Autopoiesis

Autopoiesis or autopoiesis ( "self" and ποιεῖν ancient Greek αὐτός cars poiein " create, build " ) is the process of self-creation and maintenance of a system.

In biology, the concept of autopoiesis is an attempt to define the characteristic organization characteristic of living organisms or living systems using the tools of systems theory. The coined by the Chilean neurobiologists Humberto Maturana term was broken up in the wake of his publications and modified for various other areas of scientific creativity and made ​​fertile.

• 7.1 Cognitive Biology
• 7.2 sociology
• 7.3 Jurisprudence
• 7.4 Economics
• 7.5 Theatre Studies
• 7.6 Literature

Science concept of autopoiesis to biology ( Maturana / Varela )

The concept of autopoiesis characterizes living systems as the process, ie concretely the form of organization that realizes this, rather than to define a list of its individual characteristics, such as Mobility or irritability.

Autopoietic systems ( for example, humans and other mammals) are recursively organized, that is the product of the functional interaction of its components is exactly the organization that produces the ingredients. In this epylektischen form, one can assume that the respective mechanistic forms of self-organization owed ​​components of the special organization of the regularity of the nervous systems play a major role. This particular form of organization can be distinguished from non - living living systems: namely the fact " that the product of their organization they are, that is, there is no separation between producer and product. Being and doing a autopoietic unity are inseparable, and this constitutes their specific type of organization. "

Criteria of the autopoietic system

To be an autopoietic system, a unit must meet the following characteristics:

• She has recognizable boundaries.
• She has constitutive elements and consists of components.
• The relations between the components to determine the properties of the overall system.
• The components that constitute the limit of the unit to do so as a result of the relationships and interactions between them.
• The components are produced by components of the unit itself or due to transformation of external elements with internal components.
• All other components of the unit are also so produced or otherwise created elements, but for the production of components are necessary ( operational closure ).

Maturana and Varela wanted with this last point to emphasize the fact that although organisms absorb substances from the environment in itself, however, these case immediately convert into usable building materials. Substances, however, which have no meaning for the self-reproduction of the organism, are ignored by the body so to speak.

Implications for biology and cognition

Maturana and Varela deliver with the concept of a molecular-based autopoietic system for the first time a rigorous definition of life, for example, individual large molecules such as viruses or the previous machine artificial man-made clearly defines as non- living things. As biological cells are considered as autopoietic systems 1st order with them, multicellular creatures to be construed as Metazeller and autopoietic systems of 2nd order, which may have autopoietic character itself.

The concept of autopoiesis is an integral part of the biological theory of cognition, Maturana and Varela, who in The Tree of Knowledge (Orig. El Arbol del Conocimiento, 1984) formulated comprehensively. This says goodbye to a conception of the world as a collection of recognizable observer independent objects and weaves together the processes of autopoiesis and the products manufactured by the nervous system sensorimotor relationships (correlations ) of the moving organism to a constant act of bringing forth a world in the ongoing process of life enforcement. Objects appear therefore as a continuously generated constants or regularities of the states of the nervous system of a human organism in its particular linguistic (social) actions with respect to its surroundings ( " operational closure of the nervous system ").

The actions (operations) that performs every autopoietic system in its environment, understood as the effective action, provided that they allow the continued existence of the system in its environment and thus further " there his world brings forth ." Maturana and Varela understand such systems as cognitive. An absolute distinction between reality and illusion includes Maturana from this reference with the Autopoiesebegriff inextricably associated cognitive concept.

The Autopoiesisbegriff in sociology ( Niklas Luhmann)

Autopoiesis is a key concept in the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, who has transferred the concept of autopoiesis to the consideration of social systems. He refers to the work of Maturana and Varela, and expanding discussions in Milan Zeleny. His central thesis is that social systems consist exclusively of communication (not of subjects, actors, individuals or the like ) and operate in autopoiesis. By this is meant that the systems to create virtually by itself in a constant, non-targeted autocatalytic process. Produce the systems and reproduce thus itself Thus, a clock, work together the ingredients of systemic, not to be taken as a system, because its regulatory framework was made by a watchmaker, that is, if they break it once, so it can not repair itself.

Luhmann observed that communication in social systems similar runs as the self-reproduction of living organisms. Similar to this only absorb substances from the environment that are relevant to their self-reproduction, also take communication systems in their environment only perceive what "fits on" to her, which is 'compatible' in the sense of the previous communication. "Meaning" is for Luhmann a mechanism for the reduction of complexity: in the infinitely complex environment, only a small portion is filtered according to specific criteria; the boundary of a social system thus marks a complexity difference from outside to inside. Instead of an " autopoietic system " with a "border" speaks Luhmann sometimes of a "form" with an " inside " and "outside", in which he employs the very abstract " calculus of the form" the logician George Spencer -Brown.

The autopoietic basic operation is always the same: the systems operate continuously, since they do not exist otherwise. They operate so that further operations can connect ( " connectivity" of the system). This also applies to the mass media, the work as a continuation of apparatus: send, print, report always need to continue to follow such operations and to protect their connectivity.

" And so the system of mass media in accepting works that their own communications be continued in the next hour or the next day. Each shipment promises a further transmission. Never is about representation of the world as it is right now. "

In order to ensure the connectivity of all autopoietic systems control their operations in relation to the results. They have the ability of " reflexivity ". This means that the systems have some sort of memory, the "before " and "after" storing and distinguishing white.

" Autopoietic systems can not relate as finished products from their environment their structures. You have to build through their own operations and remember the -. , Or forgotten "

The communication refers only apparently directly on the environment. In fact, it only refers to the perceived her according to their own laws inner map of the environment, and ultimately to itself this self-reference, also known as self-reference or referred Autoreferenzialität, Luhmann considered typical of each communication, analogous to the phenomenon of autopoiesis in the biology. The terms self-referential system and autopoietic system is therefore interchangeable in most cases.

Luhmann defines social systems since the transfer of the concept of autopoiesis on his theory in the early 1980s ( in the reception as Luhmann " autopoietic turn ' considered ) no more than " open "( ie, in direct exchange with the environment ), but as " autopoietic closed" or " operationally closed". The perception of the environment through a system is therefore always selective, according to Luhmann. A system can not change its specific mode of perception of the environment, without losing its specific identity.

In the unity and exclusive self - interestedness of the systems, the Luhmann'sche systems theory differs fundamentally from the structural- systems theory Talcott Parsons ', according to the four systems are present in every society, which are always with each other in an intense exchange, and also each have their own important contribution to the integration and the continuance of a society as a whole overarching afford (see AGIL - scheme).

" A social system comes about whenever an autopoietic communication context is created and extract themselves by restricting the appropriate communication against the environment. Social systems are thus not from men, neither of actions, but of communications. "

Typical of any autopoietic system is loud Luhmann that it defines itself in each case using a divalent ( binary ) code of the environment and so maintains its identity in the process of self-reproduction. When binary code of some large-scale social systems, Luhmann proposes ago: Economy - pay / non-pay; Politics - power / powerlessness; Morality - good / evil; Religion (as distinct from morality! ) - Immanence / transcendence; and others.

Since these systems operate according to specific laws, Luhmann considers intervention or control tests of a system to another fundamentally problematic: the economy can be controlled only to a very limited about of the policy; morality, politics can only partially control, etc. The law of autopoiesis is, according to Luhmann the efforts of a rational, ethical, equitable design of social relations narrow limits.

Terms and concepts in journalism and literature science

As autopoietisation is known in journalism and in the newer media theory a number of phenomena and observations, which suggest an increasing self-referentiality of journalism: Journalism refers more to the journalism itself, that is to endogenous sources, and less on the media external environment.

In literary studies, autopoiesis is used in the context of autobiography, in the sense of self-reflection within the game of memory and reality.

Autopoiesis is here considered in close connection with autofiction. The French presence writer Alain Robbe -Grillet (1922-2008) combines his Nouveau Roman (or Nouvelle his autobiography) which until then regarded as incompatible genres novel and autobiography. The result is a combination of autobiographical remembering and romaneskem " poésie du souvenir ", a kind of inventing memory, so autofiction. The entire work of the author, which includes novels, short stories and films, thus represents a unique form of memory work, which presents itself as self-construction of the author in its entirety. The author is constantly on the lookout for self-positioning in an increasingly complex and inscrutable expectant world. However, it reaches its self-discovery only briefly, it can not be permanent and therefore always starts at the starting point. The result is the principle of the repetition. The ever again taking place resuming his search succeeds Robbe- Grillet with his oeuvre a unit of person, author and work by a variety, by repetition and variation, by its recurring motifs, through reinterpretation of his own productivity and ever new forms of self-construction. The author leaves and recreated his work by itself again and again, he runs autopoiesis.

Use in the field of law

Based on a constructivist concept of corporate debt is by Carlos Gómez- Jara Díez the theory of autopoietic social systems.

Application in Theatre Studies

In its aesthetics of the performative (2004) describes Erika Fischer -Lichte the show as feedback loop and specifies this " as a self-referential, autopoietic system in principle open, not predictable output, which neither actually interrupt themselves by staging strategies can not specifically control " (S. 61). In their use of the idea of ​​autopoeitischen system that runs like a red thread through the aesthetics of the performative, it refers not ( directly ) on Luhmann, Maturana and Varela's but on The Tree of Knowledge (1987).

The following individual phenomena can be distinguished here:

• Autologisierung,
• Virtualization,
• Metamedialisierung and
• Fictionalization