Self-organization

Collective intelligence Collective action Self-organized criticality Herd mentality Phase transition Agent-based modelling Synchronization Ant colony optimization Particle swarm optimization Swarm behaviour Social network analysis Small-world networks Centrality Motifs Graph theory Scaling Robustness Systems biology Dynamic networks Evolutionary computation Genetic algorithms Genetic programming Artificial life Machine learning Evolutionary developmental biology Artificial intelligence Evolutionary robotics Reaction–diffusion systems Partial differential equations Dissipative structures Percolation Cellular automata Spatial ecology Self-replication Conversation theory Entropy Feedback Goal-oriented Homeostasis Information theory Operationalization Second-order cybernetics Self-reference System dynamics Systems science Systems thinking Sensemaking Variety Ordinary differential equations Phase space Attractors Population dynamics Chaos Multistability Bifurcation Rational choice theory Bounded rationality Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system.

Examples of self-organization include crystallization, thermal convection of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets.

[a] Immanuel Kant used the term "self-organizing" in his 1790 Critique of Judgment, where he argued that teleology is a meaningful concept only if there exists such an entity whose parts or "organs" are simultaneously ends and means.

The desired outcomes, such as increases in the resultant internal structure and/or functionality, are achieved by combining task-independent global objectives with task-dependent constraints on local interactions.

Self-organization in biology[37] can be observed in spontaneous folding of proteins and other biomacromolecules, self-assembly of lipid bilayer membranes, pattern formation and morphogenesis in developmental biology, the coordination of human movement, eusocial behavior in insects (bees, ants, termites)[38] and mammals, and flocking behavior in birds and fish.

[39] The mathematical biologist Stuart Kauffman and other structuralists have suggested that self-organization may play roles alongside natural selection in three areas of evolutionary biology, namely population dynamics, molecular evolution, and morphogenesis.

It was shown that the underlying order-generating processes of self-organization in the non-biological systems and in replicating RNA are basically similar.

In his 1995 conference paper "Cosmology as a problem in critical phenomena" Lee Smolin said that several cosmological objects or phenomena, such as spiral galaxies, galaxy formation processes in general, early structure formation, quantum gravity and the large scale structure of the universe might be the result of or have involved certain degree of self-organization.

Therefore, because the distribution of matter in the universe is more or less scale invariant over many orders of magnitude, ideas and strategies developed in the study of self-organized systems could be helpful in tackling certain unsolved problems in cosmology and astrophysics.

[50] Cloud computing systems have been argued to be inherently self-organizing,[51] but while they have some autonomy, they are not self-managing as they do not have the goal of reducing their own complexity.

[52][53] Norbert Wiener regarded the automatic serial identification of a black box and its subsequent reproduction as self-organization in cybernetics.

[54] The importance of phase locking or the "attraction of frequencies", as he called it, is discussed in the 2nd edition of his Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.

By contrast, the four concurrently connected galvanometers of W. Ross Ashby's Homeostat hunt, when perturbed, to converge on one of many possible stable states.

Warren McCulloch proposed "Redundancy of Potential Command"[59] as characteristic of the organization of the brain and human nervous system and the necessary condition for self-organization.

It consists of five parts: the monitoring of performance of the survival processes (1), their management by recursive application of regulation (2), homeostatic operational control (3) and development (4) which produce maintenance of identity (5) under environmental perturbation.

Focus is prioritized by an alerting "algedonic loop" feedback: a sensitivity to both pain and pleasure produced from under-performance or over-performance relative to a standard capability.

[62] In the 1990s Gordon Pask argued that von Foerster's H and Hmax were not independent, but interacted via countably infinite recursive concurrent spin processes[63] which he called concepts.

The theory applies to all organizationally closed or homeostatic processes that produce enduring and coherent products which evolve, learn and adapt.

Paul Krugman has written on the role that market self-organization plays in the business cycle in his book The Self Organizing Economy.

[70] Friedrich Hayek coined the term catallaxy[71] to describe a "self-organizing system of voluntary co-operation", in regards to the spontaneous order of the free market economy.

Neo-classical economists hold that imposing central planning usually makes the self-organized economic system less efficient.

On the other end of the spectrum, economists consider that market failures are so significant that self-organization produces bad results and that the state should direct production and pricing.

Self-organized learning (SOL)[76][77][78] denies that "the expert knows best" or that there is ever "the one best method",[79][80][81] insisting instead on "the construction of personally significant, relevant and viable meaning"[82] to be tested experientially by the learner.

[84][85] It is seen as a lifelong process, not limited to specific learning environments (home, school, university) or under the control of authorities such as parents and professors.

[96] Heinz Pagels, in a 1985 review of Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers's book Order Out of Chaos in Physics Today, appeals to authority:[97] Most scientists would agree with the critical view expressed in Problems of Biological Physics (Springer Verlag, 1981) by the biophysicist L. A. Blumenfeld, when he wrote: "The meaningful macroscopic ordering of biological structure does not arise due to the increase of certain parameters or a system above their critical values.

Only Prigogine and a few colleagues hold to these speculations which, in spite of their efforts, continue to live in the twilight zone of scientific credibility.In theology, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) in his Summa Theologica assumes a teleological created universe in rejecting the idea that something can be a self-sufficient cause of its own organization:[98] Since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause.