Nous IndexNous Index
ExploreResearchersLabsConferencesFundingPractitionersSchoolsGuides
Menu
  • Explore
  • Researchers
  • Labs
  • Conferences
  • Funding
  • Practitioners
  • Schools
  • Guides

  • Submit a Listing
  • About

AboutSubmit

© 2026 Nous Index

Back to Researchers
Share
FV

№ A3EP

Francisco Varela

Research Director (posthumous) · CNRS / École Polytechnique

Paris, France

Research Areas

Contemplative NeurosciencePhilosophyConsciousness

About

Chilean biologist, philosopher, and neuroscientist who co-developed the concept of autopoiesis and founded neurophenomenology, a research program integrating first-person contemplative experience with neuroscience. Passed away in 2001.

Publications

  • The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience
  • The Tree of Knowledge
  • Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem
  • Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living

Related Guides

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness (HOT)

Rosenthal and Lau's framework proposing consciousness requires higher-order mental representations about our own mental states.

Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR)

Penrose and Hameroff's quantum theory proposing consciousness arises from gravitational self-collapse in neuronal microtubules.

Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)

The search for the minimal neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious percept.

Idealism in Philosophy of Mind

Bernardo Kastrup's analytical idealism and the philosophical tradition arguing consciousness is fundamental, not matter.

Related

Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin

Idealism

Michael Levin

Michael Levin

Neuroscience

Bernardo Kastrup

Bernardo Kastrup

Consciousness