Varela y la "Teleología interna"

Estoy leyendo el trabajo de Weber y Varela (2002). El tipo de teleología que plantean es, como es de esperar, diferente al típico. Conserva la noción de propósito, pero no es un propósito "externo" como es el adaptacionismo que se intenta explicar con la teleonomía y selección natural, sino que se inspiran en un propósito interno intrínseco que dicen permite hablar de "propósitos naturales" en sistemas con auto-organización. Esto se inspira directamente en Kant : "A thing exists as a natural purpose if it is both cause and effect of itself". Como los sistemas autopoiéticos se auto-producen, estaría, pues, provistos de propósito "natural".

Esta perpectiva es comprensible, pero sospecho que continúa habiendo algo genuinamente erróneo en toda noción de propósito o final, con el ya mencionado potencial de "ceguera" que produce introducir una noción explicativa que pasa por alto los mecanismos.

La verdad es que ya en el 2000 cuando compré mi flamante copia de "El fenómeno de la vida" (que hoy se me cae a pedazos) me había quedado de ceño fruncido con este párrafo de Varela:

"La fuente de esta creacion-de-mundos es siempre un quiebre en la autopoiesis , sea menor como los cambios de concentración de un metabolizado, o mayor como la ruptura de los bordes. Debido a la naturaleza misma de la autopoiesis, -ilustrada por la reparación de la membrana en el ejemplo mínimo simulado más arriba- todo quiebre puede verse como el inicio de una acción, por parte del sistema sobre lo que falta, de manera que se mantenga la identidad. Repito: no hay una teleología implícita en este "de manera que": esto es lo que implica la lógica autorreferencial de la autopoiesis, en primer lugar. La acción se hará visible como un intento de modificar su mundo: cambio de lugar de diferentes nutrientes, aumento de la corriente de un metabolizado por síntesis metabólica, etc."

(Énfasis en cursiva lo puse yo.)

Aunque en esa ocasión Varela negó la teleología de la boca hacia afuera, creo que está claro que ya estaba pensando teleológicamente, lo que luego lo llevó a decidir asimilar el término, en vez de negarlo.

Pero tomemos el ejemplo mínimo de la ruptura y regeneración de la membrana celular. La descripción de Varela me parece que no aplica correctamente la noción sistémica de adaptación.

Si se produjera un auténtico quiebre de la autopoiesis, el sistema se desintegraría. La pérdida de un trozo de menbrana y su posterior regeneración no representa una interacción destructiva, con pérdida de la organización autopoiética, sino que corresponde a una perturbación. La clave: La mebrana no regenera "de manera que" se mantenga la identidad, o con el "propósito" de conservar la autopoiesis; más bien, la membrana regenera como consecuencia de que la autopoiesis aún existe, no se ha interrumpido y las relaciones productivas distribuidas, propias de la autopoiesis, rápidamente regeneran la membrana. Si el trozo de mebrana perdido fuera lo suficientemente grande, la organización autopoiética resulta desarticulada y tenemos que el ser vivo sencillamente se desintegra.

El hecho de que cualquier fenómeno con clausura operacional pueda describirse como a la vez causa y efecto de sí mismo no consituye una verdadera violación del orden cósmico de causalidad temporal.
Lo que ocurre en un ser vivo no ocurre con el propósito de conservar la autopoiesis, así como tampoco ocurre con el propósito de pasar los genes a la generación siguiente (la teleonomía de Monod).

Ref:

Varela, F. 2000. El fenómeno de la vida. Dolmen Ediciones

Weber A y Varela F. 2002. Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1: 97–125.

Leyes sistémicas, según Maturana

Aquí va el link a un trabajo de Humberto Maturana, "a penultimate version of Kybernetes vol.34, nos. 1/2, 2005 pp. 54-88", donde plantea algunas "leyes sistémicas":

Systemic law: 1. Whenever an observer distinguishes a collection of elements that are interconnected in a way such that if he or she acts on one of them acts on all, the observer distinguishes a system.

According to this systemic law whatever encounters an organism may have as a molecular system triggers in it a flow of molecular changes that extends through it. The way in which this flow of molecular changes happens in any particular organisms depends at any instant, on the dynamic molecular architecture of the organism at that instant. At the same time this systemic law connotes the spontaneous constitution of systems through the operational coherence of their components.

Systemic law: 2. Whenever in a collection of elements a configuration of relations begins to be conserved, a space is opened for all to change around the configuration of relations being conserved.

According to this systemic law the conservation of a particular configuration of relations in a collection of elements results in that such collection of elements arises as a totality in a relational space defined by a dynamic border that arises through the conservation of the configuration of relations conserved

Systemic law: 3. Nothing occurs in the operation of the cosmos in general, or in the operation of living systems in particular, because the consequences of that operation are or may be in any way necessary for its occurrence.

According to this systemic law, teleological explanatory notions can only be accepted as metaphoric evocations of the understanding of the observer, not as characterisations of the operation of the processes being explained. As such teleological notions sooner than later generate domains of blindness for the newcomers if they are not protected by their understanding.

¿Qué tal les parece? ¿Observaciones?

Systemic vitalism, or the distinction of teleonomy from teleology

The concept of "vitalism" has been traditionally associated to pseudoscience, a metaphysical concept away from any empirisism. It is often referred to as the action of a "vital force" or "entelechy" proper to organic matter, that governs and directs living processes. However, Ortega y Gasset (see the post below) defines vitalism as "any biological theory that considers organic phenomena irreductible to physico-chemical principles" and states that it can be conceived from two radically different points of view: a) the assumption of a special form of entelechy or "vital force" distinct from physicochemical forces, or b) a rigurous empiric approach to study vital phenomena in the feral peculiarity they manifest, without assuming any mysticism, but avoiding a dramatic reduction to its physical properties.

In light of this distinction it is worthwhile to recall some concepts such as "emergence", a core notion of complex systems. "Emergent properties" are not properties of any component of the system, but of the system as a whole. Examples vary from "hurricanes" to "swarm intelligence" and "consciousness". As opossed to pseudoscientific vitalism, emergence is not restricted to organic matter, but is proper to systems.

Teleonomy is a term coined for the "apparent purposefulness" of living processes, as contrasted from "teleology", a concept that indicates intention of an external agent. We may well accept the distinction, although it is a common vice in scientist to confuse them, but an important question still remains: what is the biological process that lets us, as observers, to recall teleonomy?

Ernst Mayr (1965) have said: "It would seem useful to rigidly restrict the term teleonomic to systems operating on the basis of a program of coded information", but do we need to recall "information" to explain "apparent purposefulness"? It seems to me that to invoke "coded information" is as finalist as invoking an entelechy's "intention", so it would not be an acceptable biological answer.

It seems that our mechanicist tradition has forced us to reduce causes to the physico-chemical conformation, rather than to the organization. This reductionism has not only been uncapable of explaining biological phenomena, but has kept biologists in an Aristotelian "formal cause" reasoning, where genetic information is the entelechy able to determine the parts and relationships within organisms, thereby equating the metaphysical and organisational forms of vitalism.

A systemic answer to the "apparent purposefulness" dilemma can be envisioned by recalling the ontogenic phenotype/ontogenic niche relationship (the particular manner of living of an organism of a certain lineage). So when an investigator is observing an organism she recognizes a particular behaviour and can visualize a response for a given situation: she is bringing forth an operational congruence (adaptation) of the organism with its niche, that although pertains to the virtual domain of her observations, would seem to respond to an "apparent purposefulness". However, the organism is free to display behaviours distinct from those expected by the observed, as long as it maintains its adaptation, so the "apparent purposefulness" is only an observational artifact proper to the mind of the investigator accostumed to observe configurations.

Rodrigo Suárez