Re: anticipation

[Tim Gwinn <***>]

Well, here are my thoughts on it, for what its worth......

My first thought is that, as I understand it, 'fitness' in the traditional
view is only an externally imposed measure. That is, there is nothing
intrinsic in the organism which -is- fitness; but rather, fitness is an
external measure of how successful those organism's behaviors are. If so,
then 'fitness' does not explain -why- an organism succeeds, it is merely a
measurement - after the fact - of whether it does or not.

As to -why- an organism succeeds, I suppose in the "reactive paradigm", as
Rosen called it, one would argue that a fortunate random genomic mutation
occurred somewhere in the plant's lineage that allowed a certain reaction to
occur in response to (say) a certain change in temperature or daylight
patterns. As viewed from outside, that mutation fortuitously happened to
increase the chance of success of the plant surviving the winters, and
therefore it improved it's fitness.

In the anticipatory paradigm, the above can still all be true. If we ask
"why the reaction (by the plant)?", we can still answer "because the
temperature changed" or "because of this genomic arrangement". But we can
also answer "because it will help the plant survive certain negative
environmental changes in the winter". That answer is a final cause, in
Aristotelian terms, which is forbidden in the reactive paradigm: it seems to
reek of anthropomorphism. But this final cause is the function of the
reaction. And if we allow that functional descriptions for things like
metabolism and repair are valid, then equally so is this it seems. So I
think it moves us from a mechanistic description of activity to a larger,
functional one.

Moving to this functional description also abstracts us from the specific
nature of the reaction mechanism. The organization of this functional
description can remain the same regardless whether the plant is reacting to
changes in daylength or temperature or activity levels of its symbiotes. In
fact, the effects of the three different kinds of reactions might even be
different behaviors. But as long as those behaviors resulted in
survivability in the winter, then all of these cases would result in equally
'fit' variants of the plant. This makes sense since they all would be
instances of the same functional organization.

Viewed from the reactive paradigm,  there would be three entirely different
causes of three very different kinds of reactions and maybe three entirely
different kinds of behavioral responses. It probably would not be unusual to
offhandedly say that "these three variants all found different ways of
solving the same problem". But I would imagine that in the reactive paradigm
such a statement would have no place since plants, from this view, do not
solve problems - they just react. Even in an evolutionary sense, there is no
solving of problems, only a multitude of random mutations and their
consequences, which play out as either adaptive or maladaptive. Being a
'fit' species is just a matter of dumb luck. Therefore, from this view there
is no commonality at all apparent between these three adaptations, except
for their external measures of fitness.

The analogy would be with the relational functional organization of the
(M,R)-system. To say that an (M,R)-system is a correct description of the
functional organization of an organism does not invalidate chemical
descriptions or vice versa. Similarly, a functional description which
includes predictive qualities does not invalidate descriptions of the
constituent reactive mechanisms, or vice versa. But each kind of description
answers different questions and is useful for different purposes.

I think in the question you pose, the situations where an anticipatory
description would be useful are those where "throwing away the matter and
keeping the organization" is desired. As in the example above, where "each
variant solves the same problem differently" might actually mean that they
all possess some common functional organization with respect to that aspect
of their existence. Working at the level of functional organization might
possibly simplify and explain patterns of similarity of fitness where the
specific mechanisms have no commonality.

Anyway, those are my thoughts late tonite. :)
Tim


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of John
> Kineman
> Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 8:53 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: anticipation
>
>
> No, not the Carly Simon song...
>
> This is related to a recent discussion off list - what views do those on
> the list have regarding the following:
>
> Does the kind of anticipation we see in plants, for example preparing for
> winter, extend beyond what traditional mechanistic adaptation via natural
> selection can explain? If so, in what way?
>
> Note: In a sense all adaptive behavior is "anticipatory" in the
> traditional
> view, as it is defined in terms of fitness (which extends even to success
> of offspring, certainly a future event). So, in what sense would Rosennean
> anticipation be different??? What would it add? What would it explain that
> traditional theory doesn't?