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Anticipation and Self-Consciousness Humberto Maturana Romesín

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Anticipation and Self-Consciousness Humberto Maturana Romesín Humberto Maturana Romesín Anticipation and Self-consciousness nature of the “contextual conditions” is such arguing for is neither “internalist,” nor My claims that overall, the walking has a nebulous loca- “externalist,” but rather seeks to go beyond 3 In these reflections I shall claim that the tion, without any clear-cut boundaries. Mov- the opposition between them; the construc- operation of the nervous system is not antici- ing outwards from the centre, the location tion happens in the interaction, and insofar patory, and that as a structure-determined includes more than just the bits of ground as it is “located” anywhere, it has a “nebulous” system it cannot be anticipatory, even if for an where I put my feet; it arguably includes the location, rather like the walking in my simple observer it may seem to be so as he or she sees whole street, and, in a way, (but less defi- example. an organism behaving adequately in its nitely) the buildings and trees and parks that 9 Why does this matter for constructivists? changing niche. I shall also claim that self- I pass by. Moving inwards from the cosmos as Well, I think it is important because even at consciousness is not the result of some partic- a whole, we can say that my walking is defi- the best of times constructivism is already ular neuronal process in the nervous system, nitely happening on the planet Earth, rather widely accused of idealism, solipsism and/or but that it is a manner of living that has arisen than the solar system (because of the compo- relativism, so the last thing we need is to give in our human history as the consequence of sition of the atmosphere); in France (because free ammunition to our opponents! We need our living as languaging beings in a flow of of the linguistic context), and in Paris to be able to say that if reality is indeed con- recursive coordinations of coordinations of (because of the weather, and the general structed, the construction in question is con- consensual doings in which we are objects of atmosphere…). Thus, there is no clear-cut strained by a “reality principle”; constrained, our coordinations of doings. boundary between what is contextually rele- that is, not just by the particular features of 4 Indeed, I shall claim that there are no vant and what is not. the organism, but equally by the environ- anticipatory processes in the cosmos and that 6 But even if the location is “nebulous” in ment, and above all by the interactions that the result of a process is not and cannot be this way, and difficult to pin down, there is occur between the two. part of its occurrence, and that self-con- one thing that we can say for sure: the walking sciousness is the particular inner feeling that is not happening “in the legs.” I claim that we feel when we see that we are doing what we exactly analogous considerations hold for the are doing. relationship between the brain and the mind. Anticipation and The brain is only involved in perceiving, Self-consciousness Structural coupling: My fundaments thinking, imagining, feeling, being conscious for the answer to the first question and so on – what I have called “cognizing” for Are these Functions 5 We living systems are molecular systems. want of a better general term – because it is of the Brain? As molecular systems we are structure-deter- contextually situated in the body of a living mined systems, and as structure-determined organism, itself engaged in actions in an Humberto Maturana Romesín systems we are systems such that nothing environment. Matriztic Institute, Santiago (Chile) external to us can specify what happens in us. 7 Butz himself implicitly recognizes this to <[email protected]> Something external to us impinging upon us a very considerable extent, by the importance can only trigger in us structural changes he (quite correctly) attaches to the “ground- determined in our structural dynamics. ing” of cognizing in embodied sensory- 1 My reflections will be first, about how the Therefore, we human beings as molecular liv- motor dynamics. However, the “brain-cen- brain operates in the generation of the ade- ing systems are structure-determined sys- tered” talk remains a niggling worry; and as I quate behavior of an organism in a changing tems, and all that applies to living systems as indicated at the start of this commentary, it medium, and second, about how self-con- structure-determined systems applies to us. has what I consider to be a particularly dam- sciousness appears in the course of the history Structural determinism is not an assumption; aging consequence. of humanness. it is our condition of existence. 8 “Perceived reality is a construct”; yes, we 2 The first question arises from our daily 6 A living system arises in the operations of can all agree with that. But why should we experience of seeing an organism behaving in distinction of an observer as existing in three assume that it is an “inner” construct? If the a way that seems to anticipate some desirable non-intersecting operational domains: the mind is not in the brain, as I have argued, the result, or from observing a developmental domain of the realization of its molecular “perceived reality” is not “in” the head either. process as if it were guided by a drive to reach autopoiesis, the domain in which it operates Since the brain is only involved in actual cog- some particular form. These observations as a totality, that is, as an organism, and the nizing to the extent that it is situated in a body have given rise to the suggestion that the brain domain in which it realizes its relational living that is interacting with its environment, the and the organism operate under the action of in operational dynamic congruence with its reality that is “brought forth” (Maturana & some anticipatory drive. The second question niche as this arises continuously in the actual Varela 1987) or “enacted” (Varela et al 1991) arises when we hold the view that language is realization of its manner of living as an organ- is co-constructed in the interaction between an instrument that we human beings use to ism of a particular kind. organism and environment. This co-con- refer to entities that are external to us, and we 7 When the observer distinguishes an struction is constrained (and made possible) find ourselves asking, how do we distinguish organism, he or she brings forth in the same by the particular features of both the organ- ourselves if we are not objects external to our- act the operational-relational environment in ism and the environment. The position I am selves? which he or she sees it, as well as the opera- 18 Constructivist Foundations Philosophical-epistemological–neurophysiological Open peer commentaries tional-relational medium in which he or she dynamics of coherent structural changes that ence with the medium in its niche that is the imagines it to exist, and in which the organ- is the result of the history of recursive interac- result of the conservation of the operational ism realizes an individual niche that the tions between the organism and its niche. I structural coherence of the organism and its observer cannot see unless the organism itself have called such dynamics of coherent struc- niche in a history structural drift in which the shows it to him or her with its behavior. tural changes in which the organism con- organism and its niche have changed together 8 The observer calls “environment” all that serves its autopoiesis, structural coupling. congruently. Such a process occurs spontane- he or she sees surrounding the observed 13 When an observer sees an organism con- ously without the participation of any guiding organism, and calls “medium” all that he or serving its living (autopoiesis) in its domain orientation towards an end as a result of the she imagines as the great container in which of structural coupling in its niche, he or she operation of the organism as a structure- an organism realizes its living. The niche sees it as an organism generating adequate determined system. Structural determinism arises as that part of the medium that the behavior in its niche, whatever this may be. is a constitutive basic feature of the cosmos organism “touches, sees, hears … or more For the observer, the adequate behavior of the that we human beings bring forth with our generally encounters” in the many dimen- organism may appear as anticipatory, that is, operation as molecular systems. Structural sions of the realization of its dynamic manner as foreseeing what “the organism needed.” Yet determinism does not imply predictability. of living, and that the observer cannot see the organism was only operating in the coher- Structural determinism is the basic condition unless the organism reveals it through its liv- ences of its structural coupling in its niche, in that creates the possibility of understanding ing. the present of a history of recurrent dynamic and explaining of all processes in the cosmos, 9 An organism exists in a continuous pro- structural coherences that constituted a even probabilistic ones. cess of structural changes as a result of its own matrix of operational-relational coherences 19 There is no possibility of the operation of internal structural dynamics modulated by in which the organism can conserve its living any process that could be legitimately called the structural changes triggered in it by its precisely because the organism and its niche anticipatory or that could be legitimately con- interactions in its niche. The niche in which change together around the conservation of sidered to occur under an anticipatory drive.
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