The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding
An illustrated journey through how living systems know and create themselves
"We do not see what we do not see, and what we do not see does not exist."
— Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela
My Review
The accessible companion to 'Autopoiesis and Cognition'. Where the 1980 book is dense academic theory, this is Maturana and Varela explaining their ideas to a general audience with beautiful illustrations. It traces how autopoiesis scales from single cells to multicellular organisms to social systems. Essential for understanding how the same organizational principles apply across levels of complexity.
Why It Matters
This book makes autopoiesis accessible and shows how the principles scale from cells to societies. The visual explanations of how organisms maintain identity while remaining open to environment directly inform the membrane permeability concepts in Book 1. The discussion of social systems as 'third-order autopoiesis' legitimizes applying these principles to organizations.
Key Ideas
- All knowing is doing, all doing is knowing (enaction)
- Living systems bring forth a world through their activity
- Structural coupling with environment shapes cognition
- Social systems emerge from linguistic coordination
How It Connects to This Framework
The scaling concepts connect to Book 7 (Scale & Complexity). The discussion of social coordination relates to Book 5 (Communication & Signaling). The enactive cognition framework influences the environmental sensing material in Book 1.
Get the Book
Support the author and your preferred bookseller:
Tags
Want to go deeper?
The full Biology of Business book explores these concepts in depth with practical frameworks.