Diverse Applications of Autopoiesis

These lead in so many directions -  one can only list personal favourites here as examples.

David Mendes is a Feldenkrais practitioner and counsellor in Melbourne with an interesting website, Feldenkrais in Motion, that includes links and articles concerning Maturana. David was the person who arranged to bring Maturana to Australia several times and many of us here are indebted to him for the opportunities that flowed from this.

I am the Sydney Local Group Convenor for the Scientific and Medical Network whose members look beyond the purely material or physical for scientific explanations about human experience and hold some wonderful conferences and gatherings. There are local group meetings of SMN in Sydney, Australia - contact me for details.

Schumacher College in England - an international centre in ecological studies - offers the only postgraduate course I know of in Holistic Science and runs many inspiring short courses in this field. People like the eminent holistic biologist, Brian Goodwin, and explainer of Goethean science, Henri Bortoft and many international luminaries teach there.

The web site of the American Society of Cybernetics contains a rich collection of philosophical perspectives and concepts as well as definitions and publications that embrace autopoiesis. There is a video available there on Truth and Trust which consists of three conversations between Humberto Maturana and Heinz von Foerster. In 2002 they hosted a public forum Remaining Human, with Maturana, Brian Swimme, Riane Eisler, Candace Pert and others.

Heinz von Foerster's inspiring leadership in this field has such wide implications that it is a special treat to read his articles such as Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics or interviews with him, one for the Stanford Humanities Review with a prologue by Varela and another called Invitation to Dance by Christina Waters at Cybernetics and Human Knowing Back Issues Vol 6 Number 4. Since Heinz von Foerster died there have been many tributes written and a new book of his essays: Understanding Understanding - Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a major pioneer in many fields where the scientific meets the spiritual and a source of inspiration and support for many other groups.

Much of the output from New Dimensions Radio embraces the science of wholeness and autopoiesis.

There are many publications about the concept of Dialogue proposed by David Bohm which also connect to this science of wholeness and a site with links to Dialogue also.

Even better than dialogue, in my opinion, is the promotion of a conversing culture, as my friend Alan Stewart puts it, which is increasingly evident on the web with such sites as The World Cafe and the whole world of Open Space Technology - also the Co-Intelligence Institute and Alan Stewart's MultiMind Solutions which will soon have a presence here.

In the broader field of holistic applications of evolutionary biology, the most exciting and visionary scientist I know is Elisabet Sahtouris. Her biophilosophy web site is LifeWeb, and her wonderful book, EarthDance, and many other publications are freely available online.

There is a Global Vision Project dedicated to communicating sustainability which was apparently inspired by another of the pioneers of systems and communication theory, Gregory Bateson.