CONCEPT
Cognitive Self-Production
The extension of autopoiesis from cellular metabolism to the nervous system's continuous production of itself as a knowing being through effective action in its domain.
Autopoiesis as Maturana strictly defined it exists in the molecular domain, but the organizational logic — a system whose product is itself — applies to the nervous system as well. Cognitive self-production is the continuous generation of the knower through the very activity of knowing. Each episode of effective action modifies the organism's neural structure, attentional habits, and embodied response patterns in ways that persist and shape all subsequent interactions. The engineer debugging a system does not only solve the problem — she produces herself as the kind of engineer capable of recognizing and solving that class of problem the next time. The layers of understanding Segal describes depositing through years of engagement are the geological record of this self-production. It is not that skills accumulate; it is that the self that performs the skills is made through the performing.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The concept is Maturana's framework applied one level up from its strictest formulation. In 2002 Maturana reiterated that autopoiesis proper exists only in