“In general terms, recursion is the process by which systems constitute and reconstitute themselves. Humberto Maturana, a biologist and pioneering contributor to cybernetics and systems theory, differentiates between systematic repetition and recursion in terms of human cognition.”

Dave Ciccoricco, Reading Network Ficiton (excerpt from forthcoming, 2007)

Humberto Maturana was a famous biologist who worked with Francisco Varela for about fifty years in the areas of biology and cybernetics. One of their fields of research involved theories of Autopoietics (Latin) or "self generating" systems. A brief outline of Autopoietic systems is given below.

In general terms self generation systems are living self-organizing systems, which arise spontaneously. These systems produce each other in an operationally closed way becoming self-maintaining.

Four principles of autopeitics systems:

1. Each system is a whole and cannot be reduced to its parts. Its nature and function are formed from interactive relationship of its parts. This synergistic capacity enables emergent properties and new possibilities.
2. Each system is open to the flow-through of information, matter and energy and equilibrium is maintained through self-stabilising processes to compensate or changes in the environment.
3. Each system maintains equilibrium through flux. Pressures from the environment cause the system to fall apart or adapt and reorganise itself.
4. Each system is a whole in its own right and is comprised of subsystems and is simultaneously an integral part of vaster systems. (Particle, cell body, ecosystem.)

Maturana also worked with computers, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence and similar concepts. Concepts of self generating systems based in the systems theory above found application in terms of human cognition. Recursion is evident in the English language when embedded narratives are subordinate to an original narrative frame (RNF excerpt). The key idea is that embedded narratives are built on the basis of the original narratives. If this is repeated there is a progression towards the creation of something ever increasingly complex. An appropriate metaphor is the upward moving spiral (RNF excerpt).

Repetition is a much simpler process such as a dividing cell. A textual example is any text that follows a loop from beginning to end and then to beginning again. The idea is that the process repeats itself regardless of what came before.

The following quote best explains the application of Recursion to a hypermedia context: “Where direction of recursive movement is a given in print texts is predetermined by the order of reading. In a network narrative a linking structure and its underlying code ultimately dictate these flows.” (RNF excerpt)