Ubiquitous computing has been continuously thinning the line between passive or end-user and active front and back-users (designers, programmers and professionals developing interfaces) through open source and server-based applications, app…Merleau-Ponty, M. (2015). Phenomenology of perception. London: Forgotten Books.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1992). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
Mauldin, D. B. (2011). …
Francisco Varela
scientist · 3 mentions across 2 readings
In this course
Varela, a biologist and neuroscientist known for developing autopoiesis theory with Humberto Maturana, provides the course with a framework for understanding how self-organizing systems—biological, cognitive, and potentially artificial—maintain identity through recursive loops rather than external programming. His work appears primarily through the foundational text *The Tree of Knowledge*, which grounds discussions of embodied cognition and autonomous systems in the biological substrate, offering a counterpoint to purely computational models of intelligence and perception. The citation suggests Varela's thinking enables the course to bridge cybernetics, phenomenology, and contemporary debates about AI autonomy and what constitutes meaningful machine agency.
Mentioned in 2 readings
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Humberto Maturana 3Charles Sanders Peirce 1Christiane Paul 1Edward Shanken 1Elmer Peterson 1Marcel Duchamp 1Marshall McLuhan 1Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1Michel Sanouillet 1Nicholas Negroponte 1Roy Ascott 1Wolfgang Schivelbusch 1Carl von Clausewitz 1Claude Elwood Shannon 1Elon Reeve Musk 1Fan Hui 1Francis Bacon 1Heinz von Foerster 1Howard Scott 1Joshua Haldeman 1Marion King Hubbert 1Max Weber 1Napoleon Bonaparte 1Niccolò Machiavelli 1QNTM 1Sun Tzu 1Thucydides 1William Edward Burghardt Du Bois 1Erkki Huhtamo 1Joseph Bopry 1