Arantza Etxeberria

Agency in Natural and Artificial Systems

We analyze the conditions for agency in natural and artificial systems. In the case of basic (natural) autonomous systems, self-construction and activity in the environment are two aspects of the same organization, the distinction between which is entirely conceptual: their sensorimotor activities are metabolic, realized according to the same principles and through the same material transformations as those typical of internal processes (such as energy transduction). The two aspects begin to be distinguishable in a particular evolutionary trend, related to the size increase of some groups of organisms whose adaptive abilities depend on motility. Here a specialized system develops, which, in the sensorimotor aspect, is decoupled from the metabolic basis, although it remains dependent on it in the self-constructive aspect. This decoupling reveals a complexification of the organization. In the last section of the article this approach to natural agency is used to analyze artificial systems by posing two problems: whether it is possible to artificially build an organization similar to the natural, and whether this notion of agency can be grounded on different organizing principles.

The autonomy of biological individuals and artificial models

This paper aims to offer an overview of the meaning of autonomy for biological individuals and artificial models rooted in a specific perspective that pays attention to the historical and structural aspects of its origins and evolution. Taking autopoiesis and the recursivity characteristic of its circular logic as a starting point, we depart from some of its consequences to claim that the theory of autonomy should also take into account historical and structural features. Autonomy should not be considered only in internal or constitutive terms, the largely neglected interactive aspects stemming from it should be equally addressed. Artificial models contribute to get a better understanding of the role of autonomy for life and the varieties of its organization and phenomenological diversity.

Organisms and their place in biology

In this paper we review the concept of organism analysing the main ideas related to it in the context of present biological theories. The discussion is focused and developed according to four key issues: individuality, organisation, autonomy and reproduction. Once these basic connections are established, a spectrum of possible entities that fall under the label ‘organism’ is looked over, with special emphasis on limit or controversial cases. The aim is to see whether they all share a set of common features and, if they do, why it is so difficult to reach a consensus on the definition of the term. Finally, we try to release somehow the tension between those hierarchical schemes proposed to account for life as a global phenomenon and those approaches that take organisms as the central target of (theoretical) biology, suggesting a possible middle-ground solution open for further research.

Autopoiesis and Natural Drift: Genetic Information, Reproduction, and Evolution Revisited

The contribution of the theory of autopoiesis to the definition of life and biological theory affirms biological autonomy as a central notion of scientific and philosophical inquiry, and opposes other biological approaches, based on the notion of genetic information, that consider reproduction and evolution to be the central aspects of life and living phenomenology. This article reviews the autopoietic criticisms of genetic information, reproduction, and evolution in the light of a biology that can solve the problem of living organization.

From complexity to simplicity: nature and symbols

This paper reviews Pattees ideas about the symbolic domain as a phenomenon related to the self-simplifying processes of certain hierarchical systems, such as the living. We distinguish the concepts of constraint, record, and symbol to explain how the Semantic Closure Principle, that is to say, the view that symbols are self-interpreted by the cell, emerges. Related to this, the notion of complementarity is discussed both as an epistemological and as an ontological principle. In the final discussion we consider whether autonomous systems can exist in which constraints are not symbolically preserved, and if biological symbols can be considered to have a descriptive nature.

Life as emergence: The roots of a new paradigm in theoretical biology

Abstract A discussion of various theories of emergence is given. It is argued that artificial life and the related theoretical constructs have to be rethought on the basis of new epistemological foundations. In particular, three earlier approaches, the theories of ‘anticipatory systems,’ ‘semantic closure’ and ‘component systems’ are examined from the point of view of representation of emergence. In addition, reductionism and the theory of autopoiesis are considered as possible alternatives. On the basis of these discussions, the possibility for a synthetic view of biological existence, based on the notion of emergence, is outlined.

Pattern and process in evo-devo: Descriptions and explanations

In the Modern Synthesis the study of patterns refers to how to identify and systematize order in lineages (description), attributed to underlying processes or mechanisms (explanation). But patterns and processes play distinct roles in evodevo. In this chapter we (1) distinguish three different views (the transformational, the morphogenetic and the process approach) according to the role they play in the description and explanation of development and evolution, and (2) relate this discussion to the issues of homology and variation.

Artificial Evolution and Lifelike Creativity

This paper discusses the aims and goals of artificial evolution in relation to two of the founding features of A-Life: how to characterize the domain of the possible and the criterion of lifelikeness. It is argued that artificial evolution should aim to understand the evolution of organizations and that this will bring about a better understanding of possible evolutions that could have taken place on Earth.

La idea de autonomía en biología

The aim of this article is to examine how the notion of biological autonomy may be linked to other notions of autonomy usual in philosophical discussions. Starting in the 70s, the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela developed a theory of life as autopoiesis which gives rise to a new conception of autonomy: biological autonomy. The development of this concept implies the recovery of the notion of the organism in a scientific context in which biology and philosophy of biology are focused on the study of the gene by Molecular Biology and evolution by natural selection, by the so called Modern Synthesis. Here we try to show some implications of the concept of life as autonomy for current biology and how this concept can be related to other more usual ones in philosophy.

Complementarity and Closure

Abstract: This paper compares two different accounts of closure to explain biological organization: as an organization enabled by an informational control on dynamics (Pattee) and as an internal closure of a dynamic nature (Varela). The two of them adopt different versions of a principle of complementarity to relate symbolic and dynamic explanations.