Discover more about Autopoiesis

Autopoiesis dates from the 1970's. The seminal scientific references are listed here in a brief bibliography that leads to more complete bibliographies. Because the papers are scattered around some quite obscure journals and conferences, the world wide web is now the richest and most complete source of study material.

The best print journal for autopoiesis that I know is Cybernetics and Human Knowing.

For a brief introduction I have listed a few clues about autopoiesis terminology an imaginary interview with Humberto Maturana written by David Mendes and some notes from Maturana's Australian workshops which typically ran over three days. David Mendes now has a bigger and better imaginary interview with Humberto Maturana called What Is It to Be Human? on his own website.

Maturana has recently combined with Ximena Dávila to form the Matriztica Institute in Santiago, Chile, which has information about their courses for foreigners, an excellent historical overview of the concepts, written by Maturana, and other papers, mostly in Spanish.

The most complete study guide specifically on autopoiesis is Randall Whitaker's Observer Web. This includes Tutorials, Bibliographies and the Encyclopaedia Autopoietica, new Focus Files and a lot more as well.

To put autopoiesis in its broader context there is no better site than Alex Riegler's Radical Constructivism. Here you can explore the work of Heinz von Foerster, Humberto Maturana, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Gordon Pask and other pioneers as well as the latest happenings in this field. There is a quick summary of where autopoiesis fits within radical constructivism and an online discussion forum.

The original home page for Humberto Maturana, who coined the term, autopoiesis, is maintained by Alfredo Ruiz. Some other papers can be found there.

Jane Cull's web site, Life's Natural Solutions, also has some Maturana papers and a book giving her own interpretation of this field.

Tom Quick has a good introduction to autopoietic theory intended for people interested in autonomous agents.

Francisco Varela's more recent papers on the philosophy of cognitive science and neurophenomenology, along with his groundbreaking research on neuronal integration in the brain, are available on or through his website. Varela died in 2001 and there is a comprehensive review of his life and work on Randall Whitaker's site.

A re-working of the original algorithm for the computational realisation of autopoiesis (Varela et al 1974) by Barry McMullin is also available.

Kent Palmer's autopoietic metatheory called Reflexive Autopoietic Dissipative Special Systems Theory (an approach to emergent metasystems through holonomics) is still there with a newish introduction.

The Principia Cybernetica website has an annotated list of cybernetics and system thinkers, a dictionary of terms and lots of other material related to this general field.