Machines Are Structurally Open and Operationally Closed

While machines draw on inputs or flows upon which to perform their operations, they cannot draw on all the possible inputs available in the world, nor do they relate to the inputs that they draw upon in the way those machines functioning as flows are for themselves. With respect to this first point, machines “specify” the flows or machines to which they are open. It is in this respect that they are “structurally open” to a world beyond themselves (see Maturana and Varela 1998: 79). However, it is not the case that machines are open to all flows available in the world. Rather, machines are only open to a small subset of existing flows. This subset will differ from machine to machine. As a consequence, it is not the case that everything can relate to everything else, nor that everything is related to everything else. This is for the simple reason that machines are not structurally open to all possible flows issuing from other machines.

Hopefully a few examples will suffice to illustrate this point. The mantis shrimp has far more advanced vision than humans. This isn’t simply because they are able to see things with greater clarity or at greater distances. Rather, they are able to see things that we are not able to see at all. Where humans can only see combinations of three primary colors, mantis shrimp can see eleven or twelve primary colors (Minard 2008). Mantis shrimp are able to see polarized light, including circular polarized light, whereas humans are not. Likewise, mantis shrimps are able to see infrared and ultraviolet light, whereas we are not. In short, mantis shrimp are open to flows of electromagnetism (light) that are all but non-existent for human beings. They are structurally open to flows entirely invisible to us because of how their eyes and nervous system are put together.