424. How things change
In preceding items in this blog I proposed that objects adapt across contexts, while retaining their identity. How does this work?
Harman[i] lauded the work of Lynn Margulis for offering a logic of change of objects from symbiosis, interactions of previously separate objects, and the notion of exaptation, where a feature that served a given purpose shifts to a new purpose under change of conditions. A famous example is bird feathers, which first served the purpose of thermic isolation, and because of their lightness later also served for flying. He also mentioned punctuated equilibria: the phenomenon that in a slow build-up of change, in evolution the breakthrough of change can be relatively sudden.
Here, I want to bring those ideas together in a wider frame. In particular, I want to add the role of the environment that enables, prods and constrains change.
In earlier items in this blog I adopted the perspective of Object Oriented Ontology (3O): objects have an internal structure of components with properties, which yield a potential to develop features in interaction with other objects in the environment.
The perspective I take is akin to evolutionary thought: development depends on the ‘selection environment’. It is in a shift of selection environment that new challenges can elicit novel combinations of different features from previously separate forms of life.
These features, of novelty from interaction, relatively sudden transformation into new forms, in a shift of environment, are included in a theory of cyclical change that I proposed in earlier work[ii] and discussed in this blog (item 31, 35, 356). It was first developed as a theory of invention, but later I generalized it to a more general theory of transformation of objects. I briefly summarize it below.
The process starts when an object in the form of a form of life is confronted with new conditions of survival, in a shift of the selection environment. This may be imposed from outside, as in a natural disaster, or invasion of new life forms, or a new environment may be sought, randomly or by some form of direction.
In the new environment, the attempt is made to assimilate novel conditions into existing processes in the object. I call this generalization. When that fails, such processes are adapted. The lightest form of that is differentiation: trying out a different selection from an existing repertoire of processes or features within the object, built up in previous development.
This may not suffice for survival in the new context. Then, and here symbiosis comes in, experiments arise, more or less randomly, of combining features from the object with features from objects in the new context. Here ‘exaptation’ comes in, with old features acquiring new functions. This happens largely by trial and error, but in human discovery, it is more directed, less random, in selecting objects that seem to succeed where the object at issue fails, and adopting elements from that. Here symbiosis comes in. I called this reciprocation.
This yields hybrids, with partial fits and partial misfits between elements from the focal object and objects in its environment, in novel combinations that partially conflict with existing design logic. This may require work-arounds, duplication, and add-ons. Then, selection, in trial and error, operates on trials to eliminate the misfits, in different designs. In deliberate, human design, this is directed at limitations imposed by the old logic on realization of the potential of novel elements, adopted from outside objects. That gives hints in what directions a novel logic might be explored. I called this accommodation.
When a successful novel logic of design emerges, with less redundancy and more coherence of elements, it is tentative at first, occasionally falling back into old, habitual forms. Selection now is aimed at eliminating those, and further eliminating redundancies. There, it competes with old, still existing forms, until it fully realizes it potential and eliminates the competition, in a new ‘dominant design’.
In comparison with the slow and stepwise development that occurred before, in generalisation, differentiation and reciprocation, such breakthrough to a new logic that realizes new potential and eliminates misfits can be relatively sudden, yielding a ‘punctuated equilibrium’.
In sum: in moving to a new place or context one encounters the need and insight to open up content to new possibilities, in interaction with objects encountered there. That can yield the emergence of a new object, with a new logic of structure and functioning.
An core issue in ontology is how to explain change of an object in which it retains its identity, in contrast with change that generates a breakdown of old identity, in the emergence of a new object. Here, I propose, in assimilation and differentiation identity is preserved, but it is shaken in reciprocation and broken down in accommodation.
[ii] Bart Nooteboom, 2000, Learning and innovation in organizations and
economies, Oxford University Press.
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