Autopoiesis

[stevo247]

Recently I have been reading a book titled “MIND in LIFE. Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind.” By Evan Thompson. The book explores the so called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness. Thompson argues that life and mind share common principles of self-organization, and that the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life.

 

Thompson states “The idea that all life evolved from a common ancestor and hence that there is an underlying unity to the widespread diversity of life is central to modern biology. We are taught in school that the unity of life is based on three things: (1) all living things are made of cells; (2) the life cycle of all cells—their formation, growth, development, reproduction, and so on—are based on chemical reactions among similar sorts of molecules; and (3) the way that amino acids are put together to form proteins is specified by DNA and RNA according to a precise and nearly universal scheme.

 

To these points we can add a fourth, following theorists who address the question 'what is life?' by searching for principles of biological organization. There is a basic formal organization of life, and it's paradigm is to be found in the single cell. A single cell organism is a self-making or self-producing being. Self-production is different from reproduction: In reproduction, a cell divides in two; in self-production, a cell continuously produces itself as a spatially bounded system, distinct from it's medium or milieu. What is remarkable about self-production is that every molecular reaction in the system is generated by the very same system that those molecular reactions produce. Some years ago the neurobiologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela drew attention to this circular, self-producing organization and called it autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela 1973, 1980; Varela, Maturana, and Uribe 1974).”

 

Thompson continues, “The concept of the autopoietic organization arose from an attempt to abstract from the molecular processes of the cell the basic form or pattern that remains invariant through any kind of structural change, as long as the cell holds together as a distinct entity.”

 

“A cell is spatially formed by a semipermeable membrane, which establishes a boundary between the inside of the cell and the outside environment, but also permits the exchange of matter and energy across the boundary. Within this boundary, the cell comprises a metabolic network. Based in part on nutrients entering from outside, the cell sustains itself by a network of chemical transformations. But—and this is the first key point—the metabolic network is able to regenerate its own components, including the components that make up the membrane boundary. Furthermore—and this is the second key point—without the boundary containment provided by the membrane, the chemical network would be dispersed and drowned in the surrounding medium. Thus the cell embodies a circular process of self-generation: thanks to its metabolic network, it continually replaces the components that are being destroyed, including the membrane, and thus continually re-creates the difference between itself and everything else.”

 

 

I am just a curious layman and I have never heard of autopoiesis before. I find the concept to be very interesting, especially as it may contribute to an understanding of cognition and consciousness. Could someone well versed in biology give me some idea on the status of this concept of autopoiesis? Since it has been around for over 30 years, is it common knowledge in biology circles, is it mostly ignored, or is it a concept that is slowly gaining traction?

[GDG]

I don't recall running across that specific term before, but it has been well known for some time that cells have "housekeeping" functions to maintain their homeostasis. Cells continually make new proteins (and other molecules) to replace those that have been damaged (or have been tagged for autophagy).

 

I would be very surprised if it had anything to do with consciousness or cognition.

[CharonY]

AFAIK this term is rarely used in most biological sciences. It does not necessarily allude to homeostasis but rather to the ability of self-reproduction (though both can be interconnected). I think Maturana and someone else whose name escape me at the moment proposed the concept in the eighties essentially in an attempt to define life. It is more frequently found within modeling or theoretical biology rather than "mainstream" biology (e.g. in the AI or artificial life field).

It sees living entities as closed elements embedded but distinct from the environment and consisting of components that can give rise to further components. This basic model has been tweaked and applied to cognitive sciences somewhat, but to tell the truth my knowledge is too limited in this aspect to give some meaningful input.