por Humberto Maturana
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The self arises in language in the linguistic recursion that brings forth the observer as an entity in the explanation of his or her operation in a domain of consensual distinctions. Self-consciousness arises in language in the liguistic recursion that brings forth the distinction of the self as an entity in the explanation of the operation of the observer in the distinction of the self from other entities in a consensual domain of distinctions. As a result, reality arises with self-consciousness in language as an explanation of the distinction between self and non-self in the praxis of living of the observer. Self, self-consciousness and reality exist in language as explanations of the happening of living of the observer. Indeed, the observer as a human being in language is primary with respect to self and self-consciuosness, these arise as he or she operates in language explaining his or her experiences, his or her praxis of living as such. That the entities brought forth in our explanations should have an unavoidable presence in our domain of existence, is because we are realized as observers as we distinguish these entities, in the domain of operational coherences that they defined as we distinguish them. We do not go through a wall in the praxis of living because we exist as living systems in the same domain of operational coherences in which a wall exists a a molecular entity, and a wall is distinguished as a composite entity in the molecular space as that entity through which we cannot go as molecular entities.
The observer is primary, not the object. Better, observing is a given in the praxis of living in language, and we are already in it when we begin to reflect upon it. Matter, energy, ideas, notions, mind, spirit, God,... are explanatory propositions about the praxis of living of the observer. Furthermore, matter, energy, ideas, notions, mind, spirit or God, as explanatory propositions entail different manners of living of the observer in recursive conservation of adaptation in the domains of operational coherences brought forth in their different distinctions. Thus, when the observer operates with objectivity without parenthesis, he or she operates in an explanatory avenue that entails neglecting the experiential indistinguishability between what we call perception and illusion, and when he or she operates with objectivity in parentheses he or she operates in an explanatory avenue that entails accepting this indistinguishability as a starting point. In the explanatory path of objectivity without parentheses, the observer, language, and perception, cannot be explained scientifically as biological phenomena because in this explanatory path it is assumed that the observer can make reference to entities that exist independently of what he or she does, an assumptions which is contradictory with the structural determinism of the living system and the mechanistic nature of a scientific explanations; while in the explanatory path of objectivity in parenthesis there is not such a contradiction. At the same time, when one operates within any given domain of reality one can operate with objectivity without parenthesis without contradiction, but when a disagreement arises with another observer, and one thinks that it is not a matter of a simple logical mistake, in that explanatory path one is forced to claim a privileged access to an objetive reality to resolve it, and to deal with errors as if they were mistakings of what is. If in similar circumstances one is operating with objectivity in parenthesis, one finds that the disagreeing parties operate in different domains of reality, and that the disagreement dissappears only when they begin to operate in the same one. Furthermore, one also finds that errors are changes of domain of reality in the operation of an observer that he or she notices only a posteriori. Finally, by operating in the explanatory path of objectivity without parenthesis we cannot explain how an observer operates in the generation of a scientific explanation because we take for granted the habilities of the observer. Contrary to this state of affairs, if we operate in the explanatory path objectivity in parentheses, scientific explanations and the observer appear as components in a single closed generative explanatory mechanism, in which the properties or abilities of the observer are shown to arise in different phenomenal domain than the one in which its components operate.
We human beings exist only as we exist as self-consciouness entities in language. It is only as we exist as self-consciousness entities that the domain of physical existence exists as our limiting cognitive domain in the ultimate explanation of the human observer's happening of living. The physical domain of existence is secondary to the happening of living of the human observer, even though in the explanation of observing the human observer arises from the physical domain of existence. Indeed, the understanding of the ontological primacy of observing is basic for the understanding of the phenomenon of cognition. Human existence is a cognitive existence and takes place through languaging; yet, cognition has no content and does not exist outside the effective actions that constitute it. This why nothing exists outside the distinctions of the observer. That the physical domain of existence should be our limiting cognitive domain does not alter this. Nature, the world, society, science, religion, the physical space, atoms, molecules, trees..., indeed all things, are cognitive entities, explanations of the praxis or happening of living of the observer, and as such, as this very explanation, they only exist as a bubble of human actions floating on nothing. Every thing is cognitive, and the bubble of human cognition changes in the continuous happening of the human recursive involvement in coontogenic and cophylogenic drifts within the domains of existence that he or she brings forth in the praxis of living. Everything is human responsability.
The atom and the hydrogen bombs are cognitive entities. The bing bang, or whatever we claim from our present praxis of living gave origin to physical versum, is a cognitive entity, an explanation of the praxis of living of the observer bound to the ontology of observing. Our happening of living takes place regardless of our explanations, but its course becomes contingent upon our explanations as they become part of the domain of existence in which we conserve organization and adaptation through our structural drifts. Our living takes place in structural coupling with the world that we bring forth, and the world that we bring forth is our doing as observers in language as we operate in structural coupling in it in the praxis of living. We cannot do anything outside our domains of structural coupling; we cannot do anything outside our domains of cognition; we cannot do anything outside our domains of languaging. This is why nothing that we do as human beings is trivial. Everything that we do becomes part of the world that we live as we bring it forth as social entities in language. Human responsability in the multiversa is total.
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