In this essay, the authors invite us to take a different look at the fundamental phenomena of today’s education, imagining a flow of events that can orient us into following a drift that results in a reflexive transformation by the year 2021. This invitation is assumed with gravity, responsibility and boldness. Gravity, because of the reflexive precision that the authors use in their analysis; responsibility because they encourage to assume generationally the consequences of understanding education in this zero-time; and boldness because this is a proposal that allows us to shift our look into the comprehension of the cultural and biological foundations of human living. This proposal is undertaken from an unitary epistemological foundation that consciously avoids all dualistic temptation, broadening our understanding of our constitution as living creatures and as human beings, inviting us to reflect and to broaden our possibility of living in individual and social welfare, as naturally ethic and autonomous beings, capable of assuming the responsibility of being conscious of the world the we produce with our own living.

Key words: Cultural biology, education in 2021, postmodern education, , systemic approach.

The aim of this article is to refect around biological and epistemological explanations in an interlaced manner about the nature of the generation of the world that we live in languaging-conversation as the human manner of living. This article is presented in three main themes plus and introduction and an epilogue that evokes in recursive manner different operations and processes as human living beings, many of the ideas presented were published in different articles and some are new.

Key words: autopoiesis, living beings, cultural-biology, evolution, organism, niche.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Organization of the Living: Maturana’s Key Insights” by Fritjof Capra. Abstract: We focus on: (a) the implications of the ontology of the observer and the role of language as a type of structural coupling that opens up the idea of cultural biology as the final statement upon which Maturana relies to account for the dynamic of the human being as a living (cognitive) system; (b) the identification of some insights through the concept of structural coupling; and (c) the possibility of extending Maturana’s ideas to other fields of knowledge, as suggested by Capra.

Epistemology of Systems Thinking (ST) has undergone important changes throughout the twentieth century and has gradually gained ground in scientific investigations and interventions in different contexts. Understanding its epistemological principles has been a challenge in undergraduate and graduate courses of different areas, and it is sine qua non for the implementation of systemic research and interventions. Thus, this article aims to present the historical and epistemological development of ST in the twentieth century and the contributions of Humberto Maturana for the advancement of postmodern science, with Biology of Cognition and Cultural Biology. It describes the paradigm shift from traditional science to postmodern science, as well as the basic assumptions that characterize them. We used a historical and epistemological spiral, along with the concept of recursion, to facilitate the understanding of the interconnections between researchers and theories that have contributed to the development of ST. The main concepts of the systemic theories that are recognized and well-known in the scientific community were presented, namely, the General Systems Theory, Cybernetics, the Communication Theory. Our conclusion is that the epistemology of ST has provided significant advances to science, because it integrates the epistemological assumptions of complexity, instability and inter-subjectivity in phenomena analysis, in research and interventions in different contexts.

Key words: epistemology, cybernetics, systemic thinking.

In this chapter I propose a leadership model that represents a synthesis of four emerging fields of study: cultural biology, systems theory, Deep Ecology, and selected leadership models. This model is congruent with an emerging “eco-leadership paradigm” and may be seen as providing a conceptual foundation for leadership within that paradigm. I begin the chapter with an overview of relevant models proposed by leadership theorists as a starting point for my discussion. I then move into a discussion of cultural biology, as it lays the foundation for the model by clarifying the essential ties between the individual and their environment. This is followed by systems theory, which allows us to further extend our individual sphere of concern to large complex systems, and Deep Ecology, which provides a road map for living in a manner that reflects what cultural biology and systems theory teach us. I conclude with a discussion of what I will call the Deep Systems Leadership Model and demonstrate the interconnectedness of its components. Each component tells us in a different way that we are linked in a fundamental manner, both to one another and to the environment around us. Taken together, they help build a view of leadership that is nonhierarchical and nonpositional; is a capacity rather than a position; and is more of a lifestyle adopted after deep reflection than a skill gained through specialized training. Relevance: The leadership model proposed in this chapter utilizes elements of Maturana’s work on autopoesis and his concept of cultural biology as a foundation, also bringing together concepts such as systems thinking, adaptive leadership, and deep ecology.