Francisco Varela

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Francisco Javier Varela García (Santiago, September 7, 1946 - Paris, May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist and philosopher, a researcher in the field of neurosciences, cognitive sciences, and the philosophy of mind. Together with his professor Humberto Maturana, he is known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis in biology, and for co-founding the Mind and Life Institute, an institution in charge of promoting dialogue between science and Buddhism.

Biography

Studies

He completed basic education at the Colegio del Verbo Divino and began his higher studies in Chile at the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (1964-1966) where, after completing his first years of medical studies, He changed to a Bachelor of Science with a Biology mention at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Chile (1965-1967), of which he was a founding student. At the end of 1967, Varela received a doctoral scholarship with which he carried out postgraduate studies at Harvard University, receiving his doctorate at the age of 24 with the thesis Insect Retinas: Information processing in the compound eye, under the direction of Keith R. Porter and Torsten Wiesel, who in 1981 would be awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology for his studies on the visual system.

As part of his initial training, he studied Philosophy at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile; there, he tells us, he received the influence of the Chilean-Spanish philosopher Francisco Soler Grima (See his book The phenomenon of life , Ed. Dolmen, Santiago de Chile, 2000, pp. 423 s.). In addition, he conducted guided readings by Roberto Torretti at the Center for Humanistic Studies of the School of Engineering of the University of Chile in 1965. ^{[citation needed ]}

Career

Humberto Maturana, supervisor of Francisco Varela and with whom he worked on the concept of autopoiesis.

His fundamental interest was to study the biological bases of knowledge, which led him to investigate cognitive phenomena and to be mainly interested in the phenomenon of consciousness.

In 1970, Dr. Varela joined the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Chile, with the position of Full Professor. During this period and in collaboration with Humberto Maturana, he advanced in the theoretical development of the concepts of self-organization and networks of neurons. In December 1973, he accepted a teaching position at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, working on sensory-motor integration. He publishes a first book on his theoretical developments ”Principles of Biological Autonomy”

One of his main contributions is the work carried out with Humberto Maturana, from which the theory of autopoiesis was born, which defines living beings as autonomous organisms, in the sense that they are capable of producing their own components and that they are fundamentally determined by their internal relations. This theory has had great relevance in a wide range of fields, from systems theory to sociology or psychology.

Later, within his interest in the phenomenon of consciousness, Varela began the study of neuronal mechanisms associated with conscious phenomena, in which he investigated the synchrony of neuronal activity and its relationship with perception and states of mind. awareness.

Varela was interested in developing a methodology for the investigation of these phenomena, which he calls neurophenomenology, in which he tries to reconcile the scientific perspective with life experience. On this way of approaching the study of consciousness, influences can be found in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, continued by his disciple Maurice Merleau-Ponty. However, more important in this regard is the approach that Varela makes to disciplines of oriental knowledge, such as Buddhism, which he practiced throughout his life, and with which he tried to generate a scientific dialogue.

Varela's neurophenomenology states that the sensations that human beings experience in daily life do not activate a certain zone x in the brain as a single region, which corresponds to the type of sensation that is experienced. experiences, but rather, at the moment of having a certain experience, different areas of the brain are stimulated forming a unique pattern that corresponds to the unrepeatable experience. This radically changes the traditional conception of regionality, with unique points and intersections of the spatial plane. This in Varela's neurophenomenology is known as "phase blockade" and it is the way in which cerebral regionality and its simultaneous relationship of spatial coordinates are conceived here in a single and fleeting temporal coordinate that lasts only as long as the brain needs to process the impression it is facing.

At his death, he was Director of Research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences and Brain Imaging (abbreviated LENA in French) in Paris.

His ashes rest in the town of Montegrande in the Elqui Valley, in the Patio de Las Higueras, a sector of the hacienda that belonged to his grandfather Luis Felipe Varela Pinto.

Work on Francisco Varela

2018: Mejía Fernández, Ricardo - The phenomenological turn in cognitive neurosciences: from Francisco Varela to Shaun Gallagher." University of Memphis.
2006: Living, dreaming and dying: the journey of Francisco Varela (documentary led by Gonzalo Argarña)

Posthumous Tributes

In 2013, the Francisco Varela School was inaugurated in the commune of Peñalolén, a private educational institution and the first Buddhist religious orientation in Chile.

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