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Humberto Maturana
 
 
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Humberto Maturana (born September 14, 1928, in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile

Santiago , is the Capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of 520 m Above mean sea level....
) is a Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
an biologist
Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment....
.

r completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de Salas in 1947, Maturana enrolled at the University of Chile, studying first medicine then biology. In 1954, he obtained a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D....
 to study anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 and neurophysiology
Neurophysiology

Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function. Primarily, it is connected with neurobiology, psychology, neurology, clinical neurophysiology, electrophysiology, ethology, neuroanatomy, cognitive science and other brain sciences....
 at University College London
University College London

University College London is a university institution and constituent college of the University of London based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom....
. He obtained a PhD
PHD

PHD may refer to:* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian reform organization* PHD, a track on The Crystal Method album Tweekend* PHD finger, a protein sequence...
 in biology from Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 in 1958.

He works in neuroscience
Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a field devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. The Society for Neuroscience was founded in 1969, but the study of the brain started a long time ago....
 at the University of Chile, in the research center "Biología del Conocer" (Biology of Knowledge).






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Humberto Maturana (born September 14, 1928, in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile

Santiago , is the Capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of 520 m Above mean sea level....
) is a Chile
Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
an biologist
Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment....
.

Biography

After completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de Salas in 1947, Maturana enrolled at the University of Chile, studying first medicine then biology. In 1954, he obtained a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D....
 to study anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 and neurophysiology
Neurophysiology

Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function. Primarily, it is connected with neurobiology, psychology, neurology, clinical neurophysiology, electrophysiology, ethology, neuroanatomy, cognitive science and other brain sciences....
 at University College London
University College London

University College London is a university institution and constituent college of the University of London based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom....
. He obtained a PhD
PHD

PHD may refer to:* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian reform organization* PHD, a track on The Crystal Method album Tweekend* PHD finger, a protein sequence...
 in biology from Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 in 1958.

He works in neuroscience
Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a field devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. The Society for Neuroscience was founded in 1969, but the study of the brain started a long time ago....
 at the University of Chile, in the research center "Biología del Conocer" (Biology of Knowledge). Maturana's work has been developed and integrated into the work on Ontological Coaching
Coaching

Coaching is a method of directing, instructing and training a person or group of people, with the aim to achieve some goal or develop specific skills....
 done by Fernando Flores
Fernando Flores

Carlos Fernando Flores Labra is a Chilean engineer, philosopher, entrepreneur and politician. He is a former cabinet minister of president Salvador Allende and is currently senator for the Arica and Parinacota Region and Tarapac? Region regions....
 and Julio Olalla
Julio olalla

Julio Olalla is a former Chilean government lawyer and now the President of , a leading consulting company and coaching school in the USA and Latin America....
.

As of the year 2000, professor Maturana established his own reflection and research center: the Instituto de Formación Matriztica.

Work

Maturana's work extends to philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 and cognitive science
Cognitive science

Cognitive science may be concisely defined as the study of the nature of intelligence. It draws on multiple empirical disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, computer science, sociology and biology....
 and even to family therapy
Family therapy

Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy and family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with family and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development....
. He was early inspired by the work of the biologist Jakob von Uexküll
Jakob von Uexküll

Jakob Johann von Uexk?ll was a Baltic Germans biologist who had important achievements in the fields of muscular physiology, animal behaviour studies, and the cybernetics of life....
.

Constructivist epistemology

Maturana and his student Francisco Varela
Francisco Varela

Francisco Javier Varela Garc?a , was a Chilean biology, philosophy and neuroscience who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology....
 were the first to define and employ the concept of autopoiesis
Autopoiesis

Autopoiesis literally means "auto -creation" , and expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and Function . The term was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973:...
. Aside from making important contributions to the field of evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
, Maturana is also a founder of constructivist epistemology
Constructivist epistemology

Constructivist epistemology is an epistemology perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge held by many philosophers of science....
 or radical constructivism, an epistemology
Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses the questions:...
 built upon empirical
Empirical

The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment, as opposed to theory. A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or Logical consequence that are observable by the senses....
 findings of neurobiology
Neurobiology

Neurobiology is the study of cell s of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional biological neural network that process information and mediate behavior....
.

Maturana and Varela wrote in their Santiago Theory of Cognition
Santiago Theory of Cognition

Biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela contributed their Santiago theory of cognition in which they wrote:Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition....
: "Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with or without a nervous system."

Biology of Knowledge

At the Instituto de Formación Matriztica Maturana has contributed extensively to the Biology of Knowledge and Biology of Loving. At this point, Maturana has formulated, with Ximena Davila, new perspectives about human life and continues to do so; psychology, the use of language, experience, and the general impulse to understand serve as explanatory bases for the depiction of human ways of life.

See also

  • Molecular Cellular Cognition
    Molecular cellular cognition

    Key goals of studies in the field of molecular cellular cognition include the derivation of explanations of cognitive processes that integrate molecular, cellular, and behavioral mechanisms, and finding mechanism and treatments for cognitive disorders....
  • Santiago Theory of Cognition
    Santiago Theory of Cognition

    Biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela contributed their Santiago theory of cognition in which they wrote:Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition....


Publications

Books, a selection:
  • 1972 (with F.G. Varela). De máquinas y seres vivos. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Universitaria. English version: "Autopoiesis: the organization of the living," in Maturana, H. R., and Varela, F. G., 1980. Autopoiesis and Cognition. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel.
  • 1982. Erkennen: Die Organisation und Verkörperung von Wiklichkeit. Wiesbaden: Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn Braunschweig.
  • 1987 (with F. J. Varela). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN 0-87773-373-2
  • (with F. J. Varela). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living.
  • 1993 (with G. Verden-Zöller), Liebe und Spiel, die vergessene Grundlage der Menschlichkeit. Carl Auer Verlag.


Articles, chapters and papers, selection:
  • 1959. Lettvin, J. T., Maturana, H. R., McCulloch, W. S., Pitts, W. H. "What the frog's eyes tells the frog's brain?" in: Proc. Inst. Radio Engr. 47 (11): 1940- 1951, (1959).
  • 1978, "" in Miller, George A., and Elizabeth Lenneberg (eds.), Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought: Essays in Honor of Eric Lenneberg. Academic Press: 27-63.
  • 1980, "Man and society" in Benseler, Hejl, and Köck: 11-32.
  • 1988, "" Conference Workbook: Texts in Cybernetics, American Society For Cybernetics Conference, Felton, CA. 18-23 October, 1988.
  • 1988, "" The Irish Journal of Psychology 9: 25-82.
  • 1991, "The origin of the theory of autopoietic systems," in Fischer, H. R. (ed.), Autopoiesis. Eine Theorie im Brennpunkt der Kritik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.
  • 1996 (with G. Verden-Zöller), "Biology of love," in Opp, G., and F. Peterander, F. (eds.), Focus Heilpadagogik. Munchen/Basel: Ernst Reinhardt.
  • 1997, "Metadesign, "
  • 1999, ""
  • 2000 (with J. Mpodozis). "The origin of species by means of natural drift," Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 73: 261-310.


External links