Contribution
A critique of the most cited organizational account of malfunction and a replacement for it. The dual-order account, which the paper calls SMM after Saborido, Moreno and Mossio, needs two orders of norms and a regulated switch between regimes before anything can malfunction. Barandiaran shows it excludes canonical cases and proposes a single, graded standard drawn from the organism’s viability space. It splits dysfunction into three kinds and sketches how a failure can be attributed to a part.
Key insight
If norms are all-or-nothing (alive or dead), nothing can malfunction while the organism lives, and a second order of norms has to be invented to make room for failure. If instead the organization defines, at each state from which it is heading toward death, how fast some parameter must change to turn back, then a trait can be judged by whether it pushes the right way and fast enough. Graded norms come from the first order alone.
Assumptions
- The organizational account of function. Norms arise from dynamic presuppositions among the traits of a recursively self-maintaining organization: “The normative function of a trait or process A is to operate according to the dynamic presupposition of other traits (B, C, …) within a recursively self-maintaining organization.”
- Essential variables and a viability space, after Ashby (1952), not Aubin. Viability theory in this paper means bifurcation analysis of a parametrized dynamical system. Aubin is not cited.
- A choice of parameter. “The normative field is defined by the “intrinsic” dynamics of the system without the parameter P (or for a fixed parametric value).” The field is relative to which parameter is under evaluation; another choice moves P into the intrinsic dynamics.
- Continuity. The definition is given for the continuous case, and the discontinuous one is said to follow.
- Ceteris paribus throughout the model; the environment is held fixed.
Key results
- The dual-order account (§3.1). Moreno & Mossio (2015, p. 85): “malfunctions are a subset of functions that fit first-order norms (of the first-order ongoing organization in which they match functional presuppositions), but not second-order ones (since they do not obey to second-order regulatory functions, and prevent the shift to another first-order organization).” Reconstructed: T1 malfunctions iff a regulatory trait T2 switches the system from regime Ra to Rb and T1 fails to match the range Rb requires. The canonical case is a coronary artery that does not widen when adrenaline moves the body from rest to stress.
- Too narrow (§3.2). (1) It cannot count a malfunction within one regime: a stiffening artery at rest does not malfunction by it. (2) It cannot count a malfunction of the highest regulation: the autonomic nervous system that fails to trigger the stress response does not malfunction by it. And it cannot tell whether T1 failed to match the new range or T2 failed to shift it.
- Two assumptions behind it (§3.2). “First order (constitutive) norms are all or nothing, gradual norms are to be found somewhere else. 2. Regulations occur (only) as switches between regimes of self-maintenance.” Against the first: bradycardia, dyspnea and hypoxia name functions fulfilled at the wrong pace. Against the second: enzymatic, hormonal and cardiac regulation are mostly continuous modulation of rates.
- Regions of the viability space (§4.1, §4.3). A viable region, where with the parameter held constant the system stays alive; a “precarious region where the system is (still) alive but will inevitably die if no parametric change occurs”; and a terminal region, where “the system is till alive but it will eventually die. No matter how much we increase [F], it is already too late to recover”. A viable region need not exist: with an upper boundary (bursting) low enough, the system must oscillate inside the precarious region.
- The normative field (§4.2). “A normative field can be defined as the minimum constant parametric change, for each point of the precarious region, necessary to avoid the irreversible disintegration of the system”. It is stated negatively, as avoiding death, because a safe region may not exist. It is a minimum: more may help, only the minimum is required. It is a rate, so that no normative judgment has to wait for the last instant before death.
- Function (abstract, §4.2). “A trait operates normatively when its effects on the viability space correlate positively with the normative field.”
- Three kinds of dysfunction (§4.4). “Subfunctional operations are those that positively correlate with the normative field but quantitatively fail to match the required speed. Malfunctional operations are those that do not positively correlate with the normative field, either because they negatively correlate with it or because they don’t correlate at all”. Nonfunctional traits do not operate, or operate with null effect. “It is important to note that not all nonfunctioning traits are dysfunctional, they are only dysfunctional when they have to operate and they don’t”. Most of what SMM call malfunction is here subfunction or nonfunction.
- Attribution (§4.5). Identifying which norm is unmet is not attributing the failure to a part. Proposed procedure: vary each trait within its mechanistic and systemic feasibility range to see whether changing it alone would meet the field, and recurse until a feasible intervention is found. The locus of dysfunction (uptake U) can differ from where responsibility lies (a missing enzyme S, note 21).
- Compensation does not hide dysfunction (§4.5). “compensations have a cost on the viability of the system”. A remaining kidney’s hyperfiltration and the muscles that stabilise a torn ACL keep the function going and wear the compensating parts, and the organism’s presuppositions (two kidneys, a given joint geometry) let the damaged part be called dysfunctional without evolutionary history.
- Norms without orders (§5.1). Regulations can malfunction, and regime switches are added dimensions of the viability space. “in biological systems the basic order is always “broken”, there is nothing like a constitutive closure that is intrinsically stable.” “However, it is still possible to be a dualist on organizational orders (acknowledging genuine ontological differences between first and second order closure) but a monist regarding norms.”
- Nested autonomies (note 23). “Conflict between normative levels can indeed happen but they demand the emergence of new levels of autonomy (multicellular, sensorimotor, social, etc.)”.
- Illness as a shrunken viability space (§5.2). “some maladies and illnesses might be better conceived as reducing the viability space (and the consequent autonomy of the organism) than as a direct failure to contribute to self-maintenance”, after Canguilhem.
- The nature of norms (§5.4). Against reading norms as causes in conflict, they are conditions of possibility of the organism’s existence: “Functions are explanatory without being efficiently causal.” The horizon of normative judgment is “the autonomy of each living organization”.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | The dual-order account excludes malfunction within a regime and malfunction of the highest regulation | moderate | counterexamples against the definition as quoted from Moreno & Mossio (2015) |
| C2 | The dual-order account rests on all-or-nothing first-order norms and on regulation as regime switching, and both are false of physiology | moderate | conceptual, with examples from enzyme, hormone and cardiac regulation |
| C3 | Norms can be graded within the first order, as a normative field over the viability space | moderate | definition, illustrated in a one-variable metabolic toy model (from Barandiaran & Egbert 2014) |
| C4 | Function is positive correlation with the normative field, and subfunction, malfunction and nonfunction are distinct failures of it | moderate as a proposal | definitional; temperature-regulation example |
| C5 | Dysfunction can be attributed to a part by recursive search over feasible variations, even under compensation | weak | sketched procedure; kidney and ACL cases |
| C6 | Norms are conditions of possibility, not efficient causes | speculative | §5.4, with connections the author does not elaborate |
Concepts
- Dynamic presupposition. B and C presuppose A when their operation and existence would be compromised were A to operate differently, in a recursively self-maintaining organization.
- Viability space. The space of essential variables.
- Viable, precarious and terminal regions. Safe with parameters fixed; alive but dying unless a parameter changes; alive and beyond recovery.
- Normative field. The minimum constant parametric change, at each precarious state, needed to avoid disintegration.
- Subfunction, malfunction, nonfunction. Right direction too slow; wrong or no direction; no operation or no effect where operation is required.
- Dysfunctional attribution. Locating which part’s failure accounts for an unmet norm, distinct from identifying the unmet norm.
Connections
Builds on Barandiaran & Egbert (2014) for the normative field and model, Christensen & Bickhard (2002) for the organizational account, and Di Paolo (2005, LIT-1017) for the need to grade norms; Di Paolo’s adaptivity and this paper’s precarious region describe the same zone. It targets Moreno & Mossio (2015, LIT-536) and Saborido (2011). Mossio, Saborido & Moreno (2009, LIT-570) is cited as part of the standard approach, but the dual-order definitions quoted come from the 2015 book; the 2009 paper’s dysfunction is a trait produced by the organization that fails to contribute to it (NOTE-444). Barandiaran keeps constraint closure (LIT-582) as compatible and leaves it out of the model (note 6). It relates the account to McShea’s field theory of teleology and to dispositional accounts.
Bearing on the record
On QUESTION-087: a partial yes, with the standard named. The question asks whether a self-reproducing authority structure can be pathological by a standard the organization itself supplies. This paper supplies one: the normative field of the whole organization, which no one outside assigns. Three of its results bear directly.
- Regulatory traits can malfunction (§5.1). An authority structure is a regulation of other processes, so it can be judged by whether its operations correlate with the organization’s field. The dual-order account could not judge the highest regulation at all.
- Some illness is a shrinking of the viability space, not a failure to contribute (§5.2). TERM-020’s fifth step, continued activation that “further reduces the practical capacity to leave or revise it”, is that kind of harm in the record’s terms. The mapping is the record’s, not the paper’s.
- Compensation costs viability (§4.5). An entrenched authority whose dominance others work around would show up as wear on the compensating processes.
What it does not give. The standard is the whole’s viability. An authority that perpetuates itself while keeping the organization as viable as before, with no shrinkage and no cost, is not dysfunctional on this account, however it came to rule. So the paper does not tell merited trust from entrenched advantage (CLAIM-277) where both keep the organization alive equally well. Note 23 adds the harder case. If the authority structure has become an autonomous level with its own normative field, its norms and the organization’s can conflict, and the paper gives no rule for which prevails. That is Di Paolo’s addiction case (NOTE-719) for organizations.
On CLAIM-075. Agrees. The field’s norms are norms for the organism, relative to its persistence. Nothing in the paper says anything ought to persist.
On THEORY-134 and CLAIM-079. The terminal region, where the system is alive and no admissible change of the parameter saves it, is the complement of the viability kernel for the controlled system. The precarious region lies inside that kernel but is not invariant at the current parameter. Barandiaran’s “viable region” is not Aubin’s viable set: it is where the system stays alive with the parameter held constant. The paper does not draw these correspondences; they are the record’s. Like viability theory, it takes the essential variables as given, so the question THEORY-134 leaves open, which constraints count as required, is open here too.
On QUESTION-086. Indirectly. The attribution procedure, varying one trait within its feasible range and asking whether that alone meets the field, is an intervention design of the kind the question asks for. It locates where a norm fails, not whether the norm is the system’s own.
Limitations
- The model has one variable and one parameter. Nothing is shown about computing a normative field for a real organism; the author says it “is extraordinarily complex and may not be feasible”.
- The field depends on which parameter is evaluated and on how the system is partitioned; the author notes the partition “is not trivial”.
- “Correlate positively” is not given a measure.
- The essential variables and the boundaries of viability are assumed, not derived from the organization.
- The critique is of the definitions as quoted from Moreno & Mossio (2015). Whether their wider account answers it is not examined.
- §5.4 on transcendental norms is a sketch, and note 29 says so.
Open questions
- Can a normative field be computed for a model with several interacting regulatory traits, and does it sort subfunction from malfunction there?
- How should the field be defined when a regulatory subsystem has its own autonomy (note 23)? Whose viability space sets the norm?
- Is a shrinking viability space a fourth kind of dysfunction, or a property of the field? The paper raises it and leaves it open.