ONTOGENESIS
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2346 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, Methodology or model |
The process of self-organization of a biological system, starting from an initial structure.
E. JANTSCH defines the very similar term of “ontogeny” as “the evolution of self-organizing space-time structures in a coherent way through changes in the dynamic regime” and adds that “It arises from dissipative self-organization which, in principle, defeats any structural permanency (NICOLIS and PRIGOGINE, 1977) and may be interpreted as dynamic self-reference — not with respect to a single structure, but with respect to an evolutionary path of structures. The system is self-referential in terms of its own evolution” (1982, p.344).
It would be interesting to translate the concept into the study of animal and human societies: How do they organize themselves in coherent complex systems?