." (Ibid.)
Phrased another way, within the path of objectivity- without-parenthesis
the observer prioritizes the extrinsic over the intrinsic, and projects
the status of ultimate 'reality' onto that which environs her.
explanations framed within this path therefore point or refer to
something "out there": "...some entity such as matter, energy, mind,
consciousness, ideas or God..." (Ibid.) "[I]t is the listening by the
observer with a criterion of acceptability that entails a reference to
some entity that exists independently of what he or she does for a
reformulation of the praxis of living to be accepted as an explanation
of it that constitutes this explanatory path and, in fact, defines it."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 29)
Such a perspective "...entails the assumption that existence is
independent of the observer, that there is an independent domain of
existence, the universum, that is the ultimate reference for the
validation of any explanation." Within this universum, entitative
elements (i.e., objects, entities) "...exist with independency of the
observer that distinguishes them, and it is this independent existence
of things (entities, ideas) that specifies the truth." This perspective
is based on a presumption of holistic unity for the universum -- i.e.,
that it is essentially undifferentiable with respect to its mode of
existence. This in turn sets the stage for simplistic reductionism as a
mode of explanation, insofar as a unary mode of existence would seem to
preclude gross categorial error in linking explanations for
differentiable phenomena at separate levels of granulation or
composability. (The quoted passages are taken from Maturana (1988b),
section 5.iii)
In addition to its epistemological biases, objectivity without
parenthesis entails a particular mode of explanatory validation -- one
which affords the potential for a referential exclusivity which in turn
may be leveraged so as to claim authority or power. "He or she who has
access to reality is necessarily right in any dispute, and those who do
not have such access are necessarily wrong. In the universum,
coexistence demands obedience to knowledge." (Maturana, 1988b, 5.iii.)
By virtue of this, "...this explanatory path is constitutively blind (or
deaf) to the participation of the observer in the constitution of what
he or she accepts as an explanation." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 29)
The last point cited is very important, because it sets the stage for
social or even political ramifications of this explanatory path.
Maturana has since the mid-1980's increasingly emphasized that
objectivity without parenthesis tacitly underlies an explanatory power
game. The invocation of an "objective [i.e., objective without
parenthesis] rational argument" to persuade someone else carries a
presumptive force, owing to "...the implicit or explicit pretense that
the other cannot refuse what our argument claims because its validity
as such rests on its reference to the real." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 26)
This in turn relies on "...the additional explicit or implicit claim
that the real is universally and objectively valid because it is
independent of what we do, and once it is indicated it cannot be
denied." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 26) As such, in this explanatory path
"...a claim of knowledge is a demand for obedience." (Maturana, 1988a,
p. 29) This is the basis for social leverage in this explanatory path;
the invocation of 'objectivity' affords advantage by insinuating a
"...privileged access to the real that allows us to make our rational
arguments." (Maturana, 1988a, p. 26)
Because this explanatory path aspires to (and demands) adherence or
consistency with regard to the objective universum, it affords a basis
for distinguishing between perception (apprehension of some objective
referent) and illusion (misapprehension of some objective referent).
This distinction in turn allows observers in this path to denigrate
divergent orientations as "illusion" and discount them out of hand.
NOTE: The ontological diagram (Cf. Maturana, 1988a, p. 32) illustrates the relationships between the two
explanatory paths.
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, praxis of living, illusion, perception, ontological diagram, parenthesis
-
observer
-
-
1.
-
One of the key constructs in autopoietic theory, denoting a cognitive
system capable of linguistic behavior -- most definitively with respect
to itself by virtue of its closure (e.g., of the nervous system).
"A system that through recursive interactions with its own linguistic
states may always linguistically interact with its own states as if with
representations of its interactions."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 137)
Through this recursive internal interaction, the system's own
linguistic states serve as sources of perturbation / deformation for the
system itself. Phrased another way, such a system is self-coupling.
A "... living system who can make distinctions and specify that which he
or she distinguishes as a unity, as an entity different from himself or
herself that can be used for manipulations or descriptions in
interactions with other observers. An observer can make distinctions in
actions and thoughts, recursively, and is able to operate as if he or
she were external to (distinct from) the circumstances in which the
observer finds himself or herself. "
(Maturana, 1978, p. 31)
As a consequence:
"[O]bserving is both the ultimate starting point and the
most fundamental question in any attempt to understand reality and
reason as phenomena of the human domain. Indeed, everything said is
said by an observer to another observer that could be him- or herself."
(Maturana, 1988, p. 27)
In later (e.g., post-1985) writings, Maturana has increasingly tended to
introduce and define the observer with less strict regard to the earlier
formalisms. Specifically, the latter-day definitions offered for
"observer" tend to emphasize "language" (typically absent elaboration of
its connotations as laid out in Maturana (1978)) within a context more
colloquial than that of the 1970's-era literature. Where the earlier
definitions (e.g., the papers reprinted in Maturana & Varela, 1980) emphasized closure and
internal dynamics as constitutive of the "observer", the latter-day
Maturana definitions emphasize referential / indexical openness and
interactions with the environment. Phrased another way, the earlier
mode of definition focused on the internal relationships which afforded
a composite unity the capacity to operate as an observer. The later
mode of definition instead focuses upon the manner in which that
observer operates in language. For example:
"We human beings operate as observers, that is, we make distinctions in
language."
(Maturana, 1988a, p. 26)
"An observer is, in general, any being operating in language, or, in
particular, any human being, in the understanding that language defines
humanity. In our individual experience as human beings we find ourselves
in language, we do not see ourselves growing into it: we are already
observers by being in language when we begin as observers to reflect
upon language and the condition of being observers. In other words,
whatever takes place in the praxis of living of the observer takes place
as distinctions in language through languaging, and this is all that he
or she can do as such."
(Maturana, 1988b, 6.i.)
While there is no demonstrable conflict between the earlier and later
foci in defining "observer", there is similarly little demonstrable
overlap (unless one is conversant enough with the literature base to
"fill in the blanks"). In the earlier literature, the observer is
constituted by virtue of a particular mode of organization permitting
recursive structural coupling with itself. In the later literature, the
observer "arises" by virtue of her operation in "language." The benign
interpretation is that these are nothing more than complementary
perspectives on one subject. However, the preponderance of the
colloquial / language-arisen version in the literature of the last
decade (i.e., Maturana's papers) has demonstrably resulted in some
newcomers being unfamiliar with (and/or wholly overlooking) the
mechanistic, structure-oriented theoretical elements (in the earlier
literature) for which the latter expositions sometimes seem a
popularized shorthand.
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2.
-
The term used more generally to denote one or another cognitive
system (operating as an observer 1.) in its interactions. At the
extreme, the term sometimes occurs in near-colloquial usage to denote
someone who watches or apprehends a given phenomenon or event. This usage, though distinguishable from 1., is not entirely distinct; it essentially addresses the operation of an observing system presumed to be constituted in accordance with the connotations of the more formal specifications given above.
Varela (1976) illustrates that even in this (more allusive) frame of reference, the observer is still subject to rigorous specification:
"Three main properties (at least) characterize an observer:
(i) capacity for indication: to decide boundaries, to come up with nodes, systems, to have criteria for stability.
(ii) capacity for time: to chop a net and start a sequence, to compute through a process, to approximate the stability of a whole.
(iii) capacity for agreement: to externalize, to synchronize with other observers, to re-produce other's distinctions and follow corresponding time patterns.
Let us call an observer anything possessing these properties. I am taking a conscious mind to be characterizable, for the present purpose, as observer-able.
...For an observer [it] is necessarily the case that whatever he describes (sees, perceives, understands) is a reflection of his actions (perception, properties, organization). There is a mutual reflection between described and describer. They are mutually revealing."
(Varela, 1976, p. 65)
The construct of the observer is perhaps the most crucial nexus in the
explanatory web of autopoietic theory. The observer is the subject of
explanation, in the sense that the biology of cognition builds up a
progressive set of explanations serving to delineate her operations.
Similarly, the observer is the subject explaining, in the sense that all
theories, statements, etc., are the product of an observer (2.) whose
operations in this role are (within the scope of the theory)
circumscribed by her status as an observer (1.). Phrased another way,
the observer's explaining (as an act) is addressed with strict regard to
the observer explanations (devised and elaborated by Maturana and
Varela).
In one sense, this requisite interrelationship was presumed to be one of
the starting points for the theory. This is well illustrated by
Maturana's comments on the status of science and scientific
explanations:
"...[W]e are seldom aware that an observation is the realization of a
series of operations that entail an observer as a system with properties
that allow him or her to perform these operations, and, hence, that the
properties of the observer, by specifying the operations that he or she
can perform determine the observer's domain of possible observations."
(Maturana, 1978)
In other words, conventional Western science (operating in the
explanatory path of objectivity- without-parenthesis) treats
'observation' as controlled access to a presumably objective world,
whose character and characteristics are available for unequivocal
inspection. Maturana has spent decades looking into that which has been
overlooked in this attitude -- that perhaps it is the character of the
observer which specifies (or at least qualifies) her observations. In
the early stages of developing the biology of cognition, it was the
observer which was the focal subject of analysis, and this analysis was
pursued from a stance of mechanicism and with primary regard to
cognition as a biological phenomenon.
Once the characteristics and constraints of a subject observer had been
laid out, the stage was set for elaborating how such an observer could
operate in everyday life (i.e., in her praxis of living). The reciprocal
status of the observer noted above (as both explainer and explained) has
unfortunately become blurred in later writings which (although
consistent with the earlier, more detailed analyses) begin with the
observer (2.) and proceed to describe her operations in an ordinary
setting. Without attention to the background to these later writings
(e.g., attention to the notion of observer 1.), newcomers have been
known to overlook the particulars of the stance, the method, and the
explanations from which Maturana's latter (and most popular) writings
derive.
Cf. : consensual distinction, metadomain,
observer-community, phenomenology, phenomenological domain
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observer-community
-
The term used by Varela (1979) to denote a multiplicity of observers
participating in a common enquiry with respect to a system of interest:
"...persons who embody the cognitive point of view that created the
system in question, and from whose perspective it is subsequently
described." (Varela, 1979, p. 85)
Cf. inquiring community
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ontogenic adaptation
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The one of two subcategories of adaptation (the other being evolutionary
adaptation) which pertains to individual autopoietic / living systems.
Generally, this is an observer-ascribed character of ongoing structural
coupling "...between an organism and its medium of interactions..."
(Maturana & Guiloff, 1980, p. 140), in which "the changes of state of
the organism correspond to the change of state of the medium."
(Maturana, 1975, p. 326) This apparent effect is a result of the
"...coupling of the changing structure of a structurally plastic
autopoietic unity to the changing structure of the medium..."
(Maturana, 1978, p. 38)
Where structural coupling between / among organisms is realized in a
generated consensual domain, Maturana and Guiloff (1980, p. 141) label
ontogenic adaptation's analogous construct a domain of ontogenic
adaptation.
Cf. : adaptation, domain of ontogenic adaptations,
evolutionary adaptation, ontogeny, structural coupling
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ontogenic drift
-
A subcategory of drift pertaining to the life and experience of an individual living system within the scope of its continuance as an autopoietic unity. The:
"...history of structural changes of a system in its domain of existence, that follows a course configured instant by instant following the path in which, in its interactions, it conserves organization and adaptation. The drift is a process of "all or nothing", that is, either the system conserves its organization and adaptation and remains in drift, or it disintegrates. Therefore, in ontogenic structural drift and in conserving adaptation, system and circumstance change together, so that a system will never find itself out of place or incongruent with the medium."
(Maturana & Mpodozis, 1992, Appendix)
As illustrated in the above-cited passage, this term is also invoked as ontogenic structural drift.
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ontogeny
-
"The history of the structural transformation of a unity."
(Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 137)
Put another way (and with specific regard to living systems), ontogeny
is "...the history of maintenance of [the system's] identity through
continuous autopoiesis in the physical space." (Varela, 1979a, p. 32)
Staying with the specific example of autopoietic systems, this
'continuous autopoiesis' necessarily entails a continuity of the
organization which exemplifies the given system. This central role of
organization in delineating 'maintenance of identity' is reflected in a
similar central role in qualifying the manner in which ontogeny (as
defined herein) may proceed. Varela (1979a, p. 32) states that for an
autopoietic system "...all the changes that it may undergo without loss
of identity, and hence with maintenance of its defining relations, are
necessarily determined by its invariant organization." Although
organization, then, specifies the manner or range of dynamics operant in
the system's ontogeny, it does not specify the precise course of
ontogeny. Instead, "...the sequence of such changes is determined by
the sequence of these deformations." (Ibid.)
Combined with the indistinguishability of internal vs. external
perturbations, this intertwining of structural determination (synchronic
state transformation) and ontogenic coupling (diachronic course of
coupling) into a single ontogeny induces: (1) a complexity or richness
of potential behaviors; and (2) a complexity of potential descriptions
for those behaviors. As such, structural / ontogenic determinism cannot
be equated with strict causal determinism unless the observer has full
and unequivocal access to both the structural state and ontogenic
history of the observed in addition to access to unequivocal predictive
rules governing the observed's transformations. For a more detailed
explanation of these points, the reader is referred to Varela (1979, pp.
32-33).
Cf. : structural coupling
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ontological diagram
-
A label used by Maturana (1988a) for a graphic figure illustrating the
relationships between the explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis
and objectivity-without-parenthesis.
This diagram divides the possible explanatory paths with respect to the dichotomy between objectivity-in-parenthesis (the right half) and objectivity-without-parenthesis (the left half). In all cases, an observer is explaining phenomena she engages in her experience (praxis of living). The two explanatory paths are differentiated according to whether or not the observer / explainer ascribes 'objectivity' (independence from observer and observation; i.e., 'without parenthesis') or '(objectivity)' (dependence upon observer and observation; i.e., 'in parenthesis'). In the case of objectivity-without-parenthesis (the prevailing worldview of the Enlightenment and, hence, modern enquiry), there is assumed to be one all-subsuming reality (a universum). This universum is explained in terms of discrete (presumably objective) elements (e.g., 'matter', energy', 'mind', 'God'), and the criterion of acceptability for an explanation is one of 'truth' (i.e., adherence to the presumed model / element(s)). In the case of objectivity-in-parenthesis, observer-dependency of explanation opens up a realm of multiple explanations and, hence, multiple 'realities' (a multiversum) explained in terms of operations of distinction, and the criterion of acceptability for an explanation is one of 'operational coherence.'
Cf. : explanatory path, objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis, parenthesis
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ontological domain
-
A domain of ontological presumptions or foundations entailed by an
explanatory path. Specifically, Maturana (1988a, p. 32) states that the
explanatory paths of objectivity-in-parenthesis and
objectivity-without-parenthesis entail two "...fundamental ontological
domains..." -- the domain of constitutive ontologies and the domain of
transcendental ontologies, respectively.
Cf. : explanation, explanatory path,
objectivity-in-parenthesis, objectivity-without-parenthesis, domain of constitutive ontologies, domain of transcendental ontologies, parenthesis
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operational closure
-
Generally speaking, operational closure simply connotes that, given a network instantiating a composite unity, the (relevant) effects of processes or activities (i.e., 'operations') of the components are manifested solely within the bounds of that composite unity (i.e., within the network so delineated). This presumes organizational closure plus the added condition that the
effects of the processes in {P} (the configuration of processes
definitive of a unity U) operate completely within the confines of N
(the network of processes {P}).
Autopoietic systems exhibit operational closure because "...their
identity is specified by a network of dynamic processes whose effects do
not leave that network." (Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 89) Operational
closure is exemplified by the nervous system, which "... functions as a
closed network of changes in relations of activity between its
components... [where]...every change of relations of activity leads to
further changes of relations of activity" (Ibid., p. 164).
As a species of 'closure', operational closure provides one of those points upon which critics have accused Maturana and/or Varela of espousing closed systems (as that label is used in classical cybernetics). Most such criticisms target the construct of organizational closure, upon which operational closure is contingent. In refuting the notion of autonomous systems being closed systems, the following passage come closest to illustrating the status of operational closure in this debate:
"Please note that when we speak of organizational closure, by no means do we imply interactional closure, i.e., the system in total isolation. We do assume that every system will maintain endless interactions with the environment which will impinge and perturb it. If this were not so, we could not even distinguish it."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 294, emphasis in the original)
This does not, however, completely close the issue. Both the system's engagement with its environment / medium and its constitutive components' engagement with each other are 'interactions' (in the specific sense of that term in autopoietic theory). As such, one might still question the grounds for differentiating interactional closure with respect to the environment / medium (i.e., seen from the 'outside in') from 'operational closure' (as a variety of interactional closure seem from the 'inside out').
"This openness to interaction, of course, raises an important objection to the ... [Closure Thesis -- Ed.] : where do we draw the line to separate those interactions that participate in the system's organization [i.e., 'operation's, as used here -- Ed.], and those that are environmental disturbances? This is admittedly fuzzy. But this fuzziness is a result of the fact that there are many alternative criteria of distinction ... [invocable in adducing a system's boundary and organizational closure -- Ed.]. Once a criterion of distinction (and hence some procedure to testing stability) is given and fixed, the boundaries of a system are perfectly clear."
(Varela & Goguen, 1978, p. 294)
In other words, the explanatory reliance on (a) what might be called an autonomous system's internal interactivity among components (i.e., its 'operations'); and (b) the 'closure' of the network of processes and transformations constituting these operations does not conflict with that system's being open and subject to external interactivity with its environment (or 'medium', as Maturana prefers). Summarily stated: operational closure does not mean interactional closure. The real issue is the delineation of the set of system dynamics into the categories of operation / internal and 'interaction' / external -- something which is itself contingent on the particular domain and manner of engagement through which the given observer distinguishes the system in the first place.
It is, then, the cognitive point of view which provides the basis for differentiating operational closure from interactional closure. For a given composite unity (system) S addressed from the behavioral view, S's internal operations are obscured behind / beyond that system's boundary. From this view, S is not interactionally closed (e.g., by virtue of being observable), but its operational closure is unavailable for inspection (except to the extent it is evidenced in S's organizational closure). From a recursive view, S's operational closure can be observed (on the basis of S's components being observable), but the system's interactional status with the environment / medium is obscured by the boundary, through which exogenous 'interactions' are discernible only in terms of their perturbatory projections within the system. Finally, S's components are themselves subject to evaluation on the same terms -- meaning that a recursive view of S still leaves S's components individually addressable as simple unities (as was S from a behavioral view). The operation / interaction distinction upon which the respective closures are framed is therefore an a priori distinction contingent upon the cognitive point of view from which the system is observed. Because 'operation' and 'interaction' are therefore manifest in distinct domains of observation, any evaluation of their respective closures must remain similarly distinct.
Cf. : autopoietic closure, closure, Closure Thesis, interaction, interactional closure, organizational closure
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operational coherence
-
This term appears often in the post-1985 writings of Maturana -- most
particularly in Maturana (1988a), where it is invoked again and again in
delineating the explanatory path of objectivity-in- parenthesis. The
label is not given a separate or discrete definition. One must gather
from context that it connotes congruence in the cognitive operations of
a given observer. Such "operational coherences" afford the harmony
across otherwise distinct domains of experience (See Also:
Maturana, 1988a, pp. 30-31, on the linkage between domain of
reality and domain of explanations) that provides the basis for
consistent indexicality or referentiality (as opposed to the presumptive
indexicability of objectively-extant entities embraced in the path of
objectivity-without- parenthesis). As such, this term is closely linked
with the path of objectivity-in-parenthesis and the domain of
constitutive ontologies associated with this path.
Cf. : objectivity-in-parenthesis, explanation,
explanatory path
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operational explanations
-
As discussed in Varela (1979), one of the two main classes of explanation (the other being symbolic explanations). As with any form of explanation, it entails that "...the recorded phenomena are reformulated or reproduced in conceptual terms that are deemed appropriate." (p. 66) What is specific to operational explanations is that:
"... the terms of such reformulations and the categories used are assumed to belong to the domain in which the systems that generate the phenomena operate. ... A characteristic feature of an operational explanation is that it proposes conceptual (or concrete) systems and components that can reproduce the recorded phenomena. This can happen through the specification of the organization and structure of a system, as in the mechanistic framework adopted here."
(Varela, 1979, p. 66)
This last quoted passage indicates at least some measure of correspondence between Varela's operational explanations and Maturana's later delineation of scientific explanations. Both require the provision of a model / system (in Maturana's terms, an explanatory hypothesis) which, as a mechanism, can (re-)produce the phenomenon of interest. On the other hand, the above-cited passage clearly states an isomorphism of domains in which (a) the subject system operates and (b) the reformulations / mechanism(s) proffered in explanation. Maturana's characterization of scientific explanation explicitly claims these two domains are distinct.
A more detailed summary of the operational / symbolic explanation dichotomy is given under the entry for explanation.
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organization
-
Organization ranks among the most central (and the most original)
constructs generated in autopoietic theory. As a characteristic of a
composite unity , organization specifies that composite unity's identity,
its properties as a unity, and the frame within which it must be
addressed as a unary whole. More specifically, organization denotes
those "... relations that define a system as a unity, and determine the
dynamics of interaction and transformations which it may undergo as such
a unity..." (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 137; Cf. :
Varela, 1979, p. 9)
"The relations between components in a composite unity that make it a
composite unity of a particular kind, specifying its class identity as a
simple unity in a metadomain with respect to its components, constitutes
its organization. In other words, the organization of a composite unity
is the configuration of static or dynamic relations between its
components that specifies its class identity as a composite unity that
can be distinguished as a simple unity of a particular kind."
(Maturana,1988b, 6.iv.)
Maturana notes 'organization' comes from the Greek and means
'instrument'. By using this word for the essential, defining character
of a system he focuses attention on '...the instrumental participation
of the components in the constitution of the unity.' (1975, p. 315)
Phrased another way: "by making reference to the instrumental
participation of the components in the constitution of a composite
unity, [organization] refers to the relations between components that
define and specify a system as a composite unity of a particular class,
and determine its properties as such a unity." (Maturana, 1978)
"The organization of a machine (or system) does not specify the
properties of the components which realize the machine as a concrete
system, it only specifies the relations which these must generate to
constitute the machine or system as a unity. Therefore, the
organization of a machine is independent of the properties of its
components which can be any, and a given machine can be realized in many
different manners by many different kinds of components. In other
words, although a given machine can be realized by many different
structures, for it to constitute a concrete entity in a given space its
actual components must be defined in that space, and have the properties
which allow them to generate the relations which define it."
(Maturana &
Varela, 1980, p. 77)
This delineation ascribes a measure of generality or abstraction to the
attribution of organization. This 'measure', however, is of limited
magnitude. "If is important to realize that we are not using the term
organization the in definition of an autopoietic machine in
transcendental sense, pretending that it has an explanatory value of its
own." (Varela, 1979, p. 13) Organization is qualified with respect to
a particular composite unity (or a particular class of such unities)
identified or apprehended by virtue of its realization, as engaged by an
observer. "...[A]utopoietic organization simply means processes
concatenated in a specific form: a form such that the concatenated
processes produce the components that constitute and specify the system
as a unity." (Varela, 1979, p. 13)
This (qualified) generality results in the association of organization
with a class of systems, as opposed to being limited to individual
systems:
"...[T]he organization of a composite unity specifies the class of
entities to which it belongs. It follows that the concept or generic
name that we use to refer to a class of entities points to the
organization of the composite unities that are members of the class."
(Maturana, 1978)
"The organization of a system, then, specifies the class identity of a
system, and must remain invariant for the class identity of the system
to remain invariant: if the organization of a system changes, then its
identity changes and it becomes a unity of another kind."
(Maturana, in Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. xx)
"The relations among components, whether static or dynamic, that
constitute a composite unity as a unity of a particular kind, are its
organization. Or, in other words, the relations among components that
must remain invariant in a composite unity for it not to change its
class identity and become something else, constitute its organization."
(Maturana, 1980a, p. 48)
This allusion to organization in terms of class identity becomes more
prominent in the later literature -- most particularly in The Tree of
Knowledge's popular account of the theories:
"'Organization' signifies those relations that must be present in order
for something to exist."
(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 42)
"Organization denotes those relations that must exist among the
components of a system for it to be a member of a specific cla
