controversy at the same time as they stimulated new approaches to problems of cognitive research. Together with the contributions of Heinz von Foerster and, in the area of cognitive psychology, of Ernst von Glasersfeld, the model delivered impulses for a new current known as Constructivism or Radical Constructivism. This mode of thought is decisive insofar as it negates any possibility of being able to understand systems by means of analytic and reductionist methods, since it acknowledges the principle of self-organization to be fundamental. Man is part of a world of his own construction, and his life depends on the interactions formed by this interlocking system, or network.

This model, however, aims to avoid tendencies toward an orthodox Constructivist attitude. The risk of research concentrating on internal and autopoietic processes of neuronal organization consists largely in the fact that their model conception refers to a closed apparatus with no knowledge of the external. The brain can be viewed as an operational, self-referential system in the sense of a purely internal function; in the cognitive system, however, interior and exterior (environment) are interrelated. The

acquisition of knowledge, education and culture is dependent on individual experiences of life. Selfreferentiality does not mean isolation, since the systems can be influenced from outside, even if the manner of this influence is determined by their functional organization. [10] Essential to the perception and construction of reality are other processes that produce a model of one’s own body (of the ego), and a spatiotemporal model as well as a model of the place in the time-space. The importance for brain activity of the limbic system—of the emotional and intentional components—makes it clear that the understanding and interpreting of reality are not exclusively the results of neuronal processes.

That which is experienced as reality is socially conditioned, for its construction rests on interaction with other individuals, on consensual domains, on language and culture. In summary it can be said that knowledge is a creative process that depends both on cognition and on interpersonal relationships and interactions with the environment: thus the entirety of knowledge, culture and art is based on the consensus, interactions and networking of individuals constituting