rachelctb's Post

Hi R:-) ~

Very interesting blog. You wrote, ". . . plants have something similar to a nervous system in their roots. So this plant was able to control where the cart moved to get more sun!!"

This seems to suggest support for the concept of the inherent self-organizing ability of cells, i.e. autopoeisis. Are you familiar with it?

If not, I've quoted Wikipedia's overview of autopoeisis below. Please note that Wikipedia is not always to be trusted but based on my other reading on the subject this looks fairly reliable at least as a springboard for discussion.

By the way, by quoting this source I don't mean to imply that I agree with all that is here written about autopoiesis but we can discuss pros and cons, if you are interested, once you've had a chance to look it over.

Of course, I'll be interested in reading about your feelings-thoughts about it.

Yours with empathy, understanding, and trust in evidence-based integral natural science and our timeless, infinite, omnipresent, caring, mysterious Source of all co-creativity relative to options for consciousness, healing, and soul development . . . individually, socially, and ecosystemically,

Bob

Here are the quotes from Wikipedia:

"Autopoiesis literally means "auto (self)-creation" (from the Greek: auto – αυτό for self- and poiesis – ποίησις for creation or production), and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function. The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973:

"An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)

"[…] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 89)

The term autopoiesis was originally conceived as an attempt to characterize the nature of living systems. A canonical example of an autopoietic system is the biological cell. The eukaryotic cell, for example, is made of various biochemical components such as nucleic acids and proteins, and is organized into bounded structures such as the cell nucleus, various organelles, a cell membrane and cytoskeleton. These structures, based on an external flow of molecules and energy, produce the components which, in turn, continue to maintain the organized bounded structure that gives rise to these components. An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory).

"More generally, the term autopoiesis resembles the dynamics of a non-equilibrium system; that is, organized states (sometimes also called dissipative structures) that remain stable for long periods of time despite matter and energy continually flowing through them. From a very general point of view, the notion of autopoiesis is often associated with that of self-organization. However, an autopoietic system is autonomous and operationally closed, in the sense that every process within it directly helps maintaining the whole. Autopoietic systems are structurally coupled with their medium in dialect dynamic of changes that can be recalled as sensory-motor coupling. This continuous dynamic is considered as knowledge and can be observed throughout life-forms.

An application of the concept to sociology can be found in Luhmann's Systems Theory.

REFERENCES
Capra, Fritjof (1997). The Web of Life. Random House. ISBN 0-385-47676-0 —general introduction to the ideas behind autopoiesis

Dyke, Charles (1988). The Evolutionary Dynamics of Complex Systems: A Study in Biosocial Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.

Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Francisco ([1st edition 1973] 1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living. Robert S.

Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (Eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 42. Dordecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co. ISBN 90-277-1015-5 (hardback), ISBN 90-277-1016-3 (paper) —the main published reference on autopoiesis

Maturana, H. R. & Varela, F. J. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambhala Publications.

Mingers, John (1994). Self-Producing Systems. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 0-306-44797-5 —a book on the autopoiesis concept in many different areas

Luisi, Pier L. (2003). Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften 90 49–59. —biologist view of autopoiesis

Varela, Francisco J.; Maturana, Humberto R.; & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. Biosystems 5 187–196. —one of the original papers on the concept of autopoiesis

Luhmann, Niklas (1990). Essays on Self-Reference. Columbia University Press. —Luhmann's adaptation of autopoiesis to social systems

Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores (1990). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Ablex Pub. Corp. —cognitive systems perspective on autopoiesis

Tabbi, Joseph (2002). Cognitive Fictions. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3557-9 — draws on systems theory and cognitive science to introduce autopoiesis to literary studies

Livingston, Ira (2006). Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics. University of Illinois Press. —an adaptation of autopoiesis to language.

Robb, Fenton F. (1991) Accounting – A Virtual Autopoietic System? Systems Practice 4, (3) (215-235).

See also
Robert Rosen
Systems theory

EXTERNAL LINKS
The Observer Web: Autopoiesis and Enaction: a website with more explanations

Several papers on autopoietic theory are available through archonic.net

A mindmap-collection of links and papers visualized by Ragnar Heil

A short 'Introductory Overview' of Autopoiesis by Tom Quick
Autopoiesis and knowledge in the organization by Aquiles Limone, Luis

E. Bastias
Poietic Generator: an autopoietic collective game

If Quantum Physics is correct about all, everything, being energy (which resonates at various frequencies), then plants would have energy signatures between that of animals and rocks. We know from oil exploration that Gaia has an identifiable resonant frequency, for the oil companies are now exploiting this to find new pools of oil!

I've a Mother-in-Law's Tongue that's been watching me for years!

Peace and Love
Glenn