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Francisco Varela

For other people named Francisco Varela, seeFrancisco Varela (disambiguation).
In thisSpanish name,the first or paternalsurnameisVarelaand the second or maternal family name isGarcía.

Francisco Javier Varela García(September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001) was a Chileanbiologist,philosopher,cybernetician,andneuroscientistwho, together with his mentorHumberto Maturana,is best known for introducing the concept ofautopoiesisto biology, and for co-founding theMind and Life Instituteto promote dialog between science andBuddhism.

Francisco Varela
Varela in 1994
Born(1946-09-07)September 7, 1946
Talcahuano,Chile
Died28 May 2001(2001-05-28)(aged 54)
Paris,France
Alma materPontifical Catholic University of Chile;University of Chile;Harvard University
Known forTheory of autopoiesis
ChildrenLeonor Varela
Scientific career
InstitutionsÉcole Polytechnique;CNRS;University of Paris;Mind and Life Institute
ThesisInsect retinas; visual processing in the compound eye(1970)
Doctoral advisorTorsten Wiesel

Life and career

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Varela was born in 1946 inTalcahuanoin Chile, the son of Corina María Elena García Tapia and Raúl Andrés Varela Rodríguez.[1]After completing secondary school at the Liceo Alemán del Verbo Divino inSantiago(1951–1963), like his mentorHumberto Maturana,Varela temporarily studied medicine at thePontifical Catholic University of Chileand graduated with a degree in biology from theUniversity of Chile.He later obtained a Ph.D. in biology atHarvard University.His thesis, defended in 1970 and supervised byTorsten Wiesel,was titledInsect Retinas: Information processing in the compound eye.

After the1973 military coupled byAugusto Pinochet,Varela and his family spent 7 years inexilein the United States before he returned to Chile to become a professor of biology at the Universidad de Chile.

Varela became familiar, by practice, withTibetan Buddhismin the 1970s, initially studying, together withKeun-Tshen Goba(néEzequiel Hernandez Urdaneta), with the meditation masterChögyam Trungpa Rinpoche,founder ofVajradhatuandShambhala Training,and later withTulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

In 1986, he settled inFrance,where he first taught cognitive science and epistemology at theÉcole Polytechnique,and later neuroscience at theUniversity of Paris.From 1988 until his death, he led a research group, as Director of Research at theCNRS(Centre National de Recherche Scientifique).

In 1987, Varela, along withR. Adam Engle,founded theMind and Life Institute,initially to sponsor a series of dialogues between scientists andthe Dalai Lamaabout the relationship between modern science andBuddhism.[2]The Institute continues today as a major nexus for such dialog as well as promoting and supporting multidisciplinary scientific investigation in mind sciences, contemplative scholarship and practice and related areas in the interface of science withmeditationand othercontemplative practices,especiallyBuddhist practices.[3]

Varela died in 2001 inParisofHepatitis Cafter having written an account of his 1998 liver transplant.[4]Varela had four children, including the actress, environmental spokesperson, and modelLeonor Varela.

Work and legacy

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Varela was trained as a biologist, mathematician and philosopher through the influence of different teachers,Humberto MaturanaandTorsten Wiesel.

He wrote and edited a number of books and numerous journal articles inbiology,neurology,cognitive science,mathematics,andphilosophy.He founded, with others, theIntegral Institute,athinktankdedicated to the cross-fertilization of ideas and disciplines.

Varela supportedembodied philosophy,viewing humancognitionandconsciousnessin terms of theenactive structuresin which they arise. These comprise the body (as a biological system and as personally experienced) and the physical world which it enacts.[5]

Varela's work popularized within the field of neuroscience the concept ofneurophenomenology.This concept combined thephenomenologyofEdmund Husserland ofMaurice Merleau-Ponty,with "first-person science." Neurophenomenology requires observers to examine their own conscious experience using scientifically verifiable methods.

In the 1996 popular bookThe Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems,physicistFritjof Capramakes extensive reference to Varela and Maturana's theory ofautopoiesisas part of a new,systems-basedscientific approach for describing the interrelationships and interdependence of psychological, biological, physical, social, and cultural phenomena.[6]Written for a general audience,The Web of Lifehelped popularize the work of Varela and Maturana, as well as that ofIlya PrigogineandGregory Bateson.[7]

Varela's 1991 bookThe Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience,co-authored withEvan ThompsonandEleanor Rosch,is considered a classic in the field of cognitive science, offering pioneering phenomenological connections and introducing the Buddhism-informedenactivistandembodied cognitionapproach.[8]A revised edition ofThe Embodied Mindwas published in 2017, featuring substantive introductions by the surviving authors, as well as a preface byJon Kabat-Zinn.[9]

Publications

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Varela wrote numerous books and articles:[10]

Books

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  • 1979.Principles of Biological Autonomy.North-Holland.
  • 1980 (withHumberto Maturana).Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living.Boston: Reidel.
  • 1987 (rev 1992, 1998) (withMaturana).The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding.Boston: Shambhala Press.ISBN978-0877736424
  • 1988.Connaître:Les Sciences Cognitives, tendences et perspectivess.Éditions du Seuil,Paris.
  • 1991 (rev 2017) (withEvan ThompsonandEleanor Rosch).The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience.MIT Press.ISBN978-0-262-72021-2
  • 1992 (with P. Bourgine, eds.).Towards a Practice of Autonomous Systems: The First European Conference on Artificial Life.MIT Press.
  • 1992 (with J. Hayward, eds.).Gentle Bridges: Dialogues Between the Cognitive Sciences and the Buddhist Tradition.Boston: Shambhala Press. [Reprinted, 2014, asGentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind.]
  • 1993 (with W. Stein, eds.).Thinking About Biology: An Introduction to Theoretical Biology.Addison-Wesley, SFI Series on Complexity. [Reprinted, 2018, asThinking About Biology: An Invitation to Current Theoretical Biology,CRC Press.]
  • 1997 (ed.).Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama.Boston: Wisdom Books.
  • 1999.Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom and Cognition.Stanford University Press.
  • 1999 (with J. Shear, eds.).The View from Within: First-Person Methodologies in the Study of Consciousness.London: Imprint Academic.
  • 1999 (with J. Petitot, B. Pachoud, and J-M. Roy, eds.).Naturalizing Phenomenology: Contemporary Issues in Phenomenology and Cognitive Science.Stanford University Press.

Notable articles

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  • 2002 (with A. Weber). 'Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality'.Phenomenology and the Cognitive SciencesI:97–125, 2002.

See also

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References

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  1. ^Palacios, Adrián G.; Bacigalupo, Juan (2003)."Francisco Varela (1946-2001):: Filling the mind - brain gap: A life adventure".Biological Research.36(1): 9–12.doi:10.4067/S0716-97602003000100002.ISSN0716-9760.PMID12795203.
  2. ^"History".Mind & Life Institute.Archived fromthe originalon 2020-09-19.Retrieved2020-09-09.
  3. ^"Mission".Mind & Life Institute.
  4. ^"Intimate Distances - Fragments for a Phenomenology of Organ TransplantationArchived2016-09-26 at theWayback Machine"
  5. ^p. 148 'This shift requires that we move away from the idea of the world as independent and extrinsic, to the idea of a world as inseparable from the structure of these processes of self-modification.' Varela, Francisco J., Thompson, Evan T., and Rosch, Eleanor. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: TheMIT Press.ISBN0-262-72021-3
  6. ^Capra, Fritjof (1996).The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems.New York: Anchor Books.ISBN978-0385476768.
  7. ^London, Scott (1998)."THE WEB OF LIFE: Book Review".Scottlondon.com.Retrieved9 Dec2018.
  8. ^Walmsley, Lachlan Douglas (2 May 2017)."Review - The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience Revised Edition".Metapsychology Online.Metapsychology (Volume 21, Issue 18).Retrieved10 Dec2018.
  9. ^The Embodied Mind, Revised Edition.The MIT Press. January 2017.ISBN9780262529365.Retrieved10 Dec2018.{{cite book}}:|website=ignored (help)
  10. ^ComprehensivebibliographyArchived2017-11-10 at theWayback Machineby Randall Whitaker.

Further reading

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