Cybernetic self-organization can cure so many ills.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SELFORG.html

Self-organization

Self-organization is a process where the organization (constraint,
redundancy) of a system spontaneously increases, i.e. without this
increase being controlled by the environment or an encompassing or
otherwise external system
Self-organization is a basically a process of evolution where the
effect of the environment is minimal, i.e. where the development of
new, complex structures takes place primarily in and through the system
itself. As argued in the section on evolutionary theory,
self-organization can be understood on the basis of the same variation
and natural selection processes as other, environmentally driven
processes of evolution. Self-organization is normally triggered by
internal variation processes, which are usually called "fluctuations"
or "noise". The fact that these processes produce a selective retained
ordered configuration has been called the "order from noise" principle
by Heinz von Foerster, and the "order through fluctuations" mechanism
by Ilya Prigogine. Both are special cases of what I have proposed to
call the principle of selective variety.

The increase in organization can be measured more objective as a
decrease of statistical entropy (see the Principle of Asymmetric
Transitions). This is again equivalent to an increase in redundancy,
information or constraint: after the self-organization process there is
less ambiguity about which state the system is in. A self-organizing
system which also decreases its thermodynamical entropy must
necessarily (because of the second law of thermodynamics) export
("dissipate") such entropy to its surroundings, as noted by von
Foerster and Prigogine. Prigogine called systems which continuously
export entropy in order to maintain their organization dissipative
structures.

Self-organization is usually associated with more complex, non-linear
phenomena, rather than with the relatively simple processes of
structure maintenance of diffusion. All the intricacies (limit cycles,
chaos, sensitivity to initial conditions, dissipative structuration,
...) associated with non-linearity can simply be understood through the
interplay of positive and negative feedback cycles: some variations
tend to reinforce themselves (see Autocatalytic Growth), others tend to
reduce themselves. Both types of feedback fuel natural selection:
positive feedback because it increases the number of configurations (up
to the point where resources become insufficient), negative feedback
because it stabilizes configurations. Either of them provides the
configuration with a selective advantage over competing configurations.
The interaction between them (variations can be reinforced in some
directions while being reduced in others) may create intricate and
unpredictable patterns (chaos), which can develop very quickly until
they reach a stable configuration (attractor).

See also:

   * Self-organization and complexity in the natural sciences
   * Links on Complexity, Self-organization and Artificial Life
   * F. Heylighen: The Science of Self-Organization and Adaptivity, to
be published in the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems.
   * F. Heylighen: "Self-Organization, Emergence and the Architecture
of Complexity".
   * Dictionary: PRINCIPLE OF SELF-ORGANIZATION
   * Dictionary: SELF-ORGANIZATION
   * Dictionary: SELF-ORGANIZING
   * Dictionary: SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEM

Copyright© 1997 Principia Cybernetica - Referencing this page
   

Author
F. Heylighen,

Date
Jan 27, 1997

GSS ha escrito:

More information on the meeting (including curious incidence with a
video camera operator), news, comments, and links to some interesting
Pianka webpages (e.g. read his explanation beyond "the four horseman of
the apocalypse") available from Canonical Science Today last entry

Dr. Pianka holocaust? No thanks!

[http://canonicalscience.blogspot.com/2006/04/dr-pianka-holocaust-no-thanks.html]

[snip]

--

Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Interesting.  I only have a few thoughts.  (For the other groups, I'm
writing from sci.environment.)

One is that Forrest Mims is a sweet man to talk with.  I had occasion
to call him some years ago and he was generous with his time and
didn't make me feel at all uncomfortable.  As a person, I liked him a
lot.

He's famous for some Radio Shack publications on electronics for
hobbyists and he's been involved in amateur science.  But Scientific
American declined to hire him in 1990 because it found out that he had
religious objections to evolution.  He also disputes the facts of
global warming.  So his presence as chair of the Texas Academy of
Science's environmental science section says a little something of the
situation that the professor may have found himself in when being
honored by the academy.

Mims' reported comment, "He wishes for it. He hopes for it. He laughs
about it. He jokes about it," is something I wouldn't have expected
from him unless he's been embittered more over the years since I spoke
with him.  He has no business saying what was in the professor's mind
when he spoke and that's all he's doing with this comment.  He simply
doesn't have a right to speak for the mind of someone else.  It was
just cruel to say it this way.

The other comment I'd have is that we really cannot come to serious
grips with our environment without dealing with population.

The growth is exponential and the world's population has more than
doubled in my short lifetime.  And I expect to live about as long as I
already have.  My grandfather didn't see a doubling in his entire life
(and I've yet to live close to that long.)  When we set out to
conserve through recycling or improved mileage in our cars or better
insulation or just less consuming, it's a small and linearized effect.

Growth rates are now 1.2%/yr; down some from what was truer most of my
life (above 1.5%/yr.)  I can't say where they will go, but keeping the
1.2%/yr, we have:

 p(yr) = 6.5e9*(1.012)^yr

For the US and all of the 25 countries proposed for the EU combined,
we have some 0.85e9 people.  If all of them cut their consumption in
half tomorrow, it would take:

 yr = ln [1+.85e9*.5/6.5e9] / ln 1.012 = 5.31 years

Slightly more than 5 years to eat up the savings.  Now, these are the
higher consuming portion by quite a stretch and the above is a gross
simplification.

But the point remains.  Unless we get control over exponential growth
of population, other improvements in consumption will be swamped out
given only modest time.

Jon

Hi  GSS,  Speaking of over-breeding and over-consumption,

As crude oil reserves and the like get consumed expotentially,
only those who can control their beeding and consumption will survive.
Control is the Goal, not increased breeeding and consumption.