entropy Article Goal Directedness, Chemical Organizations, and Cybernetic Mechanisms Evo Busseniers 1 , Tomas Veloz 1,2,3, * and Francis Heylighen 1   Citation: Busseniers, E.; Veloz, T.; Heylighen, F. Goal Directedness, Chemical Organizations, and Cybernetic Mechanisms. Entropy 2021, 23, 1039. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/e23081039 Academic Editor: José A. Tenreiro Machado Received: 20 June 2021 Accepted: 9 August 2021 Published: 12 August 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Centre Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, B-1160 Brussels, Belgium; evo_busseniers@hotmail.com (E.B.); fheyligh@vub.ac.be (F.H.) 2 Fundacion para el Desarrollo Interdisciplinario de la Ciencia, la Tecnologia y las Artes-DICTA, Santiago 8330307, Chile 3 Facultad de Ciencias para la Vida, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago 8370146, Chile * Correspondence: tveloz@gmail.com Abstract: In this article, we attempt at developing a scenario for the self-organization of goal-directed systems out of networks of (chemical) reactions. Related scenarios have been proposed to explain the origin of life starting from autocatalytic sets, but these sets tend to be too unstable and dependent on their environment to maintain. We apply instead a framework called Chemical Organization Theory (COT), which shows mathematically under which conditions reaction networks are able to form self-maintaining, autopoietic organizations. We introduce the concepts of perturbation, action, and goal based on an operationalization of the notion of change developed within COT. Next, we incorporate the latter with notions native to the theory of cybernetics aimed to explain goal directedness: reference levels and negative feedback among others. To test and refine these theoretical results, we present some examples that illustrate our approach. We finally discuss how this could result in a realistic, step-by-step scenario for the evolution of goal directedness, thus providing a theoretical solution to the age-old question of the origins of purpose. Keywords: chemical organization theory; goal-directedness; cybernetic mechanisms 1. Introduction The notion of goal directedness or purpose has long been considered to be outside the realm of science [1]. Physical science assumes that effects are fully determined by their causes, which lie in the past. Therefore, it does not seem possible for a goal, which lies in the future, to affect phenomena here and now. Yet, the world is full of systems, such as bacteria, people, or organizations, that behave as if they are striving to achieve some as yet distant goal state. That means that whatever their initial state (cause), they will act so as to reach this particular end state, thus making it appear as if it is this end state and not the initial state that determines their course of action. Moreover, this end state is not a natural equilibrium, such as a ball coming to rest at the bottom of a pit, but a far-from-equilibrium state that requires active intervention and therefore a continuing mobilization of energy to achieve and maintain. A solution to this paradox, first suggested in a classic paper entitled “Behavior, Pur- pose and Teleology” [2], was proposed by the theory of cybernetics. Cybernetics introduced the notion of circular causality to explain how an end state can affect an initial state [3]. Although apparently paradoxical, circular causality can be implemented in the simplest case by feeding the output (effect) of a process back to its input (cause). If the feedback is negative, this will suppress any deviations from a “reference” state. This guarantees that, whatever disturbances may drive the causal conditions away from this goal, their effects will be neutralized so that the goal state is dependably achieved. This can be illustrated by a heat-seeking missile, which continuously monitors the difference between its position Entropy 2021, 23, 1039. https://doi.org/10.3390/e23081039 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy