At the beginning of the last century, it was physicists who revolutionized the scientific worldview. Today, it is biologists who are radically transforming our understanding of cognitive and life processes: they delve into the mystery of consciousness and demonstrate that the observer and the observed, the subject and the object, are inextricably linked in the act of knowing. The world we live in is not independent of us; we literally bring it into existence ourselves.

Among the protagonists of this new way of thinking in the natural sciences is the renowned neurobiologist and systems theorist Humberto R. Maturana. In conversations with communication scientist Bernhard Pörksen, they explore the limits of our cognitive abilities, discuss the truth of perception and the biology of love, and provide a concrete, vivid, and imaginative guide to systemic thinking.