Self-Re-Creation
Collection | GlossariumBITri |
---|---|
Author | José María Díaz-Nafría Wolfgang Hofkirchner |
Editor | Wolfgang Hofkirchner |
Year | 2010 |
Volume | 1 |
Number | 1 |
ID | 9 |
Object type | Concept |
Domain | UTI |
es | auto-re-creación |
fr | auto-ré-création |
de | Selbst-Re-Kreation |
Used in the Unified Theory of Information (UTI) as one of the three basic processes of information systems –the most advanced one.
Self-recreation is a more elaborated type of self-reproducing processes and refers to the capacity of self-organizing systems to create the necessary conditions, not only for their reproduction, but also to create themselves according to the objectives that they have established themselves. In their capacity to change the environment for their own settlement, they show an even bigger capacity to adapt than the systems that are merely biotic (self-reproducing) of which they are part. Thus they involve the most advanced evolutionary stage (or stage of cultural evolution).
They can be classified as self-determining insofar as their self-organising capacities offer, under certain circumstances, a set of possibilities, which can be chosen by themselves. Given the fact that such a choice takes the form of a decision adopted under the condition of an irreducible freedom of choice, the pragmatic and semantic levels are separated. Consequently, in the stage of social, self-recreating and self-determining systems, the semiotic relationship spreads in its three levels of sign production, which can be described in terms of the creation of ideas. Such creation happens in three stages: 1st) the perception of signals from outside the system causes the appearance of a sign, which is a modification of the system’s structure; 2nd) the interpretation of the perceptions by which the system’s state is modified and another sign emerges, meaning something that is given to the system as its object; 3rd) the evaluation of the interpretations that cause another sign to emerge, by means of which the system -as subject- completes its meaning, considering the object as an initial state to reach the end and affects the behaviour of the system so that it can be modified.
The sign, in each of these three levels, is called (in UTI) data, knowledge and wisdom (or practical wisdom), respectively, each one corresponding to the field of the perceptive, cognitive and evaluative capacities, which together make up the characteristics of conscience, which appears in systems. In each stage, a break in the self-organisation occurs, which is a starting point for another one to occur (or not occur) afterwards.
Self-organising systems on the human, social, cultural level are capable of constructing themselves anew, inventing themselves, creating themselves again and again. Erich Jantsch called this capability “re-creative”. Thus “re-creative systems” are a branch of autopoietic systems that leads to a new level: (Self-)Re-creation is a refinement of, and further development in, autopoietic self-organisation (self-reproducing).
References
- FENZL, N., HOFKIRCHNER, W. (1997). “Information Processing in Evolutionary Systems. An Outline Conceptual Framework for a Unified Information Theory”. Schweitzer, F. (ed.), Self-Organization of Complex Structures: From Individual to Collective Dynamics, Foreword by Hermann Haken. London: Gordon and Breach, pp. 59-70.
- FLEISSNER, P., HOFKIRCHNER, W. (1996). “Emergent Information. Towards a unified information theory”. BioSystems, 2-3 (38), pp. 243-248.
- HOFKIRCHNER, W. (1998). “Information und Selbstorganisation – Zwei Seiten einer Medaille”. Fenzl, N., Hofkirchner, W., Stockinger, G. (eds.): Information und Selbstorganisation. Annäherungen an eine vereinheitlichte Theorie der Information. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, pp. 69-99.
- JANTSCH, E. (1987). “Erkenntnistheoretische Aspekte der Selbstorganisation natürlicher Systeme”. Schmidt, S. J. (ed.): Der Diskurs des Radikalen Konstruktivismus. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, pp. 159-191.