University of Lisbon (Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia), 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal.
University of Lisbon (Centro de Filosofia das Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa), 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2023 Jul 13;45(3):34. doi: 10.1007/s40656-023-00587-2.
This article addresses some crucial assumptions that are rarely acknowledged when organisms and machines are compared. We begin by presenting a short historical reconstruction of the concept of "machine." We show that there has never been a unique and widely accepted definition of "machine" and that the extant definitions are based on specific technologies. Then we argue that, despite the concept's ambiguity, we can still defend a more robust, specific, and useful notion of machine analogy that accounts for successful strategies in connecting specific devices (or mechanisms) with particular living phenomena. For that purpose, we distinguish between what we call "generic identity" and proper "machine analogy." We suggest that "generic identity"-which, roughly stated, presumes that some sort of vague similarity might exist between organisms and machines-is a source of the confusion haunting many persistent disagreements and that, accordingly, it should be dismissed. Instead, we endorse a particular form of "machine analogy" where the relation between organic phenomena and mechanical devices is not generic but specific and grounded on the identification of shared "invariants." We propose that the machine analogy is a kind of analogy as proportion and we elucidate how this is used or might be used in scientific practices. We finally argue that while organisms are not machines in a generic sense, they might share many robust "invariants," which justify the scientists' use of machine analogies for grasping living phenomena.
本文探讨了在比较生物体和机器时很少被承认的一些关键假设。我们首先对“机器”概念进行简短的历史重建。我们表明，“机器”从未有过一个独特且被广泛接受的定义，现有的定义是基于特定的技术。然后，我们认为，尽管概念存在模糊性，但我们仍然可以为机器类比的更强大、更具体和更有用的概念辩护，该概念解释了将特定设备（或机制）与特定生命现象联系起来的成功策略。为此，我们区分了我们所谓的“通用身份”和适当的“机器类比”。我们认为，“通用身份”-大致来说，假定生物体和机器之间可能存在某种模糊的相似性-是困扰许多持久分歧的混乱根源，因此应该予以摒弃。相反，我们支持一种特殊形式的“机器类比”，其中有机现象和机械装置之间的关系不是通用的，而是特定的，并且基于共同“不变量”的识别。我们提出机器类比是一种比例类比，并阐明了它如何在科学实践中被使用或可能被使用。最后，我们认为，虽然生物体在通用意义上不是机器，但它们可能共享许多强大的“不变量”，这为科学家使用机器类比来理解生命现象提供了依据。
