autopoiesis

If living systems are machines, that they are physical autopoietic machines is trivially obvious: they transform matter into themselves in a manner such that the product of their operation is their own organization. However we deem the converse is also true: a physical system if autopoietic, is living. In other words, we claim that the notion of autopoiesis is necessary and sufficient to characterize the organization of living systems.

1980 [1972], Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, “On Machines, Living and Otherwise”, in Autopoiesis and Cognition, D. Reidel, page 82

Having clarified that their concern is with organization, not structure, the authors then proceed to define autopoiesis, the organization common to all living systems. It is a network of production processes, in which the function of each component is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network. In this way the entire network continually “makes itself.”

1996, Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 98

Being smart means being dynamic and nomadic, and against centralized bureaucracy; believing in dialogue and cooperation as against central authority; in flexibility as against routine; culture and knowledge as against industrial production; in spontaneous interaction and autopoiesis as against fixed hierarchy.

2009, Mark Fisher, quoting Slavoj Žižek, chapter 4, in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, →ISBN, pages 27–28