Interactions (3)

I would like to add a bit to my ideas about the concept of interaction. It is very abstract, these are just first thoughts that have to be worked out later.

We discussed interaction between things, between organism and things, and between organisms (specifically: between humans). There is another division that I like to introduce here, which divides the concept of interaction in yet two more forms. This division is not based on the kinds objects that interact, rather it is a typology of the kind of effect that the interactional process itself may have.

Consider two machines interacting. That is: each of the machines performs acts that have an effect in their respective environments. Both machines are part of each other environments. Moreover, there are reliable relations between the actions of the one machine and the effect such an action produces in the pattern of actions of the other machine. In common terms we would say that each machine 're-acts' to the other machine's actions. Another way of saying this is to say that the two machines 'inter-act'.

Although each machine influences the pattern of actions of the other machine, the rules that govern such interactions are fixed. That is, the interaction changes the behavior of both machines, but it does not change the pattern of interaction itself. I call these rules, or patterns if you whish, the 'structure' of the interaction.

Now the big divide I want to introduce is between systems that can, or cannot, change the structure of the interaction, by interacting.

The first category of interaction I call 'fixed interaction'. The latter case I call 'developmental interaction'.

Interacting machines generally are fixed systems. It is a technological-empirical question whether we will one day come to know of machines being able to develop, through their interactions, their own interactional structure. The current examples in Alife and AI do not convince me, yet. [cf. arguments of a.o. Tom Ziemke]

Organisms, however, interacting with their passive environments or with other organisms, constitute active interactive systems. (I just state this as a fact. It is of course very well possible to have a discussion about the validity of this claim). Such systems change their interactional structure, by interacting. This means that the rules that govern the interaction change. The psychological interpretation would be that such a system is able to learn from experience.

I want to end this discussion for the moment, but not before sharing with you a glimpse of where all this is leading: If we ask ourselves, what is an organism? What is the essence that makes something alive, and what makes a system an active, behaving system? It is my belief that such a system is a developmental interactive system and that most of what we call 'the organism', is in fact interactional structure that has developed, both on philogenetic and ontogenetic timescales, in so called 'layers' (I will explain this in a later blog). Because the newly developed interactional structure has a stability, we often forget that this structure is *interactional*, it is part of the interactional system, not merely 'part of the organism'. In fact, there is no 'organism' if we do not consider it in the context of its environment. But this is for tomorrow!