Autopoiesis is the self-production of a living or social system. I use it to define the metabolic sovereign and, later, to say what habitability is: planetary autopoiesis.
How the word moved
In October 2025 I took Maturana, Varela and Luhmann and read autopoiesis as control over flows. In April 2026 I had to clarify that autopoiesis isn't autarky. By July 2026 I was saying our technologies should serve planetary autopoiesis.
In my words
"Our technologies should be in service of this planetary autopoiesis."
from Habitability: Recasting the Planetarity Syllabus, 27 Jul 2026
Related
- Inherited from Maturana and Varela - the concept is theirs.
- Related Metabolic Sovereignty - it defines the metabolic sovereign.
- Related Habitability - habitability is planetary autopoiesis.
- Related Basal Cognition - cognition as a living system keeping itself going.
Still open
I treat monopoly control and self-production as if they were interchangeable. The systems theorists probably wouldn't let me get away with that.