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

Tue Dec 16 09:31:24 CET 2025

Dear John,
I am sure that this will be my last legal communication this week.
As you know, I am an advocate of the use of abstractions or patterns that can apply to multiple situations. You seem to always advocate that any given idea must be instantiated and explained by some specific physical circumstance. That is so alien to my way of thinking that I actually find it interesting. But you could consider what I say interesting to you. I say that we can consider a process whereby a structure (and we as observers have to decide how that structure is to be detected or observed) is maintained even though the component parts of the structure are seen to change over time. Indeed we are thinking of the structure itself as showing how it uses material from its environment to form itself and so continue its form. Such a process is called autopoeitic. But there are many examples of such structures, with different kinds of physical substrates. The place where your way of thinking comes in is when I have a more grandiose thought that perhaps what we call the Universe is autopoeitic. But then the Universe should be its own environment! I do not believe in closed system autopoeisis. So I correspondingly find that I do not believe in a closed universe.
If you ever imagine that you have defined the Universe (Wolfram once said he thought he could do it in a thousand lines of code) you will find that it has escaped your definition. For me that is quite satisfying.
Best,
Lou

> On Dec 15, 2025, at 6:25 AM, JOHN TORDAY <jtorday at ucla.edu> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lou et al, with regard to MUV, they address the subject of 'autopoiesis' or self-referential self-organization without a mechanism that would allow testing/refuting. With all due respect to them, they were working in the pre-molecular biology world, to which I have access now. But given all of that, I am of the opinion that autopoiesis is synonymous with homeostasis, the latter seen as an exaptation (Gould and Vrba's term for a trait that reference some earlier adaptive strategy from the past). In the case of homeostasis, the exaptation refers to the chemical 'balancing' of hydrogen and helium reacting iteratively to form the stars (Stellar Nucleosynthesis, Hoyle, 1946), the byproducts of which were the elements in their exact order of their atomic masses from 1 to 94 as the 'logic' of the Cosmos. Fast forward 10 billion years, and life is evolving due to symbiogenic (Sagan, 1967) assimilation of the elements in order to maintain their homeostatic balance in an ever-changing environment, assimilating the logic of the Cosmos......and this is the foundation for both local and non-local consciousness. In their book "Autopoiesis and Cognition" M and V describe what I am offering a mechanistic explanation for which IS TESTABLE in the sense that if you deprive cells of the force of gravity they devolve. 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 1:22 AM Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com <mailto:loukau at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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!TKMXtREHvv3k78o-agr_-H64gI0DIGYv4B5Gxxph4CJG9M7RrVqMDn1wM5mqX-VPvepkQJ4UerIW8Bcl$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/resources/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XnqxvPkY3DZ0qm24FtSwHBLsPRrbl4YHc1CDT3u8HMVP2dum7rgwsbIydFJ0LNUBEpVZvOWMkfhlpVK3$>   Have a glance, "merece la pena" as we say in Spanish. Also, the session was recorded and will appear in IAIS Dialogs: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/@IAISDIALOGUES__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TKMXtREHvv3k78o-agr_-H64gI0DIGYv4B5Gxxph4CJG9M7RrVqMDn1wM5mqX-VPvepkQJ4UeoMILj_7$  <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 <mailto: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> <mailto: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$>
>>> From: Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com> <mailto:loukau at gmail.com> 
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2025 5:43:58 PM 
>>> To: Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> <mailto:pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> 
>>> Cc: fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es> <fis at listas.unizar.es> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es> 
>>> Subject: Re: [Fis] Current remarks/Autopoiesis
>>>  
>>> It is still worth while to read the original paper by Maturana, Varela and Uribe.
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Varela_Maturana_Uribe_1974_Autopoiesis.pdf__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TKMXtREHvv3k78o-agr_-H64gI0DIGYv4B5Gxxph4CJG9M7RrVqMDn1wM5mqX-VPvepkQJ4Uej-If7tG$  <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 <mailto: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
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
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