Library SARC Research Person
Francisco Varela
Chilean biologist and philosopher; co-originator, with Humberto Maturana, of the concept of autopoiesis.
Francisco Varela (1946–2001) studied under Humberto Maturana and, as a frequent visitor to Heinz von Foerster’s Biological Computer Laboratory, helped extend second-order cybernetics into biology. With Maturana, he co-developed the concept of “autopoiesis,” describing living systems as self-producing organizations, laid out together in The Tree of Knowledge (1987); Varela later moved into cognitive science and the neurophenomenology of consciousness.
Works in the Library
Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela CONCEPT
A system that produces and maintains itself by continuously creating its own component parts — Maturana and Varela's 1972 term for the self-organization of living systems.
MORPHOGENESIS DYNAMICS CYBERNETICS
Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela BOOK 1987
The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding
Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis, cognition, and the biology of understanding.
MORPHOGENESIS CYBERNETICS PERCEPTION
