Self Organizing Systems

Self organizing systems produce themselves. It’s a system that reproduces itself with the help of its own internal logic and components. Each new iteration is more stable than the previous one and on a higher level.

Self organizing occurs in complex systems. These systems are distributed and have a border that separates them from their environment. An important point to note is that it is difficult to model complex systems and predict their behavior and exactly the reason why it is not possible to predict the order of the system after self organization.

These systems have control parameters and when these parameters reach a certain critical value the system enters into a critical instable state. This is when the local disturbance inside the system intensifies and initiates the organization. When the system reaches critical state one knows that the overall system will be transformed but one doesn’t know the exact direction and form of change. The phase transition from stability to instability is call bifurcation point. This is when the system has multiple alternative development paths in front and it has to make a selection. New qualities in self organizing system emerge in this critical phase.

Once the system is outside critical stage and new order has emerged it is stable to the local disturbances. The structure is fundamentally changed.


Reference:
Internet and Society, Social Theory in the Information Age by Christian Fuchs