Autopoiesis and Cognition
The Realization of the Living
Paperback Engels 1991 9789027710161Samenvatting
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.
Specificaties
Lezersrecensies
Inhoudsopgave
General Table Of Contents
Foreword
Introduction (by Professor Maturana)
Biology Of Cognition
Dedication
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. The Problem
III. Cognitive Function in General
A. The Observer
B. The Living System
C. Evolution
D. The Cognitive Process
IV. Cognitive Function in Particular
A. Nerve Cells
B. Architecture
C. Function
D. Representation
E. Description
F. Thinking
G. Natural Language
H. Memory and Learning
I. The Observer
V. Problems in the Neurophysiology of Cognition
VI. Conclusions
VII. Post Scriptum
Autopoiesis: The Organization Of The Living
Preface (by Sir Stafford Beer)
Introduction
I. On Machines, living and Otherwise
1. Machines
2. Living Machines
II. Dispensability of Teleonomy
1. Purposelessness
2. Individuality
III. Embodiments of Autopoiesis
1. Descriptive and Causal Notions
2. Molecular Embodiments
3. Origin
IV. Diversity of Autopoiesis
1. Subordination to the Condition of Unity
2. Plasticity of Ontogeny
3. Reproduction, a Complication of the Unity
4. Evolution, a Historical Network
5. Second and Third Order Autopoietic Systems
V. Presence of Autopoiesis
1. Biological Implications
2. Epistemological Implications
3. Cognitive Implications
Appendix: The Nervous System
Glossary
Bibliography
Index Of Names
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