function

necktie

knot

dad joke

ecology

physiology

ology (the study of)

biology

structure

is a challenge to the analogy/homology distinction in that it recognizes, for instance, that from a functional standpoint an elephant's trunk is (functionally) analogous to the human arm.

Challenges the Analogy/Homology distinction in biology by recognizing that it is the case that an elephant's trunk is analogous to the human arm (for its function) and is homologous to the human nose (in terms of its structure), what do we do with the goldfish that has fins ('presumable legs') and also a tailfin ('also(') legs' (He draws this out in Bateson 'experiments in thinking 1941).

is concerned with organic structure as a living structure, and specifically, it involves the connection between on the one hand, the structure of an organism (the arrangement of organs and tissues and fluids that make it up), and on the other, the life process of that organism (its life process).

In physiology the concept of function is of fundamental importance as enabling us to deal with the continuing relation of structure and process in organic life. A complex organism, such as a human body, has a structure as an arrangement of organs and tissues and fluids. . . . An organism also has a life, and by this we refer to a process. The concept of organic function is one that is used to refer to the connection between the structure of an organism and the life process of that organism' (Radcliffe-Brown 1951:12). The organic structure, as a living structure, depends for its continued existence on the processes that take up the total life processes' (R-Brown 12).

is possessed not by a thing, but by an 'activity' such that a cell or an organ has an activity and that activity has a function.

As the word function is here being used the life of an organism is conceived as the functioning of its structure. It is through and by the continuity of the functioning that the continuity of the structure is preserved. If we consider any recurrent part of the life-process, such as respiration, digestion, etc., its function is the part it plays in, the contribution it makes to, the life of the organism as a whole. As the terms are here being used a cell or an organ has an activity and that activity has a function. It is true that we commonly speak of the secretion of gastric fluid as a 'function' of the stomach. As the words are here used we should say that this is an 'activity' of the stomach, the 'function' of which is to change the proteins of food into a form in which these are absorbed and distributed by the blood to the tissue. We may note that the function of a recurrent physiological process is thus a correspondence between it and the needs (i.e., necessary conditions of existence) of the organism. (R-BROWN 1935 : 395)

Function influences but does not dictate form

form

is a concept whose function is to reduce the extreme complexity of the world.

the concept of function is not tied to self-preservation and hetero-preservation... [selbsterhaltung und Fremderhaltung]. The function of the concept of function is to reduce the extreme complexity of the world' (muller New German Critique 1994)

complexity

reduction of complexity

simplification

is the discoverable interconnections of the social structure and the processes of social life.

The concept of function, as I employ it, is used to describe the discoverable interconnections of the social structure and the processes of social life. (R-Brown 1949: 322)

is the dynamic opposition between the electronic global and the face-to-face local.

By function Castells means the dynamic opposition between the electronic global and the face-to-face local. By meaning he implies a complex relationship between 'individuation' (personal identity) and 'communalism' (the shared identites of ethnicity, social class, and culture). And form is a product of the interaction and conflict between the pysical and online dimensions of space. The 'space of flows' links up separate locations electronically. (le gates City Reader)

function, n.All

function