A Naturalizd Account of the Inside-Outside Dichotomy.

Abstract

The first fonn of the inside-outside dichotomy appears as a self-encapsulated system with an active border. These systems are based on two complementary but asymmetric processes: constructive and interactive. The fonner physically constitute the system as a recursive network of component production, defining an inside. The maintenance of the constructive processes implies that the internal organization also constrains certain flows of matter and energy across the border of the system, generating interactive processes. These interactive processes ensure the maintenance of the constructive processes thus specifying a meaningful outside. Upon this basic fonn of identity, the evolutionary and historical domain is open for the emergence of a whole hierarchy and ecology of insides and outsides.