7.6.1 The only thing that defines the cell as a unity (as an individual) is its autopoieses, and thus, the only restriction put on the existence of the cell is the maintenance of the autopoieses. (Varela, 1974, pg. 26.)

7.6.1 When considering the organisation of living systems in relation to the construction and design of networked environments, it is important to be aware of the important work of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana [6] in autopoieses. The term, coined by Maturana in the early 1970's, comes from the combination of the Greek auto (self) and poieses (creation/production). Loosely, autopoieses is attributed to a machine (delineated as a network of processes) which, through that network of processes, produces the components that

7.6.2 (1) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realise the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (2) constitute (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they [the components] exist by specifying the topological domain of its realisation as such a network. (Varela, 1974, pg.13.)

7.6.3 Maturana studied biology in the early 1960's in England and the United States, where he collaborated with Warren McCulloch's group at MIT and was strongly influenced by cybernetics. He consequently returned to University of Santiago, Chile. He was able to achieve a unique synthesis of the principles of organic biology and cybernetic systems while investigating principles of colour perception:

7.6.4 My investigations of colour perception led me to a discovery that was extraordinarily important to me: The nervous system operated as a closed network of interactions, in which every change of the interactive relations between certain components always results in a change of interactive relations of the same and other components. (Capra, 1996. pg. 96)

7.6.5 Maturana hypothesised that the "circular organisation" of the nervous system is the basic organisation of all living systems and that the process is identical to that of cognition: "Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is true for all organisms, with or without a nervous system." (Varela et al. 1974. Pg. 187) After publishing his ideas, Maturana began a long collaboration with his then student, Francisco Varela, a neuroscientist. Together they came up with the name for Maturana's idea: autopoiesis, meaning self-making. Auto, self‹referring to autonomy of self-organising systems, and poiesis, making‹the same Greek root as poetry. Maturana and Varela define autopoieses as the organisation system common to all living systems and clearly differentiate between "organisation" and "structure." The organisation of a living system is a set of relations among its components that characterise the system as belonging to a particular class. The structure is constituted by actual relations among the physical components. The system's structure is the physical embodiment of its organisation. (Maturana and Varela, 1980, pg. 72) [7] [top]