DOCSLIB.ORG

1 the Contribution of Humberto Maturana to The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
1 the Contribution of Humberto Maturana to The THE CONTRIBUTION OF HUMBERTO MATURANA TO THE SCIENCES OF COMPLEXITY AND PSYCHOLOGY ALFREDO B. RUIZ [email protected] Instituto de Terapia Cognitiva, Santiago, Chile This work attempts to present the most important contributions of Humberto R. Maturana to the field of psychology, in an effort to reveal them directly. The main conclusion is that Maturana has expanded the understanding of humanness and therapy through the biology of the observer. Contemporary psychology still appears very much influenced by empiricist paradigms, those that accept a unique and universal reality that is alike for everyone, existing independently from the observer. According to this of thinking, the cognitive abilities of an organism are essentially passive, responding to an external order in which the meaning of things has already been previously and objectively defined. In this view, the human mind evolves essentially as a passive receptor of the external order, which would determine it almost in its entirety (Guidano, 1991b; Ruiz, 1992). The rigid simplicity of this position, however, has entered into a profound crisis in the last 20 years. As result of the conceptual breakdown of this empiricist paradigm, psychology is now witnessing an interdisciplinary convergence, from which a space is opening toward a completely different perspective: that of the science of complexity (Guidano, 1991b; Mahoney, 1991) on the one hand and the biology of cognition (Maturana, 1987) on the other. As these alternative perspectives consider living organisms in terms of their complexity, there is from the very beginning an emphasis on self-determination and self-organization, as well as on the organisms´ open and plastic course of evolution and development (Guidano, 1991). The basic element in this perspective is a change in the notions of reality and of the observer. This has led to a radical shift in the view. Received 18 January 1996; accepted 24 February 1996. I am grateful to Humberto Maturana for his help and support white I was writing this article. Address correspondence to Alfredo B. Ruiz, e-mail [email protected] Published in Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 9:283-302, 1996 1 A. B. RUIZ Of the relation between observer and observed, in which access to a unique and independent reality apart from the observer is no longer accepted, and instead the contrary position is considered – that there are as many realities as forms of living emerging from each being (Guidano, 1991 a; Ruiz, 1992) or as many realities as domains of explanations the observer may propose (Maturana, 1987). The contribution of Humberto R. Maturana to the science of complexity is recognized, as well as his influence on the thought and research of many scientists (Mahoney, 1991). When at the end of his life Bateson was asked who else was carrying forward the study of living creatures, he answered that “The center for this study is now in Santiago, Chile, under a man named Maturana” (cited in Dell, 1985, p.5). In the same vein theoreticians and psychotherapists such as Guidano (1991a) and Arciero (1989), referring specifically to Maturana´s views, speak of the Chilean school. The contribution of Maturana´s theory to psychotherapy is also fully recognized. In fact, he is frequently a guest at psychotherapy conferences in Chile and abroad. In addition, his contribution is put forth directly through his teaching in training programs for psychotherapists at several institutes in Chile. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the more important aspects of Maturana´s contributions to psychology and psychotherapy. THE BIOLOGICAL THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AS A UNITARY EXPLANATORY SYSTEM OF LIFE As previously mentioned an interdisciplinary convergence has led to epistemological changes in the relation of observer and observed. The contribution of Maturana to this new epistemological proposition is fundamental. He is, along with Lorenz (1973), among the first biological scientists to propose that knowledge is a biological phenomenon that can only be studied and known as such and who have developed a fully biological theory consistent with this view. Furthermore, Maturana proposed that life itself should be understood as a process of knowing, in the realization of living in congruence with the medium. Maturana´s work can therefore be characterized as a unitary ontological explanatory system of life and human experiencing. It is ontological because it visualizes human experience from a point of view situated within the conditions of the constitution of humanness and not from an external view, and it is explanatory because it proposes a view of the relational dynamics that generate cognitive phenomena. As Maturana´s approach emerges from his understanding of biological systems, it leads us to reflect on the basic conditions that permit us to explain everything that occurs in life as a phenomenon of living. From this point of view, psychology is part of biology because the phenomena it studies occur in the process of living of human beings. At the same time, Maturana has recognized that psychology has its own domain – the study of the dynamic relations and interactions occurring between whole organisms – and he has not attempted a reductionist approach (Maturana, 1995). In Maturana´s thinking, the mind is a phenomenon that pertains to the relational dynamics of the organism. In his view, the mind, as a relational phenomenon, arises in the relation between the organisms and the medium in the same way that walking arises from the movement of the legs in relation to the ground or as a body displacement. Maturana has also proposed that because the human nervous system changes along with the growth of the child (and during the whole life of the person) in a manner contingent to his or her living in language, languaging behavior is generated even when humans are alone. Moreover, it is possible and it so happens that in our human solitude we can have experiences that we can distinguish as mental experiences because they make sense in our domain of relations as languaging beings. 2 This view of mind, and this general manner of thinking of Maturana, has incalculable consequences for psychotherapy. To start with, any emerging in human systems from the intervention of a psychotherapist is always to be understood as a reorganization of the experience of the patient determined by the patient himself or herself and not by the therapist. Thus, the therapist can only generate perturbations in the patient that may trigger his or her mental reorganization but never specify it. Directly said, the therapist can only trigger, but not specify, what happens in the patient. EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS I suggested earlier that what Maturana has proposed is an explanatory theory of human experience. For this reason I now analyze how he has dealt with the following epistemological problems: scientific explanation, structural determinism, and living beings as structurally determined systems. Scientific Explanations According to Maturana (1987, 1990), a scientific explanation consists of the proposition of a process or mechanism which, if left to operate, gives rise in the domain of experiences of the observer to the experience that he or she wants to explain, in a way that satisfies what Maturana has termed criterion of validation of scientific explanations. This criterion of validation requires satisfaction of the following four conditions: 1. Description of what an observer must do to live the experience to be explained. 2. Proposition of a generative mechanism that if allowed to operate generates in the observer the experience to be explained. 3. Deduction of other possible experiences from all the operational coherences entailed in (2) and of what an observer must do to live them. 4. The realization of what is deduced in (3); if this happens, Point 3 becomes a scientific explanation. The application of the criterion of validation of a scientific explanations has two basic consequences: (a) The experience of the phenomenon to be explained and the generative mechanism belong to two nonintersecting phenomenal domains, and (b) scientific explanation does not constitute a phenomenal reduction and is constitutively nonreductionistic. Accordingly, if my propose was to provide a scientific explanation of how psychotherapy works. I would have to propose a generative mechanism for the therapeutic effects in the context of the satisfaction of the criterion of validation of a scientific explanation. The Notion of Structural Determinism According to Maturana, every explanatory argument is founded on an implicit acceptance of the notion of structural determinism. That is, it is founded on the understanding that the operation of every system, both in its internal dynamics and in its relational dynamics, depends on its structure. The notion of structural determinism is a descriptive abstraction of the coherence of the experiences of the observer in his or her operation as a living being and of what the observer does as he or she reflects on the regularities of experience in living 3 as he or she tries to explain them. Even the notion of probability has value only in the implicit or acceptance that an observer operates in a background domain of structural determinism that is directly unobservable. The notions of system and mechanism imply in themselves the notion of structural determinism. Scientific explanations are founded on structural determinism, as they consist of the proposition of generative mechanisms that if left to operate give rise to the experiences to be explained (Maturana, 1990). Every system operates according to its structure, that is, according to how it is made, in the interplay of the properties of its components. A system operating in this manner is a structurally determined system. The structure of such a system determines everything that occurs in it or to it in terms of its internal changes as well as in terms of its internal changes as well as in terms of what it can encounter in an interaction (Maturana & Mpodozis, 1992).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Autopoiesis and Heidegger’S Phenomenology
    A Biological Basis for Being-in-the-World Autopoiesis and Heidegger’s Phenomenology Jon R. Lindsay Senior Honors Thesis Symbolic Systems Program Stanford University June 10, 1995 To Picacho Del Diablo, the Middle Fork of the Eel, and other wild philosophers who helped me through this project TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 THE METAPHYSICS OF THE SUBJECT 1 TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE ONTOLOGY 6 DASEIN AND THE HUMAN ORGANISM 8 HOW TO GET THERE 11 CHAPTER 1: DASEIN 12 HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION 13 ONTOLOGICAL AND ONTIC DESCRIPTION 16 BEING-IN-THE-WORLD 19 THE WORLD 22 THE ANYONE 27 BEING-IN 29 A HEIDEGGERIAN CRITIQUE OF COGNITIVISM 32 CARE 37 CHAPTER 2: AUTOPOIESIS 42 ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE 43 THE OBSERVER’S DESCRIPTION 45 ONTOLOGY AND ORGANIZATION 46 AUTOPOIETIC ORGANIZATION 47 LIVING SYSTEMS 49 AUTOPOIESIS AND ALLOPOIESIS 50 THE COGNITIVE DOMAIN 53 STRUCTURAL COUPLING 55 ORGANIZATIONAL CLOSURE 56 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 57 THE NEURON 58 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AS A CLOSED NETWORK. 58 AN AUTOPOIETIC CRITIQUE OF COGNITIVISM 60 HIGHER ORDER ENTITIES 64 LANGUAGE 67 THE OBSERVER AS ORGANISM 69 CHAPTER 3: AUTOPOIETIC MACHINES ARE CARING MACHINES! 71 PHENOMENOLOGICAL UNITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL CLOSURE 73 PROJECTION AND THE COGNITIVE DOMAIN 75 THROWNNESS AND STRUCTURAL COUPLING 78 EXISTENZ AND LIVING 85 FURTHER PROBLEMS 89 APPENDIX: AUTOPOIESIS, DASEIN, AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY 97 WORKS CITED 103 Introduction This introduction is rather long, even though the thesis that it introduces can be stated in a single sentence: Dasein is an autopoietic organism. The general problem, however, is not as compact: the problem of human subjectivity. What is it that we are— this subjectivity—that is at all times closest to us, and yet seems to elude any consensus as to what it is? Part of the difficulty with “subjectivity” lies in the fact that we can hardly think of it without thinking of its counterpart, objectivity.
    [Show full text]
  • I690/H699 Cybernetics and Revolution: International Histories of Science, Technology, and Political Change
    I690/H699 Cybernetics and Revolution: International Histories of Science, Technology, and Political Change Prof. Eden Medina Office: Informatics 305 Email: [email protected] Class Times: W 1:00-3:30 Room: Info 001 Class Description Norbert Wiener used the term cybernetics for studies of communication and control in the animal and the machine. Cybernetics brought together ideas from biology, psychology, math, computation, and engineering and looked for underlying commonalities in areas as diverse as neurology, electronics, and the study of social systems. Historical studies of cybernetics often cite the research activity that took place in the United States during 1940s and 1950s as the peak moment of this interdisciplinary field. However, these ideas also took root in other parts of the world, where they intertwined with other national histories and political ideologies. This class will bring an international perspective to the study of cybernetics. Different geographical, political, and cultural contexts shaped the language, content, and application of cybernetic science outside of the United States. Cybernetics also offered new ways for imagining social and political change. The class will study individuals such as Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer, Humberto Maturana, and Viktor Glushkov, among others. Since most histories of cybernetics are set in the United States and Western Europe, special attention will be given to the evolution and application of cybernetic ideas in Latin America. Required Reading Paul Edwards, The Closed
    [Show full text]
  • Biology of Love
    BIOLOGY OF LOVE By Humberto Maturana Romesin and Gerda Verden-Zoller, Opp, G.: Peterander, F. (Hrsg.): Focus Heilpadagogik, Ernst Reinhardt, Munchen/Basel 1996. We human beings are love dependent animals. This is apparent in that we become ill when we are deprived of love at whatever age. No doubt we live a culture in which we are frequently in war and kill each other on different rational grounds that justify our mutual total denial as human beings. But doing that does not bring to us happiness, or spiritual comfort and harmony. Love and aggression - are they polar features of our biology or, of our cultural human existence? Are we genetically aggressive animals that love occassionally, or are we loving animals that cultivate aggression culturally? Our purpose in this article is to maintain that we are loving animals that cultivate aggression in a cultural alienation that may eventually change our biology. To this end we shall speak about the following themes in short but basic statements: A) the systemic constitution and conservation of human identity; B) the origin and development of the self in the mother/child relations; C) the evolutionary origin of humanness in the conservation of neoteny and the expansion of the female sexuality; D) the biology of love. A) That we are living systems means that we are structure determined systems, that we operate at every moment according to our structure at that moment, and that nothing external to us can specify what happens in us as a result of our interactions in a medium. External agents can only trigger in us structural changes determined in us.
    [Show full text]
  • El Pensamiento Filosófico De Humberto Maturana: La Autopoiesis Como Fundamento De La Ciencia
    ISSN 0798 1015 HOME Revista ESPACIOS ! ÍNDICES ! A LOS AUTORES ! Vol. 38 (Nº 46) Año 2017. Pág. 31 El pensamiento filosófico de Humberto Maturana: La autopoiesis como fundamento de la ciencia The philosophical thinking of Humberto Maturana: Autopoiesis as the foundation of science Alexander ORTIZ Ocaña 1 Recibido: 20/05/2017 • Aprobado: 13/06/2017 Contenido Introducción 1. ¿Quién es Humberto Maturana y cuáles son sus aportaciones epistémicas? 2. Autopoiesis 3. Conclusiones Referencias bibliográficas RESUMEN: ABSTRACT: Este artículo muestra mi reflexión originada por la This article shows my reflection caused by the impact repercusión que tuvo en mi concepción científica, that had on my scientific, epistemological and epistemológica y pedagógica, la lectura de la obra del pedagogical, design the reading of the work of the prestigioso biólogo, filósofo y epistemólogo chileno prestigious biologist, philosopher and epistemologist Humberto Maturana. Se esboza el pensamiento de Chilean Humberto Maturana. Outlines the thinking of Maturana y sus implicaciones para la ciencia, la Maturana and its implications for science, epistemology, epistemología, y sobre todo para la educación. En este and above all for education. In this article I reveal the artículo revelo la ontología, la epistemología y la teoría ontology, epistemology, and the living systems theory de los sistemas vivos propuesta por Maturana. Se proposed by Maturana. The main concepts, proposals analizan de manera detallada las principales and scientific categories that underlie its research, concepciones, propuestas y categorías científicas que mainly the autopoiesis are analyzed in detail. That is subyacen en su investigación, principalmente la why in this article discusses his way of dealing with the autopoiesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstracts of Plenaries WOSC 2014
    Our self-organising world: from disruption to reparation Systems and cybernetics applied to technology, design, governance and power Keynote Abstracts and Congress Schedule Dear All, WOSC 2014 will offer both strong foci on systemic thinking and on structures for effective policy processes. It is more than 40 years since Fernando Flores invited Stafford Beer to work with the Chilean Government in the implementation of a democratic socialist economy. Beer created Project Cybersyn in the context of Allende’s Chile. In addition to introducing his work to a young generation of local scientists and professionals he made of Norbert Weiner and Ross Ashby familiar names. In parallel to Beer’s work Humberto Maturana was working from the Universidad de Chile, in collaboration with Francisco Varela, the theory of autopoiesis. Heinz von Foerster, father of second order cybernetics, joined them during part of this period. These are all names shaping the contributions to WOSC 2014. Beer’s vision of the early 1970s, particularly his vision of an economy in real-time, has grown in maturity, not only through the extraordinary technological developments of the past four decades but also through the increasing relevance of cybernetics as an applied epistemology to governance. Together with the extraordinary potentials of digital technology in real-time, the epistemologies of systemic embodiment, ecological networks, organisational closure, self-organisation offer new insights and avenues to deal with the driving topic of this Congress: “Our Self- organising World: from disruption to reparation”. This narrative is offered by the following contributions of our keynote speakers. Abstracts for Plenaries 1. Fernando Flores An Encounter with Cybernetics in the Chile of the 1970's: A personal story In the Chile of the early 1970's I had the opportunity to work with Stafford Beer in the Cybersyn project.
    [Show full text]
  • 'What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," Central Players In
    ........... C.h.a.p .. t.e.r ... SIx THE SECOND WAVE OF CYBERNETICS: FROM REFLEXIVITY TO SELF-ORGANIZATION It all started with a frog. In a classic article entitled 'What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," central players in the Macy group-including Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and Jerry Lettvin-did pioneering work on a frog's visual system. They demonstrated, with great elegance, that the frog's visual system does not so much represent reality as construct it. 1 What's true for frogs must also hold for humans, for there's no reason to be­ lieve that the human neural system is uniquely constructed to show the world as it "really" is. Not everyone in the research group was interested in pursuing the potentially radical epistemological implications of this work. McCulloch, for example, remained wedded to realist epistemology. But a young neurophysiologist from Chile, Humberto Maturana, was also on the research team, and he used it as a springboard into the unknown. Pushing the envelope of traditional scientific objectivity, he developed a new way of talking about life and about the observer's role in describing living systems. Entwined with the epistemological revolution he started are the three sto­ ries we have been follOwing: the reification ofinformation, the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg, and the transformation of the hu­ man into the posthuman. As a result of work by Maturana and his collabo­ rator, Francisco Varela, all three stories took decisive turns during the second wave of cybernetics, from 1960 to 1985. This chapter follows the paths that Maturana and Varela took as they probed deeply into what it means to acknowledge that the observer, like the frog, does not so much discern preexisting systems as create them through the very act of observa­ tion.
    [Show full text]
  • Leadership & Language in Regenerating Organizations Hugh Dubberly Peter Esmonde Michael Geoghegan Paul Pangaro
    NOTES 358 ON THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP & LANGUAGE IN REGENERATING ORGANIZATIONS HUGH DUBBERLY PETER ESMONDE MICHAEL GEOGHEGAN PAUL PANGARO Organizations are living systems, and like all living systems, they seek equilibrium and avoid change. (They conserve themselves.) Change occurs in the relationship between organism (organization) and environment (the organization’s niche). An organization is fundamentally its language, alive in its conversations (who talks to whom about what). Conversation must precede agreement; agreement must precede coordinated action (and transaction). Thus language is the basis for all business. Narrowing language increases efficiency. In a stable environment, increasing efficiency makes sense, but it creates risk. Certain things can no longer be said or even seen (discerned). They are outside the day-to-day language of the organization. They are not 358 valid in the context of the day-to-day; they are even “unnatural.” Inevitably, the environment and its relation to the organization changes; then, having narrowed language (reducing its variety), the organization may become unable to understand these changes or to respond. Conversely, expanding language increases opportunity. To regenerate, an organization must create new language. Creating new language is a responsibility of leadership. Leadership is not a property of an individual; leadership is a condition of an organization. Leadership ensures space in an organization for efficiency, discovery, and invention, and each may be required in different phases of change. Leadership requires that we ask unnatural questions (a source of new language). This essay emerged from conversations between Hugh Dubberly, Peter Esmonde, Paul Pangaro, and Dr. Michael Geoghegan, who devoted more than twenty-five years to research, development, and strategic planning at DuPont.
    [Show full text]
  • Considering a Theory of Autopoietic Culture
    Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 8(2)/2011: 85–104 DOI: 10.2478/v10193-011-0021-0 Considering a Theory of Autopoietic Culture Scott H. BOYD Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus Kalkanli – Guzelyurt, TRNC Mersin 10 TURKEY [email protected] Abstract. This article questions the predominance of pragmatism and fixed points of reference in academic paradigms regarding culture and proposes a theory of autopoietic culture based on a theory of living forms developed by the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The central part of the theory of autopoietic culture is that culture, something originating with humanity and reflected upon by the same, is an autonomous and autonomic unity that is a network of processes and production of components that are continuously generated and “recursively participate through their interactions in the generation and realization of the network of process of production of components which produced them” (Maturana, 1999: 149, 153). This article briefly refers to the theories of Thomas Sebeok, Juri Lotman, Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu, which have similar components to the theory of autopoietic culture. The arti- cle concludes that within autopoietic culture whatever we would consider describing as a cultural element is not as significant as the processes within which it is part in the con- struction of its own boundary of discernment; our description of the process is always conducted with other observers in a linguistic domain; our existence carries its own on- togeny and creates perturbations in the structure (elements) which we distinguish; and there are an unknown number of elements and processes continuing in time within the unity that define the unity and are beyond our ability to distinguish.
    [Show full text]
  • Biosphere, Homosphere, and Robosphere: What Has That to Do with Business? Humberto Maturana Romesin and Pille Bunnell
    Biosphere, Homosphere, and Robosphere: what has that to do with Business? Humberto Maturana Romesin and Pille Bunnell This paper is based on a presentation made by Humberto Maturana at the Society for Organizational Learning Member's Meeting, Amherst MA in June, 1998. It is not a transcript, rather it is a re-creation by Pille Bunnell, reorganized with changes, deletions, and additions intended to make it more coherent as a written document. The first person voice of Dr. Maturana is retained, but any mis-representation of what he intended is the responsibility of Dr. Bunnell. Introduction I think that most of the fundaments about how we can work together in business setting are already understood by many business people. For example the transformation of Shell Oil over the last five years is grounded in an understanding of the social ground of working together, even where this is not made explicit. I am not a business person, so I shall not tell you about business. What I shall do is to reflect on the biological background on which the concern for what we do in business rests. This meeting began with a presentation of beautiful slides, and we enjoyed them. Isn't this remarkable! We enjoy beauty. How come we humans enjoy beauty? What is beauty that we enjoy it? Why, or what, or how is it that we have a sense of wellbeing when looking at beautiful images? And what were these images that we found beautiful? Trees, leaves, waterfalls, sunsets -- nature, beautiful nature. We find beauty in nature everywhere; in the desert, the forest, or the mountains -- any natural place.
    [Show full text]
  • Heinz Von Foerster – an Appreciation” (Revisited)
    Cybernetics And Human Knowing. Vol. 10, no. 2, pp. xx-xx “Heinz von Foerster – An Appreciation” (Revisited) Bernard Scott1 Reproduced below, with a few small edits, is a paper I wrote in 1979 for the International Cybernetics Newsletter, as part of its ‘founding fathers of cybernetics’ series (Scott, 1979). I offer it here as a contribution to this special issue of C&HK because (i) I believe my younger self did quite a good job of overviewing von Foerster’s career (recall, he ‘retired’ in 1976) and (ii) the article is not readily available to the current generation of scholars who, I hope, will be interested in finding out about cybernetics and exploring its history. I preface the 1979 paper with a Prologue in which I set the paper in context and draw attention to aspects of von Foerster’s early work that have perhaps been overlooked in recent years, especially with the particular interest given to his later writings on second order cybernetics. There is also an Epilogue in which I comment on developments post-1979 where von Foerster’s influence has been evident, in particular, work and writings that explicitly draw on von Foerster’s distinction between a first and second order cybernetics. Prologue The paper below, “Heinz von Foerster: An Appreciation,” first published in 1979 (Scott, 1979), was written when I was in my early thirties. I had by that time been a student of cybernetics for more than ten years. Like many others before and since, I was fascinated by the coming together within the cybernetics circle of a group of mutually supportive but disparate scholars of astonishing brilliance.
    [Show full text]
  • The Systems View of Life I. Living Systems
    Fritjof Capra Bodø Seminar May 19, 2015 The Systems View of Life I. Living Systems Ecological Sustainability A sustainable human community is designed in such a manner that its ways of life, businesses, economy, physical structures, and technologies respect, honor, and cooperate with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. A New Scientific Understanding of Life The material world, ultimately is a network of inseparable patterns of relationship. A New Scientific Understanding of Life The material world, ultimately is a network of inseparable patterns of relationship. The planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. A New Scientific Understanding of Life The material world, ultimately is a network of inseparable patterns of relationship. The planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. The brain, the immune system, the bodily tissues, and even each cell is a living, cognitive system. A New Scientific Understanding of Life The material world, ultimately is a network of inseparable patterns of relationship. The planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. The brain, the immune system, the bodily tissues, and even each cell is a living, cognitive system. Evolution is a cooperative dance in which creativity and the constant emergence of novelty are the driving forces. A New Scientific Understanding of Life With the new emphasis on complexity, networks and patterns of organization, a new science of qualities is slowly emerging. Ueda attractor Living Systems A living system — organism, ecosystem, or social system — is an integrated whole whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” Barnraising in an Amish community Living Systems Systems theory tells us that all living systems share a set of common properties and principles of organization.
    [Show full text]
  • Some Differences Between Maturana and Varela's Theory of Cognition and Constructivism
    Some Differences between Maturana and Varela's Theory of Cognition and Constructivism JÉRÔME PROULX University of Ottawa (Canada) Abstract The theory of cognition of Varela and Maturana differs in specific aspects from constructivist theories and so should not be seen or interpreted as another form of constructivism. To encourage the emergence of a discussion on important differences between both theories, this paper aims at highlighting three of these specific aspects, namely the biological roots of cognition, its phylogenic and ontogenic basis, and the nature of reality and knowledge. In many regards, it is possible that the first two points were seen as extensions of constructivism, and had not been theorized previously as distinctions, as is done in the paper. The third point concerning the ideas of “bringing forth a world” represents a clear conceptual shift from the visions inherent in constructivism, and should not be neglected in discussions on epistemology and the nature of knowledge and reality. This third fundamental point brings us to see Varela and Maturana as being different than constructivists, rather seeing them as “bring forthists.” Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education Volume 5 (2008), Number 1 • pp. 11-26 •www.complexityandeducation.ca 11 Elaborations on Maturana and Varela’s Theory of Cognition Introduction Whereas the twentieth century was seen as the century of physics, the twenty-first is often predicted to be the century of biology. (Barabasi 2003, p. 197) The cutting-edge work on cognition of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela has had an important influence on those interested in aspects of complexity theory and education, particularly in regard to issues and questions of epistemology, learning, knowledge, objectivity, causality, self-organisation, emergence, ethics, and so on.
    [Show full text]