Structural Coupling and Free Will

[rltruthseeker]

Structural Coupling

            Whenever we see life, from bacteria to large-scale ecosystems, we observe networks with components that interact with one another in such a way that the entire network regulates and organizes itself. Since these components, except for those in cellular networks, are themselves living systems, a realistic picture of autopoietic networks must include a description of how living systems interact with one another and, more generally with their environment. Indeed, such a description is an integral part of the theory of autopoiesis developed by Manturana and Varela.

            The central characteristic of an autopoietic system is that it undergoes continual structural changes while preserving its web-like pattern of organization. The components of the network continually produce and transform one another, and they do so in two distinct ways. One type of structural changes are changes of self-renewal. Every living organism continually renews itself, cells breaking down and building up structures, tissues and organs replacing their cells in continual cycles. In spite of this ongoing change, the organism maintains is overall identity, or pattern of organization.

            Many of these cyclical changes occur much faster than one would imagine. For example, our pancreas replaces most of its cells every twenty-four hours, the cells of our stomach lining are reproduced every three days, our white blood cells are renewed in ten days, and 98 percent of the protein in our brain is turned over in less than one month. Even more amazing, our skin replaces its cells at the rate of one hundred thousand cells per minute. In fact, most of the dust in our homes consists of dead skin cells.

            The second type of structural changes in a living system are changes in which the new structure are created –new connections in the autopoietic network. These changes of the second type—developmental rather than cyclical—also take place continually, either as a consequence of environmental influences or as a result of the system’s internal dynamics. According to the theory of autopoesis, a living system interacts with its environment through “structural coupling,” that is, through recurrent interactions, each of which triggers structural changes in the system. For example, a cell membrane continually incorporates substances from its environment in the cells metabolic process. An organism’s nervous system changes its connectivity with every sense perception. These living systems are autonomous, however. The environment only triggers the structural changes; it does not specify or direct them.

            Structural coupling, as defined by Manturana and Varela, establishes a clear difference between the ways living and nonliving systems interact with their environments. Kicking a stone and kicking a dog are two different stories, such as Gregory Bateson was fond of pointing out. The stone will react to the kick according to a linear chain of cause and effect. Its behavior can be calculated by applying the basic laws of Newtonian mechanics. The dog will respond with structural changes according to its own nature and (nonlinear) pattern of organization. The resulting behavior is generally unpredictable.

            As a living organism responds to environmental influences with structural changes, these changes will in turn alter its future behavior. In other words, a structurally coupled system is a learning system. As long as it remains alive, a living organism will couple structurally to its environment. Its continual structural changes in response to the environment—and consequently its continuing adaptation, learning and development—are key characteristics of the behavior of living beings. Because of its structural coupling, we call the behavior of an animal intelligent but would not apply that term to the behavior of the rock.

            Development and Evolution

As it keeps interacting with its environment, a living organism will undergo a sequence of structural changes, and over time it will form its own, individual pathway of structural coupling. At any point on this pathway, the structure of the organism is a record of previous structural changes and thus of previous interactions. Living structure is always a record of previous development, and ontogeny—the course of development of an individual organism-is the organism’s history of structural changes.

            Now, since an organism’s structure at any point in its development is a record of its previous structural changes, and since each structural change influences the organism’s future behavior, this implies that the structure is determined by its structure. The pattern of organization determines the system’s identity (its essential characteristics); the structure, formed by a sequence of structural changes, determines the systems behavior. In Manturana’s terminology the behavior of living systems is “structure-determined.”

            This concept of structural determinism sheds new light on the age-old philosophical debate about freedom and determinism. According to Manturana, the behavior of a living organism is determined. However, rather than being determined by outside forces, it is determined by the organism’s own structure—a structure formed by a succession of autonomous structural changes. Thus the behavior of the living organism is both determined and free.

            Moreover, the fact that the behavior of an organism is structure-determined does not mean that it is predictable. The organism’s structure merely “conditions the course of its interactions and restricts the structure changes that the interactions may trigger in it.” For example, when a living system reaches a bifurcation point, as described by Prigonine, its history of structural coupling will determine the new pathways that become available, but which pathway the system will take will remain unpredictable.

                                                                                       Fritjof Capra - The Web of Life

 

Manturana and Varela's theory is thought to only be in the right-hand quandrants, and generally it is, but...if we label thoughts or worldviews as "structures" upheld by belief, then we can see that this theory might also apply to people and thus bridge some of the gap between the left and right quandrants... 

 

I posted this here because of the interesting connection between structural coupling and free will. Any ideas?  .....

 

 

[xibalba]

do you mean degrees of freedom in structures, like structures both restraining and enabling intentionality?

[rltruthseeker]

Yes. And I was thinking of the right hand quadrants. Like maybe perhaps our personality, or ego is a type of "structure" and one in which we "couple" with our social environment. Like we take in things or ideas from the environment, and this is enabling or restraining with our intentionality. I think this could also probably be applied to the exterior (like political structures as exterior freedoms) but I was more focusing on how this could be applied to interior behavior.

[xibalba]

IT sounds like Anthony Giddens´"the structuration theory" thesis of the 80ies.
I am still wondering how two incommensurable different complex systems, the phyllogenetic and the phenomenology-ontological, can be easily related to each other as some neuro-cognitive scientists like Dennett et a. too quickly claim they are,

[rltruthseeker]

I'm not interested in reducing the right hand quadrants to the left (flatland). I'm not interested in getting rid of subjectivity. I was just thinking how this might possibly might relate or translate to the right-hand domains. Like instead of saying "environmental influences" a person could say "shared history," and thus still put it into and preserve the I and the WE dimensions of subjectivity. And instead of saying "structural changes within an organism" if beliefs act as structures that build on each other, we could say "my personality took things from my surroundings."

I'm not interested in Dennett's reductionism or atheism, but I do recognize that there are a lot more correlates of experience and spiritual experienes in the brain and that a person is not separate from their environment.