por Humberto Maturana
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A domain of existence is a domain of operational coherences entailed by the distinction of a unity by an observer in his or her praxis of living. As such, a domain of existence arises as the domain of the operational validity of the properties of the unity distinguished if it is a simple unity, or as the domain of validity of the properties of the components of the unity distinguished if the unity distinguished is a composite one. As a consequence, the distinction of a unity entails its domain of existence as a composite unity that includes the distinguished unity as a component. Therefore, there are as many domains of existence as kinds of unities an observer may brings forth in his or her operations of distinction. In these circumstances, since the notion of determinism applies to the operation of the properties of the components of a unity in its composition (see sections 6 x, and 7iv), all domains of existence, as a composite entities that include the unities that specify them, are deterministic systems in the sense indicated above. This has certain consequences for us living system existing in language, and for the explanations that we generate as such beings. The following are some of these consequences:
i) Our domain of existence as the composite unities that we are as molecular autopoietic systems, is the domain of existence of our component molecules, and entails all the operational coherences proper to the molecular existence. Therefore, our existence as autopoietic systems implies the satisfaction of all the constraints that the distinction of molecules entails, and our operation as molecular systems implies the determinism entailed in the distinction of molecules.
ii) If we distinguish molecules as composite entities, they exist in the domain of existence of their components, and as such their existence implies the satisfaction of the determinism that the distinction of the latter entails. The same applies to the descomposition of the components of molecules, and so on recursively. Since unities and their domains of existence are brought forth and specified in their distinction in the happening of living of the observer, the only limit to the recursion in distinctions is the limit of the diversity of experiences of the observer in his or her happening of living (praxis).
iii) Since the observer as a living system is a composite entity, the observer makes distinctions in his or her interactions as a living system through the operation of the properties of his or her components. If the observer uses an instrument, then his or her distinctions take place through the operation of the properties of the instrument as if this were one of its components. The result of all this is that an observer cannot make distinctions outside its domain of existence as a composite entity.
iv) Descriptions are series of consensual distinctions subject to recursive consensual distinctions in a comunity of observers. Observers operate in language only through their recursive interactions in the domain of structural coupling in which they recursively coordinate consensual actions as operations in their domains of experiences through the praxis of their living. Therefore, all interactions in language between observers take place through the operation of the properties of their components as living systems in the domain of their reciprocal structural coupling. Or, in other words, we as human beings operate in language only through our interactions in our domain of existence as living systems, and we cannot make descriptions that entail interactions outside this domain. As a consequence, although language as a domain of recursive consensual distinctions is open to unending recursions, language is a closed operational domain in the sense that it is not possible to step outside language through language, and descriptions cannot be characterizations of independent entities.
v) Since everything said is said by an observer to another observer, and since objects (entities, things) arise in language, we cannot operate with objects (entities or things) as if they existed outside the distinctions of distinctions that constitute them. Furthermore, as entities in language, objects are brought forth as explanatory elements in the explanation of the operational coherences of the happening of living in which languaging takes place. Without observers nothing exists, and with observers everything that exists exists in explanations.
vi) As we put objectivity in parenthesis because we recognize that we cannot experientially distinguish between what we socially call perception and illusion, we accept that existence is specified by an operation of distinction: nothing pre-exists its distinction. In this sense, houses, persons, atoms or elementary particles, are not diferent. Also in this sense, existence as an explanation of the praxis of living of the observer, is a cognitive phenomenon that reflects the ontology of observing in such praxis of living, and not a claim about objectivity. Therefore, with objectivity in parenthesis, an entity has no continuity beyond or outside that specified by the coherences that constitute its domain of existence as this is brought forth in its distinction. The claim that the house to which I return every evening from work is the same that I left in the morning, or that whenever I see my mother I see the same person that gave birth to me, or that all the points of the path of an electron in a bubble chamber are tracers left by the same electron, are claims that constitute cognitive statements that define sameness in the distinction of the unity (house, mother, or electron) as this is specified in the operation of distinction that brings it forth together with its domain of existence. Since according to all that I have said, cognitive statements are not, and cannot be, statements about the properties of independent objects, sameness is necessarily always a reflection by the observer in the process of observing in the domain of existence that he or she brings forth in his or her distinctions. Furthermore, since no entity can be distinguished outside its domain of existence as the domain of operational coherences in which it is possible, every distinction specifies a domain of existence as a domain of possible distinctions; that is, every distinction specifies a domain of existence as a versum in the multiversa, or colloquially, every distinction specifies a domain or reality.
vii) A scientific explanation entails the proposition of a mechanism (or composite entity) that, if realized, would generate the phenomenon to be explained in the domain of experiences (praxis or happening of living) of the observer (see section 4). The generative character of the scientific explanation is constitutive to it. Indeed, this ontological condition in science carries with it the legitimacy of the foundational character of the phenomenal domain in which the generative explanatory mechanism take place, as well as the legitimacy of treating every entity distinguished as a composite unity, asking for the origin of its properties in its organization and structure. And because this is also the case for our common sense explanations in our effective operation in our daily life, it seems natural to us to ask for a substratum independent of the observer as the ultimate medium in which everything takes place. Yet, although it is an epistemological necessity to expect such a substratum, we constitutively cannot assert its existence through distinguishing it as a composite entity and thereby characterize it in terms of components and relations between components. In order to do so, we would have to describe it, that is, we would have to bring in forth in language and give it form in the domain of recursive consensual coordinations of actions in which we exists as human beings. However, to do so would be tantamount to characterizing the substratum in terms of entities (things, properties) that arise through languaging, and which, as consensual distinctions of consensual coordinations of actions, are constitutively not the substratum. Through language we remain in language, and we lose the substratum as soon as we attempt to language it. We need the substratum for epistemological reasons, but in the substratum there are no objects, entities or properties; in the substratum there is no nothing (no-thing) because things belong to language. In other words, nothing exists in the substratum.
viii) Distinctions take place in the domain of experiences, in the happening or praxis of living of the observer as a human being. For this reason, the domain of operational coherences that an observer brings forth in the distinction of a unity as its domain of existence, also occurs in his or her domain of experiences as a human being as part of his or her praxis of living. Therefore, since language is operation in a domain of recursive consensual coordinations of consensual coordinations actions in the domain of experiences of the observers as human beings, all dimensions of the domains of experiences of the observers exist in language as coordinations of actions between observers. As such, all descriptions constitute configurations of coordinations of actions in some dimension of the domains of experiences of the members of a community of observers in coontogenic structural drift. Physics, biology, mathematics, philosophy, cooking, politics, etc., are all different domains of languaging, and as such are all different domains of recursive consensual coordinations of consensual coordinations actions in the praxis or happening of living of the members of a community of observers. In other words, it is only as different domains of languaging that physics, biology, philosophy, cooking, politics, or any cognitive domain exists. Yet, this does not mean that all cognitive domains are the same; it only means that different cognitive domains exist only as they are brought forth in language, and that languaging constitutes them. We talk as if things existed in the absence of the observer, as if the domain of operational coherences that we bring forth in a distinction would operate as it operates in our distinctions regardless of them. We now know that this is constitutively not the case. We talk for example, as if time and matter were independent dimensions of a physical space. Yet, it is apparent from my explanation of the phenomenon of cognition that they are not and cannot be. Indeed, time and matter are explanations of some of the operational coherences of the domains of existence brought forth in the distinctions that constitute the ongoing languaging in the praxis of living of the members of a community of observers. Thus, time -with past, present, and future- arises as a feature of an explanatory mechanism that would generate what the observer experiences as successive nonsimultaneous phenomena; and matter arises as a feature of an explanatory mechanism that would generate what he or she experiences as mutually impenetrable simultaneous distinctions. Without observers nothing can be said, nothing can be explained, nothing can be claimed,... in fact, without observers nothing exists, because existence is specified in the operation of distinction of the observer. For epistemological rasons, we ask for a substratum that could provide an idependent ultimate justification or validation of distinguishability, but, for ontological reasons, such a substratum remains beyond our reach as observers. All that we can say ontologically about the substratum that we need for epistemological reasons, is that its permits what it permits, and that it permits all the operational coherences that we bring forth in the happening of living as we exist in language.
ix) As we operate in language we operate in a domain of reciprocal structural coupling in our domain of existence as composite unities (molecular autopoietic systems), that is, we operate in the domain of existence of our components. Therefore, anything that we say, any explanation that we propose, can only entail distinctions that involve the operation of our components in their domain of existence as we operate as observers in language. Accordingly, it is in the domain where we exist as composite entities that we distinguish molecules, atoms, or elementary particles, as entities that we bring forth in language through operations of distinction that specify them as well as the operational coherences of their domains of existence. If what we call the physical domain of existence is the domain where physicists distinguish molecules, atoms or elementary particles, then we as living systems specify the domain of physical existence as our limiting cognitive domain as we operate as observers in language, interacting in the domain of existence of our components as we bring forth the physical domain of existence as an explanation of the happening of our living. We do not exist in a pre-existing domain of physical existence; we bring it forth and specify is as we exist as observers. The experience of the physicist, be this in classic, relativistic or quantum physics, does not reflect the nature of "the universe"; it reflects the ontology of the observer as a living system as he or she operates in language bringing forth the physical entities and the operational coherences of their domains of existence. Einstein made the assertion, that scientific theories (explanations) are free creations of the human mind; and then, in what seemed to reveal a paradox, he asked the question, "How is it, if that is the case, that the universe is intelligible through them?". In this article I have shown that there is no paradox if one reveals the ontology of observing and the ontology of scientific explanations through putting objectivity in parenthesis. Indeed, I have shown that a scientific explanation entails; a) the proposition of a phenomenon to be explained, brought forth as such as a priori in the praxis o living (domain of experiences) of the observer; b) the proposition of an ad hoc generative mechanism, also brought forth a priori in the praxis of living of the observeer, that if allowed to operate would generate the phenomenos being explained as a consequence to be witnessed by the observer in her or his praxis of living; c) the operational coherence of the four operational conditions that constitute its criterion of validation, as they are realized in the praxis of living of the observer; and d) the superfluity and impertinence of the assumption of objectivity. From all this it follows that the explanatory mechanism proposed in a scientific explanation is constitutively "a free creation of the human mind" because it is brought forth constitutively a priori in the praxis of living of the observer, that is without any other justification that its ad hoc generative character of the phenomenon explained. It also follows from all this, that a scientific explanation constitutively explains the universe (versum) in which it takes place because both the explanatory mechanism and the phenomenon being explained occur, in a generative relation, as nonintersecting phenomena of the same operational domain of the praxis of living of the observer. Or, in other words, it also follows from all this that since the operation of distinction specifies the entity distinguished as well as its domain of existence, a scientific explanation constitutively explains the universe (versum) in which it takes place because it brings with it the domain of operational coherences (The versum of the multiversa) of the praxis of living of the observer that it makes intelligible. Strictly, then, there is no paradox; scientific explanations do not explain an independent world or universe, they explain the praxis of living (the domain of experiences) of the observer making use of the same operational coherences that constitute the praxis of living of the observer in languaging. It is here that science is poetry.
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