Abstract

Michael Polanyi argues that in the case of both organisms and machines the functionality of the higher level imposes boundary conditions that harness the operations of lower level components in the service of the higher level, systemic whole. Given the science of his day, however, Polanyi understands this shaping of boundary conditions in terms of the operation of an external agency. The essay argues that the science of nonlinear, far from equilibrium thermodynamics in general, and the phenomenon of autocatalysis in particular, explains how the endogenous closure of context-sensitive dynamic constraints shapes their boundary conditions such that self-organized, causally effective properties emerge.