Yes, but I'm not sure that the implications run the way they think you do:
autopoiesis implies separability, but not vice versa. Rocks and planets are
separable, but not autopoeitic.
It's an issue of the identification not only of systems boundaries
(closures), but also the MODES in which those boundaries are manifested.
Rocks have well-defined structural boundaries, and are minimally
functionally connected with their environments, and thus ALSO have strong
functional boundaries. Livers also have well-defined structural boundaries,
but are tightly connected with their environments, and thus while the die
when removed completely, they can be transplanted to a new host
(environment). Hurricanes do not have well-defined strucrural boundaries,
but they do have well-defined organizational boundaries, and are still
highly structurally coupled to the environment.
Autopoeitic systems necessarily have well-defined boundaries, but in which
modes?
>entities. So much that distinct components are a defining feature of life?
Unlikely. Prokaryotes are alive. And the best theories of origins of life
presume evolution through progressive combination outward. In fact, the
sequence organelle -> prokaryote -> eukaryote -> multicellular is a
sequence of meta-system transitions.
>What I do know is that in evolutionary space organs resemble very much real
>organisms. So much that it is possible to view functional relations as
>symbioses and describe their evolution in terms of organ selection. I need to
>ponder more on this.
Symbiosis is indeed a central idea. What's the FUNCTIONAL difference
between the kind of embedding manifested by mitochondria in cells, those
digestive bacteria in termites, and muscle or brain cells in me?
O---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
| Mail Code 522.3, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
| joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov http://groucho.gsfc.nasa.gov/joslyn 301-286-2598
V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .