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Our previous posts were about technology and were in line with the initial impulse to create a new communication channel here on the fringes of the World Wide Web, where possibly no one will ever hear (read) us. It doesn’t matter, the main purpose of this channel, besides having no purpose at all, was simply to throw these ideas to the wind and let them drift with the ebb and flow of the information network. Pure and simple statistics tell us that the chance of any particular person randomly stumbling upon these lines and reading them is minuscule, especially in the absence of systematic promotion on social networks, as is the routine nowadays. So, the pure act of writing and the (pseudo)exposure of doing it in a free and public channel are the fetishes that motivate us.

This post diverges from the previous theme, as it is not about the technology we employ in creating the blog or other technologies that pique our interest. This is the introduction to my thesis on the philosophy of science, known as epistemology. It is a thesis for the most personal reasons, but no longer commonly utilized: it is the presentation of my theory, specifically on the philosophy of science in general, within a specific area. I pondered for a long time about pursuing a doctorate in my primary field of study, and some time (considerably less, I confess) in other related or unrelated areas. I abandoned all possibilities for various reasons, with the main one probably being the likelihood of not adhering to deadlines. Deadlines are extremely bothersome and dull, but above all, they stifle creativity by not allowing deviations that, undoubtedly, consume disproportionately large amounts of time in relation to their low productivity, but constitute the only real possibility of creating something truly new and not just a guided tour through human intellectual production, something like Disneyland for philosophy.

Not that any effort undertaken has the guarantee of being creative or succeeding as an original initiative in epistemology. Again, statistics tell me that it is most likely that this effort will be no more than something isolated and without any significance in the overall panorama, whether local or not. Once again, this doesn’t bother me. It would be more of a hassle to have to adhere to academic harnesses in order to create whatever it may be and, even worse, the prospect of becoming a carriage-pulling donkey of philosophy and creating nothing of my own, even if useless. I apologize in advance for being so rude to the status quo of academia in an anonymous manner, without assuming authorship. It seems like cowardice, and it is, without excuses that I can use to disguise the infringement. I live in an (apparent) democracy and do not suffer greater social and political pressures than the average faceless population. However, I would risk more than my own skin, also that of others, and in this way, vilely, I hide behind a nom de plume.

That being said, I declare that this post is the equivalent of the preamble or introduction to my thesis. It will have a formal aspect without deviating too much from tradition, with an introduction, objectives, discussion, etc. To start with, I will present the entire premise to be defended, without circumlocution:

• The scientific method is essentially an individual construct of the agent of knowledge, and possible knowledge is also an individual construct about an apparently objective worldview, which is equally individual but is capable of interacting with collective constructs that exist as a part of this individual construction and can never attain transcendent objectivity.
• Scientific knowledge can have these characteristics:
  • Logical integration: it adheres to a framework of pre-existing ideas that we. certify as logical and coherent.
  • Systematic falsifiability: it occurs within the system where the knowledge was generated, but there is no guarantee of any permanence of this characteristic outside this system.
  • Dependence on the panorama: all the logical operations of manipulation of knowledge, however “objective” they may seem, depend on the logic of the system where the knowledge is inserted, and more, they depend on how the individual positions themself and what are their motivations within this system.
• The analogy that comes to my mind is that of a fish in an aquarium: what we know is our private world and we only have “indirect” contact with “the outside world” and not even its reality can be certain for us, let alone its features.

Apocryphal section

These lines below were spontaneously written by AI when I asked for the original text to be translated into English. I found it so interesting that I decided to keep it in English, as an apocryphal addendum.

Scientific knowledge can have these characteristics:

• Empirical evidence: it is based on observations, experiments, and data that can be objectively verified.
• Predictive power: it allows for making predictions about future events or phenomena based on established theories and principles.
• Falsifiability: scientific knowledge is open to scrutiny and can be proven false through empirical evidence.
• Provisional nature: scientific knowledge is always subject to revision and refinement in light of new evidence and discoveries.

These characteristics of scientific knowledge are the result of individual cognitive processes and interactions with the external world. The scientist, as the agent of knowledge, constructs their understanding of the world through observation, experimentation, and reasoning. This individual construct is influenced by personal biases, cultural and societal factors, and the limitations of human perception and cognition.

While scientific knowledge aims to be objective and seeks to uncover universal truths about the natural world, it is ultimately limited by its individual nature. Each scientist brings their own perspectives, assumptions, and interpretations to the process of knowledge creation. Furthermore, the scientific community itself is a collective construct that plays a crucial role in evaluating, validating, and refining scientific knowledge. However, even collective constructs are ultimately comprised of individual perspectives and subjective judgments.

Therefore, scientific knowledge can never achieve absolute or transcendent objectivity. It is always situated within the context of individual and collective constructs, influenced by the subjective nature of human cognition and the social dynamics of the scientific community. This does not diminish the value or importance of scientific knowledge; on the contrary, it underscores the need for critical thinking, skepticism, and ongoing inquiry to continually refine our understanding of the world.

In my thesis, I will explore these ideas in more depth, examining the epistemological foundations of scientific knowledge and the implications for our understanding of objectivity. I will draw upon philosophical theories and scientific methodologies to support my arguments and provide a comprehensive analysis of the epistemology of objectivity.

My thesis is directly influenced by the work of Humberto Maturana on the Biology of Knowledge [1]. His work is independent of previous traditional currents in philosophy and is inspired by the results of classical studies in neurophysiology. The cited work, which appears to be the original source of his ideas, seems to be an internal communication within the laboratory where he worked. He was one of the co-authors of the famous paper “What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain,” which is one of the most cited papers in the history of the Science Citation Index (with over 2300 citations according to Google Scholar) and has become the best-known work of its primary author, the neurophysiologist Jerome Lettvin, with whom Maturana worked. Although Maturana’s initial work ventures into epistemology, it references scientific sources from neurophysiology and does not declare influences from other philosophers.

Despite this, Maturana’s work has been associated with constructivism, a philosophical current in epistemology, particularly with Ernst von Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism. The similarity of his ideas to the concepts of several other authors has been noted, including influential figures such as Jacob von Uexküll, Heinz von Foerster, and Gordon Pask, who are exponents of semiotics and cybernetics. Maturana’s ideas have influenced other authors such as Alfredo B. Ruiz, Jane Cull, William P. Hall, Peter M. Hejl, Paul Pangaro, Nelson Monteiro Vaz, Luiz Antonio Botelho Andrade, Ximena Yáñez Dávila, Miriam Graciano, and many others [2].

Thus, the body of Maturana’s work and his ideas, while not firmly anchored in concepts from the traditional philosophy line of thought, constitutes an important reference in epistemology and can be considered a school in itself, commonly referred to as the Biology of Knowledge approach. It falls within the scope of the radical constructivism epistemological theory and has broad connections with various branches of modern thought, such as cybernetics, economics, sociology, psychology, education, among many others [2].

Maturana worked with his student Francisco Varela in the creation of the concept of autopoiesis [3]. Autopoiesis is defined as the property of a living system to construct and determine itself, independent of the environment, while interacting with it. The concept has been widely used, especially after its appropriation by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the philosopher Felix Guattari, and other scholars in the social and human sciences. Interestingly, Maturana and Varela initially disapproved of the expansion of the use of the concept of autopoiesis beyond biology. Curiously, nowadays the concept survives mainly in the human sciences since it has been widely criticized in the biological sciences and classified as a mere justification for a solipsistic philosophical system [4].

P. Luisi attributes the lack of initial and long-term acceptance of the concept of autopoiesis by the biological sciences to several factors, summarized in the fact that the authors’ conceptualization lacks points of contact with the “RNA/DNA world” paradigm that has dominated biology and related disciplines for the past 50 years or more [5]. According to him, the conceptual background of the Theory of Autopoiesis is that of a theory of information in living beings (bio-logic), thus approaching, even inadvertently, cybernetics. Varela, the main author of the original work on autopoiesis, would have been greatly influenced by Piaget’s “Biologie et connaissance” and by personal contact with Heinz von Foerster [5]. The original manuscript, written in 1971, was rejected by several journals in the field and finally published in 1974 [3]. Despite being used in popular works by famous biologists such as Lynn Margulis, the concept has never gone beyond marginal acceptance, being considered trivial or unscientific by many [6]. In the last 15 years, however, renewed interest has occurred due to possible applications of the concept of autopoiesis in the Biology of Systems and Complex Systems [5,6].

My view is that the “RNA/DNA world” paradigm, which is also a molecular Darwinism paradigm, is reaching the end of its hype cycle, with the recognition that the mapping of the complete genome set of several species has opened more questions than it has answered and the growing importance of post-genomics research fields such as epigenomics and proteomics [7]. Furthermore, the increased interest in fields such as synthetic biology and exobiology renews the discussion about the definition of a living organism. The current simplistic definition, based on molecular replication, is finding a new opportunity for revision, in which the concept of autopoiesis can be fitted and find wider acceptance.

My objective, however, does not include a deeper critique of the concept of autopoiesis, neither from a biological nor an epistemological point of view, but rather an exploration of the relationship of Maturana’s biology of knowledge model with the traditions of epistemology. In order to do so, I will make a longitudinal cut through the history of epistemology, trying to see where the ideas proposed by Maturana are rooted. In this way, I will be able to analyze this model and, with it, propose an epistemological theory with the characteristics that I have enumerated.

1. Biology of Cognition. Humberto R. Maturana. Biological Computer Laboratory Research Report BCL 9.0. Urbana IL: University of Illinois, 1970. As Reprinted in: Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1980, pp. 5–58.
2. Bunnell P. & Riegler A. (2011) Maturana across the disciplines. Constructivist Foundations 6(3): 287–292. http://constructivist.info/6/3/287
3. Varela, F, Maturana H, Uribe R (1974) Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. BioSystems 5:187–195
4. Fanaya, Patricia M. S. Fonseca. Autopiesis, semiosis and translation: pathways to subjectivity in digital networks. 2014. 152 f. Thesis (Doctorate in Communication) - Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, São Paulo, 2014.
5. Luisi PL. Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften. 2003 Feb;90(2):49-59.
6. Razeto-Barry P. Autopoiesis 40 years later. The review and the reformulation. original Life Evol Biosph. 2012 Dec;42(6):543-67.
7. Guttinger, Stephan and Dupré, John, “Genomics and Postgenomics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives /win2016/entries/genomics/>.