static-curis.ku.dk file · Web viewThe aim of the present research article is to discuss the possibilities and limitations in addressing text as an autopoietic system. The theory

FINAL DRAFT Article published in: Non-typeset version The International Journal of Communication and Linguistic

Studies, Volume 14, Issue 3 by Common Ground Publishing

Text as an Autopoietic System: Possibilities and Limitations of an Autopoietic Account of Digitized Text

Maria Skou Nicolaisen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract:

The aim of the present research article is to discuss the possibilities and limitations in addressing text as an autopoietic system. The theory of autopoiesis originated in the field of biology in order to explain the dynamic processes entailed in sustaining living organisms at cellular level. The theory has been introduced in a slightly altered version to the field of textual scholarship by Jerome McGann. In its original version, the defining traits of autopoietic system functioning are associated with distinguishable boundaries between the system and its environment, a distinction that does not seem easily upheld when applied to cultural or textual phenomena. However, addressing textual agency in such a way allows for fruitful discussions about what constitutes textual organization. This, in turn, allows for addressing the programmability of diverse textual structures in new digital formats. By comparing the biological with the textual account of autopoietic agency, the end conclusion is that a newly derived concept of sociopoiesis might be better suited for discussing the architecture of textual systems.

Introduction:

The main objective of this article is to explore the concept of textual autopoiesis as introduced by textual scholar Jerome McGann. The concept is being analyzed from different angles, beginning with a brief account of its original attachment to the field of biology and ultimately to its more recent deployment in debates about digitized textual organization. The analysis will show similar convictions across the domains for challenging reductionistic conventions—in biology, defining the living system through properties of isolated components rather than looking at its distinct organization, and in present strategies for digitizing textual content—most notably the Ordered Hierarchy of Content Objects (OHCO) that is implored by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines.

McGann’s autopoietic theory of text will prove to have some theoretical bearing for assisting such a critique, but its conceptual premise seems to violate central aspects of the original theory that might not be negotiated in the manner proposed by McGann. It can be argued that in order to assess the legitimacy of conceptual use the following analysis unjustly discards the social context of textual composition—an epistemological foundation for McGann’s theory of textual autopoiesis (McGann 2014). However in order to test whether a cultural phenomenon such as text meets the same conceptual demands and portrays the same operational characteristics as do living systems, such an endeavor seems pertinent. In its original setting, the concept emphasizes a need for clearly distinguishable boundaries in order to assess an operational autonomy within a closed system or circuit. This autopoietic condition must be addressed when seeking to identify whether the same system characteristics apply to textual artifacts. The autopoietic framework, on which McGann builds, enables him to address the convergence of textual technology in a new way. Various insights about the inherent functionality of text relate to this framing.

The textual theory seemingly leaves out central aspects of the original theory, which begs the question of whether such a theoretical framing is suitable for textual constructs. Given the conceptual limitations of autopoiesis for addressing textual and cultural phenomena, it might seem prudent to use a concept less anchored within and restricted by its biological affiliation. The end conclusion of the article will therefore be to urge caution in uncritically accepting the autopoietic label for textual or cultural systems, and to

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introduce the socially adapt concept of sociopoiesis as better suited for addressing complex cultural phenomena. As a humanistic equivalent to the theory of autopoiesis it could provide similar insights without falling short of the boundary condition and without detaching cultural concepts from their equally important sociogenerative traits.

Biological Autopoiesis

The concept of autopoiesis refers to an operationally closed system capable of maintaining and reproducing itself through dynamic, internal processes. It originated within the field of biology as a concept for describing the autonomous self-organization of microorganisms, i.e., the inherent mechanisms of cell construction and formation. Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela introduced and coined the term in the 1970s stating that: “This was a word without a history, a word that could directly mean what takes place in the dynamics of the autonomy proper to living systems” (Maturana and Varela 1980, xvii).1 An autopoietic system is thus capable of reproducing its own components, while remaining stable as a systemic whole. By introducing a new concept and terminology to the field of evolutionary biology, their aim was to challenge an unduly “overemphasis of isolated components” in molecular, genetic, and evolutionary biology (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 187).2

Varela, Maturana, and Uribe promoted a theoretical distinction between successive and autopoietic models to account for complex biological phenomena: “processes that are history dependent (evolution, ontogenesis) and history independent (individual organization) have been confused in the attempt to provide a single mechanistic explanation for phenomena which, although related, are fundamentally distinct” (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 187). Whereas the history dependent processes might be consecutive and linear, the autopoietic processes of individual organization are circular and holistic. Maturana and Varela (1980) argue a shift from trying to establish the properties of isolated system components to looking at the peculiar organizational makeup of the system itself. By failing to consider the distinct organizational feature of living systems, one overlooks the operational determinacy that is their common denominator. Maturana and Varela (1980, 81) observe that organic change is fueled but not instigated by external factors. The state of mutual compensation between the system components is what makes up the system as a whole. The peculiar structure of the system allows for both stability and change. The internal processes allow for the components to be flexible rather than static. The sustainability and relative stability of the system is the result of dynamic processes and operations. This network of components enables and governs the stability of the system, while allowing alteration of the individual system components.

Only to a minimal extent does the observed unity portray these internal processes. Therefore the dynamic operations tend to go fairly unnoticed. Similar to Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory the snapshot at surface level tends to hide an abundance of information underneath. An inevitable consequence of the autopoietic theory is that the underlying processes take precedence over the observable variations. The component properties cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration the network in which they are part. As a systems theory, autopoiesis declares that the “living organization can only be characterized unambiguously by specifying the network of interactions of components which constitute a living system as a whole, that is, as a unity” (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 187). In organic change, the components might change, but the complex interrelations of the internal structure will remain constant. In order to

1 This reference is to the second edition of the English translation of the original publication: “De maquinas y seres vivos: una teoria sobre la organizacion biologica” (1972) in which Maturana and Varela introduced the concept.2 Please note that only Maturana and Varela are considered originators of the theory, while Ricardo B. Uribe’s contribution to this paper is instrumental rather than conceptual.

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examine how an autopoietic system works, it is therefore crucial to address the functional characteristics of the system components.

At first glance the concept of autopoiesis seems to be only procedurally and not paradigmatically closed. Defined as a “complex system [that] is defined as a unity by the relations between its components which realize the system as a whole, and its properties as a unity are determined by the way this unity is defined, and not by particular properties of its components” (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 188), it seems to encourage cross-disciplinary implementation. The definition points to the inherent logic of the system and the functional properties of its components. Additionally Maturana and Varela (1980) seem to welcome cultural and technological adaptations as long as these systems are organized in the same manner as living systems: “living [read biological] systems belong to the class of autopoietic systems [but] for a system to have the phenomenology of a living system it suffices that its organization be autopoietic” (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 189). While biological systems are predisposed to autopoietic agency, the concept is not restricted to that of living systems. Therefore other areas (i.e., text, technology, and discourse) might also be considered autopoietic systems, if they invoke similar structural patterns. Biological systems are a priori autopoietic systems, but the phenomenology can apply to nonliving systems as well. Varela, Maturana, and Uribe (1974) address this issue in emphasizing that “the same organization may be realized in different systems with different kinds of components as long as these components have the [functional] properties which realize the required relations. It is obvious that with respect to their organization such systems are members of the same class, even though with respect to the nature of their components they may be distinct” (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974, 188). The only invariant in the autopoietic account is its organization, which therefore constitutes its definitive determent. Different phenomena and their component particularities can be subsumed under a common operational denominator.

The apparent inclusiveness of the theory is somewhat misleading. While the originators provide a conceptualized framing of how dynamic structures enable and maintain organic systems, it does not fit neatly with cultural phenomena. Even though the autopoietic account might not be strictly limited to biological phenomena, Varela, Maturana, and Uribe (1974) by no means advocate a one-size-fits-all concept. The conditions for the autonomy of the autopoietic system are quite strict and involve a six-point key for determining whether any given unity is to be considered autopoietic or not (Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974). Firstly, the unity has to have clearly observable boundaries because the boundaries facilitate any meaningful characterization of it as a unity. Secondly, the elements have to be constitutive of the unity itself. Thirdly, the unity has to be a mechanistic system that is abiding by specific organizational rules even with emergence and deterioration of its system components. Fourthly, the boundaries of the unity are produced through the autonomous self-organization by the constitutive components within that unity. Fifthly, the boundary components have to be a result of the transformation or coupling of either previously produced components or noncomponent elements. Lastly, all of the components of the unity have to be produced in this manner. If, and only if all of these criteria are met, can a system be considered autopoietic.

Textual Autopoiesis

McGann (2014) adopts the idea of autopoietic organization in his critical theory of text. He uses Maturana and Varela’s more tentative definition of autopoietic machines: “If one says that there is a machine M in which there is a feedback loop through the environment so that the effects of its output affects its input, one is in fact talking about a larger machine M1 which includes the environment and the feedback loop in its defining organization” (McGann 2014, 93). The apparent ease of this definition is problematic, as the previous boundary condition so prominent within the theory is no longer apparent. Even though the above

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definition might not emphasize the need for observable boundaries, it does emphasize operational closure. Within the same context Maturana and Varela (1980) elaborate on their understanding of autopoietic machines that puts forth conceptual restrictions similar to their previous definition. The individuality of the machine is fostered by the condition that “by keeping their organization as an invariant through its continuous production they actively maintain an identity which is independent of their interactions with an observer” (Maturana and Varela 1980, 80). The detachment and objectivity required for establishing autopoietic agency is not easily acquired when examining cultural phenomena. Maybe even more so for digital coding, conventions are fostered by human interaction with technology.

The tentative definition of the machine M1 allows McGann to fairly easily transcend the biological affiliation of the concept and link it to textual technology. The theory seems well suited for addressing digital editing issues, as scholarly editing practices implicitly implore homeostasis as a guiding principle for critical editions.3 The incentive for McGann to introduce the autopoietic concept to textual theory is to emphasize an editorial “focus on [the semiotic] field of relations, and not simply the linguistic text” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 55). In his view markup strategies for digitized text could benefit from addressing these relations. Uncovering functional properties of text and discussing the nature of their internal relations thus becomes the primary scope of his textual account.

McGann’s concept of textual autopoiesis is anchored within a digital setup—more precisely that of the digital editing practice of nondigital originals. By applying the concept of autopoiesis to text, McGann argues that the only invariance to be found in textual constructs is its simultaneous co-creation of record and reflection. Current digital markup practices seek to imitate the bibliographic record as seen in the strategies used by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and in their understanding of text as an Ordered Hierarchy of Content Objects (OHCO). Since its establishment in 1994, the TEI has been an authoritative figure in the digitization of textual material for humanistic scholarship. McGann aims at challenging the assumptions behind conventional TEI markup practices4 by introducing an autopoietic textual account.

The TEI Notion of Text

The standard protocol for the digital encoding of scholarly texts in the humanities,5 the TEI markup language, implies current assumptions about what constitutes text. The TEI is a markup language that primarily uses descriptive markup linked to a monolithic composition strategy. Here text can be understood as a logical hierarchy of content components. The text can be split into ever smaller pieces (book into chapter into section into subsection into paragraph into sentence into phrase into word into prefix/suffix and stem, etc.). The OHCO is a structural definition of text used as the premise for digital markup. Such a markup strategy disambiguates the textual content by creating manageable chunks of text. The OHCO provides a machinereadable structure to the textual material that allows for digital processing. The parameters outline a predefined structuring based on a linguistic ordering of the textual expression.6 By assigning nominal order to textual elements, the content objects are treated as ontological units of text.

3 Buzzetti and McGann discuss various editing strategies, while using the concept of autopoiesis to favor “social text” editing that focuses on text as complex semiotic fields whose social emergence is scored within the text itself (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 55).4 The article appears on the TEI homepage, wherefore one reckons that such a contribution is considered a welcome addition to and by the TEI.5 See www.tei-c.org/Support/Learn/mueller-index.htm.6 The content dimension can in theory be addressed in the same manner, but this will imply the content being defined in ordinal terms.

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In collaboration with Dino Buzzetti, McGann introduces the concept of autopoiesis in order to discuss and problematize current conventions represented by the TEI markup strategy (Buzzetti and McGann 2006). While textual markup practices indeed manage to address structural elements within text, the present strategy only makes minimal use of the potential of markup. The TEI “system is designed to ‘disambiguate’ entirely the material to be coded” (McGann 2014, 92). While making explicit textual structures is crucial for digital markup, McGann questions the current emphasis on linguistic textual structures.

The main problem with this approach to textual agency is that it does not acknowledge the presence of multiple hierarchies (McGann 2014; Renear, Mylonas, and Durand 1993).7 Text can be displayed and organized according to several editorial or analytical purposes, whereas the single hierarchy approach favors only one. Addressing textual components as decontextualized objective units within a textual structure employs a rather limited perception on textual organization and complexity. One predefined organizing principle is used to ensure a logicalhierarchical representation of the textual expression. The fact that “all the elements marked up in a document…must fit within a single hierarchy”8 is enforcing a tree structure that cannot entail multihierarchical readings as well as textual ambiguity and variance. The TEI notion of text emphasizes a logical monostructuring of the textual elements based on the initial Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD allows for a subdivision of the textual structure into chapters, sections, paragraphs, etc. for novels along with abstract, conclusion, and footnotes for academic articles, and into stanza and lines for poetry. For standardized textual constructs, such structural component labels might be sufficient, but this static representation fails to account for the inherent flexibility of the textual system. To McGann this markup strategy is not suitable for poetic constructs as “[h]ierarchical ordering is simply one type of formal arrangement that a text may be asked to operate with, and often it is not by any means the chief formal operative” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 60). By nesting the textual components in a tree structure, the OHCO textual thesis operates with a notion of text, wherein the textual components are a “mere set of hierarchically ordered objects” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 60). As such, the OHCO structure disambiguates the system components, but displays just one aspect of textual structure.

This descriptive approach to markup seems highly selective to a literary and editorial scholar such as McGann because it singles out and favors one editorial approach amongst various others when used as a standard markup language in the humanities. The OHCO displays the text as build up off identifiable and static units and smaller system components because textual ambiguity and variance are either unrightfully fixed or discarded. The apparent stability of the textual system is thus forged onto the digitized text rather than being a characteristic of the text itself. The general consensus among literary critics is that no single universal component exists when it comes to textual constructs. With reference to Susan Hockey, McGann notes that “there is no obvious unit of language [and text]” (McGann 2014, 91). Any attempt to disambiguate the textual components themselves will be unfairly reductionist. Textual components such as word, sentence, syntax, etc., might be seen as obvious semantic units but their role is determined by the context in which they emerge and by the topological field they seek to maintain. Their status and function cannot be determined once and for all. No discrete units of language can be found but must be located with regard to their relational affiliation. At the lower levels, alphabetical characters might in themselves be treated as semantic units, but meaning generally occurs in their relation to various other signs to construct words and sentences. At higher levels, syntax and grammar will have to be provided to make these sentences meaningful (Fish 2011), while text, genre, and discourse are the topological fields in which the autopoietic processes are carried out.

7 cds.library.brown.edu/resources/stg/monographs/ohco.html#sec4. 8 www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/SG.html#SG12.

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With the OHCO approach, textual redundancy, interpretation, and variance are discarded in favor of a highly mechanized understanding of language as built up of somewhat separated individual structural components. Decontextualized system components can much more easily be processed digitally: represented in logical hierarchies of content objects (e.g., structural units of textual expression in digital markup), as numerical values (e.g., the statistical processing of words by Word Frequency Analysis software), or coordinates (e.g., Cluster Analysis based on proximity between documents). As a digital textual scholar McGann appreciates the new digital forms of textual editing and analysis, but as a philologist he argues that if such a notion of text is left undisputed, we will continue to be blinded by the descriptive capabilities of digital markup and overlook the performative potential that also lies within these technologies.

The Dynamic Processes of the Textual System

In order to advocate autopoietic textual agency McGann points to a “polarity that characterizes all semeiotic9 or autopoietic systems” (McGann 2014, 95). This polarity relate to the dual functionality of text as a machine of information as well as simulation (Buzzetti and McGann 2006; McGann 2014).10 Most texts draw implicitly on both functionalities. While “[t]he power of traditional textualities lies…in their ability to integrate [these] different functions within the same set of coding elements and procedures [as bibliographic markup,] SGML [Standardized General Markup Language] and its derivatives are…coding systems for storing and accessing records” (McGann 2014, 95). A digitized text has to comply with both alphabetic and digital coding conventions that each imposes its own limitations on it. Digitized text can therefore be considered a highly complex phenomenon as it exists in the intersection between different technologies. Current markup emphasizes the aspect of text as a machine of memory and information, where text is considered to be documents and records. While such a strategy allows for text to be treated as manageable information objects, it does not address it as a machine of simulation and reflection. As such it fails to take into account how the textual system operates.

McGann differentiates between object and metalanguage (Buzzetti and McGann 2006). Object language is the operational “textual representation” that is part of the text. Metalanguage is the descriptive addition or “representation of a textual representation” that is made to describe a specific feature of the textual object. The organization of the object language can take on both a syntactic and a semantic logical form. The syntactical dimension of the text refers to its structural capabilities, whereas the semantic dimension is focused on its meaning making capacities. While the plasticity of the human mind allows for switching between these logical systems with fairly cognitive ease, the digital medium requires a predefined singular logic. The ease with which we decipher the textual markings of traditional print copies has led to the unfortunate misconception that raw text is unmarked. McGann’s focus is on digitized text and therefore he emphasizes the need to define markup as an additional layer of code on top of already existing bibliographical code.11 Markup is characterized by adding an additional digital structure onto the textual object. It is a metalanguage designed as code to display specific features within the text. While one logic is the OHCO presented by current markup strategies, the autopoietic manner in which the textual system operates might be another.

9 McGann uses semeiotic consistently throughout his book, but not in his co-authored article. One must assume from the spelling that McGann is either following the inclination of the later C. S. Peirce or that he wishes to point to the ethymological derivation of the greek σημεῖον (semeion) meaning sign.The original spelling will therefore be respected in direct quotes, but otherwise the paper will use the more common term semiotic.10 McGann refers to how libraries and literary scholars perceive text differently.11 A similar observation of this dual layering is made by Dutch scholar Adriaan van der Weel with his division between typographic and digital markup (Weel 2011).

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Textual systems can serve two functions: descriptive and operational. As a textual system, markup can behave as an operational object language that is considered either part of the text and thus operates in it, or a metalinguistic description highlighting certain textual features. Even though markup has the capability to perform both of these functions, it cannot both act on and describe the text at the same time due to technological restrictions. Markup holds the potential to reflect both of these logical functions, but as a binary system, it has to switch between them. Digital encoding requires sequential hierarchical structures and clear distinctions between functional categories, descriptors, and operators, in order to display or compute the textual data. As such, it cannot cope with categorical ambivalence. Whereas descriptors function as metalinguistic features to categorize the textual content components, operators are active textual agents within the text itself.

By making explicit the structure or underlying logic of the textual expression, as a metalanguage, markup can assume the role of either a value or a rule for textual organization. Taken as a rule for editors, its status equals that of the textual object and must be considered part of the textual object. As such, it is fixed as an operation that impacts any subsequent editorial decisions. It becomes an organizing principle that restricts the following variations. The equal status of metalanguage and object language results in the emergence of textual variants. Taken as a value, markup is considered to be an external description that relates to the text, but is not considered part of it. For editors this will change the status of the markup and make it subordinate to that of the textual object itself. The unequal status of metalanguage and object language does not result in textual variants but in variant interpretations. The change in status thus allows for different operations to be performed. Both expression and content can function as either rule or value, but the determination/fixation of one will simultaneously leave the other open for indetermination. The negative correlation between the components is a procedural necessity of digital markup. The inherent ambivalence of the textual system is fostered by its systemic complexity. Not only are the states of each component dual sided but so is the nature of their relations. If expression is regarded as fixed as a rule, the content is left undetermined. If the conceptual import on the other hand is regarded to be the organizing principle, its manifestation in concrete formulations can be both diverse and plentiful. The duality inherent in the subunits calls for impermanent codetermination. The codependent relation between the expression and content is a “permanent cycle of compensating actions between determination and indetermination” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 66). However, any organizational determination of either expression or content conversely “leaves the other undetermined and calls for a definition of its correlative subunit” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 66). Dynamic stability thus marks the spot of textual operational dynamics.

McGann’s implicit faith in the potential of markup to imitate the flexibility of human textual cognition bears connotations to that of traditional artificial intelligence research. The hopes of these, however, seem slightly counterfeited by his argument of textual autopoiesis. The simultaneous occurrence of textual processes that allow for human cognition to operate with various operational logics at a time does not comply with digital processing. If the fixity of one allows for relative indetermination of the other, the markup cannot switch back and forth between the two, as it would not be able to enact such an operation. Only one logic can be addressed at a time due to technological limitations of the binary system.

The primary characteristic of digital text is linked to its ability to necessitate alterations in order to ensure stability. The dynamic repositioning of textual expression or content maintains the systemic balance, and the functionality of these components themselves can therefore be considered both cause and effect. Expression and content are in McGann’s words to be considered primary and correlative subunits of the

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textual system (Buzzetti and McGann 2006).12 As such, both their ordinal and relational value is acknowledged. Thus, expression and content seem to be procedurally determined in the same manner as autopoietic systems. The textual system can be characterized by the reciprocal relations between its constituent system components in a state of mutual compensation. Such alterations allow for a thorough theoretical account of textual dynamics but might pose a problem for any practical implementation for markup to function as a mediating device between textual expression and content. It advocates a tentative alternative to the TEI understanding of text that allows for the flexibility of text to be its basic trait and criticizes the notion of text as being a sequential and hierarchically derived logical structure of non-ambiguous components.

An Autopoietic Critique of Current Markup Practices

Equal to the intent of Maturana and Varela (1980), McGann uses the concept of autopoiesis to challenge current conventions within his field of study. Whereas Maturana and Varela (1980) spoke from a position within the field of biology, McGann does so from within the field of philology, textual and literary studies. In stating that “[o]ur analytic tradition inclines us to understand that forms of all kinds are built up from smaller and more primitive units, and hence…take the self-identity and integrity of these parts, and the whole that they comprise, for objective reality” (McGann 2014, 92), McGann problematizes the current take on text as merely a sum of its parts. In his view, however, text is more than the sum of its parts because its internal relations must be taken into account. Initial attempts in digital text editing and processing have sought to identify and structure textual components. However, they have left out the codependent relations that govern textual expression and content. As these internal processes are fairly stable, they can ideally be located and used to set up unambiguous, nondynamic, a priori categories for organizing text as a machine of simulation (McGann 2014).

Similar to the autopoietic critique the OHCO focuses on individual textual and structural component characteristics rather than addressing the inherent dynamics of the textual makeup. In order to appreciate the complexity of the phenomenon at hand, McGann argues that textual mobility and ambiguity must be considered essential to text instead of being overlooked or discarded as noise. The logical structuring of textual snapshots must be combined with an appreciation of the dynamic (re)positioning that defines the intratextual condition. Textual components tend to be bipolar and can thus not be properly represented in a system where everything has its place.

The changing states of the system components are simultaneously cause and effect in an intricate act of mutual compensation and ambivalence. The textual theory presented by McGann therefore emphasizes a need to go beyond concrete linguistic appearances toward analyzing the underlying dynamic operations that govern them. As was the case for biological autopoiesis, the internal organization of the system takes precedence over the individual system components precisely because the variability of these components can only be understood when addressing text in such a manner. The argument for autopoietic agency frames an attempt to point to the self-organizing features of textual agency. In discussing the potential of markup to define, operate with, and eventually imitate latent capacities within the textual makeup, McGann turns away from the illusion of unambiguous system components represented by the OHCO,

12 McGann seems to use the term subunit and component interchangeably, albeit they might refer to different functionalities. Whereas component can be seen as part of a larger systemic unity, which to some extent also holds true for subunits, the subunits imply more self-contained autopoietic entities that might act as components in higher order unities.

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which to him illustrates a simplistic faux pas. In language and text “the basic unit—indeed, all divisioning of any kind—is only procedurally determined. The units [themselves] are arbitrary” (McGann 2014, 92). Any fixed definition of the basic unit of language is problematic as it implies a categorical rather than a dynamic stability. For McGann the intricate relation that governs the textual system components allows for homeostasis similar to that found in living systems. In order to achieve homeostasis the variables within a system are regulated to ensure the stability of the system overall. The codependent relationship between the system components defines both the state and function of themselves as well as points to that of their counterparts. The system is dynamic and stable at the same time because the internal mutability of the individual components is somewhat predictable.

By assigning logical and hierarchical structure to the text, the TEI manages to display certain traits associated with text as a machine of information. However, it leaves out the inherent capacities for simulation and reflection. The reciprocal relation between textual stability and variance shows a textual ambivalence that should be imitated in future encoding procedures. For McGann markup language holds the potential to address both textual descriptors and operators and, as such, can function as a mediator between the textual expression and its conceptual import. The autopoietic organization of expression and content dimensions and the dual states in which they are presented should therefore be mimicked by means of markup. Because the manner in which textual dynamics and ambiguity occur is consistent with that of other autopoietic systems, ideally it can be predicted and formalized as an operating procedure: “Markup, turning to account its operational dimension, can act as a tran[s]fer mechanism between one structure and the other. It can behave as a performative injunction and commute to a different logical condition” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 65). Instead of addressing text as constituting disambiguate and objective signs structured in a sequential and hierarchical manner, the performative injunction brought about by its dynamic nature can guide future markup technology. For McGann, markup should and could ultimately be used to mimic not only textual appearances but also its underlying operations. Such an endeavor requires a reconceptualization of textual organization. This organization should not be considered sequential or consecutive operating procedures, but rather be assigned simultaneous, circular, and holistic organizational patterns already found in the textual makeup.

In order for the computer to operate on text, the computer will have to be given clear, unambiguous instructions. A clearly defined operating procedure is necessary at code level. This inherent need for specificity in digital technology has left little room for textual ambiguity of any kind. The notion of text as a self-identical object consisting of basic and discrete subunits and components has been fueled by digitization. According to McGann, however, text must be considered a semiotic sign system that is equally liberated and restricted by its physical manifestations whether this is the printed codex of the book or physical tokens standing in for binary digits residing in the memory cell of a computer (Buzzetti and McGann 2006). Semantic ambiguity is usually considered an obstacle for digital text processing in Natural Language Processing, wherefore current procedures in computer processing seek to minimize the complexity of the language and to eliminate noise (Vallez and Pedraza-Jimenez 2007). Instead of making technological qualities the premise for text-encoding and decoding, McGann’s theory wishes to address the validity of the conceptual premise on which current text processing procedures lie. Thus, the flexible makeup of text is to become the guideline for technological coding procedures. In his view, ambiguity and variance should not be seen as problems to overcome, but rather as a golden opportunity for digitally replicating the internal processes within the textual organism. In repositioning the inferences as strengths rather than weaknesses or flaws, they can inspire a more dynamic text encoding strategy. For this to happen, however, the formal processes that govern this ambiguity must be located and set as working parameters for textual encoding (Buzzetti and McGann 2006).

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As a philologist as well as an editorial scholar, McGann holds markup in a central position because “only through markup does the formal structure show explicitly at the level of the textual expression” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 60). In the digital world, expression is linked to content but is not equal to it. To McGann, textual formalism as a dynamic function of a calculus able to perform operations on data, whereas textual format assigns structure to the textual data but does not operate on it (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 60–61). Current markup strategy favors the latter in that it applies structure to character strings. It is used as a “coding convention…[or]…a coding mechanism to organize physical tokens into data sets representing information” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 61). Therefore it can only refer to the semantic dimensions of textual content indirectly. When favoring a formally structured syntactic presentation of textual structure, the semantic model for interpretation is left undetermined.

The Inherent Problems of an Autopoietic Account of Text

Theoretically, textual and technological systems might therefore be considered autopoietic systems in so far as they display distinct dynamically viable trait characteristics similar to those of living systems. Precisely because the concept of autopoiesis tries to unmask unambiguous system characteristics as well as allow for variance, the theory seems promising for discussing textual markup. Disambiguation is key to digital text processing, and the autopoietic account introduces a need to refocus. Instead of applying a sequential organizing principle such as the OHCO, the autopoietic account envisions a nonrestrictive markup strategy that does not violate the ambiguity and variance of the textual components. Because textual markup serves the same purpose as chemical processes in a cell, it is therefore to be considered an integral part of the text itself. By failing to notice the necessity of rethinking current markup standards, the dynamic processes crucial to the textual system are fixed within a framework that does not acknowledge their relevance. While digital markup requires unambiguous operating procedures, it does not require the textual components to be equally fixed.

The autopoietic theory of McGann, however intriguing, does not seem to meet the initial demand of operational closure within a clearly defined unity. According to Varela, Maturana, and Uribe (1974), clearly observable boundaries between system and environment are crucial for making any meaningful characterization of the unity. As a cultural phenomenon and especially in the notion of text provided by McGann, no such clear boundaries can be assigned to textual technologies. In what might be seen as an attempt to meet the boundary condition of autopoietic agency, McGann implies a distinction between virtual and manifest textualities (Buzzetti and McGann 2006). These seem to adhere to the notion of autopoietic machines presented by Maturana and Varela (1980). While the manifest text resembles Machine M, the virtual text bears resemblance to Machine M1, which incorporates the environment and feedback loop in its defining organization. Any manifest or concrete textual appearance will refer to the virtual unity as part of that unity. The manifest form does also constitute a unity in itself (the concrete textual occurrence)—albeit at a lower level. The concrete textual object can be an immediate subject of textual analysis. The textual object is restricted, however, in part by the technological markup in which it is presented and in part by the virtual whole that both enables and restricts its mobility. The text is dynamically stable in the sense that it is open to indeterminacy due to the variety of its possible manifestations, but it is not totally unconstrained as the entirety of its latent capacities governs its conditions (Buzzetti and McGann 2006). Conversely “[t]extualized documents restrict and modify, for various kinds of reflexive purposes, the larger semeiotic field in which they participate” (McGann 2014, 94). The codependent relation between the manifest and the virtual text thus portrays similar organizational patterns than does the textual makeup. Each textual manifestation affects and transforms the virtual textual field in which it partakes, while also being affected and transformed by its affiliation to that field. As

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such the former textual unity becomes a component of the higher level, virtual text. Such a multilevel autopoietic theory is fascinating, but becomes fairly problematic for the theory as a whole.

McGann concludes that text is “unsteady and both its content and expression keep constantly quivering” (Buzzetti and McGann 2006, 62). The adaptational capacity of text depends on its dialectic relations with the virtual text. While the virtual text allows for ideological or tentative closure, it does not meet the requirements of an autopoietic system as it is presented by Valera, Maturana, and Uribe (1974). By referring to the virtual text as a transcendental first, whose boundaries can hardly be established, the textual system does not meet the requirements for characterizing it as a unity. In theory, the virtual unity represents a potential framing of the textual unity but does not establish clearly observable boundaries that allow for it to be characterized as a system. Therefore, it is always partly unrealized. The always unrealized whole of the virtual textual universe is counterbalanced by its realized materializations as physical or digital textual objects. These unities might only be fragmentary manifestations of the latent potential of the virtual textual whole, but they can also be seen as realized or fulfilled potential of that whole. Unlike the virtual text, the manifestations that constitute it have more clearly defined boundaries because they are located in physical space either on a printed page or through electronic signals in a computer or portable device. Textual technologies allow for text to assume specific but various forms. The physical text is “coded and scored with human activity” (McGann 2014, 77) and presented through textual technology that “constrains the shapeshiftings of [natural] language [through markup]” (McGann 2014, 92). Emphasis must therefore be placed on addressing text in the intersection of its technological and social emergence.

Reinstating the physical text in a higher order textual system allows McGann to reflect on text as a social phenomenon. The social context, however, seems to violate the initial boundary demands for defining an autopoietic system as a system. According to Varela, Maturana, and Uribe (1974), no meaningful characterization can be made without clearly established boundaries. The virtual text simply lacks these boundaries because its conceptual premise is that it is forever partly unrealized. While the concept of the virtual text brings about boundary issues, advocating the autopoietic nature of markup and coding procedures has been addressed, disputed, and finally denounced by the originators of the theory.

Maturana and Varela (1980) describe the “notion of coding [as] a cognitive notion which represents the interactions of the observer, not a phenomenon [operative] in the observed domain” (Beeson 2009, 187).13 Within cultural phenomena, the interactions of the observer cannot be discarded. Even though McGann to some extent manages to prove textual selfgovernance, the text is laden with human intervention as creator, supplier, encoder, and decoder of the textual components. Text might not be considered autopoietic in that it is not an autonomous system, but to some extent this combination of technological and virtual limitations still allows for it to be self-adjusting in a way fairly similar to living systems.

Within information studies, Ian Beeson (2009) addresses the problems of applying the original concept of autopoiesis. He lists three possible ways to address autopoiesis in culture. The first is to accept the autopoietic critique of information as a non-autopoietic system by rethinking information as a factor in but not a cause for cultural change. The second is to separate the biological concept (and critique) from that of cultural institutions. And the third is to use it as a metaphorical “account, rather than an empirical or scientific one” (Beeson 2009, 188). The latter however might not be advisable because the “danger of taking such ideas as autopoiesis metaphorically is that they may be taken on in a cosmetic or superficial fashion” (Beeson 2009, 189). Even though McGann makes a compelling and very convincing argument for

13 The quote by Beeson is not entirely accurate as it leaves out the term operative without any such indication.

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textual autopoiesis, his theory in some instances does seem to violate the premises put forth by Varela, Maturana, and Uribe (1974). Although he does not dwell on the conceptual origin, he does refer to Maturana and Varela (1980), which indicates that he is familiar with but maybe rather selective of which part of the original conceptual framework he uses. A sociocultural approach to text such as McGann’s necessitates a blurring of boundaries and cannot entail a closed circuit without having to rely on abstractions, such as the virtual text, to establish theoretical closure. Even though this notion might fit within a metaphorical use of the autopoietic account, being an explanatory model for natural phenomena, such an approach will not meet the demands for clearly observable boundaries. If the unity itself is an always unrealized virtual whole, no clear boundaries are to be located. Instead of addressing text as an autopoietic system, the notion of text presented by McGann might therefore benefit from a separation from the original concept.

The challenge of assessing whether cultural and social systems meet the demands of autopoietic systems is by no means an easy task. Not even the originators of the theory provide a uniform answer to that question, because they do not agree amongst themselves (Prew 2010). In an attempt to resolve this question, Prew concludes that societies are both determined by internal autopoietic processes as well as by regulations outside the system itself. While the boundaries for both society and text cannot be clearly defined, sociopoiesis acknowledges the intricate relations between society or text and its social and historical context. For text, the dialectical relation between expression and content, and between the physical and virtual text, can thus be linked to its cultural context as both a technology and as a medium of and for human reflection. While sociopoiesis allows for similar insights to be made, it does not adhere to the same demands for closure as do the concept of autopoiesis. Due to the conceptual limitations for addressing social phenomena Prew (2010) introduces the concept of sociopoiesis as a socially inclined derivative to the notion of autopoiesis. He problematizes the boundary condition of the original concept, and concludes that “societies simply lack a true physical boundary that demarcates and regulates the exchange between the society and the surrounding environment” (Prew 2010, 14). Therefore, a new concept is needed for addressing nature of complex social systems. Substituting “auto” with “socio” allows him to incorporate the sociogenerative traits that do not fully comply with the conditions for establishing autopoietic agency (Prew 2010, 3). This new concept of sociopoiesis puts the theory of autopoiesis into a social network and forms a dialectic approach to cultural phenomena that along the lines of the biological account can address the inherent logic of complex systems, while at the same time acknowledging that these systems are fundamentally different from living organisms. With respect to both material and relational components (Prew 2010), a sociopoietic account of text might equally be used to account for the intricate relations associated with discussing the functionality of markup without stumbling over the biological snares of closure.

Conclusion

Coding and markup technologies are necessary, generative components of any textual system. Along with the primary constituent components, expression, and content, they make up the textual system. The codependent nature of these components can, furthermore, be located at higher level textual agency. The textual organization abides to a principle of mutual compensation that allows it to be dynamically stable. The emergence of digital markup fosters a reorientation of textual organization. While traditional textualities have managed to integrate the different functionalities of text within the same system, the

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technological properties of digital markup requires these to be specified. This can be done through markup. Markup can be either descriptive or operational in a digital setting. Digital markup requires explicit operations and disambiguation of the system components. While the relations between the components are dynamic, they are also fairly stable and should enable a reinvention of current markup strategies to address the codependent relations of the system in a circular, rather than linear, way. At least to some degree text therefore displays organizational traits similar to that of living systems.

What separates the textual from the biological account of autopoiesis, however, is that defining textual agency as a social system violates the original definition. It cannot meet the requirements for clearly observable boundaries that allow it to be defined as a system. Whereas cell walls constitute observable boundaries for the intricate network of biochemical relations within living systems, no such detectable boundaries can be associated with a social account of text. The boundary criterion might be met when accounting for the technological properties of text but such an account amputates the textual system from its cultural context in that the sociogenerative characteristics of textual (re)production are left unaccounted for. In order for the autopoietic theory to apply to text as a cultural phenomenon, the virtual whole would have to be observable in its entirety. While the boundary condition is unproblematic for living systems with actual physical boundaries, it tends to be more problematic for socially situated phenomena. A similar problem is situated in the close interaction between the observer and the observed domain.

Instead of expanding the concept of autopoiesis beyond its reach, the sociogenerative characteristics of complex textual and cultural phenomena can be equally accounted for by introducing a new conceptual framework to the field of humanities and social sciences. Unlike autopoiesis, sociopoiesis did not originate as an explanatory model for natural phenomena and therefore might be better qualified to address complex social phenomena. While the theory of autopoiesis resonates within this new setting, such a reconceptualization can overcome many of the difficulties in applying a framework customized for a qualitatively different domain.

References

Beeson, Ian. 2009. “Information in Organizations: Rethinking the Autopoietic Account.” In Advanced Series in Management, edited by Rodrigo Magalhães and Ron Sanchez, 185– 200. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Accessed October 13, 2015. http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk /11511/2/Autopoiesis-final.pdf.

Buzzetti, Dino, and Jerome J. McGann. 2006. “Critical Editing in a Digital Horizon.” In Electronic Textual Editing, edited by Lou Burnard, Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, and John Unsworth, 51–71.New York: Modern Language Association.

Dekkers, Rob. 2015. “Autopoietic Systems.” In Applied Systems Theory, 151–67. Dordrecht: Springer International. Accessed October 13, 2015. link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-10846-9_7#page-1.

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———. 2014. A New Republic of Letters: Memory and Scholarship in the Age of Digital Reproduction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Prew, Paul. 2010. “Sociopoiesis: How Marx and Autopoiesis May Help Understand Our Relationship with Nature.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Oakland, California, April 8–11. krypton.mnsu.edu/~sy5879je /documents/SociopoeisisPrew.pdf.

Renear, Allen, Elli Mylonas, and David Durand. 1993. “Refining Our Notion of What Text Really Is: The Problem of Overlapping Hierarchies.” Accessed October 13, 2015. cds.library.brown.edu/resources/stg/monographs/ohco.html#sec4.

Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium, eds. n.d. “A Very Gentle Introduction to the TEI Markup Language.” TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 2.8.0. 2015-04-06. Accessed October 13, 2015. www.tei-c.org/Support /Learn/mueller-index.htm.

———. 2015. “A Gentle Introduction to XML.” TEI P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 2.8.0. 2015-04-06. Accessed October 13, 2015. www.tei-c.org /release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/SG.html#SG12.

Vallez, Mari, and Rafael Pedraza-Jimenez. 2007. “Natural Language Processing in Textual Information Retrieval and Related Topics [en linea].” Accessed October 13, 2015. www.upf.edu/hipertextnet/en/numero-5/pln.html.

Varela, Francisco J., Humberto R. Maturana, and Ricardo B. Uribe. 1974. “Autopoiesis: The Organization of Living Systems, Its Characterization, and a Model.” Biosystems 5 (4): 187–96. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Accessed October 13, 2015. homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/MUV.pdf.

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Documents

static-curis.ku.dk file · Web viewThe aim of the present research article is to discuss the possibilities and limitations in addressing text as an autopoietic system. The theory