Viver para viver: sobre o olhar da ciência diante da vida

Abstract

The dissertation discusses important considerations from science on the nature of life, regarding characteristics of order and autonomy in the living world. It first analyses considerations about the immanence of life in Nature, related to the different explicative principies of order through the history of Occidental science. Considerations by Prigogine and Stengers concerning the reaffirmation of the Creative potential of Nature, through the properties of systems far from equilibrium, guide this initial analysis. At a second moment, some contemporaneous reflections regarding properties of living beings are taken up, in order to elucidate the scope and the meaning of the concept of autopoiesis, as suggested by the biologists Maturana and Varela to characterize the organization of the living beings. In this analysis it is also included the implications of the concept that identifies living with knowing, and what is investigated as one "teleology” intrinsic to that definition: living for living. Having these analyses in mind, integration of three elements is suggested to formal educational practice: the exercise of observing circular relation, particularly on living systems and Nature in general; the exercise of “flowing”, i.e., observing the limits of control over the processes which we are part of, while searching for a conscious self-corrective practice; and finally, the self-inclusion of the educator, as a human being and a living being, in the reflections on life itself.