[Fis] Current remarks/Autopoiesis (& KARL SESSION)

[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Folks,
I maintain that there still continues a confusion about the aim of the
cybernetic work of Maturana,Uribe and Varela, particularly if the
criticisms are in the form of
the clear need for detailed understanding of just how life processes work.
Who can deny that? MUV point out that a living organism consists in an
organization that keeps replenishing its materiality while at the same time
maintaining its organization. They further raise the question about how
such organization can arise in the first place, giving a very elementary
example of such an emergence. In this way they provide a framework for
thinking about organization and process that is more general than biology
and that lets one think about these matters without dogma. In order to do
so, one must avoid making dogma out of MUV and now we arrive at the
problem. The problem, as I see it, is in academic discussion -- which
normally depends on making references to previously published work, each
such work being regarded as some kind of steppingstone to the building of
an imagined edifice of thought. But you just cannot maintain that sort of
structure unless you have the kind of foundational criticism as occurs in
some parts of science such as in physics an mathematics but is
unfortunately not present elsewhere. One can eventually discard the shells
of useless thought (like phlogiston). MUV is not providing us with a
possible phlogiston. They are providing us with general principles of
organization for structures that persist in time. It is not time yet to
discard these ideas.
Best,
Lou


On Sun, Dec 14, 2025 at 3:39 PM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> Let me start by recognizing Kate Peil and Lou Kauffman for their work in
> the session on Karl's legacy. Kate has written a thoughtful summary of
> Karl's main views that can be downloaded from fis web pages, at: *https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/resources/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkfhlpVK3$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/resources/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkfhlpVK3$ >  * Have a glance, "merece la pena"
> as we say in Spanish. Also, the session was recorded and will appear in
> IAIS Dialogs: *https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/@IAISDIALOGUES__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkXRQTcUy$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/@IAISDIALOGUES__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkXRQTcUy$ >*
>
> About AP, please note that it was proposed as a pandisciplinary or
> metatheory of cognition for the whole living. Interesting in the 70s in
> spite of its evident lack of biological substance, but 50 years ago the
> accumulation of anomalies (I telegraphed a few of them) have made its
> maintenance really problematic--as Kuhn would have said. That it can be
> supported by people working in mathematical or logical or philosophical
> grounds is OK, but remember please that "the tree of knowledge"  was
> proposed not exactly for those fields but for the entire life. As wikipedia
> blandly acknowledges: "The influence of *Autopoiesis* in mainstream
> biology was limited. Autopoiesis is not commonly used as the criterion for
> life...", citing from an aggiornamento proposed by Razeto-Barry, Pablo
> (October 2012). "Autopoiesis 40 Years Later. A Review and A Reformulation"
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232231194__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkX_Aal-W$ >. *Origins of Life*.
> *42* (6): 543–567.
>
> Best --Pedro
>
> El 14/12/2025 a las 11:59, joe.brenner at bluewin.ch escribió:
>
> The recognition that “autopoiesis” is not some kind of monolithic,
> spontaneous, *sui generis* process has been long in coming. For me, it is
> at best an appearance-reality duality, without explanatory power.
>
> If one agrees that “autopoiesis” does not operate like an on-off switch,
> then there must be some intermediate stages or structures, as well as some
> movement between them. The “auto-“ is then clearly a misnomer but let us go
> on. It is these details of real processes that is, of any real change for
> which Stéphane Lupasco proposed a movement between primarily actual to
> primarily potential and *vice versa*, alternately and reciprocally. This
> sinusoidal view of process is certainly to be found elsewhere, at least in
> “potential” form, but Lupasco deserves the historical credit for having
> formulated it. Identities – “my theory” – thus appear for what they are,
> idealizations cut off from their opposites or, in reality, not
> contradictions but  counteractions. *Pace *Steve, one must be able to
> deal with *discontinuous *exchange, as well a continuous.
>
> There is still no accepted “language” in which to express these
> principles. I have tried, of course, a language of energy, following
> Lupasco. Modern, post-Bertalanffy systems theory comes perhaps close, as
> does Steve’s Autopoietic Ecology, since it recognizes the limitations of
> static formulations of the dynamic real  world,* including *its domains
> that are binary to all intentas and purposes.
>
> I hope a renewed dialogue is possible, without recourse to the “baby”
> diagrams of Peirce and Wittgenstein
>
> Thanks and  best,
> Joseph
>
> Le 13.12.2025 20:10 CET, Steve Watson <sw10014 at cam.ac.uk>
> <sw10014 at cam.ac.uk> a écrit :
>
>
> Dear Lou, dear colleagues,
>
> Thank you for posting the 1974 Varela, Maturana, and Uribe paper — it is
> extremely helpful to have the discussion re-anchored in the original
> formulation.
>
> I fully agree with the point you emphasise: autopoietic systems are not
> materially or energetically closed. They exist only through continuous
> exchange with their environment, while preserving an organisational
> invariance across that exchange. The simple protocell model in the paper
> remains one of the clearest demonstrations of this idea.
>
> This is also the sense in which I use expressions such as O ≈ F(O): not as
> a claim about self-containment, energetic closure, or perpetual motion, but
> as a shorthand for organisational persistence across transformation. I
> should probably make that explicit more often, as the notation clearly
> invites misreadings.
>
> For avoidance of doubt, Autopoietic Ecology does not treat autopoiesis as
> a universal or exclusive explanatory principle. It treats it as one type of
> organisational dynamic that becomes interesting precisely when systems are
> open, fragile, metabolically dependent, and capable of breakdown as well as
> persistence. The ecological emphasis is meant to foreground coupling,
> constraint, and reorganisation rather than purity or closure.
>
> I appreciate your reminder of how carefully these distinctions were drawn
> in the original work. It helps keep the discussion focused on what
> autopoiesis was actually intended to say — and what later extensions should
> remain accountable to.
>
> Warm regards,
> Steve
> Sent from Outlook for iOS
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://aka.ms/o0ukef__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RkQN2OV63tPC5SkQehKl68utm5y4RNCuvAzahTMs7Guc-nNsFbJ1xenO8zci4NCEraNL98_xj7uBmedwO4jb$>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>
> on behalf of Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> <loukau at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, December 13, 2025 5:43:58 PM
> *To:* Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
> <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es> <fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Current remarks/Autopoiesis
>
> It is still worth while to read the original paper by Maturana, Varela and
> Uribe.
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Varela_Maturana_Uribe_1974_Autopoiesis.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkdeZ-2aZ$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Varela_Maturana_Uribe_1974_Autopoiesis.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!WyWMlWnFm0o4ncLeSN2bah-w8NstuK2jGIYI4dDC6K3eiM--0f70muEN4SkRLS50fLMhSd0qnVj-BUy1$>
> Here is a link to that paper.
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 3:16 PM Pedro C. Marijuán <
> pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear List,
>
> When I hear on autopiesis, my impression is that many people continue to
> be blindly tied to a conceptualization, interesting in its origins and
> counterpoise to then dominant reductionist stances, but inconsequential
> with its biological-cellular grounding --even in that very time, but even
> more in our times. I argued past months on the AP weakness regarding
> apoptosis & protein degradation, many genes rarely expressed along the life
> cycle, openness to obtain foreign dna from the environment, plasmids &
> phages uptake, horizontal gene transmission, multiple generation of gene
> novelties, sex & recombinations, etc. About information in AP, "signaling"
> is not accepted as such, but as "structural coupling with the niche" (so,
> nothing about an external information flow or the like). About the obvious
> need of, say, an energy flow there is no realization that a previous
> sensing of ALL those items is needed. The revolution in prokaryotic
> signaling brought by the discovery of "One Component Systems" (in the
> hundreds in each bacteria) in last two decades clarify that point--how the
> external substances are first "tasted" and later introjected. The
> interception of an information flow best adapted to the ongoing life cycle
> is continuously made.  So, the living cell is just "informational": in its
> self-production, in its relationship with the environment, and in its
> generation of multi-cell complexity.
> To be continued one of these days.
>
> Best regards,
> --Pedro
>
>  .   El 10/12/2025 a las 23:08, Krassimir Markov escribió:
>
> Dear Steve,
>
> I respect your opinion and understanding of the world through AE, but
> still there are some reasonable scientific boundaries that should not be
> crossed. Here is a small example.
>
> Air existed before we were born and, I hope, if there is no destructive
> war instigated by russia, it will continue to exist after our death. At the
> same time, without air we cannot live, i.e. we are an open system that
> constantly exchanges resources with the environment. In other words, living
> organisms are not autopoietic systems. To convince yourself of this
> statement, just stop breathing. The conviction in the truth of the
> statement will come to you only after a minute or two and you will probably
> accept that your operator should be written
>
> O=F(O, Input, Output).
>
> I am writing this in connection with your statement that "Material
> processes and interpretive activity are not alternatives; they are two
> sides of the same ecological dynamic. Neither can be shown to precede the
> other.” which I cannot accept as true.
>
> Just as there are no closed autopoietic systems, so there is no reality
> that cannot exist without interpretation.
>
> The ecological dynamic you are talking about is a mental structure and, of
> course, in it properly the mental structures that reflect the material
> processes and the mental structures that interpret them are dialectically
> connected in consciousness, and yes - they are two sides of a common mental
> structure, if we can even talk about sides in mental structures.
>
>
>
> Dear Eric,
>
> I completely agree with your thoughts. Indeed, the study of the processes
> of interaction between people is very important and has great significance.
> Unfortunately, my impression is that most researchers adhere to the deeply
> erroneous and inapplicable to humans Shannon's paradigm.
>
> Yes, the theory of signal transmission is wonderfully applied in technical
> data transmission systems, where the basic principle is "copy/paste". In
> other words, the image that is formed in the recipient's memory completely
> (100%!!!) coincides with the image in the sender's memory. Any deviation is
> considered an error and requires re-sending the data, as well as the
> application of error-resistant codes during transmission.
>
> In humans, this is absolutely impossible and inapplicable. "Copy/paste"
> cannot happen due to the nature of the interaction between people, which is
> at the level of meaning, and not at the level of signals (reflections). The
> sender (a person or group of people) externalizes their mental structures
> (for example, this letter), and the recipient reflects what they have
> received and gives it their own meaning. It is impossible in this process
> to obtain an exact copy of the image from the source's memory in the
> receiver's memory. Therefore, it is correct to speak of "information
> interaction" in people, and of "communication" in technical systems. I am
> attaching a slide from my lecture at the IS4SI 2025 Summit, which contains
> the brilliant thought of the Bulgarian poet Pencho Slaveykov, expressed
> more than a century ago.
>
>
>
> With respect,
>
> Krassimir
>
>
> [image: image.png]
>
>
>
>
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QTuKkbEq3o-edqcFbLUT6Fj6mBkdCrLywyifmxx0aOnY7XGPCXlscdrBh4P_vF2wg7E_72E8WBjjtvbtkLc$>
> Virus-free.www.avast.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QTuKkbEq3o-edqcFbLUT6Fj6mBkdCrLywyifmxx0aOnY7XGPCXlscdrBh4P_vF2wg7E_72E8WBjjtvbtkLc$>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing listFis at listas.unizar.eshttp://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
> ----------
> INFORMACIÓN SOBRE PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER PERSONAL
>
> Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.
> Puede encontrar toda la información sobre como tratamos sus datos en el siguiente enlace: https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas 
> Recuerde que si está suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de baja desde la propia aplicación en el momento en que lo desee.http://listas.unizar.es 
> ----------
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
> ----------
> INFORMACIÓN SOBRE PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER PERSONAL
>
> Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por
> la Universidad de Zaragoza.
> Puede encontrar toda la información sobre como tratamos sus datos en el
> siguiente enlace:
> https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas 
> Recuerde que si está suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de
> baja desde la propia aplicación en el momento en que lo desee.
> http://listas.unizar.es 
> ----------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
> ----------
> INFORMACIÓN SOBRE PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER PERSONAL
>
> Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por
> la Universidad de Zaragoza.
> Puede encontrar toda la información sobre como tratamos sus datos en el
> siguiente enlace:
> https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas 
> Recuerde que si está suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de
> baja desde la propia aplicación en el momento en que lo desee.
> http://listas.unizar.es 
> ----------
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20251215/24ae53ef/attachment-0001.html>