>The mainstream view in biology
>(as you can read in any molecular biology textbook) is that life is
>not self-producing (although they don't use these words) in the
>strict sence...the story goes that life was established by the
>happenstance formation (and combination) of molecules that had the
>capability to replicate themselves.
This is also in allignment with autopoiesis. Autopoiesis is an all or nothing
thing. You can't have a half-autopoietic system. Either you have it or you
don't. This alone is enough to know that self-producing systems needs some
predecessor of a kind for the chances of an autopoietic system to arise from
nothing is as good as zilch. There are, if I'm not mistaken, exactly two paths
to self-production. One is via dissipative systems and the other is via
reproduction (which in nature is a special kind of dissipative system).
Very simply stated the difference between a dissipative system and an
autopoietic
system is that the latter is internally controlled while the dissipative system
is externally controlled. An example to illustrate this is the difference
between cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals. The temperature of cold-blooded
animals is solely controlled by the temperature of the environment while
warm-blooded animals *counteract* the temperature changes in the environment.
While the warm-bloodedness may not constitute autopoiesis it may be an extension
of the autopoiesis of multi-cellular animals. Or it may be purely analogous. In
any case, it illustrates the transition from external to internal control which
is the difference between dissipative structure and autopoiesis.
>Unless I'm confusing terms, then a fully self-producing system is
>some kind of primitive that can't be reduced to some kind of
>grounding and stochastic computing (evolution).
Autopoiesis must be "pre-adapted". That is, the right conditions need to evolve
in order for it to emerge. Autopoiesis without some "grounding" is UTOPIC,
(which of course doesn't make it any less real.) in other words impossible.
>Would it be correct to say that self-replicating and self-producing
>are two different issues?
Autopoietic theorists would claim that self-replication is secondary to
self-production, i.e. a re-cursion of self-production. This becomes more clear
if we rephrase the term self-replication and call it self-re-production instead.