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Natural dynamics as manifested in evolutionary processes refers to material bodies in movement in the present progressive mode. Any interacting material body in the present progressive mode lets itself sentient to others in the sense that there is no global agency coordinating everything to every other in a globally synchronous manner. The internalist perspective or the worm's eye view intrinsic to referring primarily to the present progressive mode renders every local material body, big or small alike, subject to the inevitable inconsistency residing among the local representations of the neighborhood events registered in the local present perfect tense. That is internal description. Any sentient material body experiencing the inconsistency subsequently transforms itself into an inconsistency-free representation as exerting intensity arising from within. The descriptive scheme unique to the internalist stance is internal and dynamic in the sense that it constantly updates the constituent local representations as eliminating the inconsistencies residing within the preceding local representations. Compared to external description of an invariable universal grounded upon the Cartesian split that necessarily makes itself complementary to dynamics, internal description being able to precipitate external description of a variable universal makes our language dynamic enough to enclose natural dynamics of any material bodies appearing in the empirical domain.

INTRODUCTION

Molecules participating in the construction and maintenance of biological beings are different from those involved in non-biological beings. The difference is however quite subtle because they can participate in both the domains interchangeably. Any carbon atom in the form of carbohydrates stored in our body can turn out to be part of carbon dioxide in the air once it is exhaled towards the outside through respiratory activity of the body. Carbon atoms constituting our body are sentient in that they constrain themselves to be part of our body, and those in the air as well. One thus observes that the way of exercising the sentient capacity of a molecule can be different depending upon where it is located, whether in biological or in non-biological beings. This observation leads us to admit at the least that the sentient capacity of a material body assumes a central role in natural dynamics of material bodies and material evolution because any material participant has the capacity of detecting others to interact with in the first place.

Needless to say, there is no mystery in sentient capacity of a material body of any sort.¹ Take, for instance, an electron. Any electron is sentient and susceptive to an electromagnetic field. The sentient capacity is fully appreciated in the established electromagnetic theory of an electron. What electromagnetism of an electron has accomplished so far is to reduce the intensive capacity of sentience on the part of an electron into the extensive quantities called the spatio-temporal displacements of the electron that can be induced as being subject to the electromagnetic field. Once the transformation from the intensive capacity of sentience into the extensive quantification of the displacements to be displayed by the sentient being is completed, there would be no need to explicitly refer to the sentient capacity any further insofar as we are concerned only with its spatio-temporal displacements. If there were no satisfactory scheme of extensive quantification of the intensive capacity yet in sight, on the other hand, we would have to face the sentient capacity of a material body of whatever sort directly. Although contemporary physics has been quite successful in coming up with the extensive quantification of the intensive capacity carried by an electron, the issue of whether the carbon chemistry constituting biological organizations could completely be reduced to an extensive quantification in one form or another in the practice of physics unquestionably remains to be seen. Until such a complete scheme of extensive quantification appears if ever possible, we would have to directly face material capacity of sentience as avoiding any easy shortcut to quantification.

The issue is how each sentient being comes to experience the intensity in one form or another and how it responds to the latter. For this purpose, we definitely require a frame of reference to ground our argument upon.² One candidate for this objective is our linguistic or more specifically, grammatical stipulation itself, because unless we have recourse to the linguistic vehicle, no likelihood of explicating the intensive capacity of material origin as such could be expected. One such grammatical stipulation is the observation of statements made in the global present perfect tense. That means an availability of the globally synchronous record of events to talk about. Even if we were not sure about how the globally synchronous record comes into being in reality, there would be no hope to explicate the finished events consistently among themselves unless such a record is guaranteed in the first place. That globally synchronous time is available in the record is prerequisite for the endeavor for any empirical science. There is no empirical science without the record registered in the global present perfect tense. More specifically, any statement in the global present perfect tense presumes the availability of globally synchronous time in the record.

LINGUISTIC PREREQUISITE TO DYNAMICS

Nonetheless, globally synchronous time in the record alone is not good enough for coping with dynamics of molecules in nature. Natural dynamics in action is constantly in the present progressive mode that is necessarily local, because there is no material agency controlling everything globally on the spot. First of all, any dynamic movement is in the process in progress.^3-5 Our attempt for describing such a dynamic movement is to address the present progressive tense in the present tense.^6-8 This remark was already explicit in Aristotle’s writing.⁹

What Aristotle has cleared in this attempt is that addressing the present progressive tense in the present tense is through the present perfect tense, because the present progressive is naturally transferred into the present perfect tense with its progression. Crucial at this point is how could the present progressive be related to the present perfect tense and how could such a relationship be addressed in the present tense. Aristotle suggested a further clue in this regard.

One decisive point focused in this observation is that there can be a process equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense as evidenced in Aristotelian actuality, though which failed in finding much followers since then. If equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense is actually validated, such an equation can certainly serve as a universal in the description no matter what its content may be. The equation can function even as a candidate for a variable universal. Despite this perspective in mind, Aristotle legitimately recognized that the dichotomy such that “a thing is moving and has moved, or is building and has built” does not fulfill the condition for the equality to be established because of the intervention of what he called the end or the final cause. Aristotelian actuality was also unsatisfactory in reality because it couldn’t incorporate into itself concrete particulars specifying both the present progressive and the present perfect tenses. Equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense is an attempt for accommodating concrete particulars in a variable universal at the least, since both the progressive and the perfect tenses are about particular deeds or activities.

Surprisingly enough, however, the problem that Aristotle had originally formulated took a completely inverted twist during the last several centuries. The inverted attempt for equating the present perfect tense to the present progressive tense has emerged under the banner of Galilean-Newtonian-Kantian mechanics. A superficial advantage of employing such a mechanistic doctrine is that the equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense can remain as an invariable universal while relegating concrete particulars exclusively over to the initial conditions. Even Darwinian evolution in the biological realm followed the suit by viewing natural selection as an invariable universal while letting mutations be concrete particulars.^{10, 11} Once the inverted equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense is sanctioned, the equation can completely be represented descriptively as following the scheme of external description of an invariable universal. So far, so good, though this is not what we have been looking for. Imperative to descriptive dynamics that concerns us is how to relate the present progressive to the present perfect tense in the present tense rather than the other way around as Aristotle perceived though in vain.

What is unique to the equation of the present perfect to the present progressive tense is that the equation itself can be described as an invariable representation because it is no more than an invariable universal embodied in the framework of external description upon the Cartesian split claiming an invariable object out there. Representation of a body in dynamic movement, once available, serves as a means of relating the present progressive to the present perfect tense since representation remains inert in process even if it may allow in itself an identical transformation. Representation yields such an equation

as referring to the inert representation itself. Because of this equality, though the situation is ironic enough, the mechanistic doctrine equating the present perfect to the present progressive tense can again acquire a means for equating the present progressive to the present perfect tense through its representation. This observation of course cannot proceed without raising a serious question on the nature of representation available to the description of dynamics.¹² At issue is the characteristic of time underlying both the present progressive and the present perfect tenses.

Time unique to the present progressive mode in natural dynamics is in principle locally asynchronous because of the absence of any means for globally synchronous coordination.¹³ Consequently, the present perfect tense directly related to the present progressive is also local. Linguistic access to both the present progressive and the present perfect tenses cannot be global or external. The agenda will be to address the present progressive tense internally and then to approach the local present perfect tense. That is internal description. The significance of the local present perfect tense will come to be more sharply focused within the framework of internal description.

LOCAL PRESENT PERFECT TENSE

Any molecule interacting with others in one way or another as being involved in action in progress constantly precipitates the action completed at least locally that can subsequently be experienced by nearby other molecules. This implies that any molecule is sentient to the neighborhood events in the local present perfect tense. However, a mere aggregation of those local events in the local present perfect tense cannot reduce to an event in the global present perfect tense due to the fact that there is no global coordination among those events registered in the local present perfect tense alone. Despite that, unless such a global coordination is available, no empirical regularity upon globally synchronous time could be in sight. A mere imposition of such a global regularity by declaration, though still influential in practicing physical sciences, does not provide any reliable solution to the dichotomy between the global and the local present perfect tense. Exactly at this point enters the sentient capacity of molecules.⁷

Any material bodies in the empirical world are involved in detecting and experiencing each other through mutual interaction. That is internal measurement.^{1, 14, 15}. Focusing on internal measurement in general or on the sentient capacity of molecules in particular may suggest a likelihood of describing what the underlying interaction may look like. It is then required to examine the possibility of internal description of internal measurement. At this point, just for the sake of argument, let us consider an extremely simple case such that two bodies A and B are interacting with each other while legitimately reminding that there is no a priori guarantee for simultaneous coordination between A’s action upon B and B’s action upon A.^{16, 17}. Internal measurement on the part of A implies that A experiencing what has been presented by B is subsequently followed by the act of transforming the experienced with the consequence of representing the transformed to B, the latter of which then is going to experience the represented from A. A similar line of processes is also occurring on the part of B. Since there is no third party guaranteeing an a priori coordination between the two bodies, the mutual interaction referred to as internal measurement proceeds indefinitely as repeating the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing. Extension of the present scheme of internal measurement into the case including more than two bodies will be straightforward.

One thus comes to notice that there is some room for representation even in the scheme of internal measurement. Although what is experiencing differs from what has experienced and similarly what is transforming does from what has transformed as Aristotle aptly observed, what is representing is identical to what has represented at least locally as referring to the available local representation because of its inertness. Of course, this local representation is temporary because it can constantly be updated by repeating the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing on the part of any member of the participating material bodies.^{18, 19}

The significance of the occurrence of local representation, however, cannot be overemphasized. As referring to each local representation, one can envision a likelihood of internal description in view of the fact that any description has to be anchored at something stationary or inert. Otherwise, descriptive stability would be lost and no reliable description in sight. Compared to external description of an invariable universal upon interaction as a global coordinator, internal description grounds itself upon empirical interaction of a local character though its constant update remains inevitable. Rather, constant update of local representations in turn provides a means for describing a variable object.

In fact, an impetus for initiating each cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing at every material body is an inconsistency to be experienced as facing those local representations presented from the neighboring bodies, with the consequence of representing the transformed carrying no inconsistency of its own any more to the others. Unless there is a prior coordination to eliminate those inconsistencies from the whole aggregate of local representations, it is each material body which can constantly transform the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free local representation, despite that it would subsequently and constantly come to meet inconsistencies with others of similar nature. Material bodies surviving in the empirical domain are only those that can constantly transform the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free representations even temporarily.

Local representation to be met in internal description remains stationary at least in between its adjacent updates. One of the descriptive means to refer to such a local representation is a metric,^{20, 21} since it does not have the capacity to initiate changes on its own. Once a certain numerical figure is read out of an apparatus measuring whatever object, it will remain unchanged until its reading is further updated. An interesting example of this sort we can encounter in the empirical, or more specifically, in the biological realm is the cell processing material resource flow whether in a unicellular or multicellular organism.²²

Material flow through the cell is a local representation of the cell. It is also subject to material flow continuity because no biological organisms can create material resources out of nothing. This condition of material flow continuity now can give rise to a serious inconsistency among the intervening local representations. Suppose that one cell happens to increase the intake of material resource flow just for the sake of fulfilling the condition of material flow continuity there by diverting a portion of the similar flow to the adjacent cell. This diversion would then cause violation of material flow continuity on the part of the adjacent cell if left unattended. Since no violation of material flow continuity is allowed for the local representations, the adjacent cell is forced to update its local representation so as to recover the condition of material flow continuity there.¹ Inconsistencies among the local representations are inevitable in the scheme of internal description, while no inconsistencies are allowed to survive in the globally consistent record approachable to external description. It is not the local representation but the cell itself which can tame these inconsistencies.

The biological cell as a material body comes to experience inconsistencies with the neighboring local representations in the form of violation of material flow continuity. It then transforms by itself the inconsistency-experiencing body into an inconsistency-free body; otherwise the body fails in surviving. The inconsistency-free body manifests itself as a representation being in accord with the condition of material flow continuity. What is unique to the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing is that both experiencing and transforming cannot be represented as such. Although one cannot represent what do the two operations look like in descriptive terms, they are certainly operative. The cell can experience violation of material flow continuity, which external description cannot address as a matter of principle. The cell is even intensive in activating its own intensity for transforming the experienced inconsistencies into the inconsistency-free representation.

Both experiencing inconsistencies among descriptive representations and exerting intensities in the form of exercising an intensiveness are unique exclusively to internal description. On the other hand, once external description of an invariable universal is adopted that has been common in the practice of empirical sciences especially in physics, there are no such things as experiencing inconsistencies residing within the established description or exerting intensity from within. Everything has to be globally consistent with each other from the start just for the sake of the descriptive stipulation. This stipulation of external description is incontestable as an established methodology and remains perfectly legitimate. At the same time, internal description allowing for both inconsistent local representations and intensities to ameliorate them arising from within also remains legitimate insofar as its descriptive characteristic is faithfully observed. Of course, the relationship between external and internal description is not antagonistic with each other. Internal description is more encompassing. External description of an invariable universal can legitimately be precipitated from internal description if the latter is further constrained by the stipulation asking no inconsistent representations and no intensities from within. In other words, inconsistent local representations and intensities to ameliorate them from within are prior in our empirical world. Compared to external description of an invariable universal that is necessarily complementary to dynamics, internal description being capable of precipitating external description of a variable universal comes to furnish our languages with the capacity of enclosing dynamics.

Any molecule is experiencing nearby others in the form of intensity by way of being sentient to the neighborhood events registered in the local present perfect tense. It is the sentient capacity of molecules which connects the local present perfect to the present progressive tense. Intensity to be experienced by a molecule derives from a constellation of events in the local present perfect, which does not necessarily guarantee internal consistency among themselves on the spot. If intensity to be experienced by any molecule were globally consistent in the sense that the global aggregation of events in the local present perfect tense reduces to those registered in the global present perfect tense, the principle of mechanics would apply there. This comes to imply that every movement of any molecule registered in the global present perfect tense can extensively be quantifiable in its spatio-temporal dimensions without directly referring to the intensive capacity on the part of molecules. Otherwise, molecular capacity of being sentient to intensity of any sort has to be faced directly. Inconsistency registered in the local present perfect tense induces the intensity to be experienced by a molecule as a sentient being. This observation invites us to ask what is the nature of such an inconsistency in a positive sense.

LIVING MEMORY

Inconsistency registered in the local present perfect tense is in fact a factor driving movement in the present progressive mode. That means that the movement in progress is a form of the moving body experiencing the inconsistency. Experiencing the inconsistency is now taken to carry on something from the preceding stage. That is no more than a memory, but only an ephemeral and temporary sort. Emerging at this point is living memory. Living memory is just a form of experiencing the inconsistency registered in the local present perfect tense. Although it is not a lasting type by itself, living memory constantly updates itself from the internalist perspective focusing on the relationship between the local present perfect and the present progressive tense. The internalist perspective, as we shall see, exhibits a distinct contrast to the externalist perspective focusing primarily on the occurrence of the present tense. We have thus come up with two distinctive notions. One is inconsistency in the local present perfect tense, and the other is living memory in the present progressive tense. Both are unique to the local or the internalist perspective.⁷ This internalist aspect would however cause a serious tension of itself if one takes these two within the natural framework of discourses, since in the latter, framing statements in the present tense is the rule and not the exception. In this regard, statements made in the global present perfect tense are suggestive.

The transition from the global present perfect tense to the present tense is quite natural insofar as one refers to the global record of events. The presence of the global record does guarantee the reduction of any statement registered in the global present perfect tense into the one in the present tense because the record is claimed to be universal and present at any present moment. To the externalist taking the transition from the global present perfect to the present tense as a matter of course, any event stated in the present tense is definite and determinate in its logical development. This shortcut from the perfect to the present tense however does not apply to the inconsistency and living memory viewed from the internalist perspective. The difficulty rests upon the absence of a reference of permanent character, though inevitable for framing statements of definite implication in the present tense.

Nonetheless, there is at least one remedy for salvaging the global and permanent characteristic to be perceived from the internalist perspective. That is an empirical regularity known as the conservation of energy on the global scale or its local equivalent denoted as energy flow continuity. What the empirical principle of the conservation of energy tells us is that there must be a certain way of establishing globally synchronous time out of the collection of the local records registered in the local present perfect tense. Even if we do not know exactly how such a globally synchronous time could precipitate, the fact is that the empirical regularity of the conservation has repeatedly been confirmed. Based upon the proven empirical regularity on the global scale, one can provide statements made in the internalist present tense with a global characteristic.

Compared to the externalist present tense as a descriptive means of explicating what is present in the record registered in the global present perfect tense, the internalist present tense is intrinsically local in accommodating both inconsistency in the local present perfect tense to be experienced as intensity by a material body and living memory to be registered in the present progressive tense. The externalist present tense is for an invariable universal, while the internalist present tense for a variable universal. This contrast between the externalist and the internalist present tense will more explicitly be demarcated if the second law of thermodynamics is focused.^{10, 23} The second law in the externalist perspective takes the presence of the globally consistent record of events for granted above all. Precisely for this reason, it can arguably be grounded upon statistical mechanics taking the global consistency of interacting molecules also for granted. The ultimate fate to be specified by the second law in the externalist perspective thus reduces to an attainment of the imposed global consistency through its equivalent transformation. Once an equilibrium state is reached, the second law would not yield any further irreversible changes. In contrast, the second law in the internalist perspective points to local activities of both experiencing inconsistency registered in the local record and transforming the experiencing in the form of living memory into further local inconsistency to be experienced. The second law in the internalist perspective is strictly local. Furthermore, in view of the fact that the globally consistent record of events is nothing but a construct by the externalist such as the physicist, the second law in the internalist perspective is prior to the one in the externalist framework.

The internalist perspective can also apply even to mass or matter in physics. In particular, there has been at least a philosophical tradition of associating mass to a kind of resistivity. Relevant to this issue is Hegel’s definition of mass or matter as referring to the resistivity in spacetime, though extremely naïve compared to the one conceivable from contemporary synthesis of both quantum mechanics and general relativity.²⁰ Spacetime nebula requires at least its representation if it can be reduced to space and time at all as it should be.^{24, 25} It is mass which occupies a specific location in spacetime as exhibiting a resisitivity to those trying to occupy the same location. Mass must be universal in the sense that it is the fundamental and ubiquitous stuff, which constitutes this empirical world. Despite that, mass as a resistivity is indefinite in its implication because the resistivity alone is a negative notion. This is taken to be as something negative to the influence coming from its outside. The situation is quite different from mass as an inertia, which can certainly be definite and can be represented as a definite object by referring to its metric. This aspect guarantees mechanics founded upon the notion of mass or point-mass to be a supreme prototype of external description of a definite and invariable universal. Exactly on this account, mass as a resistivity can potentially exhibit the capacity of becoming a variable universal.

Some positive implication latent in mass as a resistivity will be more closely focused if one considers a collision of two material bodies. This is just an instance of indicating a resistivity acting upon another resistivity.¹⁷ Resistivity to a resistivity is in fact negation of a negation. Only when there could appear something positive through the indefinite sequence of negation of a negation, one can expect to acquire a representation of what such a mass is all about. Here, we have already committed ourselves to the view that the representation of a mass, if ever possible, should be local because the scheme of collisions assuming the local participants is taken for granted. Furthermore, such a local or internalist perspective has to be consistent with the outcome, otherwise the whole scheme would be collapsed. At this point comes to enter the cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing. If a mass as negation of a negation establishes a stationary inertness even temporarily, it can certainly serve as a local representation. An indispensable characteristic to such a local representation is about its local space and time structure. Although mass has originally been taken to be a resistivity in spacetime, its representation was left unspecified. It is the likelihood of local representation which makes possible to assign the local space and time property to a mass as a resistivity.

Mass as a resistivity resumes its inertia only through and in between the adjacent updates of the local representation, which is about the temporarily invariable indefiniteness specific to the negative notion of resistivity. The indefiniteness is however constantly subject to its variable update. Mass as an inertia is merely a local representation of mass as a resistivity. This perspective can be gained only through the internalist stance that permits us no other than internal description admitting inevitable inconsistencies among the available local representations. Mass as an inertia viewed from the internalist perspective is definitely of descriptive origin, while mass as an inertia viewed from the external description of an invariable universal as practiced in physics is taken to be directly about the nature of a physical object out there. Mass as a resistivity is strictly the internalist notion and embodies itself as living memory in the present progressive tense, while mass as an inertia from this perspective is merely its representation destined to constantly be updated.

One vehicle for summarizing the descriptive aspect of natural dynamics of arbitrary material bodies is Peircean semiotics,^{18, 19} in which observations made in the present progressive tense, in the local present perfect tense and in the internalist present tense are taken together and again descriptively externalized. That is external description of a variable universal, in contrast to external description of an invariable universal grounded upon the Cartesian split. In fact, experiencing the inconsistency registered in the local present perfect tense is taken to be prior to anything else. That is Peircean Firstness. Then, transforming the experienced inconsistency into the inconsistency-free representation with recourse to intensity arising from within is Peircean Secondness. Living memory is about both the activities of experiencing and transforming. Finally, the Thirdness in the form of habit carrying limited inertness to some extent is about the local representation of the transformed to be presented to the others, though its constant update is inevitable. The local representation is in the internalist present tense of an indefinite implication because it has to constantly be updated. What is significant to Peircean semiotics is that it comes to focus on such an internalist present tense instead of the traditional externalist present tense carrying only a definite invariable implication.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The internalist present tense, once taken to be legitimate, is intrinsically local in what it eventually reduces to. Its concrete content is just about the local representation registered in the local present perfect tense. Its implication can only become indefinite when it is approached externally without referring to every concrete procedure of updating the local representation. This is what is meant by the indefinite internalist present tense. The global consistency of the internalist present tense, if ever possible, is not guaranteed in advance. This implies that the relationship between the internalist and the externalist present tense is not complementary with each other, but rather that the internalist one is prior because it does not presume an invariable universal from the start.

The contrast between the internalist and the externalist perspective becomes conspicuous once the present tense is attended. Although the internalist stance puts emphasis on both the present progressive and the local present perfect tenses, some reference to the present tense would become inevitable when it is asked how to address the stance itself. This is due to the very nature of our language. Despite that natural language is taken to be object-oriented, there is no authority to prohibit anybody from referring to a language itself with use of the very language. Inevitable externalization of the internalist perspective thus follows, with the consequence of precipitating the internalist present tense in the sense of pointing to the internalist perspective itself in the present tense. The present tense thus formulated internally as referring to the upholding language necessarily becomes indefinite in its implication as allowing the room for both making and eliminating internal inconsistencies, compared to the present tense conceived externally as referring to a consistent and invariable object outside of the language. Rather, it is this indefiniteness of the present tense which makes our language competent enough to cope with dynamic movements available in the empirical domain. This comes to call attention to the observation that if any dynamic movement of interest really exhibits change or evolution, the linguistic vehicle for describing the dynamics would also have to exhibit such change or evolution. Otherwise, the dynamic movement in the objective domain would be forced to escape from the linguistic domain.

It is certainly possible to enclose dynamics within the linguistic domain. However, there is the price we have to pay for this enclosure. Any statement made in the present tense has to be grounded upon both the present progressive and the local present perfect tenses. This makes the derived present tense necessarily indefinite in its implication because the underlying progressive and perfect tenses constantly fail in reaching their standstill. Precisely for this reason, internal description yielding external description of a variable universal makes itself competent enough to face up to natural dynamics in the empirical world. In short, we can describe natural dynamics of change and evolution because we can dismiss what we said before on this account without sticking to it tenaciously.

DISCUSSION

After this paper was presented in the Conference, questions and comments were raised during discussion period. Some of the excerpts will be listed including the responses to them.

Yes, it is. Although the original Cartesian dualism conceived by Descartes does scarcely appear in recent literatures, the descriptive style faithful to monologue dies hard. Once we accept a monologic presentation towards any descriptive object, it seems irresistible to believe that there should be something out there to talk about. If we were further willing to take that something as remaining invariable, this attitude would reduce to the acceptance of the dualism. However, there is no need to make such a commitment in every case. There may be the case that that something remains variable. The internalist stance accepts such a variable object even during the very act of description. This descriptive attitude lives with whatever object even including sentient beings. In less colorful terms, the internalsit stance takes it for granted that any material bodies are involved in measuring each other internally. That is internal measurement.¹ The internalist stance is to descriptively address internal measurement.

No. Of course, there is no compromise with the externalist sticking to the position of an authentic Cartesian subject claiming only for an invariable object out there. However, external description of a variable object makes the participating externalist commensurable with the internalist concerned primarily with whatever material bodies involved in experiencing each other internally. The internalist also has to admit an externalist stance because the very internalist cannot dismiss off hand the question from others asking what the internalist stance may look like. What is unique to the internalist stance is its primary focus on concrete particulars residing in both the present progressive and the present perfect tense. In contrast, the primary concern to the externalist is on something general and universal out there in the present tense. One compromise to accommodate concrete particulars with general and universal in the present tense is to make the universal variable. The externalist would lose nothing even if this compromise is entertained. In fact, the style of discourse for the externalist is monologic while that for the internalist is dialogic. No monologue suffers even if dialogue is permitted, while monologue would greatly suffer if dialogue were prohibited. A certain monologue can even be a derivative of dialogues as we are now experiencing in this conference.

The externalist has the tradition of taking at least two different perspectives towards time. One is time as a means and marker of global synchrony, and the other is time upon atemporal ground. Both global synchrony and atemporal ground, though quite different in their implications, can be conceived by putting time out there. The externalist present tense upon the global synchrony makes itself distinct from both the future and past tenses. This is the doctrine taken by the mechanistic metaphysics. In contrast, the externalist present tense upon the atemporal ground is about something immanent as conceived in Platonic tradition. In either case, the externalist present tense is something imposed externally. Insofar as we are acquainted with this stipulation explicitly, there would be no danger in assessing what the present tense implies when applied to empirical and experimental phenomena. It goes without saying that the externalist present tense is quite useful in many applications. Trouble with such a scheme, however, would arise when movement in progress is actually focused. No self-organization from within could properly be conceived in the descriptive framework in the externalist present tense upon the imposed global synchrony. In need is a generative scheme precipitating time and the associated present tense. One candidate for this is the internalist present tense focusing primarily on concrete particulars in the present progressive tense.

Representation to the internalist is strictly local and its constant update is inevitable. In general, representation is something related to something else by somebody. Representation, once completed, remains as it is until it is eventually updated by anybody sooner or later. Linguistic representation the internalist takes for granted is something remaining stationary or inert only temporarily while in the present progressive mode. The internalist representation always goes along with its update scheme, compared to the externalist representation that can stand by itself. One example is metabolic material flow through the biological cell. Flow remains stationary at least during the interval over which it can be defined and measured as such. Metabolic flow is constantly updated with the growth and development of the cell. Chromosome as the internalist representation is updated by its crossing-over in sexual reproduction. Even a DNA molecule in the gene is the internalist representation supplemented by the whole biological body carrying its update scheme. Hoffmeyer calls a DNA as the internalist representation a digital sign in order to emphasize its stationary and inert aspect.¹⁸

Linguistic representation has two functions. One is to describe the object out there, and the other is to put the consequent description again out there as a representation of the object. The externalist representation asks its correspondence to the object because both are put out there. In contrast, the internalist representation is constantly in its own making. Internal description precipitating the internalist representation can be objectified only to the extent it has completed.

Out there. Animation is a property that the internalist finds in what internal description brings about when it is externalized. That is a property of external description of a variable universal as a derivative of internal description. Animation is about an indefinite and variable universal as much as sentient capacity of any material body is. Sentient capacity underlies animation. One can reduce animation to an integration of sentient beings without killing it.

In the eyes of the internalist who aspires to reach description in the present tense while acknowledging dynamic movement in the present progressive tense as its founding ground, dynamics is seen in constant update of the local or internalist representation. Mechanics is an exceptional case, in which representation, once established, is taken to remain stationary or inert while it may allow an equivalent transformation in time. Change is marginalized in mechanics because of too much emphasis on an invariable universal.

If we take spacetime as something to be represented, the occurrence of representation will be prior to how spacetime is figured out. Representation of a material body from the internalist perspective goes along with the present progressive tense. Spacetime to be figured out is made distinct and cut out into pieces every time the representation is updated. Spacetime is a continuum carrying no distinction in itself. It can be made distinct and distinguishable only to the extent it is cut out. Spacetime to talk about comes with matter. In contrast, spacetime conceived in mechanics is quite different. Conception of a point-mass in mechanics reduces spacetime continuum into an infinitely divisible space and time. Point-mass carries nothing to talk about in itself. A major malaise with the infinitely divisible space and time is seen in our difficulty in coping with Zeno’s paradoxes, e.g., Achilles cannot outrun a plodding tortoise before him. If we take both space and time infinitely divisible, Zeno’s paradoxes will still remain incontestable. Hegel’s mass as a resistivity suggests an internalist way to tailoring spacetime continuum into distinguishable pieces as referring to the collision of material bodies as the resistivity to a resistivity. Contemporary attempt for synthesizing both quantum mechanics and general relativity as demonstrated in Conrad’s fluctuon model is a highly sophisticated exercise for accommodating both matter and spacetime in a single coherent body from the internalist perspective.²⁰

I agree with Merleau-Ponty on this. What I would like to emphasize is that the notion of a body is quite encompassing. A body can be any substrate carrying the capacity of experiencing, transforming and representing.

The internalist present tense is conceived as a bridge between the present progressive and the present perfect tense, compared to the externalist counterpart between the future and the past tense. Since there is no cut between the present progressive and the present perfect tense on the part of a material body, the internalist present tense points to duration of the dynamic movement in progress. The cycle of experiencing, transforming and representing cannot be present if living memory carried by the part of experiencing and transforming is dismissed. Living memory cannot be represented as such as anchoring it at something stationary or inert. But, the internalist present tense is upheld by living memory as a duration without which the participating material bodies would fail in being present. Each jazz player involved in an impromptu jam session bodily knows that he cannot be present there if he fails in being part of living memory in the present progressive mode.

Living memory can externally be addressed only to the extent that it has been recorded. Using a metaphor of jazz players involved in a spontaneous jam session, we can see that the CD record of the performance is not the faithful manifestation of living memory carried by the players during the recording session. Living memory is again an indefinite and variable universal intrinsic to internal description.

Linguistic-dynamic complementarity owing to Pattee is quite legitimate within external description of an invariable universal,¹² in which everything is linguistically reduced to invariable fundamentals while leaving dynamic changes necessarily unattended. This complementarity is however exclusively of methodological origin. On the other hand, once one switches to internal description or its equivalent of external description of a variable universal, dynamic change also falls within the linguistic domain. Ordinary language comes to enclose dynamics. The principal factor for making this enclosure possible is the language’s capacity of letting itself be its own object. The self-referentiality makes the language dynamic enough at least to pass the internal inconsistencies constantly forward. A more concrete issue to dynamics is to make explicit the inventory our language can intrinsically incorporate into itself through its built-in self-referentiality. Descriptive dynamics from the internalist perspective takes most advantage of the self-referentiality latent in the language.

Yes, it is. At this point, Wittgenstein’s language game is most conspicuous. This is another way of saying that any descriptive activity is primarily grounded upon the grammatical temporality of the present progressive tense. Language requires the act of speaking in progress in the first place.

The internalist stance uses the language on the two different levels in a mixed-up manner. One is for the object of description, and the other is for the language itself. Referring to a language without employing another meta-language causes the language a lot of troubles. Rather, the internalist stance takes advantage of this shortcoming. That is to say, the self-referentiality intrinsic to such a mixed-up usage of language yields genuine changes in the course of its practicing. Until it finally ends up with the total collapse, internal description of natural dynamics can cope with change and evolution in the material world.

Also in a mixed-up manner, though in a positive sense. Take, for instance, a monolingual dictionary. Lexical meaning of each word listed constitutes the syntax of the language, let alone the grammatical rule. Reading the dictionary is a semantic activity because the dictionary is now taken to be an object to be approached. Unless it is completely consistent internally, its revision would become inevitable sooner or later. Semantic activity constantly comes to bring about syntactical update. Constant update of syntax now furnishes the language with the capacity of facing change and evolution.

If the externalist faithful to the Cartesian split insists that any object to be described has to remain invariant out there, it would come to deny change and evolution. External description of an invariable universal is too rigid to face the richness in the empirical domain. In contrast, if the internalist insists on the primacy of sense experience and the absence of standstill consistency too much, he would fail in securing his own position of making the very point. The internalist has to externalize his own position to defend it. Internal description without paying any attention to external description would also be self-defeating. What I would like to draw attention to is external description of a variable universal to be precipitated from internal description.

I should say the internalist is a minimal nominalist in the sense that we cannot talk about anything without naming it. Once external description of a variable universal is taken as a common agenda, we would have to name those indefinite universals appearing in the description. To give a name to something indefinite such as living memory parts from the standard nominalist tradition allowing for us to assign a name only to something carrying a definite implication.²⁶ If such a strict nominalist stipulation is lifted, the internalist can go along with the externalist.

If our concern turns from movement and change to stability and homeostasis, there should be a good reason to trust a set of invariable fundamental predicates. These invariable predicates now prepare for us the conceptual space of our choice. Consider, for instance, economics as a discipline. There are many candidates for the fundamental predicates including the price of a commodity, the quantity of a commodity, the rent, the wage and the unemployment rate among others. The issue is which to be explained by which. The real economy is different from economics since in the latter the conceptual space is unique exclusively to the economist instead of to the real economy. The internalist stance keeps addressing how the conceptual space is generated and updated.

First of all, it is required to put autopoiesis in the perspective of change and evolution in order to get it started. Poiesis is prior to autopoiesis. Poiesis or production of a lasting character envisaged from the internalist perspective is in the repeated sequence of experiencing inconsistencies presented from the others, transforming the experienced inconsistencies into a inconsistency-free body and representing the transformed to the others. We have some experimental evidence manifesting the occurrence of inconsistencies in the form of frictions.^27-29 Friction conceived in continuum mechanics is something to be dissipated or eliminated like inconsistencies. However, frictions occurring in muscle during its contraction movement are sustained by letting themselves feed on the chemical energy from ATP molecules. Muscle contraction is simply a consequence of pumping up frictions to be dissipated for an indefinite period of time. The internalist stance can incorporate into itself poiesis or production process with recourse to the activity of sustaining inconsistencies to be eliminated. Autopoiesis can be established if poiesis reaches the point at which some form of homeostasis is attained.

I believe so, too. Despite its outlook, Peircean semiotics exhibits a close affinity to contemporary empirical sciences. A case in point is the issue of measurement proceeding internally, or internal measurement in short. Any material body appearing in this empirical world, whether a quark or a human being, serves as a measuring agent that can experience others and accordingly transforms itself. Quantum mechanics provides us with a whole array of possible hard wares that can be utilized for fabricating whatever measuring apparatuses. Quantum coherence and its entanglement, for instance, serves as a means to actualize mesoscopic or even macroscopic measurement apparatuses as a matter of principle. How can such measurement apparatuses be constructed is the real concern for biology. Biological organisms and organizations are those that can indefinitely sustain inconsistencies to be eliminated as examining every possible means available from the inventory which quantum mechanics provides.

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