I don't see an ecosystem as an individual but as a system, in its case, a CAS. It doesn't have the distinctive boundaries of an individual - either temporally or spatially. I see a human being as a system, in that its parts co-operate in a systemic manner; and it is also an individual - with distinctive temporal and spatial boundaries. But a human being is not a CAS, for it lacks the wide range of adaptive flexibility and even transformative capacities of a CAS.
I have long argued that societies are a CAS; they are socioeconomic ecological systems, operating as logical adaptations to environmental realities - which include soil, climate, water, plant and animal typologies etc. All of these enable a particular size of population to live in the area and this in turn, leads to a particular method of both economic and political organization. Unfortunately, the major trends in the social sciences have been to almost completely ignore this area - except within the alienated emotionalism of AGW or Climate Change...Instead, the social sciences tend to view 'culture' or 'ideology' as the prime causal factors in societal development and organization. Whereas I view these areas as emotionalist psychological explanations, as verbal narratives for the deeper causal factors of ecology, demographics, economic modes. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: John Collier ; biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 1:59 PM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:8690] Re: self-R I should have further remarked that socio-ecological systems (SESs) are a fairly recent area of study, and I would suppose that society is part of the ecology in general and separating cause involved will not be easy, if it is possible at all, so more holistic methods are needed. This seems to be a growing consensus of people who work in the field, mostly ecologists, not social scientists. John From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] Sent: May 26, 2015 7:52 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [PEIRCE-L] RE: [biosemiotics:8690] Re: self-R No, ecosystems, at least are individuals (but also systems, but so are we). They satisfy identity conditions that are not reducible. I can’t say about societies. I would have to work with suitable social scientists to find out. I don’t have the knowledge in that area yet, though I do have one paper on political science that is suggestive. Ecosystems actually are not very good CASs for a number of reasons, though some of their functions fit the idea fairly well. They lack an environment they adapt to typically, for one thing, though there are some cases in which they have adapted to variations in what I call services like water, sunlight, heat, and so on. They do have to adapt internally to the point of adequacy for resilience, though, whatever resilience is. They don’t do it very well. John From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: May 26, 2015 7:17 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [biosemiotics:8690] Re: self-R Wouldn't an ecosystem (and a society) be a CAS, a complex adaptive system, which is not an individual and therefore has no 'self' but is most certainly not a collection of singular units and thus is not reducible. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 12:36 PM Subject: [biosemiotics:8688] Re: self-R Helmut, Lists, I am reluctant to say outright that an ecosystem is a self, but people like Robert Rosen (Life Itself), Timothy Allen (Towards a Unified Ecology), and Bob Ulanowicz (Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective) all argue that ecosystems are not reducible to natural laws, member organisms, or individual local processes. That is, the ecosystem behaviour cannot be a sum of any of these, and furthermore has no largest model that is fully inclusive. They are the first three volumes in a series on ecosystem complexity. I am currently working on ecosystem function, which does fit with a basic self model I developed of autonomy, but only weakly – not enough to be called autonomous per se. They do have many of the characteristics of what we call selves. In particular their identity is maintained as an organization that requires the interaction of more local and more global constraints and processes. These maintaining aspects make up the ecosystem functions. I am pretty sure that they cannot be dissected or localized and still maintain their integrity, but I have to rely a lot on the ecologists with whom I work for the evidence. Sorry for the cautious statement of my position, but that is my way in general. I don’t know enough to comment on Luhmann, but I do think that societies cannot be fully understood as the sum of individual societally constrained actions, as I think the theory would break down if we try to make it complete. I am just beginning to address this issue, and I will talk about it in Vienna. I will make some strong claims, but I will so make clear that at this point, for me, they are speculative. I am much surer of the ecology case. The papers might help if you have time, but the basics are above. John From: Helmut Raulien [mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de] Sent: May 26, 2015 6:17 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [biosemiotics:8687] Re: self-R John, Stan, lists, In fact, if an ecosystem has got a self, based on self-organization, then my theory about the clear-boundaries-premise is wrong. So I am asking: Is the self of the ecosystem reducible or not reducible to: 1.: Natural laws, and 2.: The selves of the organisms taking part of the ecosystem and their communication with each other? Eg. Does a social system have a self? Luhmann said, it has an intention. According to my view (final cause, needs / example cause, wishes) it has a self then. But: Is this really so? Or is the self of the ecosystem reducible to the selves of the members? I guess the answer is in your papers you mentioned (John). Cheers, Helmut Von: "John Collier" <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> Helmut, Lists, Some identifiable entities that have self-organizing properties like ecosystems do not have clear boundaries in most cases. I developed the notion of cohesion in order to deal with dynamical identity in general following the memory case. There are too many papers I have written on this to summarize here, but they are on my web site. I have two papers on ecosystem identity with an ecologist, also accessible through my web site. I do think that memory is an emergent property, but I don’t think it need be (memory in current computers, for example). Cohesion is often reducible (as in a quartz crystal, perhaps, but almost certainly in an ionic crystal like salt). So I developed the nonreducible notion autonomy based on ideas from Kant that is based on boundary conditions and self-organization and thus is basically information based. I also have about 10 articles on autonomy on my web page. One that might be particularly useful here is Self-organization, individuation and identity, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 59 (2004): 151-172. A more recent one with similar ideas is A dynamical approach to identity and diversity in complex systems. In Paul Cilliers, Rika Prieser eds. Complexity, Difference and Identity: an Ethical Perspective. 2010 Berlin: Springer. Obviously, I don’t think that “self” is hard to grasp scientifically, if you accept self-organization as a possibility. Maturana does not, and thus leaves self (and thus his notion of autopoiesis) rather lame. I would say, though, that some form of self-production is required for a self, but not self-reproduction, though it may often be a part of self-production. Cheers, John From: Helmut Raulien [mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de] Sent: May 25, 2015 5:53 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Cc: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Aw: [biosemiotics:8676] Re: self-R Jeff, Lists, John Collier wrote, that memory is not the same as same body. So, is self-organizing (as phenomenon) the same as memory as phenomenon? There are metal alloys that have a memory. Also a computer has a memory. So I like the self-organizing aspect, which you have mentioned at the end of your post, better than the memory aspect. What makes self-organizing observable, i.e., what is the phenomenon about it? I think, it is in the first place something quite visible and touchable: a membrane or skin, like any organism has got. But also an air bubble in water has a sort of membrane. Now the distinction between systems with and without a self, I think, lies in the question "why?", i.e. causality: Why does an air bubble have a membrane? Because of surface tension, that is caused by natural laws, i.e. efficient cause. And why does a bacterium have a membrane? In order to have a boundary that leads the molecules it needs in, and the molecules it doesnt need (and which would disturb it) out. So here we have the reason of need, final cause with its finis/end to fulfill (put an end to) the actual need of the bacterium, and other needs that will be its own in the future. But isnt all this a supposition? Maybe the observable phenomenon about this is, that the membrane is kept up and repaired by determinate actions of the bacterium, and not by natural laws alone. One problem is, that anything that happens, not only happens obeying a final cause, but efficient cause too. Otherwise it would not work. So one can always say: It works because of efficient cause, and "needs" (final cause) are just anthropocentric suppositions by the human observer. In fact, neither the bacterium, nor the observer has or is a self, there is no such thing as a self, it is all illusion and recursive circulation. But if self and life conceptually is a circle, it nevertheless exists and is a phenomenon. Is "self" hard to grasp scientifically? It is, if the definition of science is based solely on deduction and efficient causation. It is not, if you define science as also conceptually appreciating induction and final causation (About abduction and example causation not now). Helmut "Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> Helmut, Ben, Lists, I agree with what you say here, Helmut: "Pitifully, this sort of distinction is not a scientific one." What I mean in saying this is that I don't believe that the distinctions you are making are problematic for the practice of doing science. That is, scientists don't start by reflecting on the kinds of worries you are expressing about the nature of the real relations between observer, observation, and phenomena observed. For the most part, they get the enterprise of scientific inquiry off the ground by just making observations and then trying to explain the phenomena that have been observed. For my part, I think there is much to be gained by starting in philosophy in a similarly naive way. Where the phenomena are well explained by the theories that have been developed, then there is no need to have doubts about those theories. It is the surprising phenomena that lead us to doubt some part of the accepted theories--and then we have reason to search for better explanations. Based on what I have seen so far about the recent discussions of the "self" that has been taking place on the list--I don't yet see a clearly delineated set of phenomena that call out for explanation. As such, those who are taking up these questions would do well to focus their attention at this observational stage of the process before jumping to big conclusions about which kinds of explanations are or not sufficient to account for the phenomena they are trying to explain. Let me offer an example: one kind of phenomena that Peirce devotes considerable attention to is the phenomena of how an individual person is able to exert self-control over their thoughts. For his part, Peirce does not think that the kinds of explanations offered by the likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Hume or Mill are sufficient to account for the phenomena associated with the exercise of logical self control. As such, there are aspects of the phenomena of what a person--such as a young child--realizes when he discovers that his beliefs about something like the suitability of a stove for being touched are in error. Peirce claims that the stages the child goes through in learning about the logical conceptions of error and falsity as well as the conceptions of self and other are entirely analogous to the stages that the human species must have gone through as these powers of rationality of thought and action evolved. It isn't clear how this logical conception of the self is related to the chemical or biological conception of a system that is auto (or self) organizing. They seem to be very different conceptions that are associated with very different kinds of phenomena we're trying to explain. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Helmut Raulien [h.raul...@gmx.de] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 1:37 PM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Subject: [biosemiotics:8672] Re: self-R The difficult thing about a phenomenon is, that it is a phenomenon in the observers mind. An observer who wants to distinguish a phenomenon of his/her own mind from a phenomenon, that is a phenomenon of another self, might ask: Have I asked to have this phenomenon? Or am I observing something that can only be explained by some entity other than me, having a phenomenon, because this special phenomenon is so weird, that I never would have made it up. Pitifully, this sort of distinction is not a scientific one. But it indicates, that a self can only be detected by another self. Id say, a self is something with a need. But assigning a need to something is always a supposition, and a supposition is an action only a nother self can do. So, at least, what remains is to say you have hit the nail on its head by saying "preferably some that are surprising". A self is something surprising, but surprise can only be felt by somebody who is surprised. So maybe there is no way of getting a better grip, or is there? Helmut Von: "Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> Ben, Lists, I, too, find the thread puzzling. In order to get a better grip on what the discussion is about, I wanted to ask a simple question: what are the phenomena that need to be explained? We use the word 'self' to talk about a wide range of things. As such, I was hoping that someone might point to sample phenomena--preferably some that are surprising in one respect or another--so that we could compare different explanations in terms of their adequacy in accounting for the phenomena. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 5:52 AM To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee Subject: [biosemiotics:8665] Re: self-R Kalevi, Howard, list, I've been trying to understand this discussion thread's idea that the individual self is founded in (self-)replication. Replication seems for continuation of kind, species, lineage; it doesn't seem obvious how, furthermore, the individual self is _founded_ there too, even if the individual self is underpinned by that level. When I try to think of it in my simplistic ways, it seems to me that the individual self is founded at a 'higher' level. Let me resort for what it's worth to an analogy. In the analogous scientific practice, replication of results (even one's own across various occasions), is not the same thing as the checking, balancing, structurally supporting of results by various lines of evidence, observation, etc., by various inquirers (or by oneself qua various), converging from various directions, which seems a process of buttressing and evolutionary (renovating, re-designing) buildup of results. While biological replication is needed for evolvable species and lineages, the evolutionary process itself seems more analogous to that 'buttressing' process in scientific practice. Insofar as an individual's learning process, even though it depends on a general inherited capacity to learn, does not follow inherited pre-programmed developmental paths, it is 'evolutionary' (in the sense that various people including Stan Salthe use the word), and this makes each individual an individualized self who is checked and balanced both within the self's own experience and by other individuals and experiences. (Such seems even more so the case when the individual learns not just by trial & error (struggle) in various directions, practice & repetition, and emulation/replication of valued exemplars and results, but by investigating and testing claims made by various people or virtually made by various appearances, the testing our notions to destruction rather than ourselves, as Popper would put it.) Best, Ben On 5/20/2015 2:07 AM, Kalevi Kull wrote: Dear Howard, let us try whether we can find more agreement here. KK: yes, both construction and description, here von Neumann is right, I agree - but the way how he defines self-reproduction is not what we could apply in biology or biosemiotics. HP: How does it not apply? What I mean is this: von Neumann assumed that "self-reproducing configuration must be capable of universal construction. This criterion, indeed, eliminates the trivial cases, but it also has the unfortunate consequence that it eliminates all naturally occurring self-reproducing systems as well, since none of these have been shown to be capable of universal construction." (Langton C. G. 1984. Self-reproduction in Cellular Automata. Physica D 10: 135-144 - p. 137) KK: Therefore, if You state that "An individual self is first defined by self-replication", it would require a relevant definition of self-replication. Do You have one? HP: Yes. Von Neumann's logical conditions plus my physical conditions Von Neumann's logical conditions (which include the existence of universal constructor) are not necessary - these are not used in the real living systems. That is the point. Best Kalevi ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
