SV: Information and Natural Languages

Dear Rafael

You pose such difficult questions!

Autopoiesis was originally defined as the state of living systems by
Maturana and Varela.

Luhmann has suggested a general theory of Autopoiesis . He writes:
"If we abstract from life and define autopoiesis as a general form of a
system building using self-referential closure, we would have to that
there are non-living autopoietic systems" p. 2 in "Essays on
self-reference".

I have written about this in:

Brier, S. (1995):" Cyber-Semiotics: On autopoiesis, code-duality and
signgames in bio-semiotics" in Cybernetics & Human Knowing, Vol. 3, no.
1.

I understand from the paper, that this is his move to claim that psychic
and social communicative systems can be called autopoietic. A move that
Maturana and Varela do not agree in. I do not think that Luhmann meant
that chemical or physical systems per see can be autopoietic as Asgar
Minai postulated in a version of an object idealist world view (Cyb & HK
vol. 3 no. 3 p. 33-34). Luhmann just wanted to make room for his
social-communication theory and call this system autopoietic. So as far
as I can see, all Luhmann's systems depends on a living system as theori
basis. This mean that - apart from Minai - autopoiesis theory and second
order cybernetics in general is based on the notion of cognitive systems
- but not necessary linguistic - as the minimum for making the
difference between outside and inside.

As far as I know Heidegger it is very close to his theory, because an
autopoietic system is always already "in the world". It emerges from a
world. But this world only emerges a 'the world' as the system becomes
aware of itself and therefore observes the difference between itself and
the world.

Now, neither Maturana nor von Foerster speaks very much of their
ontology, but when you look closer they do both seem to have a rather
physicalistic world view. In my opinion this makes it very difficult to
understand how the world or the universe - as Spencer Brown says it -
takes the pain to split itself up into an observing and an observed
part. I have written extensively on this in :

Brier, S. (1996):"From Second-order Cybernetics to Cybersemiotics: A
Semiotic Re-entry into the Second -order Cybernetics of Heinz von
Foerster", Systems Research, Vol. 13, No. 3,pp.229-244, 1996.

When talking about epistemology we always make ontological assumptions,
so one better do it explicit. That is why I like C.S. Peirce's work so
much. I think that a mechanistic or othervise physicalistic world view
is too reductionistic. It claims far too much. We have no proper ground
to remove the emotional and mental from the world/universe just because
it has general regularities. So all that Peirce claims is that the
universe evolves and that it takes habits. We cannot reasonable claim
either that the world is mathematically cognizably at "the bottom" or
that it will be simple in any human understanding and therefore that
science can find the basis for all order or something like that.

All we know is that the universe locally organizes itself
autopoietically with the result that it can observe itself and attempt
to know itself. But, of cause, we do not know very much about what 'the
universe' is.

Freya Mathews in her book "The Ecological self" suggests that the real
individuals in the universe is not things (res) but the living systems,
and we should start our analysis there and not on the socalled physical
level. See

Brier, S. (1995):"Trust in the Order of Things", A review of Mathews,
Freya (1994). The Ecological Self, Routledge, London, pp.292. Systems
Practise, Vol. 9, No.4, 1996, pp. 377-385.

Venlig hilsen/Best wishes

Assoc. Prof. Ph. D. S�ren Brier
Royal School of Library and Information Science, Aalborg Branch
Langagervej 4, DK-9220 Aalborg �st
Telephone: +45 98 157922 , Fax: +45 98 151042
Homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/home_uk.htm
Ed. & Publisher of Cybernetics & Human Knowing
homepage: http://www.db.dk/dbaa/sbr/cyber.htm

> ----------
> Fra: Rafael Capurro, Professor[SMTP:CAPURRO@hbi-stuttgart.de]
> Sendt: 10. december 1997 15:04
> Til: Multiple recipients of list
> Emne: Re: Information and Natural Languages
>
> Dear Soeren, dear Koichiro,
>
> the question is what does it mean to be an observer? or, in other
> words, what is the ontological status of a non-observer. If to be an
> observer means 'to be outside', does this mean that there are
> entities which are 'per se' not outside? I am thinking about the
> difference made by Luhmann between a system and the surrounding world
> (Umwelt). Luhmann conceives systems as living (!) systems, and
> particurlarly as socio-psychic systems (see article by Quortrup in
> Soeren's journal: Cybernetics and Human Knowing). Is the difference
> between System/World something similar (!) for instance to Heidegger'
> s ontological difference?
> My question concerns also the status of autopoietical systems as
> living systems.
> Kind regards
> Rafael
>
> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 10:46:45 +0100 (MET)
> Reply-to: fis@listas.unizar.es
> From: koichiro matsuno/7129 <kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Subject: Re: Information and Natural Languages
>
> Soeren's concise statement:
>
> >So the whole
> >definition of information is tied to the notion of an 'observer'.
> >Therefore what we have 'outside' can only be 'potential information'.
>
> is what I have been chasing after. Of course, autopoiesis definitely
> has something to say on this. At the same time, Rafael's theory
> of messages may ask us to think about the grammatology of autopoiesis
> in general, or messages in particular.
>
> Regards,
> Koichiro
>
> Koichiro Matsuno
>
>
>
Received on Thu Dec 11 12:49:12 1997