vesterberg.se

The Chilean neurobiologist and cognitive scientist Francisco Varela is one of my favourite authors, with books like The Tree of Knowledge and especially The Embodied Mind.

Varela has done some outstanding work on the reflective dimension of human experience and consciousness. A key theme is that cognition is not a representation of the world out there, but rather a ‘bringing forth of the world through the process of living itself’. The only world we humans can have  is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Understanding about cognition and human consciousness is very related to systems thinking, because these areas explore how we think. Likewise these new findings have important social and ethical implications and are very valuable when trying to find a way out from mans environmental destruction.

Recently I found a DVD “Monte Grande” about his life and works. Amazon seems to offer an US-only DVD, but here you can order a version for Europeans.