Self-organizing system

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Revision as of 13:37, 25 October 2012

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Self-organizing systems is a concept used by Niklas Luhmann in his theorizing about society. Besides geography, the concept is used in thermodynamics, neurophysiology and since Luhmann’s introduction more widely by scientists (Leydesdorff, 1993).

Meaning of organization

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Organization is a difficult concept to define, because of the multiplicity of its meanings. However the definition is hard to define, we could say that the theory of organization can be combined with the theory of functions when there is more than one variable: when the entities A and B and that their relation becomes conditional on the value of C, we can say that organization is present. So, organization is a form of conditionality (regularity in behaviour). Although systems exist of several parts (A, B and C), they are analysed as a whole. Whether an organization is good depends on how it is approached. For example, engeneers will find bad organizations in electronic hardware and will search for good organization of it. On the other hand, biologists study how animal species have survived, so they see only necessarily good organizations. In general we could say that most organizations are bad ones. The good ones have to be sought for and the meaning of ‘good’ has to be clearly defined for each situation (Ashby, 1962).

Example of self-organizing systems

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Human being can be seen as self-organizing systems. The systems determines what we can see, hear, eat and how we communicate. The communication system is both internal and external. Because of the system we see with our eyes and not, for example, with our ears. Every cell in our body has its own function and they all contain specific genetic information. Their function is self-organized.

References

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Contributors

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Page created by Rosalie Koen & Renate van Haaren