Cognition is constitutively a subject dependent phenomenon.
It also follows that cognition as a phenomenon of the individual is subordinated to the autopoiesis of the knower, and that all cognitive states as states of the knower are determined by the way its autopoiesis is realized, not by the ambient circumstances in which this takes place. Cognition is constituitively a subject dependent phenomenon. The changes of state that the autopoietic system undergoes while compensating for perturbations can be treated by an observer, who sees it in a context (environment), as actions exerted by the organism on the environment, and he can attach them operational meaning in realtion to the perturbing circumstances that he sees acting upon the organism. Such meaning, however, lies exclusively in the descriptive domain of the observed organism as an autopoietic system. (CS 461)
This page was last updated on July 9, 1996, by Rob Sable.