Humberto Maturana |
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Interview with Chilean Scientist Humberto
Maturana
"A Question of Desire"
By Omar Sarrás Jadue* |
"Conservation
is not for the earth, it's for us. Biodiversity is important for
our physiological, psychological, relational and esthetic well-being,
it is a question of desire, of being content," says Humberto Maturana,
a pioneer in the "biology of cognition."
SANTIAGO
- For Chilean scientist Humberto Maturana, 72, living beings are
machines that distinguish themselves from others in their ability
to "self-produce." This theory - which he calls "autopoiesis" -
has captivated many philosophers, psychologists and environmentalists
around the world who are interested in exploring the essence of
life from a basis of the "biology of cognition."
Maturana - who received a doctorate in biology from Harvard University,
the Chilean National Science Prize and numerous awards in the United
States and Europe - has explored the hidden nooks of human beings
through the analysis of emotions, love, friendship, power, education
and the role of language.
Author of "About Machines and Living Beings" and "Tree of Knowledge:
The Biological Roots of Human Understanding," Maturana continues
to be fascinated by the mysteries of life. He attempts to decipher
those puzzles every day in his office at the Biology Laboratory
of the University of Chile, in Santiago, where he spoke in an exclusive
interview with Tierramérica.
Q: You conceive of living beings as closed units that self-produce.
How does this occur?
A: What is living is primarily concerned with conservation, not
change. Living beings are molecular systems, networks that manufacture
and transform molecules. The organization, the processes, do not
change. What changes are the particular molecules, the components
that enter into the process. That which is modified I refer to as
structure. For example, someone becomes ill and loses weight, loses
molecules. Then he improves, recovers his weight, his musculature.
A series of structural changes have occurred, but the organization
has been conserved, the life. Living beings are machines that define
themselves through their organization, through their processes of
conservation, and distinguish themselves from other machines through
their capacity to self-produce.
Q: Descartes said something similar, that living beings are the
same as automatons, robots without emotions. According to your mechanist
understanding of life, do living beings have emotions?
A: Of course, all animals have emotions.
Q:
But how would you explain these emotions that perhaps would be different
in a machine?
A: I'll tell you about a machine that has emotions: the automobile.
Q: A car has emotions?
A: Of course. You put it in first gear and you have a powerful car.
You say, "Look how powerful this car is in first!" It's aggressive,
because when you scarcely touch the accelerator, vrrooom! It takes
off!
Q: But isn't that metaphorical?
A: To a certain extent, but more than metaphorical it is "isophorical,"
that is, it refers to something in the same class. You put the car
in fifth and you travel at a higher speed, and the car is peaceful,
fluid, serene. What is happening there? Each time you change gears,
you change the internal configuration of the automobile and it does
different things. Emotions correspond precisely to that, from the
biological perspective they are internal changes in configuration
that transform the reactivity of the living being, such that the
living being in the relational space is different.
Q: What would be specific to human emotions?
A: A human being can look at his emotions, can reflect because he
has language. But animals, which Descartes treated so negatively
as an automaton, do not have a way to carry out this reflective
gaze.
Q: So an animal's emotions are like those of an automobile?
A: It is like your emotions when you are not aware of them. For
example, if you have a child who is extremely upset but does not
know exactly what is happening, and you say, "you're upset, that's
what is happening to you." In that conversation the child begins
to deal with what is occurring as an emotion, and that is where
the reflective gaze appears. A dog that is sad does not have the
capacity for a reflective gaze. It acts sad, but has no way of telling
you "I am sad," like your child would be able to.
Q: A mechanist conception like yours seems to confound the opposition
between nature and culture. But making that distinction, what is
the current city dweller's relationship with nature?
A: Nature for the human being in the city today is the cultural
artifice where he lives, that is his natural world. For the child
that grows up in the city - with cars, airplanes, radios - that
is his natural world. Just like for a child born in Africa, with
lions, rhinoceros, birds, that is his natural world. That artificial
city is also part of nature.
Q: But is there some difference?
A: There is no difference for the child who grows up in the city,
because that child is going to distinguish between different kinds
of cars, like the child from the countryside is going to distinguish
between the various types of birds.
Q: Does the distance that separates human being from the rest
of the species have consequences for how humans perceive and relate
with the world?
A: Certainly. What happens is that what he doesn't see, doesn't
exist. If a child lives his entire life in the city, the world that
is outside the city will not be part of his universe, of his ecological
niche. The space a human being occupies in the environment is his
niche, and there enters everything that affects him, and no living
being sees beyond his niche.
Q: You have said that our decisions about the environment could
cause either the recovery of the biosphere space or the transformation
of the planet into a lunar landscape inhabited by human beings who
live in capsules, chemically produce their food and where there
is no room for other forms of life. But that is not necessarily
what is going to happen.
A: No, not necessarily. The more rapidly ecological awareness expands,
the more powerful it is going to be, and that will lead us to take
drastic measures, which will mean difficulties for many, but in
the long term will conserve a space where humans can live. If not,
we either decimate ourselves or transform ourselves into beings
that live in a strictly artificial world, which will then be the
natural world. What is it we want? Because conservation is a problem
of desire, of esthetics, of being content. This is not fundamentally
an issue for rational argument.
Q: In studying life, have you discovered some form of order in
the world? Is there a rationality that is inherent?
A: There is no rationality in the world. There is no finality. There
is just a set of interactions. The world is adrift. The earth is
not going to care if life is extinguished. It would not be the first
planet to die. I stress: conservation is not for the earth, it is
not for the biosphere, it is for us. Biodiversity is important for
our physiological, psychological, relational and esthetic well being.
The great talent of human beings is that we can create technology,
but we can also halt it, unplug the machines when they no longer
do what we need them to. It is a question of desire.
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