Autopoiesis vs. Homeostasis — What's the Difference?

The term autopoiesis (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-) 'self', and ποίησις (poiesis) 'creation, production') refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts. The term was introduced in the 1972 publication Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells.

In biology, homeostasis is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and includes many variables, such as body temperature and fluid balance, being kept within certain pre-set limits (homeostatic range).

(systems theory) Self-creation; self-organization.

A state of equilibrium, as in an organism or cell, maintained by self-regulating processes

(physiology) The ability of a system or living organism to adjust its internal environment to maintain a state of dynamic constancy; such as the ability of warm-blooded animals to maintain a stable temperature.

Such a dynamic equilibrium or balance.

The ability and tendency of certain systems to maintain a relatively constant internal state in spite of changes in external conditions; this ability is achieved by the presence of feedback mechanisms which can adjust the state of the system to compensate for changes in the state caused by the external environment. It is exemplified in homeothermal biological systems, such as animals which maintain relatively constant blood temperature and composition in spite of variations in external temperature or the composition of the food ingested.

Metabolic equilibrium actively maintained by several complex biological mechanisms that operate via the autonomic nervous system to offset disrupting changes