Autopoiesis Theory and Organizational Theory: A Complex Encounter

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

Juan F. Espinosa C.
School of Management/University of Leicester

Please do not quote before contact the author at: [email protected]

“Theory is not a singular block or mass that

produces regularized and ordered statements,
consistent with a “paradigm”. Theory is always a
creation and a production, and therefore always at
least a tremor and a threat to the community it
emerges from” (Jones and Munro, 2002: 2).

Introduction

This essay emerged from a question that arouse to me when I was reviewing the Robert Cooper’s paper:

“Making Present: Autopoiesis as Human Production” (Cooper, 2006). Robert Chia commented that the

research and ideas of Robert Cooper about systems, postmodernism and the logic of the organization had

influenced the upcoming direction of organization studies (Chia, 1998: 1). So, I expected that by reading

the cited paper, I could found a robust analysis of the autopoietic theory. But when I was reviewing the

study, I missed something important in Cooper’s paper. I realized that the study didn’t mention the work

of Maturana and Varela on autopoiesis1. Instead, he developed a complex analysis based on the

autopoiesis concept used in Luhmann’s social theory (Luhmann, 1995). But the autopoietic theory was

developed in the seventies by Maturana and Varela. In fact Stafford Beer, the great and known British

cybernetician, wrote the prologue of the fundamental Varela and Maturana’s autopoietic theory

book. Beer emphasized that the book offered a properly scientific approach to explain the

phenomena of the life (Maturana and Varela, 1980: 66). So the aim of this essay is to present the

autopoiesis theory in the original or “biological” formulation. Then, I want to show some of the social

science appropriations of the theory. Finally, I will try to account the criticisms and possibilities of this

theory for organizational theory development.

1
Robert Cooper mentioned Maturana’s ideas as part of the work of Flores and Winograd (1986)

1
In this essay, I want to answer the next question: Did the translation of the autopoiesis theory from the

natural sciences to social sciences preserve some of the central ideas of the original Maturana and

Varela’s definition? To accomplish this initiative, I’m briefly reviewing the general system theory and the

core ideas of the cybernetics. Then, I will present the autopoietic theory embedded in the cybernetics

tradition, the so called second order cybernetic. Finally, I’m presenting some impacts of the autopoietic

tradition in social sciences and especially in past and future developments of the organization theory.

From the General System Theory to Second Order Cybernetic and Autopoiesis Theory

Every theory has its own historical tradition. Autopoiesis theory is embedded in the tradition of the

system theory and the interdisciplinary studies of cybernetics. This system approach began to take a form

of a discipline in the late 1940’s and early 1950s (Jackson, 2002: 2). A critical point was the publication

of Cybernetics (Wiener, 1948) and the “General System Theory (von Bertalanffy, 1968). Bertalanffy

developed a non reductionist theory that went far away from the biology and impacted a huge range of

natural sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.) and in social science (Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 37).

Bertalanffy promoted a scientific understanding of common sense knowledge about living systems. The

author established a theory where any living unit (system) is considered as open system (with inputs and

outputs). For Bertalanfy the nature of the system must be open, because an open system maintains a

continuous inflow and outflow that preserve can preserves the equilibrium (Von Bertalanfy, 1968: 39). As

an example the reader can think about a bee that needs the pollen as an input and then transforming this

input produces some output as the honey or real jelly. Then the bee can live in equilibrium with the

environment (the rest of the nature) producing the honey.

Bertalanfy theory had an enormous impact as a reference theory. A huge range of scientists become to

understand the inputs of a system as causes and the outputs as effects and also the equilibrium concept as

a dominant category of the analysis of a system (Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 40). In ien Biology, the

system theory helped to understand a series of phenomena. For example: growth, regulation and

equilibrium states (Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 38). Then in other natural sciences (as physics and

chemistry) and even in social sciences and humanities (linguistic, sociology, anthropology, etc.) some

2
concepts became to be of normal usage, such as: synergy, equifinality, differentiation and negentropy

(negative entropy).

One of the streams that emerged from the general system theory was the so called Cybernetics.

Cybernetics, derived from the Greek kybernetes, or "steersman". The concept was elaborated in 1948 by

the mathematician Norbert Wiener in his seminal book: "Cybernetics, or the study of control and

communication in the animal and the machine". (Heylighen and Joslyn, 2001: 156). Cybernetics’s first

concern is the organization, the control and the information processing and transmission (Arnold &

Rodriguez, 1990: 41). In this sense, cybernetics could be considered as the interdisciplinary study of the

structure of regulatory systems, so the work of Wiener sealed a multidisciplinary approach since the

very beginning of the discipline.

In the 1950s, cybernetics researchers came to fit together with the school of General System Theory GST.

Whilst GST studied systems in different levels of generality, cybernetics gave attention to the study of a

particular range of systems. Cybernetic focused on those systems that were goal-direct and where there

are control relations between the parts within the system (Heylighen and Joslyn, 2001: 156). Wiener

explained the concept of a system feedback in chapter four of his book. He used an example of an

organization, where a subordinate sailor received an order from the hierarchical supervisor (Captain) that

has to pass to his own subordinate. Wiener continues his example explaining that upon the reception of

the order, the subordinate must repeat it back to his/her superior. Then, the sailor can show that the order

was properly heard. And then, just after the repetition of the message the subordinate can act passing the

message (Wiener, 1948: 96). This is what Wiener called a feedback control loops that maintain the

system goal states (which is technically called goal-directedness). In this sense, a system, such as a person

or an organism, can be characterized by the fact that it pursues its own goals, resisting obstructions from

the environment that would make it deviate from its preferred state of affairs (Heylighen and Joslyn,

2001: 158). So in the example of the sailor, his captain and the order, the control loops maintain the goal

of the organization.

3
In the above Wiener’s example, there are two interesting points. First of all, cybernetics was interested

from the very beginning on the development of organization studies. In fact, Wiener popularized the

societal repercussions of cybernetics, sketching equivalences between automatic physical systems and

human institutions (Heylighen and Joslyn, 2001: 158). on the other hand, the regulation of the system had

been controlled by an exterior entity (Wiener 1958: 51). This logic is a connection from the GST work

and the cybernetics. Both theoretical developments considered systems as open units.

The system theory and the cybernetic discipline present a world where there is nothing like one way

causalities and a hierarchy of order. On the contrary, system structures emerged from the feed-back loops

and their practices (Nassehi, 2005:181). This system self-reference characteristic is going to be further

developed by the authors of the so called second order cybernetics. This work is going to put a special

emphasis in the relation between the observer, the autonomy and the self organization of the system. The

cyberneticians began to build up systems models explicitly using the notion of an observer and his/her

cognition (Heylighen and Joslyn, 2001: 157). There is a new unambiguous recognition that the possible

knowledge of any system is based on the simplification that the observer does at the moment of the

observation. In this sense, the work of the cyberneticians recognized the system as an agent in its own

right, interacting with another agent (the observer).

Although, Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis theory is always considered as a second order cybernetic

theory, the roots of this theory can be traced to the early work of Maturana. He came from the first

generation of scientists that developed the cybernetics in the 1950’s. In fact, Maturana worked with

McCulloch (one of the fathers of the Cybernetics). They published in 1959, together with the biologist

Lettvin, a highly impacted paper called: “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s rain” (Cohen & Wartofs,

Preface of Autopoiesis and Cognition, 1980). In this sense, I can see a continuous development towards a

stronger focus on autonomy and the, preface key role of the observer in the historical development of the

cybernetic discipline.

4
Anyway, Maturana and Varela2 went a little bit further with the idea of a self-autonomous system. They

addressed a central biological question: “What is common to all living systems that we qualify them as

living?” (Maturana and Varela, 1980:74). Their observations showed that within the state of the biology

and cybernetics/system theory at the beginning of the seventies, there was no solution from the

teleonomic (the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in

living organisms) understanding of living system organization, because such an understanding is always

subordinated to the specie plan (Maturana and Varela, 1980 p. 75). Nevertheless, the authors wanted to

understand a fundamental criterion that defined a living system without a reference to its purposefulness.

Maturana and Varela were looking for a mechanistic approach. Here, mechanism means that all natural

phenomena can be explained by laws of nature. So, their interests were related with the understanding of

the relations between the processes and the structure of a living system (Maturana and Varela, 1980: 75).

In the other hand, Maturana and Varela’s framework questions the objective reality existence with

independence of the observer. In Maturana’s own words: “Everything said is said by an observer, to

another observer, who can be himself” (Maturana, 1975: 108). There is no such a thing as the objective

reality. And following this line of analysis, Maturana expressed that the objectivity is not the essence of

the scientific activity (Maturana, 1978:132). So Maturana and Varela were struggling with two parallel

problems. They wanted to develop a mechanistic theory of the living system, but taking into consideration

that there is always an observer that is the one who distinguish the phenomena.

Maturana and Varela explained in detail their theory of knowledge and its biological foundations

(including autopoiesis theory as basic biological phenomena) in their well known book of 1987: “The

Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human understandings”). When I read the book, I came to

understand that the autopoiesis theory is just the foundation of a broader theory, a theory that could

explain the human knowledge and interactions. This consideration is supported by Varela’s subsequent

work in a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that explain the human mind and the problem

of the Consciousness (Varela, 1992).

2
Varela left Chile in 1968 to work toward a Ph.D. in biology in Harvard, where he had the opportunity to develop his
interest in philosophy. European authors such as Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. He also, was exposed to the
field of cybernetics and artificial life through his work and friendship with Heinz von Forster (Luisi, 2003: 50)

5
The idea of an Organization as an Autopoietic System

Maturana and Varela developed the concept of autopoiesis to explain the nature of living systems as a

way to answer their fundamental question on living beings. So as a matter of example, they used the

individual living cell as the starting point (Mingers, 2006:34); because, individual cells are dynamic

systems that could be distinguished as a unity (Maturana and Varela, 1987: 25). Maturana and Varela

understood a unity as the entity that is created by an act of distinction, where a distinction is the creation

of the observer (any person that observe a phenomena) by actions and thoughts in a recursive way. The

distinction allows the observer to operate as he or she was external to the unity (Maturana and Varela,

1987: 40). A unity is a whole distinguished from the background for the observer (Mengers, 1995: 13).

As an example: when we call an object “a bicycle”, certain necessary features (is mobile, allows people

transport, etc.) are differentiated in a recursive way by an observer (for example ourselves). Then we can

distinguish the bicycle from any other objects and from the background (for example from a car or other

transport vehicles). But the bicycle is there because we are here observing it.

An observer can distinguish simple and composite unities. The observer distinguishes a simple unity

when the properties assigned to the unity by the operations of distinction that specifies it, are supposed to

be constitutive, and no question about their origin arises. In the other hand, a composite unity is assumed

to have components that may be specified through additional operations of distinction, and that it is

realized as a unity by an organization that determines its characteristics by establishing those relations

among its components that specify the domain in which it can be treated as simple (Maturana, 1978: 3).

Then, we can see that a composite unity needs organization and also structure. Here, organization is

defined as those relations that distinct the system as a unity and also establish an interaction dynamic and

possible changes of the unity (Maturana and Varela, 1980:137). Analogically, structure is defined as the

relations among the unity components for a particular machine (system) in a determined space (Maturana

and Varela, 1980:138). As an example, we can consider a plane that could be a big Boing 878 and

another little one. Each plane have the same organization but with different structure. Each plane belongs

to the same class but have a particular structure. So the observer can understand the plane as a composite

unity when he understands the class of each plane, which means that he or she needs to understand the

6
organization of a plane. In parallel, the same observer can understand the Boing 878 as a simple unity,

because he or she can recognize the specific structure associated to this particular plane.

The concept of Autopoiesis

In the original formulation of the autopoietic theory at the book “De Máquinas y Seres vivos” (1972)

Maturana and Varela talked about machines and not about systems. But a machine can also be understood

as a system which is defined as any definable set of gears (Maturana and Varela, 1980: 138). Finally, a

more technical definition of a machine is: a unity in the material space, differentiated by its organization,

which implied a non-animistic point of view, and whose dynamism is noticeable (Maturana and Varela,

1980: 136).

After this introduction, we can present the autopoietic machine definition in the original words of

Maturana and Varela:

“…a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and

destruction) of components that produces the components which:

a) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network

of processes (relations) that produced them; and

b) Constitute it (the machine/system) as a concrete unity in the space in which they (the

components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization of its realization as

such a network” (Maturana and Varela, 1980:79).

Maturana and Varela explained that a living being (which is also a unity) is characterized for a

continually self-producing” and with an autopoietic organization (Maturana and Varela, 1986: 43). So,

the central idea of autopoiesis is that the living system is organized in such a way that all its components

and processes jointly produce those self-same components and processes, thus establishing an

autonomous, self-producing entity (Mingers, 2006:36). A clear example is the cell, because the cell

produces each of its components through their interactions and transformations in a continuous way;

7
regenerating and realizing the network of its processes (relations) and in a concrete space as a unity. In

this sense, what defined the cell as a cell is its own autopoietic organization, so the class of the cell as a

living being unity is to be autopoietic or self-productive.

Some implications of the Maturana and Varela theories in the system theory

 Structural determinism

Everything that happened in a composite unity is determined by its structure, and every structural change

that occurs in a composite unity is determinate at every instant by its structure at that moment. So,

composite unities are “structurally determined” systems in the sense that everything is determined by

their structure (Maturana, 1987: 336). This means that the unit interactions just “trigger” the state of

change which is already determined by its structure. So, it is not possible that anything “out there”

determine what is happening “inside” of the system (Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 56). Or more

technically, it is never the case that an environmental act (physical or communicational or any other kind

of action) can determine its own effect on a system (Mengers, 1995: 30). We can say that dominium of

the system is internally determined by its own structure. As a corollary the system is clearly affected by

the environment, but any results depend on the structure of the system.

 Organizational Closure

As we had seen in the basic concepts, all composite systems are constituted by an organization and

realized in a structure. However, there is some specific type of systems that Maturana and Varela call

organizationally closed systems. Some examples already mentioned at the literature are the immune

system, the nervous system, autopoietic systems (as the cell), andsome social systems (Mengers, 1995:

31). We can consider a system as organizationally closed when all its possible states of activity must

always lead to or generate further activity within itself (Mengers, 1995: 32). For example, the nervous

system is organizationally closed, because all states of neuronal activity lead to further neuronal activity.

All neurons both affect, and are affected by, others. The system as a closed unity3 is one of the central

contributions to the system theory and completely changed the way that scientific community sees

systems (Mingers, 2006: 42).

3
It is important to explain that a close unity (system) doesn't mean that autonomous systems are unresponsive; it only
means that their changes of state in response to changes in their medium are realized and propagated solely within the
network of processes constituting them (as they are defined)

8
  Structural Coupling

As we saw before, the structural determinism implies that the environment doesn’t determine or specifies

the changes of the system state. We normally take for granted this idea from the adaptation mechanism of

any living organism. Structural coupling explains the change in a different way. The implication of

structural coupling is that the change is a product of a history of recurrent interactions leading to

structural congruence between two (or more) systems (Maturana and Varela, 1987: 75). To understand

this, we need to consider that the environment (or medium) is also a unity (system). So, a living system

(for example a living being) can conserve its own organization and its structural coupling with the

environment system. In consequence, Maturana and Varela explained that the adaptation is a constant and

not a variable. The living being is moving around the world as an acrobat in the tightrope that is

constantly changing his/her relation of structural coupling with the tightrope. Relation that inevitable ends

when the acrobat falls (Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 57).

Maturana and Varela stress that metacellulars -which included humans- could be considered as a second

order autopoietic system -because metacellulars are a combination of autopoietic machines- which have

structural coupling with its environment (Maturana and Varela, 1987: 89). So humans can be considered

as an autonomous close system, structural-determined and subject to structural coupling with the

environment and others humans (systems). This leads us to consider social system as organizationally

closed system and autonomous systems (not self-production or autopoietic systems). Using the same

logic, we can understand that social systems are subject to structural coupling with its medium.

Following the work of the biologists, a group of cyberneticians and some social scientists began to

translate these ideas to the more general system theory with applications to sociology and organizational

studies. At this point, it is useful to establish that the use of the general system theory had a long tradition

in social sciences. As an example we can review the work of Talcott Parsons(1977), with his tremendous

and central work on the structural functionalist and action system theory; Katz and Kahn (1966), with

their effort on explaining organizations as open systems and the research of Walter Buckley(1973) in

change and equilibrium of complex systems (a well review of this sociological applications on system

theory can be review at Arnold & Rodriguez, 1990: 64-77). We can also check out this “translation

tradition” from the system theory at the organization studies scholars research of March and Simon

(1958), Burns (1963), Cohen (1970); Silverman (1974) and Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) with the

9
development of the contingency theory in the sociology of the organization. All these efforts were

primarily focused on the paradigm of the “open systems” and also with an understanding of the

adaptation of systems to the environment and a teleological vision of the system theory. This paradigm

was highly influenced by the work of Bertalanffy and the first cybernetics scholars, and is still in use the

contemporary uses of contingency organizational theorists (Ashmos and Huber, 1987).

Although the tradition of system theory and cybernetics was always open to an interdisciplinary work, the

translation of Maturana and Varela’s theory could present some extra difficulties; especially when we

think on an adaptation of the autopoiesis of living unities (systems) to a social autopoiesis. In this sense,

the idea that there are autopoietic organizations and autopoietic social systems is very attractive but

involve fundamental difficulties (Mingers, 2006: 170). Instead some authors already took the risk to

further develop an organization research program based on the ideas of Maturana and Varela.

A Metaphorical use of the autopoietic theory

We can review some interesting applications of the Maturana and Varela’s theory in the highly known

book “Images of Organizations” of Gareth Morgan. The author considered the autopoiesis as a metaphor

of an organization. Morgan expressed that autopoiesis could be considered as an image of “flux and

transformation” (Morgan, 1998:213). The author also mentioned that autopoiesis is mainly based in a

logic of self reference and as an organizationally close system. So traditionally, the organizations were

considered as systems where the change has its origin in the environmental changes (Morgan, 1998:215).

So Morgan pointed out that this autopoietic vision is a reinterpretation of the close system brain

metaphor, previously accepted by organization scholars and practitioners.

Even though Maturana and Varela defined the nervous system with operational closure and with

autonomy, but never mentioned that this system is autopoietic (Maturana and Varela, 1987: 166). I have

some sympathy with this free use of the metaphor of autopoiesis. Unfortunately, Morgan didn’t show any

specific reference to the work of Maturana and Varela. Although this book is an “Executive Edition”,

these generalizations are one of the main problems of the application of the autopoietic theory or the

biology of knowledge developed by Maturana and Varela.

One strong point of the Morgan’s metaphoric application of autopoiesis is that he never mentioned that

there is such a thing as an autopoietic organization, a fundamental problem of some simplistic application

10
of the theory. Another interesting idea that Morgan expands from the autopoiesis theory is the

understanding of some organization as “egocentric”. This came from the self-reference part of this theory.

Morgan understood that the self-referencing property of organizationally closed organizations could lead

the company to a “status quo” situation where their current identity never changes; blinding the

organization to environmental changes and adaptation (Morgan, 1998:219). This is of course, a lack of

understanding of the structural coupling concept.

Simplistic Applications of the Theory

Some simple (direct) and not metaphorical applications of Maturana and Varela’s theory were developed

by the work of some cyberneticians: Beer, Zeleni and Robb. This group of authors didn’t recognize that

the autopoiesis is specifically defined for systems that through their interactions and transformations

continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced its parts (Maturana

and Varela, 1980:79). In this sense, they simply applied the theory without any especial consideration to

the social science modeling (Mingers, 1995: 120). These authors assumed that social systems could be

seen as autopoietic and organizations either were or should be designed to be and function that way

(Mingers, 1995: 121).

An important distinction is mentioned by Varela (1979: 14-15). He wrote, reflecting about the

misunderstanding of the autopoiesis theory, that the characteristic of organizational closed system

common to autopoietic system is the autonomy and not the self-production; which is present exclusively

in autopoietic systems. What the autopoietic systems have in common with other organizationally closed

more general system is that the correct detection of the system is intimately attached to, and take place in

the same space identify by the system’s organization and action (Varela 1979:15). Varela defined

autonomy as the statement of the system’s individuality through its action in such a way that observation

goes on trough the combination between the observer and the system in the domain where the system’s

action occurs (Varela 1979:15).

11
For me, this is a key distinction in what is used to be called an autopoietic social system. So, following

the Varela’s definition, a social system could be considered as an organizationally closed system, or even

autonomous systems, but never as an autopoietic social system. At present, we still observe this definition

problem in the work of Zeleny (2001) with applications to SME and information systems; Muhamad

(2004) with applications to branding. The cited studies are examples of a direct translation of the theory

without technical considerations.

Luhmann’s autopoiesis theory

Niklas Luhmann developed an elaborated theory of social and cognitive systems which combines

Maturana and Varela’s notion of cognition with Husserlian phenomenology (Arnoldi, 2006:117).

Luhmann developed the idea of autopoiesis of social system and he recognized that this use of the

autopoiesis could be problematic (Luhmann, 1986: 172). As humans are central elements of social

systems, it follows that to be considered as autopoietic systems, social system must be self-reproducing in

terms of the humans (Bednarz, 1988: 61). How could this be possible? Luhmann, proposed a very

intelligent solution to this paradox. He redefined social systems as being realized in a domain of

“communications”. In other words, the constituent elements of social system are communications. Then,

the social system is understood as a network of communication that emerges in some time (Nassehi,

2005: 181). Subsequently, the conditions for autopoiesis have to be evaluated in terms of the self-

production of communications (Teubner, 1988: 235). In fact, Luhmann understands the communication

not as a diffusion of meaning or information from one person to another but as an autopoietic system that

appears out of the double dependent meet of subjects. (Arnoldi, 2006:116). As a corollary, we can

consider that the Luhmann’s theory is an Autopoietic theory of the communication (Mingers, 2006: 158).

12
Conclusions and Future Possibilities

There is a group of Organizational scholars following the line of Luhmann. The prominent work of

Hernes (2003, 2008) and his colleagues of the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark is certainly one

of the most interesting lines of research and applications of the autopoiesis and system theoretical ideas.

In the other hand, there is a group of scholars, developing theory and philosophy for the systemic

approach. In this group John Mingers (now at Kent Business School) could be considered as a direct heir

of the paradigm based on the autopoiesis theory and in general the second order cybernetics. There is still

much work to do and many possibilities for the translations of Maturana and Varela’s ideas.

I especially see some further interesting organization theory possibilities with the notion of structural

coupling. However Maturana and Varela’s didn’t mention an explicit use of the term for human-artifact-

interaction. One could imagine some examples for structural coupling relations between the person and

his/her use of specific software or any other artifact. In this sense, we better understand the user’s feeling

of uncertainty at the beginning of its relationship with the artifact. The user does not know how to reach

what he or she wants, does not know whether he or she has performed the right actions, or pressed the

right buttons. Then, gradually through the use, his or her feeling will disappear until finally the user

reaches a state in which it is almost unnecessary to think about the actual procedures. This state of being

able to interact without thinking consciously is called by Heidegger (1962, cited by Mingers) a state of

“being thrown”. Finally, the computer becomes ready-at-hand rather than present-at-hand. This process of

becoming used to is, in fact, the process of developing structural coupling. (Mingers, 2006: 46).

I don’t think that it could be easy to translate a natural science theory to the social sciences. Autopoiesis

was not especially formulated for social systems but there are some developments of the theory that

could really help to understand the dynamic of the system in a more practical way. As the examples

showed before, the notion of organizationally closed systems and autonomy are especially interesting for

the understanding of systems that are able to specify its own laws. on the other hand, the new

epistemological developments of Maturana and Varela’s theories, especially the notion of the observer as

part of the phenomena, had been having a tremendous impact on the understanding of organizational

phenomena. Here I can see another important theoretical potential for the theory.

13
Finally, and not less important, the work of this essay allowed me to understand Cooper’s paper. Cooper

developed his argument based on the Luhmann’s autopoietic theory (1986) and in the thoughts of Flores4

and Winograd (1986); two of the cybernetic thinkers that further extended the autopoiesis theory on

human-computer interaction (Cooper, 2006: 61). The author arrived to the same conclusion of Mingers

(2006: 46).Then, I can close establishing that there is a continuation of the second order cybernetics and

autopoiesis ideas in the autopoietic conceptualizations of Cooper.

4
Fernando Flores was a former student of Maturana in the University of Chile.

14
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