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Balancing objects and processes: advocating pluralism in biology: Comment on “Thoughts and thinkers: On the complementarity between objects and processes" by Chris Fields and Michael Levin
Paper Details
Published: 2025/11/06
Journal: Physics of Life Reviews
Volume: Volume 55
Pages: Pages 79-82
Paper Links
HTMLWe laud Fields and Levin’s proposal to abandon the dichotomy between “objects” and “processes” in biology. The intellectual ambition of Fields and Levin’s synthesis is praiseworthy. The ambition of this thesis is clear and to be lauded: to dissolve long-standing Cartesian dichotomies and to unify static and dynamic views under a common information-theoretic framework. However, we note a few practical considerations that merit further discussion.
While this vision is philosophically provocative and mathematically elegant, its broad prescription warrants scrutiny. In many scientific domains, treating certain entities as objects remains a practical necessity. Taxonomies, ontologies, and models often rely on discrete categories and stable abstractions to organise knowledge. Moreover, maintaining multiple complementary viewpoints can be a strength rather than a liability: in complex systems it is common to explain phenomena at different levels or with different formalisms, each capturing distinct aspects of reality (for example, a gene as a molecule versus a component of a regulatory network). Here we examine the philosophical stakes and practical modelling consequences of Fields and Levin’s proposal. We will argue that even if the object–process distinction is in some sense “construed”, it often serves genuine epistemic and organisational functions. In practice, pluralistic models and the concept of objects remain essential tools in biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and other fields. Abandoning them altogether risks losing valuable insight and clarity.
