Practopoiesis+Quote

This paper connects ideas in cybernetics and biology (autopoeisis), and provides a good framework for theory of multi-level adaptive networks.

A particularly important idea in this paper is about traverses, which is roughly the number of adaptive layers involved in an enactive cycle. Having only one level is similar to being a first-order (vs. second-order, see Beer and others) cybernetic system. With one layer, we have roughly a thermostat. A system that feeds back a signal, typically an indexical sign giving the absolute or relative index (of temperature in a thermostat). In this paper, Nikolic says that one layer isn't enough to evolve, that you have to have layers where adapting at a higher level is enabled via adaption at a lower level. When behavior is explressed at the higher level, the lower level is being validated and adapted by environment feedback.