From Being to Doing: The Origins of the Biology of Cognition
Product Description In the early 20th century, physicists revolutionised the scientific view of the world. Today it is the biologists who are radically transforming our understanding of the processes of life and cognition. Probing the mysteries of the mind, they have been able to prove that, in the act of knowing, the observer and the observed, subject and object, are inextricably enmeshed. The world we live in is not independent from us; we literally bring it forth ourselves. One of the protagonists of this new kind of thinking is the internationally renowned neurobiologist and systems theorist Humberto R. Maturana, who was interviewed for several weeks by Bernhard Poerksen, journalist and communication scientist. In this book, they explore the limits of our cognitive powers, discuss the truth in perception, the biology of love, and give, all in all, an introduction to systemic thinking that is down to earth, imaginative and rich in anecdote. Review "Wherever you open this rewarding book, you will close it again with an enriched and stimulated mind." -- Heinz von Foerster About the Author Humberto R. Maturana, Ph.D., Professor of biology, founded and directed the Laboratory for Experimental Epistemology and the Biology of Cognition. Maturana, who has become famous as a leading exponent of modern systems thinking, is the author of several books, including the bestseller written together with his disciple Francisco J. Varela, "The Tree of Knowledge". Bernhard Poerksen is Junior Professor of Journalism and Communication Science at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He was awarded a Ph.D. for a thesis on the language of neo-Nazis. Together with Heinz von Foerster he wrote the widely noted book "Understanding Systems. Conversations on Epistemology and Ethics".