Abstract
Definition
The authors’ definition of the autopoietic system has
evolved through the years. One of them states that
an autopoietic system is organized (defined as a unity)
as a network of processes of production (transformation
and destruction) of components that produces the
components which: (1) through their interactions and
transformations regenerate and realize the network of
processes (relations) that produced them; and (2) constitute
it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space
in which they exist by specifying the topological
domain of its realization as such a network (Varela
1979, p. 13). Nearly the same formula was earlier used
to define an autopoietic machine (Maturana and Varela
1973/1980, 1984/1987, p. 135)