Systems and System-References � Larval Subjects .

Systems and System-References � Larval Subjects .: "Following Maturana and Varela (though my major points of reference are Bateson, von Foerster, and especially Luhmann), I distinguish between autopoietic systems and allopoietic systems. An autopoietic machine, Maturana and Varela argue,

is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produce the 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 a space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network. (Autopoiesis and Cognition, 78 – 79)

Translated into English, autopoietic systems are systems that produce their own components through their own components. These systems roughly compose the domain of the living and the social, though there might be other autopoietic systems as well. By contrast, allopoietic systems are systems that are produced by something else. These systems are roughly the domain of the inanimate"