Representing Biology as Process

这个问题——我们是否应该认为世界是由由基本属性静态定义的实体（即哲学术语中的“物质”）组成的，还是作为一个过程，正是由于变化而经历和持续存在的——是一个基本的形而上学二分法，自前苏格拉底时代以来一直争论不休。自从17世纪原子论兴起以来，实体观点一直主导着以科学为基础的哲学。约翰·杜普雷厄斯的erc资助项目，当代生物学的过程本体论，发展了这样一个论点，至少对于生物学来说，这是一个深刻的错误（杜普雷厄斯2012：尼克尔森和杜普雷厄斯，出版中）。杜普瑞尔认为，生命系统在多个空间和时间尺度上总是动态的，它们的持续存在，远非仅仅是对基本属性的持续占有，而是多个过程精细地相互作用的结果。视觉表现对于科学的实践和传播都是必不可少的。然而，尽管过去绘画在形态学和胚胎学等领域发挥了核心作用，但摄影和数字技术的兴起以及对分子而不是整个生物体的日益重视使绘画实践日益边缘化。在完全过程生物学的发展中面临的一个严重问题是，大多数视觉表现强烈地暗示了一个静态事物的领域。例如，一个有机体的呈现将是一个特定的发展“阶段”，通常是成熟的成年人，这混淆了这是发展过程中一个短暂的暂时阶段的事实。即使在像新陈代谢这样明显动态的事物的表现中，例如，将包括代表时间的箭头，自然的阅读将是在固定的一系列事物之间的过渡（例如化学种类）。此外，虽然科学中的视觉图像或“视觉解释”（Tufte 1997）依赖于各种图形设备，从使用视频、摄影到使用计算图形软件、模拟和手绘，这些制作图像的手段在很大程度上依赖于机械模型（用于或用于它们的对象），这些模型已经与它们的生产方法交织在一起。绘画在科学实践中的衰落体现在韦克菲尔德的研究领域——细胞分裂和有丝分裂。20年前，作为一名博士生，他的学习以直接参与为中心，通过显微镜观察和绘制细胞，他自己的博士生现在更进一步，在电脑屏幕上观看细胞的二维表示，并打印出屏幕截图。在过去的5年里，他对这一区别的兴趣与日俱增，导致了与PI的探索性合作，并通过该应用程序与Co-I进行了合作。安德森多年来的工作强调了生命科学中图形技能下降的认知成本。她研究了科学家们如何利用绘画来深入了解他们的主题，在她自己的实践中，在“同构学”的标题下，她开发了分类方法，突出了跨越动物，矿物和蔬菜传统界限的正式相似之处。这项工作是与各种科学家和博物馆馆长合作进行的，并产生了驻留，展览，讲座和研讨会。在同构学项目的基础上，她最近的工作，部分是在与杜普瑞尔的广泛讨论的指导下，开始探索在同构形态学的新标题下表示生物过程的方法。随着人们对以过程为中心的生物学理解的兴趣日益增长，本项目将通过艺术、生物学和哲学之间的创新合作，解决对新颖图像制作实践的需求，以提供更直观的生命系统动态表示。

The question - whether we should think of the world as consisting of entities statically defined by essential properties (i.e. in philosophical jargon, "substances"), or as processes, that undergo and persist precisely because of change - is a fundamental metaphysical dichotomy, debated since the pre-Socratics. Since the rise of atomism in the seventeenth century the substance view has dominated scientifically grounded philosophy. John Dupré's ERC-funded project, A Process Ontology for Contemporary Biology, develops the thesis that for biology, at least, this has been a profound mistake (Dupré 2012: Nicholson and Dupré, in press). Dupré argues that living systems are always dynamic at multiple spatial and temporal scales and their persistence, far from being merely the continued possession of essential properties, is the result of the finely articulated interplay of multiple processes.Visual representation is essential both to the practice and the communication of science. However, whereas drawing in the past played a central role in fields such as morphology and embryology, the rise of photographic and digital technologies and the growing emphasis on molecules as opposed to whole organisms have increasingly marginalized drawing practices. A serious problem faced in the development of a fully processual biology is that most visual representation strongly suggests a realm of static things. For example, the presentation of an organism will be of a particular developmental 'stage', typically the mature adult, which confounds the fact that this is a momentary temporal stage of the developmental process. Even where representation of something as plainly dynamic as metabolism, for example, will include arrows representing time, the natural reading will be of transitions between a fixed array of things (instances of chemical kinds). Moreover, while visual images or 'visual explanations' (Tufte 1997) in science depend on a variety of graphic devices ranging from the use of video, and photography to the use of computational graphic software, simulation and hand-drawing, these means of making images largely depend on mechanistic models (for, or of, their objects) which are already intertwined with their methods of production. The decline of drawing in scientific practice is epitomised by Wakefield's research field, cell division and mitosis. Whereas 20 years ago, as a PhD student, his learning was centred around direct participation, through microscope-based observation and drawing of cells, his own PhD students are now further removed, watching 2D representations of cells on computer screens and printing out screen-shots. For the last 5 years, his interest in this distinction has grown, leading to an exploratory collaboration with the PI and, through this application, the Co-I. Anderson's work over a number of years has highlighted the epistemic costs of the decline of graphic skills in the Life Sciences. She has researched the ways in which scientists have used drawing as a way of developing deep insights into their subject matters, and in her own practice, under the rubric of 'Isomorphology', she has developed classificatory methods that highlight formal parallels cutting across the traditional boundaries of animal, mineral and vegetable. This work has been carried out in collaboration with a variety of scientists and museum curators and has resulted in residencies, exhibitions, talks and workshops.Building on the Isomorphology project, her more recent work, guided in part by extensive discussions with Dupré, has begun to explore ways of representing biological process, under the new rubric of Isomorphogenesis. In line with the growing interest in process-centred understandings of biology, the present project will address the need for novel image-making practices to provide more intuitively dynamic representations of living systems through an innovative collaboration between art, biology and philosophy.