Control mechanisms: Explaining the integration and versatility of biological organisms

Abstract

Living organisms act as integrated wholes to maintain themselves. Individual actions can each be explained by characterizing the mechanisms that perform the activity. But these alone do not explain how various activities are coordinated and performed versatilely. We argue that this depends on a specific type of mechanisms, control mechanisms. We develop an account of control by examining several extensively studied control mechanisms operative in the bacterium E. coli. On our analysis, what distinguishes a control mechanism from other mechanisms is that it relies on measuring one or more variables, which results in setting constraints in the control mechanism that determine its action on flexible constraints in other mechanisms. In the most basic arrangement, the measurement process directly determines the action of the control mechanism, but in more complex arrangements signals mediate between measurements and effectors. This opens the possibility of multiple responses to the same measurement and responses based on multiple measurements. It also allows crosstalk, resulting in networks of control mechanisms. Such networks integrate the behaviors of the organism but also present a challenge in tailoring responses to particular measurements. We discuss how integrated activity can still result in differential, versatile, responses.

Teleology and mechanism: a dialectical approach

“…This circular self-determining nature is what allows us to characterize such systems as intrinsically purposive. This view is slowly beginning to make way in the neo-mechanist literature, which has most recently been engaged with the metaphysical foundations of mechanistic explanation (Winning & Bechtel, 2018;Winning, 2020aWinning, , 2020b and its relation to the autonomy tradition , 2022a, 2022b.…”

“…For purposes of discussion we will still maintain this tripartition as heuristically valid. potential integration between neo-mechanism and the autonomy framework (Bechtel, 2007;, 2022a, 2022bWinning & Bechtel, 2018), while others argue that this should lead us to call into question the primacy of mechanism and reevaluate teleology as a legitimate explanatory principle (Fulda, 2017;Sultan et al, 2022;Walsh, 2015Walsh, , 2018. Hegel is certainly not a reference for any of these developments, yet his account establishes a fitting metaphysical foundation for them.…”

Reductionistic Explanations of Cognitive Information Processing: Bottoming Out in Neurochemistry

“…That is the perspective adopted in this paper. 5 Single cell organisms also require such control mechanisms; for discussion, see Bich and Bechtel (2022). 6 The concept information has been characterized in different ways.…”

“… 5 Single cell organisms also require such control mechanisms; for discussion, see Bich and Bechtel (2022) . …”

Coherent causal control: a new distinction within causation

“…Control mechanisms and biological regulation The notion of control mechanism is widespread in biology, but the question what distinguishes them from ordinary mechanisms has not been discussed much. A notable exception is Bich and Bechtel (2022). They suggest that a distinguishing feature of such mechanisms is that they measure one or several variables and adjust the activity of other mechanisms according to value of the measured variable(s).…”