**3. The origin of the autonomous movement and the lived world**

The sequences of movements of an organism in coupling with the environment that are observed in its effective behaviors result from "a very specific correlation coordination between sensory surfaces and motor surfaces, …sensory-motor correlations that originate from the first living beings through metabolic transformations proper to the cellular unit" [1], which in the recurrence and recursiveness of reciprocal interactions with the environment are constituted in sensory-motor learnings that specify ways of interacting in the regularities of changes in the environment, keeping invariant the molecular relations that define the molecular organization that preserves the living unity in adaptation.

By way of example, the feeding behavior of an amoeba about to ingest a protozoon is described by means of the extension of a pseudopod. Pseudopods are expansions or digitations of protoplasm associated to structural changes in the local physicochemical constitution of the cellular membrane. How does the global and unified movement of the animal occur in its structural coupling with an environment in which it is also structurally coupled to it? "The presence of the protozoon generates a concentration of substance in the environment that is capable of interacting with the amoeba's membrane, triggering changes in protoplasmic consistencies, resulting in the formation of a pseudopod. The pseudopod in turn produces changes in the position of the moving animal, thus modifying the number of molecules in the medium that interact with its membrane. This cycle is repeated, and the sequence of displacements of the amoeba, therefore, is produced through the maintenance of an internal correlation between the degree of modification of its membrane and those protoplasmic modifications that we see as pseudopods, a recurrent and invariant correlation is established between a disturbed or sensory area of the organism and an area capable of producing motor displacements, which maintains invariant a set of internal relations in the amoeba." [1].

We can see, on the one hand, how the continuous structural coupling of the organism with the environment generates the congruence between the structural changes of both, and on the other hand, how the movements of the organism generate correlations of specific structural changes between sensory and motor surfaces that establish interactive relations of reciprocity. These relationships are not instructive, they generate a continuous structural change in which the change of one is in relation to the change of the other, moment by moment. Thus, the changes in the motor surfaces generate, in turn, changes in the sensory surfaces, sensorimotor dynamics generating permanent movements that are observed in the proper behavior of an organism in its environment, a process that, as we see, does not consist of a process of capturing and processing information from an external world that operates independently of the organism's operation.

In this way, in the physiological operation of the organism, the modulation of processes of sensorimotor activity is generated, constituting a synchronic coordination of structural changes between local zones of the organism that modulate with each other, resulting in a distributed modulation mechanism from which a state of

*Proprioception*

the living system and the medium." [3].

expressed one in terms of the other". Thus, "[…] behavior of a living system is the interactional and relational dynamics through which a living system realizes its living as a particular kind of organism in its domain of existence […] the structural dynamics of the living systems triggers structural changes in the medium, and at the same time the structural changes that take place in the medium as behavior takes place trigger structural changes in the living system. As living takes place in the continuous conservation of autopoiesis and adaptation by the living system through its behavior, the behavior of the living system operates as the guide in the conservation or loss of the living through the coupling of the structural dynamics of

In this way "what we call behavior when observing changes in the states of the organism in its environment corresponds to the description of the movements of the organism in an environment that we point out." [1]. This means that this environment does not correspond to the world in which the individual lives.

The implication of evidencing the autonomy of living systems, brings a radical epistemological paradigmatic shift by modifying the conception of living beings, since an autonomous system means that it defines itself through mechanisms of self-organization. Therefore, this characterization of living beings modifies fundamental beliefs of the traditional Cartesian, representational and functionalist paradigm that conceives living systems as heteronomous systems, that is, that they are defined - in their conformation and behaviors - through external mechanisms of control (input–output), therefore their world is treated as if it were independent and represented [4]. In this way, classical science defines behavior as responses to external stimuli, being the environment the one that defines the course of structural changes of the living bodies, thus living bodies have no incidence in their evolutionary transformations, for which they would be heteronomous systems. This

"The characteristics of the behavior of an organism -its sensitivity to particular stimuli and patterns of response to those stimuli- are the product of natural selection, just as much as the shape of the teeth or the feedback loop that regulates blood pressure. Therefore, natural selection is the force or active agent that determines the course of evolution of the identity of living beings, being these mechanical organisms lacking the autonomy to specify their behavior and structural changes in relation to the conservation of the molecular organization that defines their living identity, and actively specify the niche in which they carry out their living through their behavior, conserving themselves in adaptation in a structural coupling with

The reformulation of the generative mechanisms of the effective behaviors leads in turn to a reinterpretation of the concept of cognition, which traditionally has been considered as an information processing in which the sensorial surfaces transduce the stimuli of the environment, sending the information to neuronal structures that process it, generating a representation of the state of the world in which the individual is, from which the system selects the effector motor patterns for the appropriate behaviors to the individual's situations, which result from phylogenetic

The autopoietic theory originates a reformulation of the generative mechanisms of effective or adequate behavior of living beings, as well as the evolutionary processes that give rise to the diversity of anatomo-physiological structures that define the identity of living species. The autonomy of living bodies makes them an active agent in the transformation of themselves, as well as of the environment in which they are found; a phenomenon that occurs in the epigenesis of living bodies. The evolution of the history of structural links between organisms and their environment generates reciprocal transformations that lead to the maintenance of a congruence

is exemplified in the following statement by H. Curtis and N. Barnes:

**98**

the environment." [5].

and ontogenetic learning of an adaptive nature.

global activity emerges -of a temporary nature. This global state specifies a coherent and unified cognitive state that determines the behavior of the individual in his/her relationship with the environment; a mechanism in which local changes modulate the state of global activity and, vice versa global states modulate the activity of local areas, without the existence of an external or internal agent or force that controls them. Such mechanisms of sensorimotor coordination are constituted in the operation of every living being with or without nervous system -what varies among species are the types of sensorial and effector structures- of a centralized control or product of an external or internal agent that specifies the states of activity of sensorimotor patterns of the organism, as well as dispenses with the idea of a representation of an external world.

Returning to the behavior of the amoeba in its coupling with the environment in which the protozoon is found, they establish a structural coupling, which from an observer's perspective, the protozoon constitutes the prey as a result of a feeding behavior. This fact that a western human being perceives, observes and interprets from the distinctions of the world of his culture, has no relation with the intentional behavior of the amoeba, since by the way, the amoeba does not distinguish the protozoon nor has perspective of the changing environment, therefore it does not intentionally go towards it with the purpose of swallowing it and thus feeding itself. This anthropomorphic interpretation hides what occurs inside the animal in its structural coupling with the environment, that is, it hides the physiological operation of a cognitive nature of the organism that specifies its changes of states triggered by the disturbances of the environment, in relation to its previous states, a fact alluded to when characterizing said operation as circular and recursive.

In summary, from this systemic perspective, the sensation-movement state of a living body in its environment, in a present, results from the dynamic activity of the sensory-motor operations that gives rise to a global cognitive state - of a temporary character - that specifies the coordinated and synchronic dynamic movement sequences that constitute the coherence and uniqueness of an effective or adequate behavior for the conservation of the organism in adaptation in the structural coupling with the environment. This was illustrated with the case of the amoeba's behavior, showing the origins of the generative mechanisms of the effective behavior of living beings with motility, as well as the cognitive processes that result from their co-evolution with the environment in which they exist.

From what has been said before, we can distinguish that the environment in which an observer distinguishes the amoeba, does not correspond to the world that it lives from its sensorimotor dynamics that are referred to its internal operation, which on the one hand means that the environment that it knows is its interiority and on the other hand that these dynamics that specify the movements in their structural coupling with the environment are generative of the lived world, a world without perspective of its changing environment.

We could say that the living of a body arises spontaneously in a generative movement of its knowing, which Maturana expresses strictly by saying: "to live is to know and to know is to live" [1], which from our perspective alludes to a fundamental fact that reveals the mode of existence of every living being, namely, both life and knowledge arise in the same act.

Therefore, the autonomous movement of animals with motility is a key to the understanding of cognition and the phenomenon of perception in human beings, as we will see in the following section the knowledge of the body in its environment is the source and origin of the way of knowing of human beings: reflection. In this regard the biological origin of human knowledge is evidenced by unifying its nature: corporeal-spiritual constitutive of a living unit.

**101**

*Proprioceptive Perception: An Emergence of the Interaction of Body and Language*

when we approach it through a first way of access, that of philosophy." [6].

Bearing in mind that the world that a living organism feels within its coupling with the environment, it constitutes a continuum of sensation-movement resulting from the cognitive states that emerge from the dynamics of activity of patterns of sensorimotor correlations. These patterns, which are constitutive of the learning process, result from recurrent and recursive movements that are constitutive of the individual's behavior, and determine his anatomo-physiological structure, which specifies his species and his way of knowing and living in his structural coupling

In the -recurrent and recursive- structural couplings between living beings that co-exist in the same environment, it is constituted temporary reciprocal interactions between them, generating mutual learning that modify in congruence the anatomo-physiological structures of them. For this reason, in each temporary encounter between them the autonomous operating of the corporal structure of each one determines the specific movements of their behavior, recreating the structural couplings that occur in these temporary encounters. For example, this phenomenon occurs with symbiosis relations between species. This is the case with the structural correspondence between pollinating insects and the flowers of the plants they pollinate. The plant species Drakeae glyptodon, an orchid species whose structure takes a similar form to the female Thynnid wasp, and in its operation produces pheromones that attract the male wasp which is the only insect vector of its pollination. Thus, in the co-evolution of both species, they constitute a history of structural coupling that constitutes the structural changes that are conserved in

This epigenic phenomenon when it occurs between individuals of the same species gives rise to the constitution of social systems. In the recurrent encounters of two or more organisms, specific action dynamics are synchronically triggered, generating a coordination of action between them resulting in a communication that specifies a particular way of interacting and relating, which defines a domain of possible actions between them. Thus, said systems are constituted in dynamics of networks of coordination of action between individuals, that give emergency to a collective of autonomous beings self-organized, which moves like a totality in congruence to the changes of the environment, inside which the individuals generate behaviors that of isolated form they could not acquire. This is the case of the flocks of Franklin gulls that migrate from Cape Horn to Canada, a flight in which individuals increase their speed of flight by 72%, compared to the speed of flight of an isolated individual, and no further in the case of human beings who, in their social

From the world of the biology of knowledge we reach the world of philosophy. The phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty from his exhaustive studies in the human experience, describes the phenomenology of perception, a study that begins with the conviction that "phenomenology is also a philosophy that re-situates the essences within existence and does not believe that man and the world can be understood only from its factuality" [6]. From his studies of the human perception and behavior, he establishes co-relations between the psychism and physiology that lead him to a reformulation of the classic vision of the body-object, saying: "The union of the soul and the body is not sealed by an arbitrary decree between two external terms; one, the object, the other, the subject. This union is consummated every moment in the movement of existence. It is existence that we find in the body

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95461*

**4. The co-evolution of living beings**

with the environment.

their progeny.

*Proprioceptive Perception: An Emergence of the Interaction of Body and Language DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95461*

From the world of the biology of knowledge we reach the world of philosophy. The phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty from his exhaustive studies in the human experience, describes the phenomenology of perception, a study that begins with the conviction that "phenomenology is also a philosophy that re-situates the essences within existence and does not believe that man and the world can be understood only from its factuality" [6]. From his studies of the human perception and behavior, he establishes co-relations between the psychism and physiology that lead him to a reformulation of the classic vision of the body-object, saying: "The union of the soul and the body is not sealed by an arbitrary decree between two external terms; one, the object, the other, the subject. This union is consummated every moment in the movement of existence. It is existence that we find in the body when we approach it through a first way of access, that of philosophy." [6].
