Aui’opoiesis: the Organization of Living Systems, Its Characterization and a P4oodel

Notwithstanding their diversity, all living systems must share a common organization which we implicitly recognize by calling them “livi$. At present there ir no formulation of this organization, mainly because the great developments of molecular, genetic and evolutionary notions in contemporary biology have led to the overemphasis of isolated components, e.g. to consider reproduction as a necessary feature of the living organization and, hence. not to ask about the organization which makes a Living system a whole, autoncmous unity that is alive regardless of whether it reproduces or not. As a result, processes that are history depondenl (evolution, ontogenesis) and histow independent (individual organization) have been confused in the attempt to provide a single mmzchanistic explanation for phenomena which, although related, are fundamentally distinct. We assert that reproduction and evolution are not constitutive features of the living oIganization and that the properties of a unity cannot be accounted for only through accounting for the properties of its components. In contrast, we claim ihat the living organization can only be characterized unambiguously by specifying the network of interactions of components which constitute a living syst:m IIS a whole, that is, as a “unity”. We also claim that all biological phenomenology, including reproduction and evolution, is secondary to the establishment of this unitary organization. Thus, instead of asking “What are the necessary properties of the components that make a living system possible?” we ask “What is the necessary and sufficient organization for a given system to be a living unity?” In other words, instead of asking what makes a living system reproduce, we ask what is the orgat;r zation reproduced when a tiving system gives origin to snother living unity? In what follow; we shall specify this organization.