Autonomy and Emergence: How Systems Become Agents Through the Generation of Functional Constraints

Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo and Alvaro Moreno

In this paper we shall try to connect the concepts of emergence and autonomy through the idea of functionality. The autonomy of a system, understood in a strong sense, involves the capability of that system to construct its own identity; literally, its being is its doing or making (that is why this kind of systems are properly called agents). The way in which a system self-constructs its identity is through generating new structures and relations (both internal and with the environment) whose action is functional, i.e., whose action contributes to the recursive production of the conditions of its own genesis. We shall show that, as a consequence of the unfolding of autonomy, a system should internally redefine the relations among its components, producing new distinctions and hierarchies endowed with causal power. And this is nothing but speaking about emergence in a strong ontological and meaningful sense.

In order to discuss more concretely all these questions, we shall analyze the processes leading to the origin of the basic living organization, as the most simple case of appearance of autonomous systems in the referred sense. Whereas some authors have proposed to study the origin of autonomous systems conceived as purely logical or abstract entities, we defend the necessity to take also into account material and energetic requirements. The crucial point is that the system must be able to construct and reconstruct functional constraints (in particular, a set of catalytic components and a dynamic membrane) which facilitate carrying out local energetic couplings among different endergonic and exergonic processes in a synchronized and coherent way. The generation and sustenance of those constraints is what actually defines the very system, because they are both integrated and integrating all the other needed elements in a new global and functionally self-maintaining entity.