SELF-ORGANIZATION (Conditions for)
Charles François (2004). SELF-ORGANIZATION (Conditions for), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2976.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2976 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
H. ATLAN states in the following way the conditions for self-organization:
- “The initial redundancy must be high enough to start with, since it has the role of a potential for self-organization, to be reduced in the process.
- “Some inertia must exist in the response of the system to random perturbations so that it is not going to be destroyed too quickly in order for the initial redundancy not to disappear right away. (A good example is that of liquid crystals and biological macromolecules where thermal noise can produce changes in conformation before it destroys the whole structure of the molecule, whereas the high repetitive order of crystals can exist only in one form and is completely destroyed almost at once when the ”dose“ of thermal noise — i.e. the temperature — reaches some threshold).
- “Of course these are not sufficient conditions because the sufficient conditions have to do with specific forms of functional organization, i.e., with specific functions performed by the organized system, and giving a meaning to its organization” (1972).
In any case, as stated by M.B. HAWTON, self-organization becomes possible only if it initially has “… sufficient preorganization to run the first cycle(s) so as to generate the information which will be accumulated to organize future cycles. A machine can only become self-organizing through operation” (1974, p.87).
We are of course now burdened with the problem of preorganization. V. CSANYI introduced the useful concepts of autogenetic system precursors, autogenesis and zero-system, which shed some light on the subject. (1993)