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Showing posts from October, 2010

05 Book Review: J Mingers Self-Producing Systems

John Mingers. Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. xvii + 246 pp. I. Introduction A. Topic of the book This is an introductory yet comprehensive text about a process called Autopoiesis – which means ‘a process whereby an organization produces itself’ . The book is meant to be an introduction to the large body of work in this field, usually referred to collectively as the ‘autopoietic theory’. This theory was developed by two Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, since the early 1960’s as a result of their work on visual perception and the organization of the living (Maturana and Varela, 1980). Autopoiesis means ‘Self creation’ – a circular process in which components of a unity participate in processes of production, which in turn produce the components (pp.12). Maturana and Varela contend that all living systems are autopoietic – i.e. they have a circular, self-referencing and self-creating o