%0 Conference Paper %1 hall2010autopoiesis %A Hall, William %A Nousala, Susu %B 4th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics: IMSCI %D 2010 %K autopoiesis economia %T Autopoiesis and knowledge in self-sustaining organizational systems %X Knowledge and the communication of knowledge are criticalfor self-sustaining organizations comprised of people and thetools and machines that extend peoples’ physical and cognitivecapacities. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela proposedthe concept of autopoiesis (“self” + “production”) as adefinition of life in the 1970s. Nicklas Luhmann extended thisconcept to establish a theory of social systems, where intangiblehuman social systems were formed by recursive networks of communications. We show here that Luhmann fundamentallymisunderstood Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis by thinkingthat the self-observation necessary for self-maintenance formeda paradoxically vicious circle. Luhmann tried to resolve thisapparent paradox by placing the communication networks on animaginary plane orthogonal to the networked people. However,Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology and the theory of hierarchically complex systems turns what Luhmann thoughtwas a vicious circle into a virtuous spiral of organizationallearning and knowledge. There is no closed circle that needs to be explained via Luhmann’s extraordinarily paradoxicallinguistic contortions.

@inproceedings{hall2010autopoiesis, abstract = {Knowledge and the communication of knowledge are criticalfor self-sustaining organizations comprised of people and thetools and machines that extend peoples’ physical and cognitivecapacities. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela proposedthe concept of autopoiesis (“self” + “production”) as adefinition of life in the 1970s. Nicklas Luhmann extended thisconcept to establish a theory of social systems, where intangiblehuman social systems were formed by recursive networks of communications. We show here that Luhmann fundamentallymisunderstood Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis by thinkingthat the self-observation necessary for self-maintenance formeda paradoxically vicious circle. Luhmann tried to resolve thisapparent paradox by placing the communication networks on animaginary plane orthogonal to the networked people. However,Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology and the theory of hierarchically complex systems turns what Luhmann thoughtwas a vicious circle into a virtuous spiral of organizationallearning and knowledge. There is no closed circle that needs to be explained via Luhmann’s extraordinarily paradoxicallinguistic contortions.}, added-at = {2013-09-01T22:16:09.000+0200}, author = {Hall, William and Nousala, Susu}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/21c3923449b32886fde75be0454079d1a/facundo.bromber}, booktitle = {4th International Multi-Conference on Society, Cybernetics and Informatics: IMSCI}, interhash = {ac2a03aac8a77df06f4ddbb1bcff7d93}, intrahash = {1c3923449b32886fde75be0454079d1a}, keywords = {autopoiesis economia}, timestamp = {2013-09-01T22:16:09.000+0200}, title = {Autopoiesis and knowledge in self-sustaining organizational systems}, year = 2010 }