Self-organization can be broadly defined as the ability of a system to display ordered spatio-temporal patterns solely as the result of the interactions among the system components. Processes of this kind characterize both living and artificial systems, making self-organization a concept that is at the basis of several disciplines, from physics to biology to engineering. Placed at the frontiers between disciplines, Artificial Life (ALife) has heavily borrowed concepts and tools from the study of self-organization, providing mechanistic interpretations of life-like phenomena as well as useful constructivist approaches to artificial system design. Despite its broad usage within ALife, the concept of self-organization has been often excessively stretched or misinterpreted, calling for a clarification that could help with tracing the borders between what can and cannot be considered self-organization. In this review, we discuss the fundamental aspects of self-organization and list the main usages within three primary ALife domains, namely "soft" (mathematical/computational modeling), "hard" (physical robots), and "wet" (chemical/biological systems) ALife. Finally, we discuss the usefulness of self-organization within ALife studies, point to perspectives for future research, and list open questions.
Tag: self-organization
🔖 The Hypercycle: A Principle of Natural Self-Organization | Springer
This book originated from a series of papers which were published in "Die Naturwissenschaften" in 1977178. Its division into three parts is the reflection of a logic structure, which may be abstracted in the form of three theses:
A. Hypercycles are a principle of natural self-organization allowing an integration and coherent evolution of a set of functionally coupled self-replicative entities.
B. Hypercycles are a novel class of nonlinear reaction networks with unique properties, amenable to a unified mathematical treatment.
C. Hypercycles are able to originate in the mutant distribution of a single Darwinian quasi-species through stabilization of its diverging mutant genes. Once nucleated hypercycles evolve to higher complexity by a process analogous to gene duplication and specialization. In order to outline the meaning of the first statement we may refer to another principle of material self organization, namely to Darwin's principle of natural selection. This principle as we see it today represents the only understood means for creating information, be it the blue print for a complex living organism which evolved from less complex ancestral forms, or be it a meaningful sequence of letters the selection of which can be simulated by evolutionary model games.
Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems
UNAM Mexico City has an available free download of Carlos Gershenson’s 2007 text.
Complex systems are usually difficult to design and control. There are several particular methods for coping with complexity, but there is no general approach to build complex systems. In this book I propose a methodology to aid engineers in the design and control of complex systems. This is based on the description of systems as self-organizing. Starting from the agent metaphor, the methodology proposes a conceptual framework and a series of steps to follow to find proper mechanisms that will promote elements to find solutions by actively interacting among themselves.