Self-organization in micron-sized Nb3O7(OH) cubes during ahydrothermal treatment at 200 °C. Initiallyamorphous cubes gradually transform into ordered 3D meshes of crystallinenanowires as summarized in the model below.[1]
Self-organization, also calledspontaneous order in thesocial sciences, is a process where some form of overallorder arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disorderedsystem. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly randomfluctuations, amplified bypositive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized,distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typicallyrobust and able to survive orself-repair substantialperturbation.Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands ofpredictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability.
The cyberneticianWilliam Ross Ashby formulated the original principle of self-organization in 1947.[8][9] It states that any deterministicdynamic system automatically evolves towards a state of equilibrium that can be described in terms of anattractor in abasin of surrounding states. Once there, the further evolution of the system is constrained to remain in the attractor. This constraint implies a form of mutual dependency or coordination between its constituent components or subsystems. In Ashby's terms, each subsystem has adapted to the environment formed by all other subsystems.[8]
The cyberneticianHeinz von Foerster formulated the principle of "order fromnoise" in 1960.[10] It notes that self-organization is facilitated by random perturbations ("noise") that let the system explore a variety of states in its state space. This increases the chance that the system will arrive into the basin of a "strong" or "deep" attractor, from which it then quickly enters the attractor itself. The biophysicistHenri Atlan developed this concept by proposing the principle of "complexity from noise"[11][12] (French:le principe de complexité par le bruit)[13] first in the 1972 bookL'organisation biologique et la théorie de l'information and then in the 1979 bookEntre le cristal et la fumée. The physicist and chemistIlya Prigogine formulated a similar principle as "order through fluctuations"[14] or "order out of chaos".[15] It is applied in the method ofsimulated annealing forproblem solving andmachine learning.[16]
The idea that thedynamics of a system can lead to an increase in its organization has a long history. The ancientatomists such asDemocritus andLucretius believed that a designing intelligence is unnecessary to create order in nature, arguing that given enough time and space and matter, order emerges by itself.[17]
The philosopherRené Descartes presents self-organization hypothetically in the fifth part of his 1637Discourse on Method. He elaborated on the idea in his unpublished workThe World.[a]
Immanuel Kant used the term "self-organizing" in his 1790Critique of Judgment, where he argued thatteleology is a meaningful concept only if there exists such an entity whose parts or "organs" are simultaneously ends and means. Such a system of organs must be able to behave as if it has a mind of its own, that is, it is capable of governing itself.[18]
In such a natural product as this every part is thought asowing its presence to the agency of all the remaining parts, and also as existingfor the sake of the others and of the whole, that is as an instrument, or organ... The part must be an organproducing the other parts—each, consequently, reciprocally producing the others... Only under these conditions and upon these terms can such a product be anorganized andself-organized being, and, as such, be called aphysical end.[18]
Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) andRudolf Clausius (1822–1888) discovered thesecond law of thermodynamics in the 19th century. It states that totalentropy, sometimes understood as disorder, will always increase over time in anisolated system. This means that a system cannot spontaneously increase its order without an external relationship that decreases order elsewhere in the system (e.g. through consuming the low-entropy energy of a battery and diffusing high-entropy heat).[19][20]
18th-century thinkers had sought to understand the "universal laws of form" to explain the observed forms of living organisms. This idea became associated withLamarckism and fell into disrepute until the early 20th century, whenD'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948) attempted to revive it.[21]
The psychiatrist and engineerW. Ross Ashby introduced the term "self-organizing" to contemporary science in 1947.[8] It was taken up by the cyberneticiansHeinz von Foerster,Gordon Pask,Stafford Beer; and von Foerster organized a conference on "The Principles of Self-Organization" at the University of Illinois' Allerton Park in June, 1960 which led to a series of conferences on Self-Organizing Systems.[22]Norbert Wiener took up the idea in the second edition of hisCybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1961).
Around 2008–2009, a concept of guided self-organization started to take shape. This approach aims to regulate self-organization for specific purposes, so that adynamical system may reach specific attractors or outcomes. The regulation constrains a self-organizing process within acomplex system by restricting local interactions between the system components, rather than following an explicit control mechanism or a global design blueprint. 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.[24][25]
The mathematical biologistStuart Kauffman and otherstructuralists have suggested that self-organization may play roles alongsidenatural selection in three areas ofevolutionary biology, namelypopulation dynamics,molecular evolution, andmorphogenesis. However, this does not take into account the essential role ofenergy in driving biochemical reactions in cells. The systems of reactions in any cell areself-catalyzing, but not simply self-organizing, as they arethermodynamically open systems relying on a continuous input of energy.[41][42] Self-organization is not an alternative to natural selection, but it constrains what evolution can do and provides mechanisms such as the self-assembly of membranes which evolution then exploits.[43]
The evolution of order in living systems and the generation of order in certain non-living systems was proposed to obey a common fundamental principal called “the Darwinian dynamic”[44] that was formulated by first considering how microscopic order is generated in simple non-biological systems that are far fromthermodynamic equilibrium. Consideration was then extended to short, replicatingRNA molecules assumed to be similar to the earliest forms of life in theRNA world. It was shown that the underlying order-generating processes of self-organization in the non-biological systems and in replicating RNA are basically similar.
Phenomena frommathematics andcomputer science such ascellular automata,random graphs, and some instances ofevolutionary computation andartificial life exhibit features of self-organization. Inswarm robotics, self-organization is used to produce emergent behavior. In particular the theory of random graphs has been used as a justification for self-organization as a general principle of complex systems. In the field ofmulti-agent systems, understanding how to engineer systems that are capable of presenting self-organized behavior is an active research area.[46]Optimization algorithms can be considered self-organizing because they aim to find the optimal solution to a problem. If the solution is considered as a state of the iterative system, the optimal solution is the selected, converged structure of the system.[47][48]Self-organizing networks includesmall-world networks[49]self-stabilization[50] andscale-free networks. These emerge from bottom-up interactions, unlike top-down hierarchical networks within organizations, which are not self-organizing.[51] Cloud computing systems have been argued to be inherently self-organizing,[52] but while they have some autonomy, they are not self-managing as they do not have the goal of reducing their own complexity.[53][54]
In the 1970sStafford Beer considered self-organization necessary forautonomy in persisting and living systems. He applied hisviable system model to management. 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.[63]
In the 1990sGordon Pask argued that von Foerster's H and Hmax were not independent, butinteracted viacountably infinite recursive concurrentspin processes[64] which he called concepts. His strict definition of concept "a procedure to bring about a relation"[65] permitted his theorem "Like concepts repel, unlike concepts attract"[66] to state a general spin-based principle of self-organization. His edict, an exclusion principle, "There areNo Doppelgangers" means no two concepts can be the same. After sufficient time, all concepts attract and coalesce aspink noise. The theory applies to all organizationallyclosed or homeostatic processes that produceenduring andcoherent products which evolve, learn and adapt.[67][64]
In social theory, the concept of self-referentiality has been introduced as a sociological application of self-organization theory byNiklas Luhmann (1984). For Luhmann the elements of a social system are self-producing communications, i.e. a communication produces further communications and hence a social system can reproduce itself as long as there is dynamic communication. For Luhmann, human beings are sensors in the environment of the system. Luhmann developed an evolutionary theory of society and its subsystems, using functional analyses and systems theory.[70]
Anarchism can advocate self-organization as one of its basic principles.[71]
Themarket economy is sometimes said to be self-organizing.Paul Krugman has written on the role that market self-organization plays in the business cycle in his bookThe Self Organizing Economy.[72]Friedrich Hayek coined the termcatallaxy[73] 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 imposingcentral planning usually makes the self-organized economic system less efficient. On the other end of the spectrum, economists consider thatmarket failures are so significant that self-organization produces bad results and that the state should direct production and pricing. Most economists adopt an intermediate position and recommend a mixture of market economy andcommand economy characteristics (sometimes called amixed economy). When applied to economics, the concept of self-organization can quickly become ideologically imbued.[74][75]
Enabling others to "learn how to learn"[76] is often taken to mean instructing them[77] how to submit to being taught. Self-organized learning (SOL)[78][79][80] denies that "the expert knows best" or that there is ever "the one best method",[81][82][83] insisting instead on "the construction of personally significant, relevant and viable meaning"[84] to be tested experientially by the learner.[85] This may be collaborative, and more rewarding personally.[86][87] 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.[88] It needs to be tested, and intermittently revised, through the personal experience of the learner.[89] It need not be restricted by either consciousness or language.[90]Fritjof Capra argued that it is poorly recognized within psychology and education.[91] It may be related to cybernetics as it involves anegative feedback control loop,[65] or tosystems theory.[92] It can be conducted as a learning conversation or dialog between learners or within one person.[93][94]
The self-organizing behavior of drivers intraffic flow determines almost all the spatiotemporal behavior of traffic, such as traffic breakdown at a highway bottleneck, highway capacity, and the emergence of moving traffic jams. These self-organizing effects are explained byBoris Kerner'sthree-phase traffic theory.[95]
Self-organized funding allocation (SOFA) is a method of distributingfunding for scientificresearch. In this system, each researcher is allocated an equal amount of funding, and is required to anonymously allocate a fraction of their funds to the research of others. Proponents of SOFA argue that it would result in similar distribution of funding as the present grant system, but with less overhead.[97] In 2016, a test pilot of SOFA began in the Netherlands.[98]
Most scientists would agree with the critical view expressed inProblems 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 of a system above their critical values. These structures are built according to program-like complicated architectural structures, the meaningful information created during many billions of years of chemical and biological evolution being used." Life is a consequence of microscopic, not macroscopic, organization.
Of course, Blumenfeld does not answer the further question of how those program-like structures emerge in the first place. His explanation leads directly toinfinite regress.
In short, they [Prigogine and Stengers] maintain thattime irreversibility is not derived from a time-independent microworld, but is itself fundamental. The virtue of their idea is that it resolves what they perceive as a "clash of doctrines" about the nature oftime in physics. Most physicists would agree that there is neither empirical evidence to support their view, nor is there a mathematical necessity for it. There is no "clash of doctrines." 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.
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. So also whatever is done voluntarily must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, since these can change or fail; for all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle, as was shown in the body of the Article.
^abIlachinski, Andrew (2001).Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe. World Scientific. p. 247.ISBN978-981-238-183-5.We have already seen ample evidence for what is arguably the single most impressive general property of CA, namely their capacity for self-organization
^Feltz, Bernard; et al. (2006).Self-organization and Emergence in Life Sciences. Springer. p. 1.ISBN978-1-4020-3916-4.
^Nicolis, G. and Prigogine, I. (1977).Self-organization in nonequilibrium systems: From dissipative structures to order through fluctuations. Wiley, New York.
^Prigogine, I. and Stengers, I. (1984).Order out of chaos: Man's new dialogue with nature. Bantam Books.
^Ahmed, Furqan; Tirkkonen, Olav (January 2016). "Simulated annealing variants for self-organized resource allocation in small cell networks".Applied Soft Computing.38:762–70.doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2015.10.028.S2CID10126852.
^Palmer, Ada (October 2014).Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance. Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-674-72557-7.Ada Palmer explores how Renaissance readers, such as Machiavelli, Pomponio Leto, and Montaigne, actually ingested and disseminated Lucretius, ... and shows how ideas of emergent order and natural selection, so critical to our current thinking, became embedded in Europe's intellectual landscape before the seventeenth century.
^As an indication of the increasing importance of this concept, when queried with the keywordself-organ*,Dissertation Abstracts finds nothing before 1954, and only four entries before 1970. There were 17 in the years 1971–1980; 126 in 1981–1990; and 593 in 1991–2000.
^Zeiger, H. J. and Kelley, P. L. (1991) "Lasers", pp. 614–19 inThe Encyclopedia of Physics, Second Edition, edited by Lerner, R. and Trigg, G., VCH Publishers.
^Lozeanu, Erzilia; Popescu, Virginia; Sanduloviciu, Mircea (February 2002). "Spatial and spatiotemporal patterns formed after self-organization in plasma".IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science.30 (1):30–31.Bibcode:2002ITPS...30...30L.doi:10.1109/TPS.2002.1003908.
^Yasuga, Hiroki; Iseri, Emre; Wei, Xi; Kaya, Kerem; Di Dio, Giacomo; Osaki, Toshihisa; Kamiya, Koki; Nikolakopoulou, Polyxeni; Buchmann, Sebastian; Sundin, Johan; Bagheri, Shervin; Takeuchi, Shoji; Herland, Anna; Miki, Norihisa; van der Wijngaart, Wouter (2021). "Fluid interfacial energy drives the emergence of three-dimensional periodic structures in micropillar scaffolds".Nature Physics.17 (7):794–800.Bibcode:2021NatPh..17..794Y.doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01204-4.ISSN1745-2473.S2CID233702358.
^Lehn, J.-M. (1988). "Perspectives in Supramolecular Chemistry-From Molecular Recognition towards Molecular Information Processing and Self-Organization".Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl.27 (11):89–121.doi:10.1002/anie.198800891.
^Love; et al. (2005). "Self-Assembled Monolayers of Thiolates on Metals as a Form of Nanotechnology".Chem. Rev.105 (4):1103–70.doi:10.1021/cr0300789.PMID15826011.
^Goodwin, Brian (2009). "Beyond the Darwinian Paradigm: Understanding Biological Forms". InRuse, Michael; Travis, Joseph (eds.).Evolution: The First Four Billion Years. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
^Bernstein H, Byerly HC, Hopf FA, Michod RA, Vemulapalli GK. (1983) The Darwinian Dynamic. Quarterly Review of Biology 58, 185–207.JSTOR2828805
^Smollin, Lee (1995). "Cosmology as a problem in critical phenomena". In Ramón López-Peña; Henri Waelbroeck; Riccardo Capovilla; Ricardo García-Pelayo; Federico Zertuche (eds.).Complex Systems and Binary Networks: Guanajuato Lectures Held at Guanajuato, México 16–22 January 1995. Vol. 461–461.arXiv:gr-qc/9505022.doi:10.1007/BFb0103573.
^Wiener, Norbert (1962) "The mathematics of self-organizing systems".Recent developments in information and decision processes, Macmillan, N.Y. and Chapter X inCybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine, The MIT Press.
^Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Wiley, NY, 1948. 2nd Edition 1962 "Chapter X "Brain Waves and Self-Organizing Systems" pp. 201–02.
^von Foerster, Heinz; Pask, Gordon (1961). "A Predictive Model for Self-Organizing Systems, Part I".Cybernetica.3:258–300.
^von Foerster, Heinz; Pask, Gordon (1961). "A Predictive Model for Self-Organizing Systems, Part II".Cybernetica.4:20–55.
^"Brain of the Firm" Alan Lane (1972); see also Viable System Model in "Beyond Dispute", and Stafford Beer (1994) "Redundancy of Potential Command" pp. 157–58.
^Amster, Randall (March 14, 2018). "Anti-Hierarchy". InFranks, Benjamin; Jun, Nathan; Williams, Leonard (eds.).Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach. New York: Routledge. p. 1999.ISBN9781317406815. RetrievedSeptember 16, 2025.[...]David Graeber [...] has observed that 'anarchist principles – autonomy, voluntary association, self-organization, direct democracy, mutual aid – have become the basis for organizing new social movements' around the world.
^Krugman, P. (1995)The Self Organizing Economy. Blackwell Publishers.ISBN1-55786-699-6
^Hayek, F. (1976)Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. University of Chicago Press.
^Revans R. W. (1982)The Origins and Growth of Action Learning Chartwell-Bratt, Bromley
^Thomas L.F. and Harri-Augstein S. (1993) "On Becoming a Learning Organization" inReport of a 7 year Action Research Project with the Royal Mail Business. CSHL Monograph
^Rogers C.R. (1971)On Becoming a Person. Constable, London
^Prigogyne I. & Sengers I. (1985)Order out of Chaos Flamingo Paperbacks. London
^Capra F (1989)Uncommon Wisdom Flamingo Paperbacks. London
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Adrian Bejan (2000),Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 324 pp.
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