For Varela, such circular phenomena, "usually called vicious circles (circuli vitiosi), are … circuli virtuosi or Creative Circles"[20], which, among other things, ensure the autonomy of natural systems, i.e. their self-regulation or self-control. Autonomy is thus seen "as the expression of a certain kind of 'process'", which represents the mode of being of innumerable "systems" of the natural world, provided that the world is not seen as determined from outside, e.g. by God or a necessary historical process. In terms of epistemology, Varela concludes that the question of the primacy of the subjective or the objective is wrongly posed, and that instead a perspective of participants and interpretation should be adopted, in which subject and object are inextricably linked. This interdependence is made clear by the fact that nowhere can I begin with a pure, unadulterated representation of one or the other."[22] From this perspective, which shows that our experience is in fact "ungrounded", that there are only certain regularities and interpretations that have emerged from our common history, it follows that "Ethics – tolerance and pluralism, detachment from one's own perceptions and values in order to take into account the perceptions of others – is par excellence the basis of knowledge and at the same time its end point"[23].
~
SCHÖNWÄLDER-KUNTZE, Tatjana, Katrin WILLE, Thomas HÖLSCHER und G. SPENCER-BROWN, 2009. George Spencer Brown: eine Einführung in die „Laws of Form“. 2., überarb. Aufl. Wiesbaden: VS Verl. für Sozialwissenschaften. Lehrbuch. ISBN 978-3-531-16105-1, S. 242–243.