What defines the boundary between a network of life and systems that is one organism and the greater network in which that organism lives?
In our discussion last Wednesday, it was mentioned that “I” is sort of superficial because “I” (referring to a single human body) is actually referring to a combination of systems and networks including, the digestion system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, the vascular system, and all of the tissue networks that make up those systems. So when was “I” distinguished as an organism?
In part, “I” is classified an organism because it has a certain amount of (but far from complete) independence. As Johnson describes in Emergence, emergent systems are not necessarily intrinsically good or intrinsically bad, but “rely extensively on feedback, for both growth and self-regulation” The human body is able to regulate itself and adapt to dynamic conditions in the systems within which it lives based on feedback loops within the body. The other part that Separates “I” from the sea of networks inside it and surrounding it is an identity, which encompasses all of the systems inside, but not all of the networks outside.
By this logic a city could be considered an organism if it has some amount of independence from other systems outside it and an identity that encompasses all of the systems and people inside it, but not those that live elsewhere. Or any part and population of a city that has its own identity that is separate from others in the city can be its own organism. Maybe when Mumford’s said, that a city cannot grow beyond a certain size because it will loose its “vibrant public culture”, what it meant was the city-type organism cannot grow beyond a certain size before it must split into a city made of multiple organisms. At some point the organism decoheres.
