Machines and becoming: convergences between individuation, autopoiesis, and meta-technology

Abstract

In the twentieth century, three theories emerged that describe the phenomenology of human becoming and its morphogenesis, formulated from the perspectives of the philosophy of technology and biology. These theories are individuation, proposed by Gilbert Simondon; autopoiesis, developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela; and meta-technology, introduced by Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla.
Although they originate from different perspectives and contexts, the theories converge on general principles that can be synthesized into a phenomenological explanation of human becoming—particularly of the individual increasingly integrated with his own technologies. The purpose of this work is to describe these theories, highlight their points of convergence, and unify them into a single explanatory framework, with special emphasis on the somato-psychic changes that constitute the human being. Other possible approaches to the problem are also suggested, drawing from mathematics and physics, as well as from scholastic thought.