p 44
p 44-45
The phenomenon of autopoiesis is quite general. It can apply to systems existing in any domain in which we can identify unities and components. An autopoeitic system holds constant its organization and defines its boundaries through the continuous production of its components. If the autopoiesis is interrupted, the system's organization —its identity as a particular kind of unity— is lost, and the system disintegrates (dies).
Note 9, p 45
In later work, Maturana and Varela distinguish autopoiesis, as a property of cellular systems, from a more general property of operational closure that applies to a broader class of systems.
p 46
The frog with optic fibers responding to small moving dark spots does not have a representation of flies.
[As biological beings, we] can never have knowledge about external reality. We can have structure that reflects our history of interactions in a medium, but that medium is not composed of 'things' that are knowable.
p 51-52
The question of solipsism arises only as a pseudo-problem, or does not arise at all, because the necessary condition for our possibility of talking about it is our having a language that is a consensual system of interactions in a subject dependent domain, and this condition constitutes the negation of solipsism. —Maturana, "Cognitive strategies" (1974)