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On Defining Life

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Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIC,volume 446))

Abstract

This paper provides an explicit characterization of a minimal living system in terms of a self-producing dynamical organization or autopoiesis.

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References

  • Deamer DW. 1985. Role of amphiphilic compounds in the evolution of membrane structure on the early Earth. Origins of Life 17:3–25.

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  • Luisi, PL. 1993. Chemical models of minimal autopoietic systems. In: W Stein & F Varela, eds., Thinking About Biology, New Jersey: Addison-Wesley.

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  • Luisi PL, Varela FJ. 1989. Self-replicating micelles: A minimal version of a chemical autopoietic system. Origs Life Evol Bios 19:

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  • Maturana HR, Varela FJ. 1973. De Máquinasy Seres Vivos: Una Teoría de la Organización Biológica. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria.

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  • Maturana HR, Varela FJ. 1980. Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Boston: D. Reidel.

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  • Varela FJ. 1979. Principles of Biological Autonomy. New York: North-Holland/Elsevier.

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  • Varela FJ. 1991. Organism: A meshwork of selfless selves. In: F Tauber, ed., Organism and the Origin of Self. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 79–107.

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  • Varela FJ, Bourgine P. (Eds) 1991. Towards a Practice of Autonomous Systems. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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  • Varela FJ, Maturana HR, Uribe R. 1974. Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. BioSystems 5:187–195.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREA, Ecole Polytechnique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1, rue Descartes, 75005, Paris, France

    F. J. Varela

Authors
  1. F. J. Varela
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for the Philosophy & History of Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Gail R. Fleischaker

  2. Departimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy

    Stefano Colonna

  3. Institut für Polymere, ETH-Zürich, Switzerland

    Pier Luigi Luisi

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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Varela, F.J. (1994). On Defining Life. In: Fleischaker, G.R., Colonna, S., Luisi, P.L. (eds) Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures. NATO ASI Series, vol 446. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0754-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0754-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4324-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-0754-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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