With the help of illustrations and examples from biology, linguistics and social and cultural phenomena, this book shows that the process of learning is not a means of knowing an absolute world of facts, but is rather an active process which itself creates the world of human experiences. To convey this, the authors examine cognition in all its facets, exploring topics such as the nature of scientific exploration, the organization of living things, evolution, language and the emergence of self-awareness. The authors maintain that the nature of cognition has important social and ethical consequences, for the only world that we humans can have is one that we bring forth together the action of our coexistence. Written for a general audience, this book invites readers to let go of their preconceptions and gain fresh insights into what it means to be human.
Reviews
"A refreshing and new approach to cognition--one which has dramatic cultural, social, and ethical ramifications. . . . While stimulating the imagination of readers it has, however, not received the scholarly acclaim it richly deserves."-- "Journal of Religion and Psychical Research "
"A book with great breadth and ambition . . . In the age of specialization, it is refreshing to come across a book with conceptual breadth and originality."-- "Contemporary Psychology" "An important milestone in our current efforts to recognize that science is not value-free, and that fact and value are inevitably tied together."--Morris Berman, author of "Coming to Our Senses "
"A beautiful and clearly written guide to thought and perception--something that, like life itself, we take for granted but do not understand. The authors were the pioneers and are now the authoritative figures in the science of cognition: their book is rewarding, thorough, and very readable too
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Reviews
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This book is designed to help us know about knowing in a radically different way. The authors coined the word "autopoesis" which is similar to the emergence of new properties from the coupling of complex systems, and believe that , like Karl Popper, that we"think" similarly to basic organisms like the amoeba, but by a process of constructive circularity and internal organisation, humans arrive at forming a culture through language and self awareness. Our knowledge therefore cognition is effective action - and as we know how we know, we bring forth ourselves. This is similar to an indigenous awareness that we carry our biological traditions with us and sing the world into existence. Fascinating, the authors use biological knowledge to validate their point, yet manage to keep it in simple language. It makes you think about our creative construction of words and the world through our actions and social practices.
This book was my introduction to the concept of autopoesis, the process of self-creation.
The book is constucted in a circular path taking the reader from the beginning of the big bang, and working up from atoms to molecules, molecules to organisms, organisms to multicellular life forms and from there into the linguistic domain and language.
Each of these shift to the next level is a result of the interplay of the forces of structural integrity to keep the organism together and whole, and adaptation to the surrounding environment. Like the Escher drawing of one hand drawing the other in a chicken-and-egg creation loop, conservation of structure and adaptation to environment each give rise to the other.
The universe is self created -- no God required!
The authors present biology in the most beautiful poetic prose. If high school biology were this eloquent I may have taken a different path, i.e., my ontogenic drift would have been altered.
Reading their words, I had the same response as I do to the poetry of Wallace Stevens. The show clearly how language is something we "do" and a medium in which we exist. How language gives rise to mind, consciousness and self-awareness. It brought new meaning to Steven's line, "Man made out of words."
Part of their narrative drift is an explanation of the workings of the neurosystem. How it is neither representational or solipsistic. We are not "like" computers at all. We do not repond to "reality" out there, but to the neural electrical impulses the external reality triggers on our membrane. From these impulses to the brain, we create a model of the world and respond to that. Looking at others respond we say they exhibit certain behaviour because we interpret their movement in the context with which we see them.
Their entire approach is systems oriented. They stop and language and consciousness, but I would be interested in seeing how their ideas continue into the realm of economics and culture. But these areas are out of scope for this slim volume.
If you are interested in biology, NLP, Buddhism, neurology, linguistics, systems theory, Bateson, Stevens or the movie "The Matrix," this book will give you a lot to chew on for a good long while. Highly recommended.
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