Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences

Since the pioneering work of Maturana and Varela, there has been an increasing interest in the continuities which may exist between the functional and organisational principles that underpin life, and those which underpin mind. Approaches to this idea are now becoming increasingly diverse, as we see by the rising popularity of the ‘free-energy principle’ (Friston 2013; Ramstead et al. 2018). Despite its potentially misleading name, this approach is unusual given that it is articulated purely in terms of mathematics and information theory. This is in stark contrast to other approaches which are primarily concerned with material, energetic, and thermodynamic considerations (Kauffman and Clayton 2006; Deacon 2012, Moreno and Mossio 2015). Despite their differences, all of these accounts share a commitment to the idea that the features of mind traditionally associated with humans are more recently evolved, highly divergent forms of fundamental features of living systems. Proponents claim that all living organisms—from the simplest bacteria to human beings—are teleological agents who act on their own behalf within an environmental niche. This idea suggests that an investigation of mind move away from human physiology, phenomenological experience, or culture, and toward those features which establish a purported continuity between life at its simplest and mind as we know it in Homo sapiens.

 

This project, which can be referred to generally as the ‘life-mind continuity thesis’ or ‘LMC’ (Godfrey-Smith 1994; Kirchhoff & Froese 2017), may have important implications for the philosophy of science, biology, and cognitive science. To date however, little work has been done to formulate general principles which might guide such an inquiry, no matter what theoretical form it may take. This paper aims to outline some preliminary considerations for this meta-theoretical endeavour.

 

Following Godfrey-Smith (1994), we propose that the LMC can be interpreted either as a methodological stance or an ontological one. The former is purely epistemological, and states that minds ought to be understood in the context of whole organisms. The latter is a claim regarding the ontology of mind, and comes in both weak and strong varieties. Weak ontological LMC is the claim that anything which has a mind is alive, but not all living systems have minds. In contrast, strong ontological LMC holds that all living systems have minds in a fundamental sense. This latter interpretation, which will be the focus of this paper, can broken into two logically distinct claims: 1) that living systems can be defined as a class in terms of one or more functional and organisation principle, which 2) is also a principle or set of principles which define mind. This distinction must be made clear, because the former claim is necessary but insufficient for the latter. This is illustrated by the fact that two parties could agree on 1) while disagreeing on 2).

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In this paper, we focus our attention on investigations into the systems which would instantiate life and mind at their simplest. Of particular interest are the two approaches which can be taken to this problem, the so called ‘etiological’ and ‘constitutive’ perspectives (Salmon 1998, Mossio and Moreno 2015). The (1) etiological perspective aims to explain the origins or emergence of life and mind, while a constitutive explanation provides an analysis of life and mind as it currently exist. These approaches overlap in many respects, making them an opportunity for collaboration but also a potential source of confusion. To illustrate, the etiologist and the constitutivist may agree that the minimal requirements for life and mind are fulfilled by systems which remain within a bounded set of states (i.e., phenotypic states, which make the organism the kind of thing it is) by actively generating and maintaining the very conditions that facilitate their own existence. These ‘organisationally closed’ systems may be said to display the fundamental principles which underpin features like teleology and normativity in living systems.(2)

 

Differences arise in the distinct approaches constitutivists and etiologists take to such models. The former are concerned first and foremost in their capacity to explain biological phenomena as we know them today. As such, these models often take the form of more simplified versions of present day living systems, such as a bacterium (which is a typical case study in this literature). Etiologists, on the other hand, are concerned first and foremost with explaining how teleology and normativity emerges in a world devoid of it.

 

These differences are illustrated by the distinct approaches which constitutivists and etiologists take to the issue of emergence. For the former, teleology and normativity are largely assumed to be defining features of life at the outset. Yet it remains important for them to show that the inherently teleological and normative features of living systems cannot be reduced to mechanistic explanation or merely in terms of physics and chemistry. The minimal models referenced above will invariably be a key feature of this explanation. For etiologists, on the other hand, the challenge is to show how teleology and normativity can emerge from a world devoid of it. As such, it does not suffice to be able to counter reductionist thinking. It must be shown how not only novel processes can emerge, but radically different kinds of processes —namely teleological processes— could emerge from a world of blind, aimless processes. This requires a model that can give a clear cut and realistic case whereby this transition occurs-- something that is of less concern to the constitutivist, and yet, remains of critical importance to the full account of strong LMC which they both seek. This ultimately suggests that these perspectives are not only complimentary, but in need of each other.

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References

Deacon, T. W. (2011). Incomplete nature: How mind emerged from matter. WW Norton & Company.

Friston, K. (2013). Life as we know it. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(86), 20130475.
Godfrey-Smith, P. (1994). Spencer and Dewey on life and mind. In Artificial life IV (pp. 80-89).

Kauffman, S., & Clayton, P. (2006). On emergence, agency, and organization. Biology and Philosophy, 21(4), 501-521.

Kirchhoff, M. D., & Froese, T. (2017). Where there is life there is mind: in support of a strong life-mind
continuity thesis. Entropy, 19(4), 169.

Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1973). Autopoiesis: The Organization of the Living. Autopoiesis and
Cognition: The Realization of the Living (Maturana & Varela 1980), 59-138.

Moreno, A., & Mossio, M. (2015). Biological autonomy. A Philo.

Ramstead, M. J. D., Badcock, P. B., & Friston, K. J. (2018). Answering Schrödinger's question: a free-energy formulation. Physics of life reviews, 24, 1-16.

Varela, J. (1979). Principles of Biological Autonomy. New York: Elsevier North Holland.

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Footnotes:

1 This is not to be confused with the distinction between constitutive and interactive dimensions of biological
autonomy (Mossio and Moreno 2015). 2 This assumes a broad notion of mind which is fundamentally based on an agent-based, teleological causality,
incommensurable with ‘mechanistic’ causality.

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