ABSTRACT: Over the last thirty years, a new systemic understanding of life has emerged at the
forefront of science. It integrates four dimensions of life: the biological, the cognitive, the social,
and the ecological dimension. At the core of this new understanding we find a fundamental
change of metaphors: from seeing the world as a machine to understanding it as a network.
One of the most radical philosophical implications of the systems view of life is a new
conception of mind and consciousness which, for the first time, overcomes the Cartesian
division between mind and matter.

KEYWORDS: Systems view of life; Systemic thinking; Living networks; Autopoiesis; Cognition;
Santiago theory; Consciousness; Prebiotic evolution