Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
within the system and it is the continued existence of the set of causally depen-
dent processes that constitutes the continued existence of the system. Varela
then provides his canonical characterization of autopoiesis:
An autopoietic system is organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes
of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the
components that: (1) through their interactions and transformations continuously
regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produce them; and
(2) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they exist
by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.
(Varela, 1979, p. 13; see also Maturana & Varela, 1980)
The crucial idea, as it was for Rosen, is that all the pertinent causal processes
needed to maintain the network of causal processes have their efficient cause
within the system itself. 24
Autopoiesis is important according to Varela because autopoietic systems can
be autonomous , where autonomous systems are those that perform the necessary
operations to maintain their own identity. 25 This notion of autonomy provides
a powerful way to conceptualize what is special about living systems. It also
provides a perspective from which to view any additions to the initially conceived
minimal autonomous system - they are ways of extending the autonomy of the
system. I will return to this point in the final section of this paper. But before
moving on, it is important to qualify the notion of autonomy. We should not
view an autonomous system as completely encapsulated. Minimally, on both
Rosen's and Varela's conception, such systems are materially and energetically
open to their environments. As a consequence, they are also potentially open to
efficient causation, but not in a sense that Rosen was seeking to avoid. With
respect to autonomy, what is crucial is what a system does when causal processes
impinge on it. If the system responds to such impingements through operations
it initiates, then the critical autonomy is preserved. If, on the other hand, external
efficient causes simply change the system (e.g., a falling rock smashes a cell
or wind transports it to a new location), the resulting effects are not due to the
system's autonomous action.
24 In his last published paper (Varela & Weber, 2002), Varela traces the roots of the idea of autopoiesis back
to Kant.
25 'Autopoietic machines are autonomous: that is, they subordinate all changes to the maintenance of their
own organization, independently of how profoundly they may be otherwise transformed in the process. Other
machines, henceforth called allopoietic machines, have as the product of their functioning something different
from themselves' (p. 15). Varela later generalizes the notion of autonomy so as to apply beyond autopoietic
machines: 'Autonomous systems are mechanistic (dynamical) systems defined as a unity by their organization.
We shall say that autonomous systems are organizationally closed. That is, their organization is characterized
by processes such that (1) the processes are related as a network, so that they recursively depend on each
other in the generation and realization of the processes themselves, and (2) they constitute the system as a
unity recognizable in the space (domain) in which the processes exist' (p. 55).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search