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Varela's Enaction

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

Carl Jung

 

According to Gödel, when we question our conscience, we assume that we are doing so from a level of Complexity above our metabolism.  Or that there is a separation of body and mind, and that the latter functions in an environment above reality.

For some biologists, the evolution of the organization of matter reaches levels of Complexity whose epitome would be the emergence of consciousness.  For them, the interrelationship of thoughts, of all the feelings that we metabolize, and of our apprehension of a permanent and external reality, leads to the appearance of consciousness.

If this is so, then we are doomed to defeat, and artificial intelligence will certainly end our race, since our brains would be nothing more than organic information processors.

This immediately brings me to the Pythagorean sect, which saw the answer to our existence in the perfection of numbers; for this school of biologists goes so far as to say that the Complexity of the interrelationships between neurons would give rise to the mind.

Thinking a little more, and to my great relief, I arrive at the serene intelligence of Francisco Varela, a Chilean biologist who, along with his colleague and compatriot Humberto Maturana, revolutionized consciousness.  Maturana with autopoiesis, about which I have already spoken, and Varela with enaction, or the complementary congruence of two points: perception and cognition.  Perception, which comes from the sentience that we share with animals, and cognition, where the interaction of our metabolism with an event, added to perception, allows us to experience Consensus.

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