Autopoiesis ....and how it is analogous to Rosennean Complexity

["Juan-Carlos Letelier" <***>]

Dear List;

        I saw yesterday's  messages from Tim Gwinn and Judith Rosen concerning
Autopoiesis and now, in a less than perfect english, I will try to clarify
the points suggested by TIM GWINN

1) I agree with TG that, in the context of M&V; the term MACHINE should be
interpreteed in its historical context.  Please be aware that one of the
fundamental questions that M&V had to write the book (in 1973 in Spanish)
was to fight against the notion of TELEONOMY put forward by Jacob. (In la
Logique du vivant).  They use the term "machine" to specifically denote an
entity that only follows internally generated rules, and not wide principles
of minimization.  For M&V it was a very important point...becuase "machines"
do have structure and organization.  Thus in some sense their effort was to
build a biological theory of organization, a path already visited by Rosen
in 1958-59.  Their effort required a re-definition of the notions of
Structure and Organization.

2) I agree with TG about the notion of "clousure": they meant "operational
closure", not
thermodynamic closure.  In this sense autopoietic systems are really closed
to efficient causation... exactly like (M,R) systems.  Again the principal
idea is that an autopoietic systems follows an internal dynamics defined by
its own metabolism.

3) Also I want to point to another similarity between the point of views of
RR and M&V: A correct theory of living systems demands a new epistemology.
The "Cosmology" inherited from physicists is not adequate to understand
living systems. In the case of Maturana this epistemological question was
the starting point(!!), he always has considered the Notion of AUTOPOIETIC
SYSTEMS as a "footnote" to what he calls BIOLOGY OF COGNITION.  Maturana
concentrates, not in COMPLEXITY ...but in the notion of (OBJECTIVITY). This
is why in the field of RADICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM the notions of autopoiesis are
so popular (I do not know that this is a positive thing...).  In the case of
Dr. Rosen (at least if we follow the trail of published papers) the path was
exactly the opposite.  Rosen began with a meticulous study of (M,R) systems
....to arrive at the shores of the study of Complexity.  This similarity
should be (one day!!) the topic of more than one Ph.D. Dissertation....

3Bis) the main difference between Autopoietic and (M,R) systems...is the
notion of discreteness (encapsulation). One of the most fundamental
properties of Living Systems...is that they are discrete entities....They
are not "gases" or "fields"...they are "a mouse" or "a bacterium".  The
formalism of (M,R) systems appears to treat living systems as un-bounded
entities.

4) The ideas of Robert Rosen in one hand, and Humberto Maturana ana
Francisco Varela in the other are (at least for me) very difficult to grasp.
This is why I wrote the JBT paper (to explain something to myself)and why I
try very hard never to be more that 10 feet away of  the series of ROsen
papers from 1958-1972.(I lost my ANTICIPATORY SYSTEMS...!.  My bet is that
both theories/model/welstanschaung are (almost) perfectly complementary.

Thanks for your patience

letelier