Autopoiesis
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Self-creation; self-organization. uncountable
"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."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"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."
Etymology
Coined in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, from auto- + -poiesis. (see also Ancient Greek αὐτόποιος (autópoios, “self-produced”)).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.