Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living

The held works cite Maturana and Varela (1980) as a foundational account of living organisation, in which organisms persist as self-maintaining systems against perturbation and entropy. Levin treats homeostatic persistence as the root of goals and agency, linking it to autopoiesis. Ciaunica et al. use it for embodied cognition, where cognition serves an organism's adaptive interaction with its environment. Fábregas-Tejeda and Sims count it among strong life-mind continuity views.

maintaining spatial and metabolic integrity by ensuring certain parameters stay in specific ranges (Maturana and Varela, 1980; Luisi, 2014)

Levin M, 2019 · The Computational Boundary of a "Self": Developmental Bioelectricity… · open at passage 38

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… · open at passage 4

the idea that mind is, and always has been, prefigured in and indissociable from all forms of life

Fábregas-Tejeda A, Sims M, 2025 · On the prospects of basal cognition research becoming fully… · open at passage 26

This 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… · open at passage 133