Mechanistic systems (machines) whose organization is not autopoietic do not produce the components that constitute them as unities, and, hence, the product of their operation is different from themselves. The physical unity of these systems is determined by processes that do not enter in their organization. These systems or machines, which I call allopoietic systems, have, by their constitution, input and output relations as a characteristic of their organization: their output is the product of their operation, and their input is what they transform to produce this product. The phenomenology of an allopoietic machine is the phemenology of its input-output relations. (CS 460)