page_title: Autopoiesis
hierarchical_section_title: Autopoiesis
caption_attribution_description: English: 3D representation of two mouse daughter nuclei in a late stage of nuclear division (Telophase). The spindle apparatus (anti-tubulin Immunostaining, orange), the actin cytoskeleton (Phalloidin staining, green) and chromatin (DAPI-staining, cyan) are visualized. For further information see: Schermelleh L, Carlton PM, Haase S, Shao L, Winoto L, Kner P, Burke B, Cardoso MC, Agard DA, Gustafsson MG, Leonhardt H, Sedat JW&#32;(June 2008).&#32;"Subdiffraction multicolor imaging of the nuclear periphery with 3D structured illumination microscopy". Science (journal)&#32;320&#32;(5881): 1332–6. DOI:10.1126/science.1156947. PMID 18535242. Deutsch: 3-dimensionale Darstellung zweier Tochter-Mauszelle in einem späten Stadium der Zellteilung (Telophase). Zu sehen ist der Spindelapparat (anti-Tubulin-Immunfärbung; orange), Aktin-Zytoskelett (Phalloidinfärbung; grün) und das Chromatin (DAPI-Färbung; cyan).
context_page_description: The term autopoiesis refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself.
  The original definition can be found in Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living:
  Page 16: It was in these circumstances ... in which he analyzed Don Quixote's dilemma of whether to follow the path of arms or the path of letters, I understood for the first time the power of the word "poiesis" and invented the word that we needed: autopoiesis. This was a word without a history, a word that could directly mean what takes place in the dynamics of the autonomy proper to living systems.
  Page 78: An autopoietic machine is a machine organized as a network of processes of production of components which: through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes that produced them; and constitute it as a concrete unity in space in which they exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.
  Page 89: ... the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space.
context_section_description: The term autopoiesis (from Greek  αὐτo- (auto-), meaning 'self', and  ποίησις (poiesis), meaning 'creation, production') refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself. 
  The original definition can be found in Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (1st edition 1973, 2nd  1980):
  Page 16: It was in these circumstances ... in which he analyzed Don Quixote's dilemma of whether to follow the path of arms (praxis, action) or the path of letters (poiesis, creation, production), I understood for the first time the power of the word "poiesis" and invented the word that we needed: autopoiesis. This was a word without a history, a word that could directly mean what takes place in the dynamics of the autonomy proper to living systems.
  Page 78: An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of 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 space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.
  
  Page 89: ... the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. When we refer to our interactions with a concrete autopoietic system, however, we project this system on the space of our manipulations and make a description of this projection.
  The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells. Since then the concept has been also applied to the fields of cognition, systems theory, architecture and sociology.
caption: 3D representation of a living cell during the process of mitosis, example of an autopoietic system
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