Self-organization and Emergence in Life Sciences

The concept of self-organization takes a growing place in the evolution of  contemporary sciences. Coming from the second cybernetics, which developed in USA at the end of the 1950th, this concept had first implications in biological sciences in the context of the Biological Computer Laboratory founded by Von Foerster and in the works of three symposia on the Self-Organizing Systems from 1960 to 1962. During the 1970th, this approach was developed specially by the Chilian school of biology. Since the 1980th, the Santa Fe Institute gives a new impulse to these perspectives. These works go on linked with the progress in the algorithm’s theories, in artificial intelligence and in the analysis of non-linear systems, in particular by the Brussels school. They lead, on the beginning of the 1990th, to books whose explicit purpose is a fundamental new approach of the living. The concept of emergence refers to the coming out of new properties linked to the complexity of an organization. In scientific context, selforganization models have an important place in the formalization of emergence. The order from chaos, presented by Self-Organizing models, is often interpreted in terms of emergence, id est the advent of a higher level of organization.

Read