To illustrate these ideas, consider how Maturana and varela reinterpret the way the human brain and nervous system operate. As we saw in the brain chapter, one of the most familiar images of the brain is that of an information processing system, importing information from the environment and imitating appropriate response. The brain is viewed as making representations of the environment, recording these in memory and modifying the information stored through experience and learning ,In contrast Maturana and Valera argue that the brain does not process information from an environments an independent domain and does not represent the environment in memory. Rather it establishes and assigns patterns of variation and points of reference as expressions of its own mode of organization. The brain organizes its environment as an independent domain and does not represent the environment in memory. Rather it establishes and assigns patterns of variation and points of reference as expressions of its own mode of organization. The brain environment as an extension of itself.