Borders

Autopoietically membranes are important to define the unity of the autonomous system. Given that separation between the system and the environment, then one follows the energy. It goes from outside the unit to inside. Metabolic processes transform it to constituent parts of the unit, which are then incorporated to the system.

That production of self process, is impossible if there is no self, no autonomous system. This border is an abstraction, physically there may exist or not something there. Even in General Relativity, there is nothing in Schwarzschild's Horizon. Nevertheless any object that crosses that boundary never comes out, unless a quantum process à la Hawking lets it out.

In Maturana and Varela's Theory, there is a constant tension between the object and the subject, the inside and the outside, the construction of the self and its decay.

As a friend told me once, life comes one day, and another day it ends.

The great Mexican author, José Alfredo Jiménez, said:

"no vale nada la vida
la vida no vale nada
comienza siempre llorando
y así llorando se acaba
por eso es que en este mundo
la vida no vale nada"

"worthless is life
life is worthless
it always starts crying
and crying it ends
that is why in this world
life is worthless"

Whatever is inside our skin starts to disintegrate as soon as we die.