Library SARC Research Person
Humberto Maturana
Chilean biologist; co-originator, with Francisco Varela, of the concept of autopoiesis.
Humberto Maturana (1928–2021) was a frequent visitor to Heinz von Foerster’s Biological Computer Laboratory, whose second-order cybernetics shaped his own research into cognition as a biological process. With his student Francisco Varela, he coined the term “autopoiesis” for the self-producing, self-maintaining organization of living systems, developing the idea across their jointly authored The Tree of Knowledge (1987).
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
