[FRIAM] causation / evolution

[Steven A Smith]

Holy Moly guys (and gals)!

Maybe it is just my POV (in time as well as myriad other perspectives) 
but this three layer deep larding of subthreads feels very deep and rich 
and on-point for me relative to many of the discussions that erupt 
(autopoetically?) here in this venue.

I think Nick... your irritation with (ab)use of language here is well 
earned and I sympathize.   I think what you are taking exception to here 
is the feeling of coded "insider" talk that makes each of us (in our own 
turn) feel like "outsiders". Sometimes that is very literally *intended* 
(not on this list so much, but in general) and sometimes merely callous 
(or pragmatic... deciding that one needs to have a certain level of 
"shared lexicon" before they can participate),  and sometimes much less 
nefarious.   I think the current conversation (with voices Dave, Glen 
(upside down AND backwards (ǝlƃ ☣)), and Nick) really does fit type III 
above    I think Glen's attempts (in this last larding) to explain the 
motivation and relevance of (in particular) "autopoesis" and the 
specific point of "closures" are very helpful, even to me (as a lifelong 
student of the structure/function duality).

I will go forth and read Glen's link on "computational autopoesis" and 
recognize/acknowledge that Nick IS lacking a computational background, 
which means that there are lots of things that come from a (rich and 
deep) computational perspective that will be hard for him to align with 
immediately... even of those of us with (only modest) computational 
perspectives are probably struggling.

I am sensing that there is a bit of a triad between the general 
*perspective* of "biology", "computation", and "natural language" afoot 
here, and to whatever extent this conversation helps to unify (or more 
likely and maybe more importantly relativize?) these three perspectives 
around the question of structure/function and self-creation 
(autopoesis).   I think too often these tugs-of-war happen on a line 
between *two* perspectives when introducing a *third perspective* helps 
to tease out "yet more" utility (I could diverge on a rant about our 
polarized two-party system but will leave this parenthetical statement 
as a placeholder only) in the tension between the multiple 
perspectives.  I could (also) push it "yet further" into higher 
dimensions with my current work in 3D graph-layout where I"m seeing 
"cohorts of psuedo-tetrahedral" structures which I think are 
generalizations of the triangular tensions referenced here in the 
bio/language/compute discussions.    This might all relate somehow to 
variously "monadology" as well as "dualism" but I can't sort it cleanly 
at all right now...

Before I go back to "looking for needles in a hairball" with my 
graph/network analysis,  I have one comment on the actual content of 
these larded threads:

Glen wrote:

    /I don't believe anyone interprets the "self" in "self vs. non-self"
    as referring to the immune system. The immune system distinguishes
    between biologically active things that were generated by the
    person/animal/organism and things that were consumed or assimilated
    by the organism. So, the "self" is the organism ... which seems
    pretty standard in biology, right?/

I think the "shortcut" often used in this kind of discussion where the 
Subject is not made fully explicit is what leads to the conflation... 
"insiders" know right away that the discussion is about the primary 
function of the immune (sub)system *within* the context of the larger 
system of the entire system-organism in the context of a system OF 
organisms (canonically humans in a social milieu of mixed contact with 
one another, their domesticated animals, and the wilder ones as well) 
convolved with parasitic opportunists (ticks, mosquitos) and the milieu 
of microorganisms that make all of the above their own "ecosystem".   
But "outsiders" can be tricked by the language in to various 
lower-dimensional apprehensions of the "systems of systems" implied.    
Glen's comment just above this one about "closure" points nicely to that 
point I think.

Also as a meta-maundering, it occurs to me in this moment that there is 
an analogy to the Heisenberg Uncertainty afoot here... that somehow the 
more tightly one "chunks" (sub) systems into a "system of systems", the 
more one can know about certain qualities, but the less they can know 
about yet other (also important) qualities.   I think this analogy is 
more about language and our way of understanding things than it is about 
"the nature of the world" but it did just strike me (once again, with 
the backdrop of trying to find structure within complex graphs) as a 
useful awareness of sorts.

- Steve

On 12/1/17 10:58 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
>
> On 12/01/2017 09:03 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> People have pressed Maturana on me before and I have tried him, but something in me has balked.  I get pissed at authors who, like the complexity folks, seem stuck on their own words.  Perhaps you could recommend ... or even link me to? ... a reader-friendly source?
> Maturana's text is mind-bogglingly difficult to read, at least for me.  There are lots of directions you could go.  But I like this document, which may also be interesting to Dave given it's focus:
>
>    Thirty years of computational autopoiesis: A review
>    http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/archive/fulltexts/2621.html
>
>
>> [NST==>I think this word encapsulates my rage, here.  I deplore people who take a word that is chosen because it is so misleading and then ram it up the ass of the literature. Yes, I know.  “Poetry” does come
>> for the greek word for “creation” and so the word does mean, in greek, self-creation.  BUT WE DON’T SPEAK GREEK!  So every English or French or ???? user of that term has to fight off the notion of a self creating poetry, which is groovy, but not very helpful.  The author who invented that term was more interested in appearing groovy than in reaching his audience, and I depise him for it.   <==nst]
> Autopoiesis isn't at all misleading.  It captures the core of the theory quite nicely, I think.  We use "auto" in the same way all the time in casual language.  And we use words like hematopoiesis all the time in everyday medicine and biology.
>
>> [NST==>Ach!  I HATE the way people use the word system.  Let's say two male cats are having a catfight over a female. We can choose to focus on the individuals, the "dance" of the fight, the relation to the female's movements, or the relation to the great horned owl sitting quietly in a tree paying close attention to the proceedings.  What constitutes the system is entirely a matter of our interest.  To define a system we need a figure, a ground, and a point of view.  This is not to say that "systems" are in the mind of the beholder.  An eclipse is real, but you have to stand in a particular place to see it.  <==nst]
> But you're missing the fundamental point that _closure_ is the way to define system without (or with less) reliance on points of view.  We've discussed that a lot on this list, too.  ... which is just more evidence that I always fail in my attempts to communicate.
>
>> [NST==>Sorry, if I am being a picky-jerk, here, but …. this bit of rhetoric exemplifies the problem.  The immune system may distinguish between “self” and “non-self”, but that is not its main function … to distinguish between the immune system and everything else.  That is what distinguishing between self and non self MEANS in the plain meaning of the words.  Yet we are asked to forgive that little slip-of-the-tongue, even though it mucks up the whole conversation.  What exactly is the “self” that the immune system is distinguishing between.  Not itself, for sure.  But that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?  How do we distinguish the boundaries of a system without engaging at least two other systems in the definition, hence making them part of the system.  <==nst]
> I don't believe anyone interprets the "self" in "self vs. non-self" as referring to the immune system.  The immune system distinguishes between biologically active things that were generated by the person/animal/organism and things that were consumed or assimilated by the organism.  So, the "self" is the organism ... which seems pretty standard in biology, right?
>
>> [NST==>I gather that those who talk this language see themselves as anti-Cartesians.  To me , it seems, sopped in cartesianism.  The key notion of CArtesianism is foundationalism, the notion that before we have any kind of a discussion we must strip our understandings down to some bare bones, for Decartes, _the cogito. _That is what is so refreshing about Pragmatism.  Pragmatists start in the middle.  We keep looking at the world from various points of view.  From this point of view, this looks like a system; from this other point of view, it seems a part of larger system; from yet another point of view, a collage of systems; from a 4^th point of view, it disappears altogether.  Perhaps after a few decades, or millennia, of that sort of work, we come to agree on some foundations.  Foundations are not the beginning of our labors; they are its most sought after result.  <==nst]
> Well, the paper we're discussing this evening, Maturana's "What is sociology?", does run the risk of dualism, because Maturana asserts that language is more open than biology (or biology exhibits the closure required for autopoiesis, whereas language does not).  That, obviously, begs the question of where the decoupling/unbinding from the material grounding of the words/terms/signs/whatever.  But Maturana is arguing *against* the applicability of autopoiesis to social systems (via language).  So, my guess is Maturana is cleaving close to monism, whereas people like Luhmann are the one's at risk for dualism.
>
> Regardless, you would benefit from avoiding generalizing across all people who "talk this language".
>

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