Problems of Autonomy and Discontexturality in the Theory of Living Systems

In the theory of living systems any description of self-organizing processes is confronted by a very central problem concerning the role of the system's boundary, i.e., there is the necessity of a simultaneous formal representation of the inside and the outside of the system. On the other hand, in a theory of self-organization restricted to changes of states within a system, which may be defined by some physical state variables, the question of the boundary has been eliminated and the distinction between a system and its environment (its inside and outside) generally is interpreted as an information process between both, the system and the environment. In the theory of autopoietic systems (TAS), on the other hand, it is the autonomy of a system which plays a fundamental role and therefore the TAS represents a theory of self-organization in relation to a system and its environment and not primarily a theory of self-organization of states within a system. This, however, results in ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1990
• Where: EBERNBURG
• Authors: Rudolf Kaehr, E. von Goldammer
• Keywords: Autopoietic Systems, Computational Biology, EBERNBURG 1990, Self-organization, Theory