FEATURE

The Biology of Business:

Love Expands Intelligence
Humberto Matur ana and Pille Bunnell

This paper is part of a series based on a presentation made by Humberto

Maturana at the Society for Organizational Learning Member’s Meeting,
Amherst, MA, in June, 1998. Some material has been added in the desire of
making this installment more readable outside the context of the SoL presenta-
tion (available on the Web Site of the Society for Organizational Learning at
http://www.sol-ne.org/res/wp/maturana/).

In the second essay, I will talk about something that is usually considered in-
appropriate in a business context: I will talk about emotions. You will see that
emotions are fundamental to what happens in all our doings, including our
businesses.
There is something peculiar about human beings: We are loving animals.
I know that we kill each other and do all those horrible things, but if you look
at any story of corporate transformation where everything begins to go well,
innovations appear, and people are happy to be there, you will see that it is a
story of love. Most problems in companies are not solved through competition,
not through fighting, not through authority. They are solved through the only
Humberto Matur ana
emotion that expands intelligent behavior. They are solved through the only
emotion that expands creativity, as in this emotion there is freedom for creativ-
ity. This emotion is love. Love expands intelligence and enables creativity.
Love returns autonomy and, as it returns autonomy, it returns responsibility
and the experience of freedom.

58 We Are Loving Animals

Once in a lecture, I said that we are loving animals, and a question arose: “Are
we animals?” I answered, “Yes, we are animals, but we are loving animals.”
Most animals are loving animals to some extent. What is peculiar about us hu-
man animals is that we have expanded this emotion in our manner of living.
All mammals live in a loving relationship with their mothers during their
infancy. Our distant ancestors began to orient their manner of living around
extending this mammalian mother-child relationship. In enjoying and conserv-
ing the pleasure of this intimacy, our ancestors found themselves living in
small close groups that were centered around the mother-child bond. By con-
serving the pleasure of intimacy with each other, they extended the domains
Pille Bunnell
and the duration in which consensual behavior took place. Occasionally, our
ancestors would use sounds and gestures as a part of this consensuality and,
sometimes, the sounds and gestures became the ground for further coordina-
tions, and a minimal operation in the form of language would arise. When
such operations began to be conserved from generation to generation through
© 1999 by the Society for Organizational Learning the learning of the children, the foundations for languaging as a way of living
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. were laid.

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Language evolved in us humans because we began to live in the pleasure of
intimacy in a way that conserved this way of living. We developed language be-
cause we became the loving animals. Humans are those animals that have ex-
panded living in love. We have become dependent on love in the sense that we
become ill of body and soul if love is interfered with. Sometimes conditions arise
in our culture so that some bad ideas persist in spite of their badness. I think
competition is one of those bad ideas that is destructive, and yet it persists.

•
Love Is Ordinary

The Biology of Business

Now, I am going to tell you what love is, not as a definition, but as an abstraction
of the coherences of our living—and I pretend that this is all that one needs to
know. Love is the domain of those relational behaviors through which another (a
person, being, or thing) arises as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself.
The dynamics I have abstracted is how we act, whether or not we reflect
on it. Suppose that you are walking in the countryside, and you encounter a
spider. What if you exclaim “A spider!” and immediately stomp on it, making
sure it is thoroughly squashed? What would your companion comment? Some-
thing like “You don’t love spiders” or “You don’t love animals” or “You hate
spiders, don’t you!” And all those expressions belong to the negation of love;
the spider does not arise as a legitimate other in coexistence with you.
Aggression is that domain of relational behaviors in which another is ne-
gated as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself. But if you say in won-
der, “A spider! Look at it! Let’s be careful not to step on this beautiful spider,”
your companion might comment “You sure love animals! Even spiders!” You
don’t have to take it into bed with you to love it. Taking the spider to bed
would not be loving it. The fact that you let the spider be a spider where spi-
ders live shows that you love it: You let the other arise as a legitimate other
through your behavior. It is your behavior that makes it so that you move
around the spider so it can coexist with you.
We talk about love as if it were special and rare, something difficult to
achieve, but it is a really ordinary thing. But it is special in a different way:
When the emotion of love is there, vision expands. Many, many, many years
ago, I was walking with one of my sons, Alejandro, who was about seven then.
We were going through a field of thistles, and I was opening a space with my
stick by batting the thistles aside. Suddenly, my son asked, “Father, why don’t
you love thistles?” And there I was, stopped, suddenly seeing what I was do-
ing. And when I stopped being aggressive toward the thistles, I saw them:
beautiful violet flowers! I could see a path between them without destroying
them. But the point is that at seven, Alejandro knew exactly the nature of love 59
as a relational behavior. So, we learn this as children—we don’t need philoso-
phy or science or anything.

Emotions Characterize Action

If you think about what happens in your daily life (remember, this is biology,
not philosophy), you will notice that we normally use the word emotion to con-
note a domain of relational behavior. Emotions specify kinds of relational be-
haviors. If you say somebody is angry, you know immediately what kinds of
relational behaviors this person can participate in and what kinds he or she is
incapable of while angry. If you say someone is ambitious, you know immedi-
ately what kinds of relational behaviors he or she can and cannot participate
in. We all know this; we are experts in detecting emotions, whether or not we
are consciously aware of this.
When you distinguish a particular behavior, you distinguish the emotion.
If you want to know the emotion, you look at the behavior. If you want to
know what kind of behavior it is, you look at the emotion. Behavior and emo-
tion are both ways of pointing at relational dynamics; they entail different

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looks, different ways of grasping these dynamics. As we speak of this dynamic,

we do what language enables us to do (that is, we make an object of either
the emotion or the behavior and, having done so, we can look at it). But you
do not have to think about this, you already practice it in daily life: You know
when your friends are angry, when they are joyful, sad, or indifferent. And you
know immediately, either by looking at the behavior or by looking at the per-
son. We are expert at seeing emotions. It is because it comes so easily to us
that we do not see that this is the case; there is usually nothing that triggers
•

us to reflect on the relational dynamics of emoting.

When we talk about emotions, we usually refer to the way we feel under
The Biology of Business

different emotions, rather than what we do. Our bodies do have different con-
figurations in different emotions. We can “touch” ourselves and refer to how
we find ourselves under the different emotions as different feelings. Thus, we
easily characterize emotions by the feelings that accompany the particular
body dynamics that specify what we can do and what we cannot do. This does
not mean that the emotions are body dynamics or that they take place in the
body. Emotions take place in the domain in which they occur, and where they
occur is in the relation.

Emotions Determine Intelligence

Different emotions take us along different paths; we live different histories ac-
cording to our emotions. There is a book called Emotional Intelligence that
speaks of emotions as a particular kind of intelligence and, in a way, emotions
are related to intelligence. I think intelligence is something very basic, a par-
ticular kind of phenomenon that has to do with the plasticity for participation
in changing behavior and changing relations. Rigid behavior, behavior that
does not flow with evolving circumstances, does not appear intelligent. It is the
plasticity of consensual flow that we refer to when we speak about an intelli-
gent being. For example, when we say that an animal is intelligent, we are say-
ing that it has entered into a flow of consensuality, a flow of plastic behavior,
with us. When we say a person is intelligent, we refer to the plastic flow of
whatever relationship the person is participating in, including relationships in
various conceptual domains. Of course intelligence requires a central nervous
system to take place, but it does not take place in the brain, it takes place in
behavior. Intelligence is a basic phenomenon that has to do with the plasticity
for participation in changing relations.
How emotions relate to intelligence is that emotions change the possible
expanse of intelligent behavior. Fear restricts intelligence to
60 a very narrow view; it concentrates attention in a particular
way and constrains the relationship to a particular orienta-
tion. Similarly, ambition and competition restrict attention,
vision, and intelligence. Forgive me for saying so, but if you
think about it, you will see that this is indeed so.

We Are Equally Intelligent

I claim that from a biological point of view we humans are
all equally intelligent, and this is the case because we live
in language. The fundamental neuronal plasticity needed
for living in language is so gigantic that we are fundamen-
tally equally intelligent. This plasticity is not at all the same
sort of thing that computers have; the computers we use
are computing machines, not intelligent machines. They do
not have the plasticity for participation in changing behav-
ior and changing relations that comprises intelligence. Our
languaging brain is enormously plastic, able to generate

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endless recursions in language, creating endlessly new domains of living. Sure,
there are individual variations in realizing this fundamental plasticity according
to whether we have had some malnutrition in our development or brain dam-
age or disease or whether we have lived a life that has put us in situations of
constraint, despair, or rejection.
Our cultural belief that intelligence is something that some people have
and others lack limits what we can do together. Sometimes, a parent, a teacher,
a manager, or a CEO will realize this. If a manager acts in the premise that

•
“people are competent,” he or she immediately initiates a change. If you want
to achieve something that involves other people, you have to accept that we

The Biology of Business

are all equally intelligent or you will not trust that the others will act compe-
tently. If you want autonomous and coherent behavior, you need only open a
space of love, and intelligence appears there. You don’t have to do anything
but accepting that the other is equally intelligent as you, even as he or she has Manuel Manga
Commentary
a different experience, lives in a different way, or has different preferences.
by Manuel Manga
I am impressed by the writings of other
Love Is Visionary consultants who want to contribute to mak-
ing organizational life more humane and
How is it that love expands intelligence? It has to do with vision—not eyesight more productive, and to bring dignity,
but that which we mean when we exclaim, “I see!” Let me give you an example meaning, learning, and community into the
workplace. As a consultant, often I am frus-
from daily life. You may have heard something like this enacted in a play, or trated by the fear, mistrust, and insecurity
you may have lived it yourself. A man comes home from work and, after a little that exist in organizational life. So, when I
while, his wife complains, “You don’t love me anymore! You didn’t notice that read the invitation to comment on
I’ve done my hair!” What is her complaint? Her complaint doesn’t have to do Maturana’s “Love Expands Intelligence,” I
with her hair or her beauty; it has to do with not being seen, not arising in the was excited, but I was also cautious about
whether or not my colleagues and clients
legitimacy of her existence with the other. would hear me. Will this be another fad, like
By the way, this business of the legitimacy of the existence of the other the quality movement? Or a sixth discipline?
does not mean you have to like, or want to be near, the person, being, or cir- Maturana provides us with a new episte-
cumstance to love it: It means that you have to let it be, to see it. mology and a new ontology of human be-
There is an interesting television series called “McGyver;” you may have ings as emotional and languaging beings,
and the impact of these two theories on hu-
seen it. McGyver is the hero in this series; he knows many things, like all of us man relations. This is a new foundation from
do. He knows some physics, chemistry, anthropology, architecture...all sorts of which to understand human beings and or-
things. And, in several episodes, he finds himself trapped somewhere with a ganizational life. This gives us a new per-
companion. They may be in a cave or in a barn that is about to be burned down, spective from which we consultants can
something like that; the point is, they are trapped. His companion may have the observe and facilitate the design of more
humane and learning organizations. Rather
same kind of knowledge about physics, chemistry, etc., but is frightened and de- than seeing emotions as barriers to human
spairs: “My goodness, we are trapped, we’re going to run out of air!” or “The relations, which is the commonsense inter-
bandits are going to come and kill us!” But McGyver? No, McGyver is not fright- pretation of emotions, Maturana claims that
ened, he fully accepts his situation as legitimate. He loves his situation, and thus emotions constitute how we coordinate our
he can see and, as he can see, he can see this little wire here, and this little thing actions and our relationships. In a sense, 61
Maturana is taking us into our biological
there, and all his knowledge is at hand to make something that opens an escape. roots (living systems) of human understand-
If you are fearful, you cannot see; your knowledge is not available, and your in- ing and human relations.
telligent behavior is diminished. As a consultant, I claim that we should
I could have said, “McGyver respects his situation,” and you could think pay attention to this topic of “love” because
of it that way. But you might see that with respect, McGyver might remain a Maturana’s definition of love speaks to a
fundamental human characteristic, not a fad
little more aloof and would not as easily engage with all the little details that or ideal. His “biology of cognition” can pro-
become the tools for his escape. To respect something means that there is a vide us with an epistemological and ethical
particular relational domain that you accept as legitimate, but you are not nec- foundation on which to build humane,
essarily open to the legitimacy of all the relational domains which that person learning, productive, and sustainable organi-
or being or circumstance entails. zations. Building on that foundation, we can
discover other key dimensions of organiza-
What I have just said you can check in your own daily life. We continu- tional learning. Many other writers of orga-
ously live change in the availability of our knowledge, change in our possibili- nizational life have suggested ways to
ties of plasticity in our relations as modulated through our emotions. I do not improve and make organizational life more
think there are different kinds of intelligence. I think emotions modulate the humane. Writers such as Deming, Covey, and
domains of intelligent behavior in which we can operate, and hence our intel- Senge have presented new values, new prin-
ciples, and new disciplines in their efforts to
ligence is expanded or diminished according to our emotions. The only emo- transform organizations. Maturana offers to
tion that broadens vision and expands intelligent behavior is love. use our understanding of ourselves as living

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systems, and as emotional (loving) and Interfering with Vision

languaging beings as a new foundation on
which to apply those disciplines and prin- McGyver could see his situation as he let it be whatever it was. To see, one must
ciples and to build organizational learning. let it be. But this is not always easy as we live in a particular human culture. A
As a consultant, I am curious about how
one operationalizes love. I invite you, the culture is both a rich domain of human living in the present and a historic domain
reader, and other consultants, to generate a of human living in which some things have been hidden as others have arisen. The
conversation about how to operationalize problem with culture is inherent in another peculiar human thing: language. As
love. I can see myself changing my profes- language began to be lived, we began to live in language by constituting objects,
sional title from Organization Design Con- and categories of objects (a new object), and relationships (another kind of object)
•

sultant to Love Consultant. Why not? At

least it would get a conversation going. It between objects. With all this, we could begin to reflect (as we made of our cir-
The Biology of Business

will take courage to speak about love, and cumstances an object) and we could invent purposes and intentions (yet another
to transform the current climate of fear in a kind of object). This doesn’t take place as just a mental exercise, it happens as a
lot of our organizations, especially after all lived world: We live this world of objects and relationships among objects as our
the downsizing and other change fads. human world, our culture. As long as we live the purposes and intentions we have
I suggest the following steps in looking
at how to operationalize love: created as a plastic participation in various relationships in a way that does not
distort what we do, it does not matter. If we make these rigid and demand that
a. Change the mental model by introducing
the “biology of cognition,”
everything we do fit the rigid structure we have devised, or if we focus our atten-
b. Introduce emotions as a legitimate con- tion on the purpose too closely, we distort our ability to live that which we desired
cept, as Daniel Goleman does in his book, when we distinguished what we wanted as a purpose.
Emotional Intelligence. This is, again, a biological discussion, not a philosophical one. This matter of
c. Introduce love as a key principle of lead- attention resulting in distortion is based in the operation of the nervous system.
ership, just as Covey speaks about other
principles of leadership such as integrity
The nervous system is a network of neuronal elements, which operates on excita-
and trust. tions and inhibitions. Every movement we make entails excitations and inhibitions.
d. See love as an equalizer in human relations. In the most simple way, if I contract a muscle, other muscles (the antagonists) are
e. Explain love the way Maturana does, “as inhibited. Further, there is inhibition within the process of contraction of any given
the only emotion that expands human muscle. The point is that this play between excitation and inhibition happens in
intelligence and learning.” That’s good
enough for me.
every movement: Every movement is being inhibited as it occurs. This is why, if
you are learning karate and you want to break a brick, you have to aim below the
I think we are breaking new ground here brick. If you aim at the brick, the force of the blow will be diminished because in-
on which to generate loving and learning or-
ganizations. I would like to join Pille Bunnel hibition takes place before the intended movement is completed.
and Humberto Maturana in conserving our The coordination of excitation and inhibition is involved in all neuronal
humanness, and being part of a cultural activities, including what we call thinking. It is in our neurobiology that atten-
change in which love shows up in spontane- tion on what we do inhibits what we do. This is why learning a task involves
ous ways in organizations and in life. relaxation—not in terms of becoming limp or falling asleep but in terms of re-
laxing your attention, your intent of controlling what you are doing. As you
relax your attention on the doing but proceed in an understanding of what you
do, you allow the actual doing to take place in a manner that uses the circum-
stances as a reference that guides what you are doing. As you become more
relaxed, your doing becomes more fluid, and as it be-
62 comes more fluid it becomes more pristine and, as it be-
comes more pristine, it becomes more beautiful, more
comfortable, and more perfect.
As notions such as purpose, intention, or aim arise,
they become part of what we do. As they become part of
what we do and we begin to attend to them as if they had
a concrete existence, this dynamics of interfering with our
doing through our attention to what we do takes place, to
a greater or smaller degree. Envy, fear, ambition, and com-
petition narrow our attention and our vision and thus re-
strict intelligent behavior.
As I said above, sometimes conditions arise in our cul-
ture so that some bad ideas persist in spite of their bad-
ness. I think competition is one of those bad ideas that is
destructive, and yet it persists. Humans are those animals
that have expanded living in love. We have become depen-
dent on love in the sense that we become ill of body and
soul if love is interfered with. The only emotion that
broadens vision and expands intelligent behavior is love.

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Reflections on Maturana
Maturana’s talk at the SoL annual meeting last year and the appear ance of the fir st
essay in the series “Biology of Business” by Matur ana and Bunnell is gener ating impor-
tant and inter esting conversations of “co-inspiration.” What follows ar e two contribu-
tions to this conver sation.

Commentary by Rafael Echeverrìa

•The Biology of Business

I would like to comment on Humberto Maturana and Pille Bunnell’s article, “Biology of
Business?” (Reflections, vol. 1, issue 1), and on what Maturana is telling us.
I regard Maturana as an outstanding thinker, someone who, I am convinced, will
profoundly change the way we will understand living systems and knowledge in the fu-
ture—and make groundbreaking contributions to systems thinking. His influence on my
own theoretical approach, the ontology of language, has been decisive, and I have
drawn extensively on his notion of the observer. My presentation last November at the Rafael Echeverrìa
Assembly of the World Academy of Art and Science was precisely on the importance of
Maturana’s notion of the observer as a fundamental concept for developing more effec-
tive ways of living together peacefully in a global world.
Reading and understanding Maturana, however, is not always easy; at least, this has
been my experience. When reading his writings, it is important to distinguish his expla-
nations from his way of explaining. His explanations refer to his answers; his way of
explaining refers to the process that generates those answers. One of Maturana’s out-
standing contributions has to do with the fact that not only are his answers highly
original but so is his way of getting to them. Maturana has not only a systemic theory,
he also has a systemic way of thinking that is present in the way he develops his argu-
ments. I call this systemic phenomenolog y.
Therefore, when we read Maturana’s works, we are dealing simultaneously with two dif-
ferent but intertwined domains: what Maturana is “saying,” and what he is “doing” while
he is saying what he says. Both domains offer learning opportunities, but the reading can
be hard, sometimes even quite difficult. I know from experience that his writings often de-
mand a long digestion process to grasp their full meaning. Sometimes, after I have lis-
tened to him or read him for the first time, I am disoriented. I have a sense that something
important was said, but I do not clearly understand what that may be. I can grasp some of
his claims but not others. I have as many doubts as insights. I also reflect for quite a while.
My experience has been that, after a while, many of Maturana’s points that initially
created confusion start making sense, and many of my doubts dissipate. Often, after I
raise an objection, I find that Maturana has shown me a much wider picture than what
I saw initially, a picture that resolves most of the concerns I had brought to his atten- 63
tion. So, I have learned to distrust my initial reactions and to grant him the privilege of
the doubt. I have also learned that the best way for me to dissipate my initial criticisms
has been precisely to raise them.
To my understanding, Maturana claims that we human beings try to make sense of
the present we live in by generating explanations. To explain something means to estab-
lish some coherences regarding our observations of what goes on in the present. Differ-
ent kinds of coherences generate different kinds of explanations. These include both
historical coherences, and coherences that result from interactions that are taking place.
Whenever we resort to explanations based on historical coherences, we propose a
particular kind of story that we call history. We choose an origin, and we link that ori-
gin, through a process of transformation, to our observations of the present. Usually,
when we do this, we concentrate our attention on what changes throughout that pro-
cess, but then we miss a fundamental aspect of the historical process. History, according
to Maturana, “is a process of transformation through conservation.” By concentrating
on change, we often miss conservation. Conservation is what makes a transformation
process a historical process. A historical process is a process undergone by an entity that
has been able to conserve, amid the changes it has undergone, whatever we may con-
sider to be its identity.

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Maturana claims that whenever we resort to historical explanations, we must keep in

mind the systemic relationship between conservation and change. This relationship, he
says, rests on a few systemic conditions, all “valid in any part of the cosmos . . . includ-
ing this earth and humans.” These systemic conditions, therefore, are granted universal
validity, and they should apply to any historical process, any entity. Let’s examine the
two systemic conditions that are mentioned in Reflections, volume 1, issue 1.

First Systemic Condition

“When, in a collection of elements, some configuration begins to be conserved, a space
•

is opened for everything to change around what is conserved.” We can interpret this
The Biology of Business

first systemic condition in different ways. One possible interpretation simply restates
what was just said: “Something begins in the moment a configuration of relations
begins to be conserved, and ends in the moment that the configuration that defines it
stops being conserved.” Or, “all systems exist only as long as that which defines them is
conserved.” This seems to be common sense.
Another possible interpretation displaces attention to the issue of identity, or to “that
which defines” a given entity. Maturana seems to be saying that what grants identity to
an entity is a given configuration of its elements. As long as this configuration is con-
served, the entity will exist, and the changes that the entity undergoes will generate its
history. What is important, therefore, is to be able to specify the entity’s basic configu-
ration in every historical explanation. If that configuration changes, the entity will
disintegrate or be transformed into an entirely different entity. This seems a more inter-
esting interpretation.
Another possible interpretation of this basic principle seems more problematic. When
Maturana says, “When, in a collection of elements, a configuration begins to be conserved, a
space is opened for everything to change around what is conserved,” we cannot infer that
the configuration that “has just begun to be conserved” cannot itself change and, therefore,
cannot stop being conserved, and that everything around what has begun to be conserved
will change. From the moment that “some configuration begins to be conserved,” anything
can happen: Anything can change, and anything can be conserved. If this is the case, this
systemic condition is not establishing anything. There are other possible interpretations of
this principle, and we may even have missed the intended and most important one.
Let’s move to the second systemic condition. Surprisingly, we are now told that in spite
of what was just stated, in the sense that all these systemic conditions have universal
validity and would apply “in any part of the cosmos,” this second condition actually does
not comply with that. We are warned that “the second systemic condition pertains to all
living systems” and that it will be worded as if “it pertains to humans in particular.”

Second Systemic Condition

64 “Human history does not follow the path of resources or opportunities. Rather, it fol-
lows the path of desires or, in more general terms, the path of emotions.” I have some
trouble with this principle. I am well aware that I could be blind to something important
regarding what Maturana is saying. The only way to find it out is by being honest about
my own confusion.
When discussing this principle, I realize that Maturana has not yet told us what he
understands by “desires.” I take this to mean that he doesn’t think it is necessary to
provide such understanding because he is using the term in its ordinary meaning (the
meaning granted by ordinary language). I assume that if he had thought that the term
desire should be given a different meaning, he would have provided it to us. However,
we can help ourselves with Maturana’s use of the term in different contexts within the
same text to get a better understanding of what he means by desire. When explaining
this second principle, Maturana asserts, “What happens is constructed moment by mo-
ment by the character of one’s living, always going in the path of well being, a choice of
comfort, desire or preference.” Later, he states that “in the history of living every mo-
ment, every change, whether it resulted in survival or extinction, has arisen along a
path of preferences.” He uses desires and preferences as interchangeable terms.
I have difficulty accepting this principle, even if I restrict its application to living sys-
tems. What does it mean, for instance, to say that the history of a tree follows the path

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of desires? What kind of desires would a tree have? What does it mean to say that a tree
“prefers” to grow in one direction and not in another? A tree will grow toward the source
of light, but can we say that the tree “desires” light? This sounds anthropocentric to me.
It may make sense to say that the history of human beings may follow the path of
desires—however, can we really claim it always does?—but to claim this is the path fol-
lowed by the history of all living systems is difficult to accept. Unless, of course, we fol-
low into the tautology of assuming that every action taken, every movement performed,
reveals an underlying desire to act or move the way one does. In this case, by definition
we are tightening desires together with actions and movements but, if we do, we cannot

•
use desires to explain action and movement without falling into a tautology.

The Biology of Business

Desires, preferences, and choices are reflective phenomena that only linguistic beings,
beings with the reflective capacity provided by language, can experience. When we
move into living systems with no capacity for reflection, those terms do not make
sense. But even reflective living systems, as happens with human beings, act in
nonreflective ways, as the result of repeating socially learned behaviors. If we accept the
existence of nonreflective actions, can we then say that they follow the path of desires?
Maturana seems to acknowledge what I have just said. Further on in his article, he
says that
To choose, we need to live in language. Animals that do not live in language cannot
choose. To choose means to treat the circumstances as something you can look at from
the domain of your desires, and act according to what you want, wish, or prefer.
Are we missing something her e? If we look again at this second systemic condition,
we see that Maturana equates “the path of desires” with “the path of emotions,” but the
way he himself deals with emotions doesn’t allow him to make this equation. Emotions,
according to Maturana, refer to an observer of relational behaviors. They are what allow
an observer to distinguish a particular domain of behavior. Therefore, emotions do not
belong to the entity that finds itself acting, unless this entity is reflecting on its own ac-
tions. Maturana separates emotions from feelings: Emotions are not what we feel. That
is why he is able to assert that “behavior and emotion are both ways at pointing at rela-
tional dynamics; they entail different looks, different ways of grasping these dynamics”
(italics are mine). How can we then say that “history follows the path of emotions?”
Is this what Maturana is pointing to? We don’t know. Only a broad discussion of his
article can help us better understand what he is speaking about. In doing so, we will not
only learn from him; we may also learn from ourselves. This commentary has been
intended as an invitation for an open discussion about what Maturana is telling us and
about its relevance for deepening our understanding of the way living and social
systems operate.

65
Commentary by Mar cial F. Losada
Humberto Maturana often reminds us that he is speaking as a biologist, not as a phi-
losopher. Nonetheless, his reflections on who we are from a biological perspective have
a depth and scope that far transcend the biological realm. They remind us not only of
who we are, but also of who we can be and how we can learn together.
Maturana distinguishes three periods in history—biosphere, homosphere, and
robosphere—according to what is conserved. What is conserved defines what is stable,
and specifies what can change. In the biosphere, what is conserved is living. The
homosphere is the period we are living now, where what is conserved is human beings.
As we became humans, two characteristics appeared that differentiated us from other
living beings and made the homosphere possible: language and the capacity to love.
The robosphere has the potential to reduce our degrees of freedom. Robots and circum-
stances act in complementary ways. We create robots, but our circumstances evolve
along with ourselves.
As we exist in language, we can reflect. Reflection consists of regarding the circum-
stances in which we are as objects, and looking at them. Language gives us the ability
to do that. We can regard our present as an object and look at it. Living in language, we Marcial F. Losada

REFLECTIONS , Volume 1, Number 2

MATURANA AND BUNNELL

can always choose where we want to go and what we want to be. But to go where we
want to go, we need a space. If there is no space, we find ourselves in prisons. Thus, if
we want to create humans as robots in the sense that we not only specify the behaviors
that we expect from them but also specify the circumstances in which they will live, we
generate unhappiness, suffering, and resentment. As we release these restrictions—let
humans be humans—then creativity, cooperation, and “co-inspiration” appear. If we also
realize that we don’t need control, we have freedom and responsibility.
•

Emotions modulate the domain of intelligent behavior in which we operate. Hence,

The Biology of Business

our intelligence is expanded or diminished according to our emotions. Different emo-

tions constitute different domains of relational behavior. The emotion of love implies
that we really see the other; the other has presence for us. There are no demands, no ex-
pectations. As we let the other be, the other begins to see us also as persons, and can
listen to us. If we truly listen, then the other person can become a co-creator with us,
and we can learn together.
For Humberto Maturana, learning is a transformation in living together, on how we
can live with others. A few years ago, a book that he wrote, El Sentido de lo Humano
(Dolmen Ediciones, Santiago de Chile, 1994), had a great impact on my understanding
of learning and teaching. It includes a poem titled “Plegaria del Estudiante” (“Prayer of
the Student”) that I have clumsily translated and abbreviated (for which I ask for
Humberto’s forgiveness). I offer it in this commentary as a reflection on how we can live
and learn together:

Don’t impose on me what you know.

I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.

The world of your truth can be my limitation;

Your wisdom, my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s learn together.
Let my richness begin where yours ends.

Show me so that I can stand

On your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
Something different.

66 You believe that every human being

Can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
When I ask you to live according to your wisdom.

You will not know who I am

By listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.
Your failure is that I be identical to you.

Volume 1, Number 2, REFLECTIONS

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