Re: [Fis] Information, autopoiesis, life and semiosis (Part I)

In response to Pedro's posting below: Note that autopoiesis has been
criticized in two ways:
(1) By George Kampis and Vili Csanyi: It is purely homeostatic, and does
not take into account change at all. They replaced it with "autogenesis"
(2) By Rod Swenson: It is not connected in any realistic way to the actual
world. He replaced it with "autocatakinesis".
(3) Koichiro and I have noted that autopoiesis is, from our, internalist
point of view, an early attempt at internalism, where, in fact, connections
to the rest of the world are not detected as such.

STAN

> Dear Soeren,
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Many thanks for the discussion document. Indeed you have produced a very
>vast outlook of subjects related with Autopoiesis and Meaning.
>
> In this preliminary comment, let me leave aside most of the 'tree' of
>interrelated subjects and concentrate on just a particular 'branch' (if I
>am capable!). My very simple question-problem would be about the extent to
>which the Autopiesis concept would 'pass' today an in-depth examination on
>its biomolecular validity.
>
> I mean, more than 30 years have elapsed since Maturana and Varela
>proposed it, after a very interesting criticism by the former on the
>representationalist approach to neuroscience. Thereafter they turned to
>the nascent molecular biology of the cell in order to produce a unified
>view of biological cognition, amplifying and generalizing their neural
>dissidence, so to speak. With virtues and defects already pointed out in
>that time, their heterodox views got better spread and recognition than
>germane concepts proposed close by: self-transcendence, auto-genesis,
>auto-catakinesis...
>
> In the intervening decades, molecular biology has been caught by a
>fantastic 'information revolution' and almost everything has changed. Now
>we have a spray of brand new bioinformatic disciplines, including
>genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and 'signaling science'. In the
>simplest cells, we have new knowledge for instance about the massive
>extension of 'horizontal gene transfer' (it has been called the 'Internet'
>of prokaryots: plasmids, viruses, phages, transposons...), or about the
>fascinating variety of colonies and 'multicellularity' mechanisms (eg,
>anti-apoptotic compounds supporting coloniality and sociality in
>microbes), or about the SOS systems in charge of producing massive
>mutational phenomena, or the vastness and complexity of protein
>degradation.... all these singular elements, and quite many others
>particularly from signaling science and protein degradation fields,
>suggest (at least) an initial revision of the 'organizational closure'
>implied by the autopoietic approach.
>
> Perhaps with more difficult grounds, I also think that 'signaling
>science' offer new cues for (rather than following strictly with the
>'structural coupling' notion) advancing a direct discussion on 'meaning'
>at the cellular level. In any case, I agree that right now most of that
>discussion cannot be advanced too far. Even if we could produce
>interesting theoretical approaches to the outside or 'message' part of
>communication (eg, Shannonian, or partitional) we have no idea on how to
>interrelate it with the advancement of a life cycle. It is in this context
>where I speculate that Michael Leyton's approach to a 'generative
>processes' grammar could be fundamental. But connecting group theory with
>molecular biology looks daunting (could some other new mathematical stuff
>bring some help---Jerry?)
>
> No doubt that the current session was addressed for freely speculating
>with the most philosophical and general ideas, as Soeren as done.
>However, if some branch of it (or 'tangent' as Ted's so aptly put last
>year) produces a convergence upon the natural science stuff already
>discussed at fis (molecular recognition, entropy, symmetry, partitions,
>process grammar, information genera, etc.) we can have an even more
>interesting result for most of us.
>
> best regards
>
> Pedro
>
>
>

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Received on Fri Jan 23 23:19:30 2004