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Self-organization, also called
spontaneous order Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. The term "self-organization" is more often used for physical changes and biological processes, while "spontaneous ...
in the
social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...
s, is a process where some form of overall
order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...
arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered
system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random fluctuations, amplified by
positive feedback Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the ...
. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized,
distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...
over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically
robust Robustness is the property of being strong and healthy in constitution. When it is transposed into a system, it refers to the ability of tolerating perturbations that might affect the system’s functional body. In the same line ''robustness'' ca ...
and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation.
Chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have ...
discusses self-organization in terms of islands of
predictability Predictability is the degree to which a correct prediction or forecast of a system's state can be made, either qualitatively or quantitatively. Predictability and causality Causal determinism has a strong relationship with predictability. Perfec ...
in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. Self-organization occurs in many
physical Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally cons ...
, chemical,
biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...
,
robotic Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...
, and
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...
systems. Examples of self-organization include crystallization, thermal
convection Convection is single or multiphase fluid flow that occurs spontaneously due to the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity (see buoyancy). When the cause of the convecti ...
of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal
swarming Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving ''en masse'' or migrating in some direction. ...
,
neural circuit A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks. Biological neural networks have inspired th ...
s, and
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the s ...
s.


Overview

Self-organization is realizedGlansdorff, P., Prigogine, I. (1971)
''Thermodynamic Theory of Structure, Stability and Fluctuations''
London: Wiley-Interscience
in the physics of non-equilibrium processes, and in
chemical reaction A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breakin ...
s, where it is often characterized as
self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...
. The concept has proven useful in biology, from the molecular to the ecosystem level.Compare: Cited examples of self-organizing behaviour also appear in the literature of many other disciplines, both in the
natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatabili ...
and in the
social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...
(such as economics or
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
). Self-organization has also been observed in mathematical systems such as
cellular automata A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
. Self-organization is an example of the related concept of emergence. Self-organization relies on four basic ingredients: # strong dynamical non-linearity, often (though not necessarily) involving
positive Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to: Mathematics and science * Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation * Positive number, a number that is greater than 0 * Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a posi ...
and
negative feedback Negative feedback (or balancing feedback) occurs when some function of the output of a system, process, or mechanism is fed back in a manner that tends to reduce the fluctuations in the output, whether caused by changes in the input or by othe ...
# balance of exploitation and exploration # multiple
interaction Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to: Science * Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition * Interaction (statistics) * Interactions o ...
s # availability of energy (to overcome the natural tendency toward
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
, or loss of free energy)


Principles

The cybernetician
William Ross Ashby W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not ...
formulated the original principle of self-organization in 1947. It states that any deterministic
dynamic system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...
automatically evolves towards a state of equilibrium that can be described in terms of an
attractor In the mathematical field of dynamical systems, an attractor is a set of states toward which a system tends to evolve, for a wide variety of starting conditions of the system. System values that get close enough to the attractor values remain ...
in a basin of surrounding states. Once there, the further evolution of the system is constrained to remain in the attractor. This constraint implies a form of mutual dependency or coordination between its constituent components or subsystems. In Ashby's terms, each subsystem has adapted to the environment formed by all other subsystems. The cybernetician
Heinz von Foerster Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was tw ...
formulated the principle of "
order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...
from
noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...
" in 1960. It notes that self-organization is facilitated by random perturbations ("noise") that let the system explore a variety of states in its state space. This increases the chance that the system will arrive into the basin of a "strong" or "deep" attractor, from which it then quickly enters the attractor itself. The biophysicist
Henri Atlan Henri Atlan (born 27 December 1931 in Blida, French Algeria) is a French biophysicist and philosopher. Early life and education Born to a Jewish family in French Algeria, Atlan gained degrees in medicine and biophysics at the University of Pari ...
developed this concept by proposing the principle of "
complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to ch ...
from noise" (french: le principe de complexité par le bruit) first in the 1972 book ''L'organisation biologique et la théorie de l'information'' and then in the 1979 book ''Entre le cristal et la fumée''. The physicist and chemist
Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Biogra ...
formulated a similar principle as "order through fluctuations" or "order out of chaos". It is applied in the method of
simulated annealing Simulated annealing (SA) is a probabilistic technique for approximating the global optimum of a given function. Specifically, it is a metaheuristic to approximate global optimization in a large search space for an optimization problem. It ...
for
problem solving Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
and
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machin ...
.


History

The idea that the dynamics of a system can lead to an increase in its organization has a long history. The ancient
atomists Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism and its atoms a ...
such as
Democritus Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. N ...
and
Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ;  – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
believed that a designing intelligence is unnecessary to create order in nature, arguing that given enough time and space and matter, order emerges by itself. The philosopher
René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathem ...
presents self-organization hypothetically in the fifth part of his 1637 ''
Discourse on Method ''Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences'' (french: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographica ...
''. He elaborated on the idea in his unpublished work ''
The World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
''.
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aes ...
used the term "self-organizing" in his 1790 ''
Critique of Judgment The ''Critique of Judgment'' (german: Kritik der Urteilskraft), also translated as the ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', is a 1790 book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Sometimes referred to as the "third critique," the ''Critique o ...
'', where he argued that
teleology Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton C ...
is a meaningful concept only if there exists such an entity whose parts or "organs" are simultaneously ends and means. Such a system of organs must be able to behave as if it has a mind of its own, that is, it is capable of governing itself. Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) and
Rudolf Clausius Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (; 2 January 1822 – 24 August 1888) was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle ...
(1822–1888) discovered the
second law of thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal experience concerning heat and energy interconversions. One simple statement of the law is that heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects (or "downhill"), unless ...
in the 19th century. It states that total
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
, sometimes understood as disorder, will always increase over time in an
isolated system In physical science, an isolated system is either of the following: # a physical system so far removed from other systems that it does not interact with them. # a thermodynamic system enclosed by rigid immovable walls through which neither ...
. This means that a system cannot spontaneously increase its order without an external relationship that decreases order elsewhere in the system (e.g. through consuming the low-entropy energy of a battery and diffusing high-entropy heat). 18th-century thinkers had sought to understand the "universal laws of form" to explain the observed forms of living organisms. This idea became associated with
Lamarckism Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...
and fell into disrepute until the early 20th century, when
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical and theoretical biology, travelled on expeditions to the Bering Strait an ...
(1860–1948) attempted to revive it. The psychiatrist and engineer
W. Ross Ashby W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not ...
introduced the term "self-organizing" to contemporary science in 1947. It was taken up by the cyberneticians
Heinz von Foerster Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was tw ...
,
Gordon Pask Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask (28 June 1928 – 29 March 1996) was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and ...
,
Stafford Beer Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics. Bi ...
; and von Foerster organized a conference on "The Principles of Self-Organization" at the University of Illinois' Allerton Park in June, 1960 which led to a series of conferences on Self-Organizing Systems.
Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...
took up the idea in the second edition of his ''Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'' (1961). Self-organization was associated with
general systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
in the 1960s, but did not become commonplace in the scientific literature until physicists
Hermann Haken Hermann Haken (born 12 July 1927) is physicist and professor emeritus in theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart. He is known as the founder of synergetics. He is a cousin of the mathematician Wolfgang Haken, who proved the Four c ...
et al. and
complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
s researchers adopted it in a greater picture from cosmology Erich Jantsch, chemistry with
dissipative system A dissipative system is a thermodynamically open system which is operating out of, and often far from, thermodynamic equilibrium in an environment with which it exchanges energy and matter. A tornado may be thought of as a dissipative system. Dis ...
, biology and sociology as
autopoiesis The term autopoiesis () refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts. The term was introduced in the 1972 publication '' Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living'' by Chilean biologists ...
to
system thinking Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
in the following 1980s (
Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...
) and 1990s (
complex adaptive system A complex adaptive system is a system that is ''complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is ''adaptive'' in that the individ ...
), until our days with the disruptive
emerging technologies Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies ...
profounded by a rhizomatic
network theory Network theory is the study of graphs as a representation of either symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between discrete objects. In computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory: a network can be defi ...
. Around 2008–2009, a concept of guided self-organization started to take shape. This approach aims to regulate self-organization for specific purposes, so that a
dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...
may reach specific attractors or outcomes. The regulation constrains a self-organizing process within a
complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
by restricting local interactions between the system components, rather than following an explicit control mechanism or a global design blueprint. The desired outcomes, such as increases in the resultant internal structure and/or functionality, are achieved by combining task-independent global objectives with task-dependent constraints on local interactions.


By field


Physics

The many self-organizing phenomena in
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relat ...
include
phase transition In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states o ...
s and
spontaneous symmetry breaking Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a spontaneous process of symmetry breaking, by which a physical system in a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric state. In particular, it can describe systems where the equations of motion or t ...
such as
spontaneous magnetization Spontaneous magnetization is the appearance of an ordered spin state (magnetization) at zero applied magnetic field in a ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic material below a critical point called the Curie temperature or . Overview Heated to tempera ...
and
crystal growth A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization process, and consists of the ...
in
classical physics Classical physics is a group of physics theories that predate modern, more complete, or more widely applicable theories. If a currently accepted theory is considered to be modern, and its introduction represented a major paradigm shift, then the ...
, and the
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...
,
superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...
and
Bose–Einstein condensation Bose–Einstein may refer to: * Bose–Einstein condensate ** Bose–Einstein condensation (network theory) * Bose–Einstein correlations * Bose–Einstein statistics In quantum statistics, Bose–Einstein statistics (B–E statistics) describ ...
in
quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, q ...
. It is found in
self-organized criticality Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of dynamical systems that have a critical point as an attractor. Their macroscopic behavior thus displays the spatial or temporal scale-invariance characteristic of the critical point of a phas ...
in
dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...
s, in
tribology Tribology is the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion. It includes the study and application of the principles of friction, lubrication and wear. Tribology is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on many academic field ...
, in
spin foam In physics, the topological structure of spinfoam or spin foam consists of two-dimensional faces representing a configuration required by functional integration to obtain a Feynman's path integral description of quantum gravity. These structu ...
systems, and in
loop quantum gravity Loop quantum gravity (LQG) is a theory of quantum gravity, which aims to merge quantum mechanics and general relativity, incorporating matter of the Standard Model into the framework established for the pure quantum gravity case. It is an attem ...
, river basins and deltas, in dendritic solidification (snow flakes), in capillary imbibition and in turbulent structure.


Chemistry

Self-organization in chemistry includes
molecular self-assembly In chemistry and materials science, molecular self-assembly is the process by which molecules adopt a defined arrangement without guidance or management from an outside source. There are two types of self-assembly: intramolecular and intermole ...
, reaction–diffusion systems and
oscillating reaction A chemical oscillator is a complex mixture of reacting chemical compounds in which the concentration of one or more components exhibits periodic changes. They are a class of reactions that serve as an example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics wi ...
s,
autocatalytic A single chemical reaction is said to be autocatalytic if one of the reaction products is also a catalyst for the same or a coupled reaction.Steinfeld J.I., Francisco J.S. and Hase W.L. ''Chemical Kinetics and Dynamics'' (2nd ed., Prentice-Hall 199 ...
networks,
liquid crystal Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal may flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a crystal-like way. Th ...
s, grid complexes, colloidal crystals,
self-assembled monolayer Self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of organic molecules are molecular assemblies formed spontaneously on surfaces by adsorption and are organized into more or less large ordered domains. In some cases molecules that form the monolayer do not interact ...
s,
micelle A micelle () or micella () (plural micelles or micellae, respectively) is an aggregate (or supramolecular assembly) of surfactant amphipathic lipid molecules dispersed in a liquid, forming a colloidal suspension (also known as associated coll ...
s, microphase separation of block
copolymer In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are some ...
s, and
Langmuir–Blodgett film A Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) film is a nanostructured system formed when Langmuir films—or Langmuir monolayers (LM)—are transferred from the liquid-gas interface to solid supports during the vertical passage of the support through the monolayers ...
s.


Biology

Self-organization in
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
can be observed in spontaneous folding of proteins and other biomacromolecules,
self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...
of
lipid bilayer The lipid bilayer (or phospholipid bilayer) is a thin polar membrane made of two layers of lipid molecules. These membranes are flat sheets that form a continuous barrier around all cells. The cell membranes of almost all organisms and many vi ...
membranes,
pattern formation The science of pattern formation deals with the visible, ( statistically) orderly outcomes of self-organization and the common principles behind similar patterns in nature. In developmental biology, pattern formation refers to the generation of ...
and
morphogenesis Morphogenesis (from the Greek ''morphê'' shape and ''genesis'' creation, literally "the generation of form") is the biological process that causes a cell, tissue or organism to develop its shape. It is one of three fundamental aspects of devel ...
in
developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of stem c ...
, the coordination of human movement,
social behaviour Social behavior is behavior among two or more organisms within the same species, and encompasses any behavior in which one member affects the other. This is due to an interaction among those members. Social behavior can be seen as similar to an ...
in
insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of ...
s (
bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfami ...
s,
ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,0 ...
s,
termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattode ...
s) and
mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
s, and flocking behaviour in birds and fish. The mathematical biologist
Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylv ...
and other
structuralists In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader s ...
have suggested that self-organization may play roles alongside
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charl ...
in three areas of
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life form ...
, namely
population dynamics Population dynamics is the type of mathematics used to model and study the size and age composition of populations as dynamical systems. History Population dynamics has traditionally been the dominant branch of mathematical biology, which has a ...
,
molecular evolution Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics ...
, and
morphogenesis Morphogenesis (from the Greek ''morphê'' shape and ''genesis'' creation, literally "the generation of form") is the biological process that causes a cell, tissue or organism to develop its shape. It is one of three fundamental aspects of devel ...
. However, this does not take into account the essential role of
energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat ...
in driving biochemical reactions in cells. The systems of reactions in any cell are self-catalyzing but not simply self-organizing as they are thermodynamically open systems relying on a continuous input of energy. Self-organization is not an alternative to natural selection, but it constrains what evolution can do and provides mechanisms such as the self-assembly of membranes which evolution then exploits. The evolution of order in living systems and the generation of order in certain non-living systems was proposed to obey a common fundamental principal called “the Darwinian dynamic” that was formulated by first considering how microscopic order is generated in simple non-biological systems that are far from
thermodynamic equilibrium Thermodynamic equilibrium is an axiomatic concept of thermodynamics. It is an internal state of a single thermodynamic system, or a relation between several thermodynamic systems connected by more or less permeable or impermeable walls. In ther ...
. Consideration was then extended to short, replicating
RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohyd ...
molecules assumed to be similar to the earliest forms of life in the
RNA world The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth, in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins. The term also refers to the hypothesis that posits the existence ...
. It was shown that the underlying order-generating processes of self-organization in the non-biological systems and in replicating RNA are basically similar.


Cosmology

In his 1995 conference paper "Cosmology as a problem in critical phenomena"
Lee Smolin Lee Smolin (; born June 6, 1955) is an American theoretical physicist, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo and a member of the graduate faculty of the ...
said that several cosmological objects or phenomena, such as
spiral galaxies Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''galaxy formation The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have gen ...
processes in general, early structure formation,
quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...
and the large scale structure of the universe might be the result of or have involved certain degree of self-organization. He argues that self-organized systems are often
critical system A critical system is a system which must be highly reliable and retain this reliability as it evolves without incurring prohibitive costs. There are four types of critical systems: safety critical, mission critical, business critical and secur ...
s, with structure spreading out in space and time over every available scale, as shown for example by
Per Bak Per Bak (8 December 1948 – 16 October 2002) was a Danish theoretical physicist who coauthored the 1987 academic paper that coined the term "self-organized criticality." Life and work After receiving his Ph.D. from the Technical University o ...
and his collaborators. Therefore, because the distribution of matter in the universe is more or less scale invariant over many orders of magnitude, ideas and strategies developed in the study of self-organized systems could be helpful in tackling certain unsolved problems in cosmology and astrophysics.


Computer science

Phenomena from mathematics and computer science such as
cellular automata A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
,
random graph In mathematics, random graph is the general term to refer to probability distributions over graphs. Random graphs may be described simply by a probability distribution, or by a random process which generates them. The theory of random graphs l ...
s, and some instances of
evolutionary computation In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they ...
and
artificial life Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry ...
exhibit features of self-organization. In
swarm robotics Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between ...
, self-organization is used to produce emergent behavior. In particular the theory of random graphs has been used as a justification for self-organization as a general principle of complex systems. In the field of
multi-agent systems A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework fo ...
, understanding how to engineer systems that are capable of presenting self-organized behavior is an active research area.
Optimization algorithm Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...
s can be considered self-organizing because they aim to find the optimal solution to a problem. If the solution is considered as a state of the iterative system, the optimal solution is the selected, converged structure of the system. Self-organizing networks include
small-world network A small-world network is a type of mathematical graph in which most nodes are not neighbors of one another, but the neighbors of any given node are likely to be neighbors of each other and most nodes can be reached from every other node by a sm ...
s
self-stabilization Self-stabilization is a concept of fault-tolerance in distributed systems. Given any initial state, a self-stabilizing distributed system will end up in a correct state in a finite number of execution steps. At first glance, the guarantee of self ...
and
scale-free network A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction ''P''(''k'') of nodes in the network having ''k'' connections to other nodes goes for large values of ''k'' as : P(k) ...
s. These emerge from bottom-up interactions, unlike top-down hierarchical networks within organizations, which are not self-organizing. Cloud computing systems have been argued to be inherently self-organising, but while they have some autonomy, they are not self-managing as they do not have the goal of reducing their own complexity.


Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher i ...
regarded the automatic serial
identification Identification or identify may refer to: *Identity document, any document used to verify a person's identity Arts, entertainment and media * ''Identify'' (album) by Got7, 2014 * "Identify" (song), by Natalie Imbruglia, 1999 * Identification ( ...
of a
black box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...
and its subsequent reproduction as self-organization in
cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson ma ...
. The importance of
phase locking In mathematics, particularly in dynamical systems, Arnold tongues (named after Vladimir Arnold) Section 12 in page 78 has a figure showing Arnold tongues. are a pictorial phenomenon that occur when visualizing how the rotation number of a dynamic ...
or the "attraction of frequencies", as he called it, is discussed in the 2nd edition of his '' Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine''.
K. Eric Drexler Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for studies of the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and ...
sees
self-replication Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and ca ...
as a key step in nano and universal assembly. By contrast, the four concurrently connected galvanometers of
W. Ross Ashby W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not ...
's
Homeostat The Homeostat is one of the first devices capable of adapting itself to the environment; it exhibited behaviours such as habituation, reinforcement and learning through its ability to maintain homeostasis in a changing environment. It was built b ...
hunt Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, ...
, when perturbed, to converge on one of many possible stable states. Ashby used his state counting measure of
variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
to describe stable states and produced the "
Good Regulator The good regulator is a theorem conceived by Roger C. Conant and W. Ross Ashby that is central to cybernetics. Originally stated that "every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system", but more accurately, every good regulator must ...
" theorem which requires internal models for self-organized
endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from a ...
and stability (e.g.
Nyquist stability criterion In control theory and stability theory, the Nyquist stability criterion or Strecker–Nyquist stability criterion, independently discovered by the German electrical engineer at Siemens in 1930 and the Swedish-American electrical engineer Harr ...
).
Warren McCulloch Warren Sturgis McCulloch (November 16, 1898 – September 24, 1969) was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement.Ken Aizawa ( ...
proposed "Redundancy of Potential Command" as characteristic of the organization of the brain and human nervous system and the necessary condition for self-organization.
Heinz von Foerster Heinz von Foerster ( German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was tw ...
proposed Redundancy, ''R''=1 − ''H''/''H''max, where ''H'' is
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...
. In essence this states that unused potential communication bandwidth is a measure of self-organization. In the 1970s
Stafford Beer Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics. Bi ...
considered self-organization necessary for
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
in persisting and living systems. He applied his
viable system model The viable system model (VSM) is a model of the organizational structure of any autonomous system capable of producing itself. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. O ...
to management. It consists of five parts: the monitoring of performance of the survival processes (1), their management by recursive application of regulation (2),
homeostatic In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...
operational control (3) and development (4) which produce maintenance of identity (5) under environmental perturbation. Focus is prioritized by an alerting "algedonic loop" feedback: a sensitivity to both pain and pleasure produced from under-performance or over-performance relative to a standard capability. In the 1990s
Gordon Pask Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask (28 June 1928 – 29 March 1996) was an English author, inventor, educational theorist, cybernetician and psychologist who made contributions to cybernetics, instructional psychology, experimental epistemology and ...
argued that von Foerster's H and Hmax were not independent, but interacted via
countably infinite In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Equivalently, a set is ''countable'' if there exists an injective function from it into the natural number ...
recursive concurrent
spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
processes which he called concepts. His strict definition of concept "a procedure to bring about a relation" permitted his theorem "Like concepts repel, unlike concepts attract" to state a general spin-based principle of self-organization. His edict, an exclusion principle, "There are No Doppelgangers" means no two concepts can be the same. After sufficient time, all concepts attract and coalesce as
pink noise Pink noise or noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave interval (halving or ...
. The theory applies to all organizationally
closed Closed may refer to: Mathematics * Closure (mathematics), a set, along with operations, for which applying those operations on members always results in a member of the set * Closed set, a set which contains all its limit points * Closed interval, ...
or homeostatic processes that produce
enduring Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from ...
and
coherent Coherence, coherency, or coherent may refer to the following: Physics * Coherence (physics), an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally and spatially constant) interference * Coherence (units of measurement), a deriv ...
products which evolve, learn and adapt.


Human society

The self-organizing behaviour of social animals and the self-organization of simple mathematical structures both suggest that self-organization should be expected in human
society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societi ...
. Tell-tale signs of self-organization are usually statistical properties shared with self-organizing physical systems. Examples such as
critical mass In nuclear engineering, a critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties (specifically, its nuclear fiss ...
, herd behaviour,
groupthink Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesivene ...
and others, abound in
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
, economics,
behavioral finance Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...
and
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
. In social theory, the concept of self-referentiality has been introduced as a sociological application of self-organization theory by
Niklas Luhmann Niklas Luhmann (; ; December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory. Biography Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Free State of Prussia, where his father's fa ...
(1984). For Luhmann the elements of a social system are self-producing communications, i.e. a communication produces further communications and hence a social system can reproduce itself as long as there is dynamic communication. For Luhmann, human beings are sensors in the environment of the system. Luhmann developed an evolutionary theory of society and its subsystems, using functional ''analyses'' and systems ''theory''. In economics, a
market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers are ...
is sometimes said to be self-organizing.
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...
has written on the role that market self-organization plays in the business cycle in his book "The Self Organizing Economy".
Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
coined the term '' catallaxy'' to describe a "self-organizing system of voluntary co-operation", in regards to the spontaneous order of the free market economy. Neo-classical economists hold that imposing
central planning A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, parti ...
usually makes the self-organized economic system less efficient. On the other end of the spectrum, economists consider that
market failure In neoclassical economics, market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto efficient, often leading to a net loss of economic value. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where indiv ...
s are so significant that self-organization produces bad results and that the state should direct production and pricing. Most economists adopt an intermediate position and recommend a mixture of market economy and
command economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...
characteristics (sometimes called a
mixed economy A mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of a market economy with elements of a planned economy, markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise. Common to all mixed economies ...
). When applied to economics, the concept of self-organization can quickly become ideologically imbued.


In learning

Enabling others to "learn how to learn" is often taken to mean instructing them how to submit to being taught. Self-organised learning (S.O.L.) denies that "the expert knows best" or that there is ever "the one best method", insisting instead on "the construction of personally significant, relevant and viable meaning" to be tested experientially by the learner. This may be collaborative, and more rewarding personally. It is seen as a lifelong process, not limited to specific learning environments (home, school, university) or under the control of authorities such as parents and professors. It needs to be tested, and intermittently revised, through the personal experience of the learner. It need not be restricted by either consciousness or language.
Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
argued that it is poorly recognised within psychology and education. It may be related to cybernetics as it involves a
negative feedback Negative feedback (or balancing feedback) occurs when some function of the output of a system, process, or mechanism is fed back in a manner that tends to reduce the fluctuations in the output, whether caused by changes in the input or by othe ...
control loop,Pask, G. (1973). ''Conversation, Cognition and Learning. A Cybernetic Theory and Methodology''. Elsevier or to
systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
. It can be conducted as a learning conversation or
dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is ch ...
between learners or within one person.


Traffic flow

The self-organizing behavior of drivers in
traffic flow In mathematics and transportation engineering, traffic flow is the study of interactions between travellers (including pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and their vehicles) and infrastructure (including highways, signage, and traffic control dev ...
determines almost all the spatiotemporal behavior of traffic, such as traffic breakdown at a highway bottleneck, highway capacity, and the emergence of moving traffic jams. In 1996–2002 these complex self-organizing effects were explained by Boris Kerner's
three-phase traffic theory Three-phase traffic theory is a theory of traffic flow developed by Boris Kerner between 1996 and 2002. It focuses mainly on the explanation of the physics of traffic breakdown and resulting congested traffic on highways. Kerner describes three ph ...
.


In linguistics

Order appears spontaneously in the
evolution of language The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study th ...
as individual and population behaviour interacts with biological evolution.


In research funding

Self-organized funding allocation (SOFA) is a method of distributing
funding Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses ...
for scientific
research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
. In this system, each researcher is allocated an equal amount of funding, and is required to anonymously allocate a fraction of their funds to the research of others. Proponents of SOFA argue that it would result in similar distribution of funding as the present grant system, but with less overhead. In 2016, a test pilot of SOFA began in the Netherlands.


Criticism

Heinz Pagels Heinz Rudolf Pagels (February 19, 1939 – July 23, 1988) was an American physicist, an associate professor of physics at Rockefeller University, the executive director and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, and president ...
, in a 1985 review of
Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Biogra ...
and
Isabelle Stengers Isabelle Stengers (; ; born 1949) is a Belgian philosopher, noted for her work in the philosophy of science. Trained as a chemist, she has collaborated with Russian-Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine and French philosopher/sociologist Bruno Latour am ...
's book ''Order Out of Chaos'' in ''
Physics Today ''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society. I ...
'', appeals to authority: Of course, Blumenfeld does not answer the further question of how those program-like structures emerge in the first place. His explanation leads directly to infinite regress. In
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
,
Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known w ...
(1225–1274) in his ''
Summa Theologica The ''Summa Theologiae'' or ''Summa Theologica'' (), often referred to simply as the ''Summa'', is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all of the main t ...
'' assumes a
teleological Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton C ...
created universe in rejecting the idea that something can be a self-sufficient cause of its own organization:Article 3. Whether God exists?
newadvent.org


See also

*
Autopoiesis The term autopoiesis () refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts. The term was introduced in the 1972 publication '' Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living'' by Chilean biologists ...
*
Autowave Autowaves are self-supporting non-linear waves in active media (i.e. those that provide distributed energy sources). The term is generally used in processes where the waves carry relatively low energy, which is necessary for synchronization or ...
*
Self-organized criticality control In applied physics, the concept of controlling self-organized criticality refers to the control of processes by which a self-organized system dissipates energy. The objective of the control is to reduce the probability of occurrence of and size ...
*
Free energy principle The free energy principle is a mathematical principle in biophysics and cognitive science that provides a formal account of the representational capacities of physical systems: that is, why things that exist look as if they track properties of the ...
*
Information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...
* Constructal law *
Swarm intelligence Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in ...
*
Practopoiesis An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either conti ...


Notes


References


Further reading

*
W. Ross Ashby W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not ...
(1966), ''Design for a Brain'', Chapman & Hall, 2nd edition. *
Per Bak Per Bak (8 December 1948 – 16 October 2002) was a Danish theoretical physicist who coauthored the 1987 academic paper that coined the term "self-organized criticality." Life and work After receiving his Ph.D. from the Technical University o ...
(1996),
How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality
', Copernicus Books. * Philip Ball (1999),
The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature
', Oxford University Press. *
Stafford Beer Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics. Bi ...
, Self-organization as
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...
: ''Brain of the Firm'' 2nd edition Wiley 1981 and ''Beyond Dispute'' Wiley 1994. * Adrian Bejan (2000), ''Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 324 pp. * Mark Buchanan (2002), ''Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks'' W. W. Norton & Company. * Scott Camazine, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Nigel R. Franks, James Sneyd, Guy Theraulaz, & Eric Bonabeau (2001
''Self-Organization in Biological Systems''
Princeton Univ Press. * Falko Dressler (2007)
''Self-Organization in Sensor and Actor Networks''
Wiley & Sons. *
Manfred Eigen Manfred Eigen (; 9 May 1927 – 6 February 2019) was a German biophysical chemist who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on measuring fast chemical reactions. Eigen's research helped solve major problems in physical chemistry and ...
and
Peter Schuster Peter K. Schuster (born 7 March 1941) is a theoretical chemist known for his work with the German Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen in developing the quasispecies model. His work has made great strides in the understanding of viruses and their replic ...
(1979), ''The Hypercycle: A principle of natural self-organization'', Springer. * Myrna Estep (2003), ''A Theory of Immediate Awareness: Self-Organization and Adaptation in Natural Intelligence'', Kluwer Academic Publishers. * Myrna L. Estep (2006), ''Self-Organizing Natural Intelligence: Issues of Knowing, Meaning, and Complexity'', Springer-Verlag. * J. Doyne Farmer et al. (editors) (1986), "Evolution, Games, and Learning: Models for Adaptation in Machines and Nature", in: ''Physica D'', Vol 22. *
Carlos Gershenson Carlos Gershenson (born September 29, 1978) is a Mexican researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His academic interests include self-organizing systems, complexity, and artificial life. Biography Gershenson was born Se ...
and
Francis Heylighen Francis Paul Heylighen (born 27 September 1960) is a Belgian cyberneticist investigating the emergence and evolution of intelligent organization. He presently works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Dutch-speaking F ...
(2003)
"When Can we Call a System Self-organizing?"
In Banzhaf, W, T. Christaller, P. Dittrich, J. T. Kim, and J. Ziegler, Advances in Artificial Life, 7th European Conference, ECAL 2003, Dortmund, Germany, pp. 606–14. LNAI 2801. Springer. *
Hermann Haken Hermann Haken (born 12 July 1927) is physicist and professor emeritus in theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart. He is known as the founder of synergetics. He is a cousin of the mathematician Wolfgang Haken, who proved the Four c ...
(1983) ''Synergetics: An Introduction. Nonequilibrium Phase Transition and Self-Organization in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology'', Third Revised and Enlarged Edition, Springer-Verlag. *
F.A. Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek ...
''Law, Legislation and Liberty'', RKP, UK. *
Francis Heylighen Francis Paul Heylighen (born 27 September 1960) is a Belgian cyberneticist investigating the emergence and evolution of intelligent organization. He presently works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Dutch-speaking F ...
(2001)
"The Science of Self-organization and Adaptivity"
* Arthur Iberall (2016), ''Homeokinetics: The Basics'', Strong Voices Publishing, Medfield, Massachusetts. * Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen (1998), ''Self-Organized Criticality: Emergent Complex Behaviour in Physical and Biological Systems'', Cambridge Lecture Notes in Physics 10, Cambridge University Press. *
Steven Berlin Johnson Steven Berlin Johnson (born June 6, 1968) is an American popular science author and media theorist. Education Steven grew up in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School. He completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University, ...
(2001), '' Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software''. *
Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylv ...
(1995), ''At Home in the Universe'', Oxford University Press. *
Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylv ...
(1993), ''Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution'' Oxford University Press. * J. A. Scott Kelso (1995), ''Dynamic Patterns: The self-organization of brain and behavior'', The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. * J. A. Scott Kelso & David A Engstrom (2006), "''The Complementary Nature''", The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. * Alex Kentsis (2004)
''Self-organization of biological systems: Protein folding and supramolecular assembly''
Ph.D. Thesis, New York University. * E.V. Krishnamurthy (2009)", Multiset of Agents in a Network for Simulation of Complex Systems", in "Recent advances in Nonlinear Dynamics and synchronization, (NDS-1) – Theory and applications, Springer Verlag, New York,2009. Eds. K.Kyamakya, et al. *
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...
(1996), ''The Self-Organizing Economy'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. * Elizabeth McMillan (2004) "Complexity, Organizations and Change". * Marshall, A (2002) The Unity of Nature, Imperial College Press: London (esp. chapter 5) * Müller, J.-A., Lemke, F. (2000), ''Self-Organizing Data Mining''. * Gregoire Nicolis and
Ilya Prigogine Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility. Biogra ...
(1977) ''Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems'', Wiley. *
Heinz Pagels Heinz Rudolf Pagels (February 19, 1939 – July 23, 1988) was an American physicist, an associate professor of physics at Rockefeller University, the executive director and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, and president ...
(1988), ''The Dreams of Reason: The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity'', Simon & Schuster. *
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(1961), ''The cybernetics of evolutionary processes and of self organizing systems'', 3rd. International Congress on Cybernetics, Namur, Association Internationale de Cybernetique. * Christian Prehofer ea. (2005), "Self-Organization in Communication Networks: Principles and Design Paradigms", in: ''
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Communications Magazine'', July 2005. * Mitchell Resnick (1994), ''Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds'', Complex Adaptive Systems series, MIT Press.ISBN? *
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(1997), '' The Life of the Cosmos'' Oxford University Press. * Ricard V. Solé and Brian C. Goodwin (2001), ''Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology]'', Basic Books. * Ricard V. Solé and Jordi Bascompte (2006),
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(1917), ''On Growth and Form'', Cambridge University Press, 1992 Dover Publications edition. * J. Tkac, J Kroc (2017), ''Cellular Automaton Simulation of Dynamic Recrystallization: Introduction into Self-Organization and Emergence'
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External links

*
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen

PDF file on self-organized common law with references


* ttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/EOLSS-Self-Organiz.pdf The Science of Self-organization and Adaptivity a review paper by
Francis Heylighen Francis Paul Heylighen (born 27 September 1960) is a Belgian cyberneticist investigating the emergence and evolution of intelligent organization. He presently works as a research professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (the Dutch-speaking F ...

The ''Self-Organizing Systems (SOS) FAQ''
by Chris Lucas, from the ews://comp.theory.self-org-sys USENET newsgroup comp.theory.self-org.sys
David Griffeath, ''Primordial Soup Kitchen''
(graphics, papers)
nlin.AO, nonlinear preprint archive
(electronic preprints in adaptation and self-organizing systems)



* ttp://complex.upf.es/''Selforganization in complex networks''The Complex Systems Lab, Barcelona
Computational Mechanics Group
at the
Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

"Organisation must grow" (1939)
W. Ross Ashby journal p. 759, fro



used under the
GFDL The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
with permission from author.
Connectivism:SelfOrganization

UCLA Human Complex Systems Program

"Interactions of Actors (IA), Theory and Some Applications" 1993
Gordon Pask's theory of learning, evolution and self-organization (in draft).
The Cybernetics Society


* ttp://prokopenko.net/IDSO.html Mikhail Prokopenko's page on Information-driven Self-organisation (IDSO)
Lakeside Labs Self-Organizing Networked Systems
A platform for science and technology, Klagenfurt, Austria.
Watch 32 discordant metronomes synch up all by themselves
theatlantic.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Self-Organization Cybernetics Extended evolutionary synthesis Systems theory Concepts in physics