Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
f
A
Φ
B
Scheme 7
the efficient cause of making from f . Now each causal transformation (from
A to B, from B to f , and from f to ) has an efficient cause (f , , and B,
respectively) (Scheme 8).
f
A
B
Φ
Scheme 8
The result is a material system closed to efficient causation (there are no
components which undergo a material change without an open arrow coming in
to them), thereby satisfying Rosen's characterization of an organism. ( does
not have an open arrow coming into it, but it is not changed into anything else
in the system, so there is no efficient causation to account for.) Importantly, the
system is still materially open because A is not produced from anything within
the system. (Although Rosen does not emphasize it, it is also energetically open.)
A similar emphasis on efficient causation lies at the heart of Francesco
Varela's characterization of a living system (although Varela, unlike Rosen,
begins with the idea that living organisms are machines and focuses his attention
on delineating what sort of machine they are). He begins with the idea that a
living system has an identity in terms of an organization which it maintains
'through the active compensation of deformations' (Varela, 1979, p. 3). Here
Varela invokes Cannon's notion of homeostasis, on which he then relies to
develop what he takes to be the key concept of
autopoiesis
. He does this by
expanding on homeostasis in two ways: 'by making every reference for home-
ostasis internal to the system itself through mutual interconnections of processes,
and secondly, by positing this interdependence as the very source of the sys-
tem's identity as a concrete unity which we can distinguish' (pp. 12-13). In
other words, all homeostatic operations in organisms are efficiently caused from
