Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the work done involves building a semipermeable membrane, the cycle provides
the central resource for a mechanism that can obtain a critical autonomy from
its environment. Moreover, when cycles are autocatalytic and produce multiple
copies of themselves, cycles provide a way to account for growth and reproduc-
tion. These features, as we will see, are all critical for providing an adequate
answer to vitalists such as Bichat, but to see how they fit into such an account,
it will be useful to consider a different theoretical perspective.
6. FROM GÁNTI'S CHEMOTON TO AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS
During the same period in which Gánti was developing his ideas of a chemoton,
other theorists were focusing on efficient causation and ways of closing chains
of efficient causation. As Rosen characterized a mechanism, which he contrasted
with an organism, there was always some component operation in it that was
not caused by other components within the mechanism. It would always be
possible to incorporate the efficient cause of that operation within the descrip-
tion of the mechanism, but then one described a new mechanism that had a
new uncaused operation. For Rosen the key contrast between mechanisms and
organisms was that organisms had no uncaused operations - they are 'closed to
efficient causation'.
To see more concretely what Rosen was contemplating, consider a metabolic
mechanism in which component f is responsible for metabolizing A into B.
Using open arrows to represent efficient causes and closed arrows to represent
material causation, Rosen represented the relation as in Scheme 6.
f
A
B
Scheme 6
But f is uncaused in this account. One possibility is to use material in B to
make or, in the case Rosen considers, to repair f . But what is the efficient cause
of this change? Rosen introduces a new component , yielding the relations
shown in Scheme 7.
But now is uncaused. Perhaps materially it was produced from f . But
there would have to be an efficient cause of making from f . Rosen initially
considers introducing a component as the efficient cause, but notes that this is
a recipe for an infinite regress. The way out, Rosen proposes, is to let B serve as
