Open peer commentary on the article “In Maturana’s Wake: The Biology of Cognition’s Legacy and its Prospects” by Randall Whitaker. Abstract: Influential texts are often long, complicated, dense, and difficult to read. While these texts have their place, it seems they are not utilized by the masses as frequently as content that is shorter, easier to understand, practical, and in a format that is more interactive. A proposal is made for practical applications of Maturana’s research to be presented in short videos to improve the understandability of his ideas while also increasing its popularity and value.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Maturanian Turn: Good Prospects for the Language Sciences” by Alexander V. Kravchenko. Abstract: I put forth some considerations about observation in the context of professional vision, or self-validating claims by experts to see in a way that is objective, or superior to that of everyday observers. I do so as a way to consider how Maturana’s biology of cognition is a way of understanding languaging that I find problematic. My response is just that, for I am advancing my own understanding of observers, biology, and cognition.

This paper analyzes Humberto Maturana’s understanding abour the objectivity of scientific knowledge through a critical dialogue with other contemporary epistemological constructivist theories. The two subjects discussed are the relations between knowledge-reality and knowledge-society, which are the most common senses that guide the philosophical discussion about objectivity. This paper also includes a systematization of the main theses of Matuana’s biology of cognition, and a brief evaluation of the role of the notion of “autopoiesis” for the understanding of objectivity.

Key words: autopoiesis, objectivity, constructivism, epistemology, humberto maturana.

This article examines in some technical detail the application of Maturana and Varela’s biology of cognition to a simple concrete model: a glider in the game of Life cellular automaton. By adopting an autopoietic perspective on a glider, the set of possible perturbations to it can be divided into destructive and nondestructive subsets. From a glider’s reaction to each nondestructive perturbation, its cognitive domain is then mapped. In addition, the structure of a glider’s possible knowledge of its immediate environment, and the way in which that knowledge is grounded in its constitution, are fully described. The notion of structural coupling is then explored by characterizing the paths of mutual perturbation that a glider and its environment can undergo. Finally, a simple example of a communicative interaction between two gliders is given. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential implications of this analysis for the enactive approach to cognition.

Key words: autopoiesis, enaction, cognitive domain, structural coupling, cellular automata.

Maturana and Varela’s concept of autopoiesis defines the essential organization of living systems and serves as a foundation for their biology of cognition and the enactive approach to cognitive science. As an initial step toward a more formal analysis of autopoiesis, this paper investigates its application to the compact, recurrent spatiotemporal patterns that arise in Conway’s Game of Life cellular automata. In particular, we demonstrate how such entities can be formulated as self-constructing networks of interdependent processes that maintain their own boundaries. We then characterize the specific organizations of several such entities, suggest a way to simplify the descriptions of these organizations, and briefly consider the transformation of such organizations over time. Relevance: The paper presents an analysis of a minimal concrete model of autopoiesis to provide a more rigorous foundation for the concept of autopoiesis and highlight its ambiguities and difficulties.

The notion of structural coupling plays a central role in Maturana and Varela’s biology of cognition framework and strongly influenced Varela’s subsequent enactive elaboration of this framework. Building upon previous work using a glider in the Game of Life (GoL) cellular automaton as a toy model of a minimal autopoietic system with which to concretely explore these theoretical frameworks, this article presents an analysis of structural coupling between a glider and its environment. Specifically, for sufficiently small GoL universes, we completely characterize the nonautonomous dynamics of both a glider and its environment in terms of interaction graphs, derive the set of possible glider lives determined by the mutual constraints between these interaction graphs, and show how such lives are embedded in the state transition graph of the entire GoL universe.

Key words: autopoiesis, enaction, structural coupling, cellular automata, enactivism

This paper challenges proceduralized, rule-bound approaches to ethics and considers how social workers and teams can develop an attitude of compassionate concern and become more effective in dealing with ethical problems in their day-to-day practice. It introduces the work of Humberto Maturana, a widely respected theorist, whose work has received little attention in social work. It stresses the importance of emotions, particularly love, and considers the way in which ethical action is shaped by culture. It emphasizes the importance of engaging in reflection on professional practices and team, professional and organizational culture in order for social workers to improve their awareness of ethical dilemmas and promote ethical practice. For those teaching ethics, this paper suggests an alternative to the rational consideration of moral dilemmas and proposes approaches to training that can help social workers become more attuned and responsive to ethical conflicts. Relevance: The paper argues that Maturana’s biology of cognition provides an approach to ethics that takes into account the spontaneous nature of everyday work in which social workers undertake their ethical actions.

Three central themes of Maturana’s work – autopoiesis, the biology of cognition, and cybernetic ontology – are examined. Evidence is offered that Maturana’s treatment of these themes is either unoriginal or flawed. The uncritical acceptance of Maturana’s work by family therapists raises questions about the maturity of their discipline, especially in so far as many practitioners claim an understanding of cybernetics.

This paper is a celebration of Maturana as an artist, who, in his writing, has brought forth a model, or perhaps it can be called a social ideal, in which people coexist in love, mutual respect and honesty, a form of coexistence from which social responsibility ought to arise spontaneously. Maturana, by openly inviting re?ection upon the condition of humanity, on the nature of humanness, and, in his critique of the concept of metadesign, our addiction to technology, becomes an artist. In his own words, he becomes a poet of daily life. It is in this role that Maturana has provoked an exploration to begin into the possibilities of extending the application of his biology of cognition, and his insights into the phenomena of technology and art, to understanding and resolving the problems created by our apparent inability to regulate the development of technology.

New forms of explanation for organization and culture are developed from a foundation of Maturana and Varela’s biology of cognition to produce a synthesis of knowledge management and new philosophical, sociological, anthropological, and, distinctively, biological perspectives on technology. This effectively reconciles the practices of technology, knowledge, and cultural change management. The biology of cognition is proposed as an appropriate foundation for a new scientific paradigm able to reconcile the social and natural sciences.