It is already happening at the most primitive level of life that we can imagine. If we think of planet Earth before and after the emergence of the first auto-poietic entities, we see that a new logic of relationship has entered into the behaviour patterns of atoms and molecules. This is part and parcel of the new form of complexity - which is, in Maturana's phrase, "the organisation of the living". If we think of this from the point of view of a carbon atom - recently captured from the atmosphere by the photo-synthetic activity of a leaf on an apple tree: it has suddenly entered into a new kind of adventure from its previous life in limestone, river, sea and sky. Now it has the opportunity to join in the protein-nucleic acid economy, and in the intricately organised society of the living cell; it may also be destined into the cellular economy of you or me, if we should happen to reach out to eat the apple in which this atom has taken up residence.

Our reasons for taking up the story of auto-poiesis were not, however, so that we can participate in the imaginary life of a carbon atom. We are trying to gain a better understanding of our own adventures - and this has required us to explore some systems which may be operating, hidden, below the level of our conscious life experience.

In trying to imagine auto-poiesis as a component in our own life, however, we will run up against a disturbing paradox which resonates directly out of the auto-poietic logic. Our problem is that Maturana and his co-workers are insisting that the theory of auto-poiesis specifically excludes instructional interaction. This means there can be no traffic of information across the organism's boundary - and this is in spite of the busy commuter transport system of ions and molecules across that self-same boundary. Informationally, the organism is defined as a "closed system", and yet at the material level it is clearly an open system. The theory stands in dramatic contradiction with our common-sense belief that we humans convey information to one another by means of language, and that we receive information through our five or more senses.

Some paradoxes are just sent to tease and distract us; there are others which open up important new territory for us, if only we can approach them in the right spirit. I suspect that that every significant theory generates some challenging paradox, once we try to marry it up directly with our common-sense understanding⁽¹⁾. (If there were no element of contradiction, the theory would not be any advance upon what we know already.) The question is whether the jarring element - in this case the prohibition on information entering the living system from outside - carries some useful insight, or fruitful challenge. In the case of auto-poiesis, we will find that the theory pushes us towards a diffent conception of how an organism manages to be so well-informed, given the prohibition just mentioned.

The simple solution to the paradox is that information is being generated from within our organism's own patterned activity. The theory asks us to picture the physiological activity as an internally consistent pattern of events, which suffers a continuous barrage of impacts and disturbances from "outside"⁽²⁾. This provokes the organism into a series of corrections - given its commitment to maintain its internal balances within acceptable limits. The pattern of these corrections is a kind of imprint, or echo, of things that are going on in the environment - but it is a pattern which the organism is generating for itself. This is the structural coupling between organism and environment, which we were looking at in the previous chapter.

The analogy with language is crucial, and will appear repeatedly as we follow this argument through to the higher levels of our personal organisation and awareness. This is not "language" in the sense of one person communicating their thoughts and feelings through spoken or written words to a willing receiver, a listener or a reader. It is, however, a primitive reading of the situation by the receiver-organism - within a domain where both organisms are structurally coupled to aspects of the environment and to each other. In this relationship, each organism is acting as a living resonator with those aspects of the world it is coupled with, and therefore every discernible shift in the demeanour of the transmitter-organism is potentially a readable signal for the receiver-organism. Already, at this primitive level of interaction we have the relationship of a sign to something signified. (in the previous chapter I gave an illustration from personal experience, in the shuffling of people at a bus stop which signifies - and often at a completely unconscious level - that a bus is approaching from behind me.) The reason this phenomenon is important to us, is that it could well be the biological basis for all the higher and more complex communication systems which we participate in - at an organic, a social and a personal level⁽⁵⁾.

The analogy extends further because - even at this rudimentary level - we can also see a primitive grammar and logic in operation. The grammar arises from the fact that it is only a proportion of the transmitter-organism's behavioural patterns which "count"⁽⁶⁾ as signals for the recipient-organism. Also, what these signals "mean"⁽⁶⁾ is entirely dependent upon the interests and the organisation of the recipient-organism. This is a process of selective recognition - of what I want to call the "words" of this proto-language. And there is a subsequent combination of - and an organised response to - the continuing sequence of signals/words from the transmitter-organism. This is an exact parallel with the operations you are performing, in the act of reading the sentences on this page; the "words" have to be combined in an appropriate manner, and there are appropriate conclusions which need to be drawn. The organism, however, does all this at a primitive level - where there is no self-awareness, no distinction between self and other, and no other⁽⁷⁾ intelligence dwelling within the process which could conceivably take a perspective upon the process itself. There is, however, a reading of - and an effective response to - each moment of this ongoing life in common.

I am pointing out a similarity between what happens at the primitive, and what happens at the higher levels, of creaturely organisation. We also need to recognize important contrasts - especially in the extreme poverty of shades of meaning, within the world of a simple organism. I have spoken of a sense of physiological discomfort, and its contrast with personal comfort. It may well be that the organism differentiates amongst several kinds of discomfort - but certainly there is nothing resembling our rich differentiation: of the variety of feelings and moods we register, the variety of facts we entertain and discriminate, and the variety of actions we undertake - all under the influence of communications from our fellow creatures. We shall explore this further at a later stage in our study, and see how the different kinds of logic operating in the various fields of art, in science and philosophy, in technical design and manufacture, in plant and animal husbandry, and in warfare and religion, can all be seen as differentiations of a more primitive, or lower-level logic. At the physiological level, there is a basic discrimination between "what fits" and "what does not fit"; or between "what feels better" and "what feels worse". This is a kind of proto-logic in which feeling, judgment and active response are combined in one, undifferentiated decision.

Returning to the schematic situation of two creatures in their common environment, we can summarise our findings as follows: we have a dance of consensual domain, in which the recipient organism's behaviour takes into account something which is brought to it by the pattern of behaviour of the transmitter-organism. Each organism is in turn the transmitter and the recipient, and each of them "knows" more in consequence of their serial interaction. Yet there has been no transfer of information from one to the other. All the information is generated within the individual organism's own auto-poietic organisation, but significantly enriched by the dance of structural coupling. The enrichment - even at this primitive level - has some of the characteristics of formal language.

It may seem as if I have made too much of this veto on direct information transfer. In one way or another, the information is evidently getting into the heart of the creature's organisation - and the reader may be wondering why I make so much fuss about how it found its way in. For example, after the bees have finished their dance, there is a whole new cohort of insects who are able to find their way to the best of the local pollen. What difference does it make whether there is a direct telephone link or not?

The question here, is what kind of communication link this is? The principle I am insisting upon, is the biological autonomy of each participating organism. It means that information is not pumped in from the outside, but is being synthesised on the inside, by the peculiar sensitivity of the auto-poietic system, and according to its own internal principles which (as I have said) bear a definite resemblance to the grammar and logic that infuses human language.

Our tendency to believe that organisms are directly influenced, or instructed, by external events, is closely related to certain other of our beliefs: that we humans directly influence one another, also that we - through our actions - directly influence the passage of events, and that we have direct experience of each other's feelings or intentions. The theory of auto-poiesis would require us to make changes in all of these beliefs. We would need to view every transaction in the biological domain as being mediated through structural couplings - through secret negotiations between our organism, our fellow creatures, and the negotiations which each of us is making with the pattern of events in the world at large. These couplings impose their own logic upon what can, and what cannot, take place; there can be no "direct" influences of any kind. Any influence we think we have, is limited to what the auto-poietic systems, and their higher-level counterparts at other systems levels, will allow. Our attitude to this auto-poietic organisation really needs to be one of surrender, because we have no power outside of it.

Let us see what this might look like in practice. First we shall consider the situation in which we make something happen - it may be through giving orders to someone, or it may be through manipulating materials: we are driving a car, cooking a lamb chop, or buying an apple pie at the market. We have an impression of being in control of what is happening - feeling that we have a direct leverage over a compliant, biddable world. So here I am, walking up to a market stall, nicely dressed and with money in my pocket. I address the stall-holder, who is a mature, casually dressed, extremely attractive woman with highlighted-blonde hair and grey-green eyes (irrelevant details, perhaps, but ones I happen to notice): "I'd like one of those apple pies please"; I speak in complete confidence that she is going to give me a pie and ask for my money. My expectation will be fulfilled, however, if and only if the various co-operative processes which underly this transaction, are each being fulfilled in their own proper time and place. These are processes which are, as a matter of fact, broadly outside my control, and outside my awareness. At the limit, all of them are rooted in a biology which I am taking for granted, and rarely give credit to.

Here are some of the things which might go wrong with this interaction. (None of these is very likely to happen, I have to admit, but this is because the circumstance of the stallholder and the buyer in the real world is a very stable institution. In other words, this is an interaction which takes place millions of times every day, all over the world; and it is pre-arranged in such a way that it arouses strong expectations of the normal thing that is supposed to happen, together with strong dispositions within us to make this normal thing be the thing that actually happens. Thus I am about to describe some unlikely accidents. This is for the purpose of demonstrating the vulnerabilities which inhere in our seemingly simple arrangement - and bringing out its dependency upon our careful pre-arrangements. (We may also note the inevitable biological underpinnings, beneath the pre-arrangements.)

1. I expect my spoken language to communicate effectively, so that I will be accepted as a "normal" customer. But suppose I am a non-English speaker, who mistakenly pronounces "apple pies" as apláy-pis (with the emphasis on the syllable "pláy"). This is a simple enough mistake, but it will likely wreck our communication altogether. Or another possibility: the stall-holder has recognized me as a wanted criminal, whose face only yesterday evening was being flashed up on a million TV screens over the country. Then my expected co-operation, as between stall-holder and customer, unravels completely while she makes up excuses to keep me talking, at the same time as she activates an emergency button to call the police.

2. Certain kinds of brain malfunctioning can cause altogether different syllables to issue from my mouth from the ones I intend. This is an uncommon condition, to be sure, but it serves to highlight the general fact of my utter dependence upon the smooth functioning of underlying physiological processes for all of my effective decisions⁽⁸⁾.

3. If the stall-holder and I were characters in Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" it is highly likely that my identical twin has previously taken advantage of this very same stall-holder. So she is now expecting "me" to make good on my passionate invitation to marriage earlier this morning. My very approach to her - in which I affect not to recognize her as anything but the delightful and attractive stranger and pie-seller she is - is, to her, a painful affront to her emotional sensibilities.

This last example - in which another human being faces me with fury in her eyes and with some firm expectation of some definite behaviour from me (an expectation that is not being met) - carries us over to another common type of situation, in which I am the object of the other person's feelings and intentions. We had another example in a separate section of this work, where I beheld the angry expression on Peter's face as he asked me for his car keys⁽⁹⁾. Peter's whole manner seems to be saying that he holds me responsible, and I had better do something about it! A third example: at the party last night, I registered (almost subconsciously) the subtle disapproval on my wife's face, and I suddenly felt that the fourth glass of wine I had poured myself, was an exceedingly bad idea. If questioned, I might be willing to admit: Clara really doesn't want me to have another drink!

In all these cases I just seem to know what the other person is thinking and feeling, and I make an intelligent guess at what they want me to do. This is usually called "intuition". We must pause to wonder, however, how I could possibly be in possession of correct information about the other person's state of mind. In practice I readily take such knowledge for granted; the other person's mental state appears to me a simple matter of fact, which I spontaneously take into account in my handling of everyday situations.

The theory of auto-poiesis casts this interaction in a very altered light. It may well be that my readings of the other person's state of mind are true in all relevant detail; but whether I am correct or mistaken, my reading must be wholly dependent upon the operation of structural couplings between my organism and that of the other person. This means my intuitions are based on innumerable repeated interactions in the past, with habitual readings coming into play according to a hidden logic - unconscious and out of reach. I may be responding to the subtlest of material information (a tiny twitch of the corner of the mouth, a subliminal whiff of pheromone, the linked rhythm of another person's movement with my own) - but there is a hidden team of interpreters lurking somewhere in the recesses of my brain, working away to translate a series of signals into an ongoing reading of the actual situation in real-time. Even the situation where my fevered imagination has conjured up the whole thing - a delusion, then, rather than an intuition - this is neither more nor less accessible to conscious reasoning, scrutiny or control.

It is possible (and some people are lucky enough to have this happen for much of the time) that these readings are uncannily accurate. The other possibility is always waiting in the wings, however: that I may be seriously mistaken about the other person's actual state of mind. Such misreadings can repeat themselves and continue for days, or months, or years, without ever being confronted or questioned. For one reason or another, the opportunity is simply not coming up, for the underlying intuitions and habitual readings to undergo revision or correction. This is sometimes called "paranoia" - but more often it is just the normal, sad, mixed-up failure to connect; it passes for interaction in the real world, yet it leaves all the participants secretly wondering why they feel so alone and unfullfilled. This, according to our theory, is just another consequence of the hidden working of structural couplings.

The impulse to try to control things as if from the outside, is largely mistaken. Instead we are asked to recognize that we are already inside this array of self-governing systems and structural couplings. It is a question of recognizing our place in the pattern, and finding ways to work from here, where we actually are. And this needs to be in a spirit of negotiation, mutual accommodation and friendly persuasion - not through force or manipulation. The only way to solve Peter's problem with the car keys was to really listen to him. The only solution to the enraging comedy of errors is for everyone to know the truth: that there are identical twins in the story who are acting independently. My problem with the pie-seller may only be settled if we are willing to own up to our feelings of love for one another.

This is not to be read as an idealistic homily, but as a practical demand. The theory of auto-poiesis is telling us: this is the only way to make things better. It also makes it clear that there can be no substitute for a detailed engagement with the actual situation we are in: with the fine grain of the landscape of fact, feeling and action, and also with the footprints and shadows of other systems levels, those dimensions of our reality which are not immediately offered within our conscious reach. In other sections of this work, we shall start to open up the detail, and the multiple levels, in ways that are simple and clear to our untutored awareness but fully attuned with the theoretical framework we have been developing here.

We shall consider the flight of this pigeon which has just flapped its way past my window. This appears to be a material fact, which includes the bird's expenditure of energy, its competency in flying, and its location at a different place from where it was before. All this belongs to the life of the bird, and the life of the universe. (I am merely an incidental observer who has had no material influence upon the course of events.) Yet we also have to do with the following mental states: my observation of the bird's flight path; my recognition of it as a pigeon in flight; my choice to bring these details to the notice of my readers. These mental states have a life of their own, and are as self-contained as the separate life of the pigeon over there. They do not even require the pigeon to exist - my observation, recognition and choice could equally well stand for an imaginary pigeon I dreamed up, just in order to have something to talk about. So we seem to have a dual material and mental organisation of events - each distinct from the other - and yet with a statement like "a pigeon has flapped past my window" there is a complete ambiguity as to whether this is a description of the pigeon or of my observation. The same ambiguity appears in respect of a vivid dream, which may simulate reality to the point of being indistinguishable from it.

Everyday experience is an intricate dance of shifting viewpoints - an interlacing of actuality, desire, dream, and carefully laid plans. There is also the mutual reading of mine and other people's points of view. Here are some of my previous thoughts about this, reprised from another section of this work:-

"Suppose you and I are both looking at an elephant. In the immediacy of actually seeing it, I have no reason to make any distinction between the elephant that I see, and my experience of seeing the elephant. But from your point of view these are entirely different things: one has to do with the elephant and the other has to do with me. A similar shift of viewpoint also happens if I start to question or reflect upon the way I have responded to some situation. Something that first appeared as a concrete reality gets redescribed as a process of experience."