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Self-Organisation and Autopoiesis Klaus G. Saul 25.09.2003

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Self-Organisation and Autopoiesis

1. Self-Organisation

Nowadays, "self-organisation" is a broad term applied to a range of concepts that have one thing

in common despite various names such as synergetics, autopoiesis, dissipative structures or self-referring systems: the attempt to describe and grasp the behaviour of complex, dynamic systems.

In physics, for example, the concern is to explain structure-building processes in hydrodynamic

convection flows or the coherent behaviour of light emissions in the laser. Chemistry studies the

origins of spatial and/or temporal structures in chemical reactions. On the borders between

chemistry and biology, scientists are studying the emergence and development of highly com-

plex organic molecules and trying to understand how biological information emerged in a pre-

biotic world. From neurophysiology to ecology, biology is studying phenomena of ontogenesisand phylogenesis in order to grasp how the complex can emerge from the simple.

2. Autopoiesis

The theoretical construct definitive of the manner of operation of that class of systems that

includes living systems. This term, combined from the Greek auto- (self) and poiesis

(creation/production), was coined by Maturana in (approximately) 1972 (Cf. Maturana & Varela,

1980, p. xvii). Often loosely translated as 'self-creation' or 'self-production', the term connotes

the process or dynamic by which an autopoietic machine / system maintains its autopoietic

organization (via intrinsic processes of production of components realizing this particularorganization). More specifically, autopoiesis is attributed to amachine(delineated as a a network

of processes) which through that network of processes produces the components that:

"(1) through their interactions and transformations continuously

regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced

them; and

(2) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which

they [the components] exist by specifying the topological domain of its

realization as such a network."

(Varela, 1979, p. 13)

In the primary literature, autopoiesis is not directly defined as a process. Instead it is defined

indirectly, on the basis of how an 'autopoietic machine' operates. There are, in fact, very few

instances in the primary literature where 'autopoiesis' is substantively treated in and of itself, and

then only as a process characteristic of 'self-production' or 'homeostatic organization' --constructs themselves framed mechanicistically with respect to the subject system's

architectonics. For example, Varela (1979, pp. 24-26) comes closest to addressing 'autopoiesis'

directly in the course of discussing productions of relations in a given system:

"What makes this system a unity with identity and individuality is that allthe relations of production are coordinated in a system describable as

having an invariant organization. In such a system any deformation at any

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place is compensated for ...by keeping its organization constant as defined

by the relation of the productions that constitute autopoiesis. The only

thing that defines the cell as a unity (as an individual) is its autopoiesis,

and thus, the only restriction put on the existence of the cell is the

maintenance of autopoiesis."

(Varela, 1979, p. 26, emphasis in the original)

"...[A]utopoiesis may arise in a molecular system if the relations of pro-

duction are concatenated in such a way that they produce componentsspecifying the system as a unity that exists only while it is actively pro-

duced by such concatenation of processes. This is to say that autopoiesis

arises in a molecular system only when the relation that concatenates these

relations is produced and maintained constant through the production of

the molecular components that constitute the system through this concate-

nation."(Varela, 1979, pp. 26-27)

NOTE: Given the above distinctions and qualifications about the nature and origin of the

construct 'autopoiesis', the details on what makes a composite unity (system) 'autopoietic'

are therefore to be found under the entries for autopoietic machine and autopoietic or-

ganization.

The strict, though indirect, definition of autopoiesis proposed in the early papers was intended to

provide a basis for overcoming vague or problematical characterizations of living systems -- par-

ticularly those which represented vitalistic explanationof biological phenomena. As Maturana

(1980a, p. 45) put it, the construct of autopoiesis:"...resulted from the direct attempt ... to provide a complete characterization of

the organization that makes living systems self-contained autonomous unities,and that makes explicit the relations among their components which must remaininvariant under a continuous structural transformation and material turnover."

This passage reinforces the viewpoint that it is the constitutive organization of an autopoieticsystem which is primary in delineating autopoiesis. This is reflected even in the less formal

popular account given in The Tree of Knowledge (Maturana & Varela, 1987, 1992):

"When we speak of living beings, we presuppose something in common betweenthem; otherwise we wouldn't put them in the same class we designate with thename 'living.' What has not been said, however, is: what is the organization that

defines them as a class? Our proposition is that living beings are characterized in

that, literally, they are continually self-producing. We indicate this process whenwe call the organization that defined them an autopoietic organization."

(Maturana & Varela, 1992, p. 43, emphasis added)

Having said that, Maturana and Varela proceed (as they have consistently done in the more formal litera-ture) to delineate the autopoietic organization as the basis for 'indicating' the process of 'autopoiesis.'

These last quotations illustrate a point which has proven somewhat problematical over the years. As men-tioned at the outset, 'autopoiesis' has in fact been delineated and formally defined in terms of the constitu-tion and operational character of an autopoietic machine or system. This definitional approach was en-

tirely consistent with the mechanistic perspective from which Maturana and Varela initially proceeded.

To have invoked an ephemeral 'autopoiesis' (e.g., as a processual or qualitative referent) would have ar-guably entailed sliding into the sort ofvitalistic explanationwhich they explicitly opposed and strin-gently avoided.
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In other words, 'autopoiesis' is an abstract construct known solely in relation to a machine / system of aparticular constitution which maintains its key constitutive character over time. Strictly speaking, auto-poiesis has not been positively defined as a type of process in and of itself, even though it is clear in thecontext of its primary literature (e.g., Maturana & Varela, 1980) that it is the dynamic or process evi-denced by, and reciprocally preservative of, the autopoietic organization / autopoietic machine. Nonethe-less, it became common practice (even on occasion by Maturana and Varela themselves) to allude to'autopoiesis' as a rhetorical shorthand connoting (in terms of process) the constitutive and operational de-

tails of a particular system. This is most evident when addressing the dynamics of an autopoietic system -- i.e., when the processes manifest in the autopoietic network comprise the referential foreground, and themechanics of the network itself are relegated to the background.

Given the above-cited conditions, it is possibly understandable, though definitely somewhat ironic, thatthis indirectly- or allusively-defined shorthand term should become the de facto label for the essence ofMaturana and Varela's work, as well as a common label for that work itself (Cf. 2. below). So long assuch invocations retain (or at least can be linked to) the sort of mechanicistic context in which the process'autopoiesis' is definitively framed, this is not problematical. What is problematical is explanatory invoca-tion (and reliance upon) the process or dynamic of 'autopoiesis' absent this context. To invoke 'autopoi-esis' (e.g., as 'self-production') without concomitantly explaining the constitutive elements of the sys-

tem(s) for which such invocation is made, is to deny any basis for evaluating the applicability of the con-

struct (as it was defined originally). The most well-known example of such an invocation would be that ofGerman sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who adopted 'autopoiesis' as a processual construct in analyzing so-cial systems, yet never (to date) bothered to explain what in his view are the key constitutive elements(e.g., 'organization', 'structure') by which such an application might be assessed in terms of Maturana and

Varela's clear-cut definitional criteria.

The explanatory risk in invoking 'autopoiesis' absent attention to the machine / system manifesting it hastwo distinguishable (but admittedly intertwined) components. The first is that an observer may simplisti-cally project the feature 'autopoiesis' onto a unity with which she has insufficient or imperfect observa-tional engagement upon which to base its ascription. Phrased another way, stripping the processual con-struct away from the machine manifesting it opens the possibility of its mistaken attribution to somethingonly partially or indirectly observed. Varela (1979) provides some illustration for this type of risk in writ-

ing of recognizing an autopoietic system (as distinct from autonomous systems in general):"In general, the actual recognition of an autopoietic system poses a cognitiveproblem that has to do both with the capacity of the observer to recognize therelations that define the system as a unity, and with his capacity to distinguishthe boundaries that delimit this unity in the space in which it is realized (hiscriteria of distinction). Since it is a defining feature of an autopoietic system that

it should specify its own boundaries, a proper recognition of an autopoieticsystem as a unity requires that the observer perform an operation of distinction

that defines the limits of the system in the same domain in which it specifiesthem through its autopoiesis. If this is not the case, he does not observe theautopoietic system as a unity, even though he may conceiveit."

(Varela, 1979, p. 54)

The second, but related, explanatory risk has to do with ascribing autopoiesis to systems with which theobserver / explainer may have 'proper' observational engagement, but for which the observer ignores ad-

dressing the key features of the autopoietic organization by which the process of autopoiesis is defined.Varela (1979) also addresses this issue in passing, during his discussion of ascribing autopoiesis to other(autonomous) systems (i.e., systems of similar apparent constitution or apparent mode of operation, butnot 'living systems'). Varela notes that other systems, being autonomous, entail:

"...assertion of the system's identity through its functioning in such a way thatobservation proceeds through the coupling between the observer and the unit in

the domain in which the unity's operation occurs.

What is unsatisfactory about autopoiesis for the characterization of other unities... is also apparent from this very description. The relations that characterize


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autopoiesis are relations of productions of components. ... Given this notion ofproduction of components, it follows that the cases of autopoiesis we can actuallyexhibit, such as living systems or model cases ..., have as a criterion of distinc-tion a topological boundary, and the processes that define them occur in a physi-cal-like space...

Thus, the idea of autopoiesis is, by definition, restricted to relations of produc-

tions of some kind, and refers to topological boundaries. These two conditionsare clearly unsatisfactory for other systems exhibiting autonomy." [...of whichVarela specifically mentions animal societies and human social institutions --

Ed.]

(Varela, 1979, p. 54, emphasis in the original)

The difference between autonomy and autopoiesis is that autopoietic systems must produce their own

components in addition to conserving their organization . Autonomous machines need only exhibitorganizational closure, and they are not required to produce their own components as part of their

operation.

3. Specific Issues

The work of the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturanaand Francisco Varela(1980; 1987) (hereaftertermed autopoietic theory) concretely addresses issues as follows:

Autopoietic theory is a 'systemic perspective', because it addresses its subjects in terms of theirbeing formal and functional wholes.

Autopoietic theory provides a foundation for describing and analyzing 'auto-determination', because the central concept of autopoiesis defines living systems as self-producing units which accordingly (self-)maintain their essential form.

Autopoietic theory provides a specific basis for explaining and addressing'contextualization', because it is an example of second order cybernetics-- systems-theoreticanalyses which incorporate the role of an observer in defining systems.

Autopoietic theory avoids much of the 'unhealthy' ambiguity surrounding the idea of 'self-organization', because Maturana and Varela have formulated and extended their concepts in a

quite rigorous and systematic fashion.
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