If we study the behavior of organisms, we must understand the ontological status of both “organism” and “behavior.” A living organism maintains itself alive by constantly interacting with the environment, taking in energy and discarding waste. Ontologically, an organism is a process. Its interactions with the environment, which constitute its behavior, are processes also, because the parts of any process are themselves processes. Processes serve functions, and the function of a process must be part of its identity. A process, by definition, extends in time. Time is the fundamental and universal measure of behavior. All processes have the property of scale. Activities of an organism have parts that are themselves activities on a smaller time scale. Scale varies continuously, and behavior may be studied on as large or as small a time scale as seems necessary. When researchers refer to the “structure” of behavior, they refer to smaller‐scale activities. Attaching a switch to a lever or key is convenient, but one should never confuse operation of a switch with a unit of behavior. Shimp's (2020) “molecular” measures are small‐scale measures. The molecular view based on discrete events has outlived its usefulness and should be replaced by a multiscale molar paradigm.

中文翻译：

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行为、过程和规模：评论 Shimp (2020)，“行为的分子（瞬间）和摩尔（聚合）分析”

如果我们研究生物体的行为，我们必须了解“生物体”和“行为”两者的本体论地位。一个活的有机体通过不断地与环境相互作用、吸收能量和丢弃废物来维持自己的生命。在本体论上，一个有机体是一个过程。它与构成其行为的环境的相互作用也是过程，因为任何过程的部分本身就是过程。流程为功能服务，流程的功能必须是其身份的一部分。一个过程，顾名思义，是随时间延伸的。时间是行为的基本和普遍的衡量标准。所有过程都具有规模属性。生物体的活动具有自身在较小时间尺度上的活动的部分。规模不断变化，可以在必要的时间尺度上或大或小地研究行为。当研究人员提到行为的“结构”时，他们指的是较小规模的活动。将开关连接到杠杆或钥匙很方便，但永远不要将开关的操作与行为单元混淆。Shimp (2020) 的“分子”措施是小规模的措施。基于离散事件的分子观点已经不再有用，应该被多尺度摩尔范式所取代。