[Gary]

These ideas connect to the work of the late Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana on the concept of autopoiesis and its connection to self-reference and closed causal loops…. The paper by Varela on the ‘Calculus of Self-Reference’ was mentioned and referenced previously. The latest issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies has a collection of fascinating and important papers related to ‘the Legacy of Francisco Varela’ and these are definitely worth careful review. There is a fundamental valuable connection to the difference between the function of the two cerebral hemispheres, Robert Rosen’s ‘Life Itself’, and Varela’s ‘Calculus of Self-Reference’ related to what I am calling the ‘Ouroboric Principle of Continuous Self-Reference’ upon which the categorical differentiation between living organisms and fabricated mechanisms is founded.