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From: snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Subject: Re: H Maturana's definition of life?
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Date: Sun, 25 Sep 1994 20:20:25 GMT
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In <gustav.780155399@embla.diku.dk> gustav@diku.dk (Max Melchior) writes:

>snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass) writes:
[del]

>>strategies by which matter does this). Lifeforms are indeed structured as
>>the ultimate examples of matter organizing itself. One merely needs to take
>>the cognitive leap to perceive not just that this is what matter _does_, 
>>but that this is what matter _is_. Maturana may stop short of this cognitive
[del]
>This cognitive leap sounds a little like a mystics jump to insight :)

      No, it is the simple recognition of an opposite, but one overlooked
so generally that it requires a cognitive leap to see it.  The ancient Greeks
biased our view toward the "little ball" viewpoint of the constituents of
matter, and we retain it after thousands of years. IMO it takes exposure to
the distance on modeling provided by computer systems before you can get a
widespread general recognition that there is an alternative. Fractals, cellular
automata etc are only the tip of the conceptual iceberg as far as new 
modeling strategies and insights are concerned. These are overt, mere
programming techniques. The effect on human concept formation has only just
begun to occur. This is what the area of computer augmentation is all about:
enhancing our concept of our environment. 

>Another example from biology: evolution of species.
>By thinking about the individuals that make up a species, and their repro-
>duction, it is clear that future members of the species will be better
>suited to survive in the environment. Therefore we say, that what species
>_do_ is evolve, but it is not what they _are_. In Maturanas terms "species"
>is only a way we look at and describe a group of individuals, and species 
>only exist as such. But all this rests on the insight that those individuals
>that are wellsuited for surviving survive, the others die.

>What I mean to say with this is that even though matter seems to organize 
>itself this is just saying: stable configurations of matter are stable, and
>other configurations are not, and disintegrate... I hope this makes some
>sense.
[del]

      Yes, this is the interpretion of obviously self-organizing systems from 
the perspective of framework science. Framework science can take any system,
no matter how clearly self-organizing, cast it as functioning according to some
set of external controls. The controls will never quite encompass the 
behavior (and the matter of the origin of the controls remains), and they
may be extremely unweildy for the subject matter, but many people who rely
solely on framework modeling will insist that it is sufficient. This is a
fixation (the common fixation) on viewing nature as inert and externally
controlled. It is a habit, nothing more.

      You can imagine without my prompting many examples of
systems for which this descriptive methodology is cumbersome, and where
thinking in terms of self-organization greatly clarifies the issue. Just
accept that things are self-organizing -- you don't have to throw out the
mechanistic techniques, just put them into perspective. You may experience
that cognitive leap which will reveal to you that matter is different from
what you imagine after reading a physics text. You may perceive the things
around you in an entirely different light, including machines. 

      JES
 
