Artículos de revista (Fac. de Filosofía y Letras)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10171/70318
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- Origins of biological teleology: how constraints represent ends(Springer Nature, 2024) Deacon, T. (Terrence); García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)To naturalize the concept of teleological causality in biology it is not enough to avoid assuming backward causation or positing the existence of an inscrutable teleological essence like the élan vital. We must also specify how the causality of organisms is distinct from the causality of designed artifacts like thermostats or asymmetrically oriented processes like the ubiquitous increase of entropy. Historically, the concept of teleological causality in biology has been based on an analogy to the familiar experience of purposeful action. This is experienced by us as a disposition to achieve a general type of end that is represented in advance, and which regulates the selection of efficient means to achieve it. Inspired by this analogy, to bridge the gap between biology and human agency we describe a simple molecular process called autogenesis that shows how two linked complementary self-organizing processes can give rise to higher-order relations that resemble purposeful dispositions, though expressed in terms of constraints on molecular processes. Because the autogenic model is described in sufficient detail to be empirically realizable, it provides a proof of principle demonstrating a simple form of teleological causality.
- Does autogenic semiosis underpin minimal cognition? Deacon’s autogen model in the context of the life-mind continuity thesis(Springer, 2021) García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)Minimal cognition is an emerging field of research in the context of the life-mind continuity thesis. It stems from the idea that life and mind are strongly continu- ous, involving the same basic set of organisational principles. Minimal cognition has been sometimes regarded as the analysis of the minimum requirements for the emergence of cognitive phenomena. In the target article, Deacon describes the emer- gence of the autogenic system as an interpreting system that displays the simplest form of interpretive competence, its most critical function being the capacity to re- present itself in ever new substrates and to interpret environmental conditions with respect to system self-maintenance. Since Deacon describes the autogen in cogni- tive terms, this article examines whether the autogen model can embody the critical disposition that underpins the emergence of minimal cognition. It finds that it does so, but argues that the autogenic system itself fails to be cognitive because it lacks the displacement of constraints that enable the semiotic scaffolding exhibited by life processes. The article then discusses the implications of the idea that autogenic processes underpin the emergence of minimal cognition for the life-mind continuity thesis.
- On the naturalisation of teleology: self-organisation, autopoiesis and teleodynamics(Sage, 2022) García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)In recent decades, several theories have claimed to explain the teleological causality of organisms as a function of self- organising and self-producing processes. The most widely cited theories of this sort are variations of autopoiesis, originally introduced by Maturana and Varela. More recent modifications of autopoietic theory have focused on system organisation, closure of constraints and autonomy to account for organism teleology. This article argues that the treatment of teleology in autopoiesis and other organisation theories is inconclusive for three reasons: First, non-living self-organising processes like autocatalysis meet the defining features of autopoiesis without being teleological; second, organisational approaches, whether defined in terms of the closure of constraints, self- determination or autonomy, are unable to specify teleological normativity, that is, the individuation of an ultimate beneficiary; third, all self-organised systems produce local order by maximising the throughput of energy and/or material (obeying the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle) and thereby are specifically organised to under- mine their own critical boundary conditions. Despite these inadequacies, an alternative approach called teleody- namics accounts for teleology. This theory shows how multiple self-organising processes can be collectively linked so that they counter each other’s MEP principle tendencies to become codependent. Teleodynamics embraces – not ignoring – the difficulties of self-organisation, but reinstates teleology as a radical phase transition distinguishing sys- tems embodying an orientation towards their own beneficial ends from those that lack normative character.
- A thermodynamic basis for teleological causality(The Royal Society, 2023) Deacon, T. (Terrence); García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)We show how distinct terminally disposed self-organizing processes can be linked together so that they collectively suppress each other's self-undermining tendency despite also potentiating it to occur in a restricted way. In this way, each process produces the supportive and limiting boundary conditions for the other. The production of boundary conditions requires dynamical processes that decrease local entropy and increase local constraints. Only the far-from-equilibrium dissipative dynamics of self-organized processes produce these effects. When two such complementary self-organizing processes are linked by a shared substrate-the waste product of one that is the necessary ingredient for the other-the co-dependent structure that results develops toward a self-sustaining target state that avoids the termination of the whole, and any of its component processes. The result is a perfectly naturalized model of teleological causation that both escapes the threat of backward influences and does not reduce teleology to selection, chemistry or chance. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thermodynamics 2.0: Bridging the natural and social sciences (Part 1)'.