> I ...want to test my insights about this statement 'self producing is a
> subset of autopoiesis' [or self-production].
I assume you meant to test 'self [re]producing is a subset of autopoiesis'.
> This does not mean that:
> - a self-producing system is capable of self-reproducing
> - a selfreproducing system must be autopoietic
> - a self-producing system can arize without self-reproduction or the
> involvment from systems that are self-reproducing [including the
> computerprogrammer, if you count computer programmes in autopoietic.
> So what is the use of making the set-theory statement? Isn't it so
> that set-theory does a poor job for processes of change, and that the
> processes we are talking about are about change [at leaqst
> replication and self-reproduction are invloved in a lot of change
> processes]. Isn't set-theory good for classes, sets etc, but not for
> historical processes?
I don't see a problem with using conventional set theory to describe the
relationship between the definition of terms (even when these terms refer to
processes) as long as the definitions of the terms aren't themselves
changing (or you don't care about the entailment of the definitions
themselves). Of course, if you do want to entail the definitions (or
have definitions that change) then conventional set theory isn't good
enough...
All we were saying earlier was that...
Just imagine two large intersecting circles. the circle on the right
representing autopoeietic (or self-producing) systems. The circle
on the left representing systems that can make a copy of themselves
(systems that can replicate). The intersection would be systems that
are self-producing and also have the ability to repicate themselves.
So it would seem that the following statements would be consistent:
- a self-producing system isnt necessarily capable of self-reproducing
- a self-reproducing system must be autopoietic
- a replicating system isn't necessarily self-reproducing.
I agree, that conventional set theory can't adress issues of how the
sets arized. Therefor, just from the set theoretical statement 'self
[re]producing is a subset of autopoiesis' you could not necessarily
say that 'a self-producing system can arize without self-reproduction'.
Intuitively, it could be possible that self-producing systems could only
arize by a previous self-reproducing system...but the ability to replicate
was lost in the re-producing process.
I do admit that a very importnat consideration in this discussion is the
degree to which we can separate "what something is" from "how it
got there". If they can't be separated, then to use conventional
set-theoretical relations is indeed confounding.
Jeff Prideaux