Sci&Tech History

History of Science and Technology

Self-Organization

One approach which lately rises in social theory is self-organization. The concept was adapted from biology principal. It is Stuart Kaufman, a biologist which gives significance in the recent literature on the science of self-organizing system. His work including how things, including society and technology can be characterized as a living organism and most of all, have a ‘consciousness’ to reach order after an unpredictable or even chaotic situation. The concept of self-organization deliver Ilya Prigogine to get Nobel Prize for his discovery that self-organisation happens in

dissipative structures. In physics we know attractors which made a pendulum reach its equilibrium.

Order or equilibrium state of the nature can also be found in social phenomena. After a war or huge disaster, human start to build their life again. My question is why living things like order? An easy answer is because order can give us stability, assurance and peace. Unfortunately, something which seems to be a rational thesis, failed when we see the news which never far from war and conflict.

Is there something wrong?

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