The Biotic Aspect
Defining the Aspect x
An excellent overview and discussion of this aspect can be found in the 'ideas' drawer. It probably gives a better overview of this aspect than what is written below. Much recommended. Also it discusses enkapsis usefully.
- Life functions
- i.e. things common to animals and plants - more botany and some
physiology than zoology
- Generation, in a life-cycle of development (See below.
- organisms: self-maintaining and distinct from surroundings (See below.
rather than:
- Biology as a whole
- It excludes those parts of zoology that deal with sensitivity, which
come under the sensitive aspect and ecology,
which often covers several aspects.
- Vitality and thriving
- Respiration and feeding: inputs
- Transpiration and waste handling: outputs
- Maintaining self-distinction from environment: biotic 'thingness' or organism
- Integrity of the organism: self-repair
- Relationship of organism with environment: equilibrium and autopoeisis
- Reproduction; Sexuality and Gender
- Survival of individual and species
- Competition
- etc.
- That both plants and animals are essentially the same.
This aspect contributes:
- Survival
- Health
- Growth
- Reproduction
- more to add
Also, systems theory is very much based on a biotic world view.
Competition
Competition is good in this aspect; in Dooyeweerdian terminology, competition is a norm of the biotic aspect. It is what enables vitality to proceed without overloading the planet with biomass. Competition is a means of limiting vitality that is pre-economic. However and unfortunately, competition is commonly seen as a fundamental in economics and in aesthetic; from a Dooyeweerdian view, both economic competition and competition in aesthetica are most likely to be harmful (though many Dooyeweerdian thinkers would disagree with that).
- Applying the concept of survival of the fittest to economics,
international relations and even human relationships. One obtains a very
harsh situation in each case.
Life sciences: botany and some of zoology and physiology. Note that
it is not what is usually taught as 'biology', which covers some of the
sensitive aspect and ecology. However, some ecology is included - that
which deals specifically with how life happens among mixes of species.
- Farms - for food
- Hospitals - exist primarily for health reasons.
- Sewerage systems
- Zoos
Obviously, the laws of life require those of physics-chemistry.
- Tolkien speaks of "carved out of the living rock".
- Economic 'growth'.
- Biotic entities are distinct bodies (systems) that maintain their distinctness from their environment by means of the biotic processes. In this we can perhaps see a biotic anticipation of the analytic kernel of distinction.
It is common in some circles to try to explain all phenomena as results of
the inexorable processes of evolution of species by survival of the
fittest. This is a form of reductionism to the biotic aspect - treating
all of reality as subject to the laws of life-survival.
Some people seem to reduce all human traits to gender - and explain
them in those terms. e.g. Intuition, feeling, sensitivity are
'female' while hardness, power, rationality are 'male'. Also,
part of the reason sexual orientation has been such a media issue
in recent years is the overriding importance we place of sexuality.
See an excellent comment by Magnus Verbrugge.
Dooyeweerd suggested the kernel of the biotic aspect is life functions. Though intuitively we know what this means, when we examine it, 'life functions' is not much help because it begs the question "What is life?" and "What functions do we include as serving life?" Just as Stafleu was dissatisfied with 'energy' as the kernel of the physical aspect, and proposed 'interaction' instead, so Arthur Jones tried to follow Stafleu's method of reasoning for the biotic aspect, and came up with 'generation'. Here we look at two alternative views: first 'organism' then 'generation'.
During 2000 or 2001, on thinknet, a number of thinkers who have some expertise in things biotic suggested that the kernel meaning of the biotic aspect is not life functions but discrimination or distinction. Presumably they do not mean the type of distinction that is kernel of the analytic aspect. What they might mean is that a biotically qualified entity is distinct from its environment and viably so, and viably so over its meaningful lifetime. (By contrast, a mountain or sea, qualified by the pre-biotic physical aspect, cannot be distinct from the planet; see discussion of lack of 'thingness' in the physical aspect.)
To be viably distinct requires most of the life functions mentioned above, especially repair, and the life functions only make sense for distinct organisms.
This leads us to the possibility that Systems Thinking (e.g. Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory, Beer's Viable System Model, Checkland's Soft Systems Thinking, etc.) is heavily relevant to the biotic aspect, and vice versa. But Systems Thinking also has close links with the formative aspect of shaping, creating, assembly, etc.
Also, if Newell's computer systems levels correspond with some of the aspects:
- knowledge level: lingual aspect
- symbol level: analytical aspect
- bit level: sensitive aspect
- component level: ??
- materials level: physical aspect
then the component level should correspond with the biotic aspect. This cannot be so if the biotic aspect is confined to life functions because hardware components are not alive. However, a computer system hardware does, metaphorically at least, require life functions: it consumes our data, breathes electricity, excretes garbage on screen (:-!), and repairs itself. But if the kernel of the biotic aspect were organism, then this makes much more sense.
The possibility that the kernel is organism rather than life functions must be explored.
Arthur Jones, with long expertise in the biotic disciplines, believes the kernel to be best thought of as 'generation'. He wrote:
"I am unconvinced about the kernel as 'organism'. I gave much thought to this in the early 1980s after reading and rereading Stafleu's 'Time and Again' - his book on physics really opened my eyes to the rich potential of Dooyeweerdian analysis in science. After months and years of considering the interplay of analogies and universality, I came to the conclusion in the mid-80s that the biotic kernel should be stated as 'generation' or 'generative activity' (in a life-cycle of development). This is a way of summing up not just reproduction, but all the numerous generative processes that characterise organisms - differentiation, acclimation, regeneration, repair and healing, cell and tissue adjustments, ecological balance and successsion, environmental regeneration, homeostasis etc. I put this forward in the first draft of my 'Science in Faith' in 1986 which I used with science teachers in Nepal. Here is the section from the final published book (CST 1998 pp 40-42)."
This is part of The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Questions or comments would be welcome.
Copyright (c) 2004 Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.
Number of visitors to these pages: 
. Written on the Amiga with Protext.
Created: by16 March 1997.
Last updated: 30 August 1998 rearranged and tidied. 30 July 2000 link to comment by Magnus Verbrugge. 7 February 2001 copyright and email. 5 March 2001 shalom started; moved. 17 May 2001 anticipation of distincion. 20 May 2001 subdir 'comments' renamed 'ideas.' 4 January 2002 Added 'organism' as part of kernel, and the wee discussion about it; added more institutions. 13 January 2002 added comments from Arthur Jones. 9 July 2002 more notes on the kernel. 12 March 2004 competition. 5 February 2005 tidied up the intro and competition, .nav. 24 August 2005 nav to aspects; rewrote organism a bit.