Abstract
The term autopoiesis was coined to describe the regenerating and self-maintaining chemical systems of cells. The term has subsequently been applied to many different fields, including sociology, systems theory and information systems. This theory postulates that an autopoietic unity (cell, machine) is an organised network of processes that exists in a delimited space, which produces components which in turn continuously regenerate and create the network of processes that produced them. The Santiago Theory of Cognition grew from the Theory of Allopoiesis stating that all living systems are cognitive systems, and the process of living is a process of cognition. Cognition is the ability to adapt to a certain environment and cognition emerges because of a continuous bilateral interaction between the system and its environment. The resultant complexity seen in living systems is caused by this interaction between the system and its environment. Autopoiesis and cognition are however opposing concepts because cognition can only exist when the system is open and not closed as autopoiesis suggests. It is also difficult to see how autopoietic systems could originate if they are closed and how the continuous change which we see in evolution can be explained if life consists of autopoietic systems. It is postulated that cells and organisms are in fact open systems relating genetically to ancestors before them and their ever-changing descendants after them and the flow of molecules and energy through an ever-changing ecology.
Highlights
The term autopoiesis was derived from two Greek terms: αυτo- [auto-)] and ποίησις [poiesis], meaning self-creation or self-maintenance and is used to refer to a system which reproduces and maintains itself.Humberto Maturana and Fransisco Varela, two Chilean biologists, coined this term to describe the regenerating and self-maintaining chemical systems of cells
Maturana and Varela (1973) explain in Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living that they created the term autopoiesis because they were unhappy with the term ‘circular organisation’ to describe living systems as unities and rather wanted a word that would emphasise the autonomy of the organisation of the living cell
Maturana recounts a conversation he had with a friend who wrote a paper on Don Quixote: It was in these circumstances ... in which he analyzed Don Quixote’s dilemma of whether to follow the path of arms or the path of letters, I understood for the first time the power of the word “poeiesis” and invented the word that we needed: autopoiesis
Summary
The term autopoiesis was derived from two Greek terms: αυτo- [auto-)] and ποίησις [poiesis], meaning self-creation or self-maintenance and is used to refer to a system which reproduces and maintains itself.Humberto Maturana and Fransisco Varela, two Chilean biologists, coined this term to describe the regenerating and self-maintaining chemical systems of cells. If autopoietic systems are the product of the environment, should we not see cognition rather as a function of evolution and the ecology which brought about the organisms contained within it and produced by it?
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