Table Of ContentEVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS
EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS
Biological and Epistemological Perspectives
on Selection and Self-Organization
Edited by
GERTRUDIS V AN DE VIJVER
Department of Philosophy,
University of Ghent, Belgium
STANLEYN. SALTHE
Department of Biology,
City University of New York -Binghamton University, u.s.A.
and
MANUELA DELPOS
Konrad Lorenz Institute, Vienna. Austria
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-5103-5 ISBN 978-94-017-1510-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-1510-2
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
I. EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS: A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
INTRODUCTION: EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS AND
DARWINIAN THEORY OF EVOLUTION
VILMOS CSANYI I Evolution: Model or metaphor?
STANLEY N. SALTHE I The role of natural selection theory in understanding
evolutionary systems 13
SELF-ORGANIZATION VERSUS SELECTION?
DAVID J. DEPEW I Darwinism and developmental ism: Prospects for conver-
gence 21
MICHAEL CONRAD I Towards high evolvability dynamics 33
ERIC MINCH I The beginning of the end: On the origin of final cause 45
BRUCE H. WEBER I Emergence of life and biological selection from the
perspective of complex systems dynamics 59
JUAN M. ALVAREZ DE LORENZANA / Self-organization and self-construction of
order 67
WERNER CALLEBAUT I Self-organization and optimization: Conflicting or
complementary approaches? 79
MARTIN BAATZ I Pleiotropy and the evolution of adaptibility 101
DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION: THERMODYNAMICAL,
INFORMATION THEORETICAL AND MATHEMATICAL PERSPECTIVES
DANIEL R. BROOKS / The unified theory and selection processes 113
JOHN D. COLLIER / Information increase in biological systems: How does
adaptation fit? 129
JONATHAN D.H. SMITH I Canonical ensembles, evolution of competing
species, and the arrow of time 141
ROD SWENSON / Spontaneous order, evolution, and autocatakinetics: The
nomological basis for the emergence of meaning 155
KLAUS KORNWACHS / Pragmatic information and the emergence of meaning 181
DANIEL M. DUBOIS / Emergence of chaos in evolving Volterra ecosystems 197
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS: AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
CAUSALITY AND EXPLANATION
HENRI ATLAN / Immanent causality: A Spinozist viewpoint on evolution and
theory of action 215
ALICIA JUARRERO / Causality as constraint 233
GERTRUDIS VAN DE VIJVER / Evolutionary systems and the four causes: A
real Aristotelian story? 243
GEORGE KAMPIS / Evolution as its own cause and effect 255
RUPERT RIEDL / Dealing with complex systems or how to decipher
language and organisms 267
SYMBOLS, SIGNS AND MEANING
JESPER HOFFMEYER / The unfolding semiosphere 281
KOICHIRO MATSUNO / Competence of natural languages for describing the
physical origin of life 295
SUSANTHA GOONATILAKE / Towards a "meta-ethic" derived from
evolutionary lineages 307
OLAF DIETTRICH / On some relations between cognitive and organic evoluti-
on 319
LUIS MATEUS ROCHA / Selected self-organization and the semiotics of
evolutionary systems 341
PETER CARIANI / Towards an evolutionary semiotics: The emergence of new
sign-functions in organisms and devices 359
JON UMEREZ / The evolution of the symbolic domain in living systems and
artificial life 377
ARANTZA ETXEBERRIA / Embodiment of natural and artificial agents 397
CLIFF JOSLYN / Are life and meaning coextensive? 413
INDEX 423
PREFACE
The three well known revolutions of the past centuries - the Copernican, the
Darwinian and the Freudian - each in their own way had a deflating and
mechanizing effect on the position of humans in nature. They opened up a richness
of disillusion: earth acquired a more modest place in the universe, the human body
and mind became products of a long material evolutionary history, and human
reason, instead of being the central, immaterial, locus of understanding, was
admitted into the theater of discourse only as a materialized and frequently
out-of-control actor.
Is there something objectionable to this picture? Formulated as such, probably not.
Why should we resist the idea that we are in certain ways, and to some degree,
physically, biologically or psychically determined? Why refuse to acknowledge the
fact that we are materially situated in an ever evolving world? Why deny that the
ways of inscription (traces of past events and processes) are co-determinative of
further "evolutionary pathways"? Why minimize the idea that each intervention, of
each natural being, is temporally and materially situated, and has, as such, the
inevitable consequence of changing the world?
The point is, however, that there are many, more or less radically different, ways
to consider the "mechanization" of man and nature. There are, in particular, many
ways to get the message of "material and evolutionary determination", as well as
many levels at which this determination can be thought of as relevant or irrelevant.
History has illustrated how fundamentally different the viewpoints on evolution
can be. It has shown above all how these differences depend on divergent and
shifting philosophical, ethical and scientific backgrounds. Therefore, it is necessary
to attempt to elucidate these backgrounds, because they alone allow us to understand
the relevance or irrelevance of certain arguments; they alone allow us to answer the
question of why certain doors keep closed, and why, at precise moments, certain
doors are opened. Philosophical and scientific backgrounds determine and
encapsulate the relative values of arguments.
The aim of the present book is to elucidate the scientific and philosophical
backgrounds that play a role in one of the major debates now taking place in
evolutionary thinking, namely that on self-organization and selection. Our focus is
therefore on Evolutionary Systems, a field that attempts to address as coherently and
as broadly as possible the scientific and epistemological challenges of the concepts
of change and evolution. Its main aim is to understand how complex dynamical
systems, living and non-living, linguistic or non-linguistic, come to be organized as
systems - how, in other words, their inherent dynamical nature gives rise to
organizations and forms that have found a balance between potentiality for change
and evolution on the one hand, and requisite stability in a given environment on the
other. Studies in Evolutionary Systems aim at making explicit the various constraints
at work in the development of such systems, as well as at clarifying why and how
they can co-determine the modalities of their further evolution.
Evolutionary Systems is essentially concerned with the debate on self-organization
viii EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS
and selection in two basic ways. First, it applies insights from theories of complex
self-organizing systems to the current theories of evolution, which leads to the direct
confrontation of self-organization and selection as possible explanatory principles.
Second, its concern is with the most radical philosophical consequences of a
complex, self-organizational view on evolution. This leads, amongst other things,
to a questioning of the classical scientific picture of causality, as well as to the
development of a basically semiotic viewpoint on evolution.
This book is organized in two parts, that roughly follow, as just sketched, the
basic lines of thought present in Evolutionary Systems. Let us therefore explain in
some more detail the scope of both parts.
EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS FROM A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
The possible implications of complex dynamical systems theories for the existing
biological theory of evolution make up a vast subject of discussion. If we follow
Depew and Weber's viewpoint (1995), these new mathematical tools are likely to
lead to a basic paradigm shift in evolutionary biology. Whereas Darwin had
found his main inspiration in Newtonian mechanics, and neo-Darwinism in
classical thermodynamics, time has come for complexification: the basic
simplifications of large parts of the Modem Synthesis have to be abandoned, and
evolutionary biology has to open itself up to influences from complex systems
dynamics to be able to provide a non-reductionist, and basically non-atomistic,
account of evolution and development.
Self-organization and selection together play a key-role in these new develop
ments. One's interpretation of their respective explanatory functions is indicative
of the more, or less, "neo-Darwinian" position one occupies in the field of
evolutionary thinking. Indeed, ever since the neo-Darwinian interpretation,
genetic variations and evolution of populations by natural selection have been
considered as the conceptual and explanatory core of the biological theory of
evolution: variation functions as the necessary "shuffling of cards", whereas
natural selection serves to explain the genesis of biological order and the
phenomenon of adaptation. If one adopts this viewpoint, there is no need to take
into account either the internal structure of the organism, or its developmental
dynamics, or any causal mechanisms operative in its concrete material develop
ment.
Precisely this viewpoint has been under severe attack these last years, for the
idea that the evolution of biological systems can be adequately described in terms
of variation and natural selection alone, is now challenged. The issue at stake is
thus whether one should complement, or even substitute, the 'classical' picture of
evolution by new ones informed by mathematical and physical models of complex
dynamical, self-organizing systems.
The contemporary stances on the self-organization versus selection debate are
roughly the following: 1. some authors still believe that the formation of order and
PREFACE ix
adaptation on all biological levels can essentially be explained by the mechanisms
of variation and natural selection (Richard Dawkins, John Maynard Smith,
Szathmfuy, George Williams, ... ); 2. others view selection and self-organization as
partly complementary principles, whose respective importance must be detailed in
various situations (Robert Brandon, Michael Conrad, David Depew & Bruce Weber,
Stuart Kauffman, ... ). This viewpoint presupposes that there are organizing
principles that determine in a certain way the efficiency of natural selection. They
can either enhance or weaken this efficiency. This interpretation is sometimes called
the null-hypothesis of self-organization (cf. Robert Richardson & Richard Burian,
1990); 3. still others attribute a more prominent role to self-organization than to
selection in the production of biological order (Dan Brooks & Ed Wiley, John
Collier, Brian Goodwin, Stan Salthe, Peter Saunders, Rod Swenson, ... ).
The supportive arguments given in Evolutionary Systems are generally the
following.
First, even though the Modern Synthesis is in a position to elucidate an
organism's local capacity to become adapted to its environment (fine-tuning), its
potential to adequately account for the inception of a large-scale biological order is
still disputed. In this regard, the role of ecological evolution is stressed, and major
problems concern similarity - or more generally, the role of systemic, constitutive
and generic processes in evolutionary change.
Secondly, it is deemed essential to take into account the concrete material
principles of development in thinking about the evolution of biological systems.
Thirdly, it is necessary to address the question of the origins of the living.
Evolutionary Systems does so in terms of general organizational principles related
to the emergence of catalytic and metabolic functions and of reproduction. These
general processes of organization are seen to have been prior to, or at least to have
appeared along with the origin of genetic replication. As a consequence, it is
necessary to understand how natural selection of the reproductively fit emerges from
chemical and physical principles and constraints.
Therefore, mechanical and thermodynamical constraints have to be taken into
account, and other types of selection are conceptualized as well - i.e. physical or
chemical. Evolution is thus to be conceived of in terms of the stable, the efficient
and the evolvable, instead of solely on the basis of naturally selected fittingness. A
theory of evolution that starts from the existence of living beings and black-boxes
their origin, their internal structures and material development, can never be an
adequate theory of evolution.
EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS FROM AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
Besides using theories of complex systems dynamics as descriptive tools,
Evolutionary Systems carries the seeds of a much more radical paradigm shift. The
aim of Evolutionary Systems is to understand how complex dynamical systems come
to be organized as systems - that is, how their inherent dynamics give rise to
x EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS
organizations and forms that are in-between fixity and flux. As a consequence, the
focus is on the developmental stability of systems acquired through interaction, and
evolution is conceived on the basis of a closure between the system and the
environment. As a matter of fact, the evolution of the system can change the
conditions of its further adaptation. Hence, the evolution of species is no longer
describable in terms only of the selective power of the environment, and the objects
of evolution are not just the sequences of species. The object of evolution is viewed
as ultimately the whole network of mutually interacting species - i.e. the history
of the whole Biosphere.
Because of the shift towards an interactionist viewpoint, causality, as interpreted
in classical scientific terms, comes under discussion. Here it has indeed come to be
important to grasp the causal powers of systems. It is important to link the
interpretation of causality to the way in which evolutionary systems acquire a certain
form of individuality (a "self") through an interactive history. Biological
organizations are not passive, but highly active beings, co-organizing their own
evolution. That Aristotelean and Spinozist causal views are being reintroduced in this
context, can, then, hardly come as a surprise.
Moreover, it is of central importance to arrive at characterizing the types of
interaction between systems. Which interactions can be considered as meaningful,
which as perturbations? Is the attribution of meaning to a type of interaction
inevitably extemalist and global, or is there some other way of defining it, related,
for instance, to the values, functions and purposes inherent to the local dynamics
within systems, or to local systemic interactions?
It is important to see that describing the interactive history of systems in terms of
stability and evolvability - in terms of fixity and flux - fundamentally rearranges
any discussion on values, aims and purposes, and on individuality and subjectivity.
Clearly, the aim cannot be control, it will rather be creativity - i.e. promotion of
further dynamics. The semiotic viewpoint attempts to arrive at clear concepts and
clear answers precisely on these points. It establishes an inherent link between the
temporal and material situatedness of natural systems and the way in which their
interactions might be meaningful to them, as well as meaningfully described. It
shows that the difficulty is related to the construction of global descriptions that try
to adequately account for local dynamics.
In this way, Evolutionary Systems can lead to the elucidation of frequently
misunderstood expressions, such as: "We, the expected", "At home in the universe",
or of claims such as "We may recover our sense of worth" (Kauffman, 1995, p. 5).
These certainly need not to be understood in teleological or vitalistic terms, even if
the language used sometimes seems to suggests this, but contain the promise of
another way of conceiving science: one in which atomistic mechanicism, backed up
by the ideals of reductionism, is replaced by a historical, i.e. dynamic and
interactive view on man and nature. A genuine historical science is one that
acknowledges that "history arises when the space of possibilities is too large by far
for the actual to exhaust the possible" (ibid., p. 181). It is one that considers the
PREFACE xi
weight of the basic choices, values and purposes of observers, always local, always
temporally situated, as no longer negligible.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present volume, as well as the extensive discussions preceding it during the
ISES-95 meeting (International Seminar on Evolutionary Systems, Vienna), were
made possible by a grant from the European Communities (PSS*0816). We are
indebted in particular to Prof. P. Fasella, Director General of DG XII for Science,
Research and Development. We are also grateful to the Konrad Lorenz Institute, and
in particular Prof. R. Riedl, for valuable support during and after that meeting. We
also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Fund for Scientific Research
Flanders.
The Editors
REFERENCES
Depew, D.J .; Weber, B .H., 1995, Darwinism Evolving; Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy ofN atural
Selection, Cambridge MA, Bradford, The MIT Press.
Kauffman, S., 1995, At home in the universe. The Search for Laws of Self-organization and Complexity,
Viking, London.
Burian, R.M.; Richardson, R.C., 1991, Form and Order in Evolutionary Biology, PSA 1990;
Proceedings of the 1990 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, A. Fine, M.
Forbes & L. Wessels (eds.), East Lansing, vol. 2, pp. 267-287.
