Self-organizing, et al.

[Richard Charles Holloway]

Ralph...

you are a self-organizing system.  you don't need to go beyond your "self" to find a complex adaptive system either.  I won't write about CAS here...perhaps I can just say that the terms CAS and living systems are nearly synonymous, just not quite.

About living systems, two cognitive scientists, named Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, put together a very readable book (the Tree of Knowledge) that presents the work that they've done in this area.

 Fritjof Capra's "Web of Life" explores the development of scientific thought up to our present time (late 90's), and synthesizes the scientific contributions of Maturana, Varela, Ilya Prigogine and many others and applies that synthesis to formulate his definition of living systems.  Capra is a physicist.

Meg Wheatley synthesizes scientific information from an OD perspective.  Her capstone work "Leadership & the new science" was inspired by Capra's earlier effort, "The Turning Point."  Like many, I read and was impressed by Wheatley's book...I then read Capra's 3 books (those mentioned, plus the Tao of Phsyics), which led me back to Maturana/Varela, Prigogine, etc.  I simply mention this to put Wheatley's timely and influential book into perspective as a very narrow synthetical application of very elegant and important scientific discovery.

Maturana and Varela define organisms and societies as "metasystems," and suggest that the different degrees of metasystems can be determined by their degrees of autonomy within their components.  For instance, within a human body, a heart has no autonomy to act as a kidney or bladder.  So, organisms like you and I are metasystems of components with little or no autonomy.  Human societies (an open space is a subset of that metasystem) have maximum autonomy of components.

On a different scale...let's say of how people organize themselves to make decisions about what's important to them...lectures and seminars might be at one end of that scale (less autonomy) and open space would be at the other end (more autonomy of individual participants).

 Capra takes Maturana's concept a bit further and suggests that communities may exhibit the characteristics of living systems.  Wheatley says (or implies) that communities/organizations may be developing as organic entities.  That's probably simplifying an elegant concept and turning it into a metaphor.

While it doesn't really matter to many people about the "way" we model what we observe, thinking about organizations and communities as living systems presents some interesting insights.

Capra posits 3 criteria of life.  Here, in a nutshell, are those critieria (by the way, "autopoiesis" is a term coined by Maturana; Prigogine coined the term, "dissipative structures"):

The pattern of life, or autopoiesis: a self-making network pattern in which the function of each component is to participate in the production or transformation of other components in the network.  The network is organizationally closed, though it is open to the flow of energy and matter.  Its order and behavior are not imposed but established by the system itself.  It is autonomous, while interactive with its environment through a continual exchange of energy and matter.  Their continual self-making includes the ability to form new structures or patterns of behavior.  The network is a set of relations among processes of production of components.  They must continuously regenerate themselves to maintain their organization. (This is the self-organizing criteria)

Dissipative structure—the structure of living systems: a system that is structurally open but organizationally closed.  Matter continuously flows through it, but the system maintains a stable form, and does so through self-organization.  The structure’s stability relies on the catalytic loops in the system’s autopoietic network that act as self-balancing feedback loops.  These catalytic cycles may also act as self-amplifying feedback loops, which may push the system away from equilibrium until it reaches a threshold of stability.  Beyond this threshold is the bifurcation point—a point of instability at which new forms of order may emerge spontaneously, resulting in development and evolution.  A living dissipative structure needs a continual flow of air, water and food from the environment
through the system in order to stay alive and maintain its order.  The network of processes keeps the system far from equilibrium and through the feedback loops gives rise to bifurcations, and thus to development and evolution. (This is the criteria that integrates change--or chaos--and stability.  The vortex funnel of the whirlpool in the bathtub is the example that Prigogine used to illustrate a dissipative structure).

Cognition—the process of life: the organizing activity of a living organism is mental activity.  The interactions of a living organism with its environment are cognitive, or mental, interactions.  Life and cognition are inseparably connected.  Mind is the essence of being alive.  Cognition includes perception, emotion, action, thinking, language, conceptual thinking and all the other attributes of human consciousness.  The entire dissipative structure participates in the cognition process.  The soul, or spirit, is the breath of life.  Cognition is a continual bringing forth of a world through the process of living.  To live is to know.  Cognition (the life process) consists of all activities involved in the continual embodiment of the system’s (autopoietic) pattern of organization in a
physical (dissipative) structure.  (This is the connectivity criteria)


So...without the ability to offer scientific proof for my choice, I have chosen to consider communities and complex organizations within the context of these 3 criteria.  I choose to think in terms of how I can facilitate the integration of this autonomous entity (you or I) within a living metasystem (community or organization).

As an autonomous individual involved with organizational change, I look to influence pattern, structure and process -- specifically to facilitate a process which engages a set of purposes that others and I might find personally meaningful.  This core purpose set, when shared with the others (process or cognitive development) can generate a self-making network (pattern) if there is a structure within which we can sustain ourselves.  The structure allows maximum autonomy...the pattern generates and regenerates our relationships around our activities...the process keeps us aligned and on purpose.

well... this was longer than I had intended.  I hope it was helpful or informative...it always helps me tell this story again.

regards,

Doc Holloway
an OS List lurker

--
"If you pay attention at every moment, you form a new relationship to time.  In some magical way, by slowing down, you become more efficient, productive, and energetic, focusing without distraction directly on the task in front of you.  Not only do you become immersed in the moment, you become that moment."  -Michael Ray

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