Michel Bitbol

Autopoiesis with or without cognition: defining life at its edge.

This paper examines two questions related to autopoiesis as a theory for minimal life: (i) the relation between autopoiesis and cognition; and (ii) the question as to whether autopoiesis is the necessary and sufficient condition for life. First, we consider the concept of cognition in the spirit of Maturana and Varela: in contradistinction to the representationalistic point of view, cognition is construed as interaction between and mutual definition of a living unit and its environment. The most direct form of cognition for a cell is thus metabolism itself, which necessarily implies exchange with the environment and therefore a simultaneous coming to being for the organism and for the environment. A second level of cognition is recognized in the adaptation of the living unit to new foreign molecules, by way of a change in its metabolic pattern. We draw here an analogy with the ideas developed by Piaget, who recognizes in cognition the two distinct steps of assimilation and accommodation. While assimilation is the equivalent of uptake and exchange of usual metabolites, accommodation corresponds to biological adaptation, which in turn is the basis for evolution. By comparing a micro-organism with a vesicle that uptakes a precursor for its own self-reproduction, we arrive at the conclusion that (a) the very lowest level of cognition is the condition for life, and (b) the lowest level of cognition does not reduce to the lowest level of autopoiesis. As a consequence, autopoiesis alone is only a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for life. The broader consequences of this analysis of cognition for minimal living systems are considered.

Science as if situation mattered

When he formulated the program of neurophenomenology, Francisco Varela suggested a balanced methodological dissolution of the “hard problem” of consciousness. I show that his dissolution is a paradigm which imposes itself onto seemingly opposite views, including materialist approaches. I also point out that Varelas revolutionary epistemological ideas are gaining wider acceptance as a side effect of a recent controversy between hermeneutists and eliminativists. Finally, I emphasize a structural parallel between the science of consciousness and the distinctive features of quantum mechanics. This parallel, together with the former convergences, point towards the common origin of the main puzzles of both quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind: neglect of the constitutive blindspot of objective knowledge.

Downward causation without foundations

Emergence is interpreted in a non-dualist framework of thought. No metaphysical distinction between the higher and basic levels of organization is supposed, but only a duality of modes of access. Moreover, these modes of access are not construed as mere ways of revealing intrinsic patterns of organization: They are supposed to be constitutive of them, in Kant’s sense. The emergent levels of organization, and the inter-level causations as well, are therefore neither illusory nor ontologically real: They are objective in the sense of transcendental epistemology. This neo-Kantian approach defuses several paradoxes associated with the concept of downward causation, and enables one to make good sense of it independently of any prejudice about the existence (or inexistence) of a hierarchy of levels of being.

Decoherence and the Constitution of Objectivity

A transcendental interpretation of decoherence theories is presented, as a middle way between the realist and empiricist interpretations. From a transcendental standpoint, the latter interpretations are both biased. The realist one is biased in favor of formal constructs taken as descriptive of a reality more real than phenomena; and the empiricist one is biased in favor of phenomena, thus forgetting that they acquire their meaning from the formalism in which they are embedded. By contrast with these two positions, transcendental epistemology sees decoherence as one step in a stratified process of constitution of objectivity adapted to microphysical phenomena.

Form and Actuality

A basic choice underlies physics. It consists of banishing actual situations from theoretical descriptions, in order to reach a universal formal construct. Actualities are then thought of as mere local appearances of a transcendent reality supposedly described by the formal construct. Despite its impressive success, this method has left major loopholes in the foundations of science. In this paper, I document two of these loopholes. One is the problem of time asymmetry in statistical thermodynamics, and the other is the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. Then, adopting a broader philosophical standpoint, I try to turn the whole picture upside down. Here, full priority is given to actuality (construed as a mode of the immanent reality self-reflectively being itself) over formal constructs. The characteristic aporias of this variety of “Copernican revolution” are discussed.

Making Sense of Non-Sense in Physics: The Quantum Koan

In scientific knowledge, meaning-ascription is usually identified with representation-making. But quantum physics challenges this view. It has consistently prevented scientists from providing a unified narrative about the world, thus making them fear falling into non-sense. Few of them have accepted restricting their attention to the apparently nonsen- sical surface of micro-phenomena, together with the efficient predictive formalism of quantum theory, rather than telling a tale about putative depths behind phenomena. One wonders, then, whether taking repre- sentations as a paradigm of sense-making, even in cases like quantum physics where this looks problematic, is connected to a bias of Western culture. An alternative cultural stance, that of Zen Buddhism, is found to accommodate more easily the kind of non-representational episte- ology that makes sense of quantum physics.

Bohr’s Complementarity and Kant’s Epistemology

We point out and analyze some striking analogies between Kant’s transcendental method in philosophy and Bohr’s approach of the fundamental issues raised by quantum mechanics. We argue in particular that some of the most controversial aspects of Bohr’s views, as well as the philosophical concerns that led him to endorse such views, can naturally be understood along the lines of Kant’s celebrated ‘Copernican’ revolution in epistemology.

Beyond Panpsychism: The Radicality of Phenomenology

A central presupposition of science is that objectivity is universal. Although this presupposition is the basis of the success of scientific inquiry, it also creates a blind spot in which the conscious knower/objectifier is hidden, ignored or surreptitiously objectified (which is tantamount to being ignored). Several strategies were accordingly adopted in the West to overcome this induced ignorance. One of them is Phenomenology, with its project of performing a complete suspension of judgements (epoche) about the alleged objective world, and evaluating any claim of knowledge, together with its activity of objectification, on the basis of lived experience. Another one is panpsychist, or rather pan-experientialist metaphysics, that puts back lived experience in the very domain that was deprived of it by the act of objectifying. I will compare these approaches, thereby establishing a hierarchy of radicality between avoiding the blind spot from the outset and compensating for it retrospectively.

La structure quantique de la connaissance individuelle et sociale

Résumé : La théorie quantique offre un procédé de prédiction probabiliste pour toutes les configurations de connaissance où la distanciation objectivante est incomplète. Ces configurations se rencontrent en particulier dans les sciences humaines, qu’il s’agisse de la phénoménologie, de la psychologie cognitive, de la sociologie, ou de l’anthropologie. On étudie ici dans cet esprit un modèle quantique de phénoménologie de la perception. Ce modèle permet de rendre raison de la bi-stabilité interprétative de certaines perceptions (dont le fameux « canard-lapin » discuté par Wittgenstein est un bon exemple). On s’intéresse ensuite dans cet esprit aux situations de révolutions scientifiques où le consensus social n’est pas encore établi à propos d’un paradigme théorique (ce qui crée une forme de bi-stabilité intellectuelle collective). Dans les deux cas, on montre que le dispositif formel de la « superposition des états quantiques » permet de prendre en compte de façon satisfaisante les situations d’indécision et de cristallisation des décisions humaines.

The Controversy between Schrödinger and the Göttingen-Copenhagen Physicists in the 1950’s

When surveying the literature, one often gets the impression that Schrodinger held, in succession, four distinct interpretations of quantum mechanics, and that, except for the one he borrowed from the Copenhagen group, these interpretations all fell into a complete and deserved oblivion. People generally recognize the great importance of his contributions to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. But what they regard as important here are, as a rule, only the lines of argument and ingenious thought-experiments by which Schrodinger challenged the current orthodoxy, thus forcing his contemporaries to clarify their positions. On the face of it, none of Schrodinger’s own positive suggestions appear to have had any lasting influence. Let us then begin with a brief statement of this widespread view of Schrodinger’s philosophy of quantum mechanics, especially as originally stated in the writings of such contemporaries as Heisenberg and Born, before we subject it to critical scrutiny.