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Autopoiesis

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Autopoiesis literally means "auto (self)-creation" (from the Greek: auto – αυτό for self- and poiesis – ποίησις for creation or production), and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function.

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[edit] Meaning

The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1972:

An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network. ^[1]

[…] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection. ^[2]

"A good artistic visual expression of autopoiesis is Escher's 'Drawing Hands,' reproduced here. The two complementary hands can draw each other, but one hand cannot draw itself." - John David Garcia ^[3]

The term autopoiesis was originally presented as a system description that was said to define and explain the nature of living systems. A canonical example of an autopoietic system is the biological cell. The eukaryotic cell, for example, is made of various biochemical components such as nucleic acids and proteins, and is organized into bounded structures such as the cell nucleus, various organelles, a cell membrane and cytoskeleton. These structures, based on an external flow of molecules and energy, produce the components which, in turn, continue to maintain the organized bounded structure that gives rise to these components.

An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory).

Even though others have often used the term as a synonym for self-organization, Maturana himself stated he would "never use the notion of self-organization, because it cannot be the case...it is impossible. That is, if the organization of a thing changes, the thing changes."^[4] Moreover, an autopoietic system is autonomous and operationally closed, in the sense that there are sufficient processes within it to maintain the whole. Autopoietic systems are 'structurally coupled' with their medium, embedded in a dynamic of changes that can be recalled as sensory-motor coupling. This continuous dynamic is considered as at least a rudimentary form of knowledge or cognition and can be observed throughout life-forms.

An application of the concept to sociology can be found in Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory, which was subsequently adapted by Bob Jessop in his studies of the capitalist state system. Marjatta Maula adapted the concept of autopoiesis in a business context.

[edit] Criticism

Criticism to the use of the term in both its original use, as an attempt to define and explain the living, and its various expanded usages such as applying it to self-organizing systems in general, or social systems, in particular have been widespread^[5]. Critics have argued that the term fails to define or explain living systems and that, because of the extreme language of self-referentiality it uses without any external reference, it is really an attempt to give substantiation to Maturana's radical constructivist or solipsistic epistemology^[6], or what Danilo Zolo ^[7] ^[8]has called instead a "desolate theology." An example is the assertion by Maturana and Varela that "what we do not see does not exist" ^[9] or that reality is an invention of observers. The autopoietic model, Rod Swenson^[10] has said is "miraculously decoupled from the physical world by its progenitors...(and thus) grounded on a solipsistic foundation that flies in the face of both common sense and scientific knowledge."

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78
^ Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 89
^ Garcia, John David (February 20, 1990). "Introduction". Creative Transformation. SEE. pp. Introduction. http://www.see.org/garcia/e-ct-int.htm. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
^ Maturana, H. (1987). Everything is said by an observer. In Gaia, a Way of Knowing, edited by W. Thompson,. Lindisfarne Press, Great Barrington, MA, pp. 65-82, p. 71.
^ Fleischaker, G. (Ed.) (1992). Autopoiesis in Systems Analysis: A Debate. Int. J. General Systems, Vol. 21, No 2, pp. 131-271
^ Swenson, R. (1992). Autocatakinetics, Yes---Autopoiesis, No: Steps Toward a Unified Theory of Evolutionary Ordering. Int. J. General Systems, Vol. 21, 207-208
^ Kenny, V. and Gardner, G. (1988) The constructions of self-organizing systems. The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9, 1, 1988, pp. 1-24
^ Wolfe, Cary (1998). Critical environments: postmodern theory and the pragmatics of the "outside". University of Minnesota Press. pp. 62.3. ISBN 0816630194. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tBQSBBWVg2cC&pg=PT85&lpg=PT85&dq=Zolo+Autopoiesis&source=bl&ots=71HLgpp200&sig=F1tMEEyEnsZESRe3DJ_5VtXa-n8&hl=en&ei=jttYS5XMJJCI0wTbxNX6BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Zolo%20Autopoiesis&f=false.
^ Maturana, H. and Varela, F. (1988). The Tree of Knowledge. New Science Library, Shambhala, Boston. p 242.
^ Swenson, R. (1992). Galileo, Babel, and Autopoiesis (It's Turtles All The Way Down). Int. J. General Systems, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 267-269.

[edit] Bibliography

Capra, Fritjof (1997). The Web of Life. Random House. ISBN 0-385-47676-0 —general introduction to the ideas behind autopoiesis
Dyke, Charles (1988). The Evolutionary Dynamics of Complex Systems: A Study in Biosocial Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Livingston, Ira (2006). Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics. University of Illinois Press. —an adaptation of autopoiesis to language.
Luhmann, Niklas (1990). Essays on Self-Reference. Columbia University Press. —Luhmann's adaptation of autopoiesis to social systems
Luisi, Pier L. (2003). Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften 90 49–59. —biologist view of autopoiesis
Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Francisco ([1st edition 1973] 1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (Eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 42. Dordecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co. ISBN 90-277-1015-5 (hardback), ISBN 90-277-1016-3 (paper) —the main published reference on autopoiesis
Maturana, H. R. & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
Maula, Marjatta (2006). Organizations as Learning Systems: Living Composition as an Enabling Infrastructure. Elsevier. ISBN 0-08-043919-5
Mingers, John (1994). Self-Producing Systems. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 0-306-44797-5 —a book on the autopoiesis concept in many different areas
Robb, Fenton F. (1991) Accounting – A Virtual Autopoietic System? Systems Practice 4, (3) (215-235).
Tabbi, Joseph (2002). Cognitive Fictions. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3557-9 — draws on systems theory and cognitive science to introduce autopoiesis to literary studies
Varela, Francisco J.; Maturana, Humberto R.; & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. Biosystems 5 187–196. —one of the original papers on the concept of autopoiesis
Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores (1990). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Ablex Pub. Corp. —cognitive systems perspective on autopoiesis