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Autopoiesis literally means "auto (self)-creation" (from the Greek: auto - αυτό for self- and poiesis - ποίησις for creation or production) and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function. The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973:

"An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)

"[…] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 89)

The term autopoiesis was originally conceived as an attempt to characterize the nature of living systems. A canonical example of an autopoietic system is the biological cell. The eukaryotic cell, for example, is made of various biochemical components such as nucleic acids and proteins, and is organized into bounded structures such as the cell nucleus, various organelles, a cell membrane and cytoskeleton. These structures, based on an external flow of molecules and energy, produce the components which, in turn, continue to maintain the organized bounded structure that gives rise to these components. An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (a factory).

More generally, the term autopoiesis resembles the dynamics of a non-equilibrium system; that is, organized states (sometimes also called dissipative structures) that remain stable for long periods of time despite matter and energy continually flowing through them. From a very general point of view, the notion of autopoiesis is often associated with that of self-organization. However, an autopoietic system is autonomous and operationally closed, in the sense that every process within it directly helps maintaining the whole. Autopoietic systems are structurally coupled with their medium in dialect dynamic of changes that can be recalled as sensory-motor coupling. This continuous dynamics is considered as knowledge and can be observed throughout life-forms.

An application of the concept to sociology can be found in Luhmann's Systems Theory.

• Capra, Fritjof (1997). The Web of Life. Random House. ISBN 0-385-47676-0 —general introduction to the ideas behind autopoiesis
• Dyke, Charles (1988). The Evolutionary Dynamics of Complex Systems: A Study in Biosocial Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Francisco ([1st edition 1973] 1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living. Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (Eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 42. Dordecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co. ISBN 90-277-1015-5 (hardback), ISBN 90-277-1016-3 (paper) —the main published reference on autopoiesis
• Mingers, John (1994). Self-Producing Systems. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 0-306-44797-5 —a book on the autopoiesis concept in many different areas
• Luisi, Pier L. (2003). Autopoiesis: a review and a reappraisal. Naturwissenschaften 90 49–59. —biologist view of autopoiesis
• Varela, Francisco J.; Maturana, Humberto R.; & Uribe, R. (1974). Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. Biosystems 5 187–196. —one of the original papers on the concept of autopoiesis
• Luhmann, Niklas (1990). Essays on Self-Reference. Columbia University Press. —Luhmann's adaptation of autopoiesis to social systems
• Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores (1990). Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Ablex Pub. Corp. —cognitive systems perspective on autopoiesis
• Tabbi, Joseph (2002). Cognitive Fictions. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3557-9 — draws on systems theory and cognitive science to introduce autopoiesis to literary studies
• Livingston, Ira (2006). Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics. University of Illinois Press. —an adaptation of autpoiesis to language.
• Robb, Fenton F. (1991) Accounting - A Virtual Autopoietic System? Systems Practice 4, (3) (215-235).

• Robert Rosen
• Systems theory

• The Observer Web: Autopoiesis and Enaction: a website with more explanations
• Several papers on autopoietic theory are available through archonic.net
• A mindmap-collection of links and papers visualized by Ragnar Heil
• A short 'Introductory Overview' of Autopoiesis by Tom Quick
• Autopoiesis and knowledge in the organization by Aquiles Limone, Luis E. Bastias