Terry Marks-Tarlow, PhD, is a clinical psychologist. She is author of Mirrors of the Mind: Psychotherapist as Artist; Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy; Awakening Clinical Intuition; Psyche’s Veil: Psychotherapy, Fractals, and Complexity; and Creativity Inside Out. She is coeditor of two anthologies – Simultaneity: Temporal Structures and Observer Perspectives; and A Fractal Epistemology for a Scientific Psychology.
In this conversation, she explores the profound implications of autopoiesis and the mathematics of Laws of Form. She discusses how living systems maintain their boundaries while engaging with paradox, recursion, and the role of consciousness in creating distinctions. According to her, these ideas bridge biology, psychology, and mysticism, pointing toward the interconnection of all life and the generative power of paradox.
00:00 Introduction
01:49 Defining autopoiesis
04:44 Consciousness as primary
07:02 Spencer Brown’s laws of form
13:20 Boundaries and distinctions
19:06 Paradox, time, and feedback
23:05 Structural openness and functional closure
29:38 Ouroboros and higher consciousness
40:01 Varela, buddhism, and embodied mind
51:06 Conclusion
New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He currently serves as Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.
(Recorded on September 12, 2025)
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