Principia Cybernetica Web (C)

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Parent Node(s): ASC Glossary on Cybernetics

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AUTOPOIESIS

the process whereby an organization produces itself. An autopoietic organization is an autonomous and self-maintaining unity which contains component-producing processes. The components, through their interaction, generate recursively the same network of processes which produced them. An autopoietic system is operationally closed and structurally state determined with no apparent inputs and outputs. A cell, an organism, and perhaps a corporation are examples of autopoietic systems. See ALLOPOIESIS. (F. Varela)