"Organisms, Machines and Thunderstorms"My theme is the concept, and the term,
self-organization. Originally introduced by Immanuel Kant to characterize
the unique properties of living organisms, the term's history is
inseparable from the history of biology. Only in the second half of the
20th century, however, does it begin to acquire the promise of a
physicalist understanding. This it does with two critical transformations
in the meaning of the term: first, with the advent of cybernetics and its
dissolution of the boundary between organisms and machines, and second,
with the mathematical triumphs of non-linear dynamical systems theory and
accompanying claims to have dissolved the boundary between organisms and
thunderstorms. But between these two moves a crucial distinction survives,
namely, between the emergence and the organization of complexity. I argue
that here, in this distinction, we find the questions of function, purpose,
and agency returning to haunt us.
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