Adaptive Aims of this lecture Xabier Barandiaran (with Inman Harvey) To introduce some key concepts and terms involved in the theory of autopoiesis. Lecture 4: To facilitate the negotiation of a difficult but Autopoiesis, Autonomy, important literature.

To help you spot misapplication of these concepts

To give a glimpse of a different way of thinking about biology

To open the question of the scientific usefulness of these ideas.

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Not the aims of this lecture Nobel thoughts about biology

To give a full account of autopoiesis “There is now a crisis developing in biology, that completely unstructured information does not enhance understanding. What people want To derive all its implications for human is to understand, which means you must have a theoretical framework in which to embed evolution, social systems, cognitive science, etc. this." -Sydney Brenner, 2002 Nobel Prize Winner To convince you that autopoiesis is the right way of thinking about biology or cognition. "We’ve got to start thinking. We have all these individual components behaving in different ways, that interact in different ways, and we’ve got to somehow extract the general principles from that behavior." -Paul Nurse, 2001 Nobel Prize Winner

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Autopoiesis sans frontières Things autopoiesis fans say

The downside of fame: “Autopoiesis and …” Evolution is not necessary for . Natural selection is a consequence of evolution, not its Life, Evolution, Law, Society, Journalism, Art, Science, Culture, Coevolution, Medicine, Ontology, Ecology, cause. Software, Mathematics, Self-organisation, Entropy, Life cannot exist without physical boundaries. , Robotics, Enaction, Communication, Language, Spirituality, Time, Psychotherapy, Logic, Vision, Genotypes do not determine phenotypes. Aristotle, Music ... The mind is not in the head. The brain is not a computer. Question 1: How to distinguish the interesting Cognition = Life. stuff from the Really Unnecessary Bits of The nervous does not process information. Boring Information (SH) Internal representations are a category error. Communication is not transfer of information. Question 2: Is it worth the effort? Artificially life is logically possible only if it is embodied and metabolizing. Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

1 What is autopoiesis Origins Conceived in the 70s by Humberto Two referents: Maturana (1928 -) and (1946-2001) A set of interconnected ideas aimed at providing definitions and explanations for life and biological phenomena (aka “Autopoietic theory”)

A central concept in this set of ideas; the defining property of . Roots in Cybernetics, influence on various fields; hot topic in Alife and embodied, dynamical approaches to cognitive science Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Basic axioms Defining Life

Structural determinism. Life is not magic; the The shopping list approach. dynamics of a system are determined only by its own structural composition, following “Life is the capacity of (add or remove items until operational laws, (the laws of physics). (cf you're happy): Ashby) Growth, reproduction, , adaptation, Everything said is said by an observer. It is not irritability, evolution, autonomy, genetic possible to do science without a point of view heritability, evolution, self-organisation, and a language that influence what the observer entropy reduction, self-modification, death” chooses to distinguish in her observations. This must be taken into account (self-reflective science). For instance, the concept of How long a list do we need? First, we must know “behaviour” involves the observer as much as what a living system is to find out. the behaving entity and its environment.

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Defining Life Defining Life The operational approach The operational approach

Question: What is the invariant feature across all living systems which can be found by reference to the systems in themselves as they are in the present? (No notions of purpose, future states, other systems, etc.) Answer: The fact that these systems produce themselves physically so as to remain distinct from their backgrounds. If they stop doing this, they die.

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2 Αυτόσ = self, Ποιειν = to produce In essence A kind of organisational homeostasis. The organisation of living systems is such that this organisation is actively maintained. Its Autopoietic system: a system organised as “a network of processes of production, transformation, structure can (must) change in order maintain and destruction of components that produces itself. (A virus is excluded.) components which: (i) through their interactions and metabolism + boundary transformations regenerate and realize the networks of processes (relations) that produced ↓ them; and produces (ii) constitute it [the system] as a concrete unity ↓ in the space in which they [the processes] exist metabolism + boundary by specifying the topological domain of its ↓ realization as a network”. produces ↓ Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Two perspectives Allopoietic: the system is viewed as an input/output device. The fact that it is a living system is obscured from this viewpoint. Norms are defined from outside (externalist natural selection or designer)

Autopoietic: the system is viewed as a self- producing, closed network. It interacts with the medium but does not transform inputs into outputs. It is self-defining, it defines its own norms.

Either perspective can be adopted at a given time, but only the second can bring forward the Xabierfact Barandiaran that the system is living. Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Biological autonomy Autonomy Similar idea, only extended to any process, not just processes of physical production of components. Many meanings for autonomy: Autonomous systems are organisationally closed: Ability to learn “That is, their organization is characterized by Ability to self-recharge processes such that (1) the processes are related Ability to operate without power cables as a network, so that they recursively depend on Ability to operate without tele-operation each other in the generation and realization of the processes themselves, and (2) they constitute the Main distinction between constitutive autonomy system as a unity recognizable in the space (domain) (self-production) and behavioural or relational in which the processes exist.” (Varela, 1979, p. 55). autonomy (self-determination, self-steering)

Examples: autocatalytic networks, immune and nervous systems, communication networks,

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3 Behavioural autonomy Adaptive Agency The Agent is the source of its actions Identity: Organisational closure implies An autonomous system should not be fully conservation of identity, i.e., the system is determined by its environment. continuously defining itself and distinguishing A random system should not have a high itself from its environment. autonomy value Normativity: The conditions for the Autonomy should allow the distinction between maintenance of the system define a set of a recurrent system-environment coupling norms: viability. If those norms are not actively followed the system ceases to exist. Many ways to cash this out (operationalize): Interactive asymmetry (beh. autonomy): the agent actively modulates or regulates G-autonomy (Seth, 2007, submitted) interactions, is the source of its actions. Information theory (Bertschinger et al., 2007) Adaptive Agency = Regulation of interactions in Importance of measurement. relation to Viability Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Closure of the nervous system The distinction between internal and external causes of a given state of the NS can only be Neuron activity depends only on the structure made by relating the NS with the contextual of the whole NS and its current state of state of the organism and its environment; that activity. A “sensory input” (say, photons is, it is an observer-dependent distinction that changing the structure of in a photoreceptor) only modulates nervous activity. cannot play any causal role in the operation of The NS interacts with the rest of the organism the NS. (through hormone release, muscle activation, etc.) It makes no sense to localize components of the NS as generating a given property belonging to the organism as a whole in relation to its environment (like language, visual perception, intelligent behaviour, etc.) It's like looking for a “speed” component inside a car engine.

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Information metaphor (informal) is misleading Social behaviour and not operational

Animal communication is often functionally Structural coupling: organism/environment defined in biology as the evolutionarily mutual perturbation without loss of autopoiesis advantageous alteration of behaviour in others. (autonomy). Interaction: Structural coupling There is no-meaning only exploitation of between organisms. organism's reactions to signals.

Coordination: Coherence of behaviour arising Formal concept of information (Shannon) is only due to interaction but not immediately obvious applicable once we already have communication in the interactive pattern, (song synchronization going, i.e., cannot explain it or be used to define in antiphonal duetting, global synchronized it (it assumes coder and decoder). action after an alarm call, wolf pack behaviour).

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4 Criteria for autopoiesis Structural Congruence: Perturbations induce plastic changes. If those changes reduce the chances of further interaction, coordination will Is the system self-bounded? be disrupted. If they enhance those chances, repeated coordination will follow. After some time, coordination is facilitated because the Is the system self-generating? structures of both organisms have changed towards a congruent state. (Can explain pair- Is the system self-sustaining? specific behaviour in monogamous species, social learning and some cases of imitation).

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Computational autopoiesis Ganti’s Cellular Automata simulation: 1974. A catalyst produces substrate elements that can bond and A framework for form a boundary (which can decay and self- minimal living repair). systems developed by Tibor Ganti in the Boundary formation early 70’s Very similar to autopoiesis, more detailed in the addition of a regulatory template system Self-repair Prevents osmotic catastrophe. Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Chemical autopoiesis Related ideas

Aristotle's Psyche, self-generating and maintaining form Work by P. Luisi as the essence of life. Luigi and Spinoza's notion of conatus. colleagues aimed at constructing a Kant’s view of organisms as self-organised natural minimal chemical purposes (Critique of Judgement) autopoietic J. Dewey. Similar ideas regarding life as self-producing, system capable as well as the relation between organism and environment. of replication. (Experience and Nature, 1929) (Self-replication J. von Uexküll. Umwelt. The perceptual world and the of micellar world of action are relative to the state of the organism. systems and vesicles.)

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5 M. Heidegger. First use of the term `autopoiesis' (in a different context), in The Protocell Biology and Artificial Life: minimal metabolism + question concerning technology. membrane + proto-genomeJ. Piaget. Cognition as biological. Sensorimotor invariants, adaptation as equilibration between assimilation and accomodation (e.g., Biologie et Connaissance, 1967) W. R. Ashby. Adaptation as viability, homeostasis. R. Rosen. Theoretical biologist, has a fairly abstract definition of life as “closure under efficient causation” (Life itself, 1991) M. Merleau-Ponty. Strong influence on Varela's thought. Many implications of autopoiesis are Thermodynamics and origins of life: Kauffman's compatible with his phenomenological approach. Autonomous Agents, Ruiz-Mirazo and Moreno, ... Autonomous Robotics: deeper sense of autonomy, autonomy through interactions (Di Paolo, Smithers, etc.) H. Jonas. Existentialist philosopher. . (Rasmussen et al. Protocells, Bridging Nonliving and Metabolism is the essence of life as a novel Living Matter, 2008) ontological category. Precarious identity. (The Phenomenon of Life, 1979) Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010 Xabier Barandiaran Spring 2010

Final word Can it make any difference, then? Definitely. Change your perspective and you see solutions where others see problems (and Things we are saying nothing about: problems where others do not see them!) Development, evolution as natural drift, immune networks, social systems, language, Is it worth it? observation, , self- That depends. The primary literature is consciousness. difficult to get into, and the secondary literature is extremely divergent and less than Is autopoiesis a scientific theory? strict. One can try to invest a little effort in Not quite, it's more like a redescription of becoming aware of the main concepts and see if that introduces an improvement in the way one biological phenomena from an unorthodox faces problems. This is often the case for perspective. It cannot be disproved, it can only people thinking about biology and the design of be shown be adequate or inadequate. It's like a autonomous adaptive systems. kind of language.

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