5 ms·

The idea of extended organism in 20th century thought (2010)

29 points by panic 9y ago

amelius 9y ago
I guess we choose boundaries as we see fit. For example, a mother can be thought of as extending into her children; however, if we want to describe evolutionary processes, this is not the proper way of thinking.
westoncb 9y ago
Questions like this highlight the practical character of the taxonomies/theories we construct. It seems like a very strange and maybe stupid question if you are thinking along the lines of, "is society really an organism after all?"—but if instead you just wonder if it would be useful to consider society as an organism, you may find it has enough shared properties to make the designation appropriate, which in turn allows you to borrow certain known things about other organisms and apply them to societies. On this specific question, I think 'organism' comes with too many additional properties not possessed by societies. But, I would not be surprised to find that it's useful to class societies as being the same types of things as minds. For instance, minds and societies both do a kind of decision making (e.g., electing a president). There's a temptation to say that it was just the humans doing the decision making—but a more objective view is that decision making is something that happens in human minds (the human didn't do it—the neurons did! —no, the molecules did!). Of course all sorts of difficulties may arise, and we're already bumping up against claims on free will... Seems like a fruitful thing to think about though.
mannykannot 9y ago
The article begins with the observation "living beings extend beyond themselves into their environments." Whether, or to what extent, that observation is justified, depends on specific facts of biology. Whether it is a useful observation to make depends, I think, on whether it helps people discuss and understand biology, and, in particular, whether it is fruitful in opening up the way to further insights. If it does prove to be generally useful, language and its usage will adapt, just as language always does, and the fact that this has not happened here suggests that it not useful enough as a distinct concept to lead to a change in language. I would guess that is because either the phenomena offered in support of the suggestion are not general enough, or that they are so diverse that they have little else in common, or that the observation that organisms interact with their environment is so trivially and generally true that it goes without saying. There is no right answer here - the underlying biology is the same regardless of how you describe it - and one could argue endlessly whether one or the other is the optimal way of looking at things, but I think actual usage is the ultimate answer to that question; the wisdom of the crowds (of biologists) will prevail.
euparkeria 9y ago
I like to think that my itens are a extension of my body, my smartphone for example one way to acess a enourmous neural web.

29 points by panic 9y ago

I guess we choose boundaries as we see fit. For example, a mother can be thought of as extending into her children; however, if we want to describe evolutionary processes, this is not the proper way of thinking.

westoncb 9y ago

Questions like this highlight the practical character of the taxonomies/theories we construct. It seems like a very strange and maybe stupid question if you are thinking along the lines of, "is society really an organism after all?"—but if instead you just wonder if it would be useful to consider society as an organism, you may find it has enough shared properties to make the designation appropriate, which in turn allows you to borrow certain known things about other organisms and apply them to societies. On this specific question, I think 'organism' comes with too many additional properties not possessed by societies. But, I would not be surprised to find that it's useful to class societies as being the same types of things as minds. For instance, minds and societies both do a kind of decision making (e.g., electing a president). There's a temptation to say that it was just the humans doing the decision making—but a more objective view is that decision making is something that happens in human minds (the human didn't do it—the neurons did! —no, the molecules did!). Of course all sorts of difficulties may arise, and we're already bumping up against claims on free will... Seems like a fruitful thing to think about though.

mannykannot 9y ago

The article begins with the observation "living beings extend beyond themselves into their environments." Whether, or to what extent, that observation is justified, depends on specific facts of biology. Whether it is a useful observation to make depends, I think, on whether it helps people discuss and understand biology, and, in particular, whether it is fruitful in opening up the way to further insights. If it does prove to be generally useful, language and its usage will adapt, just as language always does, and the fact that this has not happened here suggests that it not useful enough as a distinct concept to lead to a change in language. I would guess that is because either the phenomena offered in support of the suggestion are not general enough, or that they are so diverse that they have little else in common, or that the observation that organisms interact with their environment is so trivially and generally true that it goes without saying. There is no right answer here - the underlying biology is the same regardless of how you describe it - and one could argue endlessly whether one or the other is the optimal way of looking at things, but I think actual usage is the ultimate answer to that question; the wisdom of the crowds (of biologists) will prevail.

euparkeria 9y ago

I like to think that my itens are a extension of my body, my smartphone for example one way to acess a enourmous neural web.