"El Origen de la Vida" HUMBERTO MATURANA (PARTE 1) en Congreso Futuro 2017

Key Concepts:

• Autopoiesis: Self-production; the process by which living systems create and maintain themselves.
• Molecular Systems: Living beings are fundamentally systems of interacting molecules.
• Cyclic Processes: Metabolic processes in living beings are cyclical in nature.
• Niche Ecology: The relational domain in which a living being exists, co-created with the organism.
• Structural Change: External stimuli trigger structural changes within an organism, not direct information transfer.
• Epistemological Thinking: Reflecting on the conditions of possibility for understanding phenomena.
• Matristic School: The school of thought from which the speaker is presenting, focusing on the art and science of epistemological thinking.

1. Origin of Living Beings vs. Origin of Life:

• Maturana clarifies that he will discuss the origin of living beings, not the origin of life itself, emphasizing the distinction between the two questions.
• The question of the origin of living beings requires identifying what has been conserved since their emergence 3.8 billion years ago.

2. The Present Moment and Reflection:

• The speaker emphasizes that we exist in a continuous, changing present.
• Our understanding of the past and future is based on present reflection.
• "El futuro lo hacemos todos, pero el futuro no existe porque va a venir después, y el pasado tampoco." (We make the future, but the future doesn't exist because it will come later, and neither does the past.)

3. Autopoiesis: The Defining Characteristic of Living Beings:

• Living beings are defined as autopoietic systems, molecular systems that produce themselves.
• This concept arose from reflecting on metabolic processes and their cyclical nature.
• The speaker uses the analogy of a child eating beans to illustrate how living beings use external resources to construct themselves.
• "Somos sistemas moleculares que nos producimos a nosotros mismos en una red de procesos cíclicos." (We are molecular systems that produce ourselves in a network of cyclical processes.)

4. Energy and Structural Change:

• The speaker challenges the conventional understanding of ATP as a source of energy.
• ATP's function is to change the structure of other molecules, enabling them to participate in reactions they couldn't before.
• This structural change is crucial for understanding how living beings operate.

5. Spontaneous Emergence and the Minimal Autopoietic System:

• Living beings emerge spontaneously as minimal molecular autopoietic systems, like a primordial bacterium.
• External factors do not specify what happens within an organism but trigger changes determined by its structure.

6. Perception and Structural Determinism:

• The speaker discusses his research on perception, highlighting that external stimuli don't directly inform the eye.
• Instead, they trigger structural changes in the retina and the organism as a whole.
• The example of a salamander catching a worm illustrates that the external world doesn't dictate the organism's behavior; it triggers a response based on the organism's history and structure.

7. The Co-emergence of Organism and Niche:

• When the first bacteria emerged, they brought with them their niche ecology, the relational environment in which they live.
• Organisms and their niches co-evolve, maintaining coherence.
• The speaker uses the example of people viewing a landscape differently to illustrate how each individual carries their own niche ecology.
• "Los organismos se deslizan en su vivir en la conservación de su coherencia con un nicho ecológico que va cambiando con ellos." (Organisms slide in their living in the conservation of their coherence with an ecological niche that is changing with them.)
• The speaker concludes that when living beings arise, a unit of organism and niche is constituted.

8. Langmuir Experiment Example:

• The speaker references Langmuir's experiment with oil on water sprinkled with talc.
• This experiment demonstrates how fatty acid molecules spontaneously arrange themselves in a monomolecular layer, with hydrophilic ends facing down and hydrophobic ends facing up.
• This illustrates the spontaneous nature of natural processes.

Synthesis/Conclusion:

Humberto Maturana presents a view of living beings as self-producing (autopoietic) molecular systems that emerge spontaneously and co-evolve with their ecological niches. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the structural changes triggered by external stimuli, rather than viewing them as direct information transfer. The core of his argument lies in the concept of autopoiesis, which defines living beings as systems that continuously create and maintain themselves through cyclical processes. This perspective challenges traditional notions of energy and information in biology, highlighting the role of structure and spontaneous organization in the emergence and maintenance of life.