Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The neurobiologists Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela introduced the term autopoiesis in the 1970s in order to describe how living systems (e.g., human, plant, cell, or microbe) produce and reproduce themselves. Combining the idea of autonomy and production, autopoiesis means in short the continual self-production of living systems. The components of an autopoietic system reproduce themselves and the relations between them by these components and relations ( Maturana et al. 1974 ; Maturana & Varela 1987 ). It is therefore operationally closed: the system determines the rules of reproduction relatively independently of its specific environment. Since an autopoietic system is determined by its internal organization of reproduction, it cannot be changed directly from the outside – that would destroy it. It can only be “perturbed.” The outside can affect it, but the state of a system itself determines what and how such perturbations will affect it. As a result of ongoing non-destructive perturbations, autopoietic systems become structurally coupled to their environment or to other systems. That does not mean that they blend with a specific environment, but they are loosely coupled. They have only to fit insofar as it allows them to maintain their autopoietic reproduction. (Human beings can live in a wide range of environments from the North Pole to the equator as long ... log in or subscribe to read full text