Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
1
The purpose of this article is to claim that what we usually call learning and cognition, are aspects of the spontaneous congruent structural changes that necessarily occurs in the flow of the interactions the living systems and the medium as long as the living systems live. That is, what we explicitly or implicitly claim in this article, is: a) that learning occurs as a transformation in coexistence as an organism lives with others; b) that the adequate behavior of an organism that an observer calls knowing, is in fact the operation of that organism in dynamic structural congruence with the particular circumstances of the medium in which it is observed; and c) that such dynamic structural congruence is at every moment the result of the participation of the organism in a phylogenic and ontogenic history in which organisms and medium have undergone congruent structural changes as a spontaneous consequence of the conservation of the living of the organisms.
There are two words that entail fundamentally different processes in the human relational domain, these are agreement and consensus . Agreement occurs in the explicit stipulation of a coincident behavior, and it occurs as an operation in the flow of coordinations of doings in language. Consensus occurs when some coincident behavior arises in the course of living together as the simple result of that living together. Consensus arises outside the flow of language as a simple result of the structural plasticity of the interacting participants that change congruently in the domain in which they stay living together. If an agreement is not fulfilled, a complaint takes place. If the flow in consensus fails, a surprise occurs.
That which we call intelligence in daily life in our culture is an expression of an assessment of the capacity to participate in a new or an old consensual domain that a person, or in general any living being, may exhibit in the course of its interactions. Thus, all living beings are intelligent, that is, all can participate in domains of consensual behaviors, and differ in the nature of those domains and in the magnitude and diversity of plastic behaviors that they may live.
We human beings do not differ in this of other living beings, but what is peculiar to us in this respect, is that we exist as such in the recursive interlacing of language and emotions.
Language is, according to us, a manner of flowing in the living together in coordinations of coordinations of consensual behaviors, while that which we distinguish as we distinguish emotions corresponds to the different kinds of relational behaviors through which we see ourselves and others moving in daily living. So, we human beings exist in the interlacing of languaging and emotioning, and as our emotions change our languaging changes, and as our languaging changes our emotions change as well, all in a consensual flow that we learn to live in our coexistence with other in the different domains of living that we generate with them in this

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
2 manner of living. We call conversation this living in the interlacing of the recursive coordinations of consensual doings of language with the consensual flow of our emotions. In fact, all that we human beings do and live we do and live in networks of conversations. Thus, medicine, education, engineering, cooking, ... etc., are networks of conversations.
In evolution all changes occur around what is conserved in phylogeny and ontogeny. Or, said differently, what is conserved from one generation to the next determines what can change in the course of evolution. We think that human beings begun their existence in the evolutionary history of our ancestors, when some three million years ago languaging stops being occasional, and the living in conversations begins to be conserved generation after generation through the learning of the children. As this happened the conservation of living in conversations from one generation to the next, opened space for everything else, from the anatomy and the physiology, to the relational behaviors, to change around the conservation of living in networks of conversations. Through this process arose our present nervous system as a nervous system that changed around the conservation of living in conversations in a way that as we exist in language we are all basically similar as languaging beings. And it is through this process that we now live different cultures as different closed networks of conversations.
Finally, we claim that the structural plasticity, and hence, consensual capacity that is required to live as we human beings live in language and in networks of conversations is so large, that all human beings are basically equally intelligent unless they have live malnutrition, brain damage, or severe genetic anomalies that alter the normal brain development. The differences that can be observe in individual human beings in what we call intelligence, or better, intelligent behavior, arise, particularly in relation to learning, through the emotioning that each child happen to live.
The different cultures differ not in the intelligence required to live them, but in the different configurations of emotioning that characterize them as different closed networks of conversations. What characterizes the different behaviors as different kinds of actions are the different emotions under which they arise or they are received. As we said above, we claim that that which we see or distinguish in our daily living when as we speak of different emotions are different kinds of relational behaviors, and that we also can characterize the different emotions precisely in those terms.
Accordingly, that which we distinguish when we distinguish love, corresponds to the domain of those relational behaviors through which another (or oneself) arises as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself . And this while legitimate other is to be understood as the relational condition in which the other does not have to justify his or her existence in relation to us, regardless of whether we like or not what he or she does. In the same way what we distinguish when we see or live aggression, is those relational behaviors through which another (or oneself) is denied as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself, and what we distinguish as we see fear in others or in ourselves, is those relational behaviors through which one lives physiologically and psychically oriented to avoid something as if this were

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
3 menace to one's existence. And, of course, similar characterizations can be made of other emotions.
Emotions determine at every moment the orientation of all relational dimensions in an organism, and thus determine what this can see, do, feel or think. Moreover, we claim that there not different kinds of intelligences, but that emotions modulate what a person can do by determining the relational domain in which he or she is at every moment, and, hence, what he or she can see, hear, smell, touch and think at that moment. Emotions modulate the intelligent behavior of an organism by modulating what is available to it for the generation of its consensual
(intelligent) behavior.
Thus, fear, ambition, competitiveness, shame, anger, ...restrict intelligent behavior by narrowing the orientation of the organism in a way that generates areas of "blindness" by making inaccessible to it all domains that do not pertain to the relational domain of the prevailing emotion. Love is the only emotions that expands intelligent behavior as it consists precisely in the body and psychic dispositions that generates the relational behaviors through which everything arises in it legitimacy and thus becomes visible regardless of whether one will accept it or not. Love is the only emotion that does not carry in it expectations or prejudices, and thus allows to see. In summary, love is the only emotion that expands intelligent behavior by making available to the organism all its physical and intellectual resources.
If we do not become aware that that which we connote when we distinguish intelligence is the structural plasticity that makes possible for an organism to participate with others in the creation or in the operation or in the expansion of an already existing consensual domain, we cannot see the relation of love with the expansion of intelligent behavior. But we cannot see either the relation between love and wisdom. Love does not accepts, expands vision, does not consist in tolerance but in respect; love accepts or rejects in a domain of what others see as wisdom. And wisdom surprises because expands vision in realms where others that do not act in love do not see.
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Question : Is there a difference between intelligence as a
biological phenomenon and as a feature of daily life?
Answer :
We speak of intelligence in daily life when we see in an organism a behavioral plasticity that appears to us as generating adequate behavior in a changing medium. What we distinguish as we distinguish intelligence is primarily a feature of our daily living, and it is in our daily living that we see intelligent behaviors in different relational domains.
The different kinds of intelligent behaviors that we see, are different in what refers to the different operational coherences proper to the different operational domains in which they take place. But in all cases the biological condition that makes those different intelligent behaviors is

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
4 the same: structural plasticity as the fundament for a changing adequate behavior in a changing medium.
An organism exists as such in the circumstances in which it realizes its living in the conservation of its organization and its operational congruence with the medium through its continuous structural change. The medium is at the same time in continuous structural change, and the organism moves in its living following the path in which it conserves its organization and operational congruence with the chnging medium, or it dies. If an organism conserves its organization in a changing medium, an observer may say that it behaves in an intelligent manner.
Each organism exists at the same time in several domains of operational coherences, and, therefore, it lives at the same time in several domains in which an observer will see it performing what he or she will call intelligent behaviors. What an observer sees as intelligent behavior in an organism takes place, accordingly, in the operational domain in which it moves conserving its living at the moment in which it is observed. It is because of this that when the operational domain in which an organism exists expands, the observer will see intelligent behavior commensurate with its structural plasticity in that domain. Therefore, it is due to the structural plasticity of the organism and its coupling to the flow of its interactions in the medium in the conservation of its living, that an organism shows the adequate behavior that the observer calls intelligent behavior.
In summary: An observer sees intelligent behaviors when he or she sees in an organism adequate behavior in a changing medium. Such adequate behavior arises as such in a changing medium when the structural plasticity of the organism in the relational domain in which it is living becomes couple to the flow of structural changes of the medium along the path in which it conserves its organization in that relational domain.
Question : What are the conditions that modulate intelligent
behavior?
Answer :
Emotions modulate the flow of the intelligent behavior of an organism in two ways: On the one hand emotions specify the domain of relational behaviors in which an organism operates at every instant, and on the other hand, emotions specify the sensory openness of the organism determining what it may see, hear, touch, smell or think at any instant in the operational domain in which it finds itself at that instant.
In this way fear, envy, ambition, competitiveness ... restrict, although in different ways, the intelligent behavior of a person because they restrict the scope of his or her attention in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, thinking, in the operational domain in which he or she operates under them. Only love expands the domain of intelligent behavior of a person because it opens the possibility of seeing all in the domain in which the person operates under it because he or she is opened to the legitimacy of all in it. One can say that love opens vision while other emotions generate different kinds of blindness.

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
5
Question : What makes possible that somebody else should live
his or her relations with me in love?
Answer :
That this other should be seen, listened, ... in his or her existence as a legitimate being by me.
Question : How?
Answer :
Seeing and listening somebody else or oneself in his or her legitimacy without need of justification to be seen or listened, are relational behaviors in love.
Question : But, how?
Answer :
Let us consider first seeing. If when we look our attention is oriented by our expectations, we do not see that which lies outside the field of what we expect. That is, we reduce the dimensionality of the domain of relations in which we are. It is only as we release our expectations that other relational dimensions beyond our expectations can become visible because we stop denying them a priori. This can be easily shown in the domain of listening.
There are two manners of attending to what is being said by somebody else. One occurs when one listens to find where what the other says agrees or disagree with what one thinks. If one does that, one in fact listens to oneself. If when listening to an other person one finds oneself remarking coincidences, or that an other person has said the same, one does not listens to what the other person says. The other form of listening occurs when one listens attending to the domain in which what the other says is valid. If one does the latter, one listens to the other and hears him or her from the fundaments from which he or she speaks. If one does this, one listens to the other, regardless of whether one accepts or not what the other says. If while listening one becomes aware of other parallel things that he or she might say, one is in fact listening to the other. Love is the emotion that permits this to happen.
Question : But, how is that?
Answer :
Human beings are usually impeccable in our logic arguments. We rarely commit deductive mistakes. Most of the time when we say that somebody commits a logic mistake, what happens is that such person develops his or her argument as a logic construct founded in different fundamental primary notions than those that we use in our listening. In these cases the discrepancy between the speaker and the listener is not in the domain of logic, but in the emotional domain as both argue from different primary notions accepted a priori. Discrepancies due to deductive mistakes are have no fundamental transcendence and are corrected without the correction being a life threat to one or the other. The discrepancies that arise because the parties involved in them act or think in different domains of operational coherences, while accusing

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
6 each other of being illogical, have no solution and usually result in anger. Therefore, the anger that arises in a disagreement that claims to be rational shows that it is not so, and that the parties involved indeed argue from different basic premises.
Question : What do you mean by basic premises?
Answer :
Every rational argument stand on primary notions accepted a priori, that is, out of the preferences of the person that accepts them. In other words, all rational constructs arise deductively from basic non-rational premises that have been adopted unconsciously in the simple flow of living, or explicitly in an act of choice that arises in the flow of emotions.
Question : What is to reason, then?
Answer :
To reason is to operate according to the coherences of an experiential domain of the observer as these appear abstracted in their description in language. Languaging as a flow in living together in coordinations of coordinations of behaviors embodies the operational coherences of the experiential domain in which the recursive coordinations of behavior take place. It is as a result of this that our living together in language occurs as a flow of languaging that is spontaneously logical in the operational domain in which it takes place.
Question : How is it then that we frequently accuse each other of
not being rational?
Answer :
One always listens from some particular domain of operational coherences listening to the argument as if this were taking place according to the operational coherences of that domain. If the other argues according to the operational coherences of a different operational domain than the one in which we listen, and we are not aware that that is the case, then he or she will appear illogical to us. In order to hear what some body else says, we must listen in the same domain of operational coherences in which he or she speaks.
Question : How one does that?
Answer :
Attending to the domain in which what the other says is valid.
Question : How one does that?
Answer :
In order to hear what some body else says the other must arise in our listening as a legitimate other. What distorts our listening and hides what the other says are our fears, expectations and desires in relation to what the other must do or should be.
Question : How does one listens without expectations, prejudices

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
7
or desires?
Answer :
All listening occurs from the present that the listener lives. Due to this there are always implicit prejudices, desires and expectations that define the course of a conversation.
But that does not constitute a problem. The problem arises when we allows those prejudices, desires or expectations, to determine our listening in a way that attribute to the other notions or ideas that belong to us. It is because of this that the only thing that permits us to hear what the other say, is the inner disposition that allows the other to arise in his or her legitimacy in our listening. The respect for the other is the only condition that gives freedom to accept or reject him or her as an act of self respect. Self respect and respect for the other are the only conditions that permit to attend to the domain where what the other says is valid.
Question : How do reason and emotions and feelings braid with
each other in the listening?
Answer :
As any rational argument stands on basic premises accepted a priori, when one attends to the emotion on which a rational argument stands, one sees its fundaments. That act of reflection, however, is not trivial because to do so in relation to a rational argument that one is developing entails abandoning the implicit blind acceptance of its validity, and constitutes an emotional change that expands our vision and opens our possibility for change or responsible insistence.
Accordingly, our emotioning may both expand or restrict our rational understanding and vision depending on whether we feel sure or not in our self respect. If we feel sure we can reflect, if not, we cannot do so.
Question : Which are the interactions that express love?.
Answer :
Emotions are not expressed, they are lived through the relational behaviors that constitute them.
To ask for an expression of love, is to say that the relational behaviors that realize love are not present. At the same time when someone says that the behavior of some other person is tender or loving, the first person says that he or she sees in the other the relational behaviors that constitute tenderness or love.
Question : Maturana says that we become ill out of lack of love. How is that?
Answer :
Love as the domain of relational behaviors through which another or oneself arises as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself, is a domain of living in which there are distortion of the systemic coherence that constitute well being in fluid dynamic congruence with circumstance of living. Health occurs in the flow of living in dynamic systemic coherences with the circumstances in which there is well being in the implicit trust that those systemic coherences are being conserved and will be conserved. In the absence of love an organism live the continuous breakdown of those systemic coherences, and is us this occurs as a result of mistrust, expectations, fears, uncertainty, envy, ambition or competition. Such a manner of living leads to

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
8 a continuous shift of the anatomical and physiological processes towards a dynamic configuration of internal relations that would compensate the lost systemic coherences.
Question : Is there a difference between love as a biological phenomenon and love a an aspect of daily life?
Answer :
In strict sense there is no difference because love as an emotion occurs as a domain of relational behaviors arising from a body dynamic disposition that specifies the kind of relational behaviors in which a person may participate. What one can say, though, is that from the perspective of the biology one looks at love as an aspect of the relational living of all living beings without any value connotation. Thus, from the biological perspective love is not good or bad, is just an aspect of living that consist in a particular kind of relational behaviors that, of course, has different relational consequences that other emotions such as aggression or fear.
Emotions just happen as domains of relational behaviors in the living organism, it is only us human beings who reflect about them and transform them in sources of recursive emotioning by giving value to them as aspects of our daily life. Moreover, in our daily life we live intercrossing of emotions that modulate the flow of our relations in ways that we speak there were different kinds of the same emotion. Thus, we speak of different kinds of love. I think that that is acceptable when we connote the dimensionality of the emotion with expressions such as respect, friendship and being in love. Respect refers to the basic relation of letting bee that permits seeing the other, friendship entails more dimensions and the desire of doing things together in mutual respect, while being in love entails an orientation to all possible dimensions of coexistence together with the other in mutual respect.
The situation is different when other emotions intercross with love denying it. Thus, fear, possessiveness, expectations, mistrust and demands negate love. There is no possessive love, there is no controlling love or generous love, all these adjective expressions show that love is not there. Love as the domain of the relational behaviors through which another or oneself arises as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself, is visionary, without demands expectations or desire for control precisely because it lets the other be, even if afterwards one chooses responsibly to separate from the other.
Question : What happens with manipulation?
Answer :
Manipulation denies love because entails the use of the other abusing his or her unawareness.
This is why when a manipulation is discover anger arises. Expectations, demands and control deny love in all circumstances, whether in a couple, a family, or in the relation teacher/student.
Collaboration takes place only in love.
Question : Is it difficult to love?
Answer :

Humbero Maturana Romesin and Sima Nisis de Rezepka
University of Chile
9
No, is the most easy and natural thing to do because it appears spontaneously when expectations, demands and fear are abandoned as aspects of the relation. It is because love appears spontaneously when expectations and demands are abandoned, that love reduces distances, dissolves differences and makes collaboration possible. Love is the emotion at the basis of social life and, hence, of democracy as a manner of community living.
Question : Can one love too much?
Answer :
The expression "too much" makes reference to an excess, and we excess in relational behavior when there are demands, expectations or attempts to control. If the expression to much appears to refer to love, then there is no love when that expression is being used, and one speaks of love to justify those demands, expectations, or the fear or mistrust that leads to the attempt of control.
Question : Can love be measured?
Answer :
Love as a domain of relational behaviors cannot be measured because as a kind of relational behavior has no magnitude. What one may consider is the many dimensions of relations under which one wants to be in relational behavior with the other in the domain of love. And for that we have different words in daily life, such as collaborator, friend, or loved one.
Question : Does love entail the intention of giving legitimacy to the other?
Answer :
No! Love is the domain of those relational behaviors through which an other arises in its as a legitimate other in coexistence with oneself as a result of that very behavior without the demand, expectation, or desire that it should be so. It is precisely this what constitutes its spontaneity and what allows the other to live the relation in total implicit trust also without any expectation. The attempt to legitimize the other is lived by the other as a manipulation because it lack sincerity.
Question : How is that?
Answer :
Emotions occur to us, they arise in flow of our living with others in the spontaneity of that coexistence as possible manners of relational behaviors that arise as features of our biological existence generated or modulated in the course of living with others. Our biology makes them possible as some basic manners of relating that have arisen in the evolutionary history to which we belong as mammals and primates, or as modulations and transformation of those basic manners of relating in the course of our individual life histories. We as human beings can become aware of our emotioning and try to control or manipulate them in the attempt that the other does not see what happens t us. But emotions cannot be controlled even though the awareness of them changes our emotional flow. It is because our emotioning appears in all the dimensions of our living and cannot be controlled, that the other sees our emotioning and discovers easily any lack of sincerity.