The notion of autopoiesis –Also mentioned as autopoiesis- is not part of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). It is a term coined by the Chilean Humberto Maturana in the decade of 1970.
This biologist, in collaboration with Francisco Varela, devised the concept with reference to the ability of a system in order to reproduce and maintain its stability by itself. Autopoiesis, therefore, is the key to the existence of living beings.
By self-regulating and taking advantage of Energy from the environment, a system can retain its structure despite not being in equilibrium. This allows you not to lose your autonomy or your identity.
In order to Maturana, a system is an entity that is defined by the network of operations and processes that develops, being able to create or eliminate elements of the system itself as a response to changes in the environment. Autopoiesis is given by that ability to transform and destroy components through continuous interactions that manage to regenerate the net of operations that it has produced to the system in question.
When thinking about autopoiesis, Maturana It was proposed to determine what happens inside an entity so that an external observer can affirm that it is alive. According to the biologist, a living being it is a system that continually creates itself, modifying itself and making necessary repairs. He called this quality autopoiesis, derived from two Greek words: car (referring to "itself") Y poiesis (which can be translated as "creation").
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