Observer and observed: the problem that observation creates is what it observes. Every description reveals more about the observer’s organization than about the observed system.
The observer is an autopoietic system operating in a cognitive domain. Observation is coordinated behavior within that domain. What the observer sees depends on the observer’s organization, not just on what’s observed.
Example: Describing a cell. The biologist sees membrane proteins, genetic material, metabolic pathways. This description reflects biological training, laboratory equipment, theoretical frameworks, the biologist’s cognitive domain. Another observer with a different organization would generate a different description.
Neither description captures the cell as it really is. Descriptions capture how the observer’s organization coordinates with perturbations from the cell.
This creates the participation problem: observers cannot step outside their organization to access objective reality. Every observation participates in creating what appears. The boundary between observer and observed exists in the observer’s cognitive domain, not in objective space.
The problem intensifies when observers observe other observers. Now organizational closure stacks. What appears isn’t just determined by the observed system’s organization but by multiple layers of observing organizations.
The participation problem dissolves objectivity.
Standard science assumes: objective reality exists independently, observers discover its properties through observation, different observers converge on the same description of the same reality.
Maturana and Varela: observers with different organizations generate different descriptions even while observing identical perturbations. Consensus emerges through structural coupling in consensual domain, not through convergence of objective truth.
This doesn’t make observation useless. Observations work when they maintain autopoiesis and coupling. Effective observation allows continued interaction, accurate prediction, and useful manipulation. But effectiveness doesn’t mean representation of independent reality. It means operational success within cognitive and consensual domains.
Example: Newtonian physics works for engineering. Not because Newton discovered objective laws. Because Newtonian descriptions coordinate behavior effectively in domains where humans build things. Quantum mechanics works differently. Not because reality changed. Because different organizations generate different effective descriptions for different domains.
The observer participates in bringing forth the world they describe. Can’t observe without coordinating perturbations through their organization. The description that emerges reveals the coordination, not the thing-in-itself.
If observation always participates in creating what’s observed:
Objectivity is intersubjective agreement, not truth. When observers agree, they’ve achieved consensual domain coordination. Not discovered independent reality. Disagreement doesn’t mean someone’s wrong. Might mean different organizations generating different effective descriptions.
Science is community practice, not reality discovery. Scientific descriptions coordinate behavior within the scientific community. They work to maintain that coordination. Truth claims are actually effectiveness claims in the consensual domain.
Multiple descriptions can all be valid. If validity means maintaining coupling rather than representing reality, many descriptions can work simultaneously in different domains or for different purposes.
Recognition: When someone sees differently, they’re not necessarily mistaken. Their organization coordinates differently with perturbations. Finding shared understanding requires building a consensual domain through coupling, not proving correct observation.
The Observer and observed participate in bringing forth the world together. No observation without organization. No description without cognitive domain.
What appears depends on who observes. Reality is enacted, not discovered.
@ Lee Greene