adaptivity

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Adaptivity is an organism’s capacity to regulate activity in relation to the conditions of its own viability. In Di Paolo’s enactive account as presented here, it connects self-maintenance with meaningful adjustment to improving or deteriorating conditions. It is distinct from autopoiesis as self-production and does not by itself establish consciousness or moral judgment.

Explanation

RB2 introduces adaptivity through the bacterium’s modulation of behavior as internal conditions improve or deteriorate. Food and toxin acquire significance relative to continued existence. The norm is not merely a label attached by a detached observer but belongs to the organism’s precarious self-maintaining activity.

AB explicitly separates the continuous production of a system’s organization from its capacity to regulate activity relative to viability. These are related achievements, not interchangeable definitions. RB2’s sense-making account links adaptive self-regulation with embodiment as constitutive rather than treating the body as an optional input to cognition.

Continuity into more elaborate cognition does not settle where feeling begins. The corpus leaves artificial self-maintenance as an open boundary question while distinguishing learned representations and imposed rewards from having something matter. A system’s flexible performance alone should not be credited with organismal stakes or authorial answerability.

Scope and attribution

Preserve the enactive attribution and organismal scope.

AB — The Actual Book

Self-production and viability-relative regulation are expressly distinguished.

Occurrence locators: Notes: 241.

PB — The Possible Book

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: Reproduced AI exchange: 15.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Di Paolo’s adaptivity connects bodily regulation with sense-making.

Occurrence locators: 6, 49, 51, 52, 76, 128, 129, 181.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

The possibility of engineered self-maintenance remains open and contested.

Occurrence locators: 79, 157; Reproduced AI exchange: 398.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.