The organization of living systems

pp. 9-28

in: John Mingers, Self-producing systems, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

The fundamental question Maturana and Varela set out to answer is: what distinguishes entities or systems that we would call living from other systems, apparently equally complex, which we would not? How, for example, should a Martian distinguish between a horse and a car? This is an example that Monod (1974, p. 19) uses in addressing the similar but not identical question of distinguishing between natural and artificial systems.