Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model

Author: F. Varela, H. Maturana, R. Uribe
Year: 1974
Type: journal article
Category: Bibliografía citada

The original 1974 paper by Varela, Maturana and Uribe that defines autopoiesis: living systems understood as self-producing organizations that continuously regenerate their own components and boundary. The authors test the idea with a computer-simulated model of a minimal autopoietic system.

This is the founding paper on autopoiesis, in which Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana and Ricardo Uribe formulate the organization of living organisms by characterizing the class of "autopoietic systems" to which all living things belong: systems that continuously produce and regenerate the very components and network of processes that produce them, and that in doing so specify their own boundary. The authors show this general characterization at work in a computer-simulated model of a minimal case that satisfies the conditions for autopoietic organization, offering it as a formal test of the concept. The paper became a foundational reference across biology, cybernetics and systems theory. Credits: Varela, F., Maturana, H., & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. BioSystems, 5(4), 187–196.

In the framework

Autopoiesis · concept
Heteropoiesis · concept
Organizational (Operational) Closure · concept
Internal Observer · concept
Allopoiesis · concept

In the book

Chapter 1, section 004 · The Heart of the Matter: Emotion, Choice, and Why We Design
Chapter 1, section 005 · Breaking Free: The Hard Work of Questioning Dogma
Chapter 1, section 011 · Beyond Techniques: A Shift in What We Value
Chapter 3, section 021 · Whose Design Is It Anyway? Finding Strength in the Local Perspective
Chapter 5, section 047 · The Biological Turn: Towards Autopoiesis
Chapter 6, section 048 · Design as an Autopoietic System
Chapter 6, section 049 · Autopoiesis and Allopoiesis Revisited: Distinguishing Self-Production from Other-Production
Chapter 6, section 056 · Organizational Closure: Defining and Maintaining Internal Logic
Chapter 6, section 060 · Heteropoiesis: The Domain of Intentional Human Design and Its Link to Systemic Autopoiesis
Chapter 6, section 065 · Design’s Core
Chapter 6, section 069 · Simple and Composite Units
Chapter 6, section 071 · The Role of Variables and Guiding Questions within Components
Chapter 8, section 086 · A Journey Through Inquiry, Observation, and Dialogue
Chapter 8, section 087 · Design as an Epistemological Object
Chapter 8, section 090 · The Turn to Biology: Discovering Autopoiesis
Chapter 8, section 091 · The Doctoral Deep Dive: Key Findings on Design's Autopoietic Nature
Chapter 10, section 100 · Human Component | Referential (Who?)
Chapter 12, section 118 · Cybernetics (Based on what?)
Chapter 14, section 136 · Collective (With whom?)
Chapter 15, section 145 · Building Blocks (With What?)
Chapter 17, section 174 · The Framework in Summation: A Recapitulation of the Symbiotic Architecture

Academic papers