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
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. an organism realizes its living occurs in a con- the manner of living of the organism. If an observer sees an ordered process giving tinuous structural change arising in the inter- 14 Systemic laws are abstractions of the rise to some result that is surprising or admi- play of the dynamics of the medium of which spontaneous operational coherences of sys- rable to him or her, and if he or she does not it is part, and the structural changes triggered tems in any part of the cosmos that the understand structural determinism, he or she in it by its encounters with the organism. observer brings about in its living. Three are will not understand the dynamic architecture 10 The organism and its niche constitute an the most fundamental ones, and I present that gave origin to that result, and will invent operational unity or totality in which both, them below.1 some semantic notion to connect the differ- the organism and its niche, change together 15 Systemic law of the observer and observing: ent instances of the process in a way that he or congruently, in a process that follows a path “Everything said is said by an observer (a she can accept. The notion or idea of an antic- that is continuously arising anew in the flow human being making distinctions in languag- ipatory drive is such a semantic notion under of their interactions. The path followed by the ing) to another observer that could be him or the form of an a priori explanatory principle congruent changes of the organism and its herself.” (cf. Ximena & Maturana 2008). niche arises in the encounter of otherwise 16 Systemic law of conservation and change: 20 Everything in the cosmos occurs as it independent processes, and an observer can- “Whenever in a collection of elements a con- occurs as a continuously changing present in not predict its course even though he or she figuration of relations begins to be conserved, which complexity arises in the encounter of can expect one if the encounter occurs as part a space is opened for everything else to change processes that happen to be locally dynami- of a recurrent conservative dynamic that he or around the configuration of relations being cally independent, even though they may be she has seen before as the environment of the conserved.” part of a larger systemic one. This is expressed organism, or has imagined as the medium in 17 Systemic law of the course of history: “The in the following systemic law: “The result of a which it exists. course that follows the history of the struc- process does not and cannot operate in the 11 What an observer distinguishes as the tural change of organisms in general, and of process that gives origin to it” (Ximena & behavior of an organism is not something that human beings in particular, arises at every Maturana 2008). the organism does by itself, but a changing instant of the living of the organisms or of the relational dynamics that arises in the recur- human beings defined by the preferences and Languaging and objects: My fundaments sive encounter of the organism with its niche. desires of the organism or the human being, for the answer to the second question As a changing relational dynamics, a behavior and not by what an observer may think are 21 If we attend to what we do in language, we involves at the same time the organism in the opportunities or possibilities for the organ- will realize that language occurs as a flow of realization of its autopoiesis, and the niche in isms or human beings involved. Something is living together in coordinations of coordina- the realization of its participation in the struc- an opportunity or a possibility only if it is tions of consensual doings. That is, we will tural dynamics of the medium at that instant. desired.” realize that language occurs as languaging, in 12 In these circumstances, what an observer 18 In synthesis: What an observer sees as ade- the flow of our living together in recursive sees as the behavior of an organism is its tan- quate behavior in an organism, is its operation consensual coordinations of doings. Lan- gent encounter with its niche in a structural in the present in dynamic structural coher- guage has the concreteness of the doings in
Volume 4 · Number 1 · November 2008 19
Giovanni Pezzulo & Cristiano Castelfranchi Two Basic Agreements and Two Doubts
the domain of doings in which we coordinate 26 The configuration of recursive coordina- these are dimensions of our understanding our doings. tions of consensual doings that constitute an that we cannot forsake if we want to under- 22 Objects, entities, notions, ideas, concepts object in our coexistence with other human stand our living as human beings. etc., arise as coordinations of coordinations of beings is what I call “operations of distinc- doings, and do not exist otherwise. The mean- tion”. So, when someone says that he or she is Final remarks ing of the words, sentences, signs and symbols distinguishing an object or entity of any kind 29 We all know that the result of a process is not in the words, but in the flow of coordi- in his or her living as a languaging being, he does not participate in the process that pro- nations of doings that they coordinate. And a or she is bringing forth a domain of consen- duces it as a result. But as we live a culture in word can have as many different meanings as sual doings and recursive consensual doings which we are accustomed to think in finalistic there are different flows of recursive coordina- in which that which has been distinguished terms, that is, in a process designed with the tions of doings in which it participates. has presence in a flow of recursive coordina- purpose of obtaining the desired result, we 23 When a child learns to name an object he tions of consensual doings. And that flow of frequently confuse our description of what we or she does not learn to name a preexisting coordinations of recursive consensual doings see in the appearance of what happens, with entity, but learns a flow of recursive coordina- constitutively implies an operational-rela- what may be happening that gives rise to such tions of doings with the languaging persons tional matrix of coordinations of doings as a appearance. Thus we frequently treat a pro- with which he or she may be living. So a baby domain of human living in which the partici- cess in which we see a purpose as if there were that learns the ball, learns balling, and when pating human beings distinguish entities that a purpose in the operation of that process. he or she learns the doll, learns dolling. Thus, could be themselves. This is what we do in biology when we use the baby learns in the same way, eyes, feet, 27 In synthesis: The self is not an entity; it is a teleological considerations to understand the mouse, lips, … self, thinking … as flows of particular feeling in a manner of operating in function of some unknown structure in an recursive coordinations of consensual doings a flow of recursive coordinations of consen- organism. That way of thinking may be useful with other human beings, as manners of liv- sual coordinations of doings that involve the for a while to find out how that structure ing together in consensual coordinations of distinction of the doer of the doings as the operates in the relational space of the organ- doings … and emotions as manners of relat- observer of the doings being done. Further- ism that has it, but does not tell us how that ing in coordinations of consensual coordina- more, when in the recursions of the distinc- structure does what it does. tions of relational doings. tion of the observer, occur recursive coordi- 24 As an object arises as a flow of consensual nations of the observer doing its doing, the Note coordinations of doings; the domain in which special feeling of self-consciousness arises as 1. The systemic laws here presented were the arising object arises and has presence also the feeling of feeling the coordinations of taken from the essay on systemic and appears as a domain of recursive consensual doing that the feeling of observing entails. In meta-systemic laws published in Ximena coordinations of doings in which the arising other words, self-consciousness occurs as an & Maturana (2008). object participates in the recursive coordina- inner feeling felt by an observer that is seen by tions of consensual coordinations of doings another observer (that could be him or her- that constitute its meaning. As the objects do self) in the circumstances of distinguishing Two Basic Agreements not pre-exist the flow of consensual coordina- him or herself distinguishing him or herself. and Two Doubts tions of doings that they are, the domains of 28 Whenever a recursion takes place an recursive consensual coordinations of doing intrinsically new domain of doings arises, and Giovanni Pezzulo & in which they exist as coordinations of doings at the same time a new domain of feelings is arise anew with them, and new objects consti- lived, which we may live as a completely new Cristiano Castelfranchi tute new domains of existence as new domain of meanings in our doings. For exam- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and domains of recursive consensual coordina- ple, science, philosophy, theories … technol- Technologies, Rome (Italy) tions of doings. ogy have arisen like this. Once a new domain
20 Constructivist Foundations