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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 dialect between structure and function. The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973: Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
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Humberto Maturana (born September 14, 1928 in Santiago) is a Chilean biologist whose work crosses over into philosophy and cognitive science. ...
Francisco Varela (Santiago, September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001, Paris) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology. ...
- "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." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)
- "[…] 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." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 89)
The term autopoiesis was originally conceived as an attempt to characterize 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 (a factory). Drawing of the structure of cork as it appeared under the microscope to Robert Hooke from Micrographia which is the origin of the word cell. Cells in culture, stained for keratin (red) and DNA (green). ...
Kingdoms Animalia - Animals Fungi Plantae - Plants Protista Alternative Phylogeny Unikonta Opisthokonta Amoebozoa Bikonta Apusozoa Cabozoa Rhizaria Excavata Corticata Archaeplastida Chromalveolata Animals, plants, fungi, and protists are eukaryotes (IPA: ), organisms with a complex cell or cells, where the genetic material is organized into a membrane-bound nucleus or nuclei. ...
A nucleic acid is a complex, high-molecular-weight biochemical macromolecule composed of nucleotide chains that convey genetic information. ...
A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin, showing coloured alpha helices. ...
The eukaryotic cell nucleus. ...
Schematic of typical animal cell, showing subcellular components. ...
The cell membrane (also called the plasma membrane or plasmalemma) is a semipermeable lipid bilayer common to all living cells. ...
The eukaryotic cytoskeleton. ...
Allopoiesis is the process whereby a system produces something other than the system itself. ...
More generally, the term autopoiesis refers to the dynamics of a non-equilibrium system; that is, organized states (sometimes also called dissipative structures) that remain stable for long periods of time despite matter and energy continually flowing through them. Actually, this flow is what maintains the organization of the open system. In thermodynamics, a thermodynamic system is said to be in thermodynamic equilibrium when it is in thermal equilibrium, mechanical equilibrium, and chemical equilibrium. ...
A dissipative system (or dissipative structure) is an open system which is operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium within an environment that exchanges energy, matter or entropy. ...
From a very general point of view, the notion of autopoiesis is often associated with that of self-organization. Self-organization refers to a process in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases automatically without being guided or managed by an outside source. ...
An application of the concept to sociology can be found in the Luhmann's system theory. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927 - November 6, 1999) was a German sociologist, administration expert, and social systems theorist, as well as the founder of the sociological systems theory. ...
It has been suggested that some institutions emerge from arcane conversations to become autonomous, self-creating from their internal interactions, self-organising and self-defining of their own boundaries and thus autopoietic, acquiring a 'life of their own' and having as their main "purpose" their own self-perpetuation (Robb 1991).
Autopoesis has been considered widely by Integral Theorist Ken Wilber. Ken Wilber Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. ...
References - 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.
- 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
- 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
- Luisi, Pier L. (2003). Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften 90 49–59. —biologist view of autopoiesis
- 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
- Luhmann, Niklas (1990). Essays on Self-Reference. Columbia University Press. —Luhmann's adaptation of autopoiesis to social systems
- Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores (1990). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Ablex Pub. Corp. —cognitive systems perspective on autopoiesis
- Livingston, Ira (2005). Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics. University of Illinois Press. —an adaptation of autpoiesis to language.
- Robb, Fenton F. (1991) Accounting - A Virtual Autopoietic System? Systems Practice 4, (3) (215-235).
Dr. Fritjof Capra – photo by Kate Mount Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist. ...
See also Robert Rosen (June 27, 1934, Brooklyn, New York - December 28, 1998, Rochester, New York) was an American theoretical biologist and, later in life, a Professor of Biophysics at Dalhousie University until he retired. ...
Systems theory is a transdisciplinary/multiperspectual scientific domain that seeks to derive and formulate those principles that are isomorphic to all fields of scientific inquiry. ...
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