F.J. Varela
F.J. Varela is cited in this library mainly as co-author, with Maturana, of the theory of autopoiesis. Later authors use it to explain how living systems persist against perturbation12, to define agency3, and to ground an embodied, observer-focused view of cognition46. Varela's work on immunity as cognition is also cited5.
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Autopoiesis and homeostasis
Michael Levin cites Maturana and Varela (1980), along with Varela et al. (1974), for the basic homeostatic loop that even the simplest life form needs in order to persist against entropy1. Levin also treats the origin of living forms as the ability of simple systems to keep coherence and distinction from their environment against perturbations2. In that account, homeostatic setpoints are the first small goal-seeking systems. The cognitive hierarchy is built up from this base.
Use in theories of agency
Later authors place autopoiesis among the foundations of their own frameworks. Levin relates a view of agency, defined by the level of model needed to predict and control a system, to autopoiesis and to Rosen's anticipatory systems3. Fields and Levin name Maturana and Varela, with Ashby, Pattee and Rosen, as the basis of an observer-focused, substrate-independent view of agency4. Fábregas-Tejeda and Sims list autopoiesis theory, with enactivism and the free energy principle, among frameworks that hold a strong life-mind continuity thesis7.
Embodied cognition and immunity
Ciaunica, Shmeleva and Levin cite Varela et al. (1991) for the embodied cognition paradigm. They cite Maturana and Varela (1980) for the claim that cognition evolved to support organisms' adaptive interaction with their environment6. They also trace the idea of immune processing as a cognitive system, one that tracks the self against the environment, to Varela and Coutinho (1991) and Varela et al. (1998)5.
the bottom homunculus is a basic homeostatic loop, which is required for even the simplest life form to persist against entropy (Varela et al., 1974; Maturana and Varela, 1980)
Levin M, 2019 · The Computational Boundary of a "Self": Developmental Bioelectricity Drives… · open at passage 64The ancient origin of living forms is predicated on the ability of some simple systems to achieve coherence and distinction from the external environment, against perturbations
Levin M, 2019 · The Computational Boundary of a "Self": Developmental Bioelectricity Drives… · open at passage 38This view of agency is related to those of autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela, 1980) and anticipatory systems (Rosen, 1985).
Levin M, 2022 · Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework… · open at passage 133it dates back at least to Ashby [39] and was featured prominently in the work of Maturana and Varela [40], Pattee [41], and Rosen [42,43], among many others
Fields C, Levin M, 2022 · Competency in Navigating Arbitrary Spaces as an Invariant for Analyzing… · open at passage 6this idea can be traced back to the seminal work of Varela and Coutinho (1991a),b; Varela et al. (1998)
Ciaunica A, Shmeleva EV, Levin M, 2023 · The brain is not mental! coupling neuronal and immune cellular processing in… · open at passage 49A central tenet of this approach is that the mechanisms of cognition have evolved to assist biological organisms in their adaptive interactions with the environment (Maturana and Varela, 1980).
Ciaunica A, Shmeleva EV, Levin M, 2023 · The brain is not mental! coupling neuronal and immune cellular processing in… · open at passage 4some defenders of disparate frameworks such as the theory of autopoiesis, enactivism, and the free energy principle can be counted as panextensionalists regarding cognition
Fábregas-Tejeda A, Sims M, 2025 · On the prospects of basal cognition research becoming fully evolutionary… · open at passage 26
