Elements of a Cybernetic Epistemology: Cybernetic Requirements for the ‚Self-organization‘ of ‚Self-organizing‘ Systems

The paper combines Foersters definition of 'self-organization' as production of redundancy with Ashby's approach that 'self-organizing' systems require an organizing and an organized part. Based on that it is investigated if systems usually considered as 'self-organizing' have such an organizing part producing redundancy, i.e. reducing the number of states of an organized part. It is found that such organizing parts can be identified in almost all systems usually considered as 'self-organizing'. But the investigation shows that today several very different phenomena are subsumed under the notion of 'self-organization': (1) What is called 'self-organization' in physics deals with the reaction of particles to external forces, which may result form occasional events or from goal-orientated systems striving for control. (2) What is called 'self-organization' in chemistry deals the combination of particles leading to the emergence and evolutionary growth of goal-orientated systems. (3) What is called 'self-organization' in biology and sociology deals with the intentional interaction of goal-orientated systems trying to achieve control, either individually as dominance or collectively in a cooperation. It is concluded that identifying the organizing parts, and especially in social systems the goal-values determining their activities, seems the most important task to understand all the resulting phenomena of organization.