The Invariant Gardener

In 1963, Magoroh Maruyama issued in the American Scientist a beautiful article devoted to positive feedback processes. It was entitled “The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-Amplifying Mutual Causal Processes » and had been refused 10 times before acceptance (see Per Nyfelt). Maruyama’s idea was that « since its inception, cybernetics was more or less identified as a science of self-regulating and equilibrating systems…[and has] paid less attention to the systems in which the mutual causal effects are deviation-amplifying…[which] are ubiquitous.”

Maruyama lamented that “in contrast to the progress in the study of equilibrating systems, the deviation-amplifying systems have not been given as much investment of time and energy”.

45 years later, nothing has changed. The situation remains desperately biased in favor of negative feedback processes which are all over the place thanks to the many contributors to control theory.

Maruyama’s work is much cited and acknowledged as an important landmark in the history of cybernetics but it had no sequel. Too bad.

Why is it so? Why, if ubiquitous, positive feedback systems are still in the margin of scientific focus? Isn’t the life itself a deviation-amplifying system?

What comes to my mind at this point, is the possibility that Maruyama didn’t go far enough in challenging the empire of negative feedback. He conceived of the second cybernetics as the study of “the deviation-amplifying mutual causal relationships” as opposed to those of “the deviation-counteracting type”.

In spite of its obvious meaningfulness, this opposition is misleading because it is simply not sufficient. The second cybernetics should have defined as the study of positive feedback loops as opposed to negative feedback mechanims.

Where lies the difference? It is quite simple : positive feedback loops are not only deviation amplifying, they are first and foremost reproduction oriented. Deviation-amplifying is a mere side-effect of reproduction. Anything which is a living organization is, in essence, a positive feedback. The more bacteria, dogs, cats or humans you have, the more you will get in a close future. C’est la vie ! The sad thing with the deviation amplifying conception is that it has been an open avenue for anyone willing to reinstate the ultimate power of limiting factors, hence, the necessity of deviation-counteracting regulations.

As expressed by François (1999) “a limitless positive feedback, supposing a considerable — but limited — source to feed on, would indeed quickly turn absolutely destructive. So, it is important to study limits to such a growth.”

That’s precisely what has been done. Positive feedback has just been studied as a possibly disruptive mechanism and the fact that it is the bread and butter of the whole process of life has been disregarded. Most scholars and educated laymen know what an autopoeitic structure is. But how many are aware of the fact that any self-reproducing organization is a positive feedback loop per se? Only a very few of them.

In his PhD thesis in robotics, Thomas Labella definition of positive feedback is just one particular example of a widely disseminated and/or stereotyped misconception:

“Positive feedback: it occurs when small perturbations of the system change its dynamics in such a way as to increase the perturbations themselves. The feedback leads to a snowball amplification of the original perturbations. Perturbations can come from changes in the environment or by some random behaviour of the system.

Negative feedback: it is the opposite of the positive process feedback. Perturbations of the system changing its dynamic have the effect of reducing the causes of the perturbations. In self-organising systems, it usually starts having effects after positive feedback and has the purpose of keeping the system under control. Without negative feedback, a system can literally explode.”

Obviously, for the sake of security, resorting to the negative feedback comes like a reflex and unfortunately, the wording “deviation-amplifying systems” invites such a reaction.

But the problem that I want to stress here is definitely not a mere problem of wording. It is not the more serious problem of the insufficient attention paid to positive feedback processes in scientific investigations. It is much more than that. It is the fact that we have here a tremandous misconception which is left unoticed with the consequence that positive feedback is simply not acknowledge as the essence of reproduction, hence, the essence of any kind of organization. It’s an ontological problem. Positive feedback is simply not acknowledged for what it is : ubiquitous.

In order to get a better understanding of this huge mistake, just try to think of the most normative process in psychology, the most deviation-counteracting dynamics. What could it be if not habit? A habit is the most powerful obstacle to change. We have all noticed that in our everyday life.

But what is a habit if not, also, a positive feedback mechanism, since the more you repeat an act, the more you will repeat it in the future?

What does this contradiction means? It’s quite simple : what stands at the root of both deviation-counteracting and deviation-amplifying mechanisms is just one and the same process : reproduction. Reproduction is the essence of organization since no organization can maintain itself, hence, exist, if it is not capable of self-reproduction. Reproduction is the alpha and the omega of any kind of organization, whether biological, psychological or sociological. Positive feedback loops is all what it takes.

Therefore, let’s come to a foolish hypothesis : anything that exist is an organization, it has to reproduce, hence, it is a positive feedback loop, a circular process or anything that feeds on itself. Negative feedbacks don’t have such a structure.  They don’t feed on themselves. They are definitely not a self-reproducing organization. Quite the opposite. Therefore, from an ontological perspective, a foolish conclusion that seems nonetheless warranted is that they have no existence per se.

Of course, you have a problem with this very idea, don’t you? However, just try to think of the most normative process in biology, the most deviation-counteracting dynamics. What could it be if not natural selection? Well, as you certainly know, natural selection which is all over the place in scientific explanation of evolution, simply doesn’t exist in the ontological sense I am currently addressing. It doesn’t exist, indeed, since natural selection is … a metaphor which has been used by Darwin in order to express in the most obvious fashion that there is no selection agent ! 

Where does selection come from? Wanna bet? From reproduction, of course ; from the differential reproduction which takes place among the population of competing self-reproducing processes. No negative feedback has to be evoked here. All living forms are positive feedback dynamics contributing to a mutually co-selective process. Negative feedback mechanisms appear when attention is restricted to some local aspects of the circular causal chains involved. Negative feedback are mere perceptive bias.

The first cybernetics is about deviation-counteracting systems. The second cybernetics has been an attempt to draw more attention on deviation-amplifying systems. Imitating Maruyama gesture and, most probably, imitating his failure, I would suggest that it is time to confront the fact that, like natural selection, negative feedback don’t exist. It is time to study positive feedback loops as the only things that can emerge from chaos, hence the only things that exist. This study could conveniently be labelled “the third cybernetics”.

As I said in my previous post, the essence of life is… reproduction ! But what about creativity? Sure enough, life is the most creative process ever. But no one can deny that the whole process of life is supported by reproduction. Don’t you think there is a paradox here ?

If any, it has been solved by Darwin’s differential reproduction principle which only means that some will reproduce more than others. Please, feel the beauty of the thing : it is a quasi-tautology and… it has such a huge explanatory value !

As a matter of fact, it has been expressed as a plain tautology by Gregory Bateson who wrote : “what Darwin called ‘Natural Selection’ is the surfacing of the tautology or presupposition that what stays true longer does indeed stay true longer than what stays true not so long (Mind & Nature, 1979:206 (220 in the 1980 Fontana edition).

Bateson was very fond of tautologies and conceived of the world of mental processes (the Creatura) as a slowly self-healing tautology bound to internal consistency of ideas and processes. I love this idea because it give such a role to likeness, similarity and, eventually, reproduction. Indeed, consistency or coherence entails some sort of similarity between two things which are, thus, mutually supportive.

Did it ever occur to you that we say “like” for what we are attracted for? Implicitly -hence strongly- it means that we like what is like. Like what ? Like what we expect, of course ! Hence the reproductive aspect of the psychological organization which is so well known by laymen -and nowadays ignored by most scientists- as “habit”.

We are made of habits. We are nothing but habits. Nothing but a whole bunch of tendencies to reproduce and/or maintain the dynamics of our interactions with the world, i.e., maintain ourselves.

Biological life means reproduction. Psychological life means habit.  It is the great law of stability. As expressed by C.S. Pierce : “underlying all other laws is the only tendency which can grow by its own virtue, the tendency of all things to take habits“.

My seed is the following : all what it takes to think the world is acknowledging the generative power of reproduction, which is, always, differential reproduction since variations are inevitable. It seems deceivingly simple and surely naive. Can we seriously hope reducing the complexity of the world to so simple a mechanism?

That what this garden of ideas is all about !

The next seed will concern ontology, i.e., the question of “what reproduces in the first place?”