Chapter 1: Introduction to Bionics and Organology

"The individual who seeks to exert control over others creates the android machine." (Gilbert Simondon)

"Technology is essentially the strategy of existence." (Oswald Spengler)

The skeptical stance of certain French theorists towards Norbert Wiener's 1948 work, "Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine," is well-documented. Figures like Gilbert Simondon and Georges Canguilhem voiced critical perspectives on various elements of Wiener’s research. In his 1958 book, "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects," Simondon contests Wiener's methodology, asserting that categorizing technical objects by species and genus is flawed. He argues that technology should be viewed as a functional organization, emphasizing that "there are no species of automatons; there are merely technical objects, each exhibiting various degrees of automatism." (Simondon, 1980: 42).

This critique serves to highlight a perceived "fetishistic" view within humanistic culture, which often regards aesthetic objects as superior while sidelining technical artifacts. Simondon points out the contradictory nature of the relationship between technophilia and technophobia, where an idolization of technology manifests as a mythic representation of anthropomorphic robotic figures.

In essence, Simondon posits: “Our goal is to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a robot; a robot is no more a machine than a statue is a living being; it is merely a product of human imagination, a manifestation of illusory art.” (Simondon, 1980: 12).

Norbert Wiener (1894–1964)

Simondon’s critique extends to the fundamental assertion of cybernetics that living beings and self-regulating technical objects are identical. He challenges this premise through his understanding of the lineage or genealogy of technical objects, proposing that their evolution is characterized by two primary trends: abstraction (pertaining to the original technical elements) and concretization (reflecting the evolutionary trajectory of technical objects). Consequently, he asserts that "the most that can be said about technical objects is that they tend toward concretization, while natural objects, such as living beings, are concrete from the outset." (Simondon, 1980: 42).

In a 1947 lecture titled "Machine and Organism," Georges Canguilhem introduced an alternative view on the relationship between humans and technology, advocating for a field of study termed organology. This idea of a general science of organology is echoed by Simondon, who compares technical elements—infra-individual technical objects—to the organs of living organisms, suggesting they can be "transplanted" among different machines. This science would encompass the study of technical objects at the elemental level and would be integral to the study of technology, including mechanology (Simondon, 1980: 56).

Canguilhem posited that the relationship between machines and organisms has been largely examined from a singular perspective: attempting to explain the structure and function of living beings through the lens of constructed machines. Rarely, however, has the design of machines been understood by analyzing the structure and function of living organisms.

The rationalism that dominated 17th-century Europe, particularly in the works of Descartes, significantly contributed to the prioritization of science over technology, implying a preference for theoretical knowledge over practical applications. Mechanistic biologists and philosophers viewed machines as merely "solidified theorems," manifested through secondary construction operations, a perspective influenced by the Greek philosophical tradition, especially by Plato and Aristotle (Canguilhem, 2011: 108).

Descartes meticulously articulated mechanical analogies to explain human functioning, referencing spring-driven automata and hydraulic machines, utilizing the most evident technical forms of his time. His mechanical interpretation of life assumes the existence of automatic generators of movement (motors), aligning the heart—termed primum movens—with a spring, as noted by Baglivi (1668–1706): "What are muscles but cords? What is the ocular angle but a pulley?"

Canguilhem argues that the Cartesian dominance of mechanistic interpretations of biological phenomena restricted the possibility of understanding organisms through the lens of machines. The rationalist inclination to reform science according to a universal mathematical model led Descartes to insist on grounding knowledge in indisputable rational bases, anchored in clear and distinct ideas.

This rationalist approach distanced itself from empirical experience, thereby subordinating technology to scientific doctrine and theoretical knowledge. This determination also reflects historical influences from Christianity, wherein the "watchmaker of the world" could only be God, the Artifex Maximus. In summary, the "animal-machine theory would be to life what an axiom is to geometry: merely a rational reconstruction, which, through a clever ruse, ignores the existence of what it represents and the precedence of production over rational legitimization." (Canguilhem, 2011: 121).

Gilbert Simondon (1924–1989)

Canguilhem identifies a positive aspect in Descartes's mechanical explanation of life—specifically, the transition from an anthropomorphic (political) end to a theological one—wherein the movements of organs are interlinked like chained gears, with movement and direction preordained by God.

Thus, in Descartes, the political image of command is replaced by a mechanism or game of mechanical connections; this concept pushes the notion of machines as builders/repairers to its limits, yet the mechanistic model fails to address the analytical realm of production versus the genesis (invention) of machines.

Conversely, Hobbes posits that law, as a legal order, facilitates the absolute power of sovereigns over bodies. Canguilhem advances the hypothesis, following Raymond Ruyer, to view machines as organs of the human species: "A tool, a machine is an organ, and organs are tools or machines."

However, there are differences in purpose: "machines possess more definitive ends than organisms, as their purposes are rigid and univocal. A machine cannot simply replace another… In contrast, within organisms, we observe a vicariance of functions and a polyvalence of organs."

The subsequent discourse from Canguilhem's conference paves the way for understanding the historically hierarchized distinction between theory/knowledge and technique, emphasizing a scientific analysis of technology grounded in an understanding of the physics of machine operation. This perspective suggests that technical invention is an application of knowledge, contrasting with the "absolute chronological and biological precedence of machine construction over knowledge of physics." To support this, he refers to § 43 of Kant's "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment," where Krannhals interprets Kant as recognizing that all technology inherently possesses a vital originality that resists rationalization.

Canguilhem also references various ethnographers (like Leroi-Gourhan) who are closer to forming a philosophy of technology, which philosophers have often overlooked, focusing instead on the philosophy of sciences. Within philosophy, exceptions include Alfred Espinas and Ernst Kapp, whose vital projection theory explains the construction of early tools as extensions of moving human organs.

Georges Canguilhem (1904–1995)

This embodies the core of the thesis on original technicity or the "logic of supplements" conveyed through continental philosophy, wherein technology serves as a constitutive prosthesis of humanity. By considering technology as a universal biological phenomenon rather than merely an intellectual operation, we inscribe the mechanical within the organic.

"This solution we attempt to justify," says Canguilhem, "has the advantage of demonstrating humanity's continuity with life through technology, bringing forth a new area of inquiry called Bionics, which explores biological structures and systems for technological transfer and application across scientific and engineering fields."

Chapter 2: Organology, Transduction, and Transindividuality

"What we need is not merely a translation but a transduction." (Gilbert Simondon)

Both Canguilhem and Simondon use the term organology infrequently, such as in "Machine and Organism" or "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects." However, Canguilhem notes that Bergson was one of the few French philosophers to view mechanical invention as a biological function, suggesting that his work "Creative Evolution" could be regarded as a general treatise on organology.

Simondon characterizes the notion of a general science of organology through transductive processes among various levels of technical objects: the technical element (infra-individual technical object), the machine, and the technical ensemble.

Every technical object possesses an ontogeny marked by invention (technical essence), evolving from the initial moment of abstraction to its development and concretization. This technical evolution is supported by functional synergies and mutations influenced by the environment (both geographic and technical) and historical diachrony, as well as by specialization and/or adaptation.

Drawing from evolutionary philosophy, ethnography, and the theory of organic projection (Ernst Kapp), technology can be understood as a universal biological phenomenon (bionics), also relating to the critiques by Simondon and Canguilhem of concepts such as information, medium, background, form, energy, matter, individuation, and transduction.

Bernard Stiegler (1952–2020)

For Simondon, the interconnectedness of humans and machines (technical ensemble) represents the true foundation of a philosophy of technology, where issues of self-regulation, information, and synergy arise. Following a phase technically governed by thermodynamics and energetics, the encoding-decoding of magnetic memory (archive) marks the transition from the concept of form to that of information, indicating a stage where the coupling between the two entities (machine and human) exists concretely. Thus, machines capable of self-regulation require humans as associated beings, not merely as "operators" of machines.

A philosophy of technology observes the "technical life" generated by the informational relationship between humans and machines, distinct from a cybernetics focused on the efficacy of communication control and a technocratic philosophy that spreads power and domination through machines (Simondon, 2007: 144).

The relationship between humans and open machines—those functioning with margins of indeterminacy, receiving and transmitting information—is transductive, indicating modulation between potential (virtual) and actual (real) through the transductive operation generated by the conservation of information (Simondon, 2007: 158–160). Simondon perceives machines not merely as producers or consumers of information but as transducers of information. A margin of indeterminacy or incompleteness constitutes the inherent technicity of the technical ensemble (sociotechnical collective).

The static notion of form becomes inadequate for conceptualizing transduction, as the theory of form overlooks meta-stability (the meta-stable equilibrium). It is essential to replace it with the notion of in-formation (significant form). The capacity for transduction is shared between humans and machines, yet it is the "living" that, in its problematic dimension—generative of becoming and mediation—operates within a theater of individuations, advancing from meta-stability to meta-stability.

An individual is not solely determined by the environment or pre-individual nature; rather, it is not a mere apathetic fish immersed in a cybernetic aquarium of symbolic waters, nor a machine responding merely to stimuli through movements. "It is an engineer responding to signals through operations." (Canguilhem, 2011: 156). In this context, we can understand information as the formula for individuation (Simondon, 2009: 36) or the transductive operation generating ongoing individuation.

Transduction may be viewed as a vital operation expressed in the sense of biological individuation; it can function mentally—thinking transductively means mediating between different orders and connecting heterogeneous realities, transforming them into something new—and represents the true progress of invention, neither deductive nor inductive (Simondon, 2009: 39). A transductive event articulates disparate realities, bringing forth what previously existed separately.

McKenzie Wark (1961)

It is crucial to recognize that the technical and philosophical notion of transduction owes its ontogenesis to both the field of electronic engineering, which converts forms of energy into signals and information through the transductive properties of components (e.g., Microphone—converts sound vibrations into electrical signals), as well as to the field of molecular bioengineering, where genetic transfer processes among bacteria are commonly mediated by bacteriophages or alternative methods termed viral vectors.

As individuation occurs within technical objects (technicity) and human subjects at both individual (psychic) and collective levels, these processes are reciprocally interconnected, giving rise to a transindividual dimension of technical ensembles (the human-machine interconnection) through meta-stable mediations, which, in turn, generate ongoing individuation (internal resonance, progressive iteration).

However, it is essential to acknowledge a fundamental distinction between living and non-living entities in their respective transductive individuation processes: topologically, the transductive individuation of non-living entities (e.g., transduction in crystals) occurs at the surface (boundary), maintaining stability in previous layers; whereas in living elements (organisms), both the interior and surface grow through regeneration and interdependence, with cellular processes replicating (cellular mitosis) while reproducing the chromosomal interior. Thus, the notion of "membrane" becomes crucial, as will be explored further.

This distinction bears tangible implications for Simondon's philosophy, particularly regarding the potential disjunction between interior and exterior, which generates tensions and complexities—illustrated by the idea of a meta-stable equilibrium. Meta-stability refers to the provisional balance achieved when a system rich in potential differences resolves inherent compatibilities by restructuring itself, both topologically and temporally.

The essence of transductive technology lies in mediating relationships among people, machines, things, and animals. However, it is essential to note that technical mediation does not connect directly but modulates the relations of hybrid sociotechnical collectives. One of the advantages of mediations is their relative stability and iterability, contributing to the deceleration of lethal instability within collectives. Yet, it is also due to a lack of synchronization that bodies can relate to each other within a sociotechnical collective (Mackenzie, 2002: 68–74).

Technical mediations create topological folds within social relationships, thereby facilitating their durability (Mackenzie, 2002: 84) through delay. Folds that fold infinitely and unfold to the extent of development assigned to the species, as the organism is infinitely mechanized, constituting "machines of machines, to infinity" (Deleuze: 21).

This meta-stable, bionic, transductive, and transindividual organizational multiplicity of sociotechnical collectives corresponds to a general organology, which has now been expanded into various specific and concrete organologies. The organology developed by Bernard Stiegler, referred to as "psychotechnologies of transindividuation," is currently applied at the research center coordinated by Stiegler and Vincent Puig at the Centre Pompidou.

Stelarc: Ping Body

In the artistic realm, Stelarc is widely recognized for his technological advancements in his work "Ping Body." Stelarc connected his body to various interfaces—computers, modems, sensors, monitors, etc.—linking it to the Internet, allowing the diverse "pings" from network users to transduce into electrical impulses within his muscles. According to the technical diagram of "Ping Body," the technical system does not exhibit a fully determined context, requiring a degree of structural indeterminacy for its functionality. Hence, there exists no technical system or support in isolation but rather a meta-stable transductive relationship between the artist's body, machines, the Internet, and network users.

Due to the inherent incompatibility between the affective (body's affections) and various mechanisms and machines, the technical event "Ping Body" exists and individuates within a dynamic relational context, in a reticular medium with varying degrees of determination and indeterminacy. In this regard, Stelarc's techno-performative work illustrates the emergent properties previously highlighted by Gilbert Simondon: transduction, transindividuality, and meta-stability.

Chapter 3: Biotransductions

"Technical mediations can saturate life." (Adrian Mackenzie, 2002)

In Simondon's description of individuation, the emergence of the individual interrelates with the unfolding of pre-individual nature and the associated environment. The "pre-individual nature" can be understood as the world and the common life shared among organisms: the cosmos. In this topologically baroque world, the transindividual is neither interior nor exterior to the body but a continuous folding and unfolding between the interior and exterior.

The concept of the membrane becomes pivotal in Simondon's topology, as it represents the most significant mediating element of life: cell permeability, polarized and asymmetrical, underpins all its functions. Beyond being a living element, the membrane sustains the environment of interiority concerning the external milieu, functioning as a force of connection, a linkage, and a nexus (Boucher: 97). From this perspective, life exists relationally, maintaining a crono-topological structure, where topological individuals are also chronological, as time disrupts spatial coherence through the inherent unfolding of the transindividual process.

In the realm of synthetic biology, protocells—primitive cells emerging at the origin of life on Earth—are commonly employed in genetic engineering for in vitro synthesis of RNA (ribonucleic acid) enzymes, aiming to create a synthetic protocell that spontaneously replicates the membrane and genetic information—the two fundamental components of a cell—thereby imitating life replication ("living technique").

Protocells operate at the boundary between a physical exterior and a biological interior, maintaining a transductive relationship through the cell membrane. "Living techniques" are those whose processes of becoming are ontogenetic, not necessarily biological in the literal sense. They are, however, relational techniques aimed at generating life.

According to Marie-Pier Boucher, the Simondonian perspective applies to various phases of cellular development, particularly the phase of psychic individuation, which exists in a meta-stable equilibrium—resulting from the transductive tension between the cell and its surrounding solution—striving to achieve its technical concretization and collective individuation at the intersection of the natural and the artificial (Boucher: 105).

Life, now shaped by genetic engineering, has turned into an expansive technological workshop. In Stelarc's "Ping Body," the transduction and collective individuation of the technical ensemble occur among bodies (users and Stelarc) and machines (computers, modems, etc.) in a network. With the rise of bioinformatics and biotechnology, transduction manifests in the interconnection between molecules and information. Bioinformatics treats life as information, applying the grammar of information to biology. Biotechnology raises the issue of how to think transductively about the intersection of life and informatics, with transduction acting as the common strange attractor among technology, humanity, and life. DNA manipulation is increasingly described in computational terms: code, message, error, information transmission.

The concept of the genome as software and the cell as a computer has been integrated into the biological lexicon since the 1940s, fostering a semiotic fusion between genetic information and cybernetic information (Mackenzie, 2002: 177).

Donna Haraway (1994)

In a 1944 text derived from lectures titled "What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell," Erwin Schrödinger proposed the idea of a code-script, suggesting that genes contain a type of code and a genetic mechanism functioning simultaneously as both legislator and executive power.

In 1948, Von Neumann characterized the gene as a "tape" capable of programming the organism—similar to a Turing machine. A few years later, in 1950, geneticist Hans Kalmus deliberately applied cybernetic thought to the issue of heredity, proposing that the gene carried a "message."

This chapter also highlights the contributions of Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener to the development of information theory applied to communication, which has shaped the understanding of hereditary processes as information transfer—particularly in the research of genetic biologists James Watson and Francis Crick (1953). Since then, the blending of genetic information and cybernetic information, along with the conception of the gene as software, has persisted as an operational dogma of genetic biology (genetic determinism).

In fact, two distinct notions of information have been erroneously conflated. While information in the genetic code (biological information) is perceived as encompassing all the instructions necessary for the subsequent development of an organism over time, information within communication theory (technical information) assesses the degree of uncertainty within a signal—noise and coding errors—and the efficacy of transmitted and received messages—command and control. The empirical distinction lies in that an error in technical communication is not necessarily fatal; however, in genetics, it can mean the difference between life and death (Mackenzie, 2002: 178).

The characterization of the cell as an intricate mechanism is not novel; indeed, it has been prevalent since the 17th century, the height of Cartesian rationalism, coinciding with the discovery of the microscope and the cell by Robert Hooke (1665). Today, the difference lies in this mechanism taking on the form of a complex bioinformatic architecture, anchored in the use of networked supercomputers.

As exemplified by IBM's Blue Gene, such supercomputers have been crucial in initiating the complete sequencing of the human genome, a motivation that significantly expanded the biotechnological dogma that life is "constituted and connected by recursive and repeated flows of information" (Donna Haraway, cited by Mackenzie, 2002: 181).

The Human Genome Project enabled the linear coding of 6 billion pairs of human DNA contained within a cell nucleus, measuring just 0.005 millimeters in diameter, now stored in vast databases.

From a transductive and transindividual perspective, the challenge posed by the convergence of informatics and biology lies in merging techniques for organizing and disseminating scientific knowledge and the concepts and techniques of life sciences. Hence, the question revolves around how to utilize and represent the conceptualization of DNA as information.

Through the metaphor of "map," one can grasp the molecular biology's intention behind "conquering the map of the human genome as a biopolitical territory." (Donna Haraway, cited by Mackenzie, 2002: 186).

The transition from a vertical diachronic representation provided by the tree of life (phylogenetic tree)—constructed through the work of naturalists and evolutionary biologists like Charles Darwin or Ernst Haeckel—to a horizontal representation (book of life) achieved through the stratigraphic cutting of genetic sequencing used to identify homologous genes among different species, was largely facilitated by software employing genetic algorithms.

The character sequences resulting from the coding of proteins or DNA thus equate to the manipulation of editable (hyper)text, allowing for the generation of unprecedented gene sequences or new proteins through insertion, substitution, and deletion operations, potentially useful in developing new biopharmaceutical products, transgenic organisms, or genetically modified foods.

This emergent biotechnological industry, resulting from the intersection of nature, capitalism, and bioengineering, simultaneously generates stock market speculation and the financialization of scientific research, while also fostering a new technological culture that produces a new state of language and writing: "Speaking and writing in the age of digital codes and genetic transcriptions no longer bears any familiar meaning." (Sloterdijk: 1).

Indeed, it is now possible not only to store transcribed and coded DNA in digital memories but also to reverse the process, using the essence of life as a medium for storing digital information, thus completing the biotransductive mediation within the sociotechnical collective (biotechnological apparatus).

The continuous advancement of computational technology, generally applied to the military industry—for example, the increased speed and computational power of supercomputers driven by the need to simulate the functioning and effects of the atomic bomb—has given rise to a mathematical metalanguage capable of making Physis "speak" about its hidden and inaccessible properties, thus enabling science to access a non-human time, tracing back to the Earth's ancestry and the origins of life.

In terms of biotechnological interferences, two fundamental critiques emerge. One, of an ecological nature, as for the first time, a culture begins to select life forms (both human and non-human) without regard for the effects on the ecological, cultural, or economic network, nor for the connections binding living things together (Mackenzie, 2002: 203). This advocates an atomistic view of life simply because it possesses the power to intervene in the individuation of beings, thus neglecting the collective transindividuation; a recent ecological controversy centers around the intention to "resurrect" prehistoric animals.

Another critique, advanced by Peter Sloterdijk, is anti-metaphysical, drawing from Heideggerian exegesis reflected in the "Letter on Humanism," emphasizing that the modern technique's essence cannot exclude Heidegger’s position regarding the uncovering that governs it: "an exploration imposing upon nature the claim to provide energy, which can then be harnessed and stored."

This form of "exploration" is intrinsic to the metaphysical schema that has prevailed in the West since Plato, mirroring the division of being into subject and object, as well as between master and slave, and between worker and matter.

In technology, this bivalent logic sustains what Sloterdijk terms allotechnological—a technology of subjugated otherness, "an obsolete technology that places the world of things in a state of ontological slavery." However, with the advent of information, Sloterdijk argues, the old image of technology as heteronomy and slavery (to matter and people) loses its credibility. With intelligent technologies, a non-dominant (transhumanist) form of technological operativity emerges, to which Sloterdijk suggests the term homeotechnology.

Nonetheless, it is still the regressive allotechnological apparatus (the psychological sediment of paranoia) that continues to exert its influence as a world power. Under these premises, it is no coincidence that the capitalist race for the genome and its economic exploitation is described as a cognitive war (Sloterdijk: 7).

The "cognitive war" surrounding genetic patents has become a genuine battleground for intellectual property registration, particularly for Genetically Modified Organisms, with extensive ethical and ecological ramifications. Consider, for instance, the case of transgenic seeds monopolized by the biotechnology company Monsanto, leading to adverse consequences for various agricultural practices and human health due to the use of Roundup Ready Crops.

In the context of biopower exercised by global allotechnological economic powers, a close connection exists between the establishment of a capitalist society and the birth of biopolitics: "The control of society over individuals has been realized not only through consciousness and ideology but also in and with the body. For capitalist society, it was the biopolitical, the biological, the corporeal, that mattered—and nothing else." (Foucault, 2000: 137).

The first video titled "Biotrans - Yesu (1993) - YouTube" explores themes central to biotransductions and the interplay between technology and humanity, providing a historical backdrop to the discussion.

The second video, "Farmacocinética - Biotransformação - YouTube," delves into the pharmacokinetics involved in biotransformation processes, further enriching the understanding of how technology integrates into biological frameworks.