Mossio, M., & Bich, L. (2017). Synthese, 194(4), 1089–1114. First published online 21 November 2014. DOI-10.1007/s11229-014-0594-z
Read in full in NOTE-1443, from the accepted manuscript on HAL. Pages below are the manuscript’s.
Key takeaways
- Teleology through self-constraint. Circularity is “necessary but not sufficient for intrinsic teleology” (MS p. 2). A system is teleological when its activity helps specify the conditions under which its own circular relation occurs, which it does by producing the constraints that act on it (MS pp. 16, 19).
- Closure versus cycles. A cycle is a chain of transformations under external constraints, at one level of causation. Closure is a set of constraints that maintains itself by canalising processes at another level: “by construction an inter-level causal regime” (MS p. 15). The water cycle does not generate its own constraints, so it is not teleological (MS pp. 16–17).
- Division of labour is part of closure. In closure “each component makes a specific and complementary contribution”, and closure captures organisation “by virtue of the interplay between division of labour and mutual dependence that it implies” (MS pp. 10–11). The constraints under closure are the biological functions (MS p. 15).
- Dissipative structures. Whether they self-constrain is unsettled. If they do, they are “minimally teleological”, generating “a single macroscopic constraint (the structure itself)”. They “do not realise closure”, are “not organised”, and “their parts have no functions” (MS p. 19). No non-biological material system is known to realise closure, only abstract models such as autocatalytic sets (MS p. 18).
Why this is here
THEORY-072’s promote_when names this paper as bearing on whether chemical systems can realise closure, and asks whether the authors keep differentiation separate from closure. NOTE-1443 answers the second: they fold it in. The paper analyses no flame and no protocell.