"When
one puts objectivity in parenthesis, all
views, all verses in the multiverse are equally valid.
Understanding this, you lose the passion for changing the other.
One of the results is that you look apathetic to people. Now,
those who do not live with objectivity in parentheses have a
passion for changing the other. So they have this passion and you
do not. For example, at the university where I work, people may
say, ‘Humberto is not really interested in anything,’ because I
don’t have the passion in the same sense that the person that has
objectivity without parentheses. And I think that this is the main
difficulty. To other people you may seem too tolerant. However, if
the others also put objectivity in parentheses , you discover that
disagreements can only be solved by entering a domain of
co-inspiration, in which things are done together because the
participants want to do them. With objectivity in parentheses, it
is easy to do things together because one is not denying the other
in the process of doing them."
Humberto
Maturana - Interview 1985.
BIOGRAPHY
Humberto
Maturana [1928] - Biologist, Cybernetician, Scientist - invented
his theory of autopoiesis following in the pathways of Bateson,
Wittgenstein, the social ‘ricorso’ of Vico, the self-production
notion of Paul Weiss, and many others. He has spent his career
elaborating this theory within a biological research programme in
his laboratory in Santiago [above which was written ‘Experimental
Epistemology Lab’]. Known world-wide as Humberto {except in Italy
where he is ‘Umberto’}, he continues to elaborate his theory
generating experimental evidence for the thesis that reality is a
consensual communal construction while appearing to be
‘objectively’ existing. The notion of ‘objectivity’ is replaced by
that of ‘constructivism’.
IDIOSYNCRASIES
Never seen without his long,
self-reknitting beatnik scarf; Speaking in circularities to
hypnotise his audience; Infuriating colleagues by not referencing
anyone other than himself [Maturana’s theory of ‘self-reference’].
ARTICLES
On the Subject of
Autopoiesis and it's Boundaries: Does The Subject Matter? by
Vincent Kenny [05.22.99]
Autopoiesis, Culture and
Society by Humberto Mariotti [05.22.99]
Life, the Multiverse and
Everything: An Introduction to the Ideas of Humberto Maturana
by Vincent Kenny [03.04.98]
Distinguishing the
Observer: An Attempt at Interpreting Maturana by Ernst von
Glasersfeld [12.19.97]
LINKS
FRANCISCO VARELA
