From State to Mode: Criticality and Non-Factorizability as Constitutive Properties of Living Systems

Summary

Criticality in living systems is not just a state but a mode of operation that enables non-factorizability, a property linked to consciousness. This mode develops from simple autopoietic systems to complex nervous systems, where it stabilizes non-factorizability. This reframes epilepsy and coma not as opposites on an activation scale but as distinct breakdowns of this critical mode.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In earlier work, the phylogenetic sequence from autocatalytic autopoiesis through the causal core and electrification to defactorization was developed as a reconstructive derivation of the biological conditions of phenomenal consciousness. Non-factorizability appears there as the result of the fourth tipping point, criticality as its physical realization condition. The present article shows that both properties follow the same logic in the scaling sequence: they are present in autopoietic systems from the very beginning and develop qualitatively new forms with the scaling of the nervous system. This shared logic has remained implicit in previous work; making it explicit is the contribution of this article. The decisive difference from non-living dissipative systems lies in the fact that criticality there is a state a system has, whereas in autopoietic systems it is a mode in which the system operates as a living one. In the nervous system, this mode takes the specific form that realizes non-factorizability as a stable operating condition. The conceptual explanatory gain of this precision becomes apparent at two clinical phenomena: epilepsy and coma can no longer be understood as opposite points on an activation axis, but as structurally distinct failures of the same critical mode in opposite directions.

Tags