A discussion of various theories of emergence is given. It is argued that artificial life and the related theoretical constructs have to be rethought on the basis of new epistemological foundations. In particular, three earlier approaches, the theories of ‘anticipatory systems,’ ‘semantic closure’ and ‘component systems’ are examined from the point of view of representation of emergence. In addition, reductionism and the theory of autopoiesis are considered as possible alternatives. On the basis of these discussions, the possibility for a synthetic view of biological existence, based on the notion of emergence, is outlined.

Key words: theory, autopoiesis, reductionism, emergence, constraints, anticipatory systems, semantically adaptive devices, artificial life, component‐systems

Biology has no definitive definition of life yet. Second Cybernetics and Autopoiesis revealed that autonomy is the keypoint to work on, but no real autonomy can arise from an abstract idea that, like autopoietical organization, isolates a logical mechanism from its materialization. Two main problems are posed; 1) how to distinguish a living system from a simulation of it, and 2) what to do with those physical systems that although fulfilling the autopoietical conditions cannot intuitively be considered living beings. We propose that autonomy is not separable from the evolutive and reproductive capacities of living systems and, therefore, autonomous systems capable of self-reproduction and evolution need to be explained as two level mechanisms involving informational records and dynamic instances capable of interpreting them.