Molecular Ethology, An Immodest Proposal for Semantic Clarification - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 165

conjunction with other elements, compute other molecular functional units
(synthesis).
While in the discussion of descriptive formalisms the concept of recur-
sive functionals provides the bridge for passing through various descriptive
domains, it is the concept of energy transfer connected with entropic change
that links operationally the functional units on various organizational levels.
It is these links, conceptual or operational, which are the prerequisites for
interpreting structures and function of a living organism seen as an
autonomous self-referring organism. When these links are ignored, the
concept of “organism” is void, and its unrelated pieces becomes trivialities
or remain mysteries.
Acknowledgments. Some of the ideas and results presented in this article
grew out of work jointly sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research under Grant AF-OSR 7-67, by the Office of Education under
Grant OEC-1-7-071213-4557, and by the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research under Grant AF 49 (638)-1680.
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