Humberto Maturana

From Geography

Humberto Maturana Romesín was born in 1928 in Santiago de Chile. He graduated in 1947 from Liceo Manuel de Salas, and then enter the profession of medicine at the University of Chile. In 1954 he moved to University College London to study anatomy and neurophysiology, thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1958 he earned a PhD in Biology from Harvard University in the United States.

Along with his disciple and later collaborator Francisco Varela, developed in the seventies the concept of autopoiesis, which accounts for the organization of living systems as closed networks of self-production of components that constitute them. In addition, it laid the foundations of biology of cognition, a discipline that is responsible for explaining the operation of living things as closed systems and certain in its structure. Another important aspect of reflections corresponds to the invitation Maturana change makes the question of being (question posed by the existence of an objective reality independent of the observer), the question of do (question takes as its point of starting objectivity in parentheses, ie the objects are brought into the hand through the operations of distinction drawn by the observer, understood as any human being operating in the language.)

Subsequently, he studied the activity of a directional sensory organ's cell, with the scientist Jerome Lettvin from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following that investigation, both were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, but finally they did not obtain the award.

In 1960 he returned to Chile to serve as second assistant in the department of Biology, School of Medicine of the University of Chile. He founded in 1965, the Institute for Science and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Chile.

In 1970 he created and developed the concept of autopoiesis, which explains the fact that living beings are closed systems, while circular networks of molecular productions in which the molecules produced through their interactions are the same network that produced and specified limits . At the same time, living beings remain open to the flow of matter and energy in both molecular systems. Thus, living beings are "machines" which are distinguished from others by its ability to self-produce. Since then, Maturana has developed knowledge of biology.

In 1990 he was named illustrious son of the commune of Ñuñoa (Santiago, Chile). In addition, it was declared an honorary doctorate at the Free University of Brussels.

In 1992, along with biologist Jorge Mpodozis raises the idea of the evolution of species through natural drift, based on the neutralist conception of how members of a lineage made its autopoiesis transgenerationally remains in a lifestyle or particular ontogenic phenotype, which depends on its history of interactions and innovation which lead to the diversification of lineages.

On September 27, 1994 received the National Prize for Science in Chile, through their research in the field of visual perception of vertebrates and their statements about the theory of knowledge.

It is co-founder and teacher of Matríztica Training Institute, where he works on the development of dynamic cultural and Biological Matrix of Human Existence. Matriztic institute's proposal is to explain the experiences from the experiences, as a human way living (culture), in the intertwining of language and emotions (talking), which is where it happens all human activity.

Currently he carries out his academic activities at the University of Chile and University Andrés Bello. Maturana has also made great contributions, primarily constructivist psychology.

He has continued developing radical in areas as diverse as education, psychology and politics, among others, in works such as: Emotions and Language in Education and Politics (Chilean Educational Publishing, 1990), The Sense of Humanity (Hachette Communications, 1991), From Biology to Psychology (Editorial Synthesis, 1993), Reality: Objective or Built? (Editorial Anthopos, 1996, Transformation in Coexistence (Dolmen Ediciones, 1999).

Sources:

Instituto de Altos Estudios en Biociencias de la Vida. Biografía: Humberto Maturana

Jorge Mendoza,Ximena Santa Cruz, Silvia Selowsky.Biología del Fenómeno Social. Ecovisiones n°6. Chile.