On 16 Oct 2012, at 17:37, Terren Suydam wrote:
Hi Russell,
I think if autopoeisis has failed to achieve some practical measure,
it is a reflection of how under-developed our collective toolbox is
for working with complexity and holistic systems in general. Imaginary
numbers are a good example of an idea whose practical measure didn't
emerge until well after its conception.
I am not sure about that. Complex numbers (and imaginary root of
negative numbers) were used already to solve cubic equation. Of course
the imaginary last solution was rejected, but they were accepted as
used in the search of the real solutions. then Gauss used them a lot,
and eventually pave the way to the general acceptance. The complex
numbers did impose themselves in the practice of math, before gaining
acceptance in the theory, I would say.
Bruno
Thanks for the link to Barry McMullin... interesting stuff.
Terren
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]
> wrote:
Whilst I agree with Terren that autopoesis is an important part of
what it is to be alive, it is not a very practical thing to
measure. I
wouldn't know if my artificial life simulations were autopoetic or
not, except where the concept has been explicitly designed in (eg see
Barry McMullin's aritificial chemistry work).
Actually, its a refreshing change to have some (a-)life topics being
discussed on this list.
Cheers
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 11:45:47AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Terren Suydam
You needn't agree with me. I respect that.
It wasn't really a thought process, I
just couldn't find anything to hold on to,
something that works, and I am a pragmatist.
Hence my use of the term "mind-boggling".
Roger Clough, [email protected]
10/15/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Terren Suydam
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-15, 11:23:43
Subject: Re: Re: autopoesis
Hi Roger,
I'm interested in the thought process that led you to reject
autopoeisis. I was intrigued by your recent post about life that
defined it as the process of creation, rather than the object of it.
Personally I think autopoeisis is an important concept, one of the
best yet put forward towards the goal of defining life. I think
there
is a lot of potential in the idea in terms of applying it beyond the
biological domain. As it only deals with relations among a network
of
processes, it does not assume the physical.
At the very least is is indispensable as a framework for
understanding autonomy.
Best,
Terren
On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Roger Clough
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Platonist Guitar Cowboy
I agree.
I was wrong about autopoesis. It is
a mind-boggling definition of life,
maybe not even that.
Roger Clough, [email protected]
10/15/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Platonist Guitar Cowboy
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-14, 09:26:19
Subject: Re: autopoesis
Hi Roger,
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Roger Clough wrote:
Autopoesis is a useful definition for life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis
Autopoiesis (from Greek a?to- (auto-), meaning "self", and p???
s?? (poiesis), meaning "creation, production") literally means
"self-creation" and expresses a fundamental dialectic among
structure, mechanism and function. The term was introduced in
1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto
Maturana and Francisco Varela:
An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a
unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation
and destruction) of components
which:
(i) through their interactions and transformations continuously
regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that
produced them; and
(ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in
which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological
domain of its realization as such a network.[1]
[...] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-
contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define
another space.
When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic
system, however, we project this system on the space of our
manipulations and make a
description of this projection.[2]
This seems to me more a description for machines/hallucinations
that lack flexibility; such as how media, politics, and market
are framed in public discourse. Like Luhmann said "they tend to
be operationally closed".
The statement? above "continuously regenerate and realize the
network of processes (relations) that produced them" stands
counter to "transformations" which would indeed change "(ii)
constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which
they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain
of its realization as such a network.[1]", specifically the
"concreteness" of the unity and the discreetness of its domain is
undermined by "transformation".
The original Greek definition, does ring a bell for creative
processes and dreaming however, but in an "operationally less
bounded" sense.
m
?
Roger Clough, [email protected]
10/14/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
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