10 June 2004

Leonardo et al.

I thought I sent this already, but it hasn't shown up on my server so I'm sending it again. Apologies if this is twice.

Thank you for the reply. It looks like you spent a lot of time and thought on it. I’ll respond to two issues you raise separately. Right now I’d like to comment on some of the issues around ‘autopoeisis’ and ‘chaordic,’ about both of which I harbor severe doubts.

I agree with Maturana the concept of autopoeisis should *only* be applied to living systems, and I’ll go further and say that applying it beyond the level of the cell and cellular organisms is probably risky.  I am especially skeptical about the application of the idea to cultural phenomenon, such as organizational theory.  

Let me illustrate my point with a discussion of the ‘community’ and ‘super-organism’ concept. The idea that an assemblage of plants and animals along with their energetic relationships are discrete has enjoyed a history in Ecology which is generally called ‘community ecology.’ This goes back to the 1940s when some ecologists suggested that the relationships could be considered a ‘super-organism’ in the sense that these communities were tightly connected and largely self-regulating. While the idea has a certain intrinsic attractiveness, the problem was, and remains, that no matter how closely or loosely you defined the ‘community,’ there was always exceptions and further extensions; the limits of any given ‘community’ could never be reached. Today we see the definition of ‘community’ in ecology is largely a functional or subjective one, not intended to convey any sense of ‘reality’ in nature.

(a)       A community consists of all of the organisms living within a certain geographical area
(b)                    These organisms include conspecifics as well as members of other species
(c)                    These organisms interact with each other both directly and indirectly
(d)                    Numerous (pessimists might say "endless") parameters affect what species are present and in what abundance
(e)                    "Simple generalizations can rarely explain why certain species commonly occur together in communities."
(f)                      "The distributions of most populations in communities are probably affected to some extent by both abiotic gradients and interactions [with other species]."
(taken off the Web at http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~sabedon/campbl53.htm)

The idea that any given area was in actuality an ‘organism’ has more or less been abandoned (although recent research in very deep benthic ‘black vents’ has revived the idea a bit).

The ultimate was the eventual idea that the entire surface of Earth was a sort of organism. Lovelock (http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/) was not the first to suggest this, but he got the most attention for it. Unfortunately he attached the idea to the term ‘Gaia’ and the ‘new age’ touchy/feely crowd ran with it. 

Probably the best expression of the idea was by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan (her son by Carl Sagan) in several book length treatments. However if you read Margulis you realize that she is primarily talking about single cell algae and filamentous fungi and beyond that, there is little of importance. All other organisms (all of the multi-cellular stuff including us’ns) are nits on gnats on the back of fleas, or however that goes. Also a careful reading of Margulis shows that what she does is ‘extend’ the definition of ‘organism’ to an extent which makes the idea work. Not that I’d openly disagree with Margulis, that ways lies madness, but I think it is kind of tautology really. In fact the whole idea of global homeostasis is a tautology when you think about it; whatever ‘state’ it is in a moment in time is, or seems to be, stasis. However, if the predictions about Global Warming are true, that changes. One of the criticisms of Lovelock was early on in the discussion of GW h
e said, “Don’t worry, be happy, Gaia will take care of it,” or words to that effect (I think he later retracted that). 

The trouble is that some people have interjected the idea of ‘purpose’ or maybe ‘functionality’ into this. The idea that Gaia is ‘something’ or some process and not a metaphor has become commonly accepted. The question is, where are the data?

In the 1980s a lot of ecologists (including moi) spent a lot of time trying to find out whether or not ‘communities’ or some sort of functionality existed in nature. This was done through what has become known as ‘null hypothesis’ testing. What you do is try to see if there is any evidence for organization in nature beyond what could/would occur by chance. In my case I did studies in sagebrush and Pinon Juniper communities. Without going into detail, large enough areas in each type were essentially ‘destroyed’ and allowed to recover. The idea being that the ‘recovered’ site should come back to what it was before. In both cases the Null Hypothesis was not rejected, i.e. what came back could not be distinguished from what would occur by random chance. I also supervised a study using null hypothesis in bat/insect relations. Again, no difference from chance. These type studies were done all over the Earth in a wide variety of ‘communities.’ In no case was the null hypothesis rej
ected! All chance! If you want to see some of the literature on this, take a look at http://online.sfsu.edu/~efc/classes/biol862/whelbib.htm  as this continues to be a topic in Ecology, but mostly it is restricted to a discussion of the role of competition nowadays. Not too many ecologists are looking for the ‘big theory’ of assemblage anymore.

As to the application of ‘super organism’ to colonial animals such as ants, termites, naked mole rats, etc., this idea has been brought forth a number of times. Especially the ideas of Eugene Marais (see http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Marais1/whiteantToC.html ) were popularized by Norman Mailer and Robert Ardrey and had their 15 minutes in the 1960s. However when you cut through the chaff, what you find is that it is merely a change in definition, not anything of real consequence. If you want to define an organism so that colonial animals are included, fine, but it doesn’t really mean much in the final analysis. 

Anyway, the upshot is that any suggestion of ‘autopoeisis’ beyond single organisms, and probably single celled organisms, is not to be found in nature, or is merely a matter of changing definitions. (I should point out that there are still those who develop ‘models’ and then show assemblage rules in communities based on what the model generates. I merely repeat my mantra that ‘models are NOT data.’)

Let me move on to “Chaordic.” My problem here is that it seems that at least some people, and I’m pretty sure Hock, has confused some concepts here. At one time ‘complicated’ and ‘complex’ were not synonymous (some dictionaries still show them as separate words). I can illustrate the point fairly well. A solid black 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle is complicated, but not complex. The math of for the solution of the “3 body problem” is complex, but not complicated (see http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/cover/orbits1.html). Chaotic systems are complex systems, but do not have to be complicated. Chaotic is often confused, particularly in popular usage, with random. A chaotic system has a mathematic expression, unlike a random system; it’s just that it’s non-linear. The problem is that ‘chaotic’ has become a metaphor for ‘random,’ or really stochastic; meaning a purely statistical relationship. For example this quote from Dee Hock;

"Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization.” (see http://www.chaordic.org/ ) 

is using a metaphor which would go: “Purpose and principle are to an organization as recombinant DNA is to an organism.” Kind of catchy, but the problem is that this is a false metaphor. Personally I do see the relationship, if I’m missing it, please, someone, help me out. The genetic code is a complex relationship, but not especially complicated (that from one who got a ‘D’ in genetics the first time he took it). Any sufficiently large organization is complicated, but not, IMHO, complex. I think that the basic definition of ‘chaordic,’ shows that there is a lot of confusion about the concept of chaos.

I guess the basic conclusion I draw is that the concept of ‘autopoeisis’ probably has some application to the understanding of single cells and single celled organisms, but its application to other forms, and especially cultural phenomena is suspect. ‘Chaordic’ is, IMHO, simply a tricky use of the concept of chaos and lacks any basis in reality. 

Sorry this took so long. I’m starting 3 classes all at once and trying to get ready for both my trip to Ecuador and my drive to Panama in the fall. I’ll try to put my thoughts about environmental ethics being completely relativistic together soon.

Steven

. . .the only original rule of life today: to learn to live and to die, and, in order to be a (hu)man, to refuse to be a god.
                       Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951