SYST. RES. BEHAV. SCI. VOL.

14, 303–313 (1997)

j Research Paper

Systems Typologies in the Light of

Autopoiesis: A Reconceptualization of
Boulding’s Hierarchy, and a Typology of
Self-Referential Systems
John Mingers*
Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

This paper considers two examples of systems typologies in the light of the theory of
autopoiesis. The first is Boulding’s classic typology of types of systems based on their
degree of complexity. Certain inconsistencies are noted, but the main problem is that
there is no definition of the underlying scale of systems complexity. The paper suggests
that the underlying dimension can be seen as the types of relations upon which the
different levels depend. This also allows the inconsistencies to be clarified. The second
typology, presented for the first time, provides an initial classification of different types
of self-referential or organizationally closed systems. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. Vol. 14, 303–313 (1997)

No. of Figures: 0 No. of Tables: 3 No. of References: 35

Keywords autopoiesis; Boulding’s hierarchy; complexity; organizational closure; relations; self-

consciousness; self-reference; self-organization

INTRODUCTION theories and explanations of the structures they

One of the most fundamental activities of the
sciences is developing categorizations or typolo-
gies, sets of distinctions, that try to create some
conceptual order. Such classifications are of
enormous importance: they separate out the
various concepts or objects; highlight important
relationships between them—the ways in which
they differ and the ways in which they are the
same; they provide stimulus for developing new
* Correspondence to: John Mingers, Warwick Business School, Uni-
versity of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
portray; and they may reveal gaps or incon-
sistencies that need addressing. Disciplines such
as physics or chemistry were not able to move
forward until basic conceptual schemes such as
the periodic table, or the classification of funda-
mental particles, were agreed.
Within the area of systems thinking, partic-
ularly general systems theory (GST), there are
various ways of classifying types of systems, for
example, Boulding’s (1956) ‘hierarchy of com-
plexity’, Jordan’s (1968) ‘systems taxonomy’ and
Checkland’s (1971) ‘systems map of the uni-
verse’. Of these, Boulding’s is probably the most

CCC 1092–7026/97/050303–11 $17.50 Received 7 October 1996

© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 18 February 1997

RESEARCH PAPER
important, both because it was one of the first
major steps within GST, and because it aimed to
provide a structure that could encompass all the
disciplines and sciences. It produced a classifica-
tion of the different types of possible systems,
ordering them in terms of increasing complexity.
Its underlying purposes were to show up gaps in
empirical and theoretical knowledge, and to
facilitate interdisciplinary research by revealing
similar concerns (e.g., ‘growth’ or ‘information’)
in dissimilar disciplines.
Since those early days of GST, the systems
discipline has expanded and fragmented. Some
of the major developments, particularly in
Europe, have been interpretive (‘soft’) systems
(Checkland, 1981; Checkland and Scholes, 1990)
and critical systems (Flood and Jackson, 1991a,
1991b; Mingers, 1992) that are generally antipa-
thetic to the aspirations and philosophy of GST,
while in America some of the major areas of
work in the GST tradition have been in living
systems theory (Miller, 1978), social entropy theory
(Bailey, 1990) and their application to social
systems (Bailey, 1994). The third area that has
been most productive and, I would argue,
possibly most significant, has been the establish-
ment of second-order cybernetics, especially
Maturana and Varela’s development of the theory
of autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela, 1980, 1987;
Mingers, 1995a). Autopoiesis, in fact, has a foot
in both camps. It is in the tradition of GST: a
systems theory generated in the domain of
biology that may be applied in other disciplines
such as social theory; but also it is a theory of the
observer that emphasizes the interpreted and
constructed nature of social reality.
Given the above general context, it is the
purpose of this paper to present two typologies,
based on the theory of autopoiesis, that it is
hoped will contribute to the conceptual under-
pinnings of systems thinking. The first typology
is actually a re-conceptualization of Boulding’s
original hierarchy. This is necessary for two
reasons: first, in the light of more recent research,
there is some confusion between the levels and
the examples in each level; and second, because
there was no clear definition of the underlying
structure, the definition of complexity. Both these
limitations can be rectified using ideas from
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Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
autopoietic theory. The second typology con-
cerns classifying systems that are
organizationally (rather than interactively)
closed; that is, systems that are self-referring or
self-referencing in some way. There is currently
much confusion in this area and some con-
ceptual clarification is vital.
The first section of the paper provides a brief
introduction to autopoiesis as it forms a basis for
the remainder. The next section presents the re-
conceptualization of Boulding’s hierarchy, and
the last section the typology of self-referential
systems.
AN INTRODUCTION TO AUTOPOIESIS
Autopoiesis (self-production) is a theory that
explains the nature of living (as opposed to non-
living) entities. It claims that living systems
undergo a continual process of internal self-
production whereas non-living systems
(allopoietic) produce something other than their
own self-components. It is a complex and sophis-
ticated theory that also explains the biological
basis of cognition, self-consciousness, language
and human behaviour. It has also been applied at
the level of social systems (Luhmann, 1995).
Maturana (1987) provides a detailed and com-
prehensive treatment, while Maturana and
Varela (1987) are more accessible. Mingers
(1995a) is an introduction to the theory and its
application in different domains. Maturana et al.
(1995) is a recent update. This section gives a
brief introduction to some of the main concepts.
An observer is a (human) being capable of
making distinctions and descriptions through
language and whose lived experience is always
within language. A unity is an entity or whole
that is distinguished by an observer in relation to
a background or medium. A unity may be simple
(unalaysed) or composite (analysed into compo-
nents by further distinctions). The type or
identity of a simple unity is characterized in
terms of properties of the whole in a meta-
domain to its components. A composite unity is
distinguished in terms of components and their
relations which taken together generate the
© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
John Mingers

Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
simple unity.
Composite unities can be characterized in
terms of both Organization1 and structure. The
structure of a composite unity is the total set of
actual components and relations belonging to a
particular concrete example or instance. The
Organization is a subset of the relations between
components that determine the properties of the
unity as a whole and thereby its identity, type or
class. All unities of a particular type have the
same Organization. A change of Organization
implies a change of identity and vice versa.
Unities with the same Organization may have
different structures, and the structure of a partic-
ular entity may change without its Organization
changing. Organization is abstract, structure is
concrete. Composite unities consist of compo-
nents and relations (structure), and so any
change in the unity must be a change in the
structure. Such a change will be determined by
the properties of the components and their
relations at that particular point in time; that is, it
will be structurally determined. Outside agents
can only trigger changes, they cannot determine
the nature of the change. All composite unities
are therefore structure-determined systems.
Structural coupling is a mutual relationship or
correspondence between the structure of a unity
and the structure of its environment (including
other unities within the environment). This
occurs when a unity undergoes recurrent inter-
actions within its environment whilst
maintaining its identity and therefore its Organi-
zation. The changes in structure that occur must
be such as to allow the maintenance of the
Organization within that particular environ-
ment.
Autopoiesis describes a particular type of
Organization. Autopoietic systems are organized
in such a way that they produce their own
components—they are self-producing systems.
Formally, ‘a composite unity whose organization
can be described as a closed network of pro-
duct ions of components that through their
interactions constitute the network of produc-
1
Organization with the initial letter capitalized denotes Maturana’s
sense of organization.
© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Systems Typologies in the Light of Autopoiesis
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RESEARCH PAPER
tions that produce them, and specify its
extension by constituting it boundaries in their
domain of existence, is an autopoietic system’
(Maturana, 1987, p. 349). A living system is a
special case of an autopoietic system—one
whose components are molecules. The autopoi-
etic Organization can be characterized in terms
of three types of relations between components
and production processes. Relations of constitu-
tion (where) concern the spatial or topographic
features of the system in terms of whatever space
it is defined. Relations of specificity (what) con-
cern the particular types of components or
processes and their specific characteristics. Rela-
tions of order (when) concern the dynamics of the
system and the ordering of different processes or
events.
Autopoietic systems are characterized by
autonomy since they are not dependent on
external production processes, and self-reference
since their Organization closes in on itself and
their structure is self-defined—it can be any, so
long as it supports autopoiesis. Allopoiesis
describes all types of Organization that produce
something other than themselves.
The cognitive domain of interactions is the set of
possible interactions that an autopoietic system
may have in a particular environment that are
effective, that is, that preserve autopoiesis. For
Maturana, effective action is knowledge: ‘living
systems are cognitive systems, and to live is to
know’ (Maturana, 1987, p. 357). The consensual
domain of interactions is when two or more
autopoietic systems interact recurrently with
each other; structural coupling may lead to
interlinked set of interactions between them
which may appear to an observer to be coordi-
nated. Such an ontogenetically established
domain of coordinations of actions is a con-
sensual domain. To the extent that such
coordinations of action have particular effects or
meaning within the interaction they may be
described as linguistic. Within a consensual
domain, the coordinations of action may become
recursive; that is, particular coordinations of
action may become tokens or symbols for others.
This gives rise to language (or rather languag-
ing)—a domain of consensual coordinations of
consensual coordinations of action.
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RESEARCH PAPER Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.

A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF say, biology, some of the categories and examples

BOULDING’S HIERARCHY
Boulding’s (1956) hierarchy was one of the first
examples of work in the general systems area. It
offers an intuitive classification of different types
of systems ranked in increasing order of com-
plexity (Table 1). This is done by specifying a
number of different levels, characteristics and
examples of each level, and relevant academic
disciplines. Each level is said to include, in some
way, the lower levels but to have its own, new,
emergent properties. At first sight, the levels and
examples seem very plausible. They do appear
to pick out distinctively different types of enti-
ties. However, as Checkland (1981, p. 106) has
noted, there is no explicit definition of the scale
of ‘systems complexity’ underlying the hier-
archy. What is it that actually distinguishes one
level from another? It is the number of compo-
nents? The number of interconnections? The
degree of functional differentiation? Without
this, we cannot really judge the correctness of the
classification.
Moreover, in the light of more recent work in,
seem wrong or at least confused. For example,
would we really want to put candle flames and
living cells at the same level? The early distinc-
tion between systems that were closed and open
(to energy) is little used now as there are
virtually no systems that are closed in this sense,
except as artificially constructed in the labo-
ratory.2 Surely the more important distinction is
between living systems and non-living systems?
Also, splitting levels into cells, plants, animals and
humans does not really correspond to increasing
levels of complexity (are single-celled animals
more complex than multicellular plants) or with
current biological classifications (Margulis and
Schwartz, 1988).
The proposal in this paper is that autopoiesis
can provide us with an answer to these difficul-
ties. The main proposition is that the dimension
underlying this hierarchy, the main dimension of
complexity, is the way in which a system’s
Organization is characterized by different types of
relationship. Each new level in the hierarchy
2
There are systems that are closed in an organizational sense—see next
section.

Table 1 Boulding’s hierarchy of complexity

Level Description Characteristic Example Discipline

1 Structures and Static, spatial pattern Bridge, mountain, Descriptive elements

frameworks crystal, atom of all disciplines
2 Clockworks Predetermined motion Clocks, machines, Physics, astronomy,
solar system engineering
3 Control mechanisms Closed-loop control Thermostat, Cybernetics
homeostasis
4 Open systems Structurally self- Flames, cells Theory of metabolism
maintaining
5 Genetic–societal Society of cells, Plants Botany
systems functional parts
6 Animals Nervous system, self- Birds and beasts Zoology
awareness
7 Humans Self-consciousness, Human beings Biology, psychology
knowledge, language
8 Socio-cultural systems Roles, communication, Families, boy scouts, History, sociology,
values clubs anthropology
9 Transcendental Inescapable God? Philosophy, religion
systems unknowables

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306 John Mingers

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Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. RESEARCH PAPER

brings in a new and different type of relation, or
relation of a relation, as well as involving those
at previous levels. The idea of relationships
between components is fundamental to the anti-
reductionist stance of systems thinking. It is the
relationships between components in a system,
rather than the nature of the individual compo-
nents themselves, that generate its properties
and behaviour. All living systems (on earth) are
composed of particular carbon-based molecules,
and ultimately of different proportions of vari-
ous chemicals. What distinguishes different
organisms is precisely the different ways in
which their components are related. It seems
entirely appropriate, therefore, that it should be
relations that form the basis for the heirarchy of
complexity.
In particular, the scale concerns those relations
that constitute the Organization that is ascribed to
a particular system by an observer. As noted in
the previous section, Oganization is a subset of
the actual relations between the structural com-
ponents of an entity. An observer can distinguish
different subsets of relations, and therefore dif-
ferent Organizations, for a particular entity. Thus
a person can be distinguished as a physical
structure, as a biological system, or as a psycho-
logical or social system. Each distinction gives
rise to a different Organization with a different
domain of interactions. It is not possible to go the
other way, however. An entity at a low level, for
example a structure such as a bridge, cannot
embody relations from a higher level, such as
linguistic or social ones.
Table 2 shows the hierarchy reconceptualized
in these terms. Most levels are the same but the
inconsistencies in the original are cleared up. At
level 1 we have structures, frameworks and
patterns that are characterized only by relations
of constitution (where), that is, spatial or topo-
graphic relations. A table is an example.
Although it can, of course, move or be moved, or

Table 2 A hierarchy of complexity (developed from Boulding)

Level Description Characteristic Type of relations Example

1 Structures and Static, spatial patterns Topology (where) Bridge, mountain,

frameworks table, crystal
2 Single mechanistic Dynamic, pre- Order (when) Solar system, clock,
systems determined changes, tune, computer
processes
3 Control mechanisms, Error-controlled Specification (what) Thermostat, body
cybernetic systems feedback, information temperature system,
auto-catalytic system
4 Living systems Continuous self- Autopoietic relations Cell, amoeba, single-
production celled bacteria
5 Multicellular system Functional Structural coupling Plants, fungi, moulds,
differentiation between cells (Second- algi
order autopoiesis)
6 Organisms with Interaction with Symbolic, abstract Most animals (except,
nervous systems relations relations e.g., sponges)
7 Observing systems Language, self- Recursive, self-referential Humans
consciousness relations
8 Social systems Rules, meanings, Structural coupling Families, organizations
norms, power between organisms
(third-order
autopoiesis)
9 Transcendental
systems

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Systems Typologies in the Light of Autopoiesis 307


RESEARCH PAPER
indeed collapse, its distinction as a table only
specifies spatial relations between its surface and
its supports. At level 2 are what may be called
simple dynamic systems or processes, such as
rivers, clocks or tunes. Their Organization
involves relations of order (when) as well as
constitution. The components of such systems
change their spatial3 position through time. Such
systems involve both structure and process.
Unlike Boulding, I include simple open systems,
such as a candle, here. Boulding put these in the
same level as cells which, in the light autopoiesis
as the defining principle of living systems, does
not seem appropriate.
Level 3 consists of systems that are, or contain,
feedback loops—control systems or cybernetic
systems. These may be self-regulation systems
such as a thermostat or the body’s temperature
regulation system, or self-sustaining4 systems
such as auto-catalytic processes. These systems
work through feedback loops that maintain
certain variables constant or regulate the types
and amounts of particular components. Because
of this, their Organization is characterized by
relations of specification (what) as well as ty-
pology and order. That is, they maintain varia-
bles at specific levels or control the generation of
specific components. This also means that such
systems use or process information (Mingers
1995b, 1996a) as part of their operations.
At level 4 we reach living systems whose
Organization is characterized by relations of
autopoiesis. That is, within a system, the varied
relations of typology, order and specification
themselves form a higher-level relationship of
self-production. This replaces Boulding’s level 4
of open systems which, as discussed above, no
longer seems very useful. Level 4 includes only
the simplest living systems—single cells—either
free standing, such as a bacterium or an amoeba,
or part of a larger organism. This provides a very
clear line of demarcation between non-living
(level 3 and below) and living systems. One
borderline case is that of the virus, which is
simply a packet of genes covered in protein. A
3
The ‘space’ involved may not be simply physical but could be a scale
of sounds.
4
For the distinction between self-regulating and self-sustaining see
the next section.
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Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
virus is unable to reproduce or metabolize itself
(i.e., self-produce) unless it is within a host cell.
On these grounds, Margulis argues that viruses
are not autopoietic and thus not living (Margulis
and Sagan, 1995, p. 23).
Levels 4–6 present particular distinctions
between living systems that are orthogonal to
those usually made within biology but this is
because they are based on complexity, as defined
in terms of types of relationships, rather than
evolutionary heritage. One of the most well-
established taxonomies in biology (Margulis and
Schwartz, 1988) divides living systems into five
phyla although there are many unusual or
borderline cases. The main distinction is between
prokaryotes—cells that have few components and
have no separate nuclear membrane—and euk-
aryotes—more complex cells with separate
nuclei. The prokaryotes are in the main single-
celled bacteria, although some may be
multicellular. The eukaryotes are split into four:
fungi (de-
veloping from spores, and with no flagella);
plants (developing from embryos, multicellular,
and generally based on photosynthesis); animals
(developing from blastula, multicellular, and
generally based on digestion of organic com-
pounds); and protoctista (microorganisms
without the other characteristics), which
includes amoeba, algae, slime moulds, and pro-
tozoa. It is clear that no simple transition in
terms of degree of complexity can be made from
a cell through plants to animals.
The move to level 5 is therefore made in terms
of multicellular systems that involve relations of
structural coupling between cells—what Maturana
calls second-order autopoietic systems, such as
multicelled bacteria, plants, moulds and fungi.
Structural coupling is a relationship of corre-
spondence in structure between two systems, or
a system and its environment. Such systems
display at least minimal functional differentia-
tion of cells, and cell structures. This is a more
precise definition than Boulding’s ‘genetic-socie-
tal’.
Level 6 comprises organisms that have evolved
some form of nervous system. The main charac-
teristic of a nervous system, no matter how
elementary, is that it connects up different parts
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John Mingers

Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
of the organism—both external interfaces to the
environment and internal components and pro-
cesses. This allows an organism to have a new
domain of interactions—interactions with rela-
tions between events that impinge upon it. An
organism without a nervous system can only
have interactions with isolated physico-chemical
events that occur at particular places and times.
The nervous system, however, connects different
parts of the organism, and different times of
interaction, allowing differences and relations
between events to become significant for the
organism (von Foerster, 1986). Organisms with a
nervous system are therefore able to interact
with pure relations such as before/after, hotter/
colder, more/less. This category includes all
animals, except the sponge, which is generally
classified as an animal but has no nervous
system. Again, Boulding was somewhat incon-
sistent in using plants as an example within a
level, but animals as a level in its own right.
The other main characteristic of the nervous
system is that it is structurally plastic. That is, it
can change its own interconnections as a result of
the experiences that the organism undergoes,
and thereby enable the possibility of learning—
being able to generate different (and more
apropriate) behaviour in apparently similar cir-
cumstances. The evolutionary advantage gained
by this greater flexibility led to increasingly
complex nervous systems, and thus new
domains of possible interactions. Within this
level there are many new developments that
could be picked out: for instance, the ability to
interact with abstract or symbolic events such as
scent marking; the ability to coordinate behav-
iour in quite elaborate forms such as a courtship
ritual or the bees’ dance; and ultimately the
possibility of making symbolic reference to one’s
own actions. Maturana terms these consensual
coordinations of behaviour linguistic behaviour,
but not full languaging.
Level 7 brings in systems that can observe; that
is, make descriptions of their interactions and,
ultimately, descriptions of themselves (Maturana
et al., 1995). Observing is being able to distinguish
the act of describing as an object itself (‘this is
only a description’); the observer is able to
recognize who is observing (‘this is my descrip-
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RESEARCH PAPER
tion’); and self-consciousness is being able to
observe the observer (‘I am not feeling well’).
These complex, self-referring interactions require
a brain that has a highly recursive structure, and
fully functional languaging capabilities. The
relations involved are therefore recursive and
self-referential. Note that level 6 animals can
have linguistic interactions such as a duet of
birdsong, but Maturana argues that this is not
full languaging, which would require linguistic
interactions about linguistic interactions.5 The
main example of a system at this level is human
beings.
Finally (apart from the transcendental sys-
tems), we have level 8: social systems. These are
characterized by relations of structural coupling
between organisms. That is, organisms with nerv-
ous systems coordinating their behaviour with
respect to others. Examples are social insects
such as ants, animals such as gorillas, and
human social systems such as families. Note that
Maturana does not claim that social systems are
autopoietic, but that they are the medium for the
operation of autopoietic systems. Within such
systems, regular patterns of behaviour emerge
through the structural coupling between mem-
bers. These can be described in terms such as
rules, norms and patterns of meaning. Such
social Organizations can be highly diverse and
ritualized, but once established are highly con-
servative since they generate, in their members,
structural responses that generally conform to
the prevailing relations.
This completes the description of the revised
framework, and we now move to consider those
systems that involve some form of self-reference.
CLASSIFYING SELF-REFERENTIAL SYSTEMS
Autopoiesis focuses our attention on self-produc-
ing, self-referring systems but, as Teubner (1993,
p. 16) has noted, there is a considerable con-
ceptual confusion around such terms in the
general systems literature, within philosophy
(Bartlett and Suber, 1987), and even, on occa-
sions, within Maturana and Varela’s work. What
5
Or, as Maturana would put it: consensual coordinations of con-
sensual coordinations of action.
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RESEARCH PAPER Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.

is the difference between, for example, ‘self-
reference’, ‘self-production’, ‘self-organization’,
‘self-regulation’, ‘self-observation’, ‘circular cau-
sality’, ‘tautologies and contradictions’, or
‘autocatalysis’? This is clearly a problematic area
since the prefix ‘self-’ can be applied to a vast
range of actions or characteristics—see Hof-
stadter (1980, 1986) for many insightful
examples. At its most general, what these types
of systems have in common is that they make
some form of reference to or impact on them-
selves. It can be said that the Organization of
such systems must have some form of closure
(Varela et al., 1991), not in the traditional inter-
active sense, but in the sense that one or more of
the major relations characterizing these systems
must be circular, a relation between the system
and itself. Whilst not claiming a complete analy-
sis of such systems, I offer the categorization in
Table 3 as a starting point and would welcome
further contributions to it. This classification has
been developed by considering the different
levels of complexity in Table 2 and seeing what
types of self-referencing relations there might be
at each level.
The first type, at the structural level since they
are not dynamic or processual, I have termed
self-referring systems. These systems are usually
symbolic or representational in a general sense,
and refer to themselves either by some form of
pointing (e.g., a signpost pointing to itself ); by
containing an image of themselves within them-
selves; or by referring to themselves
linguistically. They include all the many para-

Table 3 A classifiction of self-referential systems

Level Type Characteristic Example

1 Self-referring systems Structural reference to self by ‘This is a sentence’, Escher’s

position or symbolism (picto-
rial or linguistic)
2 Self-influencing systems Dynamic systems that involve
circular causality and causal
loops
3 Self-regulating systems Maintenance of a particular
variable at a particular level
Self-sustaining systems All parts of the system are nec-
essary and sufficient for
operation of the whole, but do
not produce each other
4 Self-producing systems (autop- Autonomy: the system both
oietic) produces and is produced by
itself
5 Self-recognizing systems Systems that are able to recog-
nize their own parts and reject
others
Self-replicating systems Systems that can build replicas
of themselves
6 Self-cognizing systems Systems that generate cognitive
identity through recursive neu-
ronal activity
7 Self-conscious systems Able to interact with descrip-
tions of themselves. The
observer observing the
observer
‘Drawing Hands’, Magritte’s
‘The Treason of Images’
Size and birth rate of popula-
tion, inflation, the nuclear arms
race
Thermostat, body temperature
Gas pilot light in heating boiler,
autocatalysis
Cell, computer model of auto-
poiesis, Nomic (self-producing
legal game)
Immune system within an
organism
Organisms that reproduce,
computer viruses
Animals with nervous systems
interacting symbolically
A person saying ‘I acted
selfishly today’

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310 John Mingers


Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
doxes and tautologies (Hughes and Brecht,
1978): for example, ‘This sentence is in French’;
or ‘This assertion is not true’. Pictorial examples
are Escher’s drawing (‘Drawing Hands’) of two
hands drawing each other, and Magritte’s pic-
tures, one (‘the Treason of Images’) of a smoking
pipe with the words (in French) ‘this is not a
pipe’, and another (‘The Human Condition’) in
which the picture contains a picture of part of the
scene.
At level 2 are systems I identify as self-
influencing systems. These are examples of what
are often causal loops or circular causality; that
is, patterns of causation or influence which
become circular: for instance, the larger a pop-
ulation, the greater the number of births, and
thus the larger the population in the next time
period. This is a positive loop leading to expo-
nential increase or decrease and, more
commonly, there are negative loops which lead
to, at least temporary, stability, for example, the
price/demand relations for a normal good. The
economic and ecological domains are full of
complex patterns of just such mutual causality.
At the third level, I distinguish two types of
systems: self-regulating and self-sustaining. Self-
regulating systems are organized so as to keep
some essential variable(s) within particular lim-
its. They rely on negative feedback and specified
limits. Obvious examples are a thermostat and
the blood temperature control system. They are
distinct from the self-influencing systems in that
they maintain a pre-specified level determined
by the wider system of which they are a part.
Self-influencing systems may stabilize through
negative feedback but do so at essentially arbi-
trary levels.
The next type I call self-sustaining systems. In
Maturana and Varela’s terms these systems are
Organizationally closed but not self-producing.
Their components and processes close in upon
themselves so that their own elements are both
necessary and sufficient for their own con-
tinuance. Such systems do not, however,
produce their own components. A good example
is the gas heater pilot light found on many
central heating systems. In such a system, the gas
pilot light heats a thermocouple which controls
the flow of gas to the pilot light which allows the
© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Systems Typologies in the Light of Autopoiesis
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RESEARCH PAPER
pilot light to function in the first place. Once it is
in operation, it sustains itself. However, once it
stops it cannot restart itself—it needs some form
of outside intervention to begin the cycle again.
Other examples are systems of auto-catalysis
where a chemical reaction produces at least some
of the chemicals necessary that are necessary for
the reaction to occur; and the nervous system,
where every state of nervous activity is triggered
by a previous state and triggers, in turn, the next
state.
At the next level we have autopoietic systems
which are self-producing of both their components
and their own boundary. They are more than
self-sustaining in that they actually produce the
components necessary for their own continua-
tion. Such systems have properties such as
autonomy, since they depend mainly on their
own self-production, and identity, since they
maintain their own individual autopoietic
Organization despite changes in their structure.
The main examples are living systems—molec-
ular embodiments of autopoiesis—but it is also
possible to conceive of abstract self-producing
systems such as Nomic, a game that produces its
own rules (Suber, 1990; Mingers, 1996b), and the
computer model of autopoiesis produced by
Varela (Varela et al., 1974; McMullin and Varela,
1997).
At level 5 in the hierarchy (multicellular
systems), I again distinguish two types: self-
recognizing systems and self-replicating systems.
The prime example of a self-recognizing system
is the body’s immune system (Varela and Cou-
tinho, 1989). This is a network of glands and
chemicals throughout the body, one function of
which is to fight off cells and organisms that do
not belong to the body. In order to do this, it
must be able to recognize its self—that is, its own
cells as opposed to another organism’s. Self-
replicating systems are those that are capable of
producing a copy or replica of themselves. This
includes all living systems as well as, for
example, a computer virus. Note that the ability
to reproduce is not definatory of living systems
since some individuals, or even species such as
the mule, are sterile yet living, while most people
would say a computer virus is not living (see
above concerning chemical viruses).
Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. Vol. 14, 303–313 (1997)
311

RESEARCH PAPER
At level 6 are self-cognizing systems that are
integrated by a brain and nervous system. The
nervous system is an Organizationally closed
network of interacting neurons in which all
states of relative activity lead to, and are pre-
ceded by, other states of activity thus leading to
recursive closure. Certain parts of the nervous
system (the effector and sensory surfaces) do
interface to the bodily or external environment,
and can thus be triggered by outside events; the
vast majority of the nervous system is composed
of interneurons that only interact with each
other. The coupling of the circular processes of
the nervous system and the linear interactions of
the organism as a whole over time give rise to
new domains of behaviour based on abstract and
symbolic representations of the organisms’ inter-
actions. This allows for the development of
increasingly varied and ontogenetic modes of
behaviour in the more developed species. It also
necessitates, for the individual organism, the
construction of their own cognitive self. The
nervous system integrates the perceptions and
actions of the organism as it operates as a whole
within an environment. Through its circular,
recursive operation it continually establishes and
maintains the distinct, coherent self of the indi-
vidual at the same time as projecting onto the
environment a structure of signification that is
relevant to its own self-continuance.
The symbolic interactions enabled by the
nervous system lead to the emergence of many
new domains of interactions. For instance, con-
sensually coordinated behaviours, the
distinctions of objects and the relations between
them (observing), and finally self-consciousness;
that is, systems that can, through language,
create descriptions of themselves and then inter-
act with these descriptions as if they were
independent entities, thus recursively generating
the conscious self. Human beings are the main
example of such languaging systems at this point
in time. Such interactions are mainly linguistic
utterances, either latent or manifest, such as, ‘I
am lying’; or ‘I hereby promise to. . .’, but can
also be embodied in gestures or facial expres-
sions.
There are two omissions from the typology
that should be mentioned. The first is that there
Syst. Res. Behav. Sci. Vol. 14, 303–313 (1997)
312
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Syst. Res. Behav. Sci.
is no category of self-organizing systems. This
seems to me redundant within Maturana’s termi-
nology. All systems embody a particular
Organization—it is what specifies their identity—
and this Organization remains the same so long
as they maintain their identity. What is generally
meant by the term ‘self-organization’ is actually
structural change rather than a change in the
Organization, and here I would use my other
categories depending on the particular type of
change involved. A genuine change in Organiza-
tion would involve a major change in category
such as an autopoietic system dying and no
longer being autopoietic. The second is that I
have not included self-referential systems at the
social level. This is because I feel that, at the
present time, there is insufficient consensus
about the exact nature of social systems to
propose some supra-human, self-referential sys-
tem—see, for example, the different positions of
Habermas (1996), Luhmann (1995) and Foucault
(1980).
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has used autopoietic theory to refor-
mulate one of the original contributions to
general systems—Boulding’s hierarchy. It has
enabled a consistent view to be taken of the
dimension underlying the typology. This is seen
to be based on the different types of relations,
and relations of relations, that emerge at differ-
ent levels in the hierarchy. It has also removed
certain inconsistencies in the original.
As well as this, a new typology of self-
referential or circular systems has been
proposed. Although this no doubt needs to be
developed further, it is hoped that it will provide
a useful framework in an area where there is
much confusion about the usage of different
terms and will contribute to a more coherent
treatment of self-referential systems.
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