Steve Andreas > Articles > Determinism

Self-referring Systems

One of the strongest denials of freedom comes from Skinner (1953):

The free inner man who is held responsible for the behavior of the external biological organism is only a prescientific substitute for the kinds of causes which one discovers in the course of a scientific analysis. All these alternative causes lie outside the individual. (p. 447)

The “free inner man” may well be a prescientific substitute, but the last sentence implies that a man is no different from a rock, and I hope to show that some of Skinner's “alternative causes” are internal characteristics unique to living systems. According to the theory of evolution, inanimate mechanical processes created living systems which were able to maintain and replicate themselves; they do this through mechanisms which are able to respond both to internal and external conditions in ways that maintain the system. Since this purposeful activity is sufficient to insure the continuance of the system, it is not necessary to impute any other fundamental purpose to living systems, although subsequent evolution and diversification created a multiplicity of biological forms and subsidiary purposes adapted to survival in different conditions. All living systems realize their purposes through self-regulatory feedback loops, some of which lie entirely within the organism, such as reflexes and internal homeostats, and some of which require interaction with the surroundings, such as in feeding behavior.

All these self-regulatory mechanisms refer ultimately to the state of the organism, and the organism as a whole is a self-referring system. Many of these mechanisms also refer to the surroundings, but always in ways that are related to the fundamental goal of self-maintenance and self-regulation. We can conveniently distinguish three levels of self-reference in living organisms.

1. At the lowest level are fixed mechanical reactions and primitive reflexes which are the direct result of genetically determined structures. These structures can only be modified significantly through the process of genetic variation and selection, and they are self-referring only through the self-maintaining consequences of their mechanical functioning.
2. At the next level are those structures which are modifiable through experience and which can learn in purposive ways without a change in the genetic determinants. Except at the most primitive levels, the ability to learn is dependent upon structures that can obtain, process, and store information about the state of the system and its surroundings. Information about the internal state arouses and guides selective activity directed through the surroundings in order to optimize the internal state. This selective behavior embodies predictions about the most effective way to achieve the goals and purposes of the organism. Structures at this level are much more directly self-referring than those of level 1. The individual organism develops and adapts while preserving its individual integrity, and it does this much faster than the process of biological evolution could. Of course selection pressures will continue to favor genetic variations which enhance the ability to learn and these will further short-circuit the slow process of biological evolution.
3. Human beings apparently represent the lowest rung of the third level, self-conscious intelligence. At this level there is not only direct awareness of the internal state and of the surroundings, but also awareness of awareness, which is directly self-referring. Man can not only learn and predict, he can learn and predict about his own knowledge and predictions. Knowledge can be significantly freed from its subjective bias, and its inherent limitations can be allowed for. Moreover, the principles of knowledge and feedback can be consciously and systematically applied to all events and embodied in machines and computers.

At level 1, an organism is able to persist because its structures happen to adapt to the surroundings. At level 2, an organism persists because learning structures permit it to modify itself purposefully in response to its surroundings. At level 3, an organism can predict future events and either intervene in their determinants or prepare a response to them in advance of their occurrence. It can use the same process to predict the consequences of its own actions and devise ways of circumventing its own adaptive mechanisms from levels 1 and 2. For example, we can use conscious inhibition or chemical anesthesia to prevent the withdrawal reflex in order to permit corrective surgery, and we can go to a therapist when we have a psychological problem which we feel powerless to solve alone.