Re: [life] MR as ontological; 3 kinds of life

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Dan, John K., et al,

Regarding the 'demarcation' between living and non-living, Rosen makes this
remark in AS (p. 3).

"My professional activities have been concerned with the theory of
biological systems, roughly motivated by trying to discover what it is about
certain natural systems that makes us recognize them as organisms, and
characterize them as being alive. It is precisely on this recognition that
biology as an autonomous science depends, and it is a significant fact that
it has never been formalized. As will be abundantly seen in the ensuing
pages, I am persuaded that our recognition of the living state rests on the
perception of homologies between the behaviors exhibited by organisms,
homologies which are absent in non-living systems. The physical structure of
organisms play only a minor and secondary role in this; the only requirement
which physical structure must fulfill is that it allows the characteristic
behaviors themselves to be manifested. Indeed, if this were not so, it would
be impossible to understand how a class of systems as utterly diverse in
physical structure as that which comprises biological organisms could be
recognized as a unity at all. The study of biological organization from this
point of view was pioneered by...Rashevsky... Rashevsky called this study
"relational biology"...."

So, the demarcation is characterized by this set of "homologies between the
behaviors exhibited by organisms", not by structural considerations. I also
suspect (but am not certain) that this is the basis for his cryptic remark
in Essays (p. 28), where he says, regarding the conditions "for a material
system to be an organism", that "Sufficient conditions are harder; indeed,
perhaps there are none."

By "perhaps there are none", I suspect he meant that, as noted in the first
quote, that one cannot specify some finite set of structural conditions
which constitute sufficient conditions for life, and I further suspect that
he may well have meant that perhaps one also cannot specify some finite set
of relational (functional) conditions which constitute sufficient conditions
for life. Rather, *any* physical structure (and perhaps also any number of
relational (functional) structures) will suffice as long as it "allows the
characteristic behaviors themselves to be manifested". (Think of Crichton's
novel "Prey", which Don brought to the attention of the VCU Rosen group last
year).

What does seem to be clear is that for living organisms to be constituted,
the reality that comprises it is - at least - causally adequate to generate
systems which manifest these behaviors in these homologies. In particular,
it would seem to be causally adequate to allow complex systems in general,
and anticipatory ("model-based") systems, specifically. Rosen regarded this
model-based behavior as "...true at every level, from the molecular to the
cellular to the physiological to the behavioral. Moreover, model-based
behavior is the essence of social and political activity." (AS, Preface, p.
vii)

Regards,
Tim





> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Dan
> Fiscus
> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 1:59 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: [life] MR as ontological; 3 kinds of life
>
>
> John,
>
> Good stuff!
>
> Referring to the subset of your post below and especially where you
> say '"life form" in terms of a realized system that magnifies it - i.e.,
> an organism' and then 'along the continuum from MR to organism,
> there are many additional steps, all of which add up to getting a
> FULLY realized life form', I would say I agree fully, except for
> differing in the demarcation of the origin of life in that "contiuum"
> of "steps" (a nicely paradoxical way of saying it). I put the real
> event at a step prior to organisms, namely a coupled complementary
> process much more "analogous" to an ecosystemic set of autotrophic
> and heterotrophic functions operating interdependently. This is HT
> Odum's hypothetical origin and it fits everything I know of life,
> ecology, systems, etc. and so I have adopted it as my own view and
> seek to develop it. One reason I start here is that the ecosystemic
> process could plausibly generate cells and organisms.
>
> To compromise, find the point of overlap of ecosystemic and
> organismic views of life, we might meet in the middle and try to
> describe some other intermediate step at which point the ecosystemic
> (whole life system, functionally closed in coupling of autotrophic
> "composing" and heterotrophic "decomposing" functions as well as
> autotrophic energy "pump up" and heterotrophic energy dissipate
> functions) and the organismic (part or life function sub-system,
> spatially closed, "miniaturized and encapsulated" as Odum said)
> aspects reach a synergy such that the part-whole relation is
> self-sustaining and self-evolving within the likewise self-sustaining
> life-environment relation. This would in essence be the original
> entanglement of bottom-up (molecular or organismic) and
> top-down (global or ecosystemic) causality.
>
> This would then suggest a third category of life to add to your
> life itself (life principle, holds everywhere, in everything), life form
> (a fully formed organism), and this would be life process or maybe
> life function, or life system, or perhaps life-environment relation.
> Whatever we call it, it is the bridge between organisms and physical
> environment, it is implied in that "missing link" period you mention,
> it unifies life and non-life. I think it the arena in which the general
> "life itself" life principle is/was channelled and magnified into,
> precipitates out into, fully formed life forms. Since it is still
> operational (essentially ecology, inter-operation of organisms or life
> forms in webs of interdependency and mutual causation), this
> network amplification process is worthy of treatment in its own
> right, here and now. I.e., I don't suggest it relevant only at the origin.
> Instead, I suggest it a more fundamental form of life than organismic
> life.
>
> I also have thoughts that organismic life is not really closed to
> efficient cause (neither autotrophic nor heterotrophic organisms are
> really able to self-build in isolation; takes a minimum of two kinds of
> organisms to do so, to get efficient cause closure) whereas ecosystemic
> or life system life is. And also some quotes from both Rashevsky and
> Ulanowicz that speak to these topics and jive with these views. But I'll
> save these for another post...
>
> Some thoughts...
>
> Dan
>
>
>
> John Kineman wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > Now, if having and internal MR is the CRITICAL factor that makes living
> > systems alive, AND it is general to all natural systems making them
> > complex, then what is the distinction between complex and living? I
> > think logic will require this to be only a matter of degree, otherwise
> > the whole theory breaks down. So you can see how I get to saying that we
> > can say nature fundamentally and ontologically involves the critical
> > property of life, i.e., internal MR. Perhaps it can be stated this way:
> > the novel factor or principle that makes the critical difference between
> > a living system and a non living one is embedded in nature. So, calling
> > this fundamental property "life" is really just a labeling issue at this
> > point (aside from the hackles it raises). It is clearly the case in
> > Rosen's theory that the most critical property of life is also existent
> > in all natural systems. Thus I rever to "life itself" as this principle,
> > vs. "life form" in terms of a realized system that magnifies it - i.e.,
> > an organism. Anyway, I think Rosen's statements that preserve some
> > difference between complexity and life are simply because along the
> > continuum from MR to organism, there are many additional steps, all of
> > which add up to getting a FULLY realized life form.
> >
> > Furthermore, we have to recognize that the MR includes a formal system
> > component, which has no other interpretation than something that can be
> > considered psychological, epistemic, mental, abstract, e.g., whatever
> > words we want to use for non-material. It is thus a radical
> proposition.