Autopoiesis and Its Efficacy—A Metacybernetic View

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the nature of autopoiesis and its capacity to be efficacious, and to do this, it uses agency theory as embedded in metacybernetics. Agency, as a generalised intelligent adaptive living system, can anticipate the future once it has internalised a representation of an active contextual situation through autopoiesis. The role of observation and the nature of internalisation will be discussed, explaining that the latter has two states that determine agency properties of cognition. These are assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is an information process and results in implicit cognition and recognition, whereas accommodation uses assimilated information delivering explicit cognition, recognition, and conscious awareness with rationality. Similarly, anticipation, a required property of the living, has two states, weak and strong, and these correspond to the two states of internalisation. Autopoiesis has various properties identifiable through the lenses of three autonomous but configurable schemas: General Collective Intelligence (GCI), Eigenform, and Extreme Physical Information (EPI). GCI is a pragmatic evolutionary approach concerned with a contextually connected purposeful and relatable set of task processes, each undertaken by a team of subagencies seeking collective fitness. Eigenform is a symbolic approach that is concerned with how observations can be suitably internalised and thus be used as a token to determine future behaviour, and how that which has been internalised can be adopted to anticipate the future. Extreme Physical Information (EPI) is an empirical approach concerned with acquiring information through observation of an unknown parameter through sampling regimes. The paper represents the conceptualisations of each schema in terms of autopoietic efficacy, and explores their configurative possibilities. It will adopt the ideas delivered to enhance explanations of the nature of autopoiesis and its efficacy within metacybernetics, providing a shift in thinking about autopoiesis and self-organisation.

Consciousness, Sapience and Sentience—A Metacybernetic View

“…Sentient systems are living and intelligent. For Yolles [35,94], such systems are autonomous and complex, and they exist in a state of bounded instability in which there is an ever-present dynamic balance between order and disorder at the edge of chaos. This perspective is elaborated on by explaining that the condition of living not only applies to biological entities.…”

“…The fact that sapience and sentience are autonomous interactive systems indicates that cognition and affect are similarly so [1,104]. The function of affect is to intrinsically motivate (with some intensity) an agency to maintain its fitness, and hence, its viability, in a complex changing environment [35], and this has consequences for evolutionary processes (cf. [105]).…”

“…These motivations may be considered to be processes of affect, where efficacious affect suggests intrinsic motivation. Internal stability, when represented by the sustainability of the system's welfare and wellbeing, constitutes fitness [35].…”

“…The classifications by Bitbol and Luisi have been related to those of Bielecki, and are reproduced in Table 3 (deriving from Yolles and Frieden [35], but extended to include the spirit). A possible extension to this table has been suggested [110], but this is beyond our consideration here.…”

“…Such systems, we are told, need to have a capacity for intelligence (the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills), as well as resilience (the autonomous capacity to recover quickly from non-deterministic difficulties). We may note that intelligence and resilience are required attributes that enable viability: the ability of a living entity to both survive and develop in the sense of the causation or gradual unfolding of improvement in the physical well-being and metaphysical wellness of the system [35] through its autonomous functions and behaviour. Mikkilineni further notes that these attributes depend on a system's capacity for cognitive processes.…”