Autopoesis

Autopoesis

Autopoesis is both a concept about self-maintaining systems, especially biological ones, and an epistemological theory about cognition and self-reference.

Humberto Maturana and F. J. Varela proposed the concept of autopoesis (as opposed to allopoetic) as the organization of living things, which maintains their lasting unity and wholeness in the midst of continual turnover of constituents, specifically through self-production. For them, autopoesis is the necessary and sufficient condition for the minimal units of life. Autopoesis defines the minimal mechanistic features of the simplest possible living entity. It describes "how life works." All living systems are autopoetic, and all physical systems, if autopoetic, can be said to be living.

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