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commented on Context Changes Everything by Alicia Juarrero

Alicia Juarrero: Context Changes Everything (2023, MIT Press, The MIT Press) 1 star

#JuarreroBook Ch. 7 Part 2

The remainder of h. 7 focusses on “catalytic closure” – closed loops of process or reaction that are self-reinforcing and hence self-sustaining mechanisms.

J’s first example is the Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) chemical reaction, which involves an autocatalytic step (where the same catalyst is both an input and an output embedded in a loopy 4 step hyper-cycle, whereby the product of the reaction in the last step catalyses the first. Because this recursive process self-renews the “hypercycle itself becomes an enabling constraint that induces its own production and maintenance.”

As such, it is ‘self causing’. Following Montevil, Ruiz-Mirazo, Moreno, and Mossio, J maintains that this kind of autocatalytic system “still depends on externally set (context independent) boundary conditions over which they have minimal influence”. Their constraint regimes are “not yet self-constraining”.

This is achieved through “closure of constraint” which gives rise to life (and with it self-determination and autonomy).

“As articulated by Montevil, Mossio, and Moreno, the word closure in closure of constraint refers to a specific mode of dependence between constraints whereby recursion in the chain [of constraints] “folds up and establishes mutual dependence” (Moreno and Mossio 2015, 20) among constraints. To wit: Formally, “a set of constraints C realizes closure if, for each constraint Ci belonging to C: Ci depends directly on at least one other constraint of C (Ci is dependent); There is at least one other constraint Cj belonging to C which depends on Ci (Ci is enabling).” (Moreno and Mossio 2015, 20)”

replied to uh's status

ctd. “By generating and regenerating the constraint interdependencies that persist and delay dissipation, such recursive and multidimensional organizations display qualitatively different properties than physical and chemical convection cells. Processes that realize self-constraint are self-determining. They represent a major transition in evolution (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995) brought about by recursively organized constraints.”

“The received view of causality contends that wholes are nothing but aggregates and therefore epiphenomenal and that efficient causes are other than their effects. We cannot overemphasize the point that inter-dependencies that realize closure of constraint are not spatiotemporally “other than” the local constraints, and yet as a coherent unit, the loop exerts constraining influences on its component reactions that individual constraints do not. The effect of its influence is the realization of a higher-order dynamic with the novel property of self-constraint.

Clearly falsifying the classical prohibition against mereological self-cause, inter-dependence among constraints reveals a relation that is …

replied to uh's status

@uh @UlrikeHahn Sorry for the delay, I've spent the past 15 days or so doing some academic travelling. 5 cities and something like 8 hotels later, I'm exhausted.

In any case, I've skimmed this chapter, but didn't find anything new or noteworthy to comment on. Did you? It seems that the main questions are still being skirted and the positive view remains confusing, badly defended by impressionistic examples.