origins of autopoiesis

Thanks everyone for picking up on the origins thread.
We got some interesting additions:

C. Bernard, Spinoza, Deleuze and Guattari, (the Roman philosopher) Lucretius,
Piaget, JW Gibbs and LJ Henderson, WR Ashby,
Alfred Korzybsky, Gregory Bateson, Heinz von Foerster, Merleau-Ponty

Paul Bains mentioned that:
Isabelle Stengers has also written an untranslated essay (in
French)-'Geneologies of Self-Organization' in Les cahiers du CREA
(not sure of date but could find it.

Her paper sounds interesting (More and more I find myself wishing I
could read French). Could you get us a reference
(or does anyone have her email address)?

Peter Cariani
eplunix!peter@eddie.mit.edu