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

Mon Dec 15 13:13:36 CET 2025

Caro Lou e cari tutti,

nella mia *Nuova economia, *la struttura di un sistema fabbrica-mercato
(mia definizione di azienda o impresa, o società. etc.) auto-poietica si
tras-in-forma topo-logicamente, ma continua ad auto-perpetuarsi
ri-generandosi  mediante un codice che la ri-crea continuamente.
Questo credo o questo penso, umilmente, che valga nella concretezza della
realtà economica caratterizzata dalla emo-ra-zionalità..
Grazie e un abbraccio augurale
Francesco

Dear Lou and all,

in my New Economy, the structure of a factory-market system (my
definition of company or business, or society, etc.)

auto-poietically transforms itself into form topologically, but
continues to self-perpetuate by re-generating itself through

a code that continually re-creates it. This is what I believe or this
is what I humbly think is valid in the concreteness

of economic reality characterized by emo-rationality. Thank you and best wishes.

Francesco, Feedback <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://translate.google.it/?hl=it__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RVQFg6MQFe884_SaEX_MGbqaNB-Zwbges8cUu3xvgCkjNmbnHkwKzd2Eqdsdh6zcaPYZy1IQbKw3lG4SrkLz6Wup8QDl$ >

Il giorno lun 15 dic 2025 alle ore 11:40 joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <
joe.brenner en bluewin.ch> ha scritto:

> Yes, but as Lupasco asked, what is a structure? Is it always the same or
> does it change and if so how?
> Information changes, and so I argue it follows the rules of change and
> process.
> Joe
>
>
>
> Envoyé avec l’application blue News & E-Mail
>
>
>
>
> Le 15 décembre 2025 à 07:21, Louis Kauffman <loukau en gmail.com> a écrit
>> 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 en 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!RVQFg6MQFe884_SaEX_MGbqaNB-Zwbges8cUu3xvgCkjNmbnHkwKzd2Eqdsdh6zcaPYZy1IQbKw3lG4SrkLz6ULHfclf$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/resources/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QgJ1_xJYWDFXHfmZsf2_sZRaQB9lXGF4Gnk-BnJ2_ScbM3DKpA_sDbm9IQH5UdftG9Bspuw3hl0HTMBaYAPXbNVnkdU$>
>>> * Have a glance, "merece la pena" as we say in Spanish. Also, the
>>> session was recorded and will appear in IAIS Dialogs: *https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/@IAISDIALOGUES__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RVQFg6MQFe884_SaEX_MGbqaNB-Zwbges8cUu3xvgCkjNmbnHkwKzd2Eqdsdh6zcaPYZy1IQbKw3lG4SrkLz6ZvaEgHM$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/@IAISDIALOGUES__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QgJ1_xJYWDFXHfmZsf2_sZRaQB9lXGF4Gnk-BnJ2_ScbM3DKpA_sDbm9IQH5UdftG9Bspuw3hl0HTMBaYAPXpsBDLMg$>*
>>>
>>> About AP, please note that it was proposed as a pandisciplinary or
>>> metatheory of cognition for the whole living. Interesting in the 70s in
>>> spite of its evident lack of biological substance, but 50 years ago the
>>> accumulation of anomalies (I telegraphed a few of them) have made its
>>> maintenance really problematic--as Kuhn would have said. That it can be
>>> supported by people working in mathematical or logical or philosophical
>>> grounds is OK, but remember please that "the tree of knowledge"  was
>>> proposed not exactly for those fields but for the entire life. As wikipedia
>>> blandly acknowledges: "The influence of *Autopoiesis* in mainstream
>>> biology was limited. Autopoiesis is not commonly used as the criterion for
>>> life...", citing from an aggiornamento proposed by Razeto-Barry, Pablo
>>> (October 2012). "Autopoiesis 40 Years Later. A Review and A
>>> Reformulation"
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232231194__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!QgJ1_xJYWDFXHfmZsf2_sZRaQB9lXGF4Gnk-BnJ2_ScbM3DKpA_sDbm9IQH5UdftG9Bspuw3hl0HTMBaYAPXjWnJqDc$>.
>>> *Origins of Life*. *42* (6): 543–567.
>>>
>>> Best --Pedro
>>>
>>> El 14/12/2025 a las 11:59, joe.brenner en 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 en cam.ac.uk>
>>> <sw10014 en 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$>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* Fis <fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es>
>>> <fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Louis Kauffman
>>> <loukau en gmail.com> <loukau en gmail.com>
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, December 13, 2025 5:43:58 PM
>>> *To:* Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan en gmail.com>
>>> <pedroc.marijuan en gmail.com>
>>> *Cc:* fis en listas.unizar.es <fis en listas.unizar.es> <fis en listas.unizar.es>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Current remarks/Autopoiesis
>>>
>>> It is still worth while to read the original paper by Maturana, Varela
>>> and Uribe.
>>>
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Varela_Maturana_Uribe_1974_Autopoiesis.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RVQFg6MQFe884_SaEX_MGbqaNB-Zwbges8cUu3xvgCkjNmbnHkwKzd2Eqdsdh6zcaPYZy1IQbKw3lG4SrkLz6Zzns5qn$ 
>>> <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 en 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]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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