Self-organization is a process where the organization (constraint, redundancy) of a system spontaneously increases, i.e. without this increase being controlled by the environment or an encompassing or otherwise external system |
The increase in organization can be measured more objective as a decrease of statistical entropy (see the Principle of Asymmetric Transitions). This is again equivalent to an increase in redundancy, information or constraint: after the self-organization process there is less ambiguity about which state the system is in. A self-organizing system which also decreases its thermodynamical entropy must necessarily (because of the second law of thermodynamics) export ("dissipate") such entropy to its surroundings, as noted by von Foerster and Prigogine. Prigogine called systems which continuously export entropy in order to maintain their organization dissipative structures.
Self-organization is usually associated with more complex, non-linear phenomena, rather than with the relatively simple processes of structure maintenance of diffusion. All the intricacies (limit cycles, chaos, sensitivity to initial conditions, dissipative structuration, ...) associated with non-linearity can simply be understood through the interplay of positive and negative feedback cycles: some variations tend to reinforce themselves (see Autocatalytic Growth), others tend to reduce themselves. Both types of feedback fuel natural selection: positive feedback because it increases the number of configurations (up to the point where resources become insufficient), negative feedback because it stabilizes configurations. Either of them provides the configuration with a selective advantage over competing configurations. The interaction between them (variations can be reinforced in some directions while being reduced in others) may create intricate and unpredictable patterns (chaos), which can develop very quickly until they reach a stable configuration (attractor).
Mis à jour le 01/04/2016 pratclif.com