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

Criticality in autopoietic (living) systems is not merely a state the system can be in, as in non-living dissipative systems, but a mode of operation that defines the system as living. This mode, present from the earliest autopoietic systems, develops qualitatively new forms as the nervous system scales. In the nervous system, this mode realizes non-factorizability as a stable operating condition. This reframing clarifies that epilepsy and coma are not opposite ends of an activation spectrum but structurally distinct failures of this critical mode in opposite directions.

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.