Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living

Description

This is a bold, brilliant, provocative and puzzling work. It demands a radical shift in standpoint, an almost paradoxical posture in which living systems are described in terms of what lies outside the domain of descriptions. Professor Humberto Maturana, with his colleague Francisco Varela, have undertaken the construction of a systematic theoretical biology which attempts to define living systems not as they are objects of observation and description, nor even as in­ teracting systems, but as self-contained unities whose only reference is to them­ selves. Thus, the standpoint of description of such unities from the 'outside', i. e. , by an observer, already seems to violate the fundamental requirement which Maturana and Varela posit for the characterization of such system- namely, that they are autonomous, self-referring and self-constructing closed systems - in short, autopoietic systems in their terms. Yet, on the basis of such a conceptual method, and such a theory of living systems, Maturana goes on to define cognition as a biological phenomenon; as, in effect, the very nature of all living systems. And on this basis, to generate the very domains of interac­ tion among such systems which constitute language, description and thinking. Front Matter....Pages i-xxx Front Matter....Pages 1-3 Introduction....Pages 5-6 The Problem....Pages 7-7 Cognitive Function in General....Pages 8-14 Cognitive Function in Particular....Pages 15-40 Problems in the Neurophysiology of Cognition....Pages 41-47 Conclusions....Pages 48-56 Back Matter....Pages 57-58 Front Matter....Pages 59-61 Preface....Pages 63-72 Introduction....Pages 73-76 On Machines, Living and Otherwise....Pages 77-84 Dispensability of Teleonomy....Pages 85-87 Embodiments of Autopoiesis....Pages 88-95 Diversity of Autopoiesis....Pages 96-111 Presence of Autopoiesis....Pages 112-123 Back Matter....Pages 124-145